Episode #79 Dr. Anna Cabeca on Health and Wellness

Fat To Fit My Quest

Heart disease is the top cause of death amongst men and women, and a leading contributor in many illness and health problems – but what can we do to combat it? Many doctors and medical advisers are taking a functional approach to health and integrating nutrition, supplements and activity with traditional pharmaceutical-based treatments.

In this week’s episode, we speak to Dr. Anna Cabeca about the upcoming Healthy Heart Summit and the importance of lifestyle in managing health. Many health problems, especially those related to aging and in particular for women’s health, can be targeted through the simple principle of ‘stop something, start something. In other words, you make one positive change in your lifestyle at the same time as stopping a negative behavior. Over time, these small changes – such as cutting out sugar and gluten or taking up walking – will start to make a big difference to your overall health.

We also discuss the importance of sexual health and wellbeing, and how sexual problems could be indicative of a broader disorder or illness. Dr. Anna tells us about her ‘Sexier, Younger You’ program and the ways that women can really focus on their health through their lifestyles and attitudes, reducing stress, fatigue and other symptoms as well as impacting illnesses. Through nutrition and supplements, you could find yourself reducing your reliance on traditional medicines.

Links for further reading:

You can find Dr. Anna Cabeca online at CabecaHealth.com

The free ‘Feel Fabulous’ webinar is available online here

If you’ve got any questions for Dr. Anna, find her on Facebook, on Twitter and on Instagram

Check back soon for the link to Dr. Steven Masley speaking at the Healthy Heart Summit

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Melissa: Welcome Dr. Anna. Thanks so much for taking time to be on the program today.

Dr. Cabeca: Oh it’s great to be here. Thank you for having me, Melissa.

Melissa: Dr. Anna, there’s a couple of topics that I wanted to have you on to talk about. One of the ones that are happening right now as we’re recording is in mid-July 2015. It’s called the Heart Summit and you’re one of the speakers that are taking part in this. I found out about it through your email. It’s very interesting because it’s focusing on an issue that a lot of women have heard about but they’re not necessarily that well-informed about.

So could you talk a little bit about what the summit is? What its topics are? What the purpose of it is?

Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely. The Healthy Heart Summit is sponsored and run by a dear colleague of mine, Dr. Steven Masley who is a nutritionist, who is an MD, who is in family practice, runs a concierge practice in Tampa. As lecturer, given over 100 if not more continuing medical education lectures. He’s very integrative in his approach and always about reversing the time clock, reversing the effects of aging and effects of disease in their negative sense, to really have a transformation and how important lifestyle is.

This is so important Melissa because we know that lifestyle changes can prevent future cardiac events. That heart disease is the number one cause of death for men and women. So when we think about this, okay this is a really big deal. But lifestyle can do better than bypass surgery, oh yes! Lifestyle can do better than standard medication, oh yes! But what is being offered in our routine insurance based medical system is not – you’re there for medicine treatment, prescription, intervention versus what we as individuals have the responsibility of really nurturing our temple of our spirit, our body and transforming it into its ultimate highest functioning self which we can do at any age.

So what’s beautiful about this Healthy Heart Summit is I speak in it is well and I speak on sexual health in the heart and in a relationship that’s there. Many people don’t realize that erectile dysfunction or inability to have orgasm can be a sign of early cardiac disease or early diabetes. It’s a sign of something is wrong. We’re not forming enough nitric oxide. We’ve got inflammation. So we talk about that in my talk. So I really hope that all of your listeners will listen to that and the other 30 talks that are part of this summit by leading integrative world physicians and other health professionals.

Melissa: We’re going to put some links so people can find this because it will be available to listen to or take part in a few weeks, at least a few weeks after our episode here is published and goes live.

Now that’s interesting you mentioned that your talk is about these early signs of other issues that are going on. Do you have a handbook or a one-page summary of how people should when they’re meeting with their traditional healthcare provider and they want to continue to work with them? But they’d like them to be a little bit more open to some of these self-help measures that can help your health improve.

