Podcasts about healthcast

Lance shares the Pilot taping for The HealthCast on HUR Voices. We are hoping SiriusXm picks up the show...

A recently published study by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) discovers a link between physical activity and cancer risk after gathering data from wrist sensors, which could help lead to major advances in cancer research. Alaina Shreves, predoctoral fellow at NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics Metabolic Epidemiology Branch, said the findings come from accelerometer-measured physical activity, which associated low-intensity exercise with up to a 26 percent decreased risk of certain cancers. Shreves highlighted the importance of wrist sensor data in cancer prevention. She also shared her excitement about a new project involving wearable technologies to determine how walking patterns impact cancer development.

The National Cancer Institute is exploring a new new tech-based treatment to help patients overcome a severe breathing disorder caused by the Human Papilloma Virus. Leaders from the agency's Center for Cancer Research — Dr. Clint Allen, a senior investigator, and Dr. Scott Norberg, an associate research physician — join us to discuss the findings from their recent study on the Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis, which can cause damage to the vocal cords and block airways, making it hard to breathe. Allen and Norberg shared details about the therapy, which uses a gorilla adenovirus based-technology to target the infection.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual milestone updates in its public health data strategy include expanding TEFCA, enabling easier data access and analytics capabilities, and a new shared workspace with its partners. Dr. Jennifer Layden, director at CDC's Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, detailed the latest in the agency's comprehensive data strategy and how advanced technologies are revolutionizing disease detection and community health protection. From wastewater surveillance to AI-powered data processing, the strategy's mission is to create a more responsive, interconnected public health system. Layden explored the critical challenges of data integration, highlighting how the CDC is developing an enterprise platform that enables faster, more accurate tracking of health threats. Layden also discussed the importance of interoperability between health care systems, the potential of AI in processing complex medical information and the practical ways these technological advances can help communities respond more effectively to emerging health challenges.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is exploring how it can leverage artificial intelligence to enhance cancer screening techniques, ultimately improving patient outcomes across the nation. Dr. Katrina Goddard, director of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at NCI, explains how her division is leveraging AI, and other innovative solutions like the low-dose CT scan, to better detect lung cancer and enable better access to data.

Data security and customer experience are top priorities for Jennifer Wendel, the newly confirmed permanent CIO at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Wendel emphasized the agency's commitment to implementing special cybersecurity measures and strengthening incident response processes to safeguard patient data from malicious actors. Wendel highlighted some of her other key priorities from HHS' 2022-2026 Strategic Plan. This includes improvements to grants.gov by introducing new tools designed to make accessing health services faster and more efficient. Wendel is also driving initiatives to upskill the HHS workforce, equipping employees with essential expertise in cybersecurity, data management and cloud technologies to meet evolving challenges.

The FDA is taking a proactive approach to its digital transformation efforts that its tech leaders highlighted in a new IT strategy. FDA CIO Vid Desai and Office of Business and Customer Assurance Director Josh Lehman discussed the new strategic plan that includes a vision for emerging technologies like quantum computing and empowering its tech workforce. The leaders also outlined their priorities in cybersecurity to navigate the technological shifts ahead in federal government.

Artificial Intelligence is empowering the Small Business Innovation Research Development Center at the National Cancer Institute to save the lives of women who have been diagnosed with common cancers. Brittany Connors, SBIR director of investor relations at NCI, discussed how she is working with startups to develop the technology that better detects breast cancer and cervical cancer in their early stages. Connors also highlighted NCI's partnerships with biotech companies and the progress that is being made with the world's first AI-driven platform that uses an automated ultrasound to screen for breast cancer without radiation.

The Department of Veterans Affairs' prior pilot shuttling veterans to appointments is now a live program. The Uber-Health Connect Initiative addresses one of the biggest barriers to access for veterans across the country: transportation. Though they might be eligible for care, veterans getting to and from appointments often encounter difficulty or roadblocks because of lack of ability to drive or they just don't have reliable infrastructure in remote and rural areas. Veterans Health Administration Chief of Innovation Indra Sandal and Veterans Transportation Program Director Benjamin Williams discuss the program's journey from pilot to live program. They share updates and lessons learned, discuss the technical undertaking around its dashboards and APIs, and highlight the future of the program.

