December 29, 2025 • 45 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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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, welcome South throught sex is isn't that radio listeners?
And we'll see what happens when you take a week off.
You don't even know how to act anymore. Anyway. Thank
you for joining for the edition of this show. This
is your weekly host, Doctor Levine of the Doctor Levine
Medical Hour. I'm here every Saturday and less. I'm off
(00:20):
taking your phone calls and answering questions about health care
and medicine, just to try and help you stay alive
as long as possible, as healthy as possible. Right, you
want to be alive, but you want to be healthy. God,
you don't want to have to go into the doctor's
office all these meds and wait all day long, and
(00:43):
spend all your money find all these medicines, all the
headache of getting new prescriptions, just getting a medication filled
from your doctor. God, it's terrible and I hear it
all the time, and I wish the system was better.
(01:04):
I really, really do you deserve it to be better?
I mean, you have an illness, You're just trying to
feel well, try not to feel sick, and your medications
get gummed up in the system. So maybe we work
on that. You're twenty twenty six. How was your Christmas Day? Ho?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Ho ho?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right? How was that? Did everybody have a good time?
Did you get everything you wanted? Spending time with family,
eating as much as you want? Right, I'm going to
forget about everything, doctor Lavine says. I'm going to eat
everything I want in large quantity multiple times throughout the day.
It's just one day, have fun, watching ball games, going
(01:51):
outside and throwing a ball around, seeing old friends, and
again having some good food. That's the spirit of the day.
And yeah, maybe exchanging a few gifts. Maybe we've gotten
a little bit out of hand with the whole gift
giving thing, but yeah, just share a few gifts, but
mainly just trying to be in a good spirit and
(02:15):
have a day off, have a couple of days off, Rewine, relax,
think and see what is in store for the rest
of your life. I always have to stop in small
the roses and make sure there's nothing else you want
to do. So we're heading into the year twenty twenty six,
(02:36):
so how can we make it better?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
We always have those New Year's resolutions in the back
of our mind, and health and wellness is always at
the top of the list. Right, we start off with
good intentions. It's hard out there, though. It is hard
out there to be healthy in this country unfortunately should
(02:58):
be easier, but it is hard. But you can do it.
You can do it. You have to prioritize it. Though
somebody lie to us, they said getting older with the
golden years, it can be it really can be. Right,
you're retired, you have your nest egg financially, kids out
(03:19):
of the house, they're doing well, everything's paid off. Just
kind of hanging out doing whatever you want to do,
waking up and every day is a new day to
discover something new, whatever that is. It can be fun,
but again, you have to do your part. And I say, hey,
(03:40):
why not prioritize your health. So often when I'm talking
to my family as well as my patience or my family,
I always ask my retirees, what do you do all day?
How do you stay busy? Because it seems like you
just get so board just sitting around not having a
(04:03):
task to do, right, And I think that's the dream
of most of our retirees is I don't I can
do whatever I want. I don't have any nobody's telling
me what to do. I don't have to listen them. Boss, mean,
I don't have to tender any reports. I want to
sleep late. I'm going to do that. And I think
for the first few months you might do that, right,
(04:23):
get it out of your system. But I'm telling you,
I'm telling you guys after and gals after that, after that,
it's it's not fun anymore. Our mind and our bodies
need a task to do every day, whatever that is.
And I think that certainly you can make it whatever
(04:44):
you want when you retire, But I say, why not
your health, because if you're unhealthy when you retire, it's
not fun. It is not fun. It's expensive too, it's
time consuming, it's limiting physically and mentally. So that is
one thing. If you get to your retirement age without
(05:08):
a lot of harm or injury, because remember, normally in
the late I would say mid fifties, early sixties, that's
really when a lot of the accumulation of poor lifestyle
changes starts to show its ugly head. It can't happen sooner,
(05:28):
but I would say on average, mid fifties early so
that's when it starts popping. If you have not done
your part, or if you're not doing your part, you're
not trying to stay out of the doctor's life. That's
when stuff starts happening. And so if you can somehow
get through that, get to your retirement, get your nest egg,
(05:51):
and the coast is clear. If you will, why not
prioritize your health. And I think my retirees understand this
is that you know what doesn't really require a lot
of time. It really doesn't. I mean I asked them
what they do all day, and yeah, most of them
do some sort of exercising. But guess what, it's a
(06:16):
minimal part of the day, maybe at most one hour.
And like I said, when you're retired, man, that goes
by pretty quickly. One hour. You got the rest of
the day to hang out. But one hour. And my
recommendation to my listeners as well as my patience is
(06:36):
it doesn't need to be one hour of exercising. I mean,
if you want to do that, that's fine, but I'm
telling you it does not need to be one hour.
It does not need to be one I mean, I'm sorry.
Every day, I would say a minimum of three times
a week is what I would say. And I would
(06:56):
say a minimum of ten to fifteen minutes. This is
what I would say, but does not have to be
high intensity as it is promoted on TV and all
the advertisements you read, does not have to be high intensity.
We just want you to be physically active, that's all.
(07:18):
But you know, if you listen to my show, you
know that's not the most important thing, right. You know
what the most important thing is, right making better food
and beverage choices every single day, honestly, getting back to
preparing your own food, cooking it yourself, going to the store,
(07:42):
getting the raw ingredients, and cooking it yourself. It's always
typically a healthier of a version of what you can
get from restaurants. I mean, I think it's fine to
periodically go out and eat have a good time with
your family, But man, if you get some how figure
out how to cook at home on a regular basis, normally,
(08:07):
it's gonna be a healthier version. Typically, And you got
to stay away from those sugary beverages. We love them, right,
all the juices and fruit punches and fruity drinks out
there that we just love. You go down the aisle
at your favorite grocery store and it's full of just
(08:27):
exciting beverages that we can't wait to get home and
just drink, right. We look forward to it. We can't
even go a day without drinking it. Yes, some of
my retirees are just drinking that Coca Cola, that Doctor
Pepper all day. I don't hear too much about Mountain
Dew or Big Red anymore or Pepsi. I hear a
(08:51):
lot of Doctor Pepper, I hear a lot of Coke.
Those seem to be sort of the premire sugary beverages
out there. You guys remember the Pepsi and Coke wars
back in the day, the Taste test. Remember that. I
think I was, you know, it's in junior high when
that was going on. The Taste test. Pepsi and Coke, big,
(09:13):
big media campaign during that time. We have many more
sugary beverages out there now that compete with those, But
doctor Pepper and Coke are still going strong. Even again
with my patients who are older, they sort of know that,
you know, this is not a good beverage, man, But
(09:33):
I just I can't do it out it. I gotta
have it, maybe one or two a day. I can't
do without it. Yeah, but the studies have been very
clear sugary beverages. Drinking those every day tends to promote
poor health. Couple that will be a variety of things.
(09:56):
Weight game will be one of them. And the juice,
the juice industry, they're right sort of in that arena
as well, because again it's and that's the thing with
the juice industries that it's sort of promoted as a
healthy beverage. Right, you get a cold or flu, A
lot of people out there going for the OJ, get
(10:18):
a big gallon with the pulp version, right, the big
home value gallon that they get from Costco or from
Sam's Club, and they just chug it. I'm sick. I
need that vitamin C in my system, so I'm gonna
(10:41):
go get my OJ and I'm gonna just sit down
and drink my OJ and be healthy. Hey, Alan from Vida,
how can we help you?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yes, sir, my name is Alvin any Rate. I had
just spent to way too much money. But what do
you think of doctor Gucha. He's supposed to have come
up with Alzheimer's treatments and ordered shit from a wife.
