Bringing Men's Health Issues into Integrative Medicine Programs with Dr. Myles Spar

After Dr. Myles Spar noticed that women far outnumbered men as integrative medicine patients, he worked to reframe the messaging. In this podcast, he discusses

• Why integrative medicine provides key preventative health and wellness information often absent from internal medicine practices,
• What are three main hormones in men that are important to address and why, and
• How he approaches sex, body, and brains issues in men to help them achieve their health goals.

Dr. Myles Spar is the Chief Medical Officer of Vault Health and specializes in men's health and wellness. He serves as a clinical faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Arizona Schools of Medicine. His volunteer time with Doctors Without Borders encouraged him to pursue integrative medicine fully on his return. He starts by explaining how earlier experiences led him to question the messaging men receive to not seek help. This along with his own observations of the scarcity of men as patients seeking health and wellness information from various types of integrative medicine practices encouraged him to provide messaging more adaptive to men's needs.

He tells listeners about health considerations and centers this discussion on hormones. He explains that testosterone is the main one listeners may be familiar with but adds that there are many more male hormones to consider like DHEA and estradiol. Dr. Spar also describes his initial approach with patients, how he starts by developing an understanding of what's important to that patient in terms of health goals and motivations. In other words, he learns what patients want their health to achieve for them, or alternatively, what is their ill health getting in the way of. He divides these issues by sex, body, or brain and proceeds to evaluate based on those goals. He also discusses levels of testosterone and the nuances behind the numbers as well as different types of testosterone treatments from pellets to pills to other means and advantages and disadvantages for each.

For more, see Vault Health's website at vaulthealth.com and click on "Get Started" for a telehealth appointment. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK