Dr. Howard Smith Reports

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/YBZgDChW8Xg Smartphones and tablets have not reduced the 90 minutes a day that children and teens traditionally spend with other family members.   Sociologists at the British Universities of Oxford and Warwick reviewed journals from nearly 2500 children 8 to 16 years of age and journals from their parents as well.     The data shows that personal electronics actually adde...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/9mnVzvXuIoo Wiping a memory away requires more brain resources than retaining that thought.   Neuroscientists from the University of Texas at Austin report these findings after studying a group of adult subjects using functional MRI brain imaging to determine the levels of brain activity while attempting to either remember or forget images of people or scenes. The brain i...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/oHVdoCrx_4c The poor ole egg is again under attack again.   Numerous studies over the past 30 years have declared the egg to be innocent of being an accessory before the fact when it comes to driving artery hardening, heart attacks, and strokes.   Many nutrition experts have stated that the majority of the cholesterol in our body is synthesized in the liver from the fats...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/XiP1t2R8KdA I’m Dr. Howard Smith, PENTA Medical Network,   reporting from NYC with the Health News Roundup for the 3rd week of MARCH, 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 this week’s headlines: Eggs or No Eggs: Can You Eat Them Safely? It’s Easier...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/q71bhoFuam4 Here are the headlines for this weeks stories: Toxins At Home And In Food Can Make You Sterile Raw Dog Food Contains Dangerous Bacteria Mediterranean Diet Turbocharges You In Just Days Young Women Need Better Lipid Screening Childbirth In the 50s Can Be As Safe As In The 40s Pregnancy Infections May Trigger Autism and Depression Vaping Triggers Heart Attacks a...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/E40hnE1C8yA Nine year old Lilly has special needs.   She is intrigued by bagging at the grocery store and loves seeing how the various packages fit together in any given bag just like a puzzle. On a recent trip to the market with her mom, she was eyeing the bags when cashier Isaac Witte asked her if she would like to help him bag.   She was delighted and did a magnificent...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/m3yHMVTJ3zw Hookah smoking is considered safe and fun.   It attracts teens and young adults by the droves.   This cavalier attitude is drawing alarm from the American Heart Association, and it is time to set the record straight. Water pipe smoking is industrial strength tobacco smoking.   A one hour hookah session exposes the smoker to the nicotine and tar equivalent of 1...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/ujmnLUq7wdk Young infants use the quality of laughter they hear to help them separate family and friend from stranger danger.   A joint study by communication psychologists at New York University and UCLA concludes that babies as young as 5 months of age can detect social relationships by decoding the sounds of laughter. Using both audio and video experiments, the investi...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/08vDhmJzUMc A one-hour midday nap can help you control your blood pressure as well as taking medications or changing your diet.   Greek cardiologists will be presenting their data demonstrating this effect next week at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Sessions. The researchers studied more than 200 middle aged subjects comparing the blood pressures o...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/U077ZmTUQiE Stocky, young athletes often experience disordered sleep snd breathing patterns that could predispose them to heart attack and sudden death.   Exercise scientists from Japan’s Showa University explored this situation by studying 42 male rugby players 18-19 years of age. After formal sleep studies were completed, 43% of the players experienced significant sleep...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/eN_3h-Beq0E The FDA now announces approval of a new immunotherapy agent for treatment of so-called triple negative breast cancer that is either locally advanced or has already spread to other body organs.   Triple negative breast cancer, notoriously difficult to treat, has cells that lack any of the three cell receptors which facilitate the effectiveness of traditional ho...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/75kcONZby7w Music can keep groups of people engaged by synchronizing and pacing their brainwaves, but not all types of music have this effect.   Engineers at the City College of New York studied the neural responses of audiences in response to various forms of music. Their research shows that unfamiliar scores synchronize communal brains most effectively, and the positive...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/SBQp1xuaQf4 Abusive bosses who rule with a heavy hand are managing their own failure.   This is the conclusion of a 427 study meta-analysis completed by researchers at Portland State University and published in the Journal of Management. Managers perceived as unfair, unhelpful, and impersonal trigger counterproductive and passive-aggressive work behaviors including work s...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/Ba4CdsBjh4I E-cigarettes, touted as being safer than tobacco cigarettes, seem to trigger heart attacks and strokes.   This is the conclusion of research from the University of Kansas that studied nearly 100,000 Americans.   It was presented recently at this year’s meeting of the American College of Cardiology. Those who vape are 56% more likely to suffer a heart attack, 3...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/oThU1o302_w Children of mothers who suffered a serious infection during pregnancy have a higher risk of autism and depression.   This is the result of a study looking at some 1.8 million Swedish children that was just published in JAMA Psychiatry . For those mothers who required inpatient therapy for infection during their pregnancies,   their children had a 79% higher ri...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/tiqLuSu8Rw8 Obstetricians at Israel’s Ben Gurion University now proclaim that “50 is the new 40 when it comes to childbirth!”   They studied more than 8,000 pregnant women 40 years and above. The data revealed that complications such as premature birth, gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and a need for c-section were no higher for those in their 50s compared with...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/vkno1b7LI28 Nearly eighty percent of young women have never had a check of their cholesterol and other lipid levels.   This is the finding of a study by University of Pennsylvania cardiologists after reviewing the records of more than 5,000 women admitted to the UPenn hospital for childbirth. The current American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidel...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/ns4WPEqWzG0 Want to boost your long distance running performance in only 4 days?   Get yourself on the Mediterranean Diet says investigators from St. Louis University. They studied 11 male and female 5K runners giving each 4 days of the Mediterranean Diet or 4 days of the typical Western Diet before they ran the 5K on a treadmill.   Consuming the Mediterranean Diet with i...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/iLaBRwQvVhI Raw dog food is becoming quite the rage.   A study just published in the British Medical Journal’s Veterinary Record reveals that raw dog food from 10 different sources contains dangerous levels of E.coli and other fecal bacteria, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Clostridia. Raw pet food is prepared from miscellaneous body parts and organs that are a byproduct o...

