The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Dr. Ed Castro And Kellee Kortas Joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Dr. Ed Castro, Owner of Castro Integrative Medicine, and Kellee Kortas, Wellness Coach at Castro Integrative Medicine, joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc, Castle Hill Cider, and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex. This is Xavier. We're very excited to have you joining us on this brisk morning, but sunny morning here in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's a great day to get to wherever you are most comfortable watching today. You almost had me there because you went like this, and I thought, oh, I'm supposed to say my name. I said, no, he always says my name. I always say that.

Just in case you ever know, you forget. I wasn't paying attention, so am I supposed to say something? Well, now you didn't say, how are you doing this morning? How are you doing, Alex? How are you doing this morning? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. You'd also remind people what they're supposed to do during the show today. We forgot that in the mic-only portion. Like, share, and subscribe.

There you go. There you go. So be sure to do that. Send us any comments, questions you have. We're going to be joined by some fantastic guests in a moment. We're going to welcome Dr. Ed Castro and Kelly Tortas from Castro Integrative Medicine to the show this morning. So we're really excited about that. Later in the show, David and I will talk some finance. I know we'll talk a little things you can do, IRAs, Roth IRA changes, different, you know, how much you can put in your 401k

has changed little tips and tricks that that we've thought of and that often come into play when we're sitting down with clients so we'll have a little bit of that already got some great guests joining us Monica Miller from Montana going to be watching the show this morning Dr. Elizabeth Irby watching

the show this morning so thank you both for joining us so it's going to be fantastic. It's funny. We have kept the street alive ever since Michael and I, three weeks ago, complained about UVA basketball on a losing street. They have not lost. Have they won any on the road, though? They won on the road.

They did win one on the road. That was their Achilles heel. They did. So, you know, Michael and I, because I think it was a few weeks ago, we were sitting there saying, oh, man, what would we do to add a little to the beginning of the show? And we're like, oh, we'll just talk a little UBA basketball. But, of course, they had, like, lost three in a row.

So Michael and I are sitting there saying, well, you know, I didn't do better. You know, we're struggling. And then they haven't lost. So that's always a welcome reprieve. Of course, I'd always like to thank our presenter, Emergent Financial Services,

and our great partners, Matias Yon Realty, Credit Series Insurance, Tassel Hill Cider, Forward Adelante, and of course, thank all of you for tuning in this morning. So I don't know about you, but I'm excited to jump right in. I'm excited, me too. I just want to learn much more about this. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we're excited to welcome to the show this morning Dr. Ed Castro,

the founder and Teletortas Integrative Health Practitioner at Castro Integrative Medicine. Dr. Ed, Kelly, thanks so much for coming on this morning. Thanks for having us. Pleasure. Thanks for having us. Actually, we're allowed to say buenos dias, right? Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Pleasure. Thanks for having us. Actually, we're allowed to say buenos dias, right? Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Buenos dias.

Buenos dias. Buenos dias. Buenos dias. For our today manana. I have to do the bilingual every once in a while. That's right. So maybe to start, for those who haven't met you, maybe aren't familiar with castrointegrative medicine, maybe tell us a little bit about yourselves,

obviously, Dr. Redd, how you founded the institution, and then, Kelly, how you came along. All right. Well, integrative medicine, you could call it holistic medicine, you could call it alternative medicine. It's medicine that's not conventional medicine. So these are treatments that conventional doctors don't do. And so my treatments are not FDA approved, so that sounds bad. But the reason they're not FDA approved is because they're not patentable. So it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get FDA approval.

And so it doesn't matter how good a treatment is. It matters if it's patentable. So there are a lot of treatments that are very natural, holistic, that promote health in an array of ways. They promote health. Conventional medicine, talking particularly about chronic illness, have drugs that help reduce symptoms. And that's one way to go about it.

I think it's better to address the reason the person has symptoms to promote the health and recover from the condition. So like a real obvious difference between conventional and like what we do is autoimmune disease. So in conventional medicine, if you have an autoimmune problem, and there are dozens of autoimmune diseases, basically your are dozens of autoimmune diseases, basically your immune system is the problem, so you suppress your immune system to get symptomatic relief. And you do, but that's at the cost of suppressing your immune system probably for a lifetime. So there are some risks with that.

What conventional doctors don't know, probably don't believe, is that there are treatments that improve immune functioning. Improve it, whether it's an autoimmune disease, whether a person has cancer, a chronic infection, or an acute infection. And so that's the kind of thing that we do. So we see a lot of chronic illness. That's very common. Mold is common right now. Chronic Lyme is common. And we see a lot of autoimmune diseases as well.

We see other things. We see cancer. We don't treat cancer outright, but we support a person's immune system. While they're seeking treatment. And the treatments actually help, if they're doing chemo or radiation, helps chemo or radiation work better and it protects them a little bit from it. Which makes sense. So oncologists don't know that, so they don't recommend it. But it's in the literature. It's in the medical literature.

And so how did you first become interested in this field and decide to start? Yeah, I was a conventional doctor for 12 years. I was one of them. I was in conventional medicine. I thought the way they thought. I did what they did. And I stumbled into a treatment, neurofeedback. And I looked into a little further and I looked at it a little further. I decided, I think I'm going to do this, even though it was not FDA approved, and it opened up my eyes. It just blew the hinges off the door.

Example is, oh, I was a psychiatrist. I was a conventional psychiatrist for those 12 years. And so an example of what neurofeedback did is like a child with ADHD, I could prescribe Ritalin, and he could pay attention for a few hours. It didn't help anything else, and it did hurt some other things. Neurofeedback, basically, your brain regains its fine-tuning that it was designed to have. So this boy not only paid attention, he quit wetting the bed. His anxiety resolved.

He got better at soccer. Basically, his brain was working the way it was designed to bed. His anxiety resolved. He got better at soccer. Basically, his brain was working the way it was designed to work. And so that got me like, what? You know, there's a treatment like this, and I never heard of it? So I looked for other treatments, and I found some. Chelation was one. Hyperbaric oxygen was one. Anyway, so then lo and behold, there's a clinic in southwest

Virginia that has an international reputation. And the doctor at the clinic had an international reputation. And he was one of the experts in chelation. And so I went there and I said, would you train me? So he hired me. So I worked there for a while. So that's where I learned a lot of the treatments. And I acquired other treatments over time. And Kelly, how about yourself? How did you first come to join the team? I wouldn't leave them alone. I had kind of started my own business myself, taking on some patients.

