Summary: 

In this episode of Wellness Your Way, host Megan Lyons interviews Dr. Michael Garko, a leading expert in health and wellness. Dr. Garko shares his personal journey of overcoming cancer and emphasizes the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, even when faced with serious health challenges. He discusses the significance of hydration and the role of electrolytes in the body. He also provides insights into the color and odor of urine as indicators of health conditions such as kidney disease, bladder cancer, uncontrolled diabetes, and infections. Dr. Garko further discusses the importance of a balanced gut microbiome and the impact of diet on health. He stresses the need for both preventive and preparatory health practices, highlighting the importance of being ready to fight health battles when they arise. The conversation also covers the topic of interstitial cystitis and its connection to recurrent urinary tract infections.

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Transcription:

Megan Lyons:

Thank you so much Dr. Michael Garko for coming on Wellness Your Way. I am so excited to have you here.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Well, I am privileged to be with you. Thank you for the Invitation and Wellness Your Way. Yes. On my license plate, on my car, I have the license plate is Health two U-H-E-L-T-H, number Arabic numeral two and U Health two. You so wellness. Yeah. You have a nice show there. Okay, good. We’re in business.

Megan Lyons:

Yes, we’re in business. I love that license plate. If I’m ever driving through New Tampa, I will be sure to look out for you. So I know just a little bit about you, but please tell the audience a little bit of an intro for you.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Sure. I get that asked a lot and then I’m going to give you the answer. Then people wonder why I’m going to give this answer. I was born, my mother and father were immigrants. I was born in Pittsburgh. We were poor. It was a multi-ethnic neighborhood and multiracial. My father spoke four languages. My mother spoke two is a multi-ethnic household, and so I grew up in a world where difference was the everyday common occurrence. It wasn’t like a giant glass of homogenized milk. I mean there were all kinds of people there, right? Yes. And little did I know Megan, that would have an influence on me in my life. And what it did was opened my mind, opened my heart, and then I found out when I did that, the world opened up and people opened up to you. And so my mother and father, my mother drummed it into my head to get my education and I did.

I’ve spent beyond high school, 20 years of my life in school as a student and as a professor. I have a PhD and I have two master’s degree and two bachelor’s degree, one of my master’s degrees in clinical nutrition. And I went back and got that after I had my PhD because I was doing a nationally syndicated health talk show across the country and across the world, literally every day for two hours. And I felt that I needed to know more about nutrition, human nutrition, and so I went back and did it and I’m glad I did and I can able to share that with you and your audience today. And other than I could tell you a lot of other things, but

Megan Lyons:

Well, I love what you’ve told me and it is making me slightly nervous, but in a funny way, because I have two masters by the time this one airs, I think I will have a doctorate hopefully in a couple of months, but I know I’m going to do another one. So for you to say you went back after your PhD and got another that’s inspiring me. Who knows what’s next in my world?

Dr. Michael Garko:

Yeah. I used to say to my students, look, we all can be ignorant, right? That means you don’t know and then we can be stupid. You can do stupid stuff. But I said to them, when you’re stupid and ignorant at the same time, then you’re too damn dumb to know what to do. You’re going to be any one of ’em. Don’t be them together and get your education, and so you’re not so ignorant and then you can afford to be stupid from time to time.

Megan Lyons:

That’s so funny. I love it. A good life lesson. Oh, wow. Well, you have so many life lessons to infer on us or to share with us, but let’s start with your specialty area, your current specialty area, which surprise audience we’re talking about P today, we pee every day. We don’t talk about it. We don’t know what it should look like. So can you just start us with the basics? What are some things that our urine can tell us about our health?

Dr. Michael Garko:

Okay. It’s interesting. It’s usually difficult to talk about and public people that get a little embarrassed and it’s like an off limits topic, but doctors, most doctors agree that paying attention to the appearance of your urine is something you should be doing on an ongoing basis. Most people live a lifetime and go to the bathroom flush and that’s it. They never look, they never check, but they should because they can provide warning signs of potentially life-threatening conditions such as kidney disease, bladder cancer, uncontrolled diabetes, an infection, things that really can disrupt the quality of your life and put your health in jeopardy.