The National Cancer Institute's new Artificial Intelligence Resource (AIR) program is helping clinicians better diagnose and treat cancer patients.  AIR enables researchers to build AI models that help to better detect cancer through imaging and determine the best treatment options. Dr. Baris Turkbey, senior clinician and radiologist with the Molecular Imaging Branch at NCI, explained the role AI algorithms play in classifying bone lesions in metastatic prostate cancer as well as how AI impacts the radiation dose in CT scans. Turkbey also shares details about a new concept NCI is researching called multimodal AI, which processes data from multiple modalities and sources to create more robust outputs.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog My medical practice, BioBalance® Health, allows me to hear all of the myths about how to lose weight, when I am in consultation with a new patient. All of my female patients and some of the men have at one time, or multiple times been fooled by the false promises of friends, doctors, and advertisers, about quick and easy ways to lose weight.  If you have bounced around trying every diet out there on the internet and failed to lose weight, then I can help you stop the pointless trial and error process, and help you embrace the difficult and time-consuming process of truly losing body fat and keeping it off! If you thought that all we do at BioBalance Health is replace women and men's testosterone with long-acting bioidentical pellets, you are partly right!  In addition to treating our patients' hormone deficiencies we also have the goal of attempting to guide them toward a healthy long life!  This involves treating “pre-diseases” like prediabetes that other doctors don't treat until damage has been done and guiding our patients as to the right way to achieve their ideal weight.  One of the important roles we have in assisting our patients with “fat-loss” is to disprove all the lies our patients have been told over the years by nearly everyone about how to lose weight.  Some of these myths are actually believable (unless you are a doctor and understand the physiology of weight loss), but still never work. Other diet plans work for some people with specific genetic qualifications, but not for the majority of the population.   Then, there are diet plans that are so bizarre and illogical, that they literally make me giggle when my patients describe the protocol (or advice) they have been following without results. Why are these myths so prevalent?  It is because we have been programed since childhood to eat in a way and in amounts that are inevitably going to cause us to be obese. It takes a lot of work to turn those lifestyles, habits and food choices around to lead my patients to lasting fat loss and long-lasting health. Hard work never “sells” and a time-consuming diet doesn't either so businesses make a lot of money keeping you fat! You may or may not have heard these! I will tell you why they   #1 Myth- If you eat fewer calories, you will lose weight, and all calories are the same. This is one of the myths that is spoken by doctors every day because they learned it 30 years ago in medical school, and it just isn't true!  To begin with calories in food are metabolized differently depending on whether they are Protein, Fat or Carbohydrate. It takes more calories to metabolize Protein, and more than fat and the food that burns the least calories to be metabolized are carbohydrates.  So, food calories are different depending on which food group they are from. Eg. There is a vast difference between the weight you might lose, or gain based on the food group your calories came from. For example:  If you eat a steak with 500 calories verses a slice of birthday cake/icing that contains 500 calories, it takes more calories to breakdown protein so you USE calories to make it into blood sugar, while the birthday cake takes almost no energy to make BS and readily makes fat if it is not used in exercise. Another factor that causes counting calories to be a losing proposition, is that every food stimulates insulin differently, and insulin that is over stimulated over time gives a person insulin resistance which causes them to be so efficient that they can go a day and not eat anything, and still fail to lose weight.  If you have tried a low-calorie diet and that happened, then you are not alone.   Going back to the steak and birthday cake example, steak does not stimulate insulin very much and birthday cake is likely to over stimulate your insulin making insulin resistance worse and doesn't make energy but is stored as fat! The third reason limiting calories cannot be the basis of a weight loss diet is that an individual human body has a vast number of factors that influence how you as a unique individual burns calories, therefore any one calorie limiting diet will not work for the majority of humans. We are all different with individual requirements for the types and amounts of food we need which is based on our genetics, our history of healthy or unhealthy diets, our daily exercise, and how obese we are when we start to lose weight. What that means simply is that there is no easy way to attain your ideal weight and stay there but limiting your calories.  Weight watchers tried this method for years and I never found a person who lost weight by eating a certain number of any type of calories (candy, dessert, or fruit and vegetables with the equivalent number of calories) in one day, who lost weight and kept it off.  If you eat 1200 calories of fruit, veggies, eggs, fish and or meat throughout the day and have an active lifestyle, you will lose fat that day. If you eat 1200 calories you save up all day to eat one dessert you will probably gain weight because it will overstimulate your insulin and make your calories into fat and not energy.  