They're supposed to be called clients when you're not an MD. And I was enjoying that but wanted to learn more, wanted to work with someone and be able to have that partnership and offer more opportunities to people for their healing, and so went to ask him what he did, loved it, and kind of kept showing up until they hired me. No, it was serendipitous. My head nurse, Ashley, had been telling me for some time, you know, you need to give patients more information on how to do this stuff.

You know, I'd tell them about nutrition or diet in addition to the treatments. And she said, you know, you need to maybe, you know, give handouts or something. So Kelly comes in, I mean, and she is like a font of information about diet and nutrition in detail. That's not my style. And so she can help people kind of with the very practical part of it as well. Like if you're eating and you want to improve your diet, you may not want to start what a really good diet is. And she can help you kind of gradually make better choices so you end up

with a really good diet. And it was an easy trip for you because of her knowledge of diet and nutrition. And so she compliments me really well because I wasn't doing that. What I was going to say was, so my parents and my wife's parents, my wife's parents grew up in Italy and my parents in Spain. And I remember my grandparents

whenever they were ill, they would go to the herbologist, right? So they go to, and I have been there, and they had like there was a small place, but they got herbs all over the place. So you just tell them what you what your ailments were. And they go there and they take two or three herbs and say, here, you know, put it, you know, makes your tea.

And boom, that's, and my grandfather never, ever went to a doctor. You know, it was unbelievable. He never went to a doctor and passed away. I think it was like 84, 85 years old, you know, but it's, so my, I guess my question to you is, is that part of what you do is try to find, you know, you know, that which nature has given us to help your body? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, you know, all drugs used to come from plants. They'd find the active ingredient, they'd tweak it, they'd put it in a drug. When in fact, the plant material often worked at least as well or better and didn't have any downsides, didn't have any risks.

That's not the way things are made. But no, we try to get people on track with the things that promote health in a natural manner that have basically no risk. Well, very, very low risk. Very, very low risk. Very, very low risk. Unlike drugs. Which, I mean, it makes perfect sense. I mean, like you mentioned, sometimes people can be a little scared by,

this is not FDA approved. But if you've ever bought, like, a probiotic jar or even, like, what's the one? Airborne. You'll notice on the little airborne thing it says, this product is not FDA approved. It doesn't mean that taking airborne is bad for you. It just means airborne is vitamin C. It was in no one's interests to spend millions of dollars to get vitamin C FDA approved. We could go down a rabbit hole with that. Exactly. So in other words, there are lots of things out there that you can do

for yourself which say on the bottle, this is not FDA approved. But it doesn't mean the FDA looked at it and said, oh, this is bad. I have to give it the stamp of unapproval. It just means it wasn't in anybody's financial interest to go and spend the time and the money to get it patented and therefore FDA approved. So what would you say are some of the major treatments that people, it sounds obviously chronic pain is a significant one. What are the typical, if there is something typical, what are the range of treatments that you kind of specialize in or that people often come into you for?

Yeah, a lot of the treatments we do are intravenous. Ozone, ultraviolet, blood radiation. That's an extraordinary treatment. We do EDTA chelation that treats cardiovascular disease. We do high-dose vitamin C. That supports cancer patients in particular. We do some other IVs. Those are the main ones. I inject ozone and umbilical cord products, like, into joints to regenerate tissue.

That's one of the nice things. Several of the treatments we do help people avoid surgeries. So it's not uncommon. Someone comes in bone on bone, you need a knee replacement. They do a series of injections, they grow cartilage, and they don't need the surgery. They don't have pain or way reduced pain. People can also avoid stents and bypasses with the EDT

achylation. So the range of symptoms that people come in for is obviously pretty vast then. We tend to see people who have gone through the traditional allopathic medical system and are sick of taking certain medications they want to get off them they're not seeing relief things continue to progress and so we see people with a huge range but oftentimes i feel like when they come to us they're like you're my last hope they're looking they're really kind of looking for i want something else i know i

need something else and i've tried they've tried so many different things. And so they're a little bit more open to these non-FDA approved things. So is it possible sometimes, you know, you're given so many drugs for a particular, you know, ailment that you may have that the drugs themselves are then causing other issues in your body? And do you find that maybe sometimes it's like, well, you got to get rid of all these other drugs and focus on… Drugs. Medicines. I should say drugs.

Medicines, medications, tamper with your biochemistry to reduce a symptom or to change a number like your blood pressure. Right. And they don't fix it. That's why you're on that blood pressure medication the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, exactly. That tampering is not just what it does. That tampering affects other systems, always. And when you notice that, those are called side effects.

Those are direct effects from the drug. And so our opinion is, yeah, try to get off the drugs if you can. And often you can. Also, my strong opinion is, if you take a drug and it's not helping, don't take it. It's not doing you any good at all. Exactly. You know, if your child has ADHD and you give them Ritalin and it doesn't do any better, don't keep them on it. It doesn't, it has no value.

I always find it interesting, you know, like you watch television and have a commercial on some particular drug and say this will help some particular drug and say, this will help you with this, that, or that. And then later on it says, and you can have the following, right? And it takes about 20 minutes to tell you what the side effects may be. And one of them may be death. And I'm just like, wait a minute. So I can either live with whatever I have or I can die.

It's like, so. Yeah, that list that they talk about isn't something like headaches or something. It's these awful things. Exactly. Bone marrow suppression. You know, what? Well, we're one of the only countries, we're one of the few countries that actually allow advertisements

for prescription drugs like that. So, you know, there's an interesting happening there. The pharmaceutical industry spends $6 billion a year in marketing. Wow. What does it make? I mean, that's why. I mean, they spend all these billions to get the drug, right? They have to make sure it sells.

Absolutely. Otherwise, they're not making their money back. They have to sort of create demand in a sense. Got a couple viewers watching. Linda Lentner, thanks for watching. Lucrecia Morales says, saludos, amigos. Buenos dias, Lucrecia. Vanessa Parto has a great comment that I think kind of made me think of a question.

