Lifestyle Changes to Prevent Cancer: 113
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In this episode, Cheryl interviews Dr. Christo Frangopoulos about how certain lifestyle factors related to cancer. Most people overlook one of the most powerful tools in preventing cancer: movement. Dr. Christo Frangopoulos reveals surprising facts about how simple lifestyle shifts, like breaking up sedentary time, can drastically cut your risk of cancer and boost your body's ability to fight it. If you're tired of just hearing “eat healthy and exercise,” this episode uncovers actionable strategies backed by the latest science to enhance your health span.
Discover why sitting is just as dangerous as smoking when it comes to cancer risk, and learn the practical tips to make movement a seamless part of your day. From how often to get up during work hours to the science of muscle-derived anti-cancer proteins called myokines, Dr. Christo shares insights that can change your approach to health.
We break down the true impact of sedentary behavior, the science behind autophagy and muscle contraction, and the critical role sleep plays in cellular repair and cancer prevention.You'll also uncover: the truth about alcohol’s relationship with cancer, the importance of inflammation markers like CRP, and why maintaining consistent sleep and circadian rhythms is crucial for lowering risk.
This episode is perfect for anyone looking to take control, whether you're battling family history or just want to live longer healthier lives.Dr. Christo Frangopoulos is an anesthesiologist, lifestyle medicine expert, and personal trainer known for integrating science-backed strategies to improve health outcomes across the U.S.
His insights on cancer prevention through lifestyle modifications are revolutionary yet accessible, making this a must-listen for health-conscious individuals and medical professionals alike.
Don't miss this opportunity to turn simple daily habits into potent cancer-fighting tools. Your health journey starts with the right knowledge and this episode delivers it. Hit play now and learn how to reframe your lifestyle for longevity and resilience.
Visit Dr. Frangopoulos at AltasMD360.com
Takeaways
- How sedentary behavior independently increases cancer risk, even with regular exercise
- The importance of muscle contraction and myokines in fighting cancer
- Lifestyle changes that can lower the risk of developing common cancers, especially colorectal cancer in young adults
- The critical role of sleep in DNA repair and cancer prevention
- The impact of inflammation markers like CRP on cancer risk
- Rethinking alcohol consumption and its nuanced effects on health
- Practical habit formation techniques, including the ‘two days' rule for sustainability
- Resources for health professionals and individuals via AtlasMD360.com
- Book: The Telomere Effect by Elizabeth Blackburn & Elissa Epel A scientific approach to aging and health
Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here.
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Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here.
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Episode transcript:
Cheryl McColgan (00:00)
Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of HealNurshGrow and today I'm really excited to be joined by Dr. Christo Frangopoulos and he is kindly letting me shorten his name to Dr. Chris or Chris, but he will introduce himself here in a moment. And why I really wanted to have Dr. Frangopoulos on today is because he is a board certified anesthesiologist. He's also a lifestyle medicine doctor and he's a personal trainer. So, you know, those are all things if you're a listener to this podcast that I am super excited about and that I love to chat about.
take it from here and just introduce yourself and share with people what you're all about and what you're here to talk about today.
Christo (00:35)
Wonderful. Well, I just wanna say thank you so much for having me. This is an honor and I really hope we can reach at least a few people out there to make a difference with the information I'm going to be sharing with Cheryl. As Cheryl said, my name is Christof Rangaples. It's much easier just to say Chris. I am an anesthesiologist for about a decade now. I have also got board certified in lifestyle medicine and a certified personal trainer and a lot of what I do
is share information that's evidence-based and science-backed that can optimize people's lifestyle. As a physician, I travel the country, I'm certified in about 10 different states, and the problem of healthcare is it's everywhere. And the state of our nation can really utilize a change in how we attack our health.
And I think lifestyle medicine offers so many great tools and it's super helpful. It's not overly complicated and can make a huge difference.
