September 15, 2025 • 43 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 south. These text is in radio listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome doctor Levigne, the host of the doct
lavine Medal Flower every Saturday from eight to nine. Here
klv I Studios, bell My Texas, cross the street from
the mall, taking your phone calls, answering questions about healthcare
and how to stay alive as long as possible and
as healthy as possible. Again, who wants to take a
(00:24):
bunch of meds and running back and forth to the
doctor's office all the time or going to the hospital
all the time?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Man, what a drag.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
So we have one hour every Saturday between eight and
nine to maybe discuss your options in terms of how
to keep you out of the doctor's office and to
keep you out of the hospital. Other than eating an
apple a day keeps the doctor away. You remember that one, right, Well,
I would say eating some vegetables a day keeps the
(00:52):
doctor away, no question. A big promoter of that, because
I believe in that. But phone lines are open eight
nine to six kV one hundred three three zero Kovia.
I'd love to hear from you and chat with you
and see what's on youa mind. This beautiful Saturday morning,
pretty good weather, not going to wood, no hurricanes so far.
(01:15):
You know, this is known when we start getting our
activity in this area. So thankfully it seems like the
waters are calm and we're not having to deal with
that issue every year during this time we have to
think about that. So everything looks good so far. Have
been in my office prioritizing the vaccines. As you know,
(01:40):
flu season starts sort of this month, normally September, and
we don't have hours yet in our office, but we
should be getting those shortly, but they probably will start
seeing advertisements for that and they are available, so please
get yours as soon as possible. It'd be cool if
(02:03):
vaccines came in a tablet form. That would be super convenient, right,
just take it pop, it's following and you're good. That
would be an amazing feat for the vaccine world to
come out with a way to do it that way.
That would be very convenient. Which is what we're trying
(02:23):
to do is improve compliance to as high as possible.
And I don't think we ever will get one hundred
percent compliance, right, It's just our country is not set
up that way. It's a lot of disagreement or argument
about what's right and what's wrong, and that's what keeps
(02:44):
the country going. And same thing pertains to vaccines. So
we do have some patience in the office that they
just don't want to take the vaccine, have had a
bad experience, and we get it. So trying to explain
why we promote vaccines all the time is a part
(03:06):
of my cadence that I have with most of my
patients and trying to get them on board. But certainly
I don't think any differently about my patient if they
decide not to take a vaccine, because you know, it
is a personal choice. So just trying to, like I say,
keep you out. At the hospital, I hear this question
(03:27):
all the time about how to boost my immune system?
You know, I get that question often in the office,
not so much in the hospital. But how do I
boost my immune system? What do I do? I want
to be strong, And in my opinion, this is one
way you do that is to get those vaccines, because
that's what it does. It strengthens your immune system. Remember,
(03:51):
as we get older, the immune system wears out. I mean,
it's built into us. It's part of our human program,
if you will, and it burns out. We talk a
lot about cancer and cardiovascular disease, but man, infections. The
term sepsis if you've never heard it, Man, it's out
there and it harms every single day. We see it
(04:15):
every single day. So I'm surprised that it's not at
the top of the list in terms of causing well
bittit immortality in the hospital, because that's what I see
with my own eyes, just infections.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Sheila from maur Reese Fel.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
How can we help you, Well, I have a question
that it's a little off the wall when doctors are
considering medications that they're going to prescribe. I know that
like pharmaceutical sales reps come in and they introduce new
medicines and discuss them with doctors, and then a doctor
decides whether or not to prescribe it. I don't really
(04:51):
understand that process, and what I'm interested in finding out is,
excuse me, how much research do really do on the
medications that they're going to prescribe? Do they only go
by what the sales rep says? So I'm going to
hang up and if you'll talk about that, I would
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Thank you, We appreciate that phone call, Sheila, great question. Yeah,
the sales reps drug reps is what we call them,
and the medical world and the drug rep world or
the pharmaceutical world have a very yeah, very tight close relationship.
They provide those wonderful, wonderful prescription products that we can
(05:34):
write prescriptions for to help our patients fight various medical
problems and illnesses, and the relationship has evolved over the years.
I've been practicing medicine for about twenty years or so,
and when I got out as a physician that I
(05:55):
think the relationship was cozier and the way the regulations
were written at the time, they were very loose, and
pharmaceutical companies could do a lot more for doctors in
terms of whining and dining them. So take us on
trips or pay for trips, provide all sorts of nice
(06:18):
little amenities cups, pens, pads, backpacks, golf clubs, I mean,
just all sorts of stuff just to sort of soften
their relationship. And that style of interaction was sort of
dying down when I hit the marketer hit the scene
(06:38):
that they have really and they being sort of the
regulatory agencies that sort of look over relationships between doctors
and drug reps, have really cracked down on their relationship
and made it a lot harder for the drug rep
world or the pharmaceutical world to influence doctor's decision making,
(07:00):
because that was the concern that, yes, if I pay
for your golf clubs, I take on a trip to
New York or Florida or wherever it is for a conference,
then that might influence your decision to write this prescription
or that prescription. So that was a huge, huge concern
(07:22):
back in the day. And so they have sort of
watered that relationship down significantly such that they really can't
do a lot of that mining and dining much anymore.
Maybe a launch at your office, or maybe they can
bring in a speaker about their drug and maybe have
a dinner at a local restaurant, but it's all highly regulated.
(07:45):
There's a lot of signatures and a lot of paperwork.
So they've really tried their best to sort of wean
that down and wean the influence of that relationship down
so that doctors are truly making decision based on whether
or not they think they're drug is a good product
for their patients or not. And I think most healthcare
(08:08):
professionals understand the relationship. I mean they know that their
pharmaceutical companies are there to promote their product and that
whenever they come to the office, it's all going to
be positive. Nothing pretty much negative. It's all positive and
painting this picture that this is the best drug for
(08:30):
you to try. I mean that makes sense, and I
think most healthcare professionals kind of understand that when they
see drug reps. A lot of times, you've worked with
these drug reps for years, five, ten years that they've
been coming to your office, you get to know them
very well, and it becomes a very personal relationship, very
(08:51):
friendly where everyone sort of respects each other's space, they
respect our time, and we respect them as a drug
up in terms of they have a product they would
like us to use, but at the end of the day,
it's always up to the doctor to try the product
or not try the product. And they don't take it
personally either. I mean, they know that we have competitive
(09:13):
they have competition, there's other drugs, and if we don't
want to use it, then we don't want to use it.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
They're not going to.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Get upset at us on that sort of level. They'll
do their best to help us make that decision so
that we can help our patients. But at the end
of the day, it's always up to the healthcare professional.
I can't really speak for other healthcare profession in terms
of whether or not that influences them.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
But for me, if the drug.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Doesn't work, the drug doesn't work, and I'm just not
going to use it. I don't care what literature they
have in front of me. If it doesn't help my patients,
then I'm just not going to use it, no matter
how many dinners or lunches or coffee beverages that they
bring to the office. End of the day, I still
have to be a clinician and I still want to
(10:03):
make the best decision for my patient. And if a
drug doesn't work, then I'm just not going to use it.
And they, I think pretty much know that some drugs
are just they just whatever reason. Once it hits the market,
the open market, it just doesn't work very well. Their
research may say different when they studied it, and that's fine,
but studies are normally very limited in terms of the
(10:25):
number of participants, the time that they studied it. When
it hits the open market, just everything can go crazy.
I want a drug hits the open market and it
just doesn't work like they expected it to. And every
healthcare professional has a different experience with this particular drug,
So one doctor might have a great experience and use
it and another doctor doesn't. How much do we study it?
(10:48):
That's doctor dependent. We all have our own resources. We
being healthcare professionals, have our own resources that we go
to to actually do our own independent investigation of the drug,
minus what the pharmaceutical company brings us. They normally have
either pamphlets or they have a computer a laptop where
(11:11):
they have a little video that shows us their research
results that they can present to us. But we all
have our own resources that at least I do that.