She says, I have family members who seek out the services that you're offering. They tell me that many top athletes, celebrities, and those with means to pay out of pocket use a lot of these treatments and plans. But she says what people have run into is unfortunately a lot of health insurance won't cover preventative measures that don't involve traditional medicine. Is that something you've encountered? Oh, of course not. Of course not. They don't pay for anything that I do. Why do people come in and pay out of pocket? Because these treatments work, you know, and my patients aren't necessarily all that well off. It's an investment in their

health. I've had people tell me, like, I didn't know if I should do this. You know, end up paying you a couple thousand dollars over time. And then they come back and say, I would have mortgaged the house if I had known that I would get this result. And so it makes all the difference in the world. This practice that I have is the fantasy that I had when I went to medical school of what being a doctor would be like. I thought I was going to learn some really good treatments and help people and they would like the treatments. I thought it would be. And it wasn't. It was like, wait, this is what we do all day long? This is what we're doing? That's partly why I went into psychiatry, because it just seemed maybe more interesting.

You know, what I was going to say also is, you know, it's funny how human nature is, right? Because if there's something wrong with your car, you take it to the mechanic, and the mechanic says, well, you know, this is the problem, and it's going to cost you $800, $900, and you go, okay, let's do it, right? But it comes to our bodies, like, well, if it's not covered by insurance, why should I do it? Well, because maybe the insurance, right, it's not covering the right, you know, what you really need.

And if you're going to spend $1,000, $2,000 on you, I mean, what better than spending on your own body to make you feel better, right? Once you have someone come in and they've been through all of that and their health is, that becomes the top concern. And I will say, too, we do a lot of work. Obviously, we have a lot of things in-house that we can do, but a lot of the work that we do is educating so people know what they can do at home. And we try to help fit the budget, too,

so they can find the most accessible way to get the treatments that they need. So that's a big part because we don't want to turn anybody away. So we always do the best we can to give them the tools so that at least they can make better decisions in their everyday life and then we've always got the resources, you know, in-house for them to take advantage of. Absolutely. That's what's important. What would you say too about that non-FDA approved thing? To get FDA approved, those studies have to be huge and last a long time. All of my treatments have a lot of scientific

validation. A couple of the treatments, for instance, ozone, it's been around over a hundred years. The scientific database in Europe on ozone is bigger than any drug, so it's not like I'm winging it. This is something I ran online, I'm going to try it on my patients. No, these are all well established. They're usually journals that are peer-reviewed. The studies in them are not the size of the drug studies, of course, but there are studies, and they're valid. And so it's not like, you know, we're guessing. And clinical outcomes over time tell you a lot as well.

Yeah, which is funny because often those aren't used because you've got those big double-blind trials, but sometimes there's also something to be said for like, yeah, but this is what's actually happened when I'm actually... They'll blow that off as anecdotal. Exactly. Pat Koch, thanks for watching this morning. Rosalia de Rosalia Tardaro, thank you for joining us this morning. So what would you say is the typical process so someone comes in and they may have tried other methods to deal with what their their issue is they come in and say okay I need to you know I need some

help with this what's typically the process of beginning to work with you? You know we do a workup just like any physician does. Do a history, physical exam, get labs if necessary and then we go after their problems with the treatments that we think are going to be most beneficial. It's not like it's one treatment for things. Often there are several. So we give them options so they can choose. Some, like the IVs, you've got to come into the office. And if you're living far away, it's not so easy.

But the treatments we offer aren't all that really available elsewhere. We routinely get patients in from Roanoke, Richmond, Northern Virginia. Maryland. Yeah. I've got a couple guys still following me from South Carolina. I tell them, you can do this treatment closer to yourself. It's going to work. But it's a trust factor.

They have confidence in you. Especially if you're working with something so close to you as your health. There's an important trust factor there. One of the differences too, I think, from traditional allopathic, what they've maybe experienced too, is when he's talking about the intake, it's a lengthier intake process too. We spend a lot of time with our patients. We do together and so they've got both of us in the room taking we

give them extensive notes you know we're following up and giving them all the information but we're digging into that history and sometimes that's hugely therapeutic i think for people out there they've been through all these different doctors who don't connect the dots and then they're getting to say i mean some people bring a list you go, when I was seven, this happened. We're like, maybe we don't need that, but we'll take it. It's helpful. And they kind of go and they get to unload all that, and we can connect those dots for them.

So it's a little bit, it's a good deep dive. Yeah. Another area that Kelly's been sort of golden for this, she takes notes and sends people, you know, a summary of everything. Because I'll typically go over five treatments and the person's overwhelmed by the end because I explain the treatments because I want them to know why I'm, at some point it's kind of like, okay. But then she'll take the notes, summarize everything

and then that works so much better. When you go home and you're not thinking, what did he say? Yeah, you're able to kind of think about it a little more and then sort of. And you can look into it, too. You can then do your own search, you know. Yeah, one of the things, you know, interesting, one of the things, and my wife always complains about this, and she's right. You know, you go to a traditional doctor, right? You go in there.

They're not really interested. What's your ailment? Okay, no problem. Yeah, take these pills or take this or whatever. And literally within 10 minutes, you're done, right? It's like no time. They don't have time for you to explain and talk a little about how you begin to feel, what makes you feel this way, how it comes about during the day. And she used to have, I forget what was in Carmel, but anyway

a naturopath and she would take one hour and just go with her, go over and try to figure out what was the best path for her, and it made her feel good because somebody's listening, as opposed to alright, I got it, no problem here, take this to the pharmacy we're good to go, and it's like

what is this, what am I taking those doctors don't like doing that that's the way the insurance company this to the pharmacy, we're good to go. And it's like, what is this? What am I taking? So I think people feel. Those doctors don't like doing that. That's the way the insurance company has created their world. Right. You know, you're a follow-up. I got seven minutes. Don't ask me any questions.

Certainly don't show me any internet articles. Just answer my questions. Let me write the prescription, and I'm off to my next seven-minute appointment. Yeah, yeah. And so they wouldn't do it that way if they had a choice. Well, I remember, and this was, again, when I lived in California, I usually don't go for checkups. I don't like them. I don't believe them.