Cheryl McColgan (01:39)
It's so nice to have a doctor on that really appreciates that because I think so often, you we have more of a sick care system than health care system. And I'm sure that we'll get into that a little bit more. But the fact that you are trained in lifestyle medicine, that you recognize the significance and the importance of it, I think is a huge step in the right direction for the medical field. So I'm so glad that you're kind of promoting that and you have all that information on your website, all your good programs and continuing education. So I think that will be a huge benefit to the medical community. But one of the things that you're
Christo (01:49)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (02:09)
particularly interested when your team reached out is around cancer. And some people that know me personally or know some of my work and some of my writing will know that I have a lot of cancer in my family. And it's a big reason that I do a lot of the things that I do in my health and my life. So what what have you how did you become interested in cancer specifically? And then let's start with like what your number one top lifestyle change people can do to prevent cancer.
Christo (02:39)
Sure. So as an anesthesiologist, you can imagine we see every sort of surgery from something simple to very complicated cancer cases. And over my years, I've seen a lot of cancer surgeries and how they've affected.
their families, their communities, and it really is a, it's something that every one of us have experience with, whether it's yourself or a family member or a friend or a coworker, we are all affected by cancer and it is everywhere. But the truth of the matter is a lot of lifestyle change can actually make a huge difference in our cancer rates across the country.
And most people probably don't know this, but only about five to 10 % of cancers are from inherited gene mutations. Okay, so the other 90 % are often attributed to either a lifestyle or environmental exposures. So, you know, a lot of people think they're destined to get cancer because their family member has a cancer or whatnot. That is a small chunk of cancer.
It is actually our lifestyle and environmental exposures that can affect getting cancer, how we respond to cancer, and the aftermath of that, either being successful in treatment or not. And there's a lot of things we can do for it.
Cheryl McColgan (04:12)
Yeah, just to drive that point home, share that we were talking before we started recording and Dr. Christo was just kindly asking me if there was any, you know, thing to avoid around cancer because I had said that it's a lot in my family and it's been a while and it's always going to be hard. But my dad, when I was around, he was one of the first runners in the running boom, always going to the health food store, did all these super healthy lifestyle behaviors before this was really popular. And so was quite shocking, you know, when he ended up having these multiple cancer diagnosis later in
But as a young man, he, we lived in the south, we live in Louisiana, and this is in the 70s before a lot of OSHA things and whatever, and he worked in chemical plants. And he was a chemist by trade. you know, so I'm pretty fully convinced that for him, it was those environmental factors that you spoke of. So in addition to being in an environment like that, that's kind of an obvious situation. What are maybe some things that aren't as obvious that people might be exposed to that they can limit in order to prevent cancer?
Christo (05:10)
Yeah, and not to scare anyone right now, but it's kind of what we're doing. We're being sedentary, we're sitting down right now. it is, sedentary behavior is ubiquitous in our culture, right? It's how we do work every day. A lot of people sit at their desks in the office and there's sometimes little movement. Well, we know a lot of things, what are causes of cancer and actually sedentary behavior.
Even if you meet all of the activity guidelines, sedentary behavior itself is an independent risk factor for getting cancer. Of course, there's a bunch of numbers with these, but it's something that a lot of people don't even think about. And an easy solution is trying to get up and get moving every so often. For myself, am I stuck at an office or in an operating room case, in their long cases, I make sure I'm getting up.
every single hour on the hour, something I can remember just to get moving. And we'll talk more in depth about this, but movement itself is as a prevention for not only cancer, but a number of other things. But yes, sedentary behavior is a big one that we really don't think about very much. And a lot of us are exposed to that.
Cheryl McColgan (06:27)
Yeah, and I just want to I kind of want to build on something that you said just to make it super clear for people because I know this information, but if this is the first time somebody's hearing it, they might not understand it. So I think the recommendation right now is correct me if I'm wrong, because I know you'll know the right answer to this. It's like 150 minutes per week of physical activity for most adults. Right. But you're I think what you're saying is, OK, say you do that. You go to the gym and you do your 150 minutes. That's not the end. It's actually been that eight hours that you're sitting at your desk is still putting that on top
Christo (06:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yep.
Yes.
Yes, so you are correct. It is 100, so the physical activity guidelines is 150 to 300 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week. It could also be 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity activity or a combination of both knowing that one minute of vigorous intensity activity is equal to two minutes of moderate intensity activity. All that being aside.
150 minutes of moderate activity per week is the goal. It's something easy to remember. But yes, this sedentary behavior is independent of that. So if you're going to the gym and you're hitting all your marks, it doesn't give you license so much to go home and be a cash potato the rest of the day. And that's kind of the idea here. When we look at all of these different factors, it really comes down to getting your blood flowing.
No, it's more than that, that's simplistic explanation. But the simple answer is get your butt up, get moving, get your blood flowing, and it's something that we have to make it habitual. And again, we have such a sedentary lifestyle, it doesn't mean we're not doing anything, it just means that we're sitting at a chair at the office, we're at the desk all day, we're typing on the computer. It's just how our lives are built.
So we therefore have to change the environment around us to make sure that we aren't so sedentary. And there's a number of things that we can do for that.
Cheryl McColgan (08:30)
So what would be some of your favorite tips for people? mean, I think you mentioned saying getting up on the hour, everybody has a cell phone nowadays, so setting alarms or using apps. What are some other things besides that that people might do to kind of combat this sedentary behavior?
Christo (08:36)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sure, so that's a big one for me. It's something very easy to remember. On the hour, every hour, get up and get moving. Now if you're at the office or if you're somewhere where you're not at home, make sure you are going to the restroom that's farthest away from you, using the kitchen or water fountain that's not close to you, walking up and down the stairs just to get moving. It doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be
You know, I have to meet these marks. The simple answer is just get up, get moving, incorporate it into your day that's seamless. That's something that easy to remember for you. Maybe it's you have a favorite coffee station at the office, whatever may be, just try to make it make sure that you're able to incorporate as much movement as you can.
Cheryl McColgan (09:37)
I think that's really clear. So we want people to go to the gym. We want them to be strength training so they can prevent sarcopenia, maintain their muscle mass. That's all great for metabolic health, but we also just need people to just get out of the chair from their desk or away from the TV and just move
Christo (09:44)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
one of the most simple things that we can be doing to prevent cancer. And of course, there is more to
exercise in cancer prevention. We're talking about sedentary behavior, but it also can go from light to moderate activity, vagus activity, and then meeting the guidelines. They all have their unique benefits, and we can talk about that if you'd like.
But the sedentary behavior I think is just one of the most more shocking ones that people just may not know about
Cheryl McColgan (10:18)
Yes, totally agree with that statement from just getting moving because I think like I said before, people think they go to the gym and that's good enough. That's not that's not the end of the story. But you did touch on one I would like to maybe chat about a little bit more. And that was the use of exercise maybe in a different way. So I was very focused on fasting for a while when Dr. Urashimo I'm going to mess up his name. I'll put it in the show notes. But you know, when they first kind of discovered a Toshi back in 2016, and I learned about fast.
Christo (10:35)
Yeah.
You
Cheryl McColgan (10:47)
And
I was very focused on that for a while. But now that I've gotten older, my bigger concern is maintaining muscle mass as I get over the age of 50. And so I've kind of stopped that because I also learned that exercise actually promotes autophagy really strongly. And maybe I'll just have you actually talk about autophagy in a more scientific way so that people understand its relation to cancer. So maybe if you could talk about that with exercise, that would be awesome.
Christo (11:13)
Yeah, so I think how I relate this is something called myokines. When we exercise, you get our bodies moving and our muscles are contracting, they release something called myokines into the bloodstream. The simple answer is myokines are anti-cancer proteins. And the more we contract our muscles, the more these anti-cancer agents are moving around our bloodstream and
not only are we able to more effectively kill cancer cells, it is something that's going to promote, really just promote overall health in general, not just cancer, but everything else as well. There's actually a recent study in 2025 about breast cancer, it's out of Oxford, I believe, and they talk specifically about these myokines, and it was something
Don't quote me exactly on the number, but it was just one bout of vigorous intensity activity. It increased their blood circulating myokines by like up to 30 % and they exposed those myokines to breast cancer cells. And actually that number, the rate of growth was reduced by 30%. So it just goes to show how effective muscle contraction and movement is in
the anti-cancer in our body's ability to fight cancer off.
