April 7, 2025 • 42 mins
- Listen Saturday mornings at 8 as Dr. Msonthi Levine discusses medical issues and takes your calls on News Talk 560 KLVI. Dr Levine is board certified in Internal Medicine and Geriatrics. His office is located at 3080 Milam in Beaumont, Texas. He can be reached at 409-347-3621.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome South through Sex is in at radio listeners,
It's Doc Levine. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to another edition of
the Doctor Levine Medical Hour. Phone lines are open. I
am a doctor of internal medicine, here to take your
phone calls and try to answer questions about your healthcare
or questions you might have about the medical world, whatever
(00:24):
that might mean. Phone lines are open eight nine six
kl v I one in one hundred and three to
three zero OK lv I. We'd love to hear from
you and try and answer these questions. Try that is
as I. Yeah, I'm a doctor, but I know a lot,
but I don't know everything. And I wake up every
(00:46):
day trying to get better at my knowledge and trying
to get better at helping patients figure out what is
good for them and what's not so good for them,
because everybody is different. Even though we look across the
aisle and somebody's doing something different, you want to maybe
(01:07):
emulate that, but it's not always the right thing to do.
I hear that comment a lot. I asked my mother,
I asked my wife, I asked my husband, ask my coworkers.
I've been talking with them about my medications and that
medicine you started, and I didn't take it just because
(01:28):
of something they said or some concerns of that, which
is fine because we certainly, for me at least, we
want you to be educated and we want you to
agree with what we're doing in terms of your medications. Again,
I don't perform surgery. I'm a doctor of internal medicine,
(01:48):
and yeah, primarily what I do most of the day
is prescribe medications that should help patients improve their condition
or feel normal again. At least that's most doctor's goal
is to try and achieve normal feeling and normal function
(02:09):
gets you back to a neutral position in the use
of these prescribed medications are maybe a surgical technique or
maybe a procedure that you may have to go through
to make yourself feel well. That is always a goal,
but sometimes we cannot achieve neutrality and we have to
(02:33):
maybe consider other things to help you so, but that
that is our goal. Anyway, give us a buzz. We
love hearing from you. Remember that the flu season is
sort of done with, and viral infections are always around us,
even though it's the summertime the springtime. Certainly our respiratory
(02:56):
infections slowed down tremendously, but we still see it throughout
the year, just not the big amount during the winter time.
But again, we have big promoters of vaccines. I know
that there's been a lot of conversation about measles and
measles outbreaks in the past several weeks, and again we
(03:20):
still see different pockets of infections occur. Just again because
if there's not one compliance with these vaccines, then again
you'll you'll sort of see these explosions of viral infections,
which which is why we try to promote these things
(03:41):
as much as possible, again to prevent the virus from mutating,
and also again to increase immunity where you live in
your area. And if immunity is down, then these infections
tend to spread more, I believe, more easily. Patients have
(04:02):
been asking me whether or not they should get a
measless vaccine, and as far as I know, they're not
really telling us to tell people to get vaccines, but
certainly we're big believers in getting any vaccine at any
time if you feel like you're vulnerable again, because all
(04:27):
it does is sort of generate antibodies so that if
the virus or the bacteria enter your body, you're ready
to go. That's really how it works. So our immune
system is in the background, working all day long and
(04:49):
protecting us because honestly, there's risk of infection every single
day we wake up. Just normal human activity exposes us
to all these organisms out there. And for the most part,
the system works. You feel neutral, you don't feel sick,
(05:10):
and you're going about your day not worrying about everything.
But every now and then, yes, for whatever reason, the
immune systems not at best, or you get exposed to
some organism that maybe you don't have a lot of
protection against, and infection is able to get sort of
a hold of your system and make you feel bad.
(05:32):
And we all know those sick symptoms, right, the fever,
the achiness, maybe nausea, vomiting, weakness, coughing, sore throat rashes,
joint pain, blurry vision, confusion. Those are symptoms of a system.
(05:55):
Let me back up, that's a symptom of our system,
our immune system sort of revving up because normally a
bunch of hormones and molecules and proteins get released in
your bloodstream to sort of rev up your system to
fight the invasion or fight the infection. The term we
(06:17):
use in the medical world is called sepsis, and I
know a lot of patients are familiar with that term
s e p sis sepsis, and there's another term that
we use called SERS SIRS. These are acronyms. Well, sepsis
is not an acronym, but SURS is an acronym, and
(06:39):
SURS normally is generated by sepsis. So SERS just stands
for systemic inflammatory response syndrome SERS, systemic inflammatory. Right, We've
talked about the inflammatory system on the show a lot,
and you're inflammatory system is there to protect it. It's
(07:01):
part of your immune system, and it has its ways
of responding again by releasing certain inflammatory molecules and proteins
in your body which communicate with your body to sort
of rev up and start fighting and start protecting. And
that's why you feel a certain way because these hormones
(07:24):
are being released by the inflammatory system. And doctors and
hospitals can detect these symptoms by just taking your blood
pressure and doing your blood work and checking your oxygen.
They can see these symptoms of SERS. SIRS, which normally
(07:44):
is produced by sepsis, is normally from some sort of
organism infection, normally bacterial but can be viral. We saw
a lot of that with COVID. Right when you have
fever and your oxygen level falls and you don't feel well,
(08:05):
maybe your heart is beating quickly, which we call tachycardia.
Those are all symptoms of SIRS. And if SURS is
related to an organism infection, we call that sepsis so
very common every single day, we see a ton of
it in the hospital. Outside the hospital, for you ladies
(08:28):
out there, a lot of times you get bacterial infections
or UTIs, which is very common. You don't necessarily get
admitted to the hospital, but again, you have fever, maybe
your heart rates up a little bit, and if you
go to a monarcuy you get checked out. Maybe some
of your other lab is slightly abnormal, but otherwise you're
(08:50):
functioning okay. You don't necessarily get admitted to the hospital,
but nonetheless it qualifies as as SERS and as sepsis.
So not all people need to be hospitalized for sepsis,
but a large majority do have to be hospitalized just
because it's especially again as you get older, which I
(09:11):
have this conversation a lot, and it's something that I
now you know, really really respect, is the aging process
or getting older and what it means when your age
is up, which people have fun talking about it. You know,
what do you mean telling me I'm older? You're trying
to tell me I'm older. I mean so, but it's real,
(09:34):
it's a real phenomenon. It's a real issue as it
pertains to battling and infection or battling a SER's episode.
You want to be ready as possible, just like getting
your screening tests for your cancers or maybe getting your
heart checked out. Maybe your heart disease runs in your
(09:56):
family and your father passed away at a young age,
or maybe your brother has heart disease or sister has
heart disease, and you just want to get checked out, right,
I mean that makes sense. I get that. And trying
to sort of be ready to fight infections and serves
(10:17):
as you get older, in my opinion, should be part
of that mindset. As you get older, I mean you
have to get yourself prepared to be ready and fight
and be strong as you get older, because again, aging
is all a part of getting weaker and more vulnerable.
That's what getting older really means. You're weaker, you're more vulnerable,
(10:41):
and your system that could be your immune system, your
cardiac system, your gi system, your lung system, your kidney system,
all of those systems are sort of shutting down slowly
and again, which is why younger people tend to do
better are with any acute illness or injury. Their bodies
(11:03):
are not shutting down. Their bodies are working at its best.
Body is very efficient, things work very well even when
it's injured. It has the strength and the stamina to
withstand being in the hospital or just being ill or
tolerating all of this stress that's happening to it. And unfortunately,
(11:25):
as we get older, including me, that whole protection starts
to go away, and you're now more vulnerable and weaker,
and your stamina declines and less likely to do well
when you get sick or ill. Which again, if you've
ever been in the hospital, yourself or your wife or
(11:48):
your husband was hospitalized for some acute illness and maybe
didn't do so well in the hospital or when they
leave the hospital, they're a totally different a person in
terms of their ability to perform what they call their ADLs,
which stands for activity of daily living. That's a little
(12:10):
fancy medical acronym that means you brushing your teeth, combing
your hair, dressing yourself, getting out of bed, bathing yourself,
all these activities that we do automatically. We don't think
about it. But when your body is functioning, you can
be independent and do all those things. But so often
(12:32):
when and I'm sort of prioritizing elderly patients here, we
call that sixty five and above, but certainly depending on
your medical condition, even someone in their fifties, if they're
in poor health, they're just as vulnerable as someone who's
in their seventies, and they're just not in a position
(12:53):
to tolerate a lot of stress. And if something does
happen to them, yes, when they leave the hospital, the
sort of physiologically deplete it, and you get into a
lot of issues of not being able to get out
of bed, not being able to walk, maybe they can't
walk by themselves, maybe they can't eat or drink normally.
(13:15):
They have to get help just going to the bathroom
and just doing all those simple basic activity of daily
living things because of this acute stress and this secute
illness that happened to them while in the hospital. And
it doesn't take long. I mean, it really doesn't take long.
(13:36):
It could be maybe five days in the hospital, but
certainly the longer you're in the hospital generally, the more
incapacity or the more deficiency that you're going to go
home with that actually needs to be rehabilitated, which is
why a lot of people being in the hospital. Again,
(13:57):
as if you're older seventy eighty, very quickly before you
can go home or back home and be independent of
be by yourself, you have to go to too lack
a rehab facility. And the two big well the three
big rehab facilities that we have. One is called a
l TAC, which that's another acronym stands for long term
(14:20):
acute care. We only have one here in this area.
There's also what we call a skilled Nursing facility or
SNIFF for short SNF. These are just terms that we
use in the medical world, but these are nursing homes
that sort of prioritize a more rehabilitation process. Probably normally
(14:40):
stay there for a week or so, just in the
focus or goal there is to improve your function so
that when you go back home you can function and
perform those ad ls by yourself. And then we also
have rehab facilities. We have a few here in town.
And so depending on your function and how much you need,
(15:03):
you might go to nailtach, or you might go to
rehab or a sniff or I hear a lot of people,
you know, really don't want to go to any of
those facilities, and they elect to sort of go home
right out of the hospital. And there are services where
they can come to your house and perform some of
these activities to get you back on your feet. And
(15:26):
you can also certainly be transported by a family member
or friend from your house to like an outpatient rehab
facility to again get you back on your feet. These
are all options for patients who get admitted to the
hospital and they're there for four or five days and
develop severe weakness and need help sort of rehabilitating to
(15:49):
their normal function. And I hear this refrain all the time.
You know, man, they were just last week, they were
cutting their grass, they were driving, they were living by themselves,
they were doing great. I mean just two days ago.
I mean, what happened? And that guess that's what I mean.
That is what happens. I mean, And if you don't
(16:10):
see it, I get it. I understand that if there's
something you've never seen before. It's it's hard to explain
how someone's function can rapidly decline within twenty four hours
or within forty eight hours. I see it every day
in the hospital. I mean, it's very very impressive to
(16:32):
see it happen, but it does. And a lot of times, yes,
sirs are sepsis. You know. Is the reason for that?
In talking with patients who sort of are familiar with
that term, it does normally strike fear in them when
they hear that term being talked about about them or
(16:52):
about their family member that they automatically sort of think
the worst. Well, if they have sepsis, that means to die, right,
I mean, that's what I've heard about sepsis, which, yes,
sepsis can kill you, and it can cause a tremendous
amount of harm. Again, we saw that over and over
again during the COVID pandemic. That's really what was happening
(17:15):
to patients who maybe had to stay in the hospital
for two, three four weeks. Is sepsis was happening to
their bodies and just wrecking havoc on all of their function.
And you saw how from one day to the next,
the patient is function is totally different. And when you
(17:35):
see it over and over again, you honestly you get it.
And not everybody who gets sepsis will do poorly. They don't.
I mean, we have a lot of patient survivors, if
you will, who go into the hospital with sepsis. Our
serves and we give them what they need. Their body
(17:55):
is strong, it reacts very well, and then they're at
the hospital within a few days. So we have a
lot of a lot of success stories. But certainly there
are times where just the reaction is very strong, and
again because of that inherent weakness of the human body,
and I'm talking about sixty five and above being older,
(18:19):
it's just a little overwhelming for their system to tolerate,
and it cannot react, it cannot respond, and it basically
collapses very quickly, very rapidly. Again because the aging process
is there, the kidney system, the heart system, the nervous system,
everything is down. Yes, as long as nothing happens to you,
(18:43):
you're functioning quite well. Again, You're doing your own laundry,
you're cooking your own food, you're taking care of your
responsibilities your house, you're driving. But then if you get
sort of affected by some acute to illness. It can
really really decline your function very rapidly because of that process.
(19:07):
It's in the background and we can't really see it,
but it's happening, you know. Just our bodies are machines,
and there's a program that we all get at birth
right that sort of tells our body what to do.
And unfortunately, this term will use ageh is built into
(19:33):
the program. And unfortunately, as we get older, the program says,
you know, shut down and we get more vulnerable, which
is why we promote those vaccines. Get strong, now, get
your protection up so that in case you do get infection,
you can tolerate. If phone lines are open eight nine
(19:54):
six kV I onon one hundred and three to three
zero KLV. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
welcome back to the doctor Lavin Medical. Our phone lines
are open eight nine six KLV one hundred and three
(20:16):
three zero kyofya. Talking about sepsis and serves and sort
of how that interacts with the aging process. Yeah, you know,
we hear about cardiovascular disease, we hear about cancer. Those
are really the number one and two causes of death
in this country. This is what we deal with every
(20:36):
single day in the hospital, and I can tell you
as a physician of over twenty years, it is very impressive.
I mean, every day someone is coming in with a
cardiovascal event, multiple people coming in with car It's very impressive.
It's amazing to see it live and in person, just
(21:00):
how this stuff is happening every single day to our citizens,
which is why, yeah, we want to try and prevent things.
I'm a doctor of internal medicine. That's what we do
mainly primarily in the office setting, not so much in
the hospital setting. And sometimes you can look at the
hospital setting as when something happens an event, it sort
(21:22):
of represents a failure of the preventative side of healthcare
delivering this country, which is primarily what we're trying to
do when we ask you to come to the office
and sit down and talk and see where you're at
in terms of your prevention strategy. Missus Levine was here
last week and we were sort of talking about the
(21:44):
influx of the presence of the insurance company as it
pertains to helping out with some of those prevention services.
When a healthcare provider such as a nurse practitioner will
come out to your house or a registered come out
to your house in a nice leisurely environment, talk about
(22:05):
what's going on with your health, and just to go
over some basic prevention strategies to again keep you out
of the hospital so that you do not have an event.
That is really our goal is to keep you out
of the hospital and try to lower your chances of
having an event. You know, the medical world has been
(22:27):
studying cardiovascular disease cancer for years, I mean for years,
so we do know a lot more about how to
reduce the chances of you having an event, reduce the
chances of you having to go to the hospital for
an event, stay out of the hospital. That's honestly what
(22:50):
you go into your primary carevestation should be about, primarily,
and I'm all for the insurance companies helping out with
that because sometimes, as you know, we've talked about this
before in the show, it's sometimes difficult to hit all
those points when you go to your healthcare professional's offices.
These time constraints that you're all familiar with, that they're
(23:12):
somewhat frustrating when you wait for an hour two hours
to see your health care provider and you get five
to ten minutes and then that's it. It's over with.
And I don't know. Sometimes you probably feel like, is
that it. I waited for an hour, an hour and
a half, and that's all I had to wait for.
(23:35):
I could have been doing some exercise something like that, right,
So yeah, I get that. But that's why I want
you to go to your doctor periodically and go over
these things and make sure you're up to date with
your screening test. There's you know, more screening tests out there,
you know, the blood work, the EKGs, the chest X rays,
(23:59):
the mammas psays, even going to the cardiologists, maybe an
ultrasound of your hard to stress test. They now have
these what they call calcium scoring tests out there again,
all trying to assess your personal individual risk of cancer
(24:21):
as well as cardiovascal disease, since these are the big
boys on the block. But infections, sers sepsis, man, it's
right up there, you know, it is right up there
in terms of causing a lot of morbidity and mortality.
Just again, because age tends to cause a reduction of
(24:42):
the immune system, your immuno compromised, if you will. We've
heard about HIV, right, We've heard about transplant patients who
are taking medications that suppress their immune system. HIV the
viral infection that suppresses your immune system. So that now
these common infections that normally, when you have a healthy
(25:04):
immune system, you don't even worry about it. You're just
going about your day, nothing happens, and you're strong and man,
you're doing good. But when that immune system declines, it's
not as robust as it needs to be. Just common
daily infections. Man, you can end up in the hospital,
super sick, you know, in the ICU, on a breathing machine.
(25:28):
So that's why, again, do what you can to keep
your immune system healthy. Yes, we all get older, but
your daily activities strongly and importantly impact the health of
your immune system and the health of your system in general.
Like I said, your cardiovascular system, your lung system, those
(25:50):
systems need to be operating at an optimal level in
order to tolerate fluid in your lung, are pneumonia or
infection in your lung. You need those systems to be
strong in order to tolerate that. And yes, if you're
(26:10):
smoking every day, are your overweight and your sugars are
staying high, and your blood pressure is staying high, and
you're not necessarily doing your part to keep your body healthy.
Then yes, you're going to be more vulnerable when something
happens to you, which again invariably as we all get older,
(26:32):
something's going to happen. It's just what is it that
that's the question, right, What is going to happen to
me that's going to or put me in the hospital,
Because the opportunity for that to happen certainly escalate big
time as you get older. I mean just all these
things come into play and on the table as we
(26:53):
all get older in terms of getting us there to
the hospital. That again, I talk to my friends, I'm friends,
my patients, they're all my friends too, and you know
they look far to retirement, right, I've asked them a lot,
you know, how things going. Well, I'm getting ready to retire,
and man, they're excited. Right. They don't have to punch
(27:14):
the clock anymore. They can do whatever they want. They
don't have a boss, right if they want to sleep
in till noon and they want to go out of town,
or they just whatever they want to do. Man, this
sky's a limit and they just they're excited about it. Retiring,
all that pressure is off of me, all that stress.
(27:36):
It's gone right, and it seems so wonderful, which it
can be. And the one thing I normally bring up
to them is like, hey, that's great congratulations and graduate making.
I'm glad you made it. But one thing I want
to say to you is now that you're retired, you
want to be able to enjoy it right, And if
(27:58):
your health is not where it needs to be, it's
gonna be real hard for you to enjoy your retirement
because if you're unhealthy, guess what, you got to go
to a bunch of doctor's offices, you have to take
a bunch of meds, and maybe getting a bunch of procedures.
You may have to go to Houston or Galveston and
(28:19):
get things done. Can't go on those cruises, you can't
go to the family outings. I mean, there's a lot
of restriction, just like a job. And this was supposed
to be a wonderful time of my life. I don't
have to work, and I should be free, you know,
sort of flying in there, just hanging out, right. But
(28:43):
now you're going to doctor Levine's office every week or
every two weeks, and you go into another doctor's office
every two weeks. And you just you just got doctor's
visits lined up every day, Gotta be somewhere, can't go,
can't go out of town, can't do this. All these
expensive of meds. You know, I'm trying to get my
refills and I can't get my refills on time for
(29:04):
various reasons. And these insurance premiums are high, I deductible
and copays, and right, I mean, your health really becomes
a big deal. As you get older. You can do
just about whatever you want to your body. When you're
twenty and eighteen, you know you can abuse it, you
(29:28):
can do whatever the guy's and nothing happens typically, But
then get to your forties, fifties, sixties, and man, certainly
your daily activities are huge in terms of how you
feel and how your body functions and your chances of
ending up in the hospital. And that can be a strong,
(29:49):
I'm sorry, a hard transition for a lot of people.
You know, understanding that I have to do different. I
can't just do whatever I want, I can't just drink
whatever I want. I really have to buckle down and
I have to stay away from those things that are
not good for me. That can be tough, and unfortunately,
(30:13):
it sort of advances the disease, and again you need
more and more pharmaceutical help to get you back to
where you need to be. Until you find this strategy
to keep you healthy, to keep your body strong. It
can be tough, but certainly as you retire, you want
to be healthy. Phone lines are open eight nine six Kalvy.
(30:36):
I want one hundred three three zero kV I be
back in two minutes. All right, welcome back to talk
with me medical. Our phone lines or open eight nine
(30:57):
six kalv I want one hundred three three zero. Kovak
talking about serves and stepsis and trying to keep you
out of the hospital so that you don't have to
suffer any of those acute events. And yeah, okay, Doc Leavine,
what can I do to stay out of the hospital? Right? Yeah,
I'm going to listen to you and do all those
(31:18):
things that you ask me to do. So, yeah, just
a few points that I normally like to make with
my patients, real easy, simple stuff to understand. How can
I make my body strong and sort of ward off
these issues that come about as we get older? And
if you listen to my show, you probably already know
this list, but it's always a good idea to remind
(31:42):
listeners that talk about it over and over again. And
I feel like I try to mention that each time
patients come to the office, just so they get it,
they understand. This is what in my opinion, after being
in the game for over twenty years and talking to
thousands of patients and seeing diseases hay from start to finish,
and what works, what doesn't work, medicines all that stuff,
(32:05):
I mean, what really helps? What is really the thing
that I should be doing? Number one, you all know this.
You gotta eat a healthy diet, right. You gotta put
in your system, your engine, your machine. You have to
give it good energy, right, good fuel. You gotta do
(32:29):
that if you want to be healthy. Bottom line, If
you don't do that again when you're twenty one, you
can do all that I did it. You know, all
this stuff I'm telling you not to eat. I eat
it when I was young, right, used to just go
into those burgers and fries and milkshakes. I loved it,
(32:51):
and I still love it. But hey, I'm older now.
My body's different. If I eat that stuff, man, I
feel terrible and and not for a day, you know,
luck for a day or so almost like if you
get hung over, you feel terrible, you can't function well.
I mean you can, but man, you feel lucky. And
so a lot of us get into that sort of thing.
(33:12):
Just can't tolerate a lot of those that bad fuel
that we give ourselves, which I call sugary beverages and
processed food. Audrey from Vrder, how can we help you?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
It's good morning. I had an article that was in
the paper years ago about blood sugar and older patients
that they try to keep their blood sugar too low,
which results and falls and such as that. And he
(33:46):
suggested or he said that it was best to keep
your blood sugar between one fifty and two hundred, which
I thought was kind of high. What is your thoughts
on this?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So the doctor said that.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yes, it was an article that a doctor wrote years ago,
that was in the newspaper years ago.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yes, yeah, you know, Audrey, we've been trying to figure
out as it pertains to diabetes and a sugar level.
You know, what's what's the best level that we would
like patients' blood sugars to be at. Right, And yes,
and it's it's kind of changed over the years, just
(34:42):
like with cholesterol and blood pressure numbers. The target number
has changed over the years, and I think the idea
is that the lower the number, then the better it is.
But we can't go too low because some patients just
can't tolerate that very well. Their bodies can't tolerate that
(35:04):
very well. And as it pertains to elderly patients, as
of today, we now know that if we try to
keep the sugar level low, like that are lower than
you know, eighty or seventy, that it can very easily
(35:25):
cause injury to your body. And so we've sort of
relaxed our recommendations as it pertains to elderly patients and sugar,
and we now accept a little bit higher reading such
as one hundred or one hundred and thirty or one
hundred and fifty, just because again I've been talking about
the aging process this morning. Your body's metabolism and how
(35:50):
your nervous system and brain and heart works. Probably it
works better in an environment whether the sugar is a
little bit higher than a little bit lower. And just
in general, when we're just talking to patients in general, yes,
for an elderly patient, we probably are more accepting of
that sugar level in the elderly population. Now, if you're young,
(36:12):
in your twenties thirties, yeah, we probably want to kind
of keep to sugar as low as you can tolerate it,
just because it a lot of times can prevent a
lot of these cardiovascular events and all these issues that
come up with diabetes. But if you've gotten to seventy
eighty years old and nothing's happened to you at this point,
(36:37):
you know, keeping your sugar like super low, in my opinion,
is not that beneficial. We're not going to get a
lot out of it. So we don't necessarily have to
prioritize keeping your sugar as low as possible. You can
normally allow it to be a little bit higher because
there's a issue that comes up which we call hypo glycemia,
(37:00):
and that's what the sugar is below normally sixty. It
can really cause injury to the human body. And as
I've talked about this morning, early patients are just more
vulnerable to injury because their recovery is sometimes hard, just
again because their bodies are sort of shutting down. Things
don't work as well, they don't recover as well. So
(37:22):
we're trying to prevent injury every day. We don't want
anything to happen because when something happens, elderly patients just
don't tolerate it very well. We don't have a lot
of time to waste. So as it pertains to the sugar,
I'm fine with that recommendation. Okay again, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I know myself, I feel much better between when my
sugar is between maybe one twenty five and one thirty.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Sounds good. I like it.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Okay, all right, just wanted your opinion absolutely.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thank you, Audrey. Thank you for the question in there
about the sugar levels. Now, honestly, diabetes and sugar, we're
just making general statements, right, but you have to talk
with your own individual doctor healthcare professional about your particular
situation and what they recommend for you for you, because, yeah,
(38:24):
we do have PACs out there where we're trying to
keep that sugar low. And just because maybe they've had
a bunch of cardiovascular events and they have plaque everywhere, Yes,
we want to keep them low as much as possible.
But for someone who has gotten into their seventies eighties,
(38:45):
they've not had any events happen to them. Maybe they
just got dognosed with diabetes because again, it's more related
to the aging process. For me, I'm not really going
to be super aggressive because I don't want what that
what we call ipoglycemia. That's a dangerous position to be
in and we don't want that, and so our position
(39:06):
changes as it pertains to elderly patients. We want to
be safe and when you try to slam the sugar
down like that, you can harm just like we used
to do a blood pressure. Anyway, we're going to last break.
Phone lines are open. We'll be back in two minutes.
All right, welcome to Doctor Vine Medical Hour. Heading into
(39:29):
the last few minutes of the show. I want to
thank all the callers and the listeners to the show.
Remember we're here for you. If there's a topic that
you like me to discuss, let us know, be more
than happy to dive into that. But today talking about
sepsis and serves, which we hear about cardiopacius and cans
all the time. But in my opinion, I'm on the inside.
(39:49):
I see this stuff every day. Man infections or tearing
people up. I mean big time bladder infections, pneumonia, bloodstream
infect hard infections, abdominal infections. I mean, it's crazy and
you have to be, in my opinion, put yourself in
a position where you're able to tolerate that. And it
(40:11):
starts with your daily activities, primarily what you eat and drink.
Right there, you got to get that right fuel in
your body to make sure that it's functioning as high
as possible. And yes, second to that, be physically active.
Sitting around all day is never good for you. Get
your blood pumping a little bit. And it doesn't have
(40:33):
to be high intensity like the stuff you see on TV.
Just a brisk walk for twenty minutes or get on
a bicycle and pedal it for twenty minutes. That's all
you gotta do. And it doesn't have to be every day.
I mean just two or three times a week. That
is it. That's it. So every day, try to put
(40:54):
something in your body that works, that functions, and what
is that Primarily No one disagrees with vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, beans,
beans are not vegetables. That's a good wholesome food item
that has a lot of nutrition in it, antioxidants, fiber, vitamins, minermals.
(41:18):
That's what your body needs. That's the good fuel so
your engine can run and it doesn't break down the engine.
Bad food breaks down the engine. Sugar breaks down the engine.
Sugary beverages breaks down your engine so that it cannot function.
You start to feel bad. It's not strong. You have
no stamina. You can't bend down and pick up anything.
(41:40):
When you bend down, you can't get up because you're
hurt everywhere, or you're just too big. Starts with what
you eat and drink. So more vegetables, less start, right,
I grew up here. I ate all that stuff too,
all the gumbos, the mac and cheese, the right gravy. Yeah,
(42:02):
I had all that corn bread and I still love it.
But I understand crystal clear that eating that and consume
that every day normally as you get older, is going
to generate disease and illness and keep you or increase
your chance of being in that hospital. So do your part.
(42:24):
There's no guarantee, but certainly it can reduce the chances
of you being in the hospital, like speeding increases chances
of accidents. Yes, we'll see you guys next week. Don't
drink and drive, Take care of God, bless
All right, welcome South through Sex is in at radio listeners,
It's Doc Levine. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to another edition of
the Doctor Levine Medical Hour. Phone lines are open. I
am a doctor of internal medicine, here to take your
phone calls and try to answer questions about your healthcare
or questions you might have about the medical world, whatever
(00:24):
that might mean. Phone lines are open eight nine six
kl v I one in one hundred and three to
three zero OK lv I. We'd love to hear from
you and try and answer these questions. Try that is
as I. Yeah, I'm a doctor, but I know a lot,
but I don't know everything. And I wake up every
(00:46):
day trying to get better at my knowledge and trying
to get better at helping patients figure out what is
good for them and what's not so good for them,
because everybody is different. Even though we look across the
aisle and somebody's doing something different, you want to maybe
(01:07):
emulate that, but it's not always the right thing to do.
I hear that comment a lot. I asked my mother,
I asked my wife, I asked my husband, ask my coworkers.
I've been talking with them about my medications and that
medicine you started, and I didn't take it just because
(01:28):
of something they said or some concerns of that, which
is fine because we certainly, for me at least, we
want you to be educated and we want you to
agree with what we're doing in terms of your medications. Again,
I don't perform surgery. I'm a doctor of internal medicine,
(01:48):
and yeah, primarily what I do most of the day
is prescribe medications that should help patients improve their condition
or feel normal again. At least that's most doctor's goal
is to try and achieve normal feeling and normal function
(02:09):
gets you back to a neutral position in the use
of these prescribed medications are maybe a surgical technique or
maybe a procedure that you may have to go through
to make yourself feel well. That is always a goal,
but sometimes we cannot achieve neutrality and we have to
(02:33):
maybe consider other things to help you so, but that
that is our goal. Anyway, give us a buzz. We
love hearing from you. Remember that the flu season is
sort of done with, and viral infections are always around us,
even though it's the summertime the springtime. Certainly our respiratory
(02:56):
infections slowed down tremendously, but we still see it throughout
the year, just not the big amount during the winter time.
But again, we have big promoters of vaccines. I know
that there's been a lot of conversation about measles and
measles outbreaks in the past several weeks, and again we
(03:20):
still see different pockets of infections occur. Just again because
if there's not one compliance with these vaccines, then again
you'll you'll sort of see these explosions of viral infections,
which which is why we try to promote these things
(03:41):
as much as possible, again to prevent the virus from mutating,
and also again to increase immunity where you live in
your area. And if immunity is down, then these infections
tend to spread more, I believe, more easily. Patients have
(04:02):
been asking me whether or not they should get a
measless vaccine, and as far as I know, they're not
really telling us to tell people to get vaccines, but
certainly we're big believers in getting any vaccine at any
time if you feel like you're vulnerable again, because all
(04:27):
it does is sort of generate antibodies so that if
the virus or the bacteria enter your body, you're ready
to go. That's really how it works. So our immune
system is in the background, working all day long and
(04:49):
protecting us because honestly, there's risk of infection every single
day we wake up. Just normal human activity exposes us
to all these organisms out there. And for the most part,
the system works. You feel neutral, you don't feel sick,
(05:10):
and you're going about your day not worrying about everything.
But every now and then, yes, for whatever reason, the
immune systems not at best, or you get exposed to
some organism that maybe you don't have a lot of
protection against, and infection is able to get sort of
a hold of your system and make you feel bad.
(05:32):
And we all know those sick symptoms, right, the fever,
the achiness, maybe nausea, vomiting, weakness, coughing, sore throat rashes,
joint pain, blurry vision, confusion. Those are symptoms of a system.
(05:55):
Let me back up, that's a symptom of our system,
our immune system sort of revving up because normally a
bunch of hormones and molecules and proteins get released in
your bloodstream to sort of rev up your system to
fight the invasion or fight the infection. The term we
(06:17):
use in the medical world is called sepsis, and I
know a lot of patients are familiar with that term
s e p sis sepsis, and there's another term that
we use called SERS SIRS. These are acronyms. Well, sepsis
is not an acronym, but SURS is an acronym, and
(06:39):
SURS normally is generated by sepsis. So SERS just stands
for systemic inflammatory response syndrome SERS, systemic inflammatory. Right, We've
talked about the inflammatory system on the show a lot,
and you're inflammatory system is there to protect it. It's
(07:01):
part of your immune system, and it has its ways
of responding again by releasing certain inflammatory molecules and proteins
in your body which communicate with your body to sort
of rev up and start fighting and start protecting. And
that's why you feel a certain way because these hormones
(07:24):
are being released by the inflammatory system. And doctors and
hospitals can detect these symptoms by just taking your blood
pressure and doing your blood work and checking your oxygen.
They can see these symptoms of SERS. SIRS, which normally
(07:44):
is produced by sepsis, is normally from some sort of
organism infection, normally bacterial but can be viral. We saw
a lot of that with COVID. Right when you have
fever and your oxygen level falls and you don't feel well,
(08:05):
maybe your heart is beating quickly, which we call tachycardia.
Those are all symptoms of SIRS. And if SURS is
related to an organism infection, we call that sepsis so
very common every single day, we see a ton of
it in the hospital. Outside the hospital, for you ladies
(08:28):
out there, a lot of times you get bacterial infections
or UTIs, which is very common. You don't necessarily get
admitted to the hospital, but again, you have fever, maybe
your heart rates up a little bit, and if you
go to a monarcuy you get checked out. Maybe some
of your other lab is slightly abnormal, but otherwise you're
(08:50):
functioning okay. You don't necessarily get admitted to the hospital,
but nonetheless it qualifies as as SERS and as sepsis.
So not all people need to be hospitalized for sepsis,
but a large majority do have to be hospitalized just
because it's especially again as you get older, which I
(09:11):
have this conversation a lot, and it's something that I
now you know, really really respect, is the aging process
or getting older and what it means when your age
is up, which people have fun talking about it. You know,
what do you mean telling me I'm older? You're trying
to tell me I'm older. I mean so, but it's real,
(09:34):
it's a real phenomenon. It's a real issue as it
pertains to battling and infection or battling a SER's episode.
You want to be ready as possible, just like getting
your screening tests for your cancers or maybe getting your
heart checked out. Maybe your heart disease runs in your
(09:56):
family and your father passed away at a young age,
or maybe your brother has heart disease or sister has
heart disease, and you just want to get checked out, right,
I mean that makes sense. I get that. And trying
to sort of be ready to fight infections and serves
(10:17):
as you get older, in my opinion, should be part
of that mindset. As you get older, I mean you
have to get yourself prepared to be ready and fight
and be strong as you get older, because again, aging
is all a part of getting weaker and more vulnerable.
That's what getting older really means. You're weaker, you're more vulnerable,
(10:41):
and your system that could be your immune system, your
cardiac system, your gi system, your lung system, your kidney system,
all of those systems are sort of shutting down slowly
and again, which is why younger people tend to do
better are with any acute illness or injury. Their bodies
(11:03):
are not shutting down. Their bodies are working at its best.
Body is very efficient, things work very well even when
it's injured. It has the strength and the stamina to
withstand being in the hospital or just being ill or
tolerating all of this stress that's happening to it. And unfortunately,
(11:25):
as we get older, including me, that whole protection starts
to go away, and you're now more vulnerable and weaker,
and your stamina declines and less likely to do well
when you get sick or ill. Which again, if you've
ever been in the hospital, yourself or your wife or
(11:48):
your husband was hospitalized for some acute illness and maybe
didn't do so well in the hospital or when they
leave the hospital, they're a totally different a person in
terms of their ability to perform what they call their ADLs,
which stands for activity of daily living. That's a little
(12:10):
fancy medical acronym that means you brushing your teeth, combing
your hair, dressing yourself, getting out of bed, bathing yourself,
all these activities that we do automatically. We don't think
about it. But when your body is functioning, you can
be independent and do all those things. But so often
(12:32):
when and I'm sort of prioritizing elderly patients here, we
call that sixty five and above, but certainly depending on
your medical condition, even someone in their fifties, if they're
in poor health, they're just as vulnerable as someone who's
in their seventies, and they're just not in a position
(12:53):
to tolerate a lot of stress. And if something does
happen to them, yes, when they leave the hospital, the
sort of physiologically deplete it, and you get into a
lot of issues of not being able to get out
of bed, not being able to walk, maybe they can't
walk by themselves, maybe they can't eat or drink normally.
(13:15):
They have to get help just going to the bathroom
and just doing all those simple basic activity of daily
living things because of this acute stress and this secute
illness that happened to them while in the hospital. And
it doesn't take long. I mean, it really doesn't take long.
(13:36):
It could be maybe five days in the hospital, but
certainly the longer you're in the hospital generally, the more
incapacity or the more deficiency that you're going to go
home with that actually needs to be rehabilitated, which is
why a lot of people being in the hospital. Again,
(13:57):
as if you're older seventy eighty, very quickly before you
can go home or back home and be independent of
be by yourself, you have to go to too lack
a rehab facility. And the two big well the three
big rehab facilities that we have. One is called a
l TAC, which that's another acronym stands for long term
(14:20):
acute care. We only have one here in this area.
There's also what we call a skilled Nursing facility or
SNIFF for short SNF. These are just terms that we
use in the medical world, but these are nursing homes
that sort of prioritize a more rehabilitation process. Probably normally
(14:40):
stay there for a week or so, just in the
focus or goal there is to improve your function so
that when you go back home you can function and
perform those ad ls by yourself. And then we also
have rehab facilities. We have a few here in town.
And so depending on your function and how much you need,
(15:03):
you might go to nailtach, or you might go to
rehab or a sniff or I hear a lot of people,
you know, really don't want to go to any of
those facilities, and they elect to sort of go home
right out of the hospital. And there are services where
they can come to your house and perform some of
these activities to get you back on your feet. And
(15:26):
you can also certainly be transported by a family member
or friend from your house to like an outpatient rehab
facility to again get you back on your feet. These
are all options for patients who get admitted to the
hospital and they're there for four or five days and
develop severe weakness and need help sort of rehabilitating to
(15:49):
their normal function. And I hear this refrain all the time.
You know, man, they were just last week, they were
cutting their grass, they were driving, they were living by themselves,
they were doing great. I mean just two days ago.
I mean, what happened? And that guess that's what I mean.
That is what happens. I mean, And if you don't
(16:10):
see it, I get it. I understand that if there's
something you've never seen before. It's it's hard to explain
how someone's function can rapidly decline within twenty four hours
or within forty eight hours. I see it every day
in the hospital. I mean, it's very very impressive to
(16:32):
see it happen, but it does. And a lot of times, yes,
sirs are sepsis. You know. Is the reason for that?
In talking with patients who sort of are familiar with
that term, it does normally strike fear in them when
they hear that term being talked about about them or
(16:52):
about their family member that they automatically sort of think
the worst. Well, if they have sepsis, that means to die, right,
I mean, that's what I've heard about sepsis, which, yes,
sepsis can kill you, and it can cause a tremendous
amount of harm. Again, we saw that over and over
again during the COVID pandemic. That's really what was happening
(17:15):
to patients who maybe had to stay in the hospital
for two, three four weeks. Is sepsis was happening to
their bodies and just wrecking havoc on all of their function.
And you saw how from one day to the next,
the patient is function is totally different. And when you
(17:35):
see it over and over again, you honestly you get it.
And not everybody who gets sepsis will do poorly. They don't.
I mean, we have a lot of patient survivors, if
you will, who go into the hospital with sepsis. Our
serves and we give them what they need. Their body
(17:55):
is strong, it reacts very well, and then they're at
the hospital within a few days. So we have a
lot of a lot of success stories. But certainly there
are times where just the reaction is very strong, and
again because of that inherent weakness of the human body,
and I'm talking about sixty five and above being older,
(18:19):
it's just a little overwhelming for their system to tolerate,
and it cannot react, it cannot respond, and it basically
collapses very quickly, very rapidly. Again because the aging process
is there, the kidney system, the heart system, the nervous system,
everything is down. Yes, as long as nothing happens to you,
(18:43):
you're functioning quite well. Again, You're doing your own laundry,
you're cooking your own food, you're taking care of your
responsibilities your house, you're driving. But then if you get
sort of affected by some acute to illness. It can
really really decline your function very rapidly because of that process.
(19:07):
It's in the background and we can't really see it,
but it's happening, you know. Just our bodies are machines,
and there's a program that we all get at birth
right that sort of tells our body what to do.
And unfortunately, this term will use ageh is built into
(19:33):
the program. And unfortunately, as we get older, the program says,
you know, shut down and we get more vulnerable, which
is why we promote those vaccines. Get strong, now, get
your protection up so that in case you do get infection,
you can tolerate. If phone lines are open eight nine
(19:54):
six kV I onon one hundred and three to three
zero KLV. I'll be back in two minutes. All right,
welcome back to the doctor Lavin Medical. Our phone lines
are open eight nine six KLV one hundred and three
(20:16):
three zero kyofya. Talking about sepsis and serves and sort
of how that interacts with the aging process. Yeah, you know,
we hear about cardiovascular disease, we hear about cancer. Those
are really the number one and two causes of death
in this country. This is what we deal with every
(20:36):
single day in the hospital, and I can tell you
as a physician of over twenty years, it is very impressive.
I mean, every day someone is coming in with a
cardiovascal event, multiple people coming in with car It's very impressive.
It's amazing to see it live and in person, just
(21:00):
how this stuff is happening every single day to our citizens,
which is why, yeah, we want to try and prevent things.
I'm a doctor of internal medicine. That's what we do
mainly primarily in the office setting, not so much in
the hospital setting. And sometimes you can look at the
hospital setting as when something happens an event, it sort
(21:22):
of represents a failure of the preventative side of healthcare
delivering this country, which is primarily what we're trying to
do when we ask you to come to the office
and sit down and talk and see where you're at
in terms of your prevention strategy. Missus Levine was here
last week and we were sort of talking about the
(21:44):
influx of the presence of the insurance company as it
pertains to helping out with some of those prevention services.
When a healthcare provider such as a nurse practitioner will
come out to your house or a registered come out
to your house in a nice leisurely environment, talk about
(22:05):
what's going on with your health, and just to go
over some basic prevention strategies to again keep you out
of the hospital so that you do not have an event.
That is really our goal is to keep you out
of the hospital and try to lower your chances of
having an event. You know, the medical world has been
(22:27):
studying cardiovascular disease cancer for years, I mean for years,
so we do know a lot more about how to
reduce the chances of you having an event, reduce the
chances of you having to go to the hospital for
an event, stay out of the hospital. That's honestly what
(22:50):
you go into your primary carevestation should be about, primarily,
and I'm all for the insurance companies helping out with
that because sometimes, as you know, we've talked about this
before in the show, it's sometimes difficult to hit all
those points when you go to your healthcare professional's offices.
These time constraints that you're all familiar with, that they're
(23:12):
somewhat frustrating when you wait for an hour two hours
to see your health care provider and you get five
to ten minutes and then that's it. It's over with.
And I don't know. Sometimes you probably feel like, is
that it. I waited for an hour, an hour and
a half, and that's all I had to wait for.
(23:35):
I could have been doing some exercise something like that, right,
So yeah, I get that. But that's why I want
you to go to your doctor periodically and go over
these things and make sure you're up to date with
your screening test. There's you know, more screening tests out there,
you know, the blood work, the EKGs, the chest X rays,
(23:59):
the mammas psays, even going to the cardiologists, maybe an
ultrasound of your hard to stress test. They now have
these what they call calcium scoring tests out there again,
all trying to assess your personal individual risk of cancer
(24:21):
as well as cardiovascal disease, since these are the big
boys on the block. But infections, sers sepsis, man, it's
right up there, you know, it is right up there
in terms of causing a lot of morbidity and mortality.
Just again, because age tends to cause a reduction of
(24:42):
the immune system, your immuno compromised, if you will. We've
heard about HIV, right, We've heard about transplant patients who
are taking medications that suppress their immune system. HIV the
viral infection that suppresses your immune system. So that now
these common infections that normally, when you have a healthy
(25:04):
immune system, you don't even worry about it. You're just
going about your day, nothing happens, and you're strong and man,
you're doing good. But when that immune system declines, it's
not as robust as it needs to be. Just common
daily infections. Man, you can end up in the hospital,
super sick, you know, in the ICU, on a breathing machine.
(25:28):
So that's why, again, do what you can to keep
your immune system healthy. Yes, we all get older, but
your daily activities strongly and importantly impact the health of
your immune system and the health of your system in general.
Like I said, your cardiovascular system, your lung system, those
(25:50):
systems need to be operating at an optimal level in
order to tolerate fluid in your lung, are pneumonia or
infection in your lung. You need those systems to be
strong in order to tolerate that. And yes, if you're
(26:10):
smoking every day, are your overweight and your sugars are
staying high, and your blood pressure is staying high, and
you're not necessarily doing your part to keep your body healthy.
Then yes, you're going to be more vulnerable when something
happens to you, which again invariably as we all get older,
(26:32):
something's going to happen. It's just what is it that
that's the question, right, What is going to happen to
me that's going to or put me in the hospital,
Because the opportunity for that to happen certainly escalate big
time as you get older. I mean just all these
things come into play and on the table as we
(26:53):
all get older in terms of getting us there to
the hospital. That again, I talk to my friends, I'm friends,
my patients, they're all my friends too, and you know
they look far to retirement, right, I've asked them a lot,
you know, how things going. Well, I'm getting ready to retire,
and man, they're excited. Right. They don't have to punch
(27:14):
the clock anymore. They can do whatever they want. They
don't have a boss, right if they want to sleep
in till noon and they want to go out of town,
or they just whatever they want to do. Man, this
sky's a limit and they just they're excited about it. Retiring,
all that pressure is off of me, all that stress.
(27:36):
It's gone right, and it seems so wonderful, which it
can be. And the one thing I normally bring up
to them is like, hey, that's great congratulations and graduate making.
I'm glad you made it. But one thing I want
to say to you is now that you're retired, you
want to be able to enjoy it right, And if
(27:58):
your health is not where it needs to be, it's
gonna be real hard for you to enjoy your retirement
because if you're unhealthy, guess what, you got to go
to a bunch of doctor's offices, you have to take
a bunch of meds, and maybe getting a bunch of procedures.
You may have to go to Houston or Galveston and
(28:19):
get things done. Can't go on those cruises, you can't
go to the family outings. I mean, there's a lot
of restriction, just like a job. And this was supposed
to be a wonderful time of my life. I don't
have to work, and I should be free, you know,
sort of flying in there, just hanging out, right. But
(28:43):
now you're going to doctor Levine's office every week or
every two weeks, and you go into another doctor's office
every two weeks. And you just you just got doctor's
visits lined up every day, Gotta be somewhere, can't go,
can't go out of town, can't do this. All these
expensive of meds. You know, I'm trying to get my
refills and I can't get my refills on time for
(29:04):
various reasons. And these insurance premiums are high, I deductible
and copays, and right, I mean, your health really becomes
a big deal. As you get older. You can do
just about whatever you want to your body. When you're
twenty and eighteen, you know you can abuse it, you
(29:28):
can do whatever the guy's and nothing happens typically, But
then get to your forties, fifties, sixties, and man, certainly
your daily activities are huge in terms of how you
feel and how your body functions and your chances of
ending up in the hospital. And that can be a strong,
(29:49):
I'm sorry, a hard transition for a lot of people.
You know, understanding that I have to do different. I
can't just do whatever I want, I can't just drink
whatever I want. I really have to buckle down and
I have to stay away from those things that are
not good for me. That can be tough, and unfortunately,
(30:13):
it sort of advances the disease, and again you need
more and more pharmaceutical help to get you back to
where you need to be. Until you find this strategy
to keep you healthy, to keep your body strong. It
can be tough, but certainly as you retire, you want
to be healthy. Phone lines are open eight nine six Kalvy.
(30:36):
I want one hundred three three zero kV I be
back in two minutes. All right, welcome back to talk
with me medical. Our phone lines or open eight nine
(30:57):
six kalv I want one hundred three three zero. Kovak
talking about serves and stepsis and trying to keep you
out of the hospital so that you don't have to
suffer any of those acute events. And yeah, okay, Doc Leavine,
what can I do to stay out of the hospital? Right? Yeah,
I'm going to listen to you and do all those
(31:18):
things that you ask me to do. So, yeah, just
a few points that I normally like to make with
my patients, real easy, simple stuff to understand. How can
I make my body strong and sort of ward off
these issues that come about as we get older? And
if you listen to my show, you probably already know
this list, but it's always a good idea to remind
(31:42):
listeners that talk about it over and over again. And
I feel like I try to mention that each time
patients come to the office, just so they get it,
they understand. This is what in my opinion, after being
in the game for over twenty years and talking to
thousands of patients and seeing diseases hay from start to finish,
and what works, what doesn't work, medicines all that stuff,
(32:05):
I mean, what really helps? What is really the thing
that I should be doing? Number one, you all know this.
You gotta eat a healthy diet, right. You gotta put
in your system, your engine, your machine. You have to
give it good energy, right, good fuel. You gotta do
(32:29):
that if you want to be healthy. Bottom line, If
you don't do that again when you're twenty one, you
can do all that I did it. You know, all
this stuff I'm telling you not to eat. I eat
it when I was young, right, used to just go
into those burgers and fries and milkshakes. I loved it,
(32:51):
and I still love it. But hey, I'm older now.
My body's different. If I eat that stuff, man, I
feel terrible and and not for a day, you know,
luck for a day or so almost like if you
get hung over, you feel terrible, you can't function well.
I mean you can, but man, you feel lucky. And
so a lot of us get into that sort of thing.
(33:12):
Just can't tolerate a lot of those that bad fuel
that we give ourselves, which I call sugary beverages and
processed food. Audrey from Vrder, how can we help you?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
It's good morning. I had an article that was in
the paper years ago about blood sugar and older patients
that they try to keep their blood sugar too low,
which results and falls and such as that. And he
(33:46):
suggested or he said that it was best to keep
your blood sugar between one fifty and two hundred, which
I thought was kind of high. What is your thoughts
on this?
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So the doctor said that.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yes, it was an article that a doctor wrote years ago,
that was in the newspaper years ago.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yes, yeah, you know, Audrey, we've been trying to figure
out as it pertains to diabetes and a sugar level.
You know, what's what's the best level that we would
like patients' blood sugars to be at. Right, And yes,
and it's it's kind of changed over the years, just
(34:42):
like with cholesterol and blood pressure numbers. The target number
has changed over the years, and I think the idea
is that the lower the number, then the better it is.
But we can't go too low because some patients just
can't tolerate that very well. Their bodies can't tolerate that
(35:04):
very well. And as it pertains to elderly patients, as
of today, we now know that if we try to
keep the sugar level low, like that are lower than
you know, eighty or seventy, that it can very easily
(35:25):
cause injury to your body. And so we've sort of
relaxed our recommendations as it pertains to elderly patients and sugar,
and we now accept a little bit higher reading such
as one hundred or one hundred and thirty or one
hundred and fifty, just because again I've been talking about
the aging process this morning. Your body's metabolism and how
(35:50):
your nervous system and brain and heart works. Probably it
works better in an environment whether the sugar is a
little bit higher than a little bit lower. And just
in general, when we're just talking to patients in general, yes,
for an elderly patient, we probably are more accepting of
that sugar level in the elderly population. Now, if you're young,
(36:12):
in your twenties thirties, yeah, we probably want to kind
of keep to sugar as low as you can tolerate it,
just because it a lot of times can prevent a
lot of these cardiovascular events and all these issues that
come up with diabetes. But if you've gotten to seventy
eighty years old and nothing's happened to you at this point,
(36:37):
you know, keeping your sugar like super low, in my opinion,
is not that beneficial. We're not going to get a
lot out of it. So we don't necessarily have to
prioritize keeping your sugar as low as possible. You can
normally allow it to be a little bit higher because
there's a issue that comes up which we call hypo glycemia,
(37:00):
and that's what the sugar is below normally sixty. It
can really cause injury to the human body. And as
I've talked about this morning, early patients are just more
vulnerable to injury because their recovery is sometimes hard, just
again because their bodies are sort of shutting down. Things
don't work as well, they don't recover as well. So
(37:22):
we're trying to prevent injury every day. We don't want
anything to happen because when something happens, elderly patients just
don't tolerate it very well. We don't have a lot
of time to waste. So as it pertains to the sugar,
I'm fine with that recommendation. Okay again, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
I know myself, I feel much better between when my
sugar is between maybe one twenty five and one thirty.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Sounds good. I like it.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Okay, all right, just wanted your opinion absolutely.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thank you, Audrey. Thank you for the question in there
about the sugar levels. Now, honestly, diabetes and sugar, we're
just making general statements, right, but you have to talk
with your own individual doctor healthcare professional about your particular
situation and what they recommend for you for you, because, yeah,
(38:24):
we do have PACs out there where we're trying to
keep that sugar low. And just because maybe they've had
a bunch of cardiovascular events and they have plaque everywhere, Yes,
we want to keep them low as much as possible.
But for someone who has gotten into their seventies eighties,
(38:45):
they've not had any events happen to them. Maybe they
just got dognosed with diabetes because again, it's more related
to the aging process. For me, I'm not really going
to be super aggressive because I don't want what that
what we call ipoglycemia. That's a dangerous position to be
in and we don't want that, and so our position
(39:06):
changes as it pertains to elderly patients. We want to
be safe and when you try to slam the sugar
down like that, you can harm just like we used
to do a blood pressure. Anyway, we're going to last break.
Phone lines are open. We'll be back in two minutes.
All right, welcome to Doctor Vine Medical Hour. Heading into
(39:29):
the last few minutes of the show. I want to
thank all the callers and the listeners to the show.
Remember we're here for you. If there's a topic that
you like me to discuss, let us know, be more
than happy to dive into that. But today talking about
sepsis and serves, which we hear about cardiopacius and cans
all the time. But in my opinion, I'm on the inside.
(39:49):
I see this stuff every day. Man infections or tearing
people up. I mean big time bladder infections, pneumonia, bloodstream
infect hard infections, abdominal infections. I mean, it's crazy and
you have to be, in my opinion, put yourself in
a position where you're able to tolerate that. And it
(40:11):
starts with your daily activities, primarily what you eat and drink.
Right there, you got to get that right fuel in
your body to make sure that it's functioning as high
as possible. And yes, second to that, be physically active.
Sitting around all day is never good for you. Get
your blood pumping a little bit. And it doesn't have
(40:33):
to be high intensity like the stuff you see on TV.
Just a brisk walk for twenty minutes or get on
a bicycle and pedal it for twenty minutes. That's all
you gotta do. And it doesn't have to be every day.
I mean just two or three times a week. That
is it. That's it. So every day, try to put
(40:54):
something in your body that works, that functions, and what
is that Primarily No one disagrees with vegetables. Broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, beans,
beans are not vegetables. That's a good wholesome food item
that has a lot of nutrition in it, antioxidants, fiber, vitamins, minermals.
(41:18):
That's what your body needs. That's the good fuel so
your engine can run and it doesn't break down the engine.
Bad food breaks down the engine. Sugar breaks down the engine.
Sugary beverages breaks down your engine so that it cannot function.
You start to feel bad. It's not strong. You have
no stamina. You can't bend down and pick up anything.
(41:40):
When you bend down, you can't get up because you're
hurt everywhere, or you're just too big. Starts with what
you eat and drink. So more vegetables, less start, right,
I grew up here. I ate all that stuff too,
all the gumbos, the mac and cheese, the right gravy. Yeah,
(42:02):
I had all that corn bread and I still love it.
But I understand crystal clear that eating that and consume
that every day normally as you get older, is going
to generate disease and illness and keep you or increase
your chance of being in that hospital. So do your part.
(42:24):
There's no guarantee, but certainly it can reduce the chances
of you being in the hospital, like speeding increases chances
of accidents. Yes, we'll see you guys next week. Don't
drink and drive, Take care of God, bless
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