I know I had a really difficult time dealing with my traditional medical practitioner when I was getting started. They weren’t really open to me trying different things which didn’t relate to medicine. But do you have a way that you would advise your patients and people that communicate with you to broach the subject with their traditional provider?

Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely. Great point. First of all when we go to a physician’s office, you have to understand that we, physicians are under tremendous amount of pressure especially if you’re going through the insurance based system because in between you and the doctor is the insurance company that is governing. So if you are using insurance, you have to realize that your relationship with that physician is governed by the insurance company which is why many of us have left the insurance model.

We came into medicine to heal our patients. Recognizing that insurance company, I call it Mafioso medicine. I really mean it. They came down on me for ordering Vitamin D for recommending nutraceuticals for doing functional testing. It was a solve after solve after solve. Finally I said, “I love my patients and I want their insurance to work with them but it’s working against them.” And I felt like I was choked. I said, “My hands were tied behind my back and you’d find a way.” It was just daunting, the amount of pressure that we can get from the insurance company. So I’m sympathetic to that.

So first of all, realize as a client, as a patient that we are responsible for our own health. Our physicians are partner or guide and to give you a piece of the puzzle. That’s really important to understand. Also, we can only offer what’s in our toolbox. Can I go ahead and give you an example of that?

Melissa: Yes, definitely.

Dr. Cabeca: Before I do, I do want to say another thing that’s really helpful was number one, note that your physicians and you are partner and we are ultimately responsible for our health. In really optimizing everything we do on a daily basis is to the benefit of our health because we can’t blame anyone else for the condition we’re in for the most part. We’ve got to look okay what can I do to restore it. But then we’ll get talking about the FDA and I’ll get side tracked. But anyway…

Melissa: Oh I love it! I love it!

Dr. Cabeca: So with that said, I remember I was in practice my first year on practice and a patient got into me. She said Dr. Cabeca… I just trained from Emory in doing a National Health Service course. That’s how I ended up in Southeast Georgia in a rural community, a shrimping village called McIntosh County. And a patient came to me and she bought me a book. And this was in 1999. It was a Christiane Northrup’s Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom. She said, “Can you please read this when you have time. I highlighted a couple doctors here that I thought were really helpful to me and I was interested in and if you wouldn’t mind.”

So here’s this huge book. You’re going to give it to me working 80 to 90 hours a week doing obstetrics and running a family and just keeping my head above the medical literature. But she made it easy. She just said very sincerely and I was yes absolutely. I kept my word and that was my first introduction. For me it was also as a solo practitioner in Southeast Georgia, a very limited resource community was figuring out what’s the best and most economical way I can really help get patients healthy?

Melissa: Right, right.

Dr. Cabeca: So that comes to lifestyles. Okay what are you doing on a daily basis? Do you think that’s good for you? Let’s look and see what we can do that’s better. What’s one change you can make? What’s one thing you can stop and what’s one thing you can start to start feeling healthier? I think everyone listening should write this down. What’s one thing I can stop that I know is not contributing to my ultimate health? What’s one thing I can start that I know will contribute? Maybe it’s a 25-minute walk. Look I’m not a big long distance runner. I’m not advocating endurance exercises over the long term. But a 20, 25-minute walk a day, we can all do that. That is beneficial for many hormone balancing reasons that I can emphasize. So I think when you come to your physician, recognize that.

Then also someone who’s completely cut off for this sense – okay you’re in charge of your own health and you’re responsible for your health that you want to do those things. Then as a patient, bring in everything you’re taking. I may know it. I may not know it. But I’ll give you the best opinion I can on it or the best of my knowledge. Just recognize that some doctors, that’s just not in their toolbox. So then it’s to look for a doctor maybe that’s with functional medicine background to put also into your medical system arena that’s guiding you through your physical health from that aspect of medicinal health will be said.

But in working as a physician and as a surgeon and as a gynecologist and obstetrician for 20 years and looking at what I could do with the prescription and having a knife and what I didn’t need to do once we incorporated therapeutic lifestyle changes and healthy nutraceutical options. I didn’t have to operate and prescriptions went down tremendously and went to bioidenticals most exclusively.