Listen up men.   Two chemicals that can damage your sperm and your ability to father a normal child are lurking in and around your home.   A study just published by England’s University of Nottingham shows that the plasticizer DEHP and the industrial chemical PCB153 both reduce the motility and increase the level of DNA damage of sperm exposed to them in the test tube.   DEHP is found in carpets,...

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/vJAm-_EAjsQ From the “spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down” department, Johns Hopkins School of Education reports that the fusion of contemporary arts such as dancing, singing, rapping, and drawing into traditional science lessons increases student interest and retention of the subject matter.   The educators studied some 350 5 th grade students in 6 Baltimore s...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/lbn-vkUlfL8 The earlier a deaf child regains sensitivity to sounds, the greater are the chances for that child to master spoken language.   Ear surgeons and audiologists at Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital report their experience with 219 severely hearing-challenged children undergoing implantation of so-called bionic ears before 3 years of age. Of the group, some 39 i...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/bLgAUHPUvnk Using popular mouthwashes may cause your blood pressure to jump up significantly.   Dentists and cardiologists at the University of Texas report that the antibacterial agent in mouthwash, chlorhexidine, prevents the normal oral bacteria from metabolizing ingested nitrates into the nitric oxide that plays a key role in normalizing blood pressure. The investigat...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/aIKf40gEBrc There’s a national campaign to stop children from smoking or vaping, and the FDA now announces that many, MANY retail outlets are simply not doing their part.   The federal watchdog agency regularly inspects these establishments, issues warnings to violators, and eventually triggers the prosecution of scofflaws. Let’s look at the perp list.   In terms of perce...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/EWIAn6hx8D8 Ok anti-vaxxers, listen up!   The MMR vaccine that protects your children against the ravages of measles, mumps, and rubella does not, let me repeat, DOES NOT not increase your child’s risk of autism. A huge study of more than 600,000 Danish children and more than 5 million person-years of surveillance revealed that vaccinated children were actually 7% less li...