Just Because You Can… Doesn’t Mean You Should!

Just Because You Can… Doesn’t Mean You Should!

This episode goes deeper than credentials—it’s about purpose, ethics, and what it really means to care for people.

From the operating room to the nutrition space, this conversation exposes the gap between real expertise and loud misinformation. 

It’s not about doing what’s trending—it’s about doing what’s right.
If you want truth over hype, this one matters.

This week we talk about:

- Why outcomes—not opinions—should drive decisions
- The difference between expertise vs. online noise
- How misinformation spreads in health and wellness
- Why ethics matter more than capability
- The real responsibility of professionals

Learn more at https://wegotyournumberpodcast.com/

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The content shared on the “We Got Your Number” podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the guidance of your own qualified healthcare professional with any questions you may have regarding your health, nutrition, or medical care.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to the We Got Your Number podcast. We have another solo episode with Dr. Thomas Romo, facial plastic surgeon, and myself. And guys, today we're going to keep it interesting. We are just going to talk about ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:13

That's pretty interesting, I think.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Yeah. So, Dr. Romo, um, can you just like tell me about, as if I don't know, about your career as a surgeon? Where did you start? How did you end up in New York City? And so on.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Well, going back, um, I, you know, it's it's I always talk about macro to micro. So um it's kind of interesting. I have two younger brothers and they're both lawyers. So, uh, but our father, our combined father, uh, was a general surgeon. Uh and so people say to me, Well, you went into surgery because of your dad. And I think in some ways I did, but there wasn't any pressure because he was not of that generation where he was gonna make his son do what he what he did. Uh what he did do, and I think it was inadvertent or uh for me uh advantageous, um, is having a father who was in medicine and who was a surgeon and had me participate uh at his request uh in his uh in his practice. Right. Um at that time, uh I grew up in Texas, uh where I'm from originally. I've been in New York longer than I would have ever lived in Texas, kind of interesting. Uh but um and he would say uh let's get in the car, uh and then we'd get in the car and we'd drive out and we'd go see a patient uh and do a house call. And it would be some rancher's wife uh who had a problem, uh something that he needed to do something with. And I would watch what I always looked at was the interface with him and his patients and how much they appreciated a physician who really cared about them.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

And that was, and then I and and then I had that experience uh at that time. Uh he'd say, come into the operating room, and here I'm 14 years old and I'm holding retractors on a thyroid, or making rounds into patients' rooms, uh, or him checking a chart at the nursing station and not agreeing with the results um and then going down to pathology and having well pull the slides, or not agreeing with the radiological results on an X-ray and go to radiology and look at the results. Um and with all that and seeing him as a a big-time commando, and and what was always driving him was for the betterment of his patients.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

He cared about the patients, he cared about the they're in regard what we call today the outcomes. So it was all outcomes driven, which you didn't know at that time, but it was all and and at the same time, which was kind of an interesting process, he enjoyed his work.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

And he used to say to me, Can you believe I get to go to work every day and do what I love and then actually make money on it? And so it was a very I watched him in that process, and I watched other friends whose friends as I played athletics and and whose fathers were in business or this, that, and the other, and and there's many ways to make money, and medicine was one way, but not anymore, maybe, but it used to be, and um um and uh we'll get into that in a little bit, but because I'm I'm training residents and fellows. Um so I watched my dad uh and and and then and then I always had this uh underlying uh process where I I always had very good hand-eye coordination.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

So I could put a model together and see it. And like I I had somebody watching me the other day operating, and they're going, like, you know what, you're the only plastic surgeon I see who can do that without loops. And I'm going, when I need the loops, I'll wear them, I use them, I'll put a microscope on. I've got five pairs of loops, but I still uh at this age, I can still see tiny little sutures and run them really quickly more than anybody else around me. So uh it's just that that will end when it's just like the guy retiring from football or basketball or something. It's uh uh you you can only do it so long and then you can't do it. So I still have the hand-eye coordination, I still have the energy and uh capabilities, and then I bring to the table an inordinate amount of experience now. So so I I it for me, and it was always interesting because people were always going, like, what are you gonna be when you grow up? And since I was six years old, I've been going, I'm gonna be a doctor.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

