2-23-10     Dr Lillian South.   I learned a lot this week about a doctor from Bowling Green who lived a century ago, Dr Lillian South. She trained in Philadelphia, and returned to BG to practice medicine, and founded the first major hospital in BG, St Joseph's Hospital in 1906. She then took a job at the State Board of Health, wanting to "make a difference" by using her knowledge about parasites and public health. She became the first state bacteriologist, and did extensive research in over 100 KY counties to help eradicate hookworms in this state. Her work was acclaimed nationally and she won "first prize" for her presentation at the AMA convention in Chicago in 1913. She was elected the first female vice president of the AMA that year. And that was just the beginning of her career! She was a champion of vaccines back in the 1930's, and saved thousands of lives by vaccinating flood victims in the 1937 Louisville flood. I spent the weekend writing up the wording for an historic plaque that the Medical Society will sponsor, and we should see it materialize on Hospital Hill later this year!

2-19-10     Chasing Zero Risk. Another nice piece in USA Today, this week, a letter to the editor from a mom who points out that children who are over-protected from some risks (like going outdoors on their own) are put at great risk of other things, such as not developing problem-solving skills, self-reliance, maturity, and even just penned up in the house getting obese! This is becoming a major issue in the fight against obesity, since many of the activities that we did as children, have now been put off-limits to children by the "safety police". While it is definitely not safe for children to stroll around some inner city neighborhoods, I believe that many suburbanites have over-reacted to this situation and extraplated it to their neighborhoods.

1-21-10     Michelle Obama's new campaign against childhood obesity. In USA Today, this morning, a nice big article on childhood obesity, saying that the First Lady will try to encourage more physical activity for kids. It listed the AAP recommendations at the side of the page, and at the very bottom was "No sugar drinks". That is, of course, the most important thing, along with following the AHA's new strict guidelines for total daily sugar intake. I wrote a letter to the First Lady today, pointing this out...hope she "gets it", both ways intended.

1-15-10     TV watchers cancel effects of exercise. I just heard a report on NPR that a new study shows that TV watching (or other sedentary activity) actually cancels out some of the benefits of doing exercise. So it's not just getting in the hour of exercise each day, but you have to take care of your body the other 15 hours that you are awake, too!

12-23-09     Merry Christmas, everyone! I will be out of the office on Christmas day, but as always, you can still call the office number 24/7 if you need help. There has been the usual epidemic of strep throat this month, and lots of colds, but not much flu. Be sure to use lots of lotion to prevent dry skin, because the cold weather is causing an epidemic of eczema!

12-22-09     "New Year's Resolution"   I submitted a new resolution to the AAP today, calling for a renewed effort to curb secondhand smoke. The AAP published a new policy statement about secondhand smoke in this month's Pediatrics journal. I proposed to call for OSHA to start enforcing clean air policies in all workplaces. When smoking is not allowed in restaurants, it sends a strong message to kids that smoking is dangerous, and actually lowers the rate of smoking in teens. This was recently proven in a study published in the pediatric journals. I write a web page that shows how OSHA neglects its duty, called www.makeOSHAdoitsjob.org. Please take a look at it!

12-4-09     Sugar Free Magnets.  If you're passing by the office, or in for a visit, be sure to pick up your free frige magnet, it's really cute with dressed up Kitties, and it has an important message to save your life! Also be sure to pick up the orange handout that goes with it!

12-3-09     December is strep throat month.  I typically see more strep throat in December than any other month, though it does pop up occasionally in every month. Signs of strep are fever, headache, stomach ache and vomiting, and sometimes all that starts before you even get a sore throat. Swine flu is dying out, but there are also many other viral respiratory infections that are pretty nasty. There's one going around now that I think I will name the "Swine cold". It's already attacked Sylvia and me.

11-25-09     Wild month.  Where did this month go? Sylvia and I got a new grand-daughter today, Madeline Sophie, born to Crissy and Scott. She looks pretty healthy. I have been busy this week writing two resolutions for the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics). They were well-received, but I'm pessimistic that much action will be taken. One was to support the Medical Home by reducing ER visits and changing the EMTALA law (good luck!). The other was to eliminate Coke and other junk food ads from the AAP journals.

11-5-09     Depression and suicide.  World-renowned psychologist Dr William Pfohl gave the CME lecture at Medical Society this week, a great talk on depression and suicide. It inspired me to tweak my Health-byte on teen suicide, so be sure to check it out.

11-2-09     H1N1 Vaccine.  Wow, the H1N1 vaccine is already used up. Watch the news for announcements of any more supplies of vaccine coming in. Be sure to call early for an appointment to get it. I still feel that the seasonal flu vaccine is the more important one to get. The usual flu epidemic usually hits Kentucky around February, so try to get your flu shot before the end of the year to be safe.

10-29-09     H1N1 Vaccine.  Flu vaccine for H1N1 flu arrived at the Health Department today. So far it is just available to healthcare workers, pregnant women, children and adults with chronic health conditions, and those who take care of babies under 6 months old. Watch the news to see if they open it up to all children, which will probably happen next month if any vaccine is left. The vaccine is given free of charge. I do recommend getting it.

10-28-09     Baby Fair.  I have been invited to run a booth at the Medical Center Baby Fair on November 8th (Sunday) 2-4 PM. It's on the second floor near the nursery. Come by and see me, and learn the latest info about sugar's harmful effects on babies. I made up two posters, and will be giving out frige magnets which I made using a design from my antique postcard collection. They show dressed up cats buying veggies at a farmers' market. The message is: "Raise your litter to be sugar free!"

10-21-09     HIV / AIDS Training.  I completed my periodic HIV / AIDS training this week. Some important take-home points: (1) HIV can be transmitted BEFORE ejaculation, so it's important to wear a condom the whole time, (2) HIV can be transmitted by oral sex, (3) condoms often fail if you don't follow directions EXACTLY when putting it on, leave some slack but no air bubbles!

10-16-09     Teen Car Crashes.  A couple of "wow" articles in today's issue of Pediatriacs. Teens who have direct access to the family car, or have their own car, are far more likely to have crashes, or use risky behaviors such as texting while driving. This is getting to be a more common trend and a disturbing one!
Another article showed that only half of parents were able to understand how a growth chart works. Doctors always show the parents the growth chart and comment on what percentile the child is in. But about half the parents surveyed could not pick the right definition of "percentile" on a multiple choice question and were not able to tell what weight a point on the chart represented. I guess doctors need to do a better job of explaining how it works! I'll try!

10-12-09     Medical Home.  Nice article on the "Medical Home" in yesterday's Parade Magazine. This is a concept I have been pushing for over 30 years. The idea is to have a single "home base" where you can go for all your medical needs. The way I do this is to provide easy 24 hour access for all my patients, to call for any kind of problem. I also maintain a close relationship with all the specialists in Bowling Green, and can get specialized care whenever needed for any of my patients. It's funny to read about the Medical Home as being considered a "new approach" when the American Academy of Pediatrics has been strongly advocating this practice for decades!

10-7-09     Sugar Free Halloween?  Why not! With all the sugar-free treat options now available, there are many yummy treats we can give hungry treat-or-treaters without poisoning them with fructose! The sugar free cookie shelf at Krogers has expanded greatly in the last few months. You can also buy sugar free candy, even Reeces cups (These are a bit pricey, but they taste AWESOME!). Bags of chips or pretzels is another good sugar-free alternative. But even sugar-free treats can be given in excess, so limit the treats to be just "treats".

10-6-09     Women's Health Poor in Kentucky.  Monday's headline was not a shock, but it's not because women's health is worse than the men! They're both terrible with our high rate of smoking, obesity, poor nutrition, and total lack of physical activity.

9-28-09     Spiraling cost of medical care.  Dr GnanaDev, the president of the California Medical Assn was quoted in yesterday's paper: "Doctors are ordering tests to look at every possibility out there. When you have the potential to get sued, you want to make sure you rule out anything possible." I'd say Dr G has hit the nail on the head! No other country in the world pursues doctors as if it's open season year round! That's the reason medicine is practiced in this crazy way.
Imagine that you had car problem and went to the auto repair shop. But the repairman has been sued every week over incredibly trivial problems. Last week he was sued because the car he fixed ran into a wall (the driver was drunk), and he had to pay a million dollars to the drunk driver. The week before that he was sued for a million dollars because he did not predict that the transmission would fail 12 years after he had fixed it the first time. And so on. To pay his liability insurance, he needs to increase his charge for an oil change to $15,000. That's about what it's like to practice medicine in the United States!
The most effective health care reform by far would be tort reform. There needs to be an upper limit on what can be awarded, and there needs to be a panel of medical experts to decide if medical malpractice suits are frivolous or not. Simple reforms, but it may never happen because the legislature is full of greedy lawyers. Some states have actually done it, though. Maybe there is hope.

9-22-09     New info on H1N1.  Dr Shadowen gave a great talk last night on H1N1, lots of amazing new info. The most important: you have to wait 4 weeks after getting H1N1 vaccine before getting regular flu vaccine (or vice versa). Blocking antibodies prevent the second vaccine from working! But it's OK to take both of them on the same day! So plan ahead! We doctors all know that we should not take aspirin when we have the flu (danger of Reye Syndrome). But I have found out that many of my patients never heard of Reye Syndrome, and one family even made a point to TRY to give aspirin to their child because they thought he had the flu! So please spread the word about this. Also, no aspirin for a week if you get the nasal flu vaccine; it's a live virus and just as likely to cause Reye Syndrome with aspirin.

9-14-09     Tax on sugar drinks.  The Rudd Center at Yale University is spearheading a national movement to tax sugar drinks. This is a great concept, similar to the idea of the cigarette tax which has been extremely effective in cutting back on children's use of tobacco. Coincidently, there was an article in the Daily News last night about "sports drinks not a healthy alternative to soda for kids". It's a good first step for the media to start acknowledging the problem of sugar drinks, but there are serious flaws in the reporting! First off, the title should not limit the harmful effects just to kids. It also makes the usual error of assuming it's just about the calories and ignoring the harmful effects of fructose on the body. Be sure to read the Rudd Center's web page:

http://yaleruddcenter.org/what_we_do.aspx?id=271

9-14-09     Can exercise make you fatter?  There is much controversy about John Cloud's Time Magazine piece which asserts that exercise is not the answer to the obesity epidemic. Of course he is right! If you work out at the gym and make yourself miserable for 30 minutes, you might burn off a few hundred calories (way less if your brain is poisoned by fructose!) then you feel so bad you have to eat about 500 calories of "comfort food". Of course, the answer is not the extreme opposite either!  If you don't poison your brain with fructose (see fructose) then your body will be able to utilize stored energy and you will be able to do exercise. Then you should choose your exercise to be an activity which is its own reward. For me, its getting to play a round of disc golf. There are many options: a nice quiet walk, swimming, gardening, and a thousand other activities.

9-11-09     FDA Panel Recommends HPV for Boys.  The FDA is seriously considering HPV shots for boys based on: (1) excellent safety record for millions of girls, and (2) the fact that new studies show that 50% of all boys will get HPV (and pass it on to their sexual partners).

9-11-09     Febrile convulsions.  Another study just out: Using acetaminophen or ibuprofen will NOT prevent a febrile convulsion. Two groups of children with febrile convulsions were given medicine or placebo at the first sign of a fever. They both had exactly the same number of febrile convulsions. So now there is absolutely no medical indication for using these medicines (acetaminophen or ibuprofen) at all (for fever). Some would argue, maybe to prevent dehydration, but fluids would be much better at that !

9-10-09     New Treatment Guidelines for Swine Flu.  The CDC just issued (this week) new guidelines as to when Tamiflu should be used to treat flu (basically all flu that we are seeing is the swine flu right now). Children under 5 or those with chronic diseases, such as diabetes or asthma, should be treated. Also those with signs of pneumonia. All other children should not be given Tamiflu. The reason is that the swine flu is a relatively mild disease, and Tamiflu has a high rate of side effects and should only be given if it is absolutely necessary. Remember the cardinal rule of medicine: "First do no harm". That means "do not take medicine unless it is really really necessary!" I live by that rule, and I'm sure my body is far better off because of it.

9-4-09      Wow! New Guidelines from Am Heart Assn! The AHA is the first major medical group to adopt a policy to warn patients that fructose is bad for your health. This is a major step forward, equivalent to the first time that the AMA came out against tobacco! The paper is a joint Scientific Statement by the committees on Nutrition and on Epidemiology and Prevention. It was published in the official journal of the AHA Circulation Sept 2009. The statement concludes that men should eat no more than 150 calories of sugar (one coke) and women no more than 100 calories (2/3 of a coke). Of course that would mean no cokes at all, since you are getting way more than that much sugar in all the other stuff you eat, like bread, cereal, catsup, and over a thousand other products that you buy at the store. In order to come close to meeting these guidelines, you would have to drink 100% completely sugar-free drinks, and carefully watch the labels on all foods you buy. Find out the whole story about fructose at www.healthyweightkids.org.

9-1-09      King Corn. I watched a YouTube video this morning about a documentary called "King Corn". Two young journalists made a documentary about why corn has taken over the American diet. They looked at the issue of corn syrup, and why that has been used so extensively. Much of the documentary is about life on the farm, but the parts about corn syrup are very enlightening, and very scary!

Click here to see the clip:       http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8602478041297011152

8-31-09      Kids Try-Action-Thon. Several families came out the event at Preston Miller Park. I will post photos on the web page soon. I also went to the Hotrods baseball game yesterday, which was "Disc Golf Day" at the ball park. I was given a special award as one of the "Kentucky Pioneers of Disc Golf". I am continuing to play disc golf most days, to keep up my fitness and set a good example for all my patients.

8-28-09      Chamber of Commerce. Attended the Chamber Breakfast this morning, representing Smoke Free Communities. Most Chamber members seem to favor a smoke free workplace. I gave out cards to encourage people to read the web page www.makeOSHAdoitsjob.org. I also wrote in to KET to ask a question of the panel for next Monday's show (August 31) about secondhand smoke in the workplace. Be sure to watch, or catch the podcast: Archived programs, information about podcasts, and broadcast schedules are available at www.ket.org/kytonight. Joyce Adkins just found another amazing fact:
Six million people worldwide will die from smoking-related illnesses next year, according to the annual Tobacco Atlas report from the American Cancer Society.
"Tobacco accounts for one out of every 10 deaths worldwide and will claim 5.5 million lives this year alone," the study said, predicting that current trends indicate that tobacco-related deaths could top 8 million annually by 2030.

8-25-09      Kids Try-Action-Thon. Final planning this morning for the Healthy Weight Kids Coalition event this Saturday. Be sure to attend, at Preston Miller Park, sign-ups start at 7:30 AM, entry fee $5. Lots of goodies, free pass to the water park, free golf disc, healthy snacks, meet local athletes from Hilltoppers and Hot Rods. More at www.healthyweightkids.org

8-24-09      State Wide Meeting. I attended the state wide pediatric meeting on Saturday. I learned more about swine flu, specifically that it is mild now but could turn more severe later in the winter. I will definitely be getting my swine flu shots! Those might be available in a few months.

8-20-09      Swine Flu. The latest strain of flu, H1N1, is also called the swine flu because it was associated with pigs in Mexico last year, and has since spread around the world. It was first thought to be a more severe or deadly strain, but recently has been shown to be much milder. It is very contagious, so we will be seeing lots of flu this year, and probably a lot earlier than usual. There are already cases of flu in Kentucky, even in Bowling Green. As usual, we will start getting flu vaccine around October, so be sure to call and get an appointment for you flu shot. There will also be a separate flu shot just for the swine flu, that was developed especially for the H1N1. This is a two-shot series.

[see previous blog entries in the Health-blog Archives]