Megan Lyons:

Yes, very interesting. So let’s get into some of those conditions, but first, let’s start with normal urine. What does normal healthy, no issues look and smell like too?

Dr. Michael Garko:

Okay, okay, that’s a good place to start. So yellow and transparent, healthy urine typically has a pale straw-like color to it. It’s like a transparent yellow color, and that is because of a pigment in the urine called urochrome, and it should be clear and its odor should not be particularly pungent or strong right now. You’ll have slight variations in the color of your urine depending on what you’re eating, what you’re drinking, your health status, what medications you may be on, what supplements you may be taking, whether you’re hydrated or not, and so on. So it can vary. Some people, Megan, think that clear or colorless urine is crystal clear, like out of a mountain spring, no, probably you’re not getting enough water when you may be drinking, excuse me, too much water. When it’s that clear, you’re over hydrating and that can cause electrolyte balance in your bloodstream.

Electrolytes are really important. These are ions, mineral ions that we can talk about that if you want in a bit, but the electrolytes are important so you can over hydrate, and I see this all the time in the gym, people walking around with a gallon jug of water and I’m thinking, you probably should have hydrated before you came in here. And as a sidebar, I can tell you, being thirsty is too late. You are already dehydrated. So when you’re thirsty, that means you’re dehydrated. You should have been drinking water all along the colors brown, believe it or not, brown or dark amber, that’s a sign of dehydration. It’s like a real rich amber color and dehydration can kill you if it’s chronic. When you’re low on fluid, the waste products in your urine become more concentrated. The electrolytes and the waste product, that’s what makes it darker. And so you’re likely going to have also a strong odor to the urine if you’re drinking more fluid. If drinking more fluid doesn’t correct that and lighten up the color of your urine and the smell, you should make an appointment to see a doctor. Dark colored urine can also be caused by liver disorders such as hepatitis or cirrhosis. Alcoholics who have liver disease, cirrhosis will experience that kind of urine often. So there are different other colors too. Red or pink? Yes, red. Where do people immediate jump to blood in the urine?

I remember I went out to dinner and it was this, so-called Healthy Food place and they had beets. So I had a beet salad. A beet salad, went home. I got up in the morning, I went to the bathroom and the urine was red and I was having to sleep, and I looked and I said, oh my God. And I thought blood, and I remembered, oh, you ate beats last night. So the beats turned the urine red. That said, if you haven’t eaten beets or what is it? Rhubarb, whatever that is. Rhubarb, yeah. Yeah. Red. Pigmented foods. A reddish flow can be a sign of kidney disease. You got to watch, or a kidney stone, a urinary tract infection, a prostate problem in some cases, cancer, and sometimes you have to look, it won’t be a bright red, but you’ll see little speckles in the urine throughout the urine. You have to look. They look like little dots. That’s blood often. So be mindful of that. I’ll stop there. Maybe you have a question or two. There’s other colors, but I’ll,

Megan Lyons:

Yes, I want to get into some of the other colors, but I do have two questions. One about hydration and one about beets. Let’s start with hydration. Do you prescribe to people a certain formula or number of ounces, or do you just say, look at your urine and wait until it’s that straw like color that’s the right number of ounces for you?

Dr. Michael Garko:

That’s an excellent question. How much water should I drink? And what you’re going to hear oftentimes, and it’s not a bad formula to follow eight ounce glasses of water a day that will get it done. There are different formulas for that, and I just tell people I had a hard time habituating myself to drink water. I struggled with that a lot, and I finally figured out that I needed to drink water, and so I just started with eight, eight ounce glasses a day, and that seemed to help me a lot. You can drinking two and three gallons. I don’t know. I don’t think that’s necessary. There are different formulas. You go on the internet, go to Medscape or one of those more credible websites, and they’ll give you different formulations for how much water, different formulas, how much water you should drink. Water is critical.