And I said, when I'm sick, I go to a doctor. My wife said, no, you've got to go, you've got to go. So I go to a doctor. He goes, why are you here? I said, well, literally, I'm truly, I'm here because my wife sent me. So I do the whole checkup. He did everything. And then finally, I did all the blood work.

I said, this guy hasn't called me back. So finally, I said, you know, are the results in? Oh, yeah, yeah. Come in. Come visit the doctor. I go. And I had them send me. So I had read the whole thing.

And I'm waiting, waiting. I got the doctor says, you're in good shape. I said, oh, really? I said, did you see my cholesterol? Because I've had high cholesterol since I was like a little boy, right? And my whole family has it. But I just want to see what he said. He said, oh, well, let me see. I said, so you didn't read it? He goes, oh, I'm taking a look at it now. I said, well, what's the point? I come in here. I waste my time because I was working. I waste my time. I come in here and

you haven't looked at it yet. And it's like, yeah, yeah, I'll give you some pills. I said, I'll give you some pills. I said, no, I don't want pills. I just wanted to see if you had seen it or not, because every single doctor says, oh, you're cholesterol. That's another thing, too, that differentiates is that we look at labs, even we use these tools, but they look different to us. We look at them from what we call functional levels. So if you want to explain further. Well, medicine doesn't have a definition for health, and they don't really have protocols to promote health. They'll say, keep your weight down, watch your cholesterol. So a lot of labs have an optimum range. Just because you're in the average range doesn't mean that's a good idea. So, you know, we check to see where you are in your normal range and let you know. You want to move this in the other direction much more to get the benefits of it. Right.

So, you know, we're about promoting health. And so you can optimize things. Like a lot of the nutritional requirements that conventional medicine uses is to avoid a disease. Like take enough vitamin C to avoid scurvy. Okay, that's 90 milligrams a day. There are extraordinary benefits from taking more vitamin C. But no thought about that. You don't have scurvy, you're fine.

So, yeah. No, is it good to get some of these vitamins through what we eat as opposed to taking pills? Oh, that's the way you get nutrition. Supplementation is not the way to get nutrition. You can support and tweak and help things, and then you can get some things that you're not going to get in a good diet. There's no way you can eat enough vitamin D. No way

to get an optimal level. Actually, the same thing with vitamin C and iodine, unless you eat seaweed. And magnesium. Magnesium has become so rare in foods now that that's one that's kind of necessary. So you can support

things, but as far as basic nutrition, eat a good diet. You know, a very nutritious diet. You have a question? I have an audience question. I think he's asking this because obviously you're past both in psychiatry as well.

He says, what are your thoughts on the impact mental health has on physical health, and in particular from the isolation people may have experienced, you know, pandemic and the year afterwards? Well, that isolation was pretty profound. I think it's pretty obvious in every area they've looked at, from the way children have performed in school to rates of depression and suicide. So I'd ask this question, is there a significant impact that mental health then has on the physical health? Oh, yeah. Oh, certainly.

Well, stress in any form has detrimental effects in every system, every system. So when you're under stress that you're not dealing with well, your immune system is not working as well. Everything, you know, and certainly it affects. It's not uncommon for us to have someone who's, you know, they've been through this, through everything, and they've got the diet, they're doing the treatments, doing all these things, and we're going, what is the missing piece?

What are we missing? And then you dig a little deeper and you go, oh, my gosh, your nervous system. You're going through a lot or you've been through a lot or, you know, we just need some work there and that can be what's caused, no matter how well all the other ducks are in a row for their health, that can be a huge impacting piece. Interesting. Thank you. Muchisimas gracias from Spain, watching the show this morning, joining us. You had a question before. Yeah, I forgot the question. So my question was, one of the things I always read now is that the nutrition that we get from the foods we eat or it's not what it used to be,

maybe because of how it's grown, because of the chemicals that we put to grow. So would you typically recommend people to kind of lean more towards like an organic product if that was available to them? Always. A lot of people know about Roundup. Yes.

It's sprayed on everything, and glyphosate is the thing in Roundup. What most people don't know is that glyphosate was first FDA approved as an antibiotic. So when you eat conventional food, you're eating antibiotics. And I think we all know at this point, the regular use of antibiotics has damaging effects on the microbiome. So yes, same thing with animals. If you eat meat and dairy, if the animal's healthy, the products are good for you. But conventional animals, the way they're grown and fed, they're not healthy.

And 80% of the antibiotics that are produced every year, and that's a ton, are given to the animals that we eat. So it's a constant onslaught to our microbiome from antibiotics. So yeah, if you can't eat cleaner, work on it. I mean, if you go out to eat, that's going to be hard. And organic

regulations get softer and softer to help. Oh yeah. Big companies become we saw it in California even by the time earthbound farms they had the little

stand but then one day we're driving in California and you look and you see this massive industrial complex and we're like what the heck is that in your earthbound organic farms right as you're saying okay yeah it wasn't really the little stand that you thought it was. It was actually

a very large... You can label your food organic if it's 90% of it is organic. And if it's made with organic ingredients,

70% needs to be organic. And so, you know, if you're a big outfit like that, you take advantage of that.

Sure. You got 90% and you add the 10% conventional because it's cheaper. Of course. Eat clean if you can.

Keep growing my vegetables then. Exactly. This has been just so eye-opening. I've learned a lot. If people are interested and want to find out more, get in touch, what's the best way to find you guys and get in touch with uh your industry your practice well you can give us a call um i don't have our number memorized so we'll make

sure you do four three four nine five six forty one hundred there you go and you can also check out our website www.cimcville.com we just updated that very easy cimcville.com. We just updated that. Very easy. CIMC is for castor integrated medicine. Yep, cimcville.com. Absolutely. Well, Dr. Ed, Kelly, it's been such a pleasure. Absolutely. It's been wonderful. It's great to know.

It's always nice when somebody's interested in learning a little more about. Oh, this is fabulous. I mean, this is the way medicine should be. I mean, this is the way it should be first when you don't feel well, go to a traditionalist. Try to figure out how to make yourself better in a traditional way. And granted, there are times where there's no doubt about it.

