A longtime advocate for the LGBTQ+ community in healthcare and medicine, Dr. Leo Moore has lived a tremendously storied career. He now adds author to his impressive titles of MD, MSHPM, and AAHIVE, as his brand new book, The Men’s Preventive Health Guide, hits shelves soon.
The Men’s Preventive Health Guide offers an inclusive and easy-to-understand read for anyone seeking to regain understanding over their health. The format works great, offering a literal checklist of things to inquire to your doctor about at the bookend of each chapter.
This book is a welcomed relief in the fight against destigmatization and disinformation that’s all too present in our changing world.
This collection of expert insight comes from decades of study, life-altering experiences both in the field and on the operating table himself, and through Dr.Moore’s dedicated advocacy work for the HIV+ community.
His Instagram bio describes him as “Your Doctor-friend” and it’s no exaggeration. The calm kindness he shared, even through a Zoom from Los Angeles, made past doctors visits pale in comparison. Though he likely wouldn’t take my busted insurance plan, it was so clear to see his devotion to the hippocratic oath of wanting to help others, which was radiating from this unofficial doctor’s visit. You can tell there’s passion and patience in his work, a wonderful combination that every queer patient deserves.
So.Gay chatted with Dr. Moore about a near-fatal moment in the hospital years back, a phoenix-level rise into becoming Men’s Health Ultimate Guy 2024, and the impactful ways in which he’s helping reduce stigma around HIV and AIDS.
So.Gay: Tell me about yourself and what inspired you to write this incredible book.
DR. M: I’m a Southerner. I was born in Alabama and raised in Georgia. I completed my medical school at the Morehouse School of Medicine, followed by residency at Yale University School of Medicine in Primary Care-Internal Medicine. Then, I completed a fellowship in Health Policy Management at UCLA. I’ve now worked in public health for the past 10 years, and I continue to see patients in sexual health and tuberculosis clinics.
I also engage in a lot of community work. I give presentations in the community to men’s groups and various community-based organizations, focusing on men’s health. During my presentations, I discuss the most common screenings that men should have by age. I’ve had many men approach me after the conversation, asking for a tool they could take to their doctor’s appointments so that they can ensure they’re receiving all the correct screenings. I thought, “Why not put that into book form and then add in the different immunizations that men should have as well?”
I see this book as a conversation starter, a way for a man to go into the doctor’s office and be able to advocate for himself. I also feel that it’s contributing to the conversation in a way that allows individuals to further their own needs, rather than just being at the mercy of the provider.
As I was thinking about developing this book, I wanted men to have a tool to take with them to the doctor’s office. That’s why there’s a checklist at the end of each chapter that men can quickly refer to while they’re speaking with their doctor. I wanted it to be short and to the point, so that it could reach men in different walks of life. Those who aren’t well-versed in health care or those who aren’t going to read a 300 to 400-page book on medical advice. I wanted to provide highlights for readers to feel empowered when speaking with their doctor.
So.Gay: That empowerment is so important for the individual and the community-at-large. Your book tackles the importance of “preventative health”, can you help define it?
DR. M: Preventive health is the process of taking proactive measures to maintain and improve health and to prevent or delay the onset of illness, injury, or premature death. While I was undergoing my medical training, I decided to pursue an additional board certification in lifestyle and lifestyle medicine, focusing on the various choices we make to prevent and reverse chronic medical conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
I want to briefly share with you the six pillars of lifestyle medicine. They are nutrition, physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, social connections, and avoidance of risky substances.
These pillars are the mainstays of what one should consider on their life journey. They’re what we should be prioritizing to maintain our health. Nutrition ensures that we’re eating healthy foods, “eating the rainbow” or a variety of whole foods, foods that are rich in nutrients. Physical activity: ensuring that we move our bodies regularly and engage in moderate to vigorous intensity exercise throughout the week. Restorative sleep is about getting seven to nine hours of sleep each night, which is crucial. Our bodies need that time to repair and rejuvenate.
For stress management, I think we can agree that there’s a lot to be stressed about, right? But managing that stress is so important because we know that chronic stress is associated with an increased risk for chronic medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and cancers, as well as health conditions like depression and anxiety.