Make no mistake about it. It’s so underrated. It’s one of the most important things to put in your body, and most people are walking, especially here in Florida, walking around, dehydrated, and that’s not good either. So water’s hooked up with the sodium and water and all these electrolytes. They’re keeping things in balance, and so we need to pay attention to that. I would say eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day. If you can do that, you’ll be okay, but look it up on the internet. There’s different ones and you have to decide what you’re comfortable with.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah, I recommend to my clients start with half of your body weight. So if someone weighs 200 pounds, a hundred ounces, if they 150 pounds, 75 ounces. Now, personally, I drink more than that, more than half my body weight. I also exercise a lot, sweat a lot, literally talk for 12 hours a day. And so for me to feel really great, I drink more than that. I also do some electrolytes too, so I am curious on your take on that, but I know I’m on the, if I were to be over hydrated or under hydrated, I would be over hydrated for sure. So let’s go to electrolytes and then we’ll come back to beets.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Oh, you want to talk about electrolytes? Okay, so electrolytes are minerals in your blood and other bodily fluids that carry an electrical charge. They’re ions. That means they’re missing an electron, and electrolytes are really important because they can affect how your body functions. It’ll affect the amount of water in your body, the acidity of your blood, the pH. It’ll affect your nerve and muscle function and other important processes. Now, you can lose electrolytes pretty easily by perspiring, and you got to replace them with fluid clear, just pure water. Some people say, well, I drink soda, I drink coffee. I get that, and I eat fruits and vegetables. They have water in them. Those things can help, but at some point you want to be drinking pure water. The electrolytes include calcium, calcium chloride, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and sodium. As a sidebar, in terms of water, I haven’t taken a drink of water out of a faucet in decades.

I refuse to do it in spite of all the things that they say about purifying the water and this and that. I just don’t do it When I cook, I don’t cook from the faucet either. I use distilled purified water when I make pasta or whatever and boil the pasta. It’s distilled. I know that’s a little extreme, but these electrolytes important. There are products out there where you can, you mentioned you take electrolytes. Of course there’s that one famous Gatorade. I don’t work for them. I don’t know them, but people drink that. There’s other products out there too, emergency. They have these little packets and the green packet, they have all the electrolytes in them, so we could spend a lot of time talking about the electrolytes, but the sodium, potassium chloride and calcium levels, you can measure them with a metabolic panel. You can do a urine test, which measures the electrolytes in your urine. You can test your levels of calcium chloride, as I said, potassium, sodium and so on. You can test for those if you want.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah. And the metabolic panel you mentioned that is in the most basic of all blood work. If someone’s going in for their annual physical or certainly seeing a functional nutritionist like me or something like that, and they’re not running sodium, potassium, et cetera, they’re definitely missing the boat. So that’s helpful and we get to stay more aware of it on a daily basis just by monitoring how we feel and our urine and all of that kind of stuff. So really good thoughts there. I don’t want to forget to circle back to beets. Why is it that some people see the red color from beets in their urine and some from their stool? Do you know?

Dr. Michael Garko:

Probably in the digestion of the food, if they digested it or it wasn’t fully digested.

Megan Lyons:

Oh, interesting.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Right. It wasn’t fully digested. And so it ends up in the fecal matter. That could happen too. It could happen. Interesting. That’s a good question. I never quite thought about that. It would’ve something to do with digestion. Maybe it wasn’t fully digested. Also, the beets could be, it could be even more red to eating a food with that pigment in because you weren’t hydrated enough. Right? It didn’t get diluted.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah. Okay. Really interesting. I’ve always wondered that. So

Dr. Michael Garko:

Thank you. So it could be that you weren’t hydrated enough and it didn’t get diluted, and the way you digest, there’s soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber is what goes in your stomach and expands and creates a feeling of fullness, slows down the release of glucose into the bloodstream, also lowers cholesterol. Insoluble fiber goes to the colon, unchanged, and it absorbs water. So beets is a plant, so it could be that in your stomach, it wasn’t digested enough and it went right to the colon, not fully digested from the stomach acid and whatnot. And so you might see remnants of it in the fecal matter.

