Anteneh Roba, MD - Anti-Aging & Obesity Specialist in Fairfax, Virginia

Eva Sheie (00:03):
The purpose of this podcast is simple. We want you to get to know your doctor before meeting them in person, because you're making a life-changing decision, and time is scarce. The more you can learn about who your doctor is before you meet them, the better that first meeting will be. There's no substitute for an in-person appointment, but we hope this comes close. I'm your host, Eva Sheie, and you're listening to Meet the Doctor. Welcome back to Meet the Doctor. I'm Eva Sheie, your host, and my guest today is Dr. Anteneh Roba, who's an anti-aging and obesity specialist in Fairfax, Virginia. Can you tell us just a little bit about your practice and what you're focused on these days?

Dr. Roba (00:48):
Yeah, I've been practicing here in Fairfax, Virginia for the last 10 years. We opened our doors in 2014 and come February it'll be 10 years. And our focus is, as you said, anti-aging and obesity medicine. And we also do cosmetic work, so we do a lot of different things.

Eva Sheie (01:17):
Is there anything in particular that people find you for, now that you've been in the area for about 10 years? What are you known for?

Dr. Roba (01:25):
Cosmetics, especially just the basic usual cosmetic procedures, but I'm getting more and more people interested in minimally invasive surgical procedures, like fat transfer to the buttocks, breasts, even in male organs. And then lately with the excitement about Ozempic, whatever you want to call it. I've been getting a lot, lots of customers for weight loss.

Eva Sheie (02:00):
And are they having a hard time finding those treatments either with a prescription or even if they have a prescription or they having a hard time with the cost and that is leading them to find other sources like you?

Dr. Roba (02:15):
Yes, the cost is also an issue, but the biggest problem because a lot of insurances are now covering it, so the biggest problem is it's not available because it's anti-diabetic medication and the craze all over the United States. People, as you know, obesity is a major, major issue in the US and people are finally finding something that may actually work for them. And so pharmaceutical companies can't make enough of them to make it available for people. So that's probably one of the main reasons why they're coming to us.

Eva Sheie (02:54):
When they find you, are they coming in with misconceptions about the general issues with acquiring it and taking it? Do you think they understand that the compounded versions are safe or are you having to explain a lot of that? What do they believe when they come to find you? I guess that's what I'm asking.

Dr. Roba (03:16):
Honestly. A lot of them have no idea the difference between the compounded form and the commercial form of these medications. And honestly, I don't think they care. They just want something that works. And if they trust a physician, then it's not an issue. It hasn't been an issue for me because I feel that I give good service. I have people in the area that learn about me, feel comfortable with me. And so when they come, they're not asking specific questions about the differences between the types of treatments. They just say, doc, help me.

Eva Sheie (04:00):
Right. I think it's important that you're there doing it and that they do trust you because there's other people who just go to the internet and may actually not find a safe source.

Dr. Roba (04:12):
Oh, I know there are people who've come to me having done that, but nevertheless, I make sure that people understand that what we provide is not the commercial version. And I try to explain why it is. And I also tell them that if they have insurance, their insurance and their doctor can write the prescription for them. And so that is an option, but because of the shortage, you probably will come back to me. That's how I explain it. And I have one client now who his physician wrote a prescription for him. He went to get it. He couldn't because it wasn't available. He waited for a month and then finally showed up my facility, and we went through the whole thing and he said, you know what? I need to lose weight. I'll pay out of pocket. And that was it. And he is been super happy since.

Eva Sheie (05:15):
And you personally were interested in obesity medicine before this medication was available to us. So what got you going in that direction?

Dr. Roba (05:26):
Well, first and foremost, I was a victim of this problem I have had since my childhood. I've been battling weight issues and I gain weight and get obsessed about losing it. And then I go on these ridiculous diets. Even after I became a physician, I was doing these stupid diets that basically led to my losing a lot of muscle, which made things worse. And so this up and down journey that I went through. And then on top of that, I have a very strong family history of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and I have a whole family of obese people, so I had many personal reasons to do this.

Eva Sheie (06:19):
I'm curious what diet made you lose all the muscle. There's some weird ones out there.