Social connections, which really focuses on the importance of community. Our previous surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, spoke about a loneliness epidemic in our country. There’s an importance of maintaining a sense of community and our social connections with people who encourage us and help us feel supported. Lastly, avoidance of risky substances. This pillar focuses on the different substances that we’re consuming, be it alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs. We know that alcohol is also associated with an increased risk of developing cancers. Through research, we are learning more and more about how marijuana is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, early heart attacks, and strokes. These six pillars can help us live a long and healthy life.
So.Gay: Regarding those six pillars, what are some advantages to prioritizing them in your health? Both maybe in the first few weeks and then overall in your lifetime?
DR. M: Great question. It’s essential for people to start as soon as they can. Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today. One thing that we know about our bodies is that they respond to positive health changes pretty quickly. Even after a few days, what was difficult for you on day one gets a bit easier on day two, day three and onward. We know that following the six pillars of lifestyle medicine decreases the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and mental health conditions like anxiety and depression as well. One of the key advantages of this approach is that it sets us up to live long, healthy lives. We should establish habits that can sustain us throughout our lives and enable us to thrive. Who wants to live to their 80s or 90s but be bedridden? It’s not just about getting to our average life expectancy or surpassing it, but more so, what will your quality of life be? These six pillars really help us set ourselves up for a high quality of life throughout our lifetime.
So.Gay: Speaking of quality of life, you’ve certainly lived an interesting life in terms of what you’ve accomplished. You were the Men’s Health 2024 Ultimate Guy after bouncing back from a major health scare. Could you share with us some of those big milestones and how they informed you into the person you are today?
DR. M: Yes, being named Men’s Health Ultimate Guy 2024 was such an amazing honor and will be one of the most amazing honors of my lifetime. I’m thankful for that acknowledgement because I was an overweight kid, and actually, throughout my high school years and early into college, I still struggled with my weight and developing healthy habits. Men’s Health Magazine was one of the first resources that helped me start thinking about how I eat and train my body differently.
It felt like a full-circle moment to be named Men’s Health Ultimate Guy, as Men’s Health Magazine has been a part of my life since college.
In the article for Men’s Health, I shared my experience of undergoing an elective procedure on January 12, 2023. Prior to the procedure, I had all of my pre-surgery workup done. I had an EKG. I had a chest x-ray. I had all my labs done.
Everything was completely normal. But during the procedure, unfortunately, I went into cardiac arrest. I was without a heartbeat for nine minutes and 25 seconds. And they didn’t think that I was going to make it. Thankfully, I was on the surgical table, at the time that I went into cardiac arrest. They immediately started CPR. That definitely helped with blood flow and ensured that my brain and body were being adequately perfused. Then I came back after that nine minutes and 25 seconds. Actually, when I regained consciousness, I didn’t know that I had gone into cardiac arrest. I had no idea. I thought that the surgery had been successful and that we were just done. And that I was in standard recovery.
When they told me what happened, I was completely shocked. But I am thankful that my six pillars of lifestyle medicine, which I had been incorporating into my life for many, many years, had my body primed to be able to recover from that nine-minute and 25-second cardiac arrest. So the next morning, when the surgeon came into the ICU to check on me, I was already sitting on the side of the bed. I was eating breakfast, just sitting up on the side of the bed. He was very surprised to see me up after the traumatic event that I had experienced. Later that day, I went for a walk in the ICU because, if you’ve ever been to the hospital or been hospitalized, then you know the hospital is a really difficult place to heal. It’s a difficult place to recover because there’s a lot of noise, a blood pressure cuff, and usually an IV is in your arm.
There’s constant beeping and chirping and people coming in to check on you, to the point where you can’t really rest. So the day after my surgery and my cardiac arrest, I was very focused on showing them, “Hey, I can walk. I can feed myself. I am okay to leave the hospital so that I can rest in my own bed and begin to recover.” So I went for a walk with one of the nurses around the ICU and was able to show them how I was progressing.
I was able to answer all of their questions. I was discharged from the ICU the day after the cardiac arrest. Then, a few days later, I was going for walks in my neighborhood. My mom flew in to assist in my recovery. I went for walks with her in the neighborhood. We started off going up the street to the corner store. The next day, I pushed further, and within two weeks of the surgery, I was back to lifting light weights. And I went back to work after the cardiac arrest and surgery, as if nothing had happened. None of my co-workers knew what had happened during that time that I had already taken off.
I used that time to recover and then returned to work. I think that this experience, the perception that it reinforced for me, is that we all, at some point, will go through some type of traumatic event. Hopefully, it will not be a cardiac arrest, as I experienced, but it could be a car accident, or it could even be the loss of a family member and how that can affect our mental health. However, if we ensure that our bodies and minds are primed and ready for these types of experiences, then we are more likely to recover from them.