Megan Lyons:

Interesting. So potentially if someone is not seeing the beets in their urine but is seeing it in their stool, check stomach acid, check digestion, do some investigation there. That’s our hypothesis for now.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Yeah,

Megan Lyons:

I like it. Very interesting. I do want to talk about ways to keep our kidneys, bladder, et cetera, healthy through some herbal formulas, other strategies you have. But before we leave the color of the P, are there any other alert signals like you mentioned orange, is it bubbly? What would be an alert signal? Alright,

Dr. Michael Garko:

Orange. You mentioned orange. That’s a sign of the hydration or you’re having some sort of, I know orange color. I mean, yeah, it could be liver issues. So your liver is one of the most important. It’s a part of your filtering system in your body. We have ways to filter things, and the liver is, everything passes through the liver, and so if you have liver disease can be very bad news, so bright or neon yellow, the B vitamins sometimes will cause that. That’s usually caused by taking a lot of supplements. I take a lot of supplements. So yeah, that’s reflected in the color of the urine. Foaming can be a sign of too much protein in the urine when it bubbles up and you got literally foaming. Oh, wow. Sometimes the foaming can happen if a man is standing in a pressure, but if it’s really exaggerated and there’s a lot of it foaming of the water in the bowl, it could be that you’re eating too much protein and that could be a sign of also a warning sign of kidney disease,

Murky, cloudy urine, usually reflective of a urinary tract infection or of diabetes that is not being fully managed or properly managed. Also kidney stones. So you get this cloudy, murky urine, and then there’s odor. Sometimes the odor can be rather pungent. It can be caused by eating certain foods, asparagus, coffee, Brussels sprouts, garlic, onions, different spices. In other words that can do it a urinary tract infection, UTI will cause it. But when you have a UTI, usually you have other symptoms, a burning sensation, a frequent urination, a feeling of urgency to pee. So if you got the odor with those signs and symptoms, then yeah, you probably, you got an infection and you need to get to a doctor.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah,

Dr. Michael Garko:

That’s sort of a general overview of the different colors and the odor.

Megan Lyons:

That’s great. That’s very

Dr. Michael Garko:

Helpful. I still struggle with drinking enough water.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Garko:

So you know how I did it. I figured instead of I bought the smaller bottles and I see people have the big liter bottle that looks so damn daunting to me. I can’t drink all that water. So I get the little bottles and I end up

Megan Lyons:

Drinking more

Dr. Michael Garko:

Five or six of those a day.

Megan Lyons:

That’s great for hydration. We have to find what works for us. I’m with you. I don’t carry around a giant two gallon jug or whatever. But some people like that. So whatever it is that works for them, as long as they’re getting it in, I support it. You just were mentioning UTIs and I want to go there. So people generally know if they have a UTI, like you said, you’ll see that murky P, but you’ll also feel the burning discomfort, irritation, whatever you’re feeling. I am wondering if you have thoughts, not just someone who had a UTI once and they treated it and it went away, but people who have recurrent UTIs or yeast infections or things like that. What are some common causes of this?

