Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/j8mOrrCP-94 One study after another heralds the advantages of breastfeeding.  Some mothers turn to pumping their breast milk when their flow is sporadic or when they develop conflicts with sib childcare or the demands of work.  Do babies enjoy the same advantages from ingesting pumped breast milk? The short answer is an emphatic NO.  Researchers from Canada’s University of Manitoba studied the breast milk of almost 400 healthy mothers 3 to 4 months following delivery.  Using sophisticated genetic probes, they showed that the milk the babies actually ingested was healthier when it came directly from the mother’s breast.   The natural breast milk contained good bacteria from both the mother and from the mouth of the infant.  The pumped breast milk contained those bugs but also an abundance of bad bacteria, opportunistic types that are capable of causing respiratory disease It isn’t clear if the bad bugs come from contaminated breast pumps, but that is a likely possibility.  If you do u

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/zho25BPRc8w Marijuana use is spreading like wildfire, and the prevailing opinion is that its components are harmless.  Another of this weeks stories highlights its potential danger for those with heart problems.  Now a study from Britain’s University of Oxford and Canada’s McGill University shows that regular cannabis use in adolescence can trigger adult depression and suicidal ideas. The researchers reviews 11 international studies covering more than 23,000 young persons.  Regular weed use by an individual bumped his or her risk of serious depression and suicide up by a factor of about 7%.  The number isn’t huge, but the consequences are tragic for that person so affected.  Then when you amplify the individual effect over a population, it translates into more than 400,000 cases of deadly depression in the U.S., 60,000 case in the U.K., and 25, 000 cases in Canada. Other studies have shown that a teens regular use of cannabis is associated with poor school performance, increased moto

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/K1gxsErYkQc How many times have we heard our mothers and grandmothers say “Dear..... you better go to sleep to fight off that cold.”  The latest research just published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine now proves that she was dead on! Immunologists from Germany’s University of Tübingen studied T cells from healthy volunteers as they slept or while they were pulling all nighters.  For your reference, T cells are the white cells that kill cold viruses. The “sleeping” T cells had significantly more surface activators called integrins.  These sticky integrins help the killer T cells attach and destroy target cells.   The targets in question could be our respiratory lining cells infected by cold viruses and making more virus to perpetuate our misery.   More importantly, the target cell could also be a cancer cell on its way to your brain, lungs, or liver. Just as sleep bumps up your T cell integrins, stress does just the opposite.  So be sure to get those ZZZZZ and fight stress by

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/NTxj6-8Dqts We’ve all heard about the narcotic epidemic.  The real news is that there are potent weapons to combat opioid use as close as our medicine cabinets.   Ibuprofen, generic or branded Advil or Motrin, either alone or with acetaminophen, generic or Tylenol, significantly reduced the need for postoperative morphine in a study of more than 550 patients undergoing hip surgery.   The subjects started their oral pain meds one hour before surgery and continued to receive them every 6 hours for the first day after surgery.  The patients were able to obtain any additional pain relief they needed by pushing a button to self-administer IV morphine. The finding that 400 mg of ibuprofen, that’s two adult pills, taken every 6 hours kills pain exceedingly well and eliminates the need for more powerful drugs should be useful information to you.  If you are a patient facing surgery, do discuss post-op pain control strategy with your surgeon and anesthesiologist.  When you do, tell them you’d

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/_Ea_jZxu15Q   There’s plenty of “Fake News” out there, and some of it is bogus medical, health, and wellness news.  Just how do you know if your sources of health news are legit?     The Health News You Should Use that I present here comes from what I consider to be gold standard outlets.  However, even though true, much of the news out there isn’t useful for most of us.  I sift though the material from the best sources and pick stories that I think you will find useful..   For your interest, convenience, and safety, I’m sharing with you my 5 go-to resources with industrial strength reliability in each of 5 categories.  When news from these sources comes your way, you can believe it!   Newspapers of record.  Here are the best large national broadsheet newspapers that employ excellent medical and health journalists.  Their staff writers, many with impressive research and clinical credentials, know how to read and interpret the medical literature.  Here are my top 5: The New York T

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/ct13uGTrFlA Recreational cannabis use is on the rise as more and more states make it legal.  We can learn a thing or two from our neighbors to the north as weed for fun is completely legal throughout Canada and medicinal marijuana has been in widespread use for years. A just published report in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology reminds us that the new cannabis can be risky.  The case report recounts the story of a older man with stable coronary artery disease who decided to try a THC lollipop to relieve some pain and insomnia.  It contained 90 mg of THC and triggered a serious heart attack and reduced cardiac function.  Compared that dose to the 7 mg in a joint or the usual 2.5 mg dose of THC used for nausea in cancer and AIDS patients. Cannabis heart toxicity can be due to: 1. directed effects of THC on cardiac muscle; 2. effects of the various inhaled and toxic gases released when marijuana burn, and 3. the cardiac effects of weed-induced anxiety and hallucinations.   Over the pas

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/ogsYU-IDW14 Those feminine hormones that help to bestow the miracle of reproduction on women may ironically make them more susceptible to addiction.   The latest entry in a series of studies from Vanderbilt University’s pharmacology department shows that, when a female’s estrogen is peaking, she learns faster, craves adventure and novel experiences, is more likely to seek romance whether good or bad, and is more prone to seek rewards.  That makes her more likely to fall prey to addiction. The investigators had previously demonstrated that higher estrogen levels intensify the brain’s dopamine reward release following cocaine use.  These latest experiments employed a rat model to show that females, in the presence of a light trigger, were more motivated than males to do what it takes to repeatedly get a dose of cocaine.  Female hormones facilitate repeated drug ingestion. Those of us who applaud the #metoo movement see this type of information as a tool for liberating women from the re

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/QIl0mnUlt9A I’m Dr. Howard Smith, PENTA Medical Network,  reporting from NYC with the Health News Roundup for the THIRD week of FEBRUARY, 2019.  This is Health News You Should Use, the latest medical discoveries that you can use in a practical way to keep yourself and your family healthy.   Here are the headlines: Women’s Hormones Drive Them To Addiction  New Weed More Powerful and Dangerous Than The Classic Five For Five Ways To Avoid Fake Health News Advil With or Without Tylenol Controls Post-op Pain Like Opioids Sleep Enhances Your Immunity Is Bottle Feeding With Pumped Breast Milk Equal To Breastfeeding? Firstborn Children Bully Their Sibs Can You Tell If Your Kids Had A Good Night’s Sleep? Diet Drinks Unhealthy For Women Smoking May Kill Your Color Vision Acupuncture Damps Hot Flashes FUTUREMed: Glowing Urine Signals Transplant Rejection Tough Laws Don’t Lower Teen Weed Use Women’s Yeast Infection Therapy Can Drive Miscarriages TRY A LITTLE KINDNESS: Immersive Virtual Reality R

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/JnWj56Fbfdw Here’s some good climate news for a change.  It comes from my the goodnewsnetwork.org. NASA satellite pictures prove that our home planet is significantly greener than it was 20 years ago.  For this we can thank two coutries with the largest populations, India and China. The greening didn’t happen by accident either.  It occurred as the result of aggressive tree planting programs in both countries. The extra greenspace, more than 2 million square miles of it, is equivalent to the area covered by the Amazon rainforests.  This represents a net increase of 5% for the entire Earth over the past 2 decades. Additional good news: by employing efficient farming strategies, food production in China and India has increased by 35-40% since 2000.  These countries, recognizing their own growing populations, have been able to successfully address their impeding food supply shortage head on. This success shows that human ingenuity can tackle huge problems and come out on top.  It provid

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/z_iV1Rri85M\         Exercise not only strengthens your heart, tones your muscles, and drives more blood flow to your brain, it also trains your fat cells to release healthy proteins into your blood that help keep your body humming.  New research from Harvard’s Joslin Diabetes Center just published in Nature Metabolism demonstrate that exercise-primed fat releases a healthy so-called adipokine that improves glucose metabolism. This magic protein, Transforming Growth Factor Beta 2 or TGFbeta2, appears in both humans and mice as the result of exercise.  It controls blood sugar levels and neutralizes the effect of a high fat diet which in mice and in many humans induces diabetes. Your muscles do play a role in the process too.  The lactic acid they produce as you exercise appears to be the trigger that leads to TGFbeta2 release from fat.  The investigators speculate that, someday, this key protein messenger released by fat may become a practical treatment for diabetes. #fat #adiposetiss