Cheryl McColgan (12:35)
Yeah, I will share. And I mean, again, not to bring it back to the but I think it's really relevant to what you're saying is I mentioned that my dad was kind of in the running boom and he had always lifted weight. He was like Jack Lilley basically, which was why it was such a shock that this but anyway, when he got this more serious diagnosis of cancer, I'm really convinced that the reason he did so well for so long was because every time he did a treatment, he got right back to his three days a week strength training, running, playing golf, super active, never let that go.
Christo (12:45)
⁓ wonderful. Yeah.
Absolutely.
Cheryl McColgan (13:04)
for the longest
Christo (13:04)
Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (13:05)
time. And so I think that that actually helped not only helped his quality of life while he was living with cancer, but also probably got him further down the road. I really think that's true.
Christo (13:11)
Yeah.
100%, there is so much robust science about this. a lot of, you of course, after something gets a diagnosis of cancer, of course, your body's going through changes and it is even more difficult to get up and get moving, going to gym and doing those things. So kudos to your father and anyone else who has gone through that to make sure they're giving their body the exercise they need because it's not only
It's exercise is not just a ⁓ healthy lifestyle modification. It's an actual biological intervention that helps fight cancer. Like it is proven. It is not just, it's not a replacement for your chemotherapies and your surgeries and whatnot, but it absolutely reduces your risk of getting cancer. It improves your survival if you do get cancer.
and there is only benefits from this. So this is just a really hard point to make that exercise is proven to improve your survival in a number of different ways. We're talking about cancer today, but there's a number of other things as well.
Cheryl McColgan (14:28)
it's pretty much the cure for everything, right? If you really want to look at it, it is. Yes.
Christo (14:30)
It is. It is. And it's free. It's free. We can all
do it. You know? Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (14:36)
I know it's very
exciting. Well, most of us, know, thankfully. So on that note, there is, I think I'd be remiss not to at least mention this and maybe get your thoughts on this. Because as you said, you're in the operating rooms, you've seen all these different kinds of cancer. Have any of your colleagues or you yourself had any thoughts on the significant rise of colon cancer in young people? ⁓ Are we thinking processed food? Are we thinking other lifestyle factors? Kind of what's your sense of it after being in the trenches with that?
Christo (14:57)
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, very astute question because that's actually the statistic I believe is colorectal cancer is the only cancer that is rising in people under the age of 50. And more recently, you know, this is early 2026, James Vanderbeek passed away, which a lot of us know from like Dawson's Creek and you know, other movies.
and Chadwick Boseman, another big time actor, and they both passed away from colorectal cancer at young ages. And sometimes it's a difficult pill to swallow when these people, you know, we don't know them, but they're part of our formative years. And the good thing about, and I don't say good thing, but maybe the positive silver lining is it's bringing awareness to people that this is something.
Now, do we know why colorectal cancer is increasing in this specific age group? No. As you alluded to, could very well be what's environmental exposures and I'm not saying this specifically to those gentlemen, but it can be a number of things. We don't know the exact answer. We do know there's a lot of different risk factors
for colorectal cancer that a lot of people do have and it's present in our nutrition system and how the United States is kind of set up. And it's a lot of processed foods, it's processed meats, it's adiposity when you're carrying some extra weight and obesity, being overweight, all of those things play a role into cancer.
Real briefly, this is something that I think a lot of people may not know, but obesity itself is a chronic form of low-grade inflammation, okay? So your body is under this chronic inflammatory state when you have obesity. And the reason that's important is because when we have bodily inflammation,
that increases the risk for mutations in our DNA, in our cells, and that's exactly how cancers can arise.