So.Gay: That’s a very empowering and important story. And I’m so happy that you’re still with us and that you were able to recover so smoothly and quickly. I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head, in that having your body ready for anything is paramount.
I’d love to chat about the book, The Men’s Preventive Health Guide. I’d love to know about your reasoning for formatting it by age, why was it important for you to cover the ages by section and share this whole spectrum of what men at any age can do for their health?
DR. M: I wanted the book to be as easily navigable as possible. From our 20s on, there are different screenings that we will need. How can I ensure that men at least read their age’s chapter? Of course, I would love for them to even read the chapter for the next decade so they become aware of what’s to come.
It was important for me to format it this way to make it as easy as possible for men to find the key information that they need. It was also important for me to cover all ages and eras of men’s health, as preventive health affects every age, era, and aspect of our lives. It’s never too late to start practicing some form of preventive health.
I subscribe to the mantra, “Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.” Another big one for me is “plus 1% every day” because we know that those small intentional changes in our habits can make a big difference in the long run.
So.Gay: People don’t talk about how often they should get tested and your book really lays out an important framework for being tested every 3-6 months as the ideal window. Can you talk about what people my age can learn about being more responsible with their sexual health and why it’s so important to get tested so regularly?
DR. M: We know that there is a high incidence of STDs for men in their 20s, particularly among gay, bisexual, trans, or other men who have sex with men, as well as people with multiple partners. This still applies to those who are on PrEP or with a recent history of an STD. We also know that earlier treatment leads to earlier detection…
With all of those factors in mind, getting tested every 3-6 months is the ideal window. Our goal is to catch the sexually transmitted infection early, treat it early, prevent spread, and then also prevent some of the consequences of having sexually transmitted infections for a long time. For example, with syphilis we know that when syphilis reaches the tertiary stage or the third stage, there is risk of developing syphilis of the eye, syphilis of the brain, and syphilis of the heart, among other severe medical conditions.
So.Gay: Syphilis of the brain has gotten me scheduling a test right now. I know back in college you helped launch the first World AIDS Day celebration at your undergrad which is such a cool achievement. Did you always have that drive to help people?
DR. M: I come from a family of servant leaders. My mom, aunt and grandmother are all nurses. is a nurse,and then the men on my mom’s side of the family are all ministers. I decided at the age of five that I wanted to become the first doctor in our family. Being a doctor has been my lifelong goal. I know that it was influenced by being around people who were using their time to help others and to gave back to their community, and to hopefully leave the world a little bit better than they found it. I’m so grateful for that inspiration.
So.Gay: That’s so great to know at age five, really impressive. I think it’s important to discuss misinformation and disinformation about HIV and AIDS, and even in our own community. I think people want to know more but maybe they’re not getting the right information, or the CDC guidelines have been altered. To dispel any ignorance or confusion, can you please talk about the connections and differences between HIV and AIDS?
DR. M: Yes, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is the virus that attacks the immune system. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) is a serious condition that develops after years of a person not being on HIV treatment. The immune system becomes so weak that even a common cold or other respiratory infection, which an intact immune system can usually fight off, can actually overwhelm it. This could lead to pneumonia and death. HIV is the virus, AIDS is the serious condition that develops after years of lack of treatment for HIV.
So.Gay: Your book advocates for vaccines and their efficacy. I know there’s a loud minority of people that don’t like vaccines. Can you discuss why you believe vaccines are important and are valid science?
DR. M: I want to touch on three key points around vaccines. First, vaccines save lives. They prevent both illness and death. A great example is the measles vaccine. Before the vaccine was introduced in the 60s, measles caused an estimated 500 deaths per year in the United States. However, now that there is misinformation being spread about vaccines and the debunked link to autism in children, we now have roughly 1100 cases of measles in the U.S. this year, and two children have died. This was all preventable with the measles vaccine.
Secondly, vaccines undergo rigorous testing prior to approval. They go through multiple trials for both efficacy or effectiveness and safety. Next, even after approval, we have vaccine monitoring and reporting systems in place so that any adverse events can be reported. Vaccines can be removed from the market if needed. A notable example of this is the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which was later found to cause a blood clotting disorder and was subsequently removed from use. We continually monitor these vaccines to ensure their safety and effectiveness.
