Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/_i9HO1iJSYE   Stepping on your bathroom scale daily is the Jedi mind trick that painlessly stops weight gain over the holidays and these inactive winter months.  This battle plan comes from nutritionists at The University of Georgia.   Their study began before Thanksgiving and ended mid-January.  It involved 111 adults half of whom weighed themselves on a WiFi-enabled scale that graphically displayed their weights over time.  The others just ate without any numeric feedback.     The scale watchers gained no weight, and, if overweight, actually lost weight.  The controls gained up to 7 pounds on average.   If you want to look good in your swim suit come June, begin a daily weigh-in and chart it.   Sepideh Kaviani, Michelle vanDellen, Jamie A. Cooper. Daily Self‐Weighing to Prevent Holiday‐Associated Weight Gain in Adults. Obesity, 2019; 27 (6): 908 DOI: 10.1002/oby.22454   #Dieting #scale #winter #holidays #Mindtricks  

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/O8k52s6HoZs   Psychological counseling, known as cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, neutralizes anxiety-induced cellula aging.  Neuropsychologists at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute studied 46 clinically anxious but untreated subjects measuring the psychologic effects and cellular improvement after talk therapy.   Those completing the CBT enjoyed a 46% reduction of anxiety symptoms.  Their protective oxidative enzymes increased, and the presence of these is associated with slower cellular aging.  Most interesting is the fact that the counseling was delivered online in virtual sessions.   If you suffer from anxiety disorders, do seek professional help.  You will feel happier and engage more effectively with family, friends and colleagues.  Your life will be better but also longer.   Kristoffer N. T. Månsson, Daniel Lindqvist, Liu L. Yang, Cecilia Svanborg, Josef Isung, Gustav Nilsonne, Lise Bergman-Nordgren, Samir El Alaoui, Erik Hedman-Lagerlöf, Martin Kraepelien, Jens Högström, G

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/SCgKVBviePU   There’s an epidemic of concussions among college students, and surprisingly most victims are not the football, rugby, and lacrosse players.   A new study from the University of Colorado at Boulder shows that the  $  highest concussion rates occur in non-athletes and in women.   Non-athletes were 57% more likely than athletes to sustain concussions and women were 11% more likely than men.  The college student concussion rate was more than 2.2 times higher than  that of the general population.  Most non-sports injuries were due to falls, fights, and car accidents. August was the most dangerous month.   Be careful out there students and protect your brains.  Otherwise, you’re throwing away your tuition.   John Breck, Adam Bohr, Sourav Poddar, Matthew B. McQueen, Tracy Casault. Characteristics and Incidence of Concussion Among a US Collegiate Undergraduate Population. JAMA Network Open, 2019; 2 (12): e1917626 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.17626   #Concussion #college

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/Ge7ktfyeQJ0   Accumulations of belly fat and love handles are associated with a reduction in our problem-solving powers.  This from an Iowa State University study of more than 4400 middle-aged men and women.   The researchers measured both belly and waist fat as well as lean muscle mass.  Participants with belly fat accumulations were the worst problem solvers followed by those with love handles.  Those with more lean muscle mass scored the highest.   To avoid a pear-shaped body and add lean body mass, exercise with resistance training and aerobics.  Then, eating right cutting out those saturated fatty doughnuts and carb-loaded beers.   Brandon S. Klinedinst, Colleen Pappas, Scott Le, Shan Yu, Qian Wang, Li Wang, Karin Allenspach-Jorn, Jonathan P. Mochel, Auriel A. Willette. Aging-related changes in fluid intelligence, muscle and adipose mass, and sex-specific immunologic mediation: A longitudinal UK Biobank study. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 2019; 82: 396 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.20

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/LKuMWAYkpEc   If you hope that a 23andMe test will predict health, don’t waste your money.  The largest meta-analysis of genetic testing, completed by the University of Alberta, shows that garden-variety mutations make only a 5 to 10% contribution to most disease.   These mutations, so called single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs, have a negligible impact on cancer, diabetes, dementia, and most other illnesses.  They do significantly affect a few including inflammatory bowel disease and macular degeneration.   This information empowers you to prolong your life and improve its quality by what you eat and how your exercise your body and brain.  These factors, not genes in your 23 pairs of chromosomes, control 90% of your health.   Jonas Patron, Arnau Serra-Cayuela, Beomsoo Han, Carin Li, David Scott Wishart. Assessing the performance of genome-wide association studies for predicting disease risk. PLOS ONE, 2019; 14 (12): e0220215 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220215   #Genetics #23an

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/wPMaVIrDLvM   Pink artificial sweetener, once wrongfully accused of triggering bladder cancer, may ironically help create new cancer chemotherapy drugs.  Data just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry shows that saccharin prevents cancer cells from surviving in tumors’ typical low oxygen conditions.   Saccharin blocks the activity of tumor-specific carbonic anhydrase 9 while leaving unaffected the carbonic anhydrases 1 and 2 used by normal cells.  The researchers developed compounds with similar chemical structures to saccharin and found that many could kill lung, prostate, and colon cancer cells grown in tissue culture.   These new findings should make you more comfortable using the pink sweetener.  As with most foods and additives, moderation is the by-word.   Silvia Bua, Carrie Lomelino, Akilah B. Murray, Sameh M. Osman, Zeid A. ALOthman, Murat Bozdag, Hatem A. Abdel-Aziz, Wagdy M. Eldehna, Robert McKenna, Alessio Nocentini, Claudiu T. Supuran. “A Sweet Combination”:

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/OHxcJZNPSx8   Children reading digital books that provide animated feedback recall more of what they read.  Educational psychologists at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University studied ninety 3 to 5 year olds comparing their comprehension of material read from board books, static digital books and animated digital books.   When a book’s illustrations move in response to a child‘s vocal delight, that child enjoys enhanced memory of the story.  The researchers developed the animated books to model responses of enthusiastic parents guiding their children’s early reading experiences.   Ok parents!  Skip the expense and batteries by releasing your own inner child actor as you read with your kids.  Truly make the material come alive with animated faces and sounds.   Cassondra M. Eng, Anthony S. Tomasic, Erik D. Thiessen. Contingent responsivity in E-books modeled from quality adult-child interactions: Effects on children’s learning and attention.. Developmental Psychology, 2019; DOI: 10

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/MvRPC47OMgE   If you’re pregnant and work two night shifts in any given week, you significantly increase your chances of suffering a miscarriage.  Danish occupational medicine specialists reviewed the data from nearly 23,000 pregnant women a for a study recently published online.   The data revealed that, after the 8th week of pregnancy, women who worked two or more night shifts in any given week had a 32% higher risk of miscarriage by the following week.  The risk of miscarriage escalated as the number of night shifts and the number of consecutive night shifts increased.   Again, this study only unearths an association, and the cause of this phenomenon is unproven.  The investigators do add that night work disrupts the body’s circadian rhythms and diminishes melatonin release.   Melatonin is known to be a factor in normal placental function.   If you are on the night shift and considering becoming pregnant, ask your managers if you can join the day crew.  This is crucial if you h

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/bXBHj2hjj-M   Do you cringe at the thought of looking down from bridge or tall building, going up in a balloon, or parasailing?  Are you afraid of falling even if you are only up on a chair?  Some caution makes sense, but if you have a pathologic fear that limits your life choices then you probably suffer from acrophobia or the extreme, irrational phobia about height.      From 2 to 5% of us have acrophobia, and twice as many women as men suffer from it.  It can be extremely dangerous if an affected person develops a panic attack and becomes so agitated that she or he cannot safely get down.   Dutch researchers developed a VR app to help acrophobics control their fears using cognitive behavioral therapy without the use of formal psychotherapy.  The app called ZeroPhobia, available on the iOS and Google Play app stores for $14, works with your smartphone and cardboard goggles.   The neuroscientists studied this app in a trial involving nearly 200 subjects.  Half were treated with 6

  xvid https://youtu.be/vV1J4sIPyy0   Paying creatives for every idea they churn out led to optimal results.  The alternatives, paying for idea quality or offering no motivational reward at all, fell flat according to studies by business school researchers at The University of Texas-Austin and the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.   Their data also demonstrated the most interesting finding that true creativity has an incubation period.  The greatest creative productivity occurred when the idea kids spewed out rough ideas, took at least a 20 minute break, and then returned to their initial thoughts and refined them into very practical plans.   The bottom line?  When you need creative solutions throw as many ideas up on the board as you can, and don’t be cheap about paying the brainstormers or yourself.  Then go out for a walk and return to fine-tune the initial ideas many minutes or days later.   Steven J. Kachelmeier, Laura W. Wang and Michael G. Williamson. Incentivizing the Creative Process: From Ini

