Dr. Howard Smith Reports

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/PTaQhgCWsPw If you burn your candle at both ends during the week and think that you can catch up on sleep over the weekend, think again!   A study from the University of Colorado shows that you won’t catch up on sleep and that your irregular sleep pattern will torpedo your glucose metabolism and internal time clock. The study assigned health young adults to one of three g...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/pRc6Gy_ICQE Don’t have the time or money for commercial weight loss schemes with their complicated diet plans, pre-packaged food, and embarrassing group weight-ins?   Downloading any one of a number of free apps for your smartphone will help you lose weight and keep it off simply and cheaply. Psychologists at Duke studied one hundred plus eager young and middle-aged adult...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/KHm3dFfwBBc You and I have talked many times about the fact that exercise, almost any exercise other than reaching for a donut, will help you live longer.   Now a study from Denmark published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings pinpoints just which forms of exercise will add extra years to your life. The investigators reviewed data from more than 8500 participants in the Copen...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/DZstc_1Yoaw It’s generally thought that background music stirs creativity.   Not so says a study from several universities in the UK and Sweden just published in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology . A total of 84 university students and staff were presented with tests of creative ability, so-called Compound Remote Associate Tasks or CRAT for short.   Subjects were e...

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/2bMiR9-TgNM If a parent constantly corrects an infant, that child’s brain becomes more sensitive to angry vocalizations.   Investigators at Britain’s University of Manchester studied 40 six month old infants and their mothers utilizing the novel neuroimaging technique of Near Infrared Spectroscopy.   This permits the study of a baby’s brain activation by maternal vocaliz...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/fypNmBVBoTc Deep sleep, the slow wave, non-REM variety, is the best sleep for literally cleansing your brain according to a new study from the University of Rochester.   The scientists studied the effects of deep sleep in a mouse model inducing that state with the unique combination of general anesthetics ketamine and xylazine. The combination of deep slow wave sleep and...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/aRoE1Ecok84 Soccer playing seems to increase the risk of developing ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This is the conclusion of an Italian study that reviewed the medical records of all professional soccer players in the Italian leagues between 1959 and 2000.   Players were followed for at least 16 years after their playing days ended. The data showed that nearly twic...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/nbRiz8yLIUQ If 100 patients visit the emergency room, more than one-third of them will suffer a dangerous interaction between a medication prescribed by the ER staff and those drugs they are already taking.   This study from New Jersey’s Rutgers University sounds a warning and pinpoints those drug combinations most likely to cause issues. Three medication combinations tha...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/NXClddt3bzI Mothers who smoke, vape, or use oral and patch nicotine products may be exposing their unborn children to the risk of attention deficit and hyperactivity issues,ADHD, later in life.   A study from Finland just published in the journal Pediatrics studied over 1,000 children and matched controls born 10 years ago.   The researchers studied serum samples from mot...

Vidcast: ttps://youtu.be/ZflFG8eshQg Of the two chief components of marijuana, the THC, the psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol, appears to drive a greater overall therapeutic effect compared to CBD, the cannabidiol.   This new information comes from the University of New Mexico and studies employing the cannabis tracking smartphone app ReLeaf. The app gathered some 20,000 user sessions over 3 years...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/NYR-gRXk22Y I’m Dr. Howard Smith   reporting from NYC with the Health News Roundup for the 1st 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 the headlines for this weeks 15 top stories: THC and not CBD Drives Most Benefit From Weed Use Nicot...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/UtCOkUFVKyE You’ve likely savored a slice of delicious chocolate cake, a fine glass of wine, the smell of your brand new car, or a breathtaking sunset.   Savoring is focusing your mind so you linger for an extended period on a wonderful sensation. A study just published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology explores the concept that we can and should savor vari...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/miGgyaFQSdw If you are having a baby, try to do it during the day on a weekday.   A new study from the Colorado State University reviews data from more than 2 million Texas births over a 5 year period and pinpoints the riskiest times to give birth. Obstetric complications are nearly 30% higher on holidays, about 20% higher during night shifts,   and 9% higher on weekends....