Cheryl McColgan (17:11)
So would that mean also, I think the most common marker that people probably get when they go to their annual checkup is an HSCRP, which is kind of a marker of general inflammation in the body. So would it be accurate to say that if you have a higher HSCRP that you are probably slightly more at risk for cancers and that would be a thing to maybe consider trying to actively lower?
Christo (17:19)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so CRP is one of the, ⁓ C-reactive protein is one of the markers for inflammation. There are a number of other ones, cortisol being ⁓ another big one. I don't wanna say, I don't wanna say for certain that yes, that is, that's true, because our body undergoes inflammation. Rewind a second. When you get a lab ⁓ test done, that is one point in time.
Right, it's that day. So it's hard, you're not gonna be testing your CRP every single day to know are you always under the same state of inflammation. That being said, your body undergoes inflammation for a number of reasons. And sometimes inflammation isn't bad. Sometimes it's reactive and appropriate for what we're doing. But yes, in the general sense, if you have…
maybe like dietary inflammation, if your body isn't sleeping properly and your body's in a general state that's heightened for inflammation, then yes, those kinds of things on a long-term basis are more what we're aiming for here. One lab test, it depends. It can be a number of different things. There's also a lot of…
different medical states and conditions that can increase your CRP. So it's not always like a perfect marker. It may be a clue and your healthcare provider can kind of clue you in to like put the whole picture together, but every individual is very different. And as I said, it's kind of a one marker in time. So lab tests can be helpful, but it's just not the end all be all.
Cheryl McColgan (19:06)
Yeah, understood. Just kind of wondered if there was any association there. And you mentioned one of my favorite words when you were just answering that question, that is sleep. I think it's one of the most underappreciated health.
elixirs basically for people and that so many people struggle with it. ⁓ But how would you describe sleep's relation to cancer? I know a lot of the stuff about sleep's relation to possible Alzheimer's prevention, but I haven't necessarily heard as much about cancer, so I'd love to hear your views on that.
Christo (19:18)
Yes. yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there's a couple of things to know regarding sleep and cancer. And I'm gonna draw back a discussion I had with a patient where they were like, I'm exercising all the time, I'm eating well, I'm getting all my minute guidelines, my stress is well managed. And then you dive a little bit deeper and they're like, oh, I only sleep four or five hours of night. And I'm like, oh, why are you doing that?
Well, you know, they're crazy busy. They're always productive. And we kind of take a step back and get more of a clue of, you know, the whole picture of that patient. And it was telling because as you mentioned, sleep, a lot of people, we almost treat it as an afterthought. You know, it's at the end of the day, we kind of get in our beds and go. However, sleep is so critical
for our overall health that it really needs to get more of a bright light on it because it's that important. And the relationship to cancer is actually, it's very clear and I'll tell you why. At night, throughout the day, 24 hours, your body is always undergoing maintenance. Your body's always fixing damaged DNA, fixing
cells that are damaged for whatever reason and we're repairing them or we're scheduling them for apoptosis and getting them out of our bodies. Now that happens all 24 hours, but it's way more active when we're sleeping. It's when the maintenance workers of our body are going to work and that happens at night. So if you're not getting enough sleep, we are, or quality sleep.
We are not restoring, we're not repairing those DNA in the cells and those mutations. It's almost like a glitch in the system where these mutations occur and then they live on and they thrive. the more and more those mutations grow, that's when you get a tumor. So when we don't get that sleep at night, our maintenance workers aren't working and those mutations kind of can grow into cancer more easily.
Cheryl McColgan (21:43)
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And what would you what would your advice be to people? I mean, I've written about this a lot. So there's some free resources on my website for better sleep. And I do all the things I am committed to sleep. You know, I have the cooling bed, the cooling bed, the dark room, the I like everything. So there's all those kind of tips. But if somebody wants to do something without devices, and without drugs in particular, I think that people
Christo (21:53)
Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Sure.
Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (22:08)
I'd love to hear your perspective on that and kind of what are some more natural ways people can approach doing this that aren't devices that don't cost a lot of extra money.