Dr. Roba (06:24):
I went on juice fasts, 30, 40, 50 day juice fasts, and they were really awful. I mean, you'd lose the weight, you look skinny and everything looks good, but you're losing a currency that you can't lose. Muscle is so, so, so important, especially as you age and muscle also helps burn fat. So I was actually making the problem worse and I learned the hard way. And then I decided to do a board certification in obesity medicine, and I prepared for it for six months. And at that time, there were only 1500 to 2000 doctors in the whole of the United States and Canada Board certified in obesity medicine. I became board certified and I thought, now that I'm board certified and I'm going to get a lot of people and I'm going to make them healthier and look better. And it was not that easy because the medications that were available until recently, they're okay, but they're not as effective as what I'm seeing with the medications that have just popped up in the last year or two.

Eva Sheie (07:50):
They've been around though for a while. They just weren't used for weight loss.

Dr. Roba (07:54):
Yes, absolutely.

Eva Sheie (07:56):
You've also spent a lot of time learning in the aesthetic realm, and they really are all related because once you start losing weight, you need aesthetics more.

Dr. Roba (08:06):
Yes, yes. Oh yes.

Eva Sheie (08:09):
Which is actually kind of the fun part. So I like that you're uniquely positioned to help people both lose weight and look better as they're losing weight. But there's a really interesting angle to your specialization around women's and men's health, and I wonder if you can talk about that a little bit. I actually see that you trained with Dr. Reynolds and I met him once, which was fascinating.

Dr. Roba (08:35):
Yeah, he's a very interesting guy. So in 2013, before I started my clinic, I was really searching to find new ways to develop my new interest in, I don't want to say alternative medicine, but a different kind of medicine in the sense that, more evidence-based and more focusing on treating the underlying problem. And one of the issues that used to interest me and still does is sexual health. And so I decided to go and learn and get certified by him, which I did. And since then, I've been part of his group for the last 10 years, and every week he does webinars that I attend for his team. And so it's been very useful on many levels.

Eva Sheie (09:37):
What kinds of issues do those treatments actually address?

Dr. Roba (09:41):
Well, one of the major ones is erectile dysfunction, which is a huge problem for men across the globe. Actually, I a practice in East Africa, and the problems there are enormous with sexual health and here in the United States and his treatment or what he came up with addresses sexual health. Now of course, it doesn't mean it's just doing, let's say PRP or what they call the P shot will not resolve everything, but it really, really helps a lot to improve men's ability to perform sexual activity. And it's been a very useful tool as well as other things that we do to help men with erectile dysfunction. But that was one of the major things that I learned from him. But he also delves in the cosmetic realm, and his main focus is on platelet-rich plasma. It's a form of regenerative medical treatment that wherever it's put in, it improves the function of that tissue.

(10:59):
And so when it is talking about sexual dysfunction in men with the P shots for erectile dysfunction, and then you have the O Shot, which is the orgasm shot for women who have issues with reaching orgasm and having issues with sensitivity, urinary incontinence, even dryness, vaginal dryness, and his treatment, the O shot has been very useful in improving and really alleviating the suffering of a lot of women who go through these issues even when they're not in menopause. This is even in young women deal with this problem. And so the O shot and P shot have been a tremendous addition to the treatment of sexual dysfunction.

Eva Sheie (11:53):
You said that you also have a practice in East Africa. Can you tell us where that is and how often are you going over there?

Dr. Roba (12:01):
I used to go every year and sometimes two to three times a year. My practice is in Addis Ababa by Ethiopia, which is in the northeastern part of Africa, and I'm originally from Ethiopia, so I decided to open a clinic there similar to what we do here, and it's been open for about almost the same amount of time, about 10 years in Ethiopia.

Eva Sheie (12:34):
When you moved to Fairfax, were you in Ethiopia before that move or was there something in the middle?

Dr. Roba (12:42):
No. Oh yeah, there was a place called Texas.

Eva Sheie (12:46):
Oh.

Dr. Roba (12:47):
Yeah, I was in Houston for 18 years. But it was such a joy to have lived in Houston and relocating here and buying a home in the DC area is so expensive as compared to Texas.

Eva Sheie (13:02):
Yes. You know Houston will always have you back.

Dr. Roba (13:06):
Yeah. The funny thing is, I've left, what, 10 years now? Every two years after you're supposed to renew your license, whatever state you're practicing in. I still have my Texas license. I'm still paying for it every two years. I just can't let go.

Eva Sheie (13:23):
Yeah, I love Houston and it's so entrepreneurial. I can kind of see the roots of Houston in your business here. I felt like the business environment and the culture in Houston was so encouraging as far as taking risks and being bold and coming up with things that in other parts of the country, people would ask you, why do you think you can do that?

Dr. Roba (13:42):
Yeah, yeah.

Eva Sheie (13:44):
Well, what do you think you've learned in Houston that maybe you brought with you to Fairfax to change the way things were done around there? Have you seen the impact of your work in Fairfax change anything else around you?