You're going to need the regular doctors and surgeries and things of that sort. And I understand that. And then once you're better, how to stay better. Yeah, exactly. But staying healthy is the most important thing. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you. Muchas gracias. Buen dia.

Muchas gracias. This is why we just love this show. No, it's true. So much. I just learned. So, you know, and obviously, you know, mommy has always been on organics ever since you guys were a little kid, right? And so you read about it and you learn things and you know that, you know, especially like you go to Spain or you go to Italy and the food that you eat, it just tastes wonderful, tastes great, right?

And you say, why is it that this tastes so different than in America? And it's because here we try to produce so much so fast that sometimes the quality that we get isn't quite the same, right? Absolutely. And let's be honest. That's what you put into your body. Your body then produces whatever it produces based on what the intake is, and sometimes it's not so good. Exactly. So, you know, I think more and more people, if they literally, little by little, wake up to the fact that, you know, what you put into your body truly is so important. It does matter.

And maybe when you're young you feel like you're invincible but then all of a sudden you get into later ages in life and it's like you got this ailment or that ailment or this happening and you see it's based on what you have. Even last week, Ben from Creambrook Farms when he addressed

last week, he had said, remember, he had read about Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm. All right. And of course, if you read Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm, right, you realize what has happened to the food that we consume. Exactly. And the lack of quality that is there. And how important it is what you put into yourself. I mean, it makes, what Dr. Castro just said, it makes complete sense, right? If you're

eating an unhealthy cow, is its meat going to be very good for you? Probably not. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which makes sense. I did want to, it's a shame, right after we close the interview, Linda Letner writes, Dr. Castro's care helped me become functional again after struggling with chronic illness for years. I'm so grateful. It was worth the travel and the money.

Thank you, Dr. Castro. So got some people tuning in that have benefited from there. Randy O'Neill, thank you for watching the show this morning as well. Appreciate everyone who's tuned in so far this morning. No, it's great. I mean, this is great. for watching the show this morning as well. Appreciate everyone who's tuned in so far this morning. No, it's great. I mean, this is great. Like I said, I remember, you know,

Jan going in California and how she felt was so much better after going to the homeopathic one. I've seen it myself. It's true. You go to the chiropractor, right? That's one of the big things. You go to the chiropractor, right? That's one of the big things I do. You go to the chiropractor, right? And yeah, you sit there and you're like, $48 for five minutes, right?

That's not, my health insurance won't cover it. But I feel, you go back, you feel good. Your back is better. You're functioning better. So it's like, why would I not pay? Why would I sit there and say ah i'd rather save the 48 dollars and be miserable or just take you know constantly take you know whatever you know aspirin or something because i gotta pay yeah by the time you buy constant

tylenols i mean you buy a bottle of tylenol and it's not good for you i mean it's not good for you i mean granted once in a blue moon you take an aspirin or an Advil or whatever it may be, that's fine, but you don't want to be living on things of that sort. So that's just the importance of wellness. And speaking of wellness, financial wellness is something. Actually, January was financial wellness

month, I discovered. Oh, really? That was last month. Dr. Elizabeth Erpy had reminded me that last month was financial wellness. I'll have to remember that next year. I'll have to remember that next year. But you know what's interesting? So, and, you know, Dr. Eduardo Castro mentioned this, right? And so did Kaylee.

Stress, you know, and the problem with stress is that you don't really see how it impacts you, right? But little by little, it tears you apart one way or another. There's always something going on. And we don't know how it works. I mean, I don't know how it works. But the more stressed you are over time, that does have something to do with how you feel. And so one of the things that is important is how do I, how do I avoid being stressful about my finances, right? And so finances is a major source.

I think there's been studies that it's one of the major sources of stress. Absolutely. And you can understand, you know, whether we like it or not. I mean, we go to work to earn a living, right, so that we can provide for ourselves and hopefully someday also provide for our retirement, right? So there's a whole stress level there of, you know, especially if you have a family, you have kids, do I send them to college? Can I forward send them to college? Do I let them take out a loan? That loan is going to be very painful for them in the future. So all these decisions are constantly being made by parents, right? And so from the perspective of,

you know, the finances, you know, it's always good, just like when you go to a doctor for a checkup and just see how you are, how you're feeling, how, you know, it's always good, just like when you go to a doctor for a checkup and just see how you are, how you're feeling, how, you know, how things are going. It's probably not a bad idea to kind of maybe approach sometimes a financial advisor and say, you know, I just want to see how I'm doing. Am I going in the right direction? Am I doing the right things? Am I budgeting properly? You know, and so to a certain respect, and we see that happen, you know, all the time, right, and it's good, especially, you know, younger people sometimes feel like, I don't have enough money. It's not about having enough money. It's about,

you know, making sure that, you know, you're aligning yourself, you're doing what's best for you, your family, and your retirement, right, to make sure that over time, those funds that you have, your savings you have, are growing properly, and you can have some peace of mind. I'm not saying... How often is it just, it's literally the peace of mind. It's literally saying, okay, I don't, it's not as though I need to make major changes in my financial life, but I now have a plan. I know that what I'm doing will lead me on the right track. And if I keep doing it, I know that even in the worst case scenario, I'm in good shape. And that brings so much peace of mind to people. We should all tell me. I remember last year, we had a client whose children paid for the financial

plan so that their mother would feel good. And that was beautiful. That's so wonderful because they realized how stressful she constantly was about her finances, can she retire, can she not retire. And it was like you need to do a financial plan to see when you can retire and how soon you can retire and what the retirement means. And it's that. I mean, so that's the wellness we provide. Yep, that's the financial wellness.

Exactly. And on that topic, obviously we like to... One of the things that I know is so hard on that topic is that people just... There's always changing rules, changing regulations. You know, you... We've talked about it the last couple of weeks, you know, this time of year

particularly. You get all these articles you're going to get hit with this RMD you're going to get hit with this tax do this, change this five tips for the year that you have to do and you're sitting there reading these five tips and of course you get five tips from Fidelity

five tips from Schwab five tips from TD Ameritrade five tips from Vanguard I got 25 tips from TD Ameritrade, five tips from Vanguard. Before you know it, I got 25 tips. Which one do I do? Wait a minute. One said to do this, one said to do that. They're kind of contradictory.