So that’s a really important statement that I want everyone to hear. So when we take charge, those therapeutic lifestyle changes, we can balance our hormones. The reasons we’re coming into our doctors disappear. The high blood pressure goes down. The high cholesterol goes down. The ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids, irregular bleeding, breast tenderness, breast cysts, and the list go on. All that decreases. Let’s add to that list anxiety, depression, mood disturbances. The monster within us can sometimes come out in this menopause.

Melissa: Right.

Dr. Cabeca: And perimenopause. That will disappear with this balancing. Eliminate what’s not good. So a lot is letting go. Nourish and just focus if I’m nourishing myself. And recognizing and claiming our responsibility and not looking for our doctor to make us do these therapeutic lifestyle changes which we know we have to do. I just have to go on a thyroid a little bit, Melissa.

Melissa: Oh yes go for it. You’re warmed up now so let it go. Let it fly.

Dr. Cabeca: I was thinking how to come in and she said I want this thyroid type of hormones. I want this testosterone. My friend’s been on it. It’s helped her sexual function, her relationship tremendously. I have patients that have a lot of extensive histories. So I see a three-day diet. I see a good amount of background and incredible symptoms.

I said the first thing we have to do is detox you. She goes aha! She’s driving through at least once a day to a fast food restaurant. I said you’re going to stop this because I don’t have to time to stop this. I cannot write you any prescription medication let alone hormonal therapy if you’re not going to make therapeutic lifestyle changes.

That’s a huge thing because as a physician, number one- the goal is that you get better. There’s no pill that we can give you that is going to substitute for creating a healthy lifestyle. There are things we do to help. Believe me I’m a big advocate of bioidenticals and natural nutraceuticals and where they come from and where we use them. But ultimately it comes from I call it my head to toe approach, Melissa. There are seven fundamental areas in this head to toe approach that only we can do.

So I worked with my patients and I created this free webinar for them and for all your listeners called Feel Good, Look Good Secrets for the woman over 35. How to have better energy, a zestier sex life, and fitter figure? So this webinar is an hour and a half of here are the seven steps you can do right now. Then these are six things I would write to you on a prescription pad which really are just like number one would be orgasm. So, things that you can do without getting at a drugstore.

So these are webinars at cabecahealth.com/feelfabulous. That information is fundamental to really getting good, the right information. I think that’s a big thing too as many people think they’re doing the right thing like six small meals a day. That is so destructive for a woman’s metabolism. So understanding what the right things are and what the wrong things are. And I go through many of those in that webinars as well.

Melissa: Yes, I think one of the biggest things you’ve said a couple of times is what really made the difference for me and it’s what I share with people too all the time is you have to take charge of yourself. You have to take charge of your own health. You cannot have this attitude of doctor as the school principal who is going to right out for you what your homework is. And you either do the homework or you try to skip out of it or whatever but putting the responsibility on this other party.

I think those are good tips you gave too about working with a physician. I found that when I’ve got started that my primary care physician at that time really was not on board with a lot of the things I wanted to do. So we made a very amicable thing where I would share all my blood tests and additional testing I wanted to do which actually my insurance company came on board with after they saw the results and paid for most of. They would handle the reduction of prescription medicines which I was going down the reduction rather than the add-on phase of more medicines. I was reducing them. Then I would get more of a functional integrative medicine person to work with me in some of the areas that I wanted to do. That turned out fine.

But they were definitely pressed as you say by their limitations of time. My longest visit was I think 14 minutes. That was a record. So that’s not a whole lot of time to find out what’s going on with you other than to look at your labs and if there’s something stunning to say oh. And believe me the 14-minute visit with my primary care physician was the one where I brought the labs in which showed all the changes. What! What’s happening! Okay well just keep doing it. But I think that’s key. You have to change your view of your health. That you’re in charge of it and that you can make changes on your own to improve things. If you keep looking to someone else to write you prescriptions, you just keep going down that road.