Weight Watchers changed their program several years ago when their clients realized their system didn't work. Counting calories to lose weight is a myth you should avoid.   Myth #2: The promise:  “If you just  eat _________ (one food like grapefruit/cabbage soup/ salad/juice take your pick)  for ____ weeks you will lose 20 lbs. The cabbage soup diet is an example of this failed “theory” which invaded the US female population in the early 2000s and my patients embraced it completely believing that they would lose 20 pounds in 4 weeks.  I objected and told them that eating only one food for 4 weeks was unhealthy, a baseless fad which was unlikely to work, but very few of them listened.   It turns out that Cabbage is a food that slows the metabolism of people with   A blood type, and the majority of citizens in my city, St. Louis, have A blood type!  At their next GYN visit my patients were all moaning over the fact that they had GAINED 20 pounds on the cabbage soup diet! Not eating a variety of foods is unhealthy and this proves that even an unhealthy diet doesn't promise weight loss for everyone. So please don't follow fads. they are baseless, and you might gain weight and not lose it!   Myth #3 You can exercise your way to fat loss,  eat whatever you like and still lose weight. I believe exercise should be part of every human's healthy lifestyle, and exercise is necessary to speed up the metabolism while you eat a low carb, high protein diet and refrain from bad habits like alcohol consumption. However, eating like you normally do and exercising hours daily will not bring about weight loss for 90% of the population of the US. Lasting weight loss doesn't occur unless you add eating a healthy diet, stopping bad habits and taking the required supplements necessary to decrease your fat mass, and exercise.  Yes, you have to do it all!    Increasing muscle increases our metabolic rate and exercising muscles increases the loss of fat, but both muscle building and muscle strength require high protein diets, with a moderate amount of fat, and without a lot of carbohydrate.  Eating carbohydrates unchecked can cause the weight loss promised by exercise-based weight loss programs to fail, over and over again. After the age of 45 your muscle will not be preserved while you lose weight if you do not replace your low testosterone and exercise too.  So it is not ONE factor that facilitates weight loss, it is complicated and there is a perfect fat-loss plan for everyone…you just have to find it!   Myth #4 Low fat diets are a good way to lose body fat and prevent heart disease! Every study has failed to support this idea!  Low fat diets don't lower cholesterol, but low carb diets do!  We were told by cardiologist for the past 30 years that low fat diets would lower the cholesterol and the atherosclerosis in your arteries…but they lied!  It is now accepted by most doctors that low fat diets leave people hungry which causes them to  eat too many carbs resulting in an increase in cholesterol and weight gain. Re-introducing fats into your diet should include healthy fats (fat from seafood, vegetables like olive oil, milk fat and other omega 3,6, and 9 ) are necessary for brain health and good body composition. The advice by the US FDA and Medical specialists to eat a low-fat diet has contributed to over 50% obesity, dementia, and diabetes in America. If your cardiologist tells you that a low fat diet is going to prevent heart disease, then look for a more up to date cardiologist.   Myth #5 High protein diets are not effective for weight loss. High Protein-Low Carb diets are the best diet for the majority of people in the US.  This diet is the most effective type of eating plan for your weight loss.  If you want to know what % of protein, fat and carbohydrates you should eat, then go to our website, BioBalancehealth.com and become a weight loss patient with genetic guidance and you will learn how to distribute your foods based on your unique genetic map.  High protein diets keep you “full” longer after a meal or snack, so your calorie intake is naturally lower. Reserve your intake of carbs to supply you with physical energy before and after exercise. Otherwise, your diet should consist of high protein and fat, and limited carbs, with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit (these food are not considered carbohydrate).   Myth #6 Diet soda is a “free food” because there are no calories, so I can drink as much as I want to and lose weight!  Diet soda contains many chemicals, salt and includes a chemical sweetener called aspartame.  Salt causes swelling, and all chemical sweeteners stimulate insulin and act to make you hungrier than if you drank unsweetened iced tea, water or anything sweetened with stevia.  Stevia is a plant that does not contribute to insulin resistance and diabetes.  The majority of diet sodas stimulate insulin just like carbohydrates do and contribute to weight loss failure.  Every time you drink one you should consider it just like eating a carbohydrate!    Summary: Following the advice above will prevent so much frustration with future weight loss attempts, and will help you achieve your ideal weight through avoiding these myths about weight loss. Remember that weight loss fads have been around for a long time without a public refute of the obvious myths above.   Fads should be ignored if you want effective weight loss. Remember that Instagram and Facebook posts are only motivated by profit, even though they spread crazy diets as based on fact. There is no one monitoring the “fads” validity. Please don't listen to fads of people who are not doctors or nurses trained in weight loss! More Myths about weight loss next week!