Exactly. This guy said to do a Roth conversion, but this guy said don't do a Roth conversion. What do I do? So it's sometimes helpful to kind of simplify it and say, okay, what are the things that you need to look at and be aware of that are changing in 2024? Exactly. And so one of the things that I wanted to mention to you, talk about, was the fact that the amount that you can save in your IRA and your simple plans,

so your 401ks, have changed. And so it's good for people to know that because I'm not sure how many people follow that. And a lot of people may not be used to it. It's good for people to know that because I'm not sure how many people follow that. But certainly – And a lot of people may not be used to it. Let's face it. I mean what happens is a lot of the Roth IRA, IRA, simple IRA, 401K, a lot of these maximums that you can put in, they change depending on inflation. So let's face it. For most of the 2010s, there was maybe one or two times that it

changed. Many years, it was the same as the previous year. It's really been the last few years that it has gone up, I think, twice in a row now. So people may not be used to it actually changing. So what do you mean the maximum Roth IRA limit can change? Well, it can change. It just needs, you know, there needs to be a cost of living adjustment and that doesn't always happen. It only does it a little bit at a time. It's not like Social Security where whatever inflation was or whatever their inflation number that they used for that was, that's what Social Security is going to change. With IRAs, it either changes by 500 or it doesn't change.

It's kind of an all or nothing. And so people may not be used to it changing. And the other thing is the catch up, right? Because I think if you're 50 and over, again, how many situations you have a family where they've struggled to save because they had children, they had the expenses with the children, whatever it may be. And finally, they're in their early 50s, and it's like, okay, I now need to start saving for my retirement. I'm doing the best I can to maximize. And so recognize that once you're 50 and over, there are catch-ups, right? Even the IRA, like this year, you can put $7,000 away into an IRA or Roth, right?

But the catch-up is another $1,000. You can put $8, eight if you're over 50. Exactly. So that's important because that can benefit a lot of people. And some of them are very significant. So I know, for instance, the IRA catch-up is $1,000. Right. The simple IRA, if you have a business plan, right, is $3,500.

That's right. Is that catch-up. Yeah. So, I mean, some of these… In a 401k, $7,500. Even higher, yes, $3,500. That's right. Is that catch-up? Yeah. So, I mean, some of these... In a 401k, $7,500. In a 401k, it's even higher, yes, $7,500. Yeah, so all that. And there's one thing, and most people won't fall into this particular kind of,

and I don't want to call it a trap because it's probably not a trap, but something to think about. A lot of companies, as you know, match. You's say they match 4% of your salary as long as you put that money into a 401k, right? What happens is there's a lot of people that say, okay, I want to maximize my IRA this year. And how much can I put away? $23,000. Okay. So I'm just going to, I'm going to take 25% of my salary because I want to maximize it as soon as possible. So by the time June comes along, boom, they hit the 23,000. The challenge there is that you got to pay attention to your 401k and the language in there, because many times

the company will only match as long as you're matching. So the minute you stop in your paycheck, they no longer match. So you only get, let's say it's June, you've only gotten 2% because their 4% is based on your salary. So you then put zero for the rest of the year. That's right, for the rest. You're not getting the rest of the 2%. So the key is to, if you're one of those, be aware, look at the language of the 401k, and make sure that that's not the case, that they'll continue to contribute. You need to make sure that basically they're matching, for instance, 2% of your annual

salary based on your annual contributions. Not that it's 2%, but it has to be continued every single paycheck. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So that's what's important. Because that has happened to many, many people.

It's like, wait a minute, I didn't get my other 2% or 1% or half a percent, whatever it may be, because I maximized before the end of the year. So you yourself can say, okay, if this is my salary, if I want to put $23,000 away, you know, take that, divide it by the 12 months, and know how much percentage you need to pay for paycheck. Exactly. I would say another thing for all of us people to be aware of is ask if you were interested in a Roth IRA. That's best for you. Ask if there's a Roth 401k options.

It's becoming increasingly common that there are Roth 401k options if you're in a company. And that allows you to put just normally a Roth IRA, you're matched out at 7,000 now. You can do more than 7,000 in a Roth 401k. The key thing to keep in mind is that if you do a Roth 401k, the match is not also Roth. So if you

do a Roth 401k, you're going to end up with two accounts. You're going to end up with one piece that is your No, two. One piece which is your... Oh, well... No, no, two. Just two. One piece which is your Roth contributions, in other words, the part that's been taken out of your paycheck, because what happens is that's not tax deductible on your part. But then the company match is not taxable.

It comes straight out of the company. So what happens is that match can't be Roth. It can't be post-tax because the government said that money never got taxed. Going in, it needs to be taxed. Coming out, so what you end up with is you have your Roth 401k, but then you have your match,

which is basically in a normal 401k tax status. So you end up with two different pieces, and it's important to know that because you're going to have two different accounts, and then when you move them over in retirement, you want to know which one to take money out of. And you can have three. What I was going to say is you can actually have three because think about it.

Depending on your salary, you might do some Roth. Because obviously there's a tax advantage, right? So you might say, yeah, I'll take this tax advantage because it pushes me into the lower tax bracket but the balance up onto a Roth. So now you've got three. Your 401k that is an IRA, your

401k that's a Roth, and the company. And the match for the Roth. So sometimes you'll see there's three and you've got to remember that because when you pull them, they are different. Exactly. You have to always ask if you ever do a rollover. Make sure that you're going pre-tax to pre-tax, Roth to Roth.

Exactly, yeah. Otherwise, you're going to get hit with an unpleasant tax bill. Yeah, and that's important. And let's face it, I mean, the Roth account has been, I think, is a blessing, especially, you know, we've always said that for young people that are just starting. I mean, that's probably the best way because, you know, the chances of you starting and really needing the tax benefit is probably low. So you might as well put it into a Roth, right?

That advantage is tremendous because, one, it can serve as an emergency fund. It can serve as a fund that eventually you can use to buy a house. It can serve as a fund for you if you have children eventually and you want to send them to college. So there's so much. There's so many options for that Roth account. And if you don't ever use them for anything like that, you use them at retirement. And like we said many times, once you pull the money out of a Roth at retirement, it's not taxable. So it grows tax-free. It's not taxable. It's a great, great vehicle. And the beauty is, like you said,, it's not taxable. So it grows tax-free. It's not taxable. It's a great, great vehicle. And the beauty is, like you said, the contributions are never taxable.

