Dr. Howard Smith Reports

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/CmwdpRQqV_0   I’m attending the National Assn. of Broadcasters Meeting this week.   Here is some evergreen “Health News You Can Always Use.”   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 fr...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/vOcrGIm3oYQ   I’m attending the National Assn. of Broadcasters Meeting this week.   Here is some evergreen “Health News You Can Always Use.”   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...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/wnjvya7f9iE   I’m attending the National Assn. of Broadcasters Meeting this week.   Here is some evergreen “Health News You Can Always Use.”   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 pu...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/zIfLaqiW4cw   Children of mothers consuming fish during their first trimester enjoyed enhanced attentiveness at 8 years of age.   A Spanish study of 1641 mother-child pairs reviewed data capturing the pregnant mother’s dietary habits, the children’s food preferences at 1,5, and 8 years of age, and the child’s attention skills.   The 8 year olds with the best attention s...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/4xkbyO9LlJA   If you’re pressured to answer a question, you will answer with a response designed to please the questioner even if its a lie.   UC-Santa Barbara psychologists draw this conclusion after testing a total of 3,000 participants.   Research shows that the human mind has two processing components: the higher functioning, rational section and the more instinctiv...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/3DvjA_Fh_Kk   An antioxidant compound found in green tea can rearm a powerful antibiotic after its deactivation by the nefarious, multidrug-resistant bacterium Pseudomonas .   British and German pathologists and microbiologists collaborated on this discovery.   Epigallocatechin or EGCG is a natural anti-oxidant found in green tea.   The researchers found that EGCG works...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/LU8Tc9SLo7Q Smoking as few as 5 cigarettes a day creates lung damage not all that different from heavier smoking.   This wake-up call comes from a Columbia University Study of more than 25,000 participants representing teens, the middle aged, and elders.   The natural lung functional decline with aging is accelerated by smoking.   That acceleration rate for light smoker...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/0y7m2BjiOPI   Brothers and sisters of compulsive gamblers share impulsivity and dangerous risk-taking with their troubled sibs.   University of British Columbia psychologists report these findings after studying 20 gamblers and 16 of their siblings.   All participants underwent cognitive testing, MRI brain imaging, and surveys.   Both gamblers and their sibs acted irres...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/xqghazWllSg   Wolfing down those beers and donuts under the age of 40 can increase your risk of mid-life cancer by as much as 70%.   That conclusion and others from a large European study was just published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.   Data from 220,000 subjects showed that overweight women had a 70% greater risk of uterine cancer and overweight men a...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/c3VR2w0473s   The risk of developing CTE dementia rises by 30% for each year of tackle football played.   Neurologists at Boston University derive this conclusion from their study of brain samples from 266 American football players.   The data shows that the risk of developing CTE doubles for every 2.6 years of ball playing.   The risk of developing CTE or its severity...