Christo (22:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, we can talk a lot about this. think it's actually, ironically, it's sleep awareness week right now. So it's, ⁓ yeah, it's a big topic right now. So what can you do? So you mentioned a lot of things regarding sleep environment, where you're sleeping in a cool, dark place, cool, dark and quiet place, not silent, but quiet. And a lot of people focus on that, which is really good.
Cheryl McColgan (22:23)
Nice.
Christo (22:40)
But something that people may not know is what we do during the day matters very much how good quality of sleep we get at night. And this is not going to be a shocker, but one of the best activities that you can do during the day to get more quality sleep, a higher level of deep sleep, is exercise. exercise really is just a panacea for everything.
⁓ But the reason being is when you exercise, your body's obviously working a lot harder and its body temperature goes up. Well, a few hours after, your body temperature starts to cool down and that's exactly what we would like for sleep. So it's just something that every single day we wanna incorporate some sort of exercise for that.
And there are a number of other things like the three two one zero rule if you've heard of that or we could talk about that. ⁓
Cheryl McColgan (23:39)
Yeah,
I'm not familiar with that one. So I'd love it if you'd share that
Christo (23:41)
Yes, yeah, yeah, the three, two, one, zero rule. It's something easy to remember because of the numbers, but three hours before bed, you don't have any more food. Are you able to do a light snack? Sure. But you don't want to have your dinner too close to bedtime. You want to give your body enough time for digestion. If you're eating too close to meals, excuse me, too close to bedtime, you can have indigestion. You can have a number of different things that can cause disruption to your sleep.
Two hours before bed, no work or no stimulation. You really want to, yeah, I know, I'm a culprit of this. It is, it is. It's one of those things where I'm like, what's the phrase? ⁓ Don't do as I say. Yes, that's it. Yep, so I'm a bad one on that, because I'm a workaholic. But yes, no more work two hours before bed. And it's really just trying to unwind and kind of decrease your stimulation. That's the real reason.
Cheryl McColgan (24:13)
That's a hard one.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Christo (24:38)
One hour before bed, no screen time. And this is something where I say, mean it, no screen time. Blue, I talked to a sleep medicine doctor last year or so, and she's a great friend of mine. And she just says, how many people are, we're all so glued to our phones. And not only that, it's like a fifth appendage where we're sleeping, it's right next to our beds. And the, one of the best tips that she gave me was,
to use an actual alarm clock. Get that phone away from your bed. You don't need it when you're in the bedroom. It's, know, emergencies happen and whatnot, so you can have it somewhere nearby, but it doesn't need to be an arm's length. anyway, no screen time after one hour before bed. And then the zero is a little bit different. It's the number of snoozes were allowed, or ideally allowed, zero.
Cheryl McColgan (25:34)
you
Christo (25:36)
And that really focuses on having a consistent wake time. And that's even something that we wanna do on our days off from work. And the reason being actually does relate to one of the risk factors for cancer is circadian rhythm disruption. If you have a consistent wake time, your body is just much happier.
it works more efficiently. The nighttime maintenance things that we talked about are more, just work better. And you really, you keep that wake time and then if you have to adjust your bedtime, you adjust your bedtime to something earlier. But a consistent wake time is something that is a forever rule of thumb if we're able to.
Cheryl McColgan (26:21)
Well good, I've got to work on the zero and the two probably a little bit for myself. ⁓
Christo (26:27)
Yeah, yes, none
of us are going to be perfect at this. An 80-20 rule, try to aim for 80 % of these, 20%, give yourself some grace.
Cheryl McColgan (26:36)
Yes, progress over perfection, one of my favorite things. So ⁓ one thing that we didn't hit on yet that I think is fairly important for cancer stuff, and I think it's, it's good because there's a trend, there's a downward trend in alcohol consumption, I think since the pandemic, basically. And I think everyone has always known that alcohol consumption is related to cancer, but somehow it wasn't being driven home as much as it has maybe the last
Christo (26:39)
Yes, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (27:06)
five to 10 years. So we'd just love to get your thoughts on that. mean, nobody wants to hear this if you like, you know, having a glass of wine with your steak or something like that. But, but I think, you know, minimizing these things, like we're talking about minimizing environmental exposures, maximizing sleep, I mean, can we talk a little bit about it? Because it's going to be unpopular, but it is a thing.