It just seemed natural to me and and wasn't anything, I just something I thought I was going to do. So when I had the opportunity uh go to college, uh go to university, uh, and then go to med school, since my father was a surgeon in in Texas at that time, uh surgical, uh the big program uh in Texas was in Houston uh with Dr. DeBakey, Dr. Cooley, and the Hearts and the general surgery program there. Uh, I went to med school there, I did my surgical training there. Um, and then but but I I wanted to do a kind of surgical procedure that was very small, very precise. Uh not ophthalmology, which is set a 6-0, 7-0, or 10-0 sutures, but uh surgical intervention. Um, and it was either hearts or plastic surgery.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

And an opening came up in New York, uh, having two parents uh from the South, my mother from Virginia and my dad from Texas, uh, and I moved to New York and I didn't know anybody. I came up uh and I was on uh 14th Street and 2nd Avenue. So I left the Texas Medical Center in Houston during the growth age when buildings were going up that were beautiful in glass, and I came to 14th Street and 2nd Avenue at the New York Ion Air Infirmary. Um, and it was quite of an eye-opener.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Um, but medical training is so insular, once you get inside the building, it's taking care of patients. And I knew how to take care of patients. I was always uh very much into healing patients. At the VA, some of the patients were just written off as cancer and and not salvageable. And I was, and that's when I really started getting into nutrition because hyperalimentation was becoming very big at the time, supplying patients. They couldn't eat, and they the guys were had already had a laringectomy and they were smoke still smoking the cigarettes through their through their side here, trachide. Um, and I was always looking at those people trying to go, I bet I can heal them. It was kind of a challenge to me, and that's why nutritional and and working with you has been so wonderful. Um, so I was always into that, and then I I got into New York, and and New York was a very much an eye-opener for me. Um I uh it's a residency program, and so uh they had me, I didn't know where anything was, so I didn't even know how to under the subway. I just heard about it. So um we were down on 14th Street and 2nd Avenue, and we had to go to uh Metropolitan, which was in Spanish Harlem at that time. Right. Or go to Lincoln Hospital uh up in Harlem, which which with that time they would say, like, don't go outside the barriers of the hospital in Harlem. So I'm gonna like, I don't know, you know, but the other hospital that we um that we rotated through was Lenox Hill Hospital on 77th and Park Avenue. So I was a resident in all those hospitals, and then I did a fellowship at and at New York Ionier. I went to Tampa, did another fellowship uh in facial plastic uh reconstructive surgery. Um, and I had already been through the program on 14th Street and 2nd Avenue, the New York Ioner Infirmary, the oldest specialty hospital in the United States, uh had an opportunity. I came back, I became the director of facial plastic surgery.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Um, and at that time my technical and my capability, but at my interest level, like it still is today, we just published this month in plastic and reconstructive surgery, the most prestigious uh uh manuscript and or journal in the United in the world, probably for plastic surgery. We published an app academic article this month. Um at that time when I got back to New York Ioneer, uh I had a machine because I had been a chief resident there. And so we just I came up with ideas, and it always came to me very easily about looking at a surgical problem and saying, Well, why can't you do it this way? Right. It's the really the story about many ways uh to skin a cat. And um you you can so the outcomes, and it really was again about outcomes, but how do you get there? And for me, I always looked at things, and it came very easily to me, and so it was good I went into surgery, that I was good at either coming up with innovative operative techniques or designing new operative instruments.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Um, which I I did for still do. And um, so we were publishing and publishing, and I was down in 14th Street and 2nd Avenue, eventually moved to the Upper East Side, uh, became director at Lenox Hill, Manhattan I near, uh, where I'm still today. And it's been an incredible journey. Uh again, my one of my uh very much interests, um, I've always been very interested uh in uh philanthropy, I think, and and nutritional supplementation, which I'm gonna get in with you in a minute. Um for me, and watching what my father did and and kind of the understanding of being a physician, surgeon, surgeon's just a way of accomplishing your goal um of being a doctor. Uh I think you go into that because you're altruistic. And I think most you go you're a humanist, you know, you you you could go to med school and go into pathology or you know, something where you're not dealing with live patients, but I was always interested in being a clinician dealing with live patients and affecting those outcomes. And I think you do that by um by taking care of people. You have that desire to help people medically. I can't help them with their finance. I didn't, my dad wasn't an investment banker, he was a uh you know, country general surgeon. So so I I had that feeling, and I thought, well, you the way to get back. So the the 800-pound gorilla in the room for philanthropy and plastic surgery giving back is Operation Smile.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Operation Smile, any degree of philanthropy, any type of philanthropy is is great. In surgery, their model, which is now noted known as a vertical model, is you go to a place, you operate, you bring your supplies, you come home, you bring that back, and then you leave those cases there. Um models have changed very much today in philanthropy of now actually developing programs in other countries, teaching the surgeons, leaving, equipping them to do the surgery. But Operation Smiles is the 800-pound gorilla, and I went on those uh trips uh and or trips like them, and it's fix a cleft lip uh and and then leave. Um, and I'm going, well, because I had already had a comprehensive uh uh my interest in uh port pediatric reconstructive surgery, which I've always had, uh what about uh the the the alveolus, which is essentially the gum where the bone is, where the teeth stick into? Uh why don't we fix that? Or why aren't we fixing the palate? Or why aren't we putting in some PE tubes so all those children with cleft lips, which they do, have reflux of fluid back up into the uuration tubes and they end up with a hearing loss, they end up with potential uh meningitis. Why not take a five-pair of PE tubes, pressure equalizing tubes, and put them in the eardrum and drain that off, you'd reduce that risk. And they turned and looked at me and went like, Who are you? Right. You know, we're we're we've got hundreds of millions in uh in our foundation, and this is our model. So not being deterred, usually. Right. Uh, I came back to New York um and I said, you know what, I'm gonna form my own foundation. Um, and what I'm going to do, uh, we're gonna treat all kinds of pediatric birth defects. I'm I'm good at uh coercing friends uh into doing things they didn't know they wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