Dr. Roba (13:57):
No. I mean, I feel that I've impacted a lot of people's lives in a positive way, and that has always been the source of my deepest happiness and why I practice medicine, just to see the joy of somebody, whatever their situation may be, and if I'm involved in helping them get better or look better or feel better, or actually health-wise get better. It's been so rewarding. I would do this until I'm a hundred years old if I could.

Eva Sheie (14:36):
Is there a certain type of patient that you like to help the most?

Dr. Roba (14:41):
Well right now, I love working with people who are really obese and don't know what to do and how to lose wieght, and they come and 5, 6, 7 months later, they're totally different people, and that excitement that you see in their faces is just priceless. Or. like I had one gentleman that came to me and he was on three anti-hypertensive medications. He was on verge of being a diabetic. His doctor put him on the anti-hypertensive medication and his blood pressure was still ridiculously high. And he came to me and I told him, you lose 40, 50 pounds and you will see a difference that will really surprise you. And he didn't believe me, but to his credit, he trusted me and he went from three medications to one medication, and temporarily, we had to stop that too because his blood pressure, it got to the point where his blood pressure was so normal that he couldn't take it every day for a while.

(15:56):
And so it changed his life completely. He lost like 70 or 80 pounds, and this is not even with semaglutide. This was just putting him on some other medication and a weight. We have these foods that we provide to the patients, and he got on these foods and he lost quite a bit of weight, and he started exercising. He stopped smoking. He used to drink a lot. I had him stop all that, and he went from a patient with average of 190 over 130, 120 blood pressure, which is ridiculous, on three medication that wouldn't work to one medication with a blood pressure of one 110 over 70. And knowing that I had something to do with him getting metabolically healthy and knowing that if he continues doing this, that you live a healthy life and be able to see his grandchildren was just, I can't tell you how happy it makes me.

Eva Sheie (17:04):
What strikes me is this idea that's floating around the media, especially among younger people, that there should be some fat acceptance movement that we're healthy and fat at the same time, and you might be when you're young, but I think it's disingenuous for ordinary people. Doctors aren't doing this, but for the media and for people to think that somehow it's not unhealthy to be that overweight because it will shorten your lifespan.

Dr. Roba (17:35):
Oh, absolutely. It's hard on your cardiovascular system. It's hard on your joints. Its' pro-inflammatory, fat tissue and all the chronic diseases that end up shortening people's lives. Their foundation is in most cases, the obesity, the inflammatory process that's going on. And that's one of the problems with the US. We have one of the best healthcares in the world, but if you look at the health of the population, it's not that great. And a lot of it is because of what we eat and the obesity that comes with it.

Eva Sheie (18:17):
I noticed even in the last few years that they won't ask you to get on the scale anymore.

Dr. Roba (18:23):
Oh, now that I didn't know.

Eva Sheie (18:25):
Well, yeah. That was happening in a primary practice where I used to go and don't go anymore. They just don't want to embarrass you, so they don't put you on scale when it is probably the most important thing.

Dr. Roba (18:38):
Absolutely. I mean, I'm not going to say anything about that. It is what it is.

Eva Sheie (18:44):
It's probably an entire podcast episode by itself.

Dr. Roba (18:47):
Yeah, exactly.

Eva Sheie (18:49):
Well, there's one question you haven't answered, which is how did you end up leaving Ethiopia and coming to the United States? I'm sure there's a story there.

Dr. Roba (18:59):
Well, I actually came to the US when I was two years old with my parents. My father was a diplomat. He worked for the Ethiopian delegation at the United Nations in New York, so we lived in New York for three years. Then I went back with my mom to Ethiopia, and then my mom got sick and she passed away, and my father took me back to the US and he worked for the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, DC and we lived in DC three years. In fact, in 1963, when the Ethiopian Emperor came to the United States, president Kennedy came to the Ethiopian Embassy to meet with the Emperor, and I had pictures taken with his Emperor and President Kennedy with all the kids during a photo shoot. So three years in Washington, and then went back to Ethiopia and then finished high school, got a partial scholarship to Davidson College in North Carolina, so I came back to the US again. So it's been back and forth, back and forth, but I've been here for 30 something years. So even though I originally from Ethiopia, born in Ethiopia, I'm really an American.

Eva Sheie (20:21):
It sounds like you had the best of both worlds.

Dr. Roba (20:23):
Yes, absolutely. You hit it on the nail. Exactly.