Vidcast:   https://youtu.be/Wp6JvfrTXrk Keeping your head, hands, and body busy in middle age pays off big later in life.   The latest pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is that your risk of dementia drops by nearly 35 to more than 50 percent.   This finding comes from Sweden’s University of Gothenburg’s study of 800 women who were followed from their mid-forties well into their nineties. The p...

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/HlSz7GuNKNQ Teen hypertension doubles the risk of end stage renal failure later in life.   A study just published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at more than 1.5 million candidates for Israeli military service.   Of this group, nearly 8000 were found to have elevated blood pressures. Those with hypertension were predominately male and half were overweight or obese.   T...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/nzwEnrwCHOo We all must screen for colon cancer.   New data suggests that   you might be able to use a simple chemical test at home to replace that nasty bowel prep followed by either colonoscopy under anesthesia or a CT scan.   A meta-analysis by Indiana University of some 31 studies testing more than 120,000 persons shows that the so called FIT test, the fecal immunoche...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/Efh0GI3jE1o There is an acute shortage of hearts for transplant, but the University of Pennsylvania’s transplant team is increasing the supply with a treatment that allows use of organs from donors infected with the Hepatitis C virus.   The clinicians treated a group of 10 heart transplant patients who developed positive tests for hepatitis C with a 3 month course of Zepa...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/3vS3ihs_e38 Want a mental boost in 20 short minutes?   It’s a simple as getting off your couch and visiting a nearby park.   If you prefer, you don’t even need to exercise to get the benefit. Researchers at the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s Department of Occupational Therapy document a significant improvement in emotional well-being for those who choose to visit one...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/5btUv84ceEY Parents who do drugs have kids that use them as well.   This the conclusion of a study from Columbia University’s psychiatry department that looked at 35,000 parent-child pairings. When a either parent is a user, there is a 30 percent chance that one of their children is also hooked.   The risk factor is even higher for mothers alone as 62 percent of drug-usin...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/oNGOsHFbQDA The rate of drug overdose deaths in the US is 27 times higher than those in Italy and Japan and twice as high as those for Finland and Sweden who have the highest rates next to ours.   A review from the USC also warns that our 3.5 times higher drug overdose death rate is lowering Americans’ average life expectancy compared with other industrialized and wealthy...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/yeOWPF7rmuE Food with lots of sugar and fat is associated with significant psychologic distress.   This conclusion comes from a study of nearly quarter million Californians participating in the California Health Interview Survey. The study showed that nearly 17 percent of Californians had psychological distress associated with frequently consuming unhealthy foods.   Other...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/jYta_STVrhg I hate to be a nag, but a new study from Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital now adds avoiding arthritis to the already long list of reasons to quit smoking or never start.   The researchers looked at data from nearly a quarter million women participating in the Brigham’s Nurse’s Study and focused in on the nearly 1500 with so-called rheumatoid arthritis (RA...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/j39J8Pg4EgQ Your soap or toothpaste, touted to be fortified with antibacterial powers, will ironically arm any bacteria entering your body to resist commonly prescribed antibiotics.   A new study from Washington University-St. Louis shows that the triclosan added to toothpaste, mouthwash, cosmetics, clothing, baby toys, and even plastic cards in hopes of reducing bacteria...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/QbvCjKTHBag Here’s another reason for you to put down that salt shaker.   Immunologists at the Technical University of Munich report that higher concentrations of sodium chloride, better known as table salt, turbocharges T cells increasing their production of the inflammatory mediators interleukin-4 and interleukin-13 and helping them go rogue. Such rogue T-cells are at t...

Vidcast: https://youtu.be/nuCPMtRIhI4 Johns Hopkins investigators, surveying US consumer behaviors, reports that more than half of those questioned had key misconceptions about the date labeling found on food.   As a result, US Agriculture Department estimates nearly one-third of food is wasted at the retail and consumer levels. The latest standards for food labeling use the term “Best if used by”...