I I would uh go up to them and say, Do you want to be a real doctor again? Remember how you were trained in and and you weren't just doing liposuction and breast augmentation? Uh and uh what we're going to do is I'm gonna start a foundation, uh, which I didn't know how to do and had to hire somebody to teach me how to do that, um, where you have to have a board of directors uh with minutes and a secretary and uh public relations and a lawyer and finance people and all that. And so uh we are now celebrating our 25th year of Little Baby Face Foundation this year. And um what we do now is we have this voluntary group of plastic surgeons, and we have children, and with now with virtual, uh we have people applying from all over the world.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Right.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Um so and and our model is to bring children to New York City. We get their visas, we pay for all that. Uh we put them up at Ronald McDonald House. The surgeons we've already met, looked at the pictures, come up with the diagnosis and a treatment plan for the children. Uh we bring them in, and then we fix very complex birth defects. Uh North Shore LIJ, which took over Lenox Hill and Manhattan Ione, now known as Northwell, the largest employer of uh employees in the state of New York now, um has been so generous working with the Little Baby Face Foundation, and they do not charge us a facility or an anesthesia fee. So the doctors are working for free. Right. And we take children from Harlem, from Oklahoma, from Washington State, and from Nicaragua and Cambodia and New Zealand, and we bring them to New York and we operate on them for free. Uh the surgeons have various degrees of skill level uh and they take the job uh the cases that they can operate on. So that's just an ongoing process uh that I have working all the time. My other uh uh every day to day is my private practice and elective cosmetic surgery. So that goes on to to this day.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah. Well, thank you because that that just understanding where like where you came from, right? So even seeing your dad, and I think that the most important thing, and this is something that I've learned from Dr. Romo over, you know, the year or two that we've have been collaborating, is that you really do care about your patients and it really translates even more with um you know, babyface and the work that you've done. And I've had the privilege of you know interacting with some of the patients and seeing the transition and seeing how you change their lives, and it's it's so much more than you know, like a complicated case. Right? Just seeing how these babies, like their kids, um really have just a chance to, you know, interact socially with other kids.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Um and I people would say, wow, what what you're doing is incredible, and that it's it's way past me, and I don't need a lot of stroking. So it's all about the kids. Right, and it's all about the patients. So I mean, you know, you you you you you get done with the case and they're successful, and everybody's hugging you, and they're some people are crying and they're thanking you, and I'm kind of going, like, it's my job. It's what I'm supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

