- As you may know, I was born in Russia
and I speak Russian fluently.
But I've never really spoken Russian on this channel.
And it's because, well how about this?
I'll tell you in Russian.
(Speaks Russian)
(both laugh)
I got you guys.
(soft upbeat music)
- Joining us today is Sasha Spilberg,
who spends her time between LA and Moscow.
And she's an absolute rock star,
but she came with some medical questions
that she wants to stump me with.
- And I'm so excited to ask you these questions and be here.
- Be honest are they hard? Should I be worried?
- No they're simple. - You promise?
- But I feel like they'll be interesting.
- Well, I'm hoping you guys learn something and maybe,
if she stumps me, you won't see it.
(both laugh)
Let's do it, I'm ready to answer some questions.
- Yay, I've been told many times by doctors
that I have very weird feet placement.
That like I should be standing like this,
but my feet are like this, right?
- Okay outwards.
- And so that I have to do massages, pilates and
like all of this stuff to make my body more perfect.
Do you have to do it?
Like, I'm I gonna get more problems
if I don't do the massages
and just live the way I was built originally?
(Dr.Mike laughs)
- The fact that a doctor told you that
you need to get your body perfect
- Yeah. - is all ready a strange
comment coming from a doctor. - Okay.
- We're uneven, humans are uneven.
First of all, we develop in the womb
in our mama's bellies, - Yeah.
- a little bit off.
Plus when we go into the environment,
we carry book bags on one side,
we sit on desks where we lean on the other side,
but that's okay, our bodies adapt.
If you're, very uneven and unproportional,
you can have a serious imbalance.
If that's happening
as a result of a muscle that's under-trained,
that can be something that's easily correctable
with physical therapy, acupuncture,
all these integrative therapies.
And that's why it takes an honest doctor
to take a look at your body as a whole
and your lifestyle as a whole
and give you the best advice possible.
You mentioned your feet don't have proper alignment.
- Yeah.
- I'm not a podiatrist. I'm a family medicine doctor,
but I know that many of my patients who do
what we call over pronate or over supinate,
that's the type of angle that you have in your feet,
there's ways to fix that
with proper fitting footwear and orthotics.
So this is a new shoe,
so you don't really see my wear pattern.
But when I look at someone's shoe,
and they're complaining of let's say knee pain
or ankle pain, - Yeah.
- and I see that it wears more on this side,
like it starts riding up,
that means the person's over pronating
and they're putting a lot of pressure
on this side of their shoe.
- Okay, wait a second.
- So yeah let's look at your shoe, I wanna see it.
We'll do it like a real doctor encounter.
- Okay, I got it.
- Oh yeah so, look actually you'll see it yourself.
You see how this side is a little bit more worn
than this side?
- I've never noticed.
- Yeah, so I don't know Dan can you see that?
- [Sasha] What?
- It's mild, yours would be very mild.
There's special shoes that are for over pronators
where this part of the shoe is firm
and this part of the shoe is more cushion.
So actually they get more support on the inside
so that their foot,
sort of evens out when they take their steps.
And that not only can affect your foot,
causing foot pain, it can affect the joint above,
which is ankle pain, as well as knee pain.
- You explain everything in such a simple manner.
That's fascinating.
- Thank you.
- That's fascinating.
Do you believe in like shamans
and the stuff that they do to your body?
'Cause I've had like, I've had an experience like that.
- Like the crystal healers and reiki.
- I wouldn't say crystal healers.
I've had an experience where, in 15 minutes,
this woman was massaging my foot
and she changed the placement in 15 minutes
I walked differently.
Like it wore away with a couple of days, but-
- When you say placement, what do you mean?
- Placement as in, I stood up and I was walking differently.
So I was walking the normal way
and I could feel my muscles
that like I don't usually feel on my (speaks Russian).
- On your heel? Heel?
- Yes.
- She is a shaman? - Yes.
- Not like an acupressure,
- She is, but like she--
- She's gifted in the-- - Yes, she's like connected.
- In order to be a good doctor, you need to be a balance.
You need to be a skeptic,
but you need to be a healthy skeptic.
When I say healthy skeptic it means that,
I can't not believe anything,
'cause you're telling me something happened.
But it also has to mean that
I can't just recommend this to everybody
'cause it worked for you. - Yeah.
- We call that anecdotal evidence.
Where you have an anecdote
and it worked for you, - Yeah.
- and I'm happy that it worked for you,
but whether or not it works for everybody,
- Okay, I got you. - I'm doubtful.
Massage therapy, acupuncture,
all of these integrative therapies, they work for people.
It's not clear through what mechanism.
We don't even know really why acupressure
or acupuncture works, but in some people it does.
So when you go to a shaman
or an acupuncturist - Yeah.
- or anybody like that,
that's like integrative or - Yeah.
- very homeopathic and you get a good result,
it doesn't mean that the reason you had the good result
is because of whatever it was you had.
- It's because I'm convinced it works?
- Yes. - Interesting.
- Now do you think that's a bad thing or good thing?
- I think that's a good thing.
- It is a good thing.
We always say placebo effect is bad.
It actually shows the power of our minds.
That we can actually self heal.
We can get better outcomes by thinking positively,
by believing in the efficacy of certain treatment.
So if we know that, we should be putting a lot more emphasis
on our mental health.
And that's what we do on the channel,
to try and get people excited about it.
- Yeah, I don't think that
we talk so much about mental health where I'm from so,
back in Russia. - Of course.