I don't know that it's supposed to be vitamins and
scuff excuse my language. That they went all overseas to
(11:12):
think so to pick up and put.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Together doctor Gupta. Yeah, he has a beverage.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
He has supposedly, No, it's it's uh pills that you
take if we happen to be on yellow. And it
was through doctor Gutah and other doctors that have got
together and supposedly has a tear for Alzheimer's. But it
cost me out to ask.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, you know, Alvin, and I'm probablyized about mispronouncing your name,
and you know with my name, I get that all
the time. But great question. And Alvin, as you know,
a lot of patients and American citizens as we get older,
concerned about Alzheimer's dimension memory loss and trying to do
(12:01):
their best to preserve their memory or strengthen their memory.
And yes, there are a lot of products over the
counter that are promoted to do such that. I think
the most common is called priviagen. A lot of my
patients take that, and there's going to be a lot
of interest and a lot of what we call dietary
(12:22):
supplements that are promoted to preserve your mentation, preserve your memory,
boost your memory, etc. The problem with a lot of
those products is that the research is just not where
it needs to be for doctors like myself to promote
taking it. So hopefully in the next several years, when
(12:44):
someone does a really good research study to figure that out,
we'll have that information and we can then go out
and tell everyone, Hey, you should be taking these vitamins
at vitamins in this particular dose, this particular manufacture. But
as far as I know, those studies do not exist
at this point, so that it's not widely accepted as
(13:06):
a way to strengthen your memory or promote your memory
is to take vitamin supplements, just because all the manufacturer
as different, the doses are different, and the quality is different,
and that stuff can make a difference in terms of
what's potent what's not. So I think if anyone wants
to try these dietary supplements, by all means, you can
(13:28):
for three to six months see if it makes a difference.
But in general, no, we do not promote going out
and spending your heart earned money on these dietary products that,
again are not proven at the level we need to
the scrutiny that these research studies undergo. They have to
sort of reach a certain threshold of scrutiny, and most
(13:50):
of these studies don't reach it, so we can't go
out on the limb and start recommending this stuff to patients.
That's my understanding of that whole market right now as
it pertains to prevention of memory loss. Okay, Alvin, Yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
If it wouldn't be see again, if it wouldn't have
been doctor, I wouldn't have tried to listen to it.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean again, every doctor is different.
I know that patients sometimes get annoyed at practitioners and
doctors because they're getting different points of view and it's
just annoying, could be very confusing, and I get that,
and I wish we could all think the same and
act the same, but unfortunately we can. Just we all
have different experiences, likes, dislikes, and skill sets. We just
(14:41):
have different skill sets. And some doctors might believe in
doing the vitamins and giving to their patients, and that's
absolutely fine. If you believe in what your doctor is saying,
then you can obviously try that, but it's not whole
scale except to across the board with all medical doctors
(15:03):
in this country that this is the way to go,
is to give a lot of vitamins. Ivy oral tablets
and it has been proven to work seventy five percent.
That sort of information is just not out there yet.
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Hello, and something they get from UH at the they
went through a bunch of research and it's theater honey
mixed with something else.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Any rate, I'll let you go, Yeah, Alvin, I mean
a lot of thank you for the phone call. It's
a very interesting topic and there's a lot of room
for discussion about prevention of memory loss and preserving your
memory strength. Again, everyone, we all lose some of our
(15:51):
memory capacity as we get older. It's a natural part
of aging. Certainly some people have more than others. Does
not mean, I mean you're destined to have dementia if
you start losing some of your memory capacity. I think
a lot of my patients come in questioning me about that.
Do I have dementia? I'm forget starting to forget some things,
(16:12):
And for most patients it's memory loss related to aging
of the brain. Just it's gonna happen again. There is
a system of aging that we all have. It's it's
programmed into us. Well, you know, we cannot live forever,
although I know we want to. We can't do it forever.
(16:34):
Everyone has that sort of internal clock and the genes,
the cells they're programmed at some point to kind of
start not working, declining, et cetera. And memory loss can
be a part of that doesn't have to be. I
certainly have some patients in their eighties nineties that their
brain is functioning very well. Those obviously would be the
(16:56):
people to study to try and get some common denominators
and see how they were able to get to their
late nineties early nineties fully functional. I might add driving,
taking meds, hardly on any meds maybe two meds, never
had any cancers. I mean, these are the people to study,
(17:18):
right to see what their genes look like, with their habits,
what was their lifestyle like, just so we can sort
of pick up some clues about how you can get
into your deep eighties and nineties, because again, you do
have to do your part to get there. Meaning I mean,
you can't be overweight getting into your eighties and nineties.
I've never seen that never. I mean, if you're gonna
(17:40):
get to your eighties and nineties, you gotta be thin.
I mean that is one hundred percent what I see
is everybody's thin. If you get into your eighties nineties,
everybody's thin, nobody's overweight. So again, there's just a lot
of conversation that says, hey, if you if you want
to live as long as possible, be as healthy as
posble well as you get older. My recommendation of patients,
(18:03):
you must prioritize controlling your weight, getting that weight down
and not carrying too much weight. It tends to burden
the human body, and it tends to accelerate aging. That's
all I'm saying. It tends to increase your chances of
being hospitalized, having to take a bunch of meds, and
getting infected, having cancer, all those things that tend to
(18:28):
bother Americans as they get older. Memory loss, we tend
to see it more so in that patient population. But
you have to beware with over the counterproducts, these dietary selplemans,
if you will, when you pop over on your phone,
turn your phone on, look at your TV programs, radio announcements.
(18:49):
You have to be careful with all of these dietary
supplements that claim they can do X, Y and Z. Again,
these businesses that are promoting these products are not bad people.
They know there's a lot of interest and a lot
of concern and a lot of desperation out there to
preserve the memory to prevent dementia.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
They know this.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
For good reason. We're becoming more successful at treating number
one CARDIOVASCUSESE number two cancer. Right, that used to be
the end of the road for a lot of patients.
But now with the meds that have come out, their
prevention strategies, the know how, the knowledge of what leads
(19:33):
from point A to point B in terms of cardiovascu disease,
cancer disease, we are able to help more people get
into their late seventies, six seventies, eighties, maybe taking a
few meds. Maybe they've had a little hit, they've had
little medical crises, but we're able to get them through that,
and so they're able to then get into that dementia age,
(19:56):
you know, where their mind certainly does start to age.
How can I sold that down? How can I prevent that?
So again, we know that there's a lot of anxiety
about that out there, and I need something quick, easy, simple,
fast to be able to do that. Where is it?
(20:17):
And so boom there it is a commercial pops up.
You know, it makes you feel so good, right, you
finally found it. There it is and it's affordable, well
little affordabley. It's a little pricey, but I'm going to
sacrifice to make that payment because I don't want to
lose my memory. I want to live healthy and I
(20:38):
want to function. And there's my silver bullet, quick easy, fast, tablet,
megapack liquid whatever. There it is this time, this month,
this year. Because it was different three years it was
called something different three years ago. Now it's called something else.
(21:00):
Gotta be careful out there. Phone lines open eight down
sixth Kalvy. I won one hundred three three zero Kalvia.
I'll be back in two minutes. All right, welcome back
(21:37):
to talk with the medical. Our phone lines are open
eight nine six kalv. I won one hundred three three
zero ko Via. I just sitting around chatting about various topics.
When we last left, our segment was sort of talking
about dietary supplements for memory loss, memory preservation. We know
that that's a big concern for our elderly pop relation.
(22:00):
And as one gets older, you start sort of forgetting things,
And is this the beginning of the end? Am I
getting dementia? That's the big term. You know, it used
to be the big C word, right, cancer, but now
it's the big D word dimension. No one wants to
hear that. I mean, it's terrifying, and it has been
(22:23):
a little disappointing from a provider's standpoint, From a healthcare
providers standpoint. I've been a physician for over twenty years,
and honestly, in general, the approach in terms of making
the diagnose is medicating dementia honestly has not really had
any major changes in the past twenty years, which is
(22:46):
extremely concerning because there's a lot of research with Alzheimer's dementia,
and it would just seem that we would have more
products available, more testing available, because honestly, we want to
get to the point where we have sort of a
radar system in place where we can kind of see
it coming before it even starts, before you even start
(23:08):
having symptoms. We would love to have that in place,
sort of like we have now for cardiovascular screening, right,
we have EKG, we have ultrasound, We now have this
calcium scoring test. If you've been to your local cardiologists recently,
you probably are getting one of those tests. It's technology
(23:29):
that's been out for several years and has been slowly
incorporated into the decision tree of most cardiologists to try
and help a risk stratify you in terms of your
possible risk of developing cardiovascal disease, because that's what it's
all about. We're trying to catch it before it happens.
(23:51):
Just like with dementia. By the time most people have symptoms,
the disease is already pretty much set in and cause
it's damage. That's why you come in, because there's a
decline in brain function or increase in brain dysfunction. However
you want to approach it. But we're trying to get
(24:11):
to the point where, just like with our hurricane system,
we have radars, we see it coming, we can sort
of do things to avoid the issues that happen when
you're in the middle of a hurricanes. Same thing with dementia,
Same thing with cardiovascal disease. EKGs ultrasounds of your heart,
this calcium scoring test, whereby if your calcium scoring test
(24:35):
is low zero, if you will the risk of having
a cardiovascular event is almost none Versus if it's elevated
like four hundred and fifty, your risk is higher. And
so we would need to be more aggressive with medicating you,
controlling your risk factors, maybe doing some testing sooner red
(24:55):
than later. Same thing with dementia, right if we had
some sort of radar tests that we could implement right
now where we can give that to patients, especially during
your Medicare Well visit when you go to your doctor's office.
The testing right now is extremely crude. If you have
ever had sort of a Medicare well visit, they maybe
(25:17):
they've come to your house, a nurse practitioner, they do
sort of this little memory test or this little task
test where they ask you some really simple things and
they want you to do this or that or remember
this or that, which is a very crude test, right
because a lot of studies have shown that these these
(25:37):
screening tests that we currently have, they're okay, but they're archaic.
They're so insensitive that you can have dementia, you can
have clinical dementia, but still score fairly well on these
sort of screening tests, So they're not very good. I
(25:57):
guess it's all we have right now, and we use
it because that's all we have, but it's not a
very good test, and not a lot of practitioners use
it because it's just not a very good test. You
could also look at it from a different way. If
you score low on this test, does this mean you
have dementia? No, it doesn't mean that maybe having a
(26:18):
bad day, maybe on some medications that are causing them.
Maybe it didn't get your sleep. I mean, so it's
it's a very crude test. It's not specific for dementia.
None of these tests that we're doing a specific for dementia.
It only suggests dementia possibly. And that's the thing we're
(26:39):
also mentioned missing is there's no bopsy for dementia. There's
no blood test for dementia. There's no X ray for dementia,
you know, like there is for cancer or heart disease
or kidney failure. Oh, there's a blood test to see
your numbers. See that you have kidney failure. See this
(27:00):
anthology report. See this, this is a result. This is
what you have. We don't really have that for dementia, unfortunately.
So a lot of times, as a disease is really
getting cranked up and progressing, it might be very mild
symptoms and it's hard for any practitioner kind of tell.
We unfortunately sometimes have to kind of sit back and
(27:22):
just monitor and see how you do before we act.
And sometimes again you don't act too late. You want
to act as soon as possible, just because the medicines
work as well as possible. Again, by the time most
people have symptoms, the disease is already in there. And
we're trying to get to a point where if we
could have a blood test on X ray, where we
(27:45):
can do it before the disease kicks in and we
can say, man, your screening test is one hundred and fifty,
it's a thousand. Your chances are super high. We're going
to do this because we don't want anything to happen
to you, Michael, from passing. And how can we help you?
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Oh, good morning and happy New Year to you as well.
And I wanted to say thank you for everything you do.
And you're talking about calcium and my heart doctor talks
about calcium calcium, okay, calcium of of in the veins.
(28:31):
And then and you're talking about calcium in the brain.
My question is, is I take it for my bones
of calcium supplement and I drink milk, skim milk? Is there?
Can you take too much? Calcium is related to the
heart of the brain.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, And then calcium scoring test I was talking about
is of the blood vessel of the heart. They don't
have that for the brain blood vessels yet. And can
you take too much calcium? I think that's any of
that is always possible. Do I see that happening often? No,
it would be very difficult to do, to be honest
with you, because the body has a fel safe mechanism
(29:15):
that a lot of times protects you from trying to
overconsume calcium. I've never seen it. Has it happened before,
I'm sure at some point, but we don't see that
in this modern era of medicine. I think years years
ago they did see that because of maybe what Americans
were ingesting for various elements and various physical problems when
(29:40):
you didn't have the FDA around, and patients were kind
of experimenting with various liquids and substances to make them
feel well. Not that we have the FDA that's more
regulated and the products are safer. I'm not saying they're
free of risk, but safer than before. I don't ever
see someone over consuming calcium like that. I think it's
(30:02):
hard to do, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
What does that build up in the veins.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
In my experience, no, again, because the body knows how
to protect itself from accumulating too much calcium. There is
a system in place to eliminate excessive calcium if you
have it now. Yes, there are some diseases that you
can develop such that the system breaks down, and yes,
(30:30):
you do get exposed to some high calcium levels in
your bloodstream. One particular disease is called hyper parathroitism. That's
probably the most common cause of high calcium, which we
call hyper calcimia. So that's a disease. But for someone
with no sort of physical metabolic disease, just just go
(30:52):
out and start taking calcium pills or a calcium beverage.
It will be extremely difficult to do because the body
knows how to protect itself of consuming it basically eliminates
what it doesn't need, and that system is well oiled
and it works very well. Again, unless there's a disease
that's counteracting that system and the system's not working very well,
then yes, you can accumulate too much calcium. But on
(31:15):
a daily basis, I don't see it that often.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Okay. The other question I have is I ask you once,
because if you could eat too much fruit. Uh, and
how does that affect your your blood sugar glucose? Uh.
Several times I've had tests in the past where glucose
was borderline or and they talk about pre diabetes. And
(31:47):
I really don't eat sugary, you know, foods other than fruit.
I don't put sugar on anything. Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
But I do eat.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Like blueberries, cherries, apples, pears, and it was unsugared, like
pineapple mixture, mangoes, strawberries, things like that. And I just
wonder if that can raise your blood sugar be borderline
(32:25):
pre diabetes. Is that a problem.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I think for most patients who would like to have
or eat a healthy diet, I think fresh fruit can
be a part of that diet. And yes, fruit has
its own natural sugar. And for someone who does have
type one or type two diabetes, yes, it can spike
your sugar. Absolutely. It's got sugar in it's natural, so
(32:51):
you do have to be careful about that. Luckily, we
have these sugar sensors now, that continuous glucose monitor that
can help you figure that out in terms of how
much is too much for you. But yes, a lot
of people without pre diabetes or diabetes in general, they
can consume sugar, I'm sorry, fresh fruit leisurely in a
(33:13):
healthy diet that can be good for them. And as
you know, there's sort of a hierarchy of the fruit
whereby we really promote fruit that has more vitamins, fiber,
and nutrition, which would be more like dark berries versus
tropical fruit which tend to have a lot more sugar concentration,
(33:33):
high percentage of sugar, less nutrition, less fiber, and would
not be the best choice, especially if you have pre
diabetes or you are diabetic, such as bananas or melons, grapes.
That's probably how the list, and it's it's odd that's
a very popular fruit that most of our patients are
getting bananas and grapes. If you just ask someone in general,
(33:57):
hey do you get fresh fruit? That's only part of
that pineapple as well, So it seems that most spaces
are still getting the fruit with the lower amount of
nutrition and things like strawberry, blueberry, raspberry. These are the
fruit items that we would prefer that you consume, not
(34:19):
what the tropical fruit, the banana is, the watermelons and
the grapes, so they have more nutrition, but it can't
spike you sugar but certainly diabetics can enjoy fresh fruit.