Right. What you put into the Roth is never taxable when you take it out. The earnings are if you're not yet 59 and a half, right, but not the contributions. So it is really the ultimate form, especially because obviously we've talked many times about, you know, the homeownership challenges among younger people, you know, how hard it is to actually save that down payment. You have a vehicle here whereby you can save for a down payment, and basically when the time comes and you need the down payment and you have to pull out your contributions, you've still got a nice little chunk in there that's for retirement. You can even tap 10% of the chunk, but if you don't want to tap any of your earnings, you have a nice chunk that now at least in that time period

where you were saving for a down payment, you received tax-free growth in an account that now will continue to be tax-free growth. So instead of saying, so in other words, if you saved $30,000 for a down payment, and let's say you managed to over a 10-year period, you got 10% on that, you got $3,000, right? Well, at least now, instead of when you pull out the $30,000 to put in your down payment, you still got $3,000 that is going towards your retirement.

You didn't go from $30,000 to nothing. You now have actually some kind of peace that can continue to grow for your retirement. You didn't go from $30,000 to nothing. You now have actually some kind of peace that can continue to grow for your retirement. So it's a beautiful tool to say, okay, I'm going to save for a down payment, but this saving for a down payment will also kind of pay dividends towards my retirement. I don't have to choose between down payment or retirement. With a Roth, you can kind of do a little bit of both. Absolutely. And like you said, I mean, you know, you put that money that's not in a Roth and the drag because of taxes is always there, right? While in a Roth, that drag is not there and it just grows so much faster over time, you know,

and that's the key. The key is when you think of it's the reinvestment of interest, right, that really makes those funds grow, right? And so when you're able to reinvest 100% of what you're earning back into the market as opposed to, you know, 70% or 80%, over time, it's just dramatic. I mean, you look at the charts, it's just incredible. The key to remember is the tax drag is greater than your tax rate. Because what happens is, I'd say you're in a 15% tax bracket. You earn $100, 15 goes to government, 85 gets reinvested.

The 85 earns interest, 15% goes to government, 85% gets reinvested. So when you calculate it over a 20-year period, the tax drag isn't 15%. No, it's great. It's much greater than 15%. It's compounded. It's also compounded. The tax drag is compounded. Exactly.

It's 15% compounded because you lost out on the 15% that went to the government, but you also lost out on what that 15% could have grown the next year. So it's not that you sit there and say, oh, man, tax drag is 15%. No, tax drag is whatever your tax rate is compounded over how many years the drag is occurring. It's like inflation when people say, well, at least inflation is down to 3%. I said, yeah, but 3% is compounding on the fact that you had 9% inflation, 7% inflation. So all that is being compounded

by the 3%. It's not like it's 9% and then it disappears. It goes back to zero and then we start again at 3%. And you can see it when you go and look online and see what was $1 in 2019 money. So $1 today, how much was that in 2019 money? It's not the dollar today isn't 4% less because the current inflation rate is 4%.

It's like almost 20% less because you had nine, compounded seven, compounded four. Exactly. So by the time you go back, if you look at what $1 a day was worth in 2019 money, $1 a day is worth way less. And it's not 4% less. It's a lot less. It's a lot less. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's the issue. That's the challenges of numbers when they're compounded forward. That's why inflation, when you run financial plans, inflation is the greatest enemy to every financial plan. That's an expense. But expenses you can control. Expenses you can control. But inflation, you have no control.

You have no control. And when it gets out of hand, all of a sudden your financial plan says, hey, you're not looking so good anymore. Exactly. Well, that's why it's also important to keep in mind that we talk about this. Sometimes people will make fun of the small changes that you can make. So whenever people say, oh, you know, you can save $30,000 if you skip the cup of coffee over 50 years, right? And people will say, well, that's nothing. But that assumes that the $5 cup of coffee is $5 every single week for 30 years. We all know that's not how it works.

And when you do compound inflation, that $5 cup of coffee 30 years from now may well be $10 the way inflation works. I mean, inflation only has to – Well, let's be honest. I used to buy that pumpkin latte thing. Yeah, pumpkin spice latte. Which I don't buy anymore.

But however, I mean, I used to spend like $2 to $0.50. Now it's over $5. It's almost – one of them was in the airport with seven. So it's like you look and you go, wow. I mean, so if you did that every day, right, every day, you went from two to five to possibly seven. That's just a lot of money. In other words, you may sit there and say $30,000 in future money is not a huge amount. But the future cup of coffee is in $5.

The future cup of coffee is probably 30 years from now. Even if you just had 3% inflation, a future cup of coffee is $10. It's more than that. It's more than that. In other words, it's at least $10, which is just hard to wrap your mind around. Exactly. Sometimes the way you can tell people is if you go backwards, right? You tell them that in 1940 an apple was $0.50, and now you go in the store and apple is $3.

They're like, whoa, that's a how on earth? So think about this. So what year was this? So 1967, 1968, right? I used to buy a loaf of bread every day before my parents came home. They used to give me the money, 25 cents. And we're talking about a baguette, right?

Every baguette's over $3 today. Exactly. So 25 cents to $3 since 1967. So it's four times, times, so 12 times. It's basically 12. And that's a small, right, 25 cents to $3. Remember, 12 times is what, 1,200%? Yeah, so it's like, yeah.

In other words, where prices will be in 30 years is almost impossibly large to fathom. It's why sometimes people get a little nervous, right, if you do a financial plan. A lot of younger clients, we do the financial plan, right, and you do the 30-year projection. And they're like, how are my expenses $2 million a year in 30 years? And it's not that you're spending too much money now. It's just that when you inflate over 30 years, your final number of expenses is $2 million. Obviously, your salary is going to be much larger as well. But the point is that your final expenses look much larger. So little changes actually can have an impact because you have to account for that change being inflated

over time. And it doesn't mean to discount big changes, right? In other words, if you skip the $5 cup of coffee every day, but then you make a big mistake on your mortgage and you get some kind of APR that jacks you, adjustable know, adjustable rate or adjustable rate mortgage arm that jacks up to 10% interest, right? That mistake is going to cost you way more than the $5 of coffee. So it doesn't mean that you don't need to still be careful

about the big things. But it does go to show you that because of the way inflation works, small changes in your expenses because, like you said, we can't control inflation, but you can't control, in other words, if you are seeing massive inflation and you're able to take your expenses

from $90,000 a year to $85,000 a year, you may sit there and say, that's $5,000, that's nothing. Yeah, but that $5,000 inflated over 30 years is going to make a big impact on how long your money lasts. You have to think of it as that $5,000 goingated over 30 years is going to make a big impact on how long your money lasts. And now you have to think of it as that $5,000 going to your savings, which means it's growing.