And and I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's and you exactly said it like you do it because you care about the patients. It's not to be famous or do a surgery that like other people can't do as successful. It's it's really because you care. Um that is so cool.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

It it has driven, as you know, that process because we were asked to do a a clinical trial, first in human 3D printed cartilage graph for reconstruction of pediatric faces. So uh that it's if it's it's offered opportunities and we're still doing a lot of academics, but um at the end of the day, you know, people tell me, is it um does it really feel great to take care of a child as a versed to doing a rhinoplasty or a facelift? And I'm going like in reality, as a professional, and I always try to equate it to uh a pilot on a big plane, and he's flying it from here to Miami.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

You know, and he flies it, it flies the plane and he lands it, and but along the way there was turbulence and everybody was screaming, and then they land the plane and everybody collapsed and they love the pilot, and he gets off and he goes, Just doing my job. Right. You know, it's kind of it's it's what we're trained for. And uh when you're into that's that's where we get our benefit. We you know, the elective cosmetic surgery allows me to, you know, it's it's what I do. And then we also have the other, and it's uh it's a wonderful type of practice, and I enjoy what I do. So I have fun at uh being a physician and a plastic surgeon.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah. Um how many years have you been a plastic surgeon?

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Twenty-eight.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Wow, yeah. I don't want to say that I only have one year of life on top of those 28 years, but yes, essentially my my whole lifetime, Dr. Romo has been a plastic surgeon. Yeah, but somehow we sit here and we we have minds that think similarly, which is cool, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Well, uh well, that is exactly right. And then and that gets the other half of what we were talking about. I um uh again, uh for dealing with patients who are, you know, some you can it's easy to write off, it's horrible, but the VA that you're dealing with uh self-induced uh alcohol and cigarette uh pathologies.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

And the patients are laying there and uh and in the wards, and uh you they kind of write them off, and I'm going like, you know, I bet I could heal that guy. You know, can't just do it surgically, but I I know, and and then do a deep dive into nutritional supplementation and how it affects perioperative results pre-operatively, decrease post-operative infections, reduce hospital stays, uh, to the point of coming up with uh rapidrecovery.com, which was a product line that I ran for a while. Um I I was I know that that nutrition is imperative for improving surgical outcomes. So when when I was dealing with inpatients uh at the hospital, surgeons, which tend to be a different mindset than they're tough. They're tough and they have the way they do it. And this is the way I do it, I'm not gonna hear anything else. So when you're trying to say, you know, like why don't we call a nutrition consult or a dietitian consult and they're going like, what for? You know, a patient's gonna hopefully be out of here and put somebody else in that bed. Um uh I then went to the nutritionists, and basically the nutritionists in a hospital uh are either at a level where they've got their they're trade, of course. They're they may have their BA or BS. A few could possibly have their masters, uh, but they're not used to being called upon by the surgical services by and large. Right. So they've if they've got a medicine patient who's been langering around and then the the nutritionists and the dietitians were brought in. Uh, I was trying to incorporate that and have always tried to incorporate that more and push that within the hospital setting. As I got it and doing private practice like I do now for many years, um uh I've been out and still uh communicating with nutrition people, weight loss people, uh, that kind of thing. When I had the opportunity to meet you, uh and not only are you are you are you a nerd, uh, because you are a scientist, uh, but you have your PhD in nutrition and and you are Dr. Phil and Jerry. Yeah. And having dealt with nutrition people for uh 30 years, uh, I never met another doctor in in p in nutrition.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