So.Gay: Thank you for that clarification. I’d love to jump to an important question about getting other folks to care. How do you get straight colleagues, white colleagues or cis colleagues to want to help?
DR. M: First, I think it’s important to mention that I have many straight, white, and cis colleagues who genuinely care about the LGBTQ+ community and want to help. Second, I think one of the ways to get colleagues to care or at least thinking more regularly about this population is to ensure that they are up-to-date on the most current guidelines and evidence-based recommendations, and then also to coach them around conversations. Particularly one of the areas that I think many of my colleagues struggle with is initiating sexual health conversations. Getting them comfortable with those conversations, ensuring that they know the basics regarding sexual positions, for example, so that when they’re engaging with a gay, bi, trans, or other relevant person, they are understanding what they’re being told. That they’re able to ask questions that demonstrate a baseline level of knowledge. This makes the patient comfortable sharing more with them. My approach tends to be more about helping my colleagues become more comfortable having those conversations so that queer people are able to go to a clinic and have a conversation with the provider that feels comfortable and safe.
So.Gay: Like you said, comfortability at the doctor’s office can really go a long way.
DR. M: Being a doctor myself, it’s important for doctors and other healthcare providers to also have their own appointments with their doctors so that they then can experience even a fraction of the vulnerability that comes with being a patient. I mentioned earlier that people are often at the mercy of their provider, even as an educated healthcare provider there are things that we will not know, right? We can’t control every aspect of the visit with our doctors, so putting doctors into the vulnerable space of being a patient or navigating the health system helps them see even a fraction of what it’s like for the everyday patient.
So.Gay: Any common health misconceptions that truly drive you crazy?
DR. M: The myth that the flu vaccine gives you the flu. I hear that too often. This has been debunked so many times. We know that vaccines may cause some mild symptoms, as they activate your immune system. But the vaccine is not causing the actual illness. These mild symptoms that are being caused by that vaccine, so it’s not the same as having the flu.
I think another common misconception with the flu vaccine is that the main goal of the vaccine is to prevent a person from getting the flu. However, the main goal of the flu vaccine, similar to the COVID-19 vaccine, is to prevent hospitalization and death. Ensuring that you stay out of the hospital and you stay alive are truly the main goals of those vaccines.
So.Gay: In addition to picking up your book, what is something that anyone can do after reading this article to support their health and try to be better for their body?
DR. M: To start incorporating the six pillars of lifestyle medicine. I was in college when I started incorporating many of them, and this truly changed my life. My goal is never to need medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic medical condition, and it all starts with my lifestyle and adhering to those pillars. It’s all about how we start to incorporate healthy behaviors that will set us up for a quality and healthy life. I would also advise young people to establish a connection with healthcare early, so they become more comfortable voicing any concerns they have to a healthcare provider.
Last thing I would share is that your birthday is a great reminder for when you should have your checkup. Every year, for my birthday, I reach out to my doctor and either schedule an appointment or send a message through our healthcare portal. I inform them that my birthday is approaching or has recently passed and ask to be scheduled either for a visit or to have my screening labs ordered. Your birthday is a great reminder to schedule your regular screenings. In the same way we think about our birthday plans, we should also consider scheduling an annual health visit. It’s important for us to give ourselves the gift of health as well.
So.Gay: Where will you be in the future?
DR. M: I have some discussions coming up in Los Angeles and more conversation with men’s groups. I’ll also be promoting the book!
So.Gay: Awesome thank you. I feel like this was a great doctor’s visit and I’m leaving with my prescription for my six pillars of lifestyle medicine.
Your body is tea and a temple that deserves constant upkeep. There are plenty of ways to implement healthy routines into your schedule without disrupting your flow of life. Prioritizing your health is paramount for men wanting to live long, “high-quality”, and successful lives. The book emphasizes that a man of any age can begin the discipline of taking care of their bodies. Making changes now can truly impact how badly your body aches in the future.
Dr. Moore advocates for the six pillars and it’s hard not to see why. His ability to bounce back after that heart attack was credited to the work he’d put into helping his body over the years. It is an inspiring example of why consistent exercise and care for yourself is more than just a goal for instant gratification.
The chapters, divided by advice for each decade of age, is a smooth handbook in better understanding your body and how to assist it throughout your life. Like the doctor ordered, bring your copy with you to your next birthday-time visit to check on every important part of your health.