It's growing, exactly. So, I mean, sometimes making that, we've seen in the financial plans. Oh, absolutely. You make a small change like that in your current expenses, and it has a huge impact on future expenses. Because that $5,000 is going to be $50,000 in 30 years. And so then it does become a large number. It becomes, yeah, a very large number. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, listen, I mean, there's two sides to every coin. I mean, I know there's one guy that I always read and he says, don't sweat the small stuff. You know, it's the big stuff that's a killer. But I think it's a balance. I mean, because obviously, I mean, if you want a cup of coffee or you want a latte or whatever. Don't be miserable.

Yeah, you can't be miserable and say, oh, I can't do it because I want to retire when I'm 63 or 61. I said the guy we read, like, you know, he retired at 40, right? But he spent his 20s eating Chef Boyardee cans and living in a 500-square-foot apartment in Manhattan. It could be a lot of fun. That doesn't sound very pleasant. Exactly. So, I mean, I always tell people you have to live for the day, right? And, yes, plan for the future.

But you can't be miserable today because you don't know what's coming in the future. So you must, well, it's a balance. Live for today. Be cognizant of the fact that, yes, you also may be living in the future and you want to live just as well then as you do today. I would say it's also the habitual things versus the things you enjoy a few times a year. In other words, the one time, the once a month or once a week you get a $5 coffee is not going to kill you. Exactly. If you have a $5 coffee is not going to kill you. Exactly. If you have a $5 coffee every single day.

It's like if you go out to eat, right? There's no reason you can't go out to eat and spend, you know, now it's like $200 if your family of four goes out to eat, right? Spend $200 going out to eat, right? We're not saying your financial advisors, you know, don't do that because it's $200 a month. But if you're going out to eat twice a week and spending $400

every week on going out, then you probably need to make a change. In other words, it's the things we do habitually. I mean, to relate it back to health, right? If you eat an Oreo cookie, if you buy a box of Oreos in the summer and eat it, is that going to suddenly

destroy your health? No. If you eat Oreos, a box of Oreos in the summer and then eat it. Is that going to suddenly destroy your health? No. If you eat Oreos, a box of Oreos every single week, your health is probably going to suffer. In other words, what you do habitually has a stronger impact than what you may do every once in a while. Exactly. It's those little things. You have to step back and say, wait a minute. I get up in the morning, I go and I buy myself a bagel and a coffee every day. Well, maybe I should buy the bagels in the store and coffee and make it home. And I guarantee you that over time you say, that's just a big savings, right?

And maybe you enjoy it at home as opposed to just, boom, going out and buying it somewhere, right? And maybe not. Again, everybody's different, but those are the little things that sometimes you say, will that impact me in the future? And that's what we do. We say, yes, no, here's other things that you can do. That's important.

Particularly in tight times, right? In tight times, if it's being funded by credit cards, you really need to pay attention to the impact of what you're spending. Yeah, yeah. That's a big problem. The credit card is a big problem, and people tapping into their savings is a big problem. Buy now, pay later. Yeah, yeah. You start to hit people.

So, yeah, a lot to think about. But I think, you know, hopefully we've helped a couple people out with you know just some tips things to think about things to ask your financial advisor about or your accountant be surprised how many people don't ask their cpas hey can i put five thousand dollars into a roth before april 15th yeah you know just a lot of times if you have a good cpa they'll mention it but a lot of times you know your basic tax preparers yeah are not going to be saying, hey, have you thought about, especially

this time of year, they're so swamped. Your tax preparer is not going to be like, hey, have you thought about putting $5,000 into a Roth? You can save $2,000 by putting $7,000 in IRA. They're not running those numbers. But you can ask them and say, hey, what happens if I put $7,000 in my IRA

before April 15th? And then they'll tell you. So there you go. There you have it. Little tips. Wellness. Tips to stay well. Financially well. Healthy. Financially healthy. Exactly.

So it's been a great show. Got another great net. In fact, speeding to wellness next week's desk Just purely coincidental, I promise. Shannon Miller from 360 Health and Wellness. Okay. So the wellness theme shall continue. So we went from wellness in January on finances into wellness for your body in February. For your body in February.

Which is good because you know how many people start the new year and it's like, I need to exercise. I need to diet. I need to lose weight, whatever. And you know what? Sometimes it's good to remind them, you know, it doesn't have to be difficult. You know, you don't have to make your life miserable by going on a diet and trying to lose. And you don't have to fix it all in one month. Exactly.

It's little by little. You need to change some of your habits and you see over time how, you know, you improve your quality of life. Exactly. Well, this has been a great show. Yeah. Love being on here with you. Same here. It's always a pleasure.

Thanks, really. I really appreciate everyone that reached out, commented today. Kevin Higgins, thank you very much. Vanessa Parto, thanks so much for your comment. Linda Lentner, thanks so much for your comment. Really appreciate them all. Thanks to everyone who tuned in, especially we had some people, I mean, Rosalia Cordaro from New York

tuning in, or Miami, one or the other. Probe Garcia Serrata from Spain. Muchas gracias. Monica Miller from Montana. So we had the whole distance. A whole globe watching. A whole globe watching. So really appreciate everyone

who tuned in. We look forward to seeing you all next week. Thank you Judah behind the camera, always making us look good. Thank you Emergent Financial Services, Castle Hill Cider, Realty Credit, Sirius Insurance. We look forward to seeing everyone next week. Stay warm. Hopefully we still get some

sunny weather in the interim. But until that time, as we like to close it out on the show, hasta mañana.