And you know, I had similar experiences in the hospital system. I have to say, like just for nutrition, if let's say we're just talking about system level nutrition, I had many situations in when I was practicing clinically um where I felt like I wasn't able to practice at the level that I wanted to. And another um, which almost makes me think of to a different extent of you know, if I don't like this foundation, or I don't not that I don't like this foundation, but I can do it better. And and you started um your foundation. I remember working in the hospital. Um, and I I mean I've always been like I knew that I wanted to do nutrition, um, but I knew also if I was going to go and I was going to get degree, degree, degree, degree, like I was going to make the most out of it. I wasn't going to settle. And I had multiple instances where um I would be met with either Allie, nobody cares. I'm like, what do you mean nobody cares? Like I I remember that um it would be, and I'll give it just like such a simple example. Like I I would be on my floor at work, and you know, someone would come up to me like, oh, patient X isn't eating. I'm like, all right. So go to patient X's door, patient X is, you know, on um every form of precautions. They have a respiratory virus and so on. So what would I do? I would put all my protective equipment on and I would walk in. I would open the whatever it was, the juice, the pudding, usually a supplement, and I'd start feeding it to the patient, right? I walk outside and they'd be like, Wow, you're an angel, you have so much tolerance. I'm like, what do you mean? Like it wasn't even necessarily my job to go into the room and to feed the patient when most systems you're not supposed to do that. Um, but they're like, wow, you have so much patience. I'm like, I don't have patience, actually. My patience is for the fact that or my lack of patience is actually for the people that weren't carrying through with the nutrition intervention. Absolutely. Or the patient that was like, let's say, lying in the hospital bed and it's really tricky um in the sense of like, okay, you know, it's actually easier to not do a feeding tube um and just kind of wait, wait, and wait. And I would go and I would be, you know, respectfully aggressive and say, what are we waiting for? Like, why why are we waiting? And of course, like there always there is definitely. Scope of practice to stay in because it may be we're waiting because the person's you know fluid overloaded and we can't do IV nutrition right now. And right makes sense. That's the collaboration between the physician and the dietitian. But I ended up in so many situations before I went and I started my own practice of but nobody cares. And then there was some type of red tape, and I was like, there's no way that there's this wellness industry that we've talked about so much that makes billions of dollars, and somebody with a doctor's degree and a license is going to sit around and listen to nobody cares. And then somebody with zero training and a some type of health certification is going to be out there making millions of dollars. I was like, there's no way. This is not possible. I'm not going to let this happen.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Um well, I know uh I know your family, uh, and I know you. And you said uh respectfully uh disagree. So I I uh you know, being in New York City where I am in the Upper East Side, uh, I have a lot of people who don't respectfully disagree. They just disagree. Right. Uh and I know that you do respectfully disagree, but I mean you you uh are one of the most intelligent people. Uh you're teaching uh college uh uh students uh about uh sports medicine and sports uh and nutritional uh aspects that they're supposed to. Uh you also have a clinical practice uh with people coming to you from all over the world uh to hear to hear the word. Um and again, it's I know you uh it's all about outcomes. Right. And it's what's best for the patient. You and I have been discussing people who are quite famous, uh, who are not in medicine at all or in the medical industry, right, and who are have a protein drink, and and and and what would they say about it except what they're being told to say about it. And so you know this backwards and forwards, and to have a PhD nutritionist is rare. And uh, and then have them be normal and be driven and be driven by patient outcomes is the patients are uh they are not lucky, but it's it's it's it's you and I see our jobs as that's our job. And and and we're and we're our education and our smarts are to help our patients. Yeah. And that's what you do.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Well, we have to talk about a controversy because it's it's in my mind, it's like so hot topic this week. And you said it's me, I don't know if it was yesterday or the day before. So the David's protein bar controversy, right? You saw it on the news. I called you. I saw it all over my social media, and I'm like, okay, so let me let me break this down, right? So David's is a protein bar, and when they hit the market, they came in super hot. They had 150 calories, they had 28 grams of protein, they had two grams of fat. So from the macronutrients on this bar were nice, right? So for this small amount of calories, you can get this amount of protein, right? So what happened, and this is what I see happen over and over and over again. It's actually a lack of nutrition specificity, is an independent lab went and they tested the bars. Um, and what they did is when they tested the bars, is typically fat in most foods, it's most prevalent as a triglyceride, right? I have to talk to science and I'm like, don't bring up the triglyceride, I'm bringing up the triglyceride, right? It's a glycerol molecule and it has three fatty acids. Now, what Davis was able to do is they were able to make a um ester five different type of something like a triglyceride, but it doesn't contribute as many calories. So instead of being nine calories per gram, it was um, I believe 0.7 calories per gram. An independent lab comes and they want to test the bar and say, does this have the amount of calories that the label is saying it does? So what they do is they do a technique to extract the fat out of the bar and then they measure it by weight and they can contribute that to calories. What they did and where the mistake was is that what they did is they were able to isolate the ester, the ester fide triglyceride, right, which doesn't contribute the same amount of calories as fat. So essentially what they did in research terms is um what they were trying to measure, they didn't measure, right? Um so the reliability, which is another nerd research thing, it the reliability wasn't there. What happens, right? Okay, date now we see all over it, you know, David's bar was mean girling me. Essentially, I Dr. Romo, have you ever seen mean girls?