Dr. Cabeca: Absolutely, I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s that you taking that initiative and saying okay. I always tell patients the same. You are the best advocate for your health. You’re the best advocate for your family’s health. In the most part, that what drives our change, right? When we say okay, we’re going through the system and we’re doing one. We’re doing this and we’re not getting better, we need to say, “Okay well this isn’t working.”

In my practice as s physician, it was very clear. We see a client come in so this is the typical, very, very typical finding in our routine medical system is that we have a client come in their mid and late 30s. She’s having irregular bleeding, spotting, and PMS symptoms as well as decreased sex drive, not interest and irritability. So the first thing that is in our doctor’s bag is to give her a prescription of birth control pills. Let’s just cut off the periods. Stop the bleeding. Subdue the hormones and give you the studies at hormone level.

So we write the prescription for birth control pills. It may come back and they say we’ll I’m still having some breakthrough bleeding. I’m continuing to have PMS symptoms. So okay let’s give you some Prozac on top of that or another SSRI or other anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication. And so then the patient comes back and says well I’m still having this breakthrough bleeding. My moods are a little bit better. But now I really don’t have the highs. I used to have either. Well let’s just go ahead and take out your uterus and get rid of this bleeding and you’ll probably feel better. So we go ahead. There are uterine fibroids and ovarian cysts as with 90% of us. So we go ahead and take those fibroids, take the uterus out and sometimes you’re likely not to have the ovaries conserved, as long as they’re healthy and other times not.

But the patient comes back in and they’re like okay well I’m on Prozac. Now I’m having hot flushes and mood swings so we used the bioidentical hormone replacement at that point. The typical – either Prempro or one of the other Premarin – estrogen only hormonal substitutions, such as Estradiol or Premarin. That’s typically prescribed because now you don’t have a uterus so you don’t really need progesterone because that was only onboard to protect the endometrium from thickening and reducing your risk of endometrial cancer, one of the most treatable early stage cancers. But we’ll just give you this estrogen only for the amount of time. You may continue to have vaginal dryness as the vagina continue to get drier.

You still have these mood swings or irritability and now you’re not sleeping at night. There’s no progesterone onboard. You don’t have the optimal ovarian function. You’re only being replaced with estrogen. So the next thing you know a divorce attorney is involved. You’re going to a psychiatrist. That’s the critical case. So when I learned to use bioidentical progesterone and working with hormonal management including testosterone, progesterone, DHEA. I use oxytocin also for sexual performance and also for PTST chronic stress and other symptoms of disconnect which we’ll certainly get into later. I do give an oxytocin cruise on my website which is great for us to touch on.

But anyway with using bioidentical progesterone, I didn’t have to do surgeries anymore, which is very rare that I needed to do a surgery. So say from 13 surgeries a month, somewhere between 8 to 13 surgeries a month as a conservative doctor to begin with went to one to two a year.

Melissa: Wow! Wow!

Dr. Cabeca: That’s the difference in using bioidenticals plus patients feel better. They retain what God gave them. They have energy, vitality, stamina, a sense of clarity. That’s huge. We do that. That’s restoring health. But it’s not done while driving through McDonald’s. But this is part of the process. That’s where you have a buy in with your physician. You have this cooperative but again our medical education systems are supported by Big Pharma. So understand that that’s one aspect.

But there are many physicians that practice integrative holistic age management type of medical practices. You have to get someone who you click with. That’s really important too. I wanted to share that story because many women have suffered and then we go on. We get breast cancer, colon cancer peritoneal cancer, the sequela of the patch method of practice which is one drug, one mechanism of action.

I When we work with nutrients and we work with a holistic approach, bioidentical hormones and use the product I created call Mighty Maca which is 42 super foods including Maca, that’s been now recommended by physicians in over 20 countries. So we’re really proud that we get clinical practices using the formulation Mighty Maca which I went to the great extent of making sure it’s certified pollutant free. It’s non-GMO. It’s dairy free and from sustainable sources of the highest quality. Clinically it works and it’s safe.