Christo (27:08)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So I try to tiptoe just to be gentle with this because people do have strong feelings like I want my red wine at night and you can't convince me otherwise. There's a lot of topics to talk about. There's a lot of discussion points. The plain answer here is no amount of alcohol is
Cheryl McColgan (27:28)
you
Christo (27:44)
helpful for your health, okay? So there's no benefit to it. Some people who drink red wine say there's, you know, the, my God, nitro, it's skipping my, yes, Reservatrol, yes, thank you so much. Is helpful for you, yes, it is, but so are having a handful of grapes and you don't have to have it in a wine form. ⁓ So there's,
Cheryl McColgan (27:52)
Reservitrol.
I think I read that to get enough Reservatrol,
you'd have to drink like 25 barrels of wine or something to get so it's like, it's not even a thing.
Christo (28:08)
Exactly. Yeah. It's one of those reasons that Hawaiian connoisseurs are like, yeah, well,
it's fine. I'm one of those people where you have to enjoy life too. it's, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. But yeah. And then a lot of people actually bring up like the blue zones. Have you heard of the blue zones before? Yeah. Perfect. So blue zones, one of the discussion points
Cheryl McColgan (28:27)
Absolutely. Yeah, we talked about it a little bit on the podcast.
Christo (28:35)
is having red wine in moderation during meals when you're socializing. So when you're watching Netflix having a bottle of red wine, it's not the same as having a glass of wine slowly over a couple hours with dinner socializing, which is a protective factor for your health. So it's a little bit different. It's kind of a scenario.
⁓ but yeah, they used to kind of say two drinks for men, one drink for women per day. That's, that's changed. There's another, the most recent administration came out with new dietary guidelines, for Americans just maybe a month ago or so. lots of talking points there. We won't go too into that, but there is one regarding alcohol and they
They kind of, I'm trying to word this correctly, they said enjoying some alcohol in moderation isn't advised, but it's it's okay to do, which I think where they're coming from with that is trying to have social connections, it's a, because the reality is a lot of people do enjoy alcohol together and it brings people together and there are,
health benefits to that. The alcohol standpoint, as I said, no organizations recommend any healthy amount of alcohol, but there is something to be said about enjoying your life and having social connections and bringing people together. And I think that is positive. I think they at least nailed that part for sure. Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (30:13)
Yeah, and I would agree with you that I think that that having traveled extensively in the Mediterranean that that is where, you know, there's a lot of issues with those Blue Zone studies, right? We don't need to go into all that today. But I think that the one that probably everybody can agree on is the importance of community and support systems and the amount of movement that all of those zones get. They're very active. They have this great support and connection and they have this community that a lot of other places in the world don't have. So whatever you think about their diet or their wine consumption or
Christo (30:24)
Yes, yeah.
Yeah.
100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (30:43)
of that I think that
we can agree on the rest of it for sure.
Christo (30:47)
Yeah, you're nailing
it on the head because when we have these discussions, if you see these other very in-depth evidence-based discussions online, we're really zooming in on one little thing. And the reality is it's the totality of our lifestyle that affects our health outcomes. Having a glass of wine, I'm not gonna say don't do it.
But what's the rest of your health look like? What's rest of your lifestyle look like? We have to be reasonable about it and not getting a good night's sleep here and there, no big deal. But if it's a consistent chronic issue, sure, then you address something. But a lot of us have the idea of any 20 or progress over perfection. It's just the idea of trying to do our best to improve and giving ourselves some grace.
as we alluded to way back when, in the beginning of this conversation, what we're doing right now for most people in this country, we're not successful with our health. We just simply aren't. And so we have to start addressing these issues more head on and figuring out what can we start changing? And that kind of brings up another point. A lot of us know what's healthy. We know what's healthy, but we're not so good at
how to make effective change and how to keep those change long, you know, as a sustainable habits for ourselves. And I think that's something that we could all kind of work on, especially the health and fitness professionals teaching people how to do those things.