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/VLC_LDRCHwI   If you’re overweight and suffering from migraine headaches, dropping those extra pounds will literally take a load off your mind.  This conclusion comes from a new study by Italy’s University of Padova recently presented to the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society.   Researchers there conducted a meta-analysis of 10 studies covering more 473 migraine sufferers.  They found that any weight loss in obese subjects led to significant improvement including fewer migraines, shorter and less intense headache spells, and less disability.   The improvement did not depend upon the degree of obesity, the numbers of pounds lost, or how subjects achieved the weight reduction.  Dieting and surgery both worked, and the effects were similar in adults and children.   If you’re popping pills, getting shots, having psychotherapy, using biofeedback, enjoying therapeutic massages, getting acupunctured, or wolfing down exotic herbs all to prevent or control your migraines and you are o

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/wGewmy9_u90   A green light over the salad bar and a red light over the burgers and fries triggers healthier and environmentally more responsible food choices.  Experimental psychologists at London’s Queen Mary University set up a lunchtime canteen and studied the choices of over 400 subjects.   They conducted two experiments.  In the first, one group of subjects saw traffic signals over the food reflecting its caloric content and healthfulness.  In the second experiment, two traffic signals were present: one again representing the health rating of the food; the second signal revealed the environmental friendliness and carbon emission quotient of the food.  The control groups saw no lights.   Even though the investigators presupposed that multiple lights would be confusing, the group choosing food while exposed to the one signal for calorie count but also the group exposed to indicators for both calories and carbon emissions choose healthier options.  The bonus was that the group

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/uttUY1yfe9Q   Playing organized team sports grows the hippocampus, the brain’s emotion and memory center, while reducing the incidence of adult depression.  This is the finding by neuroscientists at the Washington University-St. Louis.     They studied a nationwide sample over over 4000 children 9 to 11 years of age using questionnaires to determine their participation in sports and their emotional outlook.  Each underwent MRI brain imaging to measure their hippocampal volumes.    Participation in regular, organized team sports but not casual pickup games or non-sport activities such as music or art triggers hippocampal growth in both boys and girls.  The sports-playing boys but not the girls showed a notably reduced incidence of clinical depression later in life.   The authors caution that this observation is merely an association and not proof of cause and effect.  Even so, it underscores the value of participation in after-school athletics as long as they don’t trigger head inj

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/OxOPYMo9fdk   The knee takes a beating in many athletic contests, and anterior cruciate ligament repair is a frequent operative event in the world of sports medicine.  During recovery, though, there tends to be a loss of muscle mass and bone density despite good rehabilitation therapy.   Orthopedic surgeons at Houston’s Methodist Hospital report to the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine that precise and cyclic limitation of blood flow to the healing limbs during postoperative rehabilitation exercises reduced if not eliminated the loss of both muscle and bone mass.  An automated tourniquet was used to reduce the blood flow by about 80% on an intermittent basis.   Researchers across the country and around the world are now studying this phenomenon to better understand the underlying reasons for the benefit.  If you are contemplating an ACL repair, ask your orthopod about this tourniquet technique.   American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine. "Blood flow restricti

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/rU2V0Knw6ZE   Pregnant women will suffer colds and may get the flu despite receiving the flu vaccines.  When that occurs, the babies they are carrying are more likely to develop excessive neural sensitivity.  That in turn leads to agitation for infants and toddlers and attention deficits and even serious psychosis such as schizophrenia later in life.   A study by University of Colorado pediatricians and psychiatrists reveals that this problem may be prevented by sufficient levels of the essential B vitamin choline.  Choline is necessary for the synthesis of the cell membranes of neurons and the sheaths of nerves.   While choline is found in some foods including eggs, red meat, and liver, 75% of pregnant women fail to consume the recommended daily 450 milligrams of this nutrient.  Unfortunately, prenatal vitamins do not contain choline.   Pregnant women should take a 500 mg choline supplement daily for at least the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.  Choline may be obtained from most dru