Eva Sheie (20:27):
Medical school. Where did you do that?

Dr. Roba (20:30):
I went to medical school in Romania, believe it or not.

Eva Sheie (20:34):
Interesting.

Dr. Roba (20:35):
Yeah, a very, I've had a very, my life path has been all over. I've been all over the place.

Eva Sheie (20:43):
Did you have to learn Romanian to go to medical school in Romania?

Dr. Roba (20:47):
Absolutely. I didn't even know where Romania was on the map, but my father was acting ambassador in West Africa, and he was able to get me a scholarship, free scholarship to go through medical school. So I said, yeah, hey, medical school, and no, I don't have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars when I'm finished with medical school. Yeah, I'll go. But when I went there, I just realized, look, I don't know the language. The little city I went to initially to learn the language Aradia, it's called Aradia. They've never, ever, at least physically in person, not on tv, but in person. They've never seen a dark-skinned person. And so it was a very interesting one year that I spent there.

Eva Sheie (21:41):
Well, how did you go about learning Romanian?

Dr. Roba (21:44):
Well, I went to school.

Eva Sheie (21:46):
Just jumped in.

Dr. Roba (21:47):
Yeah, just jumped in, and in nine months I was out hanging out with the locals, talking Romanian.

Eva Sheie (21:57):
Amazing.

Dr. Roba (21:58):
Yeah.

Eva Sheie (21:59):
And so the whole time you were there, would you walk around and would people just stare at you constantly?

Dr. Roba (22:05):
Only the first year, because I was in a very small city, but when I moved to go to the medical institute in another city, it was a larger city, more cosmopolitan, so they weren't surprised. But the first year, one day I was in Manhattan, New York, staying with my aunt, and then the next day I'm in some little town in the middle of Eastern Europe.

Eva Sheie (22:36):
I thought what you were going to say was by the end of the year, everyone knew you and then they didn't look, have to look anymore.

Dr. Roba (22:43):
No, they did. I mean,

Eva Sheie (22:45):
There's the one African guy.

Dr. Roba (22:48):
Yeah. Well, then I got lucky, another African, actually, he was Ethiopian. He came, and so two of us together the first month or so, we didn't go out anywhere, and then we slowly started venturing, got on a bus and went to town, and everybody would just stop what they're doing and just look at us. It was just so crazy, but to be honest, they were very nice people, very gentle. Very eventually we would go to bars and we would have meals, and it was paid for. We didn't have to pay. The locals would invite us and feed us. They were very nice. Very nice.

Eva Sheie (23:29):
What a great experience.

Dr. Roba (23:31):
Yeah, it was really, really very interesting.

Eva Sheie (23:37):
What do you like to do when you're not at work?

Dr. Roba (23:41):
Sleep, because I'm so tired. I work six days and a half and I love it, but it's tiring, and I go home. I like to read. I'm very interested in geopolitics. My father's diplomacy and my diplomatic roots kind of make me interested in world politics, so I read a lot about that and I like to exercise. Those are the things I do the most, and I love traveling, but I can't go anywhere now because I have too many patients, but I've seen enough of the world that I'm okay for now.

Eva Sheie (24:22):
Do you have any trips planned?

Dr. Roba (24:25):
Oh, I have so many trips. The one continent that I haven't seen is South America. I want to go to Brazil, to Argentina, to Paraguay. Not Paraguay, Peru, but I don't know when.

Eva Sheie (24:39):
Surely you can find a training that will let you write that trip off.

Dr. Roba (24:43):
I'm looking for it. I almost went to Australia for a conference that I almost was going to go, but something happened and I couldn't go because that's another place I haven't been. But other than that, I've been to almost every other continent.

Eva Sheie (25:03):
Well, I'm so grateful that you took the time to share your story with us today, and I'm looking forward to hearing more of these kinds of stories from you, so I hope you'll let us come back and talk to you again someday.

Dr. Roba (25:15):
Oh, I would love to. I'd love to be back. Thank you for having me.

Eva Sheie (25:20):
If someone is interested in coming to see you as a patient, where should they look for you online?

Dr. Roba (25:26):
They can go to www.zinniaaesthetics.com.

Eva Sheie (25:31):
Ziinnia like the flower, Z-I-N-N-I-A?

Dr. Roba (25:35):
Yep. Z-I-N-N-I-A. And then aesthetics, A-E-S-T-H-E-T-I-C-S.com.

Eva Sheie (25:41):
Thank you, Dr. Roba.

Dr. Roba (25:44):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Eva Sheie (25:51):
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