That’s what’s really important too is because we can use the diversity of what’s God given us and enhance our genetic potential and enhance our mitochondrial potential which give us energy and feel better, reduce medications. Reduce blood sugar medicines. Reduce anti-inflammatory medicines. Do it naturally. That creates a partnership. That creates a partnership in health and with nature. I’m so passionate about that as you know Melissa from my emails, et cetera.

Melissa: Right, right, And I want to say that as I’ve said many times in the program, there’s no better time than now because of the internet and because of people’s availability, for people to easily find what I call a performance or functional medicine or integrative medicine physician to work with. I’ve recommended many times WellnessFX has a whole group on there that you can reach out to by phone or by skype. It depends on where you live and all these restrictions. But you can talk to them and see if they’re right for you and work with them on a limited basis. Use them as a consultant to help you.

I remember trying to find such a physician back in the early 2000s, late 90s. It was a big job, let me tell you. You got to do a lot of research and just the availability of information wasn’t there to find someone to work with. You had to really be Sherlock Holmes. Then you might find somebody that you didn’t click with. So now is the time people to – if you need someone to advise you in these areas to find them and work with them on an individual basis.

Also as I often say, be sure to tell your insurance company about this because if you have results, they’re going to probably pick up some of the costs if not all the cost of additional testing and also of consults with this physician via phone or via skype. So it’s doable and it’s really achievable.

But before we go too far and run out of time, I wanted to have you launch into a program you did. I wanted you to give this summary for people because there are still some things out there that they can learn about. But last year, I think you did the sexier, younger you. It was an online program for people. I took that. It sounded fascinating, interesting, and a truck full of all kinds of great information.

Just give an overview of what that program and why you developed it. What’s it’s about. What people might be able to get from currently to have the webinars on that program?

Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. One thing that I did with the Sexy Younger You, so the Sexy Younger You – Robin Nielsen and I hosted over 25 speakers three years in a row in a live event. Our goal is to claim our Sexy Younger You. To reclaim the words sexy as the magnetic feminine energy or a masculine energy and combination thereof that we own and to reclaim that vitality that magnetism, that confidence.

Melissa: That’s best.

Dr. Cabeca: Absolutely. And to reclaim that. So we brought in many of my colleagues in the age management medicine and anti-aging and bioidentical hormone experts as well as nutrition exercise leaders in our field including Mark Hyman and Daniel Amen, David Perlmutter, JJ Virgins, Sarah Gottfried, Jen Landa, some great, great friends and names in the health space. Really to hack our health in a whole body way and to improve really just to get off the fact that okay this is good for my age. We don’t want to say this is good for my age. Age is just a number and it’s not to qualify or quantify.

I know I had dinner last night with the lovely couple. They’re 80 years old. They’ve been married over 40 years. They just have this incredible interaction. He is really doing well at 84. She’s struggling at 80 with fibromyalgia and diabetes and chronic arthritic type pain. So we talked about. She’s like, “I guess part of this is hereditary. My grandfather had it.” I said, “Look, first of all, you’re 80. You’re awesome. You’ve got the zest and spirit. How does it feel [Inaudible 24:15]?”

So spiritually, the spiritual energy has an age. So let’s spread that to the outside, to the physical body. We know we can’t eliminate gluten and sugar. Let’s do start with those two things that we’re going to stop. We’re going to stop gluten and stop any sugar crosses that arise. Let’s stop animals. Let’s go ahead and start. I put her on my bioidentical progesterone cream, my Mighty Maca formula and a healthy high concentrated Omega 3. I call it our Omega 3 900. So those three things alone and probiotics, so four things. So four things – the probiotics because she’d been on current antibiotics for cystitis. That’s down to create inflammation long term.

So in just the short interaction, there’s so much we can do and it doesn’t matter how old you are. There’s so much we can do and it doesn’t matter how old you are. So I really want to emphasize that fact that’s where Sexy Younger You came in and all our expert speakers. That’s incredible information. Again our speakers are amazing. The people out in our health space are just giving, giving, giving this information in very educated way. So even just looking at the speakers in the Healthy Heart Summit and in our Sexy Younger You Summit, those are people you want to listen to.