Just be smart about it. Get a limited amount of
the fruit, eat it, and check into ours and see
how your sugars are doing.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Certainly I haven't been I haven't been treated for I'm
not being treated for diabetes. I keep wondering about it, though,
And so that's why I was asking, and you're talking
about these monitors. That's something you can do yourself. You
(35:00):
have to be prescribed. They have to be subscribed. How
does that work?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yes, these are prescription monitors as far as I know.
You need a prescription. Again, they can be expensive if
you do not have a prescription, but yes, just ask
your healthcare professional to get your prescription for the Freestyle
Libre or the dex Com. Those are the two that
I primarily use. Dxcom and they sort of connect to
(35:32):
your phone and basically, anytime you want to know your sugar,
you just look at your phone and it tells you
your sugar. You know, live why you wear these sensors,
and it provides you a graph and you can review
it and then records it and all this stuff and
you can put in your computer and show everybody and
you can just kind of see what happens when you
(35:53):
consume certain food items, you drink certain beverage items. You
can see exactly what happens with your sugar when you
eat it to drink it, so there's no guesswork. I
think for a lot of people when they eat and drink,
they're not checking. They don't know what they feel okay,
but their sugar could be three four hundred. They feel fine,
(36:15):
and I think if they feel fine, they think I'm good.
I mean, but then when they really check, it's high.
So four hundred three hundred is high. So I was
I guess A couple of weeks ago, I was sort
of promoting these devices for stocking stuffers a good investment
to be able to check your blood sugar with the
ease of just looking at your phone. So I think
(36:37):
probably they'll start blue bluetoothing with the smart watches out there.
The watches are getting better. They're able to check your pulse,
your heart rate, your blood pressure, now your sugar. I mean,
it's all right there on your wrist. I mean that's
just super convenient and you get the information you need.
So you can kind of see what happens with a
(36:59):
certain food items.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
And when when is sugar a dangerous or the body
doesn't How can I say it doesn't process it or
get rid of it or what where I understand just
about everything turns into sugar, and and that's how your
(37:29):
body gets its nutrition. Yeah, for all the foods to sugar. Yeah,
you know it's confusing.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Oh, I know, absolutely, Michael, I agree with you. Yeah,
that's one of the main fuels of the human body
is sugar, absolutely, no question. The problem is that in
our country and our society, we are over consuming these
sugary products are products that turn into sugar such that
(38:01):
our body gets a lot of exposure to sugar. And
for patients who have issues with diabetes one or two,
the level of sugar floating around in your bloodstream at
one particular time is higher than what the human body needs,
and that then becomes a more toxic presence in your bloodstream.
(38:23):
And it's not something that happens quickly. It's an accumulation
of exposure to the high sugar or spikes and sugar
that generates inflammation of the human body, generates inflammation of
the blood vessel wall, It encourages plaque, it makes the
blood thicker. All of these things are things that increase
(38:45):
the risk of strokes, heart attacks, cancers, all the ills
that we get, the immune system not working, rashes, infections,
because again, the amount of sugar that you've been exposed
to is more inflammatory to the human body. It's more
toxic to the human bodies. So we have to learn
(39:07):
how to moderate the consumption of sugar every day. Again,
the food manufacturers, the food industry, have helped us. They've
allowed us to have the ability to eat and drink
this stuff every day, all day long. Human body was
not really designed to have that exposure to these food
(39:28):
substances all day long. Honestly, in my opinion, eating one
mill a day is all we need to do, that
is it. And eating more than that tends to encourage
weight gain and tends to encourage inflammation in the human body. Again,
because we're eating a lot of these ultra processed foods
which tend to contain synthetic sugars, and these synthetic sugars
(39:52):
are unnatural. The human body is trying to figure out
what to do. It sees it as foreign, as an invader,
and it kicks on the inflammatory system. Inflammatory system is
on all the time, so it tends to start causing
injury to your body. We call it diabetes, we call
it hypertension, we call it rashes, memory, fog, fatigue, joint pain,
(40:15):
all these different physical elements that we get because the
inflammatory system is on, because we're getting exposed to these
types of food and beverage items, so have to try
and get back to the basics, you know, getting rid
of the sugary beverages, consuming more vegetables that you cook yourself,
frozen or good. So that's sort of the position. Yes,
(40:38):
it can be confused, and we do need sugar, but
the way we're doing in this country, we're over consuming it.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I've been told that it's good if your blood is
sick is to give blood donations every once in a while.
Is that a good idea?
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yes, there is an addition where, yes, the amount of
hemoglobein you have in your blood system does breach a
certain ceiling to the point that it becomes counterproductive. It
makes the blood flow thicker, it can encourage some clots
to form, and the way to fix that is to
(41:19):
drain your blood basically. So yes, you can go to
a blood donation station or some other infusion center and
they can basically take blood away from you do that
every two to three weeks and it works very well.
But the thing if you do have that, certainly get
to your primary get to your blood specialists. Make sure
(41:40):
there's no disease causing that. Most of the time there
is some issue with what you're doing. What you're exposing
your human body to. The most common bee tobacco abuse
and untreated sleep apnea, which generates hypoxia. And when the
body has low oxygen level every night, the body reacts
(42:01):
to that by generating more hemoglobin and your blood gets
thick as if a reaction to this. So those are
the two most common causes of that, but it could
be an underlying blood disorder, so you would need to
check with your hematology blood specialist from that one. Okay, Michael,
all right, I appreciate Michael's questions. It was good to
(42:24):
infro dialogue. Anyway, We're going to last break. Phone lines
open eight nine six K one hundred and three three zero. Okay,
I'll be back in two minutes. All right, welcome back
(42:49):
to the doc ovin Megalar. Phone lines are open. God
time goes by so quickly. We want to thank all
the callers as well as all the listeners. Remember, if
there's any particular topic that you would like and discuss,
you can call my office or you can call the station,
leave a message and we can get to that. Leonard
from Houston real fast.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
A matter a.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Problem with my balance of being able to not fall over.
Are there any exercises or drugs I can take for that?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I would probably discourage drugs and yes, do some exercising,
probably working with a physical therapist who focuses on balance,
and certainly, Leonard, making sure that there's no other neurological
metabolic issues such as ANEMI or a low blood pressure
(43:42):
or strokes. So I would first do a work up,
but if nothing was found, certainly I would probably work
with a physical therapist who works with people with their balance.
That can be very helpful, but you certainly want to
make sure that there's nothing metabolically going on. Dizziness which
is a big, big physical complaint because it incorporates a
(44:08):
lot of different diseases. I would say fatigue and dizziness.
I get that a lot in the office. Those are
two big, nonspecific physical complaints that can mean ten different
things all at the same time and can be very
frustrating as a practitioner and as a patient if you
do have those. So God forbid if you get those.
(44:30):
But it does become a more common complaint as one
gets older. The more medications you get, the more physical
decline that you have. You're dizzy and you're tired. Just
the body's not working. My experience again, a lot of
times that inflammatory system is on for some reason. So
try to focus on keeping the inflammatory system to a
(44:50):
minimum again by avoiding a lot of sugary beverages, avoiding
a lot of ultra processed foods. As we head into
the new year, try to cook your own food, stay
away from the sugar beverage, to drink more water, and yes,
a little bit of exercise again. You don't have to sweat.
You can just walk outside for twenty thirty minutes. Enjoy
(45:13):
the sunshine, enjoy your neighborhood, maybe meet some neighbors, and
just get those legs going. Get the heart pump a
little bit. That's all it takes. Anyway, Appreciate your phone calls.
Happy New Year too, you We'll see you next year.
All right, welcome South throught sex is isn't that radio listeners?
And we'll see what happens when you take a week off.
You don't even know how to act anymore. Anyway. Thank
you for joining for the edition of this show. This
is your weekly host, Doctor Levine of the Doctor Levine
Medical Hour. I'm here every Saturday and less. I'm off
(00:20):
taking your phone calls and answering questions about health care
and medicine, just to try and help you stay alive
as long as possible, as healthy as possible. Right, you
want to be alive, but you want to be healthy. God,
you don't want to have to go into the doctor's
office all these meds and wait all day long, and
(00:43):
spend all your money find all these medicines, all the
headache of getting new prescriptions, just getting a medication filled
from your doctor. God, it's terrible and I hear it
all the time, and I wish the system was better.
(01:04):
I really, really do you deserve it to be better?
I mean, you have an illness, You're just trying to
feel well, try not to feel sick, and your medications
get gummed up in the system. So maybe we work
on that. You're twenty twenty six. How was your Christmas Day? Ho?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Ho ho?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Right? How was that? Did everybody have a good time?
Did you get everything you wanted? Spending time with family,
eating as much as you want? Right, I'm going to
forget about everything, doctor Lavine says. I'm going to eat
everything I want in large quantity multiple times throughout the day.
It's just one day, have fun, watching ball games, going
(01:51):
outside and throwing a ball around, seeing old friends, and
again having some good food. That's the spirit of the day.
And yeah, maybe exchanging a few gifts. Maybe we've gotten
a little bit out of hand with the whole gift
giving thing, but yeah, just share a few gifts, but
mainly just trying to be in a good spirit and
(02:15):
have a day off, have a couple of days off, Rewine, relax,
think and see what is in store for the rest
of your life. I always have to stop in small
the roses and make sure there's nothing else you want
to do. So we're heading into the year twenty twenty six,
(02:36):
so how can we make it better?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
We always have those New Year's resolutions in the back
of our mind, and health and wellness is always at
the top of the list. Right, we start off with
good intentions. It's hard out there, though. It is hard
out there to be healthy in this country unfortunately should
(02:58):
be easier, but it is hard. But you can do it.
You can do it. You have to prioritize it. Though
somebody lie to us, they said getting older with the
golden years, it can be it really can be. Right,
you're retired, you have your nest egg financially, kids out
(03:19):
of the house, they're doing well, everything's paid off. Just
kind of hanging out doing whatever you want to do,
waking up and every day is a new day to
discover something new, whatever that is. It can be fun,
but again, you have to do your part. And I say, hey,
(03:40):
why not prioritize your health. So often when I'm talking
to my family as well as my patience or my family,
I always ask my retirees, what do you do all day?
How do you stay busy? Because it seems like you
just get so board just sitting around not having a
(04:03):
task to do, right, And I think that's the dream
of most of our retirees is I don't I can
do whatever I want. I don't have any nobody's telling
me what to do. I don't have to listen them. Boss, mean,
I don't have to tender any reports. I want to
sleep late. I'm going to do that. And I think
for the first few months you might do that, right,
(04:23):
get it out of your system. But I'm telling you,
I'm telling you guys after and gals after that, after that,
it's it's not fun anymore. Our mind and our bodies
need a task to do every day, whatever that is.
And I think that certainly you can make it whatever
(04:44):
you want when you retire, But I say, why not
your health, because if you're unhealthy when you retire, it's
not fun. It is not fun. It's expensive too, it's
time consuming, it's limiting physically and mentally. So that is
one thing. If you get to your retirement age without
(05:08):
a lot of harm or injury, because remember, normally in
the late I would say mid fifties, early sixties, that's
really when a lot of the accumulation of poor lifestyle
changes starts to show its ugly head. It can't happen sooner,
(05:28):
but I would say on average, mid fifties early so
that's when it starts popping. If you have not done
your part, or if you're not doing your part, you're
not trying to stay out of the doctor's life. That's
when stuff starts happening. And so if you can somehow
get through that, get to your retirement, get your nest egg,
(05:51):
and the coast is clear. If you will, why not
prioritize your health. And I think my retirees understand this
is that you know what doesn't really require a lot
of time. It really doesn't. I mean I asked them
what they do all day, and yeah, most of them
do some sort of exercising. But guess what, it's a
(06:16):
minimal part of the day, maybe at most one hour.
And like I said, when you're retired, man, that goes
by pretty quickly. One hour. You got the rest of
the day to hang out. But one hour. And my
recommendation to my listeners as well as my patience is
(06:36):
it doesn't need to be one hour of exercising. I mean,
if you want to do that, that's fine, but I'm
telling you it does not need to be one hour.
It does not need to be one I mean, I'm sorry.
Every day, I would say a minimum of three times
a week is what I would say. And I would
(06:56):
say a minimum of ten to fifteen minutes. This is
what I would say, but does not have to be
high intensity as it is promoted on TV and all
the advertisements you read, does not have to be high intensity.
We just want you to be physically active, that's all.
(07:18):
But you know, if you listen to my show, you
know that's not the most important thing, right. You know
what the most important thing is, right making better food
and beverage choices every single day, honestly, getting back to
preparing your own food, cooking it yourself, going to the store,
(07:42):
getting the raw ingredients, and cooking it yourself. It's always
typically a healthier of a version of what you can
get from restaurants. I mean, I think it's fine to
periodically go out and eat have a good time with
your family, But man, if you get some how figure
out how to cook at home on a regular basis, normally,
(08:07):
it's gonna be a healthier version. Typically, And you got
to stay away from those sugary beverages. We love them, right,
all the juices and fruit punches and fruity drinks out
there that we just love. You go down the aisle
at your favorite grocery store and it's full of just
(08:27):
exciting beverages that we can't wait to get home and
just drink, right. We look forward to it. We can't
even go a day without drinking it. Yes, some of
my retirees are just drinking that Coca Cola, that Doctor
Pepper all day. I don't hear too much about Mountain
Dew or Big Red anymore or Pepsi. I hear a
(08:51):
lot of Doctor Pepper, I hear a lot of Coke.
Those seem to be sort of the premire sugary beverages
out there. You guys remember the Pepsi and Coke wars
back in the day, the Taste test. Remember that. I
think I was, you know, it's in junior high when
that was going on. The Taste test. Pepsi and Coke, big,
(09:13):
big media campaign during that time. We have many more
sugary beverages out there now that compete with those, But
doctor Pepper and Coke are still going strong. Even again
with my patients who are older, they sort of know that,
you know, this is not a good beverage, man, But
(09:33):
I just I can't do it out it. I gotta
have it, maybe one or two a day. I can't
do without it. Yeah, but the studies have been very
clear sugary beverages. Drinking those every day tends to promote
poor health. Couple that will be a variety of things.
(09:56):
Weight game will be one of them. And the juice,
the juice industry, they're right sort of in that arena
as well, because again it's and that's the thing with
the juice industries that it's sort of promoted as a
healthy beverage. Right, you get a cold or flu, A
lot of people out there going for the OJ, get
(10:18):
a big gallon with the pulp version, right, the big
home value gallon that they get from Costco or from
Sam's Club, and they just chug it. I'm sick. I
need that vitamin C in my system, so I'm gonna
(10:41):
go get my OJ and I'm gonna just sit down
and drink my OJ and be healthy. Hey, Alan from Vida,
how can we help you?
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Yes, sir, my name is Alvin any Rate. I had
just spent to way too much money. But what do
you think of doctor Gucha. He's supposed to have come
up with Alzheimer's treatments and ordered shit from a wife.
I don't know that it's supposed to be vitamins and
scuff excuse my language. That they went all overseas to
(11:12):
think so to pick up and put.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Together doctor Gupta. Yeah, he has a beverage.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
He has supposedly, No, it's it's uh pills that you
take if we happen to be on yellow. And it
was through doctor Gutah and other doctors that have got
together and supposedly has a tear for Alzheimer's. But it
cost me out to ask.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yeah, you know, Alvin, and I'm probablyized about mispronouncing your name,
and you know with my name, I get that all
the time. But great question. And Alvin, as you know,
a lot of patients and American citizens as we get older,
concerned about Alzheimer's dimension memory loss and trying to do
(12:01):
their best to preserve their memory or strengthen their memory.
And yes, there are a lot of products over the
counter that are promoted to do such that. I think
the most common is called priviagen. A lot of my
patients take that, and there's going to be a lot
of interest and a lot of what we call dietary
(12:22):
supplements that are promoted to preserve your mentation, preserve your memory,
boost your memory, etc. The problem with a lot of
those products is that the research is just not where
it needs to be for doctors like myself to promote
taking it. So hopefully in the next several years, when
(12:44):
someone does a really good research study to figure that out,
we'll have that information and we can then go out
and tell everyone, Hey, you should be taking these vitamins
at vitamins in this particular dose, this particular manufacture. But
as far as I know, those studies do not exist
at this point, so that it's not widely accepted as
(13:06):
a way to strengthen your memory or promote your memory
is to take vitamin supplements, just because all the manufacturer
as different, the doses are different, and the quality is different,
and that stuff can make a difference in terms of
what's potent what's not. So I think if anyone wants
to try these dietary supplements, by all means, you can
(13:28):
for three to six months see if it makes a difference.
But in general, no, we do not promote going out
and spending your heart earned money on these dietary products that,
again are not proven at the level we need to
the scrutiny that these research studies undergo. They have to
sort of reach a certain threshold of scrutiny, and most
(13:50):
of these studies don't reach it, so we can't go
out on the limb and start recommending this stuff to patients.
That's my understanding of that whole market right now as
it pertains to prevention of memory loss. Okay, Alvin, Yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
If it wouldn't be see again, if it wouldn't have
been doctor, I wouldn't have tried to listen to it.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean again, every doctor is different.
I know that patients sometimes get annoyed at practitioners and
doctors because they're getting different points of view and it's
just annoying, could be very confusing, and I get that,
and I wish we could all think the same and
act the same, but unfortunately we can. Just we all
have different experiences, likes, dislikes, and skill sets. We just
(14:41):
have different skill sets. And some doctors might believe in
doing the vitamins and giving to their patients, and that's
absolutely fine. If you believe in what your doctor is saying,
then you can obviously try that, but it's not whole
scale except to across the board with all medical doctors
(15:03):
in this country that this is the way to go,
is to give a lot of vitamins. Ivy oral tablets
and it has been proven to work seventy five percent.
That sort of information is just not out there yet.
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Hello, and something they get from UH at the they
went through a bunch of research and it's theater honey
mixed with something else.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Any rate, I'll let you go, Yeah, Alvin, I mean
a lot of thank you for the phone call. It's
a very interesting topic and there's a lot of room
for discussion about prevention of memory loss and preserving your
memory strength. Again, everyone, we all lose some of our
(15:51):
memory capacity as we get older. It's a natural part
of aging. Certainly some people have more than others. Does
not mean, I mean you're destined to have dementia if
you start losing some of your memory capacity. I think
a lot of my patients come in questioning me about that.
Do I have dementia? I'm forget starting to forget some things,
(16:12):
And for most patients it's memory loss related to aging
of the brain. Just it's gonna happen again. There is
a system of aging that we all have. It's it's
programmed into us. Well, you know, we cannot live forever,
although I know we want to. We can't do it forever.
(16:34):
Everyone has that sort of internal clock and the genes,
the cells they're programmed at some point to kind of
start not working, declining, et cetera. And memory loss can
be a part of that doesn't have to be. I
certainly have some patients in their eighties nineties that their
brain is functioning very well. Those obviously would be the
(16:56):
people to study to try and get some common denominators
and see how they were able to get to their
late nineties early nineties fully functional. I might add driving,
taking meds, hardly on any meds maybe two meds, never
had any cancers. I mean, these are the people to study,
(17:18):
right to see what their genes look like, with their habits,
what was their lifestyle like, just so we can sort
of pick up some clues about how you can get
into your deep eighties and nineties, because again, you do
have to do your part to get there. Meaning I mean,
you can't be overweight getting into your eighties and nineties.
I've never seen that never. I mean, if you're gonna
(17:40):
get to your eighties and nineties, you gotta be thin.
I mean that is one hundred percent what I see
is everybody's thin. If you get into your eighties nineties,
everybody's thin, nobody's overweight. So again, there's just a lot
of conversation that says, hey, if you if you want
to live as long as possible, be as healthy as
posble well as you get older. My recommendation of patients,
(18:03):
you must prioritize controlling your weight, getting that weight down
and not carrying too much weight. It tends to burden
the human body, and it tends to accelerate aging. That's
all I'm saying. It tends to increase your chances of
being hospitalized, having to take a bunch of meds, and
getting infected, having cancer, all those things that tend to
(18:28):
bother Americans as they get older. Memory loss, we tend
to see it more so in that patient population. But
you have to beware with over the counterproducts, these dietary selplemans,
if you will, when you pop over on your phone,
turn your phone on, look at your TV programs, radio announcements.
(18:49):
You have to be careful with all of these dietary
supplements that claim they can do X, Y and Z. Again,
these businesses that are promoting these products are not bad people.
They know there's a lot of interest and a lot
of concern and a lot of desperation out there to
preserve the memory to prevent dementia.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
They know this.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
For good reason. We're becoming more successful at treating number
one CARDIOVASCUSESE number two cancer. Right, that used to be
the end of the road for a lot of patients.
But now with the meds that have come out, their
prevention strategies, the know how, the knowledge of what leads
(19:33):
from point A to point B in terms of cardiovascu disease,
cancer disease, we are able to help more people get
into their late seventies, six seventies, eighties, maybe taking a
few meds. Maybe they've had a little hit, they've had
little medical crises, but we're able to get them through that,
and so they're able to then get into that dementia age,
(19:56):
you know, where their mind certainly does start to age.
How can I sold that down? How can I prevent that?
So again, we know that there's a lot of anxiety
about that out there, and I need something quick, easy, simple,
fast to be able to do that. Where is it?
(20:17):
And so boom there it is a commercial pops up.
You know, it makes you feel so good, right, you
finally found it. There it is and it's affordable, well
little affordabley. It's a little pricey, but I'm going to
sacrifice to make that payment because I don't want to
lose my memory. I want to live healthy and I
(20:38):
want to function. And there's my silver bullet, quick easy, fast, tablet,
megapack liquid whatever. There it is this time, this month,
this year. Because it was different three years it was
called something different three years ago. Now it's called something else.
(21:00):
Gotta be careful out there. Phone lines open eight down
sixth Kalvy. I won one hundred three three zero Kalvia.
I'll be back in two minutes. All right, welcome back
(21:37):
to talk with the medical. Our phone lines are open
eight nine six kalv. I won one hundred three three
zero ko Via. I just sitting around chatting about various topics.
When we last left, our segment was sort of talking
about dietary supplements for memory loss, memory preservation. We know
that that's a big concern for our elderly pop relation.
(22:00):
And as one gets older, you start sort of forgetting things,
And is this the beginning of the end? Am I
getting dementia? That's the big term. You know, it used
to be the big C word, right, cancer, but now
it's the big D word dimension. No one wants to
hear that. I mean, it's terrifying, and it has been
(22:23):
a little disappointing from a provider's standpoint, From a healthcare
providers standpoint. I've been a physician for over twenty years,
and honestly, in general, the approach in terms of making
the diagnose is medicating dementia honestly has not really had
any major changes in the past twenty years, which is
(22:46):
extremely concerning because there's a lot of research with Alzheimer's dementia,
and it would just seem that we would have more
products available, more testing available, because honestly, we want to
get to the point where we have sort of a
radar system in place where we can kind of see
it coming before it even starts, before you even start
(23:08):
having symptoms. We would love to have that in place,
sort of like we have now for cardiovascular screening, right,
we have EKG, we have ultrasound, We now have this
calcium scoring test. If you've been to your local cardiologists recently,
you probably are getting one of those tests. It's technology
(23:29):
that's been out for several years and has been slowly
incorporated into the decision tree of most cardiologists to try
and help a risk stratify you in terms of your
possible risk of developing cardiovascal disease, because that's what it's
all about. We're trying to catch it before it happens.
(23:51):
Just like with dementia. By the time most people have symptoms,
the disease is already pretty much set in and cause
it's damage. That's why you come in, because there's a
decline in brain function or increase in brain dysfunction. However
you want to approach it. But we're trying to get
(24:11):
to the point where, just like with our hurricane system,
we have radars, we see it coming, we can sort
of do things to avoid the issues that happen when
you're in the middle of a hurricanes. Same thing with dementia,
Same thing with cardiovascal disease. EKGs ultrasounds of your heart,
this calcium scoring test, whereby if your calcium scoring test
(24:35):
is low zero, if you will the risk of having
a cardiovascular event is almost none Versus if it's elevated
like four hundred and fifty, your risk is higher. And
so we would need to be more aggressive with medicating you,
controlling your risk factors, maybe doing some testing sooner red
(24:55):
than later. Same thing with dementia, right if we had
some sort of radar tests that we could implement right
now where we can give that to patients, especially during
your Medicare Well visit when you go to your doctor's office.
The testing right now is extremely crude. If you have
ever had sort of a Medicare well visit, they maybe
(25:17):
they've come to your house, a nurse practitioner, they do
sort of this little memory test or this little task
test where they ask you some really simple things and
they want you to do this or that or remember
this or that, which is a very crude test, right
because a lot of studies have shown that these these
(25:37):
screening tests that we currently have, they're okay, but they're archaic.
They're so insensitive that you can have dementia, you can
have clinical dementia, but still score fairly well on these
sort of screening tests, So they're not very good. I
(25:57):
guess it's all we have right now, and we use
it because that's all we have, but it's not a
very good test, and not a lot of practitioners use
it because it's just not a very good test. You
could also look at it from a different way. If
you score low on this test, does this mean you
have dementia? No, it doesn't mean that maybe having a
(26:18):
bad day, maybe on some medications that are causing them.
Maybe it didn't get your sleep. I mean, so it's
it's a very crude test. It's not specific for dementia.
None of these tests that we're doing a specific for dementia.
It only suggests dementia possibly. And that's the thing we're
(26:39):
also mentioned missing is there's no bopsy for dementia. There's
no blood test for dementia. There's no X ray for dementia,
you know, like there is for cancer or heart disease
or kidney failure. Oh, there's a blood test to see
your numbers. See that you have kidney failure. See this
(27:00):
anthology report. See this, this is a result. This is
what you have. We don't really have that for dementia, unfortunately.
So a lot of times, as a disease is really
getting cranked up and progressing, it might be very mild
symptoms and it's hard for any practitioner kind of tell.
We unfortunately sometimes have to kind of sit back and
(27:22):
just monitor and see how you do before we act.
And sometimes again you don't act too late. You want
to act as soon as possible, just because the medicines
work as well as possible. Again, by the time most
people have symptoms, the disease is already in there. And
we're trying to get to a point where if we
could have a blood test on X ray, where we
(27:45):
can do it before the disease kicks in and we
can say, man, your screening test is one hundred and fifty,
it's a thousand. Your chances are super high. We're going
to do this because we don't want anything to happen
to you, Michael, from passing. And how can we help you?
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Oh, good morning and happy New Year to you as well.
And I wanted to say thank you for everything you do.
And you're talking about calcium and my heart doctor talks
about calcium calcium, okay, calcium of of in the veins.
(28:31):
And then and you're talking about calcium in the brain.
My question is, is I take it for my bones
of calcium supplement and I drink milk, skim milk? Is there?
Can you take too much? Calcium is related to the
heart of the brain.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yeah, And then calcium scoring test I was talking about
is of the blood vessel of the heart. They don't
have that for the brain blood vessels yet. And can
you take too much calcium? I think that's any of
that is always possible. Do I see that happening often? No,
it would be very difficult to do, to be honest
with you, because the body has a fel safe mechanism
(29:15):
that a lot of times protects you from trying to
overconsume calcium. I've never seen it. Has it happened before,
I'm sure at some point, but we don't see that
in this modern era of medicine. I think years years
ago they did see that because of maybe what Americans
were ingesting for various elements and various physical problems when
(29:40):
you didn't have the FDA around, and patients were kind
of experimenting with various liquids and substances to make them
feel well. Not that we have the FDA that's more
regulated and the products are safer. I'm not saying they're
free of risk, but safer than before. I don't ever
see someone over consuming calcium like that. I think it's
(30:02):
hard to do, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
What does that build up in the veins.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
In my experience, no, again, because the body knows how
to protect itself from accumulating too much calcium. There is
a system in place to eliminate excessive calcium if you
have it now. Yes, there are some diseases that you
can develop such that the system breaks down, and yes,
(30:30):
you do get exposed to some high calcium levels in
your bloodstream. One particular disease is called hyper parathroitism. That's
probably the most common cause of high calcium, which we
call hyper calcimia. So that's a disease. But for someone
with no sort of physical metabolic disease, just just go
(30:52):
out and start taking calcium pills or a calcium beverage.
It will be extremely difficult to do because the body
knows how to protect itself of consuming it basically eliminates
what it doesn't need, and that system is well oiled
and it works very well. Again, unless there's a disease
that's counteracting that system and the system's not working very well,
then yes, you can accumulate too much calcium. But on
(31:15):
a daily basis, I don't see it that often.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Okay. The other question I have is I ask you once,
because if you could eat too much fruit. Uh, and
how does that affect your your blood sugar glucose? Uh.
Several times I've had tests in the past where glucose
was borderline or and they talk about pre diabetes. And
(31:47):
I really don't eat sugary, you know, foods other than fruit.
I don't put sugar on anything. Uh.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
But I do eat.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Like blueberries, cherries, apples, pears, and it was unsugared, like
pineapple mixture, mangoes, strawberries, things like that. And I just
wonder if that can raise your blood sugar be borderline
(32:25):
pre diabetes. Is that a problem.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I think for most patients who would like to have
or eat a healthy diet, I think fresh fruit can
be a part of that diet. And yes, fruit has
its own natural sugar. And for someone who does have
type one or type two diabetes, yes, it can spike
your sugar. Absolutely. It's got sugar in it's natural, so
(32:51):
you do have to be careful about that. Luckily, we
have these sugar sensors now, that continuous glucose monitor that
can help you figure that out in terms of how
much is too much for you. But yes, a lot
of people without pre diabetes or diabetes in general, they
can consume sugar, I'm sorry, fresh fruit leisurely in a
(33:13):
healthy diet that can be good for them. And as
you know, there's sort of a hierarchy of the fruit
whereby we really promote fruit that has more vitamins, fiber,
and nutrition, which would be more like dark berries versus
tropical fruit which tend to have a lot more sugar concentration,
(33:33):
high percentage of sugar, less nutrition, less fiber, and would
not be the best choice, especially if you have pre
diabetes or you are diabetic, such as bananas or melons, grapes.
That's probably how the list, and it's it's odd that's
a very popular fruit that most of our patients are
getting bananas and grapes. If you just ask someone in general,
(33:57):
hey do you get fresh fruit? That's only part of
that pineapple as well, So it seems that most spaces
are still getting the fruit with the lower amount of
nutrition and things like strawberry, blueberry, raspberry. These are the
fruit items that we would prefer that you consume, not
(34:19):
what the tropical fruit, the banana is, the watermelons and
the grapes, so they have more nutrition, but it can't
spike you sugar but certainly diabetics can enjoy fresh fruit.
Just be smart about it. Get a limited amount of
the fruit, eat it, and check into ours and see
how your sugars are doing.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Certainly I haven't been I haven't been treated for I'm
not being treated for diabetes. I keep wondering about it, though,
And so that's why I was asking, and you're talking
about these monitors. That's something you can do yourself. You
(35:00):
have to be prescribed. They have to be subscribed. How
does that work?
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Yes, these are prescription monitors as far as I know.
You need a prescription. Again, they can be expensive if
you do not have a prescription, but yes, just ask
your healthcare professional to get your prescription for the Freestyle
Libre or the dex Com. Those are the two that
I primarily use. Dxcom and they sort of connect to
(35:32):
your phone and basically, anytime you want to know your sugar,
you just look at your phone and it tells you
your sugar. You know, live why you wear these sensors,
and it provides you a graph and you can review
it and then records it and all this stuff and
you can put in your computer and show everybody and
you can just kind of see what happens when you
(35:53):
consume certain food items, you drink certain beverage items. You
can see exactly what happens with your sugar when you
eat it to drink it, so there's no guesswork. I
think for a lot of people when they eat and drink,
they're not checking. They don't know what they feel okay,
but their sugar could be three four hundred. They feel fine,
(36:15):
and I think if they feel fine, they think I'm good.
I mean, but then when they really check, it's high.
So four hundred three hundred is high. So I was
I guess A couple of weeks ago, I was sort
of promoting these devices for stocking stuffers a good investment
to be able to check your blood sugar with the
ease of just looking at your phone. So I think
(36:37):
probably they'll start blue bluetoothing with the smart watches out there.
The watches are getting better. They're able to check your pulse,
your heart rate, your blood pressure, now your sugar. I mean,
it's all right there on your wrist. I mean that's
just super convenient and you get the information you need.
So you can kind of see what happens with a
(36:59):
certain food items.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
And when when is sugar a dangerous or the body
doesn't How can I say it doesn't process it or
get rid of it or what where I understand just
about everything turns into sugar, and and that's how your
(37:29):
body gets its nutrition. Yeah, for all the foods to sugar. Yeah,
you know it's confusing.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Oh, I know, absolutely, Michael, I agree with you. Yeah,
that's one of the main fuels of the human body
is sugar, absolutely, no question. The problem is that in
our country and our society, we are over consuming these
sugary products are products that turn into sugar such that
(38:01):
our body gets a lot of exposure to sugar. And
for patients who have issues with diabetes one or two,
the level of sugar floating around in your bloodstream at
one particular time is higher than what the human body needs,
and that then becomes a more toxic presence in your bloodstream.
(38:23):
And it's not something that happens quickly. It's an accumulation
of exposure to the high sugar or spikes and sugar
that generates inflammation of the human body, generates inflammation of
the blood vessel wall, It encourages plaque, it makes the
blood thicker. All of these things are things that increase
(38:45):
the risk of strokes, heart attacks, cancers, all the ills
that we get, the immune system not working, rashes, infections,
because again, the amount of sugar that you've been exposed
to is more inflammatory to the human body. It's more
toxic to the human bodies. So we have to learn
(39:07):
how to moderate the consumption of sugar every day. Again,
the food manufacturers, the food industry, have helped us. They've
allowed us to have the ability to eat and drink
this stuff every day, all day long. Human body was
not really designed to have that exposure to these food
(39:28):
substances all day long. Honestly, in my opinion, eating one
mill a day is all we need to do, that
is it. And eating more than that tends to encourage
weight gain and tends to encourage inflammation in the human body. Again,
because we're eating a lot of these ultra processed foods
which tend to contain synthetic sugars, and these synthetic sugars
(39:52):
are unnatural. The human body is trying to figure out
what to do. It sees it as foreign, as an invader,
and it kicks on the inflammatory system. Inflammatory system is
on all the time, so it tends to start causing
injury to your body. We call it diabetes, we call
it hypertension, we call it rashes, memory, fog, fatigue, joint pain,
(40:15):
all these different physical elements that we get because the
inflammatory system is on, because we're getting exposed to these
types of food and beverage items, so have to try
and get back to the basics, you know, getting rid
of the sugary beverages, consuming more vegetables that you cook yourself,
frozen or good. So that's sort of the position. Yes,
(40:38):
it can be confused, and we do need sugar, but
the way we're doing in this country, we're over consuming it.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I've been told that it's good if your blood is
sick is to give blood donations every once in a while.
Is that a good idea?
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yes, there is an addition where, yes, the amount of
hemoglobein you have in your blood system does breach a
certain ceiling to the point that it becomes counterproductive. It
makes the blood flow thicker, it can encourage some clots
to form, and the way to fix that is to
(41:19):
drain your blood basically. So yes, you can go to
a blood donation station or some other infusion center and
they can basically take blood away from you do that
every two to three weeks and it works very well.
But the thing if you do have that, certainly get
to your primary get to your blood specialists. Make sure
(41:40):
there's no disease causing that. Most of the time there
is some issue with what you're doing. What you're exposing
your human body to. The most common bee tobacco abuse
and untreated sleep apnea, which generates hypoxia. And when the
body has low oxygen level every night, the body reacts
(42:01):
to that by generating more hemoglobin and your blood gets
thick as if a reaction to this. So those are
the two most common causes of that, but it could
be an underlying blood disorder, so you would need to
check with your hematology blood specialist from that one. Okay, Michael,
all right, I appreciate Michael's questions. It was good to
(42:24):
infro dialogue. Anyway, We're going to last break. Phone lines
open eight nine six K one hundred and three three zero. Okay,
I'll be back in two minutes. All right, welcome back
(42:49):
to the doc ovin Megalar. Phone lines are open. God
time goes by so quickly. We want to thank all
the callers as well as all the listeners. Remember, if
there's any particular topic that you would like and discuss,
you can call my office or you can call the station,
leave a message and we can get to that. Leonard
from Houston real fast.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
A matter a.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Problem with my balance of being able to not fall over.
Are there any exercises or drugs I can take for that?
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I would probably discourage drugs and yes, do some exercising,
probably working with a physical therapist who focuses on balance,
and certainly, Leonard, making sure that there's no other neurological
metabolic issues such as ANEMI or a low blood pressure
(43:42):
or strokes. So I would first do a work up,
but if nothing was found, certainly I would probably work
with a physical therapist who works with people with their balance.
That can be very helpful, but you certainly want to
make sure that there's nothing metabolically going on. Dizziness which
is a big, big physical complaint because it incorporates a
(44:08):
lot of different diseases. I would say fatigue and dizziness.
I get that a lot in the office. Those are
two big, nonspecific physical complaints that can mean ten different
things all at the same time and can be very
frustrating as a practitioner and as a patient if you
do have those. So God forbid if you get those.
(44:30):
But it does become a more common complaint as one
gets older. The more medications you get, the more physical
decline that you have. You're dizzy and you're tired. Just
the body's not working. My experience again, a lot of
times that inflammatory system is on for some reason. So
try to focus on keeping the inflammatory system to a
(44:50):
minimum again by avoiding a lot of sugary beverages, avoiding
a lot of ultra processed foods. As we head into
the new year, try to cook your own food, stay
away from the sugar beverage, to drink more water, and yes,
a little bit of exercise again. You don't have to sweat.
You can just walk outside for twenty thirty minutes. Enjoy
(45:13):
the sunshine, enjoy your neighborhood, maybe meet some neighbors, and
just get those legs going. Get the heart pump a
little bit. That's all it takes. Anyway, Appreciate your phone calls.
Happy New Year too, you We'll see you next year.
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