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog The second set of myths about weight loss involve what we have been told by our federal government through the FDA and surgeon general, that is believed by most of us, but the motivation of the government is not generally for your well-being. Myth #7 Salt is bad for you, and you should limit your intake of salt to minimal amounts. A large study found that eating less than 3 grams of salt a day increases one's mortality by 25% when compared with moderate intake.  It is a fact that salt is vital to life, this contradicts the AHA who preaches that a low salt diet is what is required for health. Myth #8. Replacing hormones at menopause, estradiol and testosterone, will cause women to gain weight. The advent of menopause changes a woman's metabolism and makes every woman in industrialized nations insulin resistant which slows their metabolism and causes women to gain fat and lose muscle which lowers the metabolic rate even lower because muscle mass burns 90% of our calories, and as it shrinks the Basic metabolic rate drops. The only way to counteract this cataclysmic change is to replace estradiol and testosterone in a bio-identical and non-oral delivery system (pellets, patches, topical applications and vaginal tabs.  Even with sex hormone replacement, insulin resistance is Still a factor in weight gain, so a low carb, high protein diet and medical treatment with Metformin, or Wegovy or Mounjaro may be necessary to regain ideal weight after menopause. Myth #9 Milk products are bad for you, and you should take them out of your diet. Milk is not metabolized in the same way and does not have the same metabolic effects as milk products like yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, and all cheeses. The majority of Americans can tolerate, and even need milk products as a valuable source of protein.  There is a small minority of people who cannot tolerate milk products, and even fewer who respond to milk products with inflammation. If you do not have GI symptoms, or joint aches when you eat milk products then you are not necessarily healthier to cut them out of your diet. Not only is milk good for most Americans, but it has been proven to decrease oxidative stress and inflammation….the very things it is accused of increasing! Myth #10 Skim milk is better for everyone than whole milk, and those people on a diet should opt for skim milk. This myth is born from the myth that we should eat low fat diets to lose weight. It is a fact that Whole milk has more fat than skim milk, but skim milk is higher in carbohydrate, is generally consumed in larger amounts and is not as satisfying as whole milk. Skim milk is 55% carbohydrate/43%protein/5% fat while whole milk is 50% fat/20% protein and 30% carbohydrate. Unfortunately, the processes we use to make milk safe to drink (Pasturization and Homogenation) remove the necessary enzymes (Lipases, and Lactase) that help humans tolerate lactose sugar in milk.  The process of skimming milk removes the Vitamin D and A that are in unprocessed milk. If you can drink milk, choose smaller volumes of whole milk, not skimmed, if you like milk products like listed above, then add them to your high protein diet.  A 64 million person- year study recently revealed that whole milk drinkers, milk product eater had a significant decrease in all-cause mortality. Skim milk drinkers did not have a decrease in all cause mortality. Myth #11 Cutting animal products in your diet will decrease your cholesterol and therefore prevent heart attacks. So why do we follow fads? I believe it is because we are human and we look for the easiest path to a goal, and easy diets appeal to most of us who want to lose weight, however losing weight is complex and involves a good medical based plan and a change in your lifestyle. Your plan should start with seeking the right kind of medical advice that fits the diet to your blood work, medical history and in some cases your genetics.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog 2024 has been the hottest summer of the decade and it is causing many of you to go to the ER with heat related sickness. There are several risk factors that may put you at high risk for illness relating to the heat. I have been present several times when someone collapses from heat stroke which is the most severe heat related illness. The heat can kill you if it progresses this far.  