We really have looked at the science. We have all looked at the science. We’re looking at it also from a clinical perspective. What has worked with our patients? What has worked with ourselves? What has worked with our family members? Many of us is what that’s drove us into this integrative approach to medicine to begin with was needing to help someone we really care about if not ourselves. Just as you have Melissa. And that’s where the passion comes from.

Melissa: Right. I just wanted to take a moment to mention for some of the listeners that might not be familiar with Maca and your Mighty Maca formula. Can you tell us what that is exactly?

Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely. So Maca, it’s almost like a potato. It’s a root that grows above, only about 11,000 feet in the Andes in Peru. It’s what the ancient Incan warriors reported to have taken before they went into battle to give them stamina and energy. So when I was travelling around the world, I had taken a year off from my medical practice and actually went on a healing journey in Peru with my family. I looked to the world’s indigenous healers and leading scientist for answers.

One of the things in Peru and that’s how I formulated Mighty Maca. That’s 42 ingredients. These things that I felt helped me along the way as well as the scientific research behind the different ingredients. But the Maca itself is also called the Peruvian Viagra which is fun because it has good concentration of Arginine and helps produce nitric oxide. And nitric oxide we know is how Viagra works and helps with circulation. It’s heart healthy. It’s also been shown to help with menopausal symptoms and mood symptoms.

The reason I formulated it with this other ingredients is to really import different pathways. So like from a whole body approach to support that inflammatory, your body’s natural inflammatory response, your natural immune response, hormonal support to support your adrenals. So the combination of ingredients has worked really, really well in this situation and that’s why it’s been such a powerful product.

But I call it a whole body – whole pack. But it’s those reasons because we want to increase optimization, detoxification, decrease inflammation, and support adrenal and hormonal balance as well as that all leads to healthy mental health. Where we can think clearer, have better judgment, react slower in instances of dealing with teenagers. I always have to think of that one. My mantra – pause, breathe, smile and connect.

Melissa: That’s a great one. That’s a great one. Now I didn’t want to ask you. We’ll touch on this topic just lightly today but maybe you’ll come back and we can dig into it more because there are a lot of questions that people have. I know about hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy and bioidentical hormones. Just briefly, how have you found – you’ve talked about using this with your patients with great success.

How should people be looking at bioidentical hormones? I know a few years back there were all these bad press about hormone therapy turning out to be not good and cancer scares and all these stuff. How has that evolved to where we are today with bioidentical hormones and what exactly are they?

Dr. Cabeca: Yes so with bioidentical hormones, what we look for is that bioidentical hormones are identical in chemical composition to what your body produces naturally on its own. So our mother hormone for example progesterone, testosterone, thyroid hormone, adrenal hormones are bioidentical in nature.

First is for example the big difference is and the misconception because of all the misnomers in the literature are the progestins versus progesterone. We need progesterone whether we have a uterus or not. We need it as one of our mother hormones. It often I would say often we need it. One thing using bioidentical progesterone, it works differently. It has a favorable cardiovascular profile. It is naturally designed to inhibit breast cancer cells. It is important for bone building and brain health. So those are four reasons why bioidentical progesterone is helpful. It naturally declines after away productive years from age 35 on. We see significant decline in progesterone which is one of the reasons why people come in with irregular bleeding, changes in length of their menstrual cycle, the mood swings, PMS, et cetera. That bioidentical progesterone can help that.

So bioidentical hormones, a lot of misnomers in the research but when we use them, we always say start low, go slow. I’ve trained physicians around the world on using bioidentical hormones. Start low, go slow. So we start with a small dose. I typically will use a throw key, something that dissolves in the mouth like a lozenge style or so that I can measure it in, so I can measure it or I will use the cream or also I use vaginal hormones to restore vaginal health, to decrease incontinence, improve moisture, decrease vaginal dryness and pain and discharge and infection. All that is benefited by vaginal hormone therapy, androgen not estrogen, androgen therapy. And that’s really important.

I have an article on my blog on vaginal rejuvenation. But so using that very safely, there are things that we can do. Even in patients with breast cancer we use vaginal DHEA to DHEA. It’s adrenal hormone to help increase musculature of the vagina, that natural irrigation, because so many patients struggle with vaginal dryness and incontinence which can be really very well reversed in as short as 30 days.