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Of course. Oh, you have?

SPEAKER_02 26:26

Of course. I thought you were gonna say no. Oh, absolutely. Right? So in Mean Girls, essentially what happened was um somebody was giving someone else a bar that was they thought it was a weight loss bar and was higher in calories. So this is blowing up all over the place. And all of these different um some doctors, some non-doctors, a lot of wellness people, they instantly start bashing Davids. Now listen, I their technology is innovative, and maybe, right? The bar may not directly have the calories that it's listed on the label. But what happened was before analyzing the nuance of what they did and how they did the testing, everybody had something to say about it.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Well, so Allie, that is that's contemporary, that that is the virtual world that we live in. Right. So one, we talk about people that we know and what I'm not supposed to talk about, who are promoting protein products when they're not in medicine at all. Uh and and and what could they possibly say than what they were told to say? Uh two, um everybody has an opinion virtually. And the instantaneousness of any topic or the ability, it's it's it's what they've always said, you know, good news, if somebody rescues somebody, it doesn't get anywhere, but if somebody gets run over by a car, it's news. So if if you can smash a successful product uh like David's, then people are gonna pile on. Um uh I I think it it it's interesting. Number one, you and I know that the wellness industry, uh there is so much uh in in everything in in nutritional supplementation, the weight loss industry. I'm reading an article this week talking about uh uh uh an ischemic ophthalmic uh pathology from GPL1s. Interesting where the retina artery is getting clogged. And so a certain percentage, now what percentage is that and is it released, but they're talking about GPL 1s now causing blindness. So in the one article the next day, they're talking about the the ability to decrease uh appetite is also decreasing uh uh alcoholism and other uh say uh yeah, those kinds of problems, and at the same time could be causing blindness. And so I mean, nothing is without complication in life, and nothing anything you take into your body may be assimilated by the way your body does it as ours to someone else. David, in this case, the bar, a claim that their product, uh the fat that they have in their product, is not taken in by the gut and it doesn't have the caloric uh intake. So you you wonder is David really saying the truth and and and and who's the arbiter of what they put on their label. Right. Uh if they really do, you would think that if they have that technology, uh then every bar should bring that in. Eat eat stuff that where the fat's not absorbed. Yeah. And that and that gets down to a whole other thing that you're an expert on is the microbiome.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

And and you know, I think that it's so this non-absorbable or partially absorbable fat um makes me think of fake sugars. And it's um the an education lapse for most people is not all artificial sweeteners are calorie-free. So people think, oh no, it's fake sugar, I'm not absorbing any calories. Not necessarily true. So instead of having, let's say, four calories per gram, they have very small amounts. Now, as we know, basically we live in overconsumption culture. There are people that will push the limit. And you know, instead of having one diet soda a day, they'll drink two liters. I'm not shocked. I've seen everything in my profession of analyzing people's diets. But we have it's very similar. So, right, there's still an education gap between the two. Um, and I think it's really just the fact that we're so lost in the sauce because there's so many people that don't really know much, and that's how we started and why we started We Got Your Number podcast. Absolutely. Right, because we had these conversations where we're like, you know what? We actually have so much to say. Like, we have so much to say about these topics because they're not people aren't being served by the information that's out there. And the one I think topic that we need to talk about for today is this whole peptide craze. And I'm not talking about FDA-regulated weight loss medications. I'm talking about non-regulated peptides. They have 10 names. They're first, what do you think about them? And then I have some of my own thoughts and opinions.

SPEAKER_03 30:53

Well getting back to We Got Your Number podcast, um you and I are are are are professionals, we have all the academic uh credentials, you have incredibly so, and we decided that with all the information that's on the market, right, uh, and then in fact, the some the loudest cheerleaders are m most of the time misinformation. So that's that's what people are hearing. Um uh when I'm talking to my patients uh uh because of my position where I'm at, uh, I tell them you can count on this like Moses and the tablets. Okay. I just published this in the most prestigious uh journal in the United States. Um we want to get the correct information, and we got your number has that's our purpose to get experts on this who can who are really experts, and one who care about patients, and number two, have expert uh uh opinions and or knowledge, and and that's what you do. Um peptides are just the latest phase. Uh peptides, you combine them together, they're made up of amino acids, and you combine them together and they make protein. Right. So the hottest thing on the market right now is protein. I sent you a picture the other day of Cheerios, and I was going down the hall the way, and uh I looked and had a box of Cheerios and it said protein uh Cheerios. And I'm going, everything has got protein in it. Does number one is it the correct protein? And one, is your body absorbing it? And then, like we were talking earlier today, is more always sometimes it could just be more and it's not what you need.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

You know, I my students were asking me, and it's so interesting because um sometimes I forget, like I guess where my thought processes were when I was an undergrad, but they you know, it came up and I said, guys, my rule, my job is to teach you nutrition. That's that's this is not my job to teach you that. Um, but you know, I asked them, I said, What do you guys think? You know, we see this all in the culture. You guys are essentially the next generation of nutrition professionals. And a lot of what I got, which was shocking to me, is well, um, why not take the risk? And I said, Why not take the risk? How do we take a risk and we don't we don't know the outcome? That becomes very dangerous. So I think that we live in a world where everyone wants a piece of something, right? So why not take the risk? Because we don't know what the risk will what will the result of the risk be. Yeah, what are the outcomes?

SPEAKER_03 33:22

Again, it all gets down to outcomes. Now, I I I'm in a similar manner, like surgery. Um uh I have uh occasionally I have to reflect that I have 30, 31-year-old uh individuals who are still in training learning plastic surgery. Uh they haven't gotten out, they're still getting a salary as uh a low low income wage, uh, and they're still and they're the top of their class, and they're incredibly intelligent, uh, and they're still striving to um uh learn surgical techniques, and it and it's a very much a technique uh driven process. And I'm I'm always with them. I'm I'm trying to make sure it's not can you do it, but should you do it? Okay, great, you know how to do this surgical procedure, but it's also then the finesse and the professionalism is do you bring that procedure to the table? Is that the best? Because one, it's gonna give you the best outcomes, and two, you know the risks. Right. And that's what you're talking about. Are they so I in some ways I enjoy their inherent immaturity and innocence of looking at a process as long as you you don't have to teach them ethics and morality. And I bring back to them and I go, Would you do that on your sister? Would you do that on your mother? Okay. Not because you're not going to try to get a house in the Hamptons. Are you going to do that on your mom because just because you know how to do the technique? Right. And it's the same thing you're saying. I think these young people, it's it's difficult because the cultures and the generations and virtualism has changed.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:04

I was at a board meeting the other night. I was speaking to a guy who's a CEO of a PR company, speaking to a woman who just was top 50 U.S. women and lawyers in the United States, and both of them were telling me that the younger people and their in their uh practice and the have an inability to communicate because they're not used to communicating with other human beings at close to close and talking to them. If they don't bring that to the table, they can still be very smart. And and so where are they gonna get that education? Right. Because this is you know, you're not gonna be dealing with your clients always with with a virtual, with a with a Zoom or a FaceTime. Of course, they're human beings are dealing with. So if they're getting their data, that you know, they've got to get there, they've got to learn how to do this. And so it's it's that blend. And I know that these college students that you're teaching are lucky to have you as their professor, because one, you know every bit of what you're talking about, and two, you're bringing to it the humanity of not only uh can you do it, but should you do it.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Well, on this episode of We Got Your Number, you got to get a little bit um more information on uh the why behind We Got Your Number. Um, I can't wait for you guys to see this episode.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

I'd like to uh thank you for uh being with us today on We Got Your Number podcast. Uh and my co host, Dr. Ali Phill and Jerry. Uh it's getting to know us uh better and uh and what we're worried about and concerned are about patient outcomes. So thank you for being with us.