Dr. Michael Garko:

That’s a good question. Oftentimes people are having these, you can’t dismiss your overall general health and your body’s ability to fend off infections and things like that. And you may just be vulnerable to getting infected because your immune system is not optimal. Yeah. You have to remember the immune system is the sentinel of your body.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Garko:

It’s trying to protect you. We evolved with this very unique ability to stay. You got to remember our ancient, ancient ancestors. There was no walk-in clinics. There weren’t any doctors. There weren’t emergency rooms, there were no medications. And so when they had an injury or an infection, the body had to figure a way to heal itself. So as a species, we naturally selected to develop this system called the immune system. And in my career, I’ve learned that that becomes, that’s a very temperamental system. Even when you’re healthy and as you get older, it can go sideways on you. Autoimmune diseases are a function of a kit of an immune system that has gone that no longer the sentinel of your body. It’s now attacking your body. It’s paradoxical. So people usually in general who are not in good state of health and the immune system is compromised, their diet is lousy, they don’t have enough antioxidants in their body to fend off infections.

Their gut microbiome is out of balance and all contribute to kinds of infections, including UTIs. Sometimes people will have in their bacteria. It’s a perfect environment for bacteria to propagate. It’s dark and it’s wet and the urinary tract. So if you’re not getting, if your immune system isn’t functioning properly, you’re not eating a plant-based diet with lots of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants and phytonutrients. You don’t exercise, you eat a lot of ultra processed foods. What really drives me crazy. People say, oh, the body heals itself. Well, how does it do that? It can only heal itself if you give it the elements to do that. Whatever you feed your body is what it’s going to use. If you feed it saturated junk fat all the time, that’s what it’s going to build. That bilipid layer with whatever you feed it. It’s like building a house. You can build a house with good building materials or cheap ones. If you eat junk food, you’re going to have junk health. And so UTIs, these chronic, sometimes people, they’ll be drink too much alcohol. They’re not drinking enough water, they’re not urinating enough when you urinate, that’s cleaning out that urinary tract. They don’t pee all day.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah,

Dr. Michael Garko:

Right. Yes. Dried out. Well, what do you think the bacteria are doing? They’re propagating. Yes. So urinating is not just relieving of excess fluid. It’s also a way to cleanse that urinary tract. So that would be my best response to your coin, which is a good question.

Megan Lyons:

Well, I love it. Where we have large overlap in our Venn diagrams, I usually say, number one, their immune system is rundown. For some reason they’ve just had covid or they just were on a course of multiple antibiotics or they’re not sleeping, or they’re chronically overstressed or whatever. Something where their immune system can’t talk load appropriately. Or two, I usually point out too much sugar because sugar is fuel to the fire for candida and all kinds of bacteria that can propagate it. But I like what you added on, which was really obvious, and I can’t believe I don’t highlight this. If you’re not peeing enough throughout the day, then the bacteria are going to have a party down there that’s so important.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Look, we occupied this planet at a certain point in time in our ancient, ancient ancestors. These pathogenic microorganisms have been on this planet since its beginning, and they’ve had millions and millions and tens of millions of years to figure out they have one agenda, find a host viruses, find a host bacteria. It’s just we’re vulnerable in your gut, your gut microbiome. There’s this constant war between the pathogenic bacteria and the good bacteria. They’re fighting for food. They’re fighting for real estate.

Megan Lyons:

Yes.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Pathogenic bacteria to your point, like sugar.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah,

Dr. Michael Garko:

The good bacteria like fiber. Fiber, it’s a prebiotic. It’s what feeds the good bacteria. So you want to have an army of good bacteria that outnumbers the pathogenic ones. And that could be if your gut microbiome, people can have sibo, all these different digestive that can start to spill over from your digestive system into your urinary system too.

Megan Lyons:

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for highlighting those two points. Enough. Fiber is essential for all of this, and gut health. People don’t realize gut health is not just about being comfortable when you go to the bathroom. It’s about so much more. It regulates your body’s inflammatory response, immune system, all of this kind of stuff. And that actually might lead into my next question. I’m curious if you have any thoughts on interstitial cystitis, which is a toughie to treat?