It is interesting, athletes who won't back off from their outdoor activities, and will work out in the highest heat of the day. Heat stroke can cause a person to collapse, drop their blood pressure, act out, or pass out, or even seize, all of which are signs to call 911, and start emergency procedures: elevate their legs, if possible, place ice packs under the arm pits, around the sides of the neck, and on their groin. The highest risk patients: Babies and toddlers are over 65 On multiple medications Taking a diuretic Obese patients People with anemia and other blood conditions Patients with coronary heart disease Patients with atrial fib Those people who don't drink water, just caffeinated drinks-dehydrated people Who have just been flying (dehydrated) Who are hung over (dehydrated) Who have been nauseated and vomiting in the days before going out and working or playing in the heat. Ask the heat stroke victim to drink fluids if possible. Of course, make sure they stop the activity they are engaged in outside in the heat. Move them to a cool place while you are waiting for emergency help to arrive. Heat stroke can cause a vascular stroke or death, so emergency treatment is necessary. If possible, offer the victim water with electrolytes in them (NUUN-Sport) and some sugar in case they are also hypoglycemic as well. If they can't drink, which is a side effect of heat stroke, put a wet washcloth in your mouth to suck water from it slowly. My husband and I went on a trip to Cinque Terra, Italy with another couple last fall to hike the trails between the 5 towns that line the cliffs over the shores of Liguria.  The hike was supposed to start at 8 am so we could avoid the heat of the day….and it was in the 90s and humid…but as luck would have it the transportation we had arranged for wasn't able to take us to the starting point and we didn't get there until  10:30.  We packed several water bottles and a few snacks but we were not prepared for the  4  ½ hour trek high above the mediterranean on a trail that was 3 feet wide and involved thousands of steps up and down…we had drunk most of  our water in the first 2.5 hours and were very hot and sweaty the whole time….about 40 minutes from the town of Vernazza, my husband started stumbing, and talking nonsense…he had stopped sweating and couldn't walk….There was no place to lay him down without blocking the path and we found a shady spot for him to recline and put his feet up.  I had some Nuun-sport electrolytes which I had put in my water and had been drinking, so I put 2 electolye tablets in ½ bottle of water and tried to get him to drink it…..he was delirious and refused, and I had to force him to drink…he fell asleep and we received water and cold water bottles to put around his neck from passersby.  Ideally, we would have gotten ER help which he really needed, but there was no way to get emergency care to him and at 6-4 and 230 he was too heavy to carry/drag…and remember we were on the edge of a 200 ft cliff. When he had slept 20 minutes I kept my finger on his pulse and he was thready and fast…..Thankfully he rallied and we got to Vernazza and he walked into the ocean after drinking several glasses of water to cool off and fell asleep on the beach for an hour until he was ready to get on the train back to our hotel….This was one of the scariest times of my life because I knew what to do but didn't have the IVs, or water or ice or anything to help him.  Remember this and make sure you are always prepared for the worst scenario when you are active in the heat!   So how do you know when you are getting close to heat stroke?  You feel weak and out of breath. Your pulse rises, you stop urinating, and you STOP sweating.  You are getting close to heatstroke when you start to feel cold even though the ambient temperature is high.  When you feel dizzy and unstable on your feet…the next thing to happen is vascular collapse See the stages of Heat Related Illnesses below, which we are all at risk for! This is from the NEJM.   Heat-Related Illness Description Treatment Severe illness     Heat stroke A multisystem, life-threatening illness characterized by elevation of the core body temperature (to >40°C) and CNS dysfunction   Classic heat stroke: most often occurs among older persons with compromised behavioral and physiological compensatory responses to heat exposure Exertional heat stroke: most often occurs among healthy persons during extreme physical exertion, which results in excessive metabolic heat generation, often but not always with concomitant ambient heat exposure Move patient to cool environment; manage airway, breathing, and circulation; administer rapid cooling with cold-water or ice-water immersion or other means; administer intravenous rehydration; and evacuate to emergency department after on-site cooling is performed. ICU admission is warranted for management of end-organ sequelae. Moderate illness     Heat exhaustion Profound fatigue, weakness, nausea, headache, or dizziness (or a combination of these symptoms) resulting from a decrease in body water content or blood volume due to water or salt depletion from heat exposure; mild elevation (