So that’s the beauty of using bioidenticals. There’s a safety profile. Our body is designed to know what to do with them. We can measure them as opposed to synthetic chemical formulations that have other modifications to the organic structure of the molecule to make it available in a pharmaceutical. So it reacts differently and it goes down different pathways. We learned that with COX-2 inhibitors like Vioxx and Celebrex. You learn about that that’s a switch on nature and hey you might have some [Inaudible 00:31:55].Whoops!

Melissa: No, that was yes.

Dr. Cabeca: That’s our FDA-approved medication. And again, with this there’s no studies looking at multipharma, the polypharma that we see in today’s children, adults, seniors. We don’t have research on polypharma, in other words using multiple medications on one person. There are no studies that will check that. And it’s just not. We know that we can create a garden salad of really nutritious stuff and that’s going to be food as medicine.

Melissa: Right. I think the mantra should be and the goal should be the less pharmaceuticals, the better. I constantly say to people, “Don’t just change what you’re eating and start giving up all your medications.” You have to supervise that. But work toward reducing and reducing. The more I’ve been able to reduce what I was doing with pharmaceuticals, the better my health has become. Like I said the stats don’t lie. They tell how it is.

There are tons of ways to improve these things. But I think the work you’re doing particularly in sexual health for women is really refreshing because it’s just putting a whole different spin on things. I meet tons of people just going about daily life who are in this. What I call they are neutral. They’re just idling in neutral and saying oh well this is what being over 40 or over 50 is all about. I want to say no, no, no, no, no. No, you can revitalize things. Really live an active like the people you were talking about you’re having dinner with. You want to be roaring into your older years, still being active and still enjoying it and doing things.

One of the things that’s so interesting is if you go to a place like France or Germany, you’ll see some of this. You’ll see older people that are rocking out. They’re really enjoying their lives. They might not be doing kiteboarding but they’re active. They’re enjoying things and they just have like I said a much greater joie de vivre as they get older than it seems a lot of Americans do who are super stressed and looking for as you said more and more medications to calm themselves down and make them sleep and all these other things. When those things are out of whack, it’s your body saying you need to change things.

Dr. Cabeca: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. I love what you’re doing here by increasing awareness, Melissa. Thank you for having me on today.

Melissa: Yes, it’s been great talking to you. We’re just about out of time. But I want to definitely get you back. We’ll talk a little bit more about reviving your sex life another time. But where can people find you? I know you’re very active on Twitter and you answer a lot of questions and you’re always tweeting over there. Where can people find you online, your website, your Twitter, your Facebook?

Dr. Cabeca: Yes, absolutely. So my website is cabecahealth. So my last name is C-A-B-E-C-A health.com so cabecahealth.com. And Instagram, we’re @mightymaca so recipes, grain smoothie recipes, easy household family friendly recipes and like the medicinal use as a food. So Ido that @mightymaca on Instagram and Facebook as well at Twitter it’s @drannacabeca.

Melissa: Great, great and we’ll put that links like we said earlier to your free webinars which summarized what we’ve talked about today. Also, we’ll put a link to Dr. Masley’s Heart Health Summit which is going to be going on this week. I think we’re going to have this as we’re recording this. I think it will be going live the following week, so a big a chance for people to check that out. I think it’s really good resource to learn about heart health and things you wouldn’t normally think about that are being highlighted in this presentation.

Dr. Cabeca: Absolutely. We’d encourage everyone to get this information and get them available and again judiciously research recommendations on all of these programs and especially with the Heart Summit and especially with my free webinar – Feel Good. Look Good Secrets webinar. It’s just simple. I’m a busy mom. I have five kids and busy work life. We got to make it simple. So just spelling the myths and really doing what nourishes us and again I give everyone permission to do so.

Melissa: All right Dr. Anna. Thanks so much and we’ll look forward to talking to you again in the future.

Dr. Cabeca: I look forward to it. Thank you so much Melissa. God bless you.