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/o7vWyfz-n7w   Sit-stand desks, so-called SSDs, are no miracle.  This conclusion stems from a University of Pittsburgh meta-analysis of some 53 studies.   The Pitt bioengineers conclude that these convertible desks do drive less sitting, can improve back pain issues, may make their users somewhat more comfortable, and can lower your blood pressure a bit.  They will not help you lose weight, and their safe use requires attention to how you are positioned such as desk height, monitor height, posture, and use of an anti-fatigue mat on which to stand.   These devices aren’t cheap.  Prices range from the bare-bones model at $175 to the luxury liners with push button controls that run nearly $1000.  Before making a final purchase, you might like to try one out by purchasing from a merchant with liberal return policies.   April J. Chambers, Michelle M. Robertson, Nancy A. Baker. The effect of sit-stand desks on office worker behavioral and health outcomes: A scoping review. Applied Ergono

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/yPUzPyQOAVw   Ninety percent of the most popular prescription medications in the US contain one or more ingredients that may make you sick.  Now, I’m not talking about the main or so-called active ingredient but rather about the inactive ingredients that are added to pills, capsules, and liquids to improve shelf life, absorption, and taste.   A study just released by collaborators from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MIT analyzed some 42,000 oral medications and their nearly 350,000 inactive ingredients.  The investigators pinpointed 3 troublesome inactive ingredients that appear most often.     Forty-five percent of medications contain lactose, 33% contain one or another food dye, and up to 0.1% contain peanut oil.  This latter ingredient that could be life threatening for those with peanut allergies.     To make matters worse, there are countless versions of the same prescription drug by different manufacturers that contain different inactive ingredients.  If you are a

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/5PFjaUwlKzQ   We can neutralize our stress and anxiety with song, a stuffed animal, and even another person.  Psychologists at Yale and Cornell present this stress antidote adding that a safety signal triggers an entirely different neural network than that through which behavioral therapy operates.   Subjects, both human and mice, were exposed to both threatening objects and non-threatening ones separately.  Including the non-threatening safety item in a threatening scenario neutralized the stress.   With the holidays upon us soon to be followed by the tax season, I’d pick a safety signal, a portable happy place, to help you through the anxiety maze.  Know you’re not alone: 1 in 3 Americans have disabling anxiety and fear.   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/12/191209161336.htm    #Safetysignal #Fear #anxiety #happyplace  

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/XZ5zruOCTWI   Australians, forever known as industrial strength meat eaters, have found a way to continue their habit while still eating heart healthy.  Enter the Mediterranean-Pork diet.     It fuses the typical med diet of fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains and olive oils with 2-3 weekly servings of fresh lean pork,  Research at the University of South Australia shows that participants following the Med-Pork plan actually have higher cognitive function than those on a typical low-fat offering.   The bonus: producing pork versus beef generates significantly fewer greenhouse gases.   It’s time to import this tasty, healthy diet to the US.  Mix up a delicious salad, and put the other white meat, pork, on the barbie.   Alexandra T. Wade, Courtney R. Davis, Kathryn A. Dyer, Jonathan M. Hodgson, Richard J. Woodman, Hannah A. D. Keage, Karen J. Murphy. A Mediterranean Diet with Fresh, Lean Pork Improves Processing Speed and Mood: Cognitive Findings from the MedPork Ran

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/qzPedk35i7g   Eating red meat and fatty foods will more than triple your risk of going blind over time. So says a collaborative University of Buffalo-University of Wisconsin study just published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.   The investigators reviewed the dietary preferences of 144 patients with various stages of macular degeneration.  Those consuming a typical western diet of red meat, fried foods, refined grains, and high-fat dairy were 3.4 times more likely to develop advanced eye disease with the inability to continue driving.    A poor diet not only damages your heart and blood vessels but also critical sense organs like eyes on which you depend for a quality life.  Begin eating healthy today.   Shruti Dighe, Jiwei Zhao, Lyn Steffen, J A Mares, Stacy M Meuer, Barbara E K Klein, Ronald Klein, Amy E Millen. Diet patterns and the incidence of age-related macular degeneration in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. British Journal of Ophthalmology, 2