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/0N-7vPlK5xM Over the past 4 years, delayed clamping and division of the umbilical cord of preterm babies has become an internationally-accepted guideline.  The delay permits a needed autotransfusion of the baby’s own iron-rich blood from the placenta preventing neonatal anemia and facilitating better myelin production and neurologic development. Now, neonatologists at the University of Rhode Island, one of the groups that championed clamping delay for premies, have published a study in the Journal of Pediatrics that demonstrates advantages of delayed cord clamping for term babies as well.  Their data on 65 term babies followed subsequently for 7 years demonstrates that waiting 5 minutes before clamping the cord while the baby enjoys an initial skin-to-skin encounter with mommy has tremendous value. They found that delayed clamping leads to a 30% increase in total blood volume and a 50% increase in iron rich red cell volume.  Those infants had a higher iron storage levels at 4 months

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/daOwdUR03kU Conventional medical wisdom states that a child’s tonsils and adenoids begin to shrink in size between the ages of 12 and 20 years.  Since these tissues, when enlarged, affect a child’s breathing, sleep, and dental alignment, the expectation that their size will diminish is key for planning medical and orthodontia therapy. A new study from the Tokyo Medical and Dental University now shows that tonsils and adenoids do not shrink over the teen years.  A careful longitudinal study of 90 adolescents using sequential cephalometric imaging at ages 8, 10, 13, 16, and 19 years of age reveals that growth of the throat cavity itself does occur giving more space to the same-sized tonsils and adenoids.  Since the extra throat space that develops may not relieve the breathing or dental problems, this new data suggests that clinicians treating young children with obstructive tonsils and adenoids should be more proactive and consider removing these tissues at an earlier age.   Younger c

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/9F6t06_13j8 L-norvaline is a common amino acid component of popular body building supplements, but an Australian study just published by the journal Toxicology In Vitro shows that this compound can actually damage and kill human brain cells. L-norvaline is touted as “one of the leading methods to safely and naturally boost nitric oxide levels to new heights.”  High nitric oxide levels are said to accelerate blood flow, oxygen delivery, and muscle action.  It is the chief ingredient in popular body-building supplements including Myonox, Charge, Pump Extrem, and Preseries Bulk. The tissue culture studies show that l-norvaline initially permits brain cells to produce more energy, but, with continued exposure to this amino acid, the cell machinery employed to produce this energy is damaged.  This is the cellular equivalent to revving your car engine too high for a prolonged period of time. L-norvaline is a so-called non-protein amino acid because it is normally not used to make human pro

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/o5aew8kkWGM Take out meals, just like sit-down restaurant offerings, are way too large with way too many calories.  A British fish n’ chip wholesale supplier cooperated with academic nutritionists at Newcastle University to design what they call the Lite-BITE® box carry out box as part of a UK national campaign to fight obesity. The usual fish and chip take out meal clocks in at over 1600 calories which is almost an entire day’s caloric tally.  The Lite-BITE® box holds 5 ounces of fish and 5 ounces of chips for a more moderate 650 calories. Fried fish and fried potatoes are hardly healthy choices, but at least the smaller take-out box keeps the calorie count down.   If a you as a  diner need a more filling meal, a side salad should complete your order. Right-sizing portion size is a powerful tool in maintaining a healthy weight.  Smaller takeout boxes also makes the food portion appear less puny.  Remember back in the days when airlines actually served us food, they employed the same

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/wG0PHbEeh70 Eyeing that 10 layer chocolate cake or mile high apple pie before you select your main and side dishes will help you make a  more nutritious choice.  So says a study from the University of Arizona’s marketing department just published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology:Applied. Dining subjects  were presented with either a luscious lemon cheesecake or fresh fruit as a dessert choice at the beginning or at the end of a cafeteria line.  For the meal, they could chose healthy by selecting grilled chicken fajitas with a side salad or unhealthy by picking fried fish and chips. When the diners put the cheesecake versus the fresh fruit dessert on their trays before selecting the remainder of their meal, they were twice as likely to pick the healthy entree and actually consumed 30% fewer calories.  There were similar findings in a test of online ordering for home delivery. The researchers also observed that diners with alot on their minds by being challenged with a memory