Cheryl McColgan (32:26)
Yeah, that's that's one of the huge focuses of my work is to have my background in psychology. So the whole habit change is something that's been a very long time interest of mine. And so it's Yeah. So since you brought Thank you. Yeah. Since you brought that up, I want to be respectful of your time. But I think just one final one final actionable thing that we could have here is in you. Like you said, you've been a personal trainer, your lifestyle, medicine, doctor, that probably is the biggest challenge for me. I think everybody at this point
Christo (32:32)
⁓ yes.
Yeah, I saw the 30 day challenge too. Love it. Love it.
No, it's okay.
Cheryl McColgan (32:56)
they should be doing, they know they should be moving more, know they should be eating better, they know they shouldn't be drinking too much, but at the execution of it. So what would be your best tips for people on how to actually make changes in your experience? Like what's been the most successful?
Christo (32:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Mmm.
Yeah,
really good question. So I am a big proponent of utilizing the current routines you have and adding on to them. It's a lot harder to start something brand new. So if you're able to, so say in the morning you already, you you brush your teeth, you wash your face. Well, you know, start adding in healthy habits to that existing routine and do that. Most habits take a.
The science says 66 days if you're doing it every single day. It's really about the repetition. And our brains, they're neuroplastic. So we can learn to do these things. We can be successful in them. The idea is just making sure we do them repetitively enough that it sticks. Just like swinging a baseball bat and learning how to play baseball or work on the computer and getting better at typing or whatever analogy you wanna use. We can do that with our lifestyle as well.
And I think most of us have some sort of routines already. So we wanna kinda zoom out, look at our routines. What can you add into that routine that's going to improve your health? What are you trying to improve? And once you kinda get that awareness, you're able to add something in. Do it every single day. I use the rule of twos. I kinda made this up, but for two months, do a new habit for two months.
without missing two consecutive days. And that is something that kind of, again, points to the consistency repetition. And then once you get that, add onto it. Start small and build up, and over time, you're gonna have this considerable change that's gonna be really, make a big impact on your health. Yeah.
Cheryl McColgan (34:51)
Yeah, I love that two days rule because part of that you mentioned the 30 day challenge part of it was like not making people overly stressed about it like hey, if you miss a day, it's fine. But the challenge with that is it's okay to miss a day, but you don't want to miss like two, three, four, then all of a sudden, it's not a habit anymore. So I love that just don't miss two days in a row. That's very good.
Christo (34:59)
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah,
easy to remember.
Cheryl McColgan (35:11)
so we've covered some awesome information today. And I'm really excited for people to connect with you. Can you share your website, tell them about some of the programs we talked about before we have for professionals for regular folks, what are all the good things that people can learn from you?
Christo (35:25)
Yeah, absolutely. So atlasmd360.com, it has a bunch of resources, a of free resources as well. You can do a health audit assessment, you can take some quizzes, there's a free 30 minute course, there are free resources on how to improve your ⁓ heart lab work, and a bunch of other things. And if you are a professional looking for continuing education,
There are approved accredited programs for health and wellness coaches, personal trainers, and AMA category one credits for a bunch of physicians and NPs and PAs. And then if you are non-professional and you're looking to improve any part of your lifestyle, there are programs for you as well. But overall, we have a lot of free resources and I just, hope when I these podcasts, I honestly just hope
One person learned something good that they can take away from this and make some positive difference.
Cheryl McColgan (36:23)
Well, Dr. Frangopoulos, I have no doubt whatsoever that people learned way more than one thing in this conversation. And I just want to thank you for sharing your time and knowledge today. So I appreciate it.
Christo (36:28)
I hope so. I hope so.
Thank you Cheryl for having me. I appreciate it and I'm loving what you're doing so keep it up. It's awesome.
Cheryl McColgan (36:39)
Thank you.
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