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog Dave Glover, the most listened to talk radio voice in the Midwest, invited me on his show last week to talk about BioBalance Health Testosterone Pellets for men and women and BioBalance Skin my medical esthetic spa.  His show is on KMOX, the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals.  Dave Glover and I have worked together for 10 years, and he is unabashedly my patient who has experienced the superiority of our medical care that is unique, and preventive, in addition to being the best testosterone pellet therapy in the Midwest. We go far beyond to direct our patients to a healthier life. Dr. Maupin Radio Interview with Dave GloverWhen patients have their first appointment our doctors have already reviewed their lab amd medical history, and the first appointment is chocked full of information about the meaning of their laboratories, diagnosing medical problems such as insulin resistance and prediabetes to finding diseases they were unaware of.  At the same one-hour long appointment we work with our patients to develop an individualized diet and exercise program for their unique situations. The secret to our success in bringing 95% of our patients back to health is the foundation of replacing testosterone in the most effective and safest method with replacement non-micronized testosterone estradiol pellets.  We do much more in a short time to direct our patients to reversing the symptoms of aging (the symptoms of testosterone and estradiol loss) while we prevent future illnesses like diabetes and help our patients move to healthier lifestyles. Dave asked me what is new about BioBalance Heath.  We are always improving our knowledge, based on new medical research, and our newest offering is a simple genetic Diet and Metabolism Test called Nutrigen.  This test is done by simply doing a self-cheek swab and never has to be repeated!  Right now we are offering this test for $300 (a discount of $150).  If you have tried many diets and still don't know what type of food you should eat, our test is meant to be a ONE-TIME test to tell you everything you genetically need to lose weight.  Or if health is your goal and not weight loss and you want to know how to eat for the rest of your life, this diet is a necessity!  It comes with a 60-page report. What % of your diet should be fat, carbohydrates or protein? What times of day should you eat? Should you eat snacks? Does exercise help you lose weight or not? Is a low carb diet the best one for you? a low-fat diet? A low-calorie diet? Is a high fat diet the best for you to be healthy? What supplements do you genetically need? Everything you have ever asked about your individual path to ideal weight! Everyone who elects to take this test will get a 60-page report about every genetic factor that affects their diet, metabolism, exercise and weight loss.  It even includes what genetic factors are working against them and their ability to lose weight. When their test comes back, our Nurse Weight Loss Specialist, Sarah Hooper RN will be ready for them to make an appointment to go over the report and explain a healthy eating plan. We always have used the INBODY machine for following body composition and not just weight for ALL our patients, pellet, weight loss, and non-pellet patients. Dave then asked about what was new in our BioBalance® Skin Office? We are always looking for ways for our patients to look younger, and healthier as they age. Dr. Maupin and Sullivan's criteria to adding services is that they are TRULY EFFECTIVE, as well as painless, and the service is affordable compared to other pathways to the same outcome. This year we have added a painless hair growing ultrasound treatment called TED.  It can treat any form of hair loss, as long as there are some follicles left to stimulate. Women and men come in for 4 to 6 45-minute treatments, that feel like a scalp massage.  There are no necessary serums or vitamins to buy. You just have to keep the areas treated out of the sunlight for the month following the treatment.  This is a real breakthrough and compared to very costly hair transplants and painful PRP treatments this is a game anger! For women who have lost weight and ask us every time they come in for weight loss or pellets what they can do about sagging and crepey skin, now we have a variety of treatment s  to offer them: Opus treatments for the chin and jowls, Juvashape to tighten areas all over the body. EM Sculpt to build muscle, lose subcutaneous fat and tight skin, and EM Face to take the place of a Facelift!  Our patients are encouraged to come in for a free consultation to help them decide what they can do to “SHAPE UP” after successful weight loss! We offer episome treatments with our Aqua Gold treatments to rejuvenate tighten, smooth out and lift facial skin….It is a step up from  microneedling for more mature skin. We literally offer the MOST EFFECTIVE, MOST ECONOMICAL TREATMENTS with the least pain and best results anywhere!  BioBalance Skin Staff will guide you to the appropriate choice of treatments so you can be assured you have the best esthetic treatment for your individual problem. Our Goal is to help our patients look as good as they feel with their BioBalance Pellet treatments!