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/DMRmeoFeVUg We know all about the dangers of second-hand smoke, those clouds of toxic fumes emanating from cigarettes, cigars, and pipe bowls.  Now a study from the University of Cincinatti and the Cincinatti Children’s Hospital hone in on the vapors that waft up from those yellow stains on walls, ceilings, carpets, upholstery and, yes, the fingers of smokers themselves.  We call these third hand smoke. The investigators measured the levels of nicotine on the hands of children exposed to these 3rd hand sources but not to parental smoking directly, and these children had the same levels of nicotine as an indirect measure of all toxic chemicals as those kids directly exposed to cigarette smoke. Also know that these poisonous chemicals accumulate.  The children under 2 years had average hand nicotine levels of 69 ng, and that figure shot up 2.5 times by age 4 years.  The nicotine levels detected were a function of the number of cigarettes smoked by their parents and caregivers.  Even mo

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/fM3zWSu7ZAA Alcohol abuse is rampant in teens and young adults, and hospitals are reporting an epidemic of premature chronic liver disease and failure in millenials.  A new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Alcohol Research in Epigenetics now shows that binge drinking prevents development of normal connections in the developing brain’s amygdala.  That’s the region of the brain responsible for emotion, fever, and anxiety. The Chicago research group studied the brains of drinkers who began binge drinking before they reached 21 years.  They compared them to drinkers who started after 21 and to non-drinkers.  All subjects died in their mid to late fifties.   The early onset drinkers had a 30 to 40% deficit of the molecule BDNF in their amygdalas, and without this chemical normal brain connections fail to form leading to increased anxiety and then  likely to more drinking through life. With each new study, we learn how important health behaviors during our chil

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/0CezKXdha_o Electronic cigarette use is on the upswing, and their makers trumpet the latest studies showing that e-cigs help current tobacco smokers kick the habit.  In actuality, as older smokers quit more teens use e-cigs and move on to the nasty and dangerous habit that is tobacco cigarette smoking. Besides the addicting nicotine, the e-cigs vaporize and spew a raft of of chemicals into the lungs including heavy metals, propylene glycol or anti-freeze, and formaldehyde.  The latest study from Harvard’s School of Public Health focuses on the toxicity of the chemicals used for flavoring the vapors. Those ingredients are diacetyl and pentandione, and they create a buttery aroma.  You’ve definitely smelled it at the movie theater, and repeatedly inhaling the vapor leads to chronic irreversible lung damage and a disease appropriately named “popcorn lung.” The Harvard team conclusively showed that these flavoring chemicals interfere with the genes that control development of normally fu

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/VyMYFtxNodM First we had tennis elbow, more recently football CTE dementia, and now we have golfer’s wrenched back.  The latest study in the Joural of Neurosurgery:Spine sounds an alarm for golfers to ease up on their swings a bit. Over the past 40 years, competitive pressure has driven the golf swing to become more and more powerful.  Golfers now seek strength training to turbocharge their swings, but they should also be seeking defensive coaching to prevent their swings from crippling them. During a powerful downswing, dangerous compressive forces target the spinal discs and verterbal joints.  Since a golfer swings those clubs more than 300 times during an average round, repeated micro trauma to spine structures leads to repetitive traumatic discopathy or RTD, likely the injury suffered by Tiger Woods. If you golf, do seek a professional analysis of your swing.  With proper training, you can play low handicap golf without breaking your back by developing RTD. #golf #discopathy #spi

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/Q0cF8rNJvN0 Those compounded creams and gels you buy to rub on your aching muscles and joints may be worthless to you for relieving pain.  They are worth gold to the hucksters who manufacture and market them to the tune of at least 6 million dollars a day. Pain specialists at Johns Hopkins and the Walter Reed Hospital studied nearly 400 subjects with 3 types of pain: 1. neurogenic pain such as that due to diabetes or shingles; 2. nociceptive pain due to tissue injuries or burns, or 3. mixed pain.  Half the patients in each pain category received a topical product with active ingredients tailored to the type of pain under treatment including anesthetics, NSAID analgesics, sedatives, antidepressants, anti-seizure meds, and muscle relaxers.  The others were given a mediction-free placebo.  Neither the scientists nor the subjects knew which agent they were rubbing in. Each subject dutifully rubbed on the products 3 times a day for 6 months.  When the code was broken, the expensive topica