I go and I look to see what other people
are saying about the drug. And then again, we're practitioners
the art of medicine, the practice of medicine. We still
(11:36):
have to try it for our patient population. That's where
it comes down to it does it work for the
patient that I see every single day?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And yes, if it's a disease that I.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Am looking for a new product, the products that I
have don't work, or maybe there twice a day, three
times staying at like it once a day, maybe it's
causing a lot of side effects, and I want to
try these new products because most of the time new
products they work better, they're cleaner, they're normally once a day,
they're very effective, and I'm looking for that right because
(12:07):
i want to give the best drug to my patients.
But if it doesn't work for my patients, I'm just
not going to use it, and I'll try it a
lot of times if it's something i'm looking for. I mean,
there are certain diseases where I'm very happy with the
drugs I'm using.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
They're very effective, and.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I'm not really looking for a new drug at this point,
even though they're coming to the office offering a new drug.
If I'm not looking for a new drug, I'm just
not going to use it just because I don't need it.
And they know that they have the ability to sort
of see what prescriptions we're prescribing. They a lot of
times have that data with them when they come to
the doctor's office. They sort of have their pitch sort
(12:47):
of all ready to go so again so that they
can try and help us write the drug. But it's
nothing illegal, it's nothing bad in my opinion, just because
it's always up to the practition at the end of
the day if they want to prescribe this particular drug
or not. And the influence as for me, in my opinion,
(13:09):
is a lot less than what it used to be.
I mean, it's it's hard not to use someone's drug, right,
you just went on a trip to NYC, or you
went to Miami or something like that. So they have
really cut down on that, and I think the relationship
is more honest at this point. We all know what's
going on and we make the best decision for the
(13:30):
patient in my opinion, So hopefully that answers that college question.
It was a good question. We never really talked about that.
Michael from Pasadena. How can we help you?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Oh, good morning, doctor Levine. Thank you for taking my call,
and thank you for everything you do.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
In the past, you've spoken about drinking lots of water.
What's I do? But one comment you made the stay
away from water in the plastic bottles. That was one question.
The other is uh. You also have said the uh
eat fruit, but not a lot of it, And I
(14:10):
don't wonder what a lot is I eat in the morning.
I have a couple of tangerines, uh, banana, some blueberries
and maybe some cherries. Uh, this was fresh or frozen
without sugar on it. And then uh, through the day,
(14:30):
I might have a mixture of of frozen fruit or
you know, at the lunch or but it's it's like
a dessert to me. And I wondered, what is too
much fruit mean? And uh, I'll let you answer those questions.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
All right, Michael, Well appreciate that. Seems like you know
so many dangers out there just waking up and going
into your kitchen and eating some fruit. Oh, it's dangerous.
Can't eat too much of it. It's like, okay, I'm
a drink water. Oh, but it can't be in a
plastic bottle. This gets sick of that stuff. Just all
(15:14):
the paranoia that is out there in the world. It's crazy.
You'll know what to do. But that's why I'm here
to try and help you figure that out. How much
is too much fruit? You know that's going to be
a different amount for every single patient. Which is what
we're learning is we a lot of times make general
(15:35):
statements to patients about what to eat and would not
to eat, or what to drink would not to drink?
And these are sort of general statements, but honestly, It
comes down to a person's own system that determines how
much is too much or not, which is why you
can look across the table and a friend of yours
can eat as much food as they want, not gain
(15:58):
a pound, not have any medical problem, whereas if you
sort of splurge periodically, you gain ten pounds and your
own ten medicines. Everyone's system is different, which is what
we're figuring out. Everyone's system is different, so you sort
of have to do your own personal investigation to what
(16:19):
is too much or too little. I would say in general,
as it pertains to fruit, certainly do not eat all
the fruit that you get in one sitting. Let's take
an apple, for instance. I think one or two apples
a day would be fine. We don't want you to
sit around just eating apples all day long. I mean
(16:41):
ten apples, that's a little bit excessive. I think most
people kind of understand what's excessive and what's not. Let's
take a bag of grapes that you get from the grocery.
S to a lot of people eat grapes. They have bananas,
they get canalbe or watermelon. So the the bagg of grapes,
let's take that For example, you can normally pull like
(17:04):
you know, a few bundles of the grapes off of
the big conglomerate of grapes. Pull a few twigs off,
and that would be enough grapes for that sitting.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Too much would be eating the whole back in one sitting.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Just you just keep.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Eating and eating and eating and eating just in one sitting.
You know, that would be a little excessive. Are you
get sort of a bundle of bananas? Normally when you
get that, it's one, I don't know about six or
seven bananas when you go to the grocery store. Yeah,
if you sat down in eighty seven bananas in one sitting,
that's too much, right, Grab one, eat one, and you'd
(17:45):
be done with it, right, I Mean, it's a lot
of it's common sense. And again this is why we're
little bit hesitant to recommend sort of these fruit smoothies
are protein shakes because a lot of times you're putting
in let's say one or two bananas, you're putting in
(18:06):
ten or twelve strawberries with some blueberries.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
With this, with that, with another thing and another ingredient.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's just this sort of super hyper concentrated mixture of
various substances food items, and you're sort of making it
this very dense, high calorie typically beverage. And again a
lot of experts who study this sort of thing have
chronicled this very well, that the human body is not
(18:36):
really designed to consume food and beverages in that super
concentrated fashion, such that when you do that on a
regular basis, it tends to cause harm, tends to cause injury.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Everybody will know a lot of people love their morning smoothies,
their morning protein shakes. They believe in them. They feel better,
they feel different, They've lost weight, they have energy, they
don't have joint pain, their hair is growing, their skin
looks better, I mean all these positive things.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Hey, fine, if it works for you, I can't really
argue that you start at this beverage, you now feel better,
your labs look better, your pressure look better, even though
you're consuming bananas and grapes and pineapple and this super
concentrated mixture that you drink every morning. I can't really
argue that keep doing it. But is that going to
(19:33):
be for everybody? No, So you have to sort of
take your own assessment of if it's working for.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
You are not.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
But in general, yeah, that seems to be excessive, and
the old saying more is better a lot of times
as it pertains to what you're eating and drinking all day.
What I'm finding out as a doctor is less is better.
Less is better again, because most people are not u
they're working in the heat. They're out there all day
(20:04):
in the heat or outside doing some sort of physical activity.
Most of us don't do that every day. We're in
this enclosed environment. We're not expending a lot of energy.
We have machines and computers and all sorts of machinery
and modern equipment that allow us to not have to
expend a lot of energy every day, so we don't
(20:25):
need to be eating and consuming all this energy every day.
It's excessive and our body reacts negatively to that, and
when it does, it causes weight gain. It causes the
inflammatory system to gro up. You get high blood pressure,
you get high cholesterol, you don't feel good, you're tired,
you get joint pain, Your sugar goes up, your cholesterol
(20:46):
goes up. That's what happens when you're consuming all of
this energy and excess when your body doesn't need it,
so to me based on what I see talking with patients,
seeing what they eat and drinks. Less is more. We
just don't need to eat that much every single day.
I'm talking about the average American who has an average job,
(21:10):
getting their car, they go to their job, maybe they
sit at their job, but they're not running around all day.
They're in a controlled environment air conditioning. Just don't need
three meals a day. It's just it's too much. And
when you do commit to three meals a day, no
one is going to cost some some weight.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Game.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Phone lines are open eight nine six kV I won
one hundred and three three zero kV. I'll be back
in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
All right, welcome back to dakap Medical.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Our phone lines are open eight nine six kV A
one one hundred.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Three three zero kov.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I some great topics topics this morning. I appreciate all
the phone callers with these topics. The previous call was
talking about water and plastics. Yeah, you know there's all
this information out there about what they call microplastics microplastics. Yeah,
(22:13):
all this plastic containers that we consume a lot of
our beverages in. It's leaking out into the water or whatever.
Beverage that you're consuming, and these micro particles which you
cannot see, are getting into our system, our blood system,
and they're starting to find evidence of micro particles in
(22:36):
our blood vessel walls, and oh where did this come from?
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Aliens are going to invade us. It's almost like to
hit sounds. The same thing with air fryers and and
even plastic packages.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Even the.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Chicken that you see at some of these stores, that's
sort of they bake the chicken or roast the chicken
then put it in these plastic packages at the grocery store.
And just the interaction with the heat and the plastic
and the meat and just the chicken industry. I'm just
all these concerns that now the food ish is toxic,
(23:20):
you know from the exposure to plastic, and whether or
not you should avoid it very personal experience.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But you're starting to see.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
A lot of that sort of rhetoric at some of
these websites and starting to promote the idea that maybe,
you know, if you drink water, drink it in a
glass container versus a plastic container. They're even talking about
these coffee makers, you know, these pods, pods which I've
(23:49):
consumed several of them over the years that you know,
there's issues with getting exposed to certain chemicals from the pot.
It's just the aluminum and the heat, and it's leaching
into your coffee, and maybe that's not a good thing
to do. I mean, my god, I'm just trying to
have a cup of coffee. I mean just walking outside
(24:10):
the house, man, you might get run over by a
car sort of sort of things. So it's certainly certainly
personal whether or not you buy into that, you believe
in that, if you think it's good for your health
or not. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. To the point that, yeah,
every time you drink water, it's got to be a
class bottle and not a plastic bottle because if not,
(24:31):
you know that water has been sitting out in the
heat and this interaction with the plastic and the heat
and then the water it just absorbs all these chemicals
from the plastic container.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Ouch, what to do?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You know, you can even talk about tap water. Some
people don't like tapwater just it's got all chemicals in
it and it's been processed and you need spring water.
It is so confusing out there. Even for doctors. We
have medical degrees, I mean, we are influencial just like
anybody else. When it comes to those things. The power
(25:09):
of suggestion is really powerful. And again, sometimes you have
to do your own research, and who's got time to
research all these topics, right, You sort of rely on
certain resources, people that you trust, entities that you trust
to sort of give you that information. They've done the homework,
they've done the due diligence to look into this particular topic,
(25:31):
and this is what they're saying based on their impressions.
So I think everyone sort of has their source that
they go to to get what they feel like is
the perfect or the most up to date, honest information
possible and whatever topic it is that you're looking at.
And again, like I say, with drugs, like I mentioned
(25:54):
in the first segment, in terms of the relationship between
drug reps and doctors, you know, I have my source,
so you know, I know that when we see these
pamphlets and when we see these videos that they offer us,
that you know, yeah, it's going to look pretty good
and it's going to sound like it's the great product.
And a lot of times these drugs are great drugs.
(26:15):
It's just that do I want to start introducing that
to my patients don't want to start prioritizing this drug.
And a lot of times, yes, if I'm looking for
a new drug, like I'm struggling to treat a certain illness,
the current medicines just don't work very well. There's side effects,
or they have to take it three times a day,
(26:35):
whatever the case may be. And I'm looking for a
great product and then they bring it. You know, I'm
all over it just because man, I've been looking for
Thank you. I appreciate it. And we do need the
pharmaceutical company. I mean they provide us with great, just
tremendous drugs. I mean, look at the whole diabetes market.
When I came out, there was probably five drugs, tablet
(26:59):
drugs maybe less, and then that was insulin and there
wasn't that many options with insulin. You should look at
it now. I mean it's it blew up. I mean,
we have a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of
picking these drugs that will help one person or another,
which is why depending on which practitioner you go to,
(27:20):
you're going to get different drugs. I mean, it's pretty
much all the same. But this whole GOLP one category
I mean, this is a blockbuster category of drugs that
the pharmaceutic company has brought to market. I mean, that's
an easy sell for drug reps. You know, if you
wanted to be a drug rep, you you'd want to
be selling ozimpa because that's going to be a easy one.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right. Everybody's using it because.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
It was a new drug that solved an old problem
of just patients eating too much and affecting this sugar,
not being able to control themselves in this environment with
all this food and beverage at our disposal, cheap stuff
and the cheap stuff, the ultra process foods, which typically
are cheap packaged, frozen sort of products that you see
(28:08):
at the supermarket, tend to generate some weay gain some
poor health when you consume it all the time. And
how do you stop that? How do you prevent that?
Because again, a lot of us are just snacking all day.
We're just eating and drinking all day. It was just routine.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
These drugs, these gop won medications, I mean, they allow
us really to go throughout the day without really eating
and drinking much and.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Be okay with that.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Because you hear the term angry all the time when
most Americans don't eat for a few hours. I mean,
we started getting nervous and upset. We want to eat.
I hear that a lot in the hospital and the er.
You know, you're waiting for tests, maybe you're vomiting, you're
throwing up, maybe a surgeon needs to see you. And
they've made you NPO, which stands for nothing by mouth,
(28:59):
meaning you can't eat solid food. And you know, hour
after hour after hour goes by, you can get you
got a headache and your stomach is growling, and no
one's telling you anything.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
You're just in the er.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
It's cold, it's noisy. You know, you get angry. But
this GLP one medicines. Man, you can take that medication.
You can go all day and hey, I feel fine.
I don't I haven't eaten all day, but it doesn't
bother me as much. I'm not hungry. I mean, that's
amazing to do. So when that new drug came to
(29:33):
the market, absolutely everybody was on board that because we
were looking for that drug. Where has that drug been?
So you don't even have to give me any pins.
I don't need any dinner, I don't need any coffee.
Thank you for bringing that to me because I'm just
trying to help my patience because they come to me
struggling with their health. What can I do, doctor? How
(29:55):
can I lose weight?
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Now?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Man, I have something to bring them. But they're other
drugs where the market is pretty crowded, you know. Blood
pressure is one of those, Like there's not like new
blood pressure medicines coming out all the time. Like the
blood pressure market is super concentrated. I mean, we have
tons of medicines, and they're just not pumping out new
(30:19):
blood pressure medicines every day.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
As a matter of fact, I don't.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I don't. I can't recall at the top of my
head when there was any sort of represented for a
new blood pressure medicine coming to the office. I mean
just that market is super concentrated, and a lot of
the medicines that we're using are generic. So if you
have hypertension, for the most part, you can control your
(30:44):
blood pressure with generic drugs alone. There's multiple opportunities to
get generic drugs in the blood pressure world. So in
that instance, I'm not really looking for a new product
for a blood pressure medicine. I have my that I use.
They work very well, and I'm going to kind of
stick with that. It will be hard for a rep
(31:05):
to come to me and say, we have this new
one that can do this, and you need to ignore
all your generic stuff and oh, by the way, I'm
gonna give you a cup of coffee. I'm going to
take you out to lunch. It's not going to work
right because I'm just not looking for a new product.
I don't need it. Normally, with new products on the market,
(31:26):
there's this issue with power authorization. It's going to be
more expensive. The insurance company is normally going to fight
you with paying for all that sort of work just
to get this new drug. And if I don't need
that on top of a busy day, just most practitioners
are just not going to do it, despite the friendly
(31:47):
relationship and maybe even good data that says this drug
is good. Well it's okay, I get that, but I
already have my good medicine. I'm happy, and you know,
I really don't want to change that. So doctors, like
everybody else, we don't like to change stuff. We like
routines like everybody else. You know, just keep it going.
Phone lines are open eight one six Kalvy. I won
one hundred three three zero kalvie. I'll be back in
(32:08):
two minutes.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
All right, welcome back to the doc with me.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Matter of our phone lines are open eight nine six
kalvy I one one hundred three three zero ko v
I talking about microplastics. No, drink your water. I would
prefer you drink water. That's the most important thing. To
drink your water. However you can get it right. We
had our taping of an acid doc yesterday and one
(32:51):
good question they had was about prevention. You know, they
were concerned that they certain di di Jesus running their family.
I've been getting the dementia question this week often is
you know Mom had dementia, Dad had dementia. I don't
want to have it.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
You know, what do I do? Man?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
What can I do asap right now to prevent that
I'm getting up in age? This previgen, this previgen dietary
supplement work. Do I really need to start taking it?
Or I'm taking it? And what can I stop it?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Is it good? Is a bad? Et cetera?
Speaker 2 (33:28):
So yeah, it is disappointing as it pertains to dementia.
Like I say, Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia.
There are other types of dementia, but Alzheimer's is the
most common type. There's been a lot of research and
sort of everyone, I shouldn't say everyone. A lot of
people are getting involved with researching dementia, a lot of
(33:50):
money and attention that's poured into that. And like I've
mentioned to you before, I mean, you need cash flow
to study anything in this country. You have to get
more people on board to start studying it. That will
get more money involved, that will get more practitioners, scientists,
and institutions studying this particular disease process. Not every disease
(34:13):
gets its due right, but Alzheimer's does get a lot
of attention. It could certainly use more attention because it's
been disappointing to me in the past twenty years in
terms of diagnosing, treating, and managing dementia. Not much has
really changed in the past twenty years, which is terrible.
(34:35):
I mean, because dementia is a terrible disease. Basically, it's
a shutdown of your brain. Function is the easiest, most
simple way to look at that brain is the central
command of your body and our program that we.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Were born with.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
For some of us, at a certain age, it starts
shutting down, and so just it doesn't work where it's
supposed to, and the system that is shutting down, you'll
start to have physical symptoms related to that system shutting down.
For most it's the memory component. The memory system, for
whatever reason, tends to get impacted the most and the
(35:16):
soonest in this disease. But there could be other things
like personality problems. Patients can start hearing seeing things. They
might start becoming very paranoid about all sorts of things
when you interact with them. So the presentation can be varied,
but certainly that involves most people just the short term memory,
(35:41):
which is different from long term memory.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
This is memory that you had of.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
High school or college or your first job. And short
term memory would be something that happened two days ago,
an hour ago, maybe learning a new task like a phone.
You get a new phone from the store and you
try to use it, and that person just can't remember
how to turn it on their password, all that stuff.
(36:07):
Simple little things like that, Or they ask you questions,
often a simple questions, right, and you've had the conversation
with the person, but they keep asking you like you've
never had the conversation before. So just little things like
that normally involves that how do we prevent it? Honestly,
like I say, we're trying to figure that out. But
certainly the stuff that we say all the time for
(36:29):
just about every disease on a man is that lifestyle
seems to be very impactful to dementia. They're gaining some
footing on the fact that sugar are I used to say,
the nervous system's exposure to high sugar tends to be
a very inflammatory sort of situation and tends to promote
(36:52):
the development of dementia, to the point that they're calling
they're starting to use the term type three diabetes Alzheimer's
dementia just because a lot of relationships are being found
between high sugar and the development of dementia. So it
just always goes back to that lifestyle, right, If you're
eating poorly, if you're consuming a lot of food items
(37:14):
and beverages that spike your sugar, then that certainly will
increase your chance of developing dementia. It sort of makes sense, right,
just like with alcohol abuse. Alcohol is a toos into
the entire body, in particular the nervous system. So if
dementia runs in your family, you're sort of predisposed to
develop this terrible disease, and so it would not be
(37:38):
in your best interest to expose your brain and your
nervous system to alcohol, right, just because alcohol is very
irritating to the nervous system, So you want the brain
to be cooled off. You don't want it irritated. And
so high sugar alcohol, Other irritating factors would be smoking, certainly,
(37:59):
high blood pressure. Sure, just sort of those cardiovascular bread
and butter risk factors that we hear about all the
time can increase the chance of you develop your dimension,
especially if it runs in your family. These sort of
dietary supplements that you hear. I think Prevegen is the
most popular. I think there's a a couple other ones
(38:19):
out there, and they have these fancy names like nerve
Protector or neuro this I don't know the name, but
it's kind of fancy with neuro in the name. Does
this stuff really work? And the answers that research, the
research that most doctors look at, is not there to
(38:40):
promote using these products. Certainly, it's a free market. You're
a grown person if you want to try it, by
all means, try the product and see if it helps
you again, it might, you might feel a difference, and
you can try it. Normally, for any drug that we
try a month, three months, half a year, you can
(39:01):
try the product.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Most of the time.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
These dietary supplements are not harmful. They don't contain very
toxic byproducts or chemicals, so even when you take it,
it tends to be a neutral product, doesn't harm you.
But in my experience as a doctor working with my patients,
have I seen it improve a person's memory a lot?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I have not seen that, so doesn't mean it can
help someone. But in general it doesn't seem to make
a huge difference maybe in your bank account, but not
clinically in terms of helping your memory. So then that's
for most of these dietary supplements are not required to
do this intense long term research that a lot of
(39:47):
prescription drugs need, like gozimbic or blood pressure medicines, they
require a certain level of research in order to hit
the open market and it be prescribed to patients. Diatar
supplements don't have to do that, so they can sort
of kind of say things that maybe are not exactly
the right answer. Phone lines are open eight on six
(40:08):
kV I want one hundred three three zero klv I
be on my last break, be right with you. All right,
welcome back to the Doctor Lavina Medical Hour. Phone lines
open eight on six kelv I wont one hundred and
three to three zero kilv I. At the end of
the show, I want to thank all the callers. Remember,
(40:29):
if there's a topic that you'd like me to talk about,
you can call the radio show. You can call the
radio station. You can also call my office and we
can dive into it.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
The show is for you.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
We want to try and provide you with some useful
information that you can use to help your family and
yourself make better decisions about your health so you can
stay alive and I have to go to the hospital
or go sitting in a doctor's office for three or
four hours waiting on Doctor Lavina's show, and then he
only visits for five minutes and he's out of there.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You know, I get it. Are sitting in the er.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
For twelve hours and you're you're hungry because you hadn't
had anything to eat because you're waiting on the surgeon.
I get that too, So and you know, we work
on these systems all the time and try and make
it better, just so you'd know, and because we understand
the whole idea behind the inconvenience sometimes of interacting with
the healthcare world.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
It can be inconvenient.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
It's a complicated system, but we're working on every single
day to make it as good and as efficient as possible.
So the future looks bright as far as I'm concerned
with the use of electronic medical records and the computer world,
making it faster, better, safer, and making sure you get
(41:50):
the right diagnosis that first encounter versus having to be reassessed,
which again you should have an open mind about that,
understanding that is part of it. Sometimes, yes, you need
new information, updated information, maybe a new product, maybe go
get a second opinion from a different practitioner. It's nothing
wrong with that. That is the way it is, and
(42:12):
you need to be open minded about that. It's just
that sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what's wrong
with you on the first day, just because the way
the symptoms are presenting and the labs are normally a
physical is normal. Man, I don't know, So we need
more time. Get back with this, or get somewhere and
get reassessed. You know there's absolutely nothing wrong with that,
(42:33):
but be reassured that the doctor's out there when they
prescribe on medication to you, they truly believe in the product.
Or again, sometimes if they're looking for a new drug
for a common problem, they're not happy with their current selection. Yes,
they might try this or try that. It's nothing wrong
with that because the product might be effective. But at
(42:55):
the end of the day, if the product is not working,
we're getting a lot of phone calls, callbacks, side effects,
it costs too much. A practitioner is unlikely to keep
using it.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
They a lot of times want you to be happy.
They want to be considered good practitioners, so they're not
going to keep using products that don't help their patients.
So yes, even though we talk with drug reps, we
love drug graps, great relationship, we love the pharmaceutical company.
At the end of the day, it's up to the practitioner,
(43:30):
and I think you can feel confident that that's what's happening. Remember,
don't drink a drive. E's some cucumbers and water plastic.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
See you later.
All right south. These text is in radio listeners.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome doctor Levigne, the host of the doct
lavine Medal Flower every Saturday from eight to nine. Here
klv I Studios, bell My Texas, cross the street from
the mall, taking your phone calls, answering questions about healthcare
and how to stay alive as long as possible and
as healthy as possible. Again, who wants to take a
(00:24):
bunch of meds and running back and forth to the
doctor's office all the time or going to the hospital
all the time?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Man, what a drag.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
So we have one hour every Saturday between eight and
nine to maybe discuss your options in terms of how
to keep you out of the doctor's office and to
keep you out of the hospital. Other than eating an
apple a day keeps the doctor away. You remember that one, right, Well,
I would say eating some vegetables a day keeps the
(00:52):
doctor away, no question. A big promoter of that, because
I believe in that. But phone lines are open eight
nine to six kV one hundred three three zero Kovia.
I'd love to hear from you and chat with you
and see what's on youa mind. This beautiful Saturday morning,
pretty good weather, not going to wood, no hurricanes so far.
(01:15):
You know, this is known when we start getting our
activity in this area. So thankfully it seems like the
waters are calm and we're not having to deal with
that issue every year during this time we have to
think about that. So everything looks good so far. Have
been in my office prioritizing the vaccines. As you know,
(01:40):
flu season starts sort of this month, normally September, and
we don't have hours yet in our office, but we
should be getting those shortly, but they probably will start
seeing advertisements for that and they are available, so please
get yours as soon as possible. It'd be cool if
(02:03):
vaccines came in a tablet form. That would be super convenient, right,
just take it pop, it's following and you're good. That
would be an amazing feat for the vaccine world to
come out with a way to do it that way.
That would be very convenient. Which is what we're trying
(02:23):
to do is improve compliance to as high as possible.
And I don't think we ever will get one hundred
percent compliance, right, It's just our country is not set
up that way. It's a lot of disagreement or argument
about what's right and what's wrong, and that's what keeps
(02:44):
the country going. And same thing pertains to vaccines. So
we do have some patience in the office that they
just don't want to take the vaccine, have had a
bad experience, and we get it. So trying to explain
why we promote vaccines all the time is a part
(03:06):
of my cadence that I have with most of my
patients and trying to get them on board. But certainly
I don't think any differently about my patient if they
decide not to take a vaccine, because you know, it
is a personal choice. So just trying to, like I say,
keep you out. At the hospital, I hear this question
(03:27):
all the time about how to boost my immune system?
You know, I get that question often in the office,
not so much in the hospital. But how do I
boost my immune system? What do I do? I want
to be strong, And in my opinion, this is one
way you do that is to get those vaccines, because
that's what it does. It strengthens your immune system. Remember,
(03:51):
as we get older, the immune system wears out. I mean,
it's built into us. It's part of our human program,
if you will, and it burns out. We talk a
lot about cancer and cardiovascular disease, but man, infections. The
term sepsis if you've never heard it, Man, it's out
there and it harms every single day. We see it
(04:15):
every single day. So I'm surprised that it's not at
the top of the list in terms of causing well
bittit immortality in the hospital, because that's what I see
with my own eyes, just infections.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Sheila from maur Reese Fel.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
How can we help you, Well, I have a question
that it's a little off the wall when doctors are
considering medications that they're going to prescribe. I know that
like pharmaceutical sales reps come in and they introduce new
medicines and discuss them with doctors, and then a doctor
decides whether or not to prescribe it. I don't really
(04:51):
understand that process, and what I'm interested in finding out is,
excuse me, how much research do really do on the
medications that they're going to prescribe? Do they only go
by what the sales rep says? So I'm going to
hang up and if you'll talk about that, I would
appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Thank you, We appreciate that phone call, Sheila, great question. Yeah,
the sales reps drug reps is what we call them,
and the medical world and the drug rep world or
the pharmaceutical world have a very yeah, very tight close relationship.
They provide those wonderful, wonderful prescription products that we can
(05:34):
write prescriptions for to help our patients fight various medical
problems and illnesses, and the relationship has evolved over the years.
I've been practicing medicine for about twenty years or so,
and when I got out as a physician that I
(05:55):
think the relationship was cozier and the way the regulations
were written at the time, they were very loose, and
pharmaceutical companies could do a lot more for doctors in
terms of whining and dining them. So take us on
trips or pay for trips, provide all sorts of nice
(06:18):
little amenities cups, pens, pads, backpacks, golf clubs, I mean,
just all sorts of stuff just to sort of soften
their relationship. And that style of interaction was sort of
dying down when I hit the marketer hit the scene
(06:38):
that they have really and they being sort of the
regulatory agencies that sort of look over relationships between doctors
and drug reps, have really cracked down on their relationship
and made it a lot harder for the drug rep
world or the pharmaceutical world to influence doctor's decision making,
(07:00):
because that was the concern that, yes, if I pay
for your golf clubs, I take on a trip to
New York or Florida or wherever it is for a conference,
then that might influence your decision to write this prescription
or that prescription. So that was a huge, huge concern
(07:22):
back in the day. And so they have sort of
watered that relationship down significantly such that they really can't
do a lot of that mining and dining much anymore.
Maybe a launch at your office, or maybe they can
bring in a speaker about their drug and maybe have
a dinner at a local restaurant, but it's all highly regulated.
(07:45):
There's a lot of signatures and a lot of paperwork.
So they've really tried their best to sort of wean
that down and wean the influence of that relationship down
so that doctors are truly making decision based on whether
or not they think they're drug is a good product
for their patients or not. And I think most healthcare
(08:08):
professionals understand the relationship. I mean they know that their
pharmaceutical companies are there to promote their product and that
whenever they come to the office, it's all going to
be positive. Nothing pretty much negative. It's all positive and
painting this picture that this is the best drug for
(08:30):
you to try. I mean that makes sense, and I
think most healthcare professionals kind of understand that when they
see drug reps. A lot of times, you've worked with
these drug reps for years, five, ten years that they've
been coming to your office, you get to know them
very well, and it becomes a very personal relationship, very
(08:51):
friendly where everyone sort of respects each other's space, they
respect our time, and we respect them as a drug
up in terms of they have a product they would
like us to use, but at the end of the day,
it's always up to the doctor to try the product
or not try the product. And they don't take it
personally either. I mean, they know that we have competitive
(09:13):
they have competition, there's other drugs, and if we don't
want to use it, then we don't want to use it.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
They're not going to.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Get upset at us on that sort of level. They'll
do their best to help us make that decision so
that we can help our patients. But at the end
of the day, it's always up to the healthcare professional.
I can't really speak for other healthcare profession in terms
of whether or not that influences them.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
But for me, if the drug.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Doesn't work, the drug doesn't work, and I'm just not
going to use it. I don't care what literature they
have in front of me. If it doesn't help my patients,
then I'm just not going to use it, no matter
how many dinners or lunches or coffee beverages that they
bring to the office. End of the day, I still
have to be a clinician and I still want to
(10:03):
make the best decision for my patient. And if a
drug doesn't work, then I'm just not going to use it.
And they, I think pretty much know that some drugs
are just they just whatever reason. Once it hits the market,
the open market, it just doesn't work very well. Their
research may say different when they studied it, and that's fine,
but studies are normally very limited in terms of the
(10:25):
number of participants, the time that they studied it. When
it hits the open market, just everything can go crazy.
I want a drug hits the open market and it
just doesn't work like they expected it to. And every
healthcare professional has a different experience with this particular drug,
So one doctor might have a great experience and use
it and another doctor doesn't. How much do we study it?
(10:48):
That's doctor dependent. We all have our own resources. We
being healthcare professionals, have our own resources that we go
to to actually do our own independent investigation of the drug,
minus what the pharmaceutical company brings us. They normally have
either pamphlets or they have a computer a laptop where
(11:11):
they have a little video that shows us their research
results that they can present to us. But we all
have our own resources that at least I do that.
I go and I look to see what other people
are saying about the drug. And then again, we're practitioners
the art of medicine, the practice of medicine. We still
(11:36):
have to try it for our patient population. That's where
it comes down to it does it work for the
patient that I see every single day?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And yes, if it's a disease that I.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Am looking for a new product, the products that I
have don't work, or maybe there twice a day, three
times staying at like it once a day, maybe it's
causing a lot of side effects, and I want to
try these new products because most of the time new
products they work better, they're cleaner, they're normally once a day,
they're very effective, and I'm looking for that right because
(12:07):
i want to give the best drug to my patients.
But if it doesn't work for my patients, I'm just
not going to use it, and I'll try it a
lot of times if it's something i'm looking for. I mean,
there are certain diseases where I'm very happy with the
drugs I'm using.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
They're very effective, and.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I'm not really looking for a new drug at this point,
even though they're coming to the office offering a new drug.
If I'm not looking for a new drug, I'm just
not going to use it just because I don't need it.
And they know that they have the ability to sort
of see what prescriptions we're prescribing. They a lot of
times have that data with them when they come to
the doctor's office. They sort of have their pitch sort
(12:47):
of all ready to go so again so that they
can try and help us write the drug. But it's
nothing illegal, it's nothing bad in my opinion, just because
it's always up to the practition at the end of
the day if they want to prescribe this particular drug
or not. And the influence as for me, in my opinion,
(13:09):
is a lot less than what it used to be.
I mean, it's it's hard not to use someone's drug, right,
you just went on a trip to NYC, or you
went to Miami or something like that. So they have
really cut down on that, and I think the relationship
is more honest at this point. We all know what's
going on and we make the best decision for the
(13:30):
patient in my opinion, So hopefully that answers that college question.
It was a good question. We never really talked about that.
Michael from Pasadena. How can we help you?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Oh, good morning, doctor Levine. Thank you for taking my call,
and thank you for everything you do.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yes, sir.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
In the past, you've spoken about drinking lots of water.
What's I do? But one comment you made the stay
away from water in the plastic bottles. That was one question.
The other is uh. You also have said the uh
eat fruit, but not a lot of it, And I
(14:10):
don't wonder what a lot is I eat in the morning.
I have a couple of tangerines, uh, banana, some blueberries
and maybe some cherries. Uh, this was fresh or frozen
without sugar on it. And then uh, through the day,
(14:30):
I might have a mixture of of frozen fruit or
you know, at the lunch or but it's it's like
a dessert to me. And I wondered, what is too
much fruit mean? And uh, I'll let you answer those questions.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
All right, Michael, Well appreciate that. Seems like you know
so many dangers out there just waking up and going
into your kitchen and eating some fruit. Oh, it's dangerous.
Can't eat too much of it. It's like, okay, I'm
a drink water. Oh, but it can't be in a
plastic bottle. This gets sick of that stuff. Just all
(15:14):
the paranoia that is out there in the world. It's crazy.
You'll know what to do. But that's why I'm here
to try and help you figure that out. How much
is too much fruit? You know that's going to be
a different amount for every single patient. Which is what
we're learning is we a lot of times make general
(15:35):
statements to patients about what to eat and would not
to eat, or what to drink would not to drink?
And these are sort of general statements, but honestly, It
comes down to a person's own system that determines how
much is too much or not, which is why you
can look across the table and a friend of yours
can eat as much food as they want, not gain
(15:58):
a pound, not have any medical problem, whereas if you
sort of splurge periodically, you gain ten pounds and your
own ten medicines. Everyone's system is different, which is what
we're figuring out. Everyone's system is different, so you sort
of have to do your own personal investigation to what
(16:19):
is too much or too little. I would say in general,
as it pertains to fruit, certainly do not eat all
the fruit that you get in one sitting. Let's take
an apple, for instance. I think one or two apples
a day would be fine. We don't want you to
sit around just eating apples all day long. I mean
(16:41):
ten apples, that's a little bit excessive. I think most
people kind of understand what's excessive and what's not. Let's
take a bag of grapes that you get from the grocery.
S to a lot of people eat grapes. They have bananas,
they get canalbe or watermelon. So the the bagg of grapes,
let's take that For example, you can normally pull like
(17:04):
you know, a few bundles of the grapes off of
the big conglomerate of grapes. Pull a few twigs off,
and that would be enough grapes for that sitting.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Too much would be eating the whole back in one sitting.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Just you just keep.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Eating and eating and eating and eating just in one sitting.
You know, that would be a little excessive. Are you
get sort of a bundle of bananas? Normally when you
get that, it's one, I don't know about six or
seven bananas when you go to the grocery store. Yeah,
if you sat down in eighty seven bananas in one sitting,
that's too much, right, Grab one, eat one, and you'd
(17:45):
be done with it, right, I Mean, it's a lot
of it's common sense. And again this is why we're
little bit hesitant to recommend sort of these fruit smoothies
are protein shakes because a lot of times you're putting
in let's say one or two bananas, you're putting in
(18:06):
ten or twelve strawberries with some blueberries.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
With this, with that, with another thing and another ingredient.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
It's just this sort of super hyper concentrated mixture of
various substances food items, and you're sort of making it
this very dense, high calorie typically beverage. And again a
lot of experts who study this sort of thing have
chronicled this very well, that the human body is not
(18:36):
really designed to consume food and beverages in that super
concentrated fashion, such that when you do that on a
regular basis, it tends to cause harm, tends to cause injury.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Everybody will know a lot of people love their morning smoothies,
their morning protein shakes. They believe in them. They feel better,
they feel different, They've lost weight, they have energy, they
don't have joint pain, their hair is growing, their skin
looks better, I mean all these positive things.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Hey, fine, if it works for you, I can't really
argue that you start at this beverage, you now feel better,
your labs look better, your pressure look better, even though
you're consuming bananas and grapes and pineapple and this super
concentrated mixture that you drink every morning. I can't really
argue that keep doing it. But is that going to
(19:33):
be for everybody? No, So you have to sort of
take your own assessment of if it's working for.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
You are not.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
But in general, yeah, that seems to be excessive, and
the old saying more is better a lot of times
as it pertains to what you're eating and drinking all day.
What I'm finding out as a doctor is less is better.
Less is better again, because most people are not u
they're working in the heat. They're out there all day
(20:04):
in the heat or outside doing some sort of physical activity.
Most of us don't do that every day. We're in
this enclosed environment. We're not expending a lot of energy.
We have machines and computers and all sorts of machinery
and modern equipment that allow us to not have to
expend a lot of energy every day, so we don't
(20:25):
need to be eating and consuming all this energy every day.
It's excessive and our body reacts negatively to that, and
when it does, it causes weight gain. It causes the
inflammatory system to gro up. You get high blood pressure,
you get high cholesterol, you don't feel good, you're tired,
you get joint pain, Your sugar goes up, your cholesterol
(20:46):
goes up. That's what happens when you're consuming all of
this energy and excess when your body doesn't need it,
so to me based on what I see talking with patients,
seeing what they eat and drinks. Less is more. We
just don't need to eat that much every single day.
I'm talking about the average American who has an average job,
(21:10):
getting their car, they go to their job, maybe they
sit at their job, but they're not running around all day.
They're in a controlled environment air conditioning. Just don't need
three meals a day. It's just it's too much. And
when you do commit to three meals a day, no
one is going to cost some some weight.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Game.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Phone lines are open eight nine six kV I won
one hundred and three three zero kV. I'll be back
in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
All right, welcome back to dakap Medical.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Our phone lines are open eight nine six kV A
one one hundred.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Three three zero kov.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I some great topics topics this morning. I appreciate all
the phone callers with these topics. The previous call was
talking about water and plastics. Yeah, you know there's all
this information out there about what they call microplastics microplastics. Yeah,
(22:13):
all this plastic containers that we consume a lot of
our beverages in. It's leaking out into the water or whatever.
Beverage that you're consuming, and these micro particles which you
cannot see, are getting into our system, our blood system,
and they're starting to find evidence of micro particles in
(22:36):
our blood vessel walls, and oh where did this come from?
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Aliens are going to invade us. It's almost like to
hit sounds. The same thing with air fryers and and
even plastic packages.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Even the.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Chicken that you see at some of these stores, that's
sort of they bake the chicken or roast the chicken
then put it in these plastic packages at the grocery store.
And just the interaction with the heat and the plastic
and the meat and just the chicken industry. I'm just
all these concerns that now the food ish is toxic,
(23:20):
you know from the exposure to plastic, and whether or
not you should avoid it very personal experience.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But you're starting to see.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
A lot of that sort of rhetoric at some of
these websites and starting to promote the idea that maybe,
you know, if you drink water, drink it in a
glass container versus a plastic container. They're even talking about
these coffee makers, you know, these pods, pods which I've
(23:49):
consumed several of them over the years that you know,
there's issues with getting exposed to certain chemicals from the pot.
It's just the aluminum and the heat, and it's leaching
into your coffee, and maybe that's not a good thing
to do. I mean, my god, I'm just trying to
have a cup of coffee. I mean just walking outside
(24:10):
the house, man, you might get run over by a
car sort of sort of things. So it's certainly certainly
personal whether or not you buy into that, you believe
in that, if you think it's good for your health
or not. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. To the point that, yeah,
every time you drink water, it's got to be a
class bottle and not a plastic bottle because if not,
(24:31):
you know that water has been sitting out in the
heat and this interaction with the plastic and the heat
and then the water it just absorbs all these chemicals
from the plastic container.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Ouch, what to do?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
You know, you can even talk about tap water. Some
people don't like tapwater just it's got all chemicals in
it and it's been processed and you need spring water.
It is so confusing out there. Even for doctors. We
have medical degrees, I mean, we are influencial just like
anybody else. When it comes to those things. The power
(25:09):
of suggestion is really powerful. And again, sometimes you have
to do your own research, and who's got time to
research all these topics, right, You sort of rely on
certain resources, people that you trust, entities that you trust
to sort of give you that information. They've done the homework,
they've done the due diligence to look into this particular topic,
(25:31):
and this is what they're saying based on their impressions.
So I think everyone sort of has their source that
they go to to get what they feel like is
the perfect or the most up to date, honest information
possible and whatever topic it is that you're looking at.
And again, like I say, with drugs, like I mentioned
(25:54):
in the first segment, in terms of the relationship between
drug reps and doctors, you know, I have my source,
so you know, I know that when we see these
pamphlets and when we see these videos that they offer us,
that you know, yeah, it's going to look pretty good
and it's going to sound like it's the great product.
And a lot of times these drugs are great drugs.
(26:15):
It's just that do I want to start introducing that
to my patients don't want to start prioritizing this drug.
And a lot of times, yes, if I'm looking for
a new drug, like I'm struggling to treat a certain illness,
the current medicines just don't work very well. There's side effects,
or they have to take it three times a day,
(26:35):
whatever the case may be. And I'm looking for a
great product and then they bring it. You know, I'm
all over it just because man, I've been looking for
Thank you. I appreciate it. And we do need the
pharmaceutical company. I mean they provide us with great, just
tremendous drugs. I mean, look at the whole diabetes market.
When I came out, there was probably five drugs, tablet
(26:59):
drugs maybe less, and then that was insulin and there
wasn't that many options with insulin. You should look at
it now. I mean it's it blew up. I mean,
we have a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of
picking these drugs that will help one person or another,
which is why depending on which practitioner you go to,
(27:20):
you're going to get different drugs. I mean, it's pretty
much all the same. But this whole GOLP one category
I mean, this is a blockbuster category of drugs that
the pharmaceutic company has brought to market. I mean, that's
an easy sell for drug reps. You know, if you
wanted to be a drug rep, you you'd want to
be selling ozimpa because that's going to be a easy one.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Right. Everybody's using it because.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
It was a new drug that solved an old problem
of just patients eating too much and affecting this sugar,
not being able to control themselves in this environment with
all this food and beverage at our disposal, cheap stuff
and the cheap stuff, the ultra process foods, which typically
are cheap packaged, frozen sort of products that you see
(28:08):
at the supermarket, tend to generate some weay gain some
poor health when you consume it all the time. And
how do you stop that? How do you prevent that?
Because again, a lot of us are just snacking all day.
We're just eating and drinking all day. It was just routine.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
These drugs, these gop won medications, I mean, they allow
us really to go throughout the day without really eating
and drinking much and.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Be okay with that.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Because you hear the term angry all the time when
most Americans don't eat for a few hours. I mean,
we started getting nervous and upset. We want to eat.
I hear that a lot in the hospital and the er.
You know, you're waiting for tests, maybe you're vomiting, you're
throwing up, maybe a surgeon needs to see you. And
they've made you NPO, which stands for nothing by mouth,
(28:59):
meaning you can't eat solid food. And you know, hour
after hour after hour goes by, you can get you
got a headache and your stomach is growling, and no
one's telling you anything.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
You're just in the er.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
It's cold, it's noisy. You know, you get angry. But
this GLP one medicines. Man, you can take that medication.
You can go all day and hey, I feel fine.
I don't I haven't eaten all day, but it doesn't
bother me as much. I'm not hungry. I mean, that's
amazing to do. So when that new drug came to
(29:33):
the market, absolutely everybody was on board that because we
were looking for that drug. Where has that drug been?
So you don't even have to give me any pins.
I don't need any dinner, I don't need any coffee.
Thank you for bringing that to me because I'm just
trying to help my patience because they come to me
struggling with their health. What can I do, doctor? How
(29:55):
can I lose weight?
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Now?
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Man, I have something to bring them. But they're other
drugs where the market is pretty crowded, you know. Blood
pressure is one of those, Like there's not like new
blood pressure medicines coming out all the time. Like the
blood pressure market is super concentrated. I mean, we have
tons of medicines, and they're just not pumping out new
(30:19):
blood pressure medicines every day.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
As a matter of fact, I don't.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
I don't. I can't recall at the top of my
head when there was any sort of represented for a
new blood pressure medicine coming to the office. I mean
just that market is super concentrated, and a lot of
the medicines that we're using are generic. So if you
have hypertension, for the most part, you can control your
(30:44):
blood pressure with generic drugs alone. There's multiple opportunities to
get generic drugs in the blood pressure world. So in
that instance, I'm not really looking for a new product
for a blood pressure medicine. I have my that I use.
They work very well, and I'm going to kind of
stick with that. It will be hard for a rep
(31:05):
to come to me and say, we have this new
one that can do this, and you need to ignore
all your generic stuff and oh, by the way, I'm
gonna give you a cup of coffee. I'm going to
take you out to lunch. It's not going to work
right because I'm just not looking for a new product.
I don't need it. Normally, with new products on the market,
(31:26):
there's this issue with power authorization. It's going to be
more expensive. The insurance company is normally going to fight
you with paying for all that sort of work just
to get this new drug. And if I don't need
that on top of a busy day, just most practitioners
are just not going to do it, despite the friendly
(31:47):
relationship and maybe even good data that says this drug
is good. Well it's okay, I get that, but I
already have my good medicine. I'm happy, and you know,
I really don't want to change that. So doctors, like
everybody else, we don't like to change stuff. We like
routines like everybody else. You know, just keep it going.
Phone lines are open eight one six Kalvy. I won
one hundred three three zero kalvie. I'll be back in
(32:08):
two minutes.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
All right, welcome back to the doc with me.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Matter of our phone lines are open eight nine six
kalvy I one one hundred three three zero ko v
I talking about microplastics. No, drink your water. I would
prefer you drink water. That's the most important thing. To
drink your water. However you can get it right. We
had our taping of an acid doc yesterday and one
(32:51):
good question they had was about prevention. You know, they
were concerned that they certain di di Jesus running their family.
I've been getting the dementia question this week often is
you know Mom had dementia, Dad had dementia. I don't
want to have it.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
You know, what do I do? Man?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
What can I do asap right now to prevent that
I'm getting up in age? This previgen, this previgen dietary
supplement work. Do I really need to start taking it?
Or I'm taking it? And what can I stop it?
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Is it good? Is a bad? Et cetera?
Speaker 2 (33:28):
So yeah, it is disappointing as it pertains to dementia.
Like I say, Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia.
There are other types of dementia, but Alzheimer's is the
most common type. There's been a lot of research and
sort of everyone, I shouldn't say everyone. A lot of
people are getting involved with researching dementia, a lot of
(33:50):
money and attention that's poured into that. And like I've
mentioned to you before, I mean, you need cash flow
to study anything in this country. You have to get
more people on board to start studying it. That will
get more money involved, that will get more practitioners, scientists,
and institutions studying this particular disease process. Not every disease
(34:13):
gets its due right, but Alzheimer's does get a lot
of attention. It could certainly use more attention because it's
been disappointing to me in the past twenty years in
terms of diagnosing, treating, and managing dementia. Not much has
really changed in the past twenty years, which is terrible.
(34:35):
I mean, because dementia is a terrible disease. Basically, it's
a shutdown of your brain. Function is the easiest, most
simple way to look at that brain is the central
command of your body and our program that we.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Were born with.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
For some of us, at a certain age, it starts
shutting down, and so just it doesn't work where it's
supposed to, and the system that is shutting down, you'll
start to have physical symptoms related to that system shutting down.
For most it's the memory component. The memory system, for
whatever reason, tends to get impacted the most and the
(35:16):
soonest in this disease. But there could be other things
like personality problems. Patients can start hearing seeing things. They
might start becoming very paranoid about all sorts of things
when you interact with them. So the presentation can be varied,
but certainly that involves most people just the short term memory,
(35:41):
which is different from long term memory.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
This is memory that you had of.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
High school or college or your first job. And short
term memory would be something that happened two days ago,
an hour ago, maybe learning a new task like a phone.
You get a new phone from the store and you
try to use it, and that person just can't remember
how to turn it on their password, all that stuff.
(36:07):
Simple little things like that, Or they ask you questions,
often a simple questions, right, and you've had the conversation
with the person, but they keep asking you like you've
never had the conversation before. So just little things like
that normally involves that how do we prevent it? Honestly,
like I say, we're trying to figure that out. But
certainly the stuff that we say all the time for
(36:29):
just about every disease on a man is that lifestyle
seems to be very impactful to dementia. They're gaining some
footing on the fact that sugar are I used to say,
the nervous system's exposure to high sugar tends to be
a very inflammatory sort of situation and tends to promote
(36:52):
the development of dementia, to the point that they're calling
they're starting to use the term type three diabetes Alzheimer's
dementia just because a lot of relationships are being found
between high sugar and the development of dementia. So it
just always goes back to that lifestyle, right, If you're
eating poorly, if you're consuming a lot of food items
(37:14):
and beverages that spike your sugar, then that certainly will
increase your chance of developing dementia. It sort of makes sense, right,
just like with alcohol abuse. Alcohol is a toos into
the entire body, in particular the nervous system. So if
dementia runs in your family, you're sort of predisposed to
develop this terrible disease, and so it would not be
(37:38):
in your best interest to expose your brain and your
nervous system to alcohol, right, just because alcohol is very
irritating to the nervous system, So you want the brain
to be cooled off. You don't want it irritated. And
so high sugar alcohol, Other irritating factors would be smoking, certainly,
(37:59):
high blood pressure. Sure, just sort of those cardiovascular bread
and butter risk factors that we hear about all the
time can increase the chance of you develop your dimension,
especially if it runs in your family. These sort of
dietary supplements that you hear. I think Prevegen is the
most popular. I think there's a a couple other ones
(38:19):
out there, and they have these fancy names like nerve
Protector or neuro this I don't know the name, but
it's kind of fancy with neuro in the name. Does
this stuff really work? And the answers that research, the
research that most doctors look at, is not there to
(38:40):
promote using these products. Certainly, it's a free market. You're
a grown person if you want to try it, by
all means, try the product and see if it helps
you again, it might, you might feel a difference, and
you can try it. Normally, for any drug that we
try a month, three months, half a year, you can
(39:01):
try the product.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Most of the time.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
These dietary supplements are not harmful. They don't contain very
toxic byproducts or chemicals, so even when you take it,
it tends to be a neutral product, doesn't harm you.
But in my experience as a doctor working with my patients,
have I seen it improve a person's memory a lot?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I have not seen that, so doesn't mean it can
help someone. But in general it doesn't seem to make
a huge difference maybe in your bank account, but not
clinically in terms of helping your memory. So then that's
for most of these dietary supplements are not required to
do this intense long term research that a lot of
(39:47):
prescription drugs need, like gozimbic or blood pressure medicines, they
require a certain level of research in order to hit
the open market and it be prescribed to patients. Diatar
supplements don't have to do that, so they can sort
of kind of say things that maybe are not exactly
the right answer. Phone lines are open eight on six
(40:08):
kV I want one hundred three three zero klv I
be on my last break, be right with you. All right,
welcome back to the Doctor Lavina Medical Hour. Phone lines
open eight on six kelv I wont one hundred and
three to three zero kilv I. At the end of
the show, I want to thank all the callers. Remember,
(40:29):
if there's a topic that you'd like me to talk about,
you can call the radio show. You can call the
radio station. You can also call my office and we
can dive into it.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
The show is for you.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
We want to try and provide you with some useful
information that you can use to help your family and
yourself make better decisions about your health so you can
stay alive and I have to go to the hospital
or go sitting in a doctor's office for three or
four hours waiting on Doctor Lavina's show, and then he
only visits for five minutes and he's out of there.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
You know, I get it. Are sitting in the er.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
For twelve hours and you're you're hungry because you hadn't
had anything to eat because you're waiting on the surgeon.
I get that too, So and you know, we work
on these systems all the time and try and make
it better, just so you'd know, and because we understand
the whole idea behind the inconvenience sometimes of interacting with
the healthcare world.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
It can be inconvenient.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
It's a complicated system, but we're working on every single
day to make it as good and as efficient as possible.
So the future looks bright as far as I'm concerned
with the use of electronic medical records and the computer world,
making it faster, better, safer, and making sure you get
(41:50):
the right diagnosis that first encounter versus having to be reassessed,
which again you should have an open mind about that,
understanding that is part of it. Sometimes, yes, you need
new information, updated information, maybe a new product, maybe go
get a second opinion from a different practitioner. It's nothing
wrong with that. That is the way it is, and
(42:12):
you need to be open minded about that. It's just
that sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what's wrong
with you on the first day, just because the way
the symptoms are presenting and the labs are normally a
physical is normal. Man, I don't know, So we need
more time. Get back with this, or get somewhere and
get reassessed. You know there's absolutely nothing wrong with that,
(42:33):
but be reassured that the doctor's out there when they
prescribe on medication to you, they truly believe in the product.
Or again, sometimes if they're looking for a new drug
for a common problem, they're not happy with their current selection. Yes,
they might try this or try that. It's nothing wrong
with that because the product might be effective. But at
(42:55):
the end of the day, if the product is not working,
we're getting a lot of phone calls, callbacks, side effects,
it costs too much. A practitioner is unlikely to keep
using it.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
They a lot of times want you to be happy.
They want to be considered good practitioners, so they're not
going to keep using products that don't help their patients.
So yes, even though we talk with drug reps, we
love drug graps, great relationship, we love the pharmaceutical company.
At the end of the day, it's up to the practitioner,
(43:30):
and I think you can feel confident that that's what's happening. Remember,
don't drink a drive. E's some cucumbers and water plastic.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
See you later.
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