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog In general, I spend my time defending women and the fact that our problems and sexual physiology is ignored, by the governmental powers and physician organizations in the US, so I try to do my part to bring information to women about their hormones and the aging process. Today I am changing my focus to men and the way men's normal sexual function is considered a “normal” and rarely discussed outside the men's locker room and or porn sites. So here goes…The fact is that men's sexuality isn't just the act of sex, but men spend a lot of their sexual energy on fantasies and just thinking about having sex.  Men's ability to have an orgasm is not just a wham- bam—thank you…well you know the phrase…and there are many physiologic factors that must work, in the background to bring a man from thinking about sex or desire, to an orgasm. Sadly, in the current environment couples don't talk about sex….they don't tell their partner what makes them excited or even what they want…. because none of us can read minds, too many of us don't get what we want when it comes to sex. With lack of communication between partners, leads couples to trial and error without a map.  Neither sex knows how the other sex “works”.  I decided to describe the normal series of what men go through on their way to orgasm to educate them and their partners.  In addition, the process is not always the same in each person and as men age the time between the first sexual thought to completion gets longer and longer…sometimes these detours include episodes of losing an erection, sometimes getting it back and sometimes not which leads to frustration of both partners. In youth when a man's free testosterone is high and his arteries are free of plaque, between puberty and age 35, erections may occur often, and they last a long time if the man is stimulated for a long period of time. At this point sex is automatic and easy to complete to orgasm and ejaculation. As time goes on, free Testosterone starts to decrease with age, as does the diameter of a man's arteries…blood flow doesn't rush to the pelvis to create an erection like it did in youth. The things that lower free testosterone.  What happens with age that cause erections and ejaculation to be less and less automatic and easy? T and free T drops after age 35 in most men and becomes critical by age 55, even in healthy men. Ejaculate decreases due to lowering of free T Vasectomies decrease the volume of ejaculate by 1/3 Stress causes free T to decrease. Hypertension causes arteries to contract and deliver less blood to the pelvis for an erection. High blood sugar and diabetes destroys the arteries in the pelvis making blood have a more difficult time getting to the penis. Stress causes Cortisol to rise and free T decreases, Obesity increases the estrogens in men and that decreases free T by binding it with sex hormone protein and inactivating it. Any medication the constricts blood vessels (ADD medicine, Phentermine, speed, etc) decreases blood flow to the pelvis. Some medications that lower blood pressure lower It in the pelvis too low so that men are impotent (e.g. Lisinopril). For men who don't know all these medical, aging changes that happen to most men, these changes cause fear and anxiety which of course makes it worse.  Men who have this issue (most men) are even reticent to talk to me about it and they haven't talked to their spouse either. So here is what I tell them:  You are aging like everyone else, and that fact can't be changed, however, your lifestyle and your medical health, or poor health is affecting your orgasms and your ability to have sex.  These factors CAN be changed.  You can change your BP medicine to one that doesn't impair erections.  You can get your diabetes or obesity under control, and you can improve your erections.  However, to get it all back you will need testosterone replacement if your free T is under 129 ng/dl. The safest way to accomplish this is with my practice BioBalance® Health…we do it better and know all the tricks to making you healthy productive and potent! What is in the ejaculate? mature sperm are mixed with whitish, protein-rich fluids with prostaglandins are produced by the prostate. These fluids nourish and support the sperm so they can live after ejaculation for a limited time to fertilize an egg.  This mixture of fluid and sperm, known as semen, and is what is moves through the urethra in the form of ejaculate. Sensory stimulation travels from the skin to the brain and stