Dr. Howard Smith Reports

Hearing Loss Fuels Depression 10 Things To Know About Marijuana Starve Your Appetite For Better Weight Loss This Vitamin Can Kill You…Or Save You Which Video Game Cancels Post-Traumatic Stress Safest Medicine For Menopausal Hormone Replacement Bad Eating Shrinks Your Brain Monkey See Monkey Do When It Comes To Screen Time Eating Good Carbs is Lifesaving The Wrong Sleeping Pill Can Burn You TRY A L...

An 80 pound, 11 year old immigrant boy saved a 34 year old man twice his weight from drowning in a Minnesota apartment swimming pool when no other swimmers were around.     Advaik Nandikotkur, an Indian boy only 3 years in this country, was at the pool with his parents, both non-swimmers, when another apartment resident began drowning.   His father was unable to reach the panicked man with a flota...

If you’re a regular user of the pinks, blues, yellows, and greens, the non-sugar sweeteners, a study just published in the British Medical Journal now reveals that these products will not help you lose weight.   Scientists at Germany’s University of Freiberg conducted a Cochrane review of 56 individual studies and found no convincing statistical evidence that use of fake sugar leads to weight loss...

If you’re taking an antibiotic with “FLOXACIN” in its name, listen up.   The FDA wants you to know that the drug can weaken the walls of your aorta leading to deadly ruptures.   The fluoroquinolone antibiotics including ciprofloxacin (Cipro), levofloxacin (Levaquin), ofloxacin (Floxin), and moxifloxacin (Avelox) and a few others have been around for more than 30 years, and they can be invaluable f...

Unpredictable income can be deadly, and that reality is all too common in today’s so-called gig economy.   A collaborative study from the Universities of Miami, Minnesota, California at San Francisco, Northwestern, and Massachusetts of nearly 400 persons 23 to 35 years of age was launched in 1990, and the subjects were monitored for 25 years.   Those relatively young persons without steady jobs an...

Repeated miscarriages, that is 3 pregnancy losses in a row each before 20 weeks of gestation, are usually thought to be due to maternal factors including uterine defects, infection, hormonal imbalances, and autoimmune disease.   A study from Imperial College, London, now suggests that flawed sperm may also play a key role in some miscarriages.   After analyzing the sperm of 50 men whose partners e...

Obsessive, compulsive symptoms (OCS) in adolescents and young adults may be a sign of serious mental illness including major depression and suicidal intent.   A study at the University of Pennsylvania looked at 7,000 subjects 11 through 21 years of age and found that 20% of those with OCS had thoughts about harming themselves or others and pictured violent images.   Psychiatrists know that such ch...

Campaigns by Medicare to reduce patient readmissions to a hospital within a month following discharge, the so-called Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, is associated with more patient deaths from heart failure and pneumonia rather than improvement in care quality.   This is the conclusion of a study of some 8 million hospitalizations over a decade beginning in 2005 was completed and recently...

Celiac disease may be initiated by an agent used to improve food texture and to literally glue together meat fragments into a more substantial, steak-like product.   The agent is microbial transglutaminase, and a review of data about the causation of celiac diease just published in Frontiers in Pediatrics suggests that the increasing amounts of this substance that are finding their way into our fo...

Women’s who suffer from chronic peri- and post-menopausal hot flashes and night sweats, so called vasomotor symptoms or VMS, lasting close to 10 years or longer have a 13% higher risk of developing breast cancer.   This the conclusion of a Women’s Health Initiative analysis of more than 25,000 women 50 years of age and older who never had any menopausal hormone therapy and who were followed for a...

Ever hear of prescription digital medicine?   Who ever heard of doctors and other therapists prescribing the playing of therapeutic video games? Well that is now a reality for children with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and it may soon be used for other patients as well.   Pediatricians at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Center for Autism Research...

Metabolic syndrome is a nasty group of problems that might kill you but certainly will make your life miserable.   If you have any 3 of these 5 issues, namely central obesity or a body like a pear, high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, high blood triglycerides, or low high density lipoproteins, then you’ve got metabolic syndrome.   Metabolic syndrome is accompanied by excess body oxidation an...

Vitamin C prevents Metabolic Syndrome HEALTHtech: DIGITAL MEDICINE HELPS KIDS WITH AUTISM/ADHD   PERSISTENT HOT FLASHES ASSOCIATED WITH RISK OF BREAST CANCER A common FOOD ADDITIVE MAY TRIGGER CELIAC DISEASE HOSPITAL READMISSION REDUCTION CAMPAIGNS KILL PATIENTS OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE TEENS LIKELY HAVE MAJOR PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESS REPEAT MISCARRIAGES MAY BE DUE TO DEFECTIVE SPERM FLUCTUATING INCOME ASS...

Meet Travis Trent, a brand new father in Tacoma Washington.   He’s just going to the parking lot after the birth of his baby.   Opening the vehicle, he notices a burning smell and sees smoke wafting out of the dashboard.   Thinking quickly and knowing that most would have advised him to abandon the car and get out of the garage before the car lights up, he instead quickly drives it out of the gara...

Hopefully you or someone you love will never require a limb amputation.   One of the chief side effects of losing an arm or leg is so-called phantom limb pain, and it occurs in some 75% of amputees.   This is a painful sensation that seems to be coming from the portion of the limb that is no longer there.   Reconstructive surgeons at Ohio State now announce a fix for this problem, and its called t...

The FDA has just approved the newest vaccine for kids combining the 6 most common immunizations for childhood illnesses: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis or whooping cough, hemophilus influenza type B, hepatitis B, and polio.   In the past, children would receive the DTaP vaccine, but then separate vaccines for polio, hemophilus influenza, and hepatitis.   Called Vaxelis , the vaccine is a 3 dose se...

Food scientists at the University of Georgia report that cottonseed oil outperforms olive oil in terms of blood lipid normalization during a 5 day trial diet of each.   The scientists studied 15 men using a crossover design study in which each subject followed a diet rich in one oil or the other for 5 days, enjoyed a break, and then followed a diet with the other oil. When the data was tabulated,...

It’s no blarney when I tell you that ancient Irish soil may contain the key to more powerful antibiotics in the future.   Folk medicine has identified regions of Ireland, the Boho Highlands, where the soil is known to have medicinal properties.     Microbiologists from Swansea University, Wales, have identified a novel strain of bacteria in that soil that produces secretions which effectively kill...

At least one in 5 new mothers experience postpartum depression, but, wait, new fathers may experience it too.   A study from University of Cambridge sampling more than 3000 British families just published in JAMA Psychiatry shows that one in 20 fathers may suffer from it too.   Most interesting was the finding that 18 year old girls whose father did have confirmed postpartum depression were themse...

If you want to be more approachable, you might try tilting your head slightly.   Psychologists at UC-Santa Cruz studied this phenomenon using eye tracking equipment.   They found that a head tilt of as little as 11 degrees makes your eyes less threatening.   Their studies show that the tilt makes your conversational companion focus only on the upper eye, and a single eye tends to be more inviting...

With the dark days of winter ahead for all of us, here’s a way to beat the boredom.   Try doing the things that you normally do but in a different way.   For example: Eat popcorn with chopsticks. Drink water in a champagne glass, a shipping envelope, or lapping it out of a bowl like a dog. Write and draw with your “other” hand. Watch a video with finger goggles. Do a random walk: at each intersect...

A dramatic and shocking demonstation posted on Twitter by Isu-Isu Semasa and his mechanical smoking machine.   Here is Semasa’s time-lapse photography that shows you what is left in your throat and lungs after smoking 600 cigarettes. YouTube:  https://youtu.be/vHXq99BU--I https://mobile.twitter.com/homopoliticoos #Smoking   #tar   #lungcancer   #copd   #quitsmoking   #radionews    

On the subject of moderating alcohol intake, let’s review a study from the University of Oregon that looked at heavy drinkers and smokers who were trying to moderate both habits.   They studied a group of 22 smoking and drinking subjects who reduced their alcohol consumption from an average of 29 down to 7 drinks per week.   As drinking diminished, their nicotine metabolite ratios dropped as well....

Every year since 2014, Great Britain has hosted a campaign called “Dry January.”   For at least this month, participants abstain from alcohol for 30 days.   Psychologists at the University of Sussex now report findings from a study of over 800 persons participating in last year's annual post-holidays drying out fest.   The month off alcohol has lasting effects: less drinking over many months, weig...

Stories and features: Britain's “Dry January.” Less drinking helps stop smoking efforts. VIDEO: What smoking 30 packs of cigarettes looks like. HELP: Beat winter boredom. A head tilt makes you more approachable. FUTUREMED: Irish bogs may yield stronger antibiotics. Cottonseed oil better lipid chaser than olive oil. New comprehensive child vaccine. HEALTHTECH: heart attack risk calculator from Mayo...