Healthy Eating Curbs Depression Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/VjM2hztw-ow   Eating a healthy, balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, fish and lean meat for only 3 weeks can dramatically elevate the mood of depressed young adults.   Australian psychologists studied 76 depressed participants accustomed to eating a nutritional substandard diet.   The half eating the healthy diet had significantly fewer d...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/tCxpIO3okw4   The red pigment in tomatoes, lycopene, seems to heal “sick” sperm, the cause of infertility in up to 50% of couples. Britain’s University of Sheffield researchers announce this phenomenon after a double blind study of 60 volunteers.     Half of them received lycopene in the form of LactoLycopene, a commercially available supplement that improves gi lycopen...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/-vMbpu34c_M   Syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia cases have spiked.   The CDC warns that the big 3 sexually transmitted diseases have reached an all time high.   In one year, between 2017 and 2018, syphilis cases increased 35% overall to 115,000 cases, the highest number in 27 years.   Worse, there was a 40% jump in newborn syphilis.   Gonorrhea increased 5% to more tha...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/U5Y1T5rCICY   Pulling that all-nighter test cramming or finishing your PowerPoint will drive you to those chips, cookies, and donuts.   Neurologists at Northwestern University studied 29 subjects and their food choices after only 4 hours of sleep versus a complete night’s rest.   The studies showed that sleep-deprived persons craved energy dense foods chock full of carb...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/nuu9aGWbPPo   Endurance running with a resistance band connecting your shoes can increase your running efficiency by over 9%.   Mechanical engineers at UC-Santa Barbara clocked runners with and without latex surgical tubing connecting their feet.   The tubing stores kinetic energy as the legs move past one another, and that energy helps power the next cycle.   The resul...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/EQbSPdBlgm4   The melted plastic your 3D printer lays out emits toxic volatile organic fumes that could damage your lungs or worse.   Georgia Institute of Technology engineers tested the emissions from 3D printer filaments on live cells in tissue culture.   The results showed the most dangerous filaments are the ABS styrene plastic ones in comparison to the PLA lactic a...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/cEdfmTROoPA   If you’ve had a heart attack, living with a dog can lower your risk of dying prematurely by up to 35%.   A Canadian meta-analysis just published in the journal Circulation tabulated the data from more than 3.8 million participants over 10 years.   This large study shows that dog ownership prolongs lives and builds on previous work that credited dogs with r...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/ZPEVhvr-saQ   Only half of pregnant women receive the recommended flu and whooping cough vaccines say the latest CDC statistics.   The flu is a terrible risk for a pregnant woman, and pertussis is the same for her newborn.   Pregnancy makes the flu more severe, and increases the risk for hospitalization by 2.5 times.   Every year, pertussis lands up to 700 babies under...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/WvHoBd12TtE   When you dine socially, you consume 48% more food than when you eat alone.   This conclusion comes from a meta-analysis of some 42 studies of group versus solo food consumption just published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.   On the other hand, eating with a group of strangers did not increase food consumption. The investigators conjecture t...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/3rjuzSjLX9Q   If your baby had an attack of severe RSV, she or he is 2.5 times more likely to develop asthma over the next 5 years.   A Nationwide Children’s Hospital-Ohio State University study analyzed data from nearly 125,500 infants over a 16 year period.   This association between childhood RSV and asthma has been previously described, but this large study credibly...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/fN8mm3K_yz4   Women suffering from morning sickness are 53% more likely to have a child diagnosed later with autism spectrum disorder.   Kaiser Permanente-California reviewed the records of a half million pregnant women delivering over a 23 year period.   The morning sickness-autism connection had the following characteristics: Risk not related to nausea or vomiting sev...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/Ik_83SrJajE   Deadly head and neck melanoma has increased by 51% for children and younger adults over the past 20 years.   St. Louis University oncologists raise this warning after reviewing nearly 12,500   confirmed melanoma cases documented in American and Canadian cancer registries.   Once predominately a cancer of older patients, it is now popping up increasingly of...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/hTSGXFQJmKI   Fathers drinking alcohol during the 3 months before conception or during the first trimester bump their baby’s chances of being born with a congenital heart defect by 44%.   Binge drinking during those times raises that risk to 52%..   The meta-analysis of 55 studies covered nearly 42,000 babies born over a 28 year period.   It is the first study to examin...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/Sncfu9ATiAg   If all UK mothers were to become exclusive breast feeders, the carbon dioxide reduction is equivalent to taking 50-77 thousand automobiles off the road.   A new study British Medical Journal study tallies the savings afforded by nursing mothers.   Cows for dairy and meat production contribute 30% of global greenhouse.   Manufacture, distribution, and prepa...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/21c4w94zp3k   Aspirin and other NSAIDs may help prevent lung damage from particulate air pollution.   Epidemiologists and pulmonologists at Columbia and Harvard draw this conclusion from their analysis of more than 2200 male veterans.   Each participant underwent pulmonary function tests and recorded their use of NSAIDs over the month before testing.   Air quality measu...