Dr. Howard Smith Reports

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...

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...