Dr. Michael Garko:

I don’t know. I mean, the standard of care would be to any itis is inflammation. Inflammation is a sign of infection or injury. And typically in medicine, it’s done through medication. The truth be told, look, I am not one to throw medical doctors under the bus. I’m not one to throw pharmaceutical companies under the bus. I believe in functional medicine. I believe in many of my friends are naturopaths and many of my friends are MDs. Sometimes traditional medicine needs to pair up with conventional medicine, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals. I’ll give you the extreme example. I know you asked me about interstitial cystitis, that I make my point this way. Sure. What was the name of the Steve Jobs?

Megan Lyons:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Garko:

He got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Initially, he rejected chemotherapy and traditional therapy and started to do natural alternative therapies. I’m going to say this one thing to your audience. There is no natural cure for cancer. It doesn’t exist, man. You can eat all the apricot seeds you want. You can kill chickens at midnight and drink their blood. I don’t care. Whatever you want to do foolish thing. Sometimes you have to go and reach for conventional medicine and these infections, if you’re going to try to knock out a urinary tract infection that’s raging that you’ve had for a long time with, I don’t know what some herb, just some herb alone, you’re going to have a hard time. You might do it, but you’re probably going to need an antibiotic.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Garko:

So interstitial cystitis. Cystitis is nasty. I mean, it’s painful and it’s upsetting, and I don’t know. What natural method do you have for interstitial cystitis?

Megan Lyons:

Gosh, it really has been a toughie. Like I said, I’ve had several clients with it, and they all have taken antibiotics. What I’m trying to help them do is avoid not constantly being on antibiotics. And we’ve had really great success with limiting some of the more inflammatory foods as an itis. We know any foods that cause inflammation, like processed foods, added sugar, alcohol, low quality oils, et cetera. They do contribute to or exacerbate inflammation. And then there are several specific herbs that I’ve used, which I’m interested to hear your take on, and most of all, stress management. I find the bladder to be so connected to our emotions, both even people without interstitial cystitis, just people who have frequent urination, which I used to have all the time. A lot of that was emotionally rooted for me. So I think I haven’t found a one size fits all, but I have made a lot of progress with clients with interstitial cystitis. I’m just always looking for more.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Have you found that a correlation between people with interstitial with that bladder condition and having UTIs?

Megan Lyons:

Absolutely, yes.

Dr. Michael Garko:

For the audience, interstitial cys cystitis, your bladder, your kidneys, UREs, urethra, make up your urinary system. When you have interstitial cystitis, it’s walls of your bladder become irritated and inflamed. Right. So that’s what’s itis. And it can be painful. So you’re looking, antioxidants will help, but I believe in natural medicine, yes. Hundred percent. A hundred percent,

Megan Lyons:

Yes.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Look, I didn’t expect on talking about this. I’ll share this with your audience. I know we talked, this is a, remember I told you this, what happened?

Megan Lyons:

Yes, you did.

Dr. Michael Garko:

I’m 80 years old.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing.

Dr. Michael Garko:

When I was 72, I was the poster boy for health, wellness and wellbeing. I never was sick a day in my life, you know that I was that guy.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

And then I had a lymph node in the side of my neck that was waxing and waning. And one day I was doing my show and my personal physician was on Dr. Harris McElwain, who’s since passed away. And I told him, I said, you know Harris, I got this lymph node waxes and wanes, larges and shrinks. He said, we want to see hematologist oncologist. I said, sure. He said, but let’s do a cat scan first. We did a CAT scan and my lymph nodes were huge.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Long story short, I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the cervical lymph nodes stage four.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

And in a process of diagnosing me for that, they found another lesion on my lung.

Megan Lyons:

Now,

Dr. Michael Garko:

Keep in mind, and I still to this day, I train six days a week, an hour and a half every day, and I invite anybody to train with me. And you’ll see it’s serious. I don’t stand around and talk.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing.

Dr. Michael Garko:

It’s intense. So here I was, did everything right. Healthy diet, no drugs, no alcohol, no smoking, and two forms of cancer.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

There is no naturopathic. I’m going to say it one more time. Dammit. There is no naturopathic cure for cancer. If you think that you can go and do some, it doesn’t exist. And he saved my life. Dr. Fink, young man saved my life, and I did chemo and radiation, and let me tell you, it was no picnic, but I’m sitting here talking to you. That was eight years ago. And if it wasn’t for him, here’s the funny story here. I am diagnosed with this, and on the day I started chemo and radiation, I already had been in surgery three times before we, even the chemo and radiation for biopsies. Cancer is a world where there’s bends and turns and there’s twists and turns in the Bens and turns. It’s so unpredictable. I walk into the clinic and the nurse said, Dr. Fink would like to see you first. I go upstairs and he said, I got some good news and bad news today. It was the results of my, they did a biopsy of my lung. He said, the good news, it’s not a metastasis. The cancer in your neck didn’t spread to your lung. Bad news. It’s lung cancer.

And I was crest. And I said, well, what do you think about that? He said, I’m happy for you. I said, what? He pulled out his phone and he text messaged Dr. Greenberg, the radiation oncologist, and it read, I think we saved Dr. KO’s life.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

I said, why did you tell him that? He said, because if you hadn’t been infected with that virus, nobody would’ve looked for that little lesion on your lung. You would’ve been dead in three years. So I wrote an essay entitled How Cancer Saved My Life.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

So I share this with your audience. Don’t be so quick to throw doctors under the bus. These men and women were not, they didn’t go to medical school in Hades. They’re not Lucifer incarnated men.

Megan Lyons:

Yes, I agree.

Dr. Michael Garko:

They’re not. And I am just a mere PhD trying to get along, but I’m smart enough to know I look for all available means of therapy to help people create, sustain, and restore their health. If I have to kill chickens at midnight to make that, I’ll do that too. I referenced earlier, meaning whatever it takes.

Megan Lyons:

Right.

Dr. Michael Garko:

So that’s the mission here. And even when you do everything right, bad stuff can happen.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Somebody, go ahead.

Megan Lyons:

No, please go ahead.

Dr. Michael Garko:

So I was interviewed the other day. I think it was on CBS or wherever I was, and the interviewer was smart like you, and said, what do you think some of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to their health? Nobody ever asked me that.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

I said, well, first they think everybody else gets sick, and that makes them complacent. They’re not going to get cancer. They’re not going to get covid. They’re not going to get Parkinson’s disease. They’re not going to get arthritis. Everybody else is. But we know that’s not true. I’m living proof of that. What’s the second biggest mistake? People practice prevention. I get that. But they don’t practice preparation.

Preparation for what? Look, you’re either going to die of an accident or you’re going to die of some disease or disease processes or process. Here’s metaphor. Here’s the analogy. You can prevent a war. You can bargain your way. You can intimidate your way out of a war. You can negotiate it somehow. But what if you have to go to war? Are you prepared to fight it? In other words, you may be able to prevent a certain disease. You can’t prevent everything. Are you prepared to get sick? Are you prepared to recover from an accident as you get older? You have to build up enough inventory of health. You have to be in a state of preparation to fight the war while you’re doing certain preventive things. Even when you try to prevent stuff is still going to happen. It’s biology, man. You can’t bargain with biology. You can’t bully biology. You can’t negotiate with biology. You can’t. Every doctor, I had a team of five doctors, three surgeons, an oncologist and a radiation oncologist, and every one of them said to me, Dr. Garko, but for your inventory of health, you would not have made it.

Megan Lyons:

Wow.

Dr. Michael Garko:

All of those thousands of hours I put in the gym, all of my discipline in my diet. I commit nutritional sin just like everybody else. But I did a good job. I didn’t do many things really successful, but I did do that. Yes. And there I was with my mortality in my face. Death waltzed me around the room, Megan, for two years. I was scared out of my mind, and I’m a pretty tough guy. But anybody tells you they’re not afraid. They’re not telling you the truth.

Megan Lyons:

Right.