- Which is a little bit sad, but we're getting there.
- Why do you think that is?
- In my opinion, a Russian's perspective on any problem
or any mental health problem would be like,
deal with it and go forward, you know.
Like don't look back.
And that's how a lot of us live and how we approach life,
which might not be the very best way to go.
- Do you think that approach, sometimes is best, sometimes?
- A lot of the times, because it gets the job done but
you know, it's like having,
something really heavy on your shoulders
that you pull through it but then at the end,
you're not really getting rid of,
you know, what's on your shoulders
even though you're moving forward.
- So correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is
short term, it's a great solution a lot of times
- Exactly. - Long-term, may not be good.
- Thank you. - Okay.
- You take my English to the next level.
- No, it's a good thought that you're having.
You're actually having really advanced thought,
it's a good thing.
If you are very skinny, your whole life,
you're more likely to develop osteoporosis,
which is a condition where you have weak bones,
later in life.
So that's why what I recommend,
for my patients that are 60, 70 years old,
a lot of them think they should just walk or run
or something, aerobic exercise.
But I tell them they have to do weights.
Why? Because putting stress on your bones
actually makes them stronger and prevents disease.
When you exercise,
you're actually putting a stress on your muscles,
which encourages them to grow.
- Interesting.
- When you face a challenge in life,
that's another way that you're making your mind
and self stronger.
But now longterm,
if you never address, - Yeah.
- chronic stress, - Yeah.
- it becomes a bigger problem.
And I think that's what in Russia
we make a mistake of doing.
- Interesting.
- I'm glad we see eye to eye.
(speaks Russian)
- Yeah, of course.
- It's so cool to connect with someone
who actually understands. - Yeah, I know.
- You're the first Russian person on my channel.
- You're the first Russian person I've ever shot with in LA.
That's so cool.
- Representing the Russian community on YouTube.
- Yeah, yeah!
I wanted to ask you about the diet here in the US.
I've been here for half a year.
Eating, I would say pretty healthy.
I don't eat a lot of snacks, fast food, none of that.
But I gained
weight for the first time in my life that doesn't go away.
Even when I try to diet or exercise, it doesn't go away.
I thought it was hormones, no, no, it wasn't.
Like I've heard from a lot of
people who came from Russia actually
that there's something in the food here,
in the products, that makes you gain weight
and then you can't lose it.
- As you get older, - Yeah.
- it will become more difficult to lose weight.
And you're still not of that age that it's a problem but,
be ready for that
'cause that will always be something that will happen.
Generally the age that I say is like 28
is where you start having a really great metabolism
and it starts slowly, slowly decreasing.
- But I'm 22!
- I know, I'm just saying.
I'm preparing you for it. - Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
- The second thing is,
in America what's different than anywhere else in the world
is portion sizes.
We have giant portions.
Like if you look at a regular sized meal
in any fast food restaurant in the US
and you compare it to France, Italy, even Russia,
it's double the size. - Yeah.
- So that will contribute to eating more calories.
Second, what we do in America and why
we consider the American standard diet the worst diet
in the world, is because the amount
of processed foods, in our diet.
The thing about processed foods,
like why is a processed food so bad?
When we've done studies and we had them eat a processed diet
and then not a processed diet and flip the two groups,
we've seen that, the people who eat the processed diet,
want to eat more.
So even without the food being itself unhealthier,
it changes your eating habits.
So living in America,
not only are you eating bigger portions,
- Yeah. - but your habits change.
You wanna eat more and more often.
- Yeah.
- The food is more addicting.
And because of that, without even realizing it,
you're consuming more calories on a daily basis
here in America than you are anywhere else in the world.
- Is there a specific time you could expect to like
start losing weight drastically after you cut the calories?
- Yes, so each person has their own basal metabolic rate.
How many calories they need to stay even
with their weight per day.
We do a rough estimate that the average person
should eat about 2000 calories a day to stay even.
But it's actually different person to person.
How much exercise you do, whether you're male or female,
there's a lot of factors.
Once you get that number,
subtract 500 calories each day for a week.
That will take away 3,500 calories
and that will burn one pound.
Each calorie is not equal.
So if you drink a juice
with a lot of let's say apples in it, it is not the same
as eating those apples.
When you eat the apple, you get sugar.
When you drink the juice, you get sugar.
When you eat the apple, you also get fiber.
Fiber changes the way your body absorbs the sugar.
So it's always healthier to get the natural whole food
rather than the processed food.
- Interesting. - And juice,
which most people will never say, it's processed.
Would you ever eat six oranges?
- No.
- That's too many orange. - Yeah.
- But would you ever have a glass of orange juice?
- Yeah.
- It takes six oranges to make a glass of orange juice.
- Oh my God.
- So you see how easy it is to over eat sugar,
when it's like, if you just ate two oranges,
you would have been full.
But instead now you're having six,
in a glass, with a ton of sugar with no fiber.
That's the problem.
- These were all my questions.
- Awesome, okay so I hope we learned something.
And if you have follow-up questions, I'm always available.
- Okay, okay cool.
(Dr.Mike laughs)
And you explain everything in such a simple way
that it's just so fun to be around you.
- Awesome. - That's so cool.
- I've done a lot of these ask Dr. Mike's,
but the best ones come on the street.
So click here for my curbside consult segment.
And if you have any questions for us,
drop them down below in the comments,
we're gonna answer them.
(soft upbeat music)