Dr. Michael Garko:

But the doctors told me, this is true too. The first time I was in front of my oncologist, my first interaction with him, and he’s talking to me and this and that, he talked to me for a long time. Dr. Fink did. And he said, Dr. Garko, I have to examine you. Would you take off your shirt for me, please? I said, of course. So I took off my shirt and he’s standing there. I’ll never forget, he had a cliff for his head. And he’s standing there like this, and he had a smile on his face. I said, what’s the matter? He said, Dr. Garko, I’m 42. You’re 72. I wouldn’t take my damn shirt off. He said, what are you doing? And I cracked the joke. I said, well, you need to listen to my show. I’m just a PhD. He’s brilliant, A brilliant oncologist. I was humble. And it’ll pay off. And I don’t care how old you are. It’s never too late, man.

Megan Lyons:

Yes,

Dr. Michael Garko:

It’s never too late.

Megan Lyons:

That is such a good takeaway. Be prepared. Practice preventative medicine. Work on your health. It is neither either. Okay. Well, I have cancer, so I only do chemo, and then I forget about all the other practices, nor I’m just going to kill chickens at midnight. Like you said, there’s hopefully no one takes that as real medical advice. There’s a happy medium where both can compliment each other, and you’re such a living testament to that. For those of you who can’t see, if you’re just listening to audio, Dr. Garko had me guess how old he was prior to recording, and I guessed 51. And he is 80, 80 years old. He looks fantastic for AD and has so much energy and zest for life and great information to share. So I’m very grateful to you for doing that here today. Well,

Dr. Michael Garko:

Our paths crossed here today.

Megan Lyons:

Yes,

Dr. Michael Garko:

Absolutely. And I look at you and I asked you before we came on, I was asking all kind of personal questions. You, Mary, your husband, what’s his name? What’s his name? Right? Why? Because I look at you and I see this young professional woman making an effort trying to help people, and you’re living your life in the better service of others. And I’ll leave you with this last thought. I see somebody such as yourself that inspires me, and it reminds me my mantra after I got sick and I was really humbled and I had to really think about my life and think about what’s important. So I ended up thinking this, live your life mindfully in the moment. One day at a time with purpose, passion, and gratitude, all in the better service of others. And that’s how I live my life. And that’s why I came onto your show today. I had a gazillion thing. I could have canceled. I got to do another. I got so much stuff going on right now, it’s crazy. And I said, no. For some reason, I said, I’m going to do crystal contact me. I said, I’ll do the show and sure, I’ll do it. And I look at you and I see this young woman with all this brilliant vibrance and health that’s inspiring to me. I feed off of that.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing.

Dr. Michael Garko:

I love that. So you tell Kevin that Dr. Garko said hello. He doesn’t know me. I will. And say, Dr. Garko said, you’re a lucky guy. He is going to say why. He says, because you got me.

Megan Lyons:

I will. He will be getting the message. I am equally, if not more inspired by you. So thank you so much for sharing today. I’d for you to tell the audience where to learn more about you, and I think there’s even an opportunity to ask you a question.

Dr. Michael Garko:

Sure, you can. I’m the nutrition advisor for this one company. I consult with a lot of companies, but it’s called Strauss Naturals, S-T-R-A-U-S-S. Go to strauss naturals.com. There’s a link there. It says, ask Dr. Garko, you can ask me any question you want. I respond to every one comments. And by the way, they make a great kidney formula, a great bladder formula, herbs. Look at those. Look ’em up while you’re there. I’m telling you those. I use those in my clinical practice, Megan, both of those for UTIs, for kidney issues, bladder issues, those two products are terrific. Strauss has been around for over 40 years. They’re a Canadian company. So those products are terrific. Kidney support drops, bladder support drops, but click on that link. Ask Dr. Garko, thank you Megan for inviting me on today. You’ve made my day

Megan Lyons:

And vice versa. We’ll put that link in the show notes and thank you so much again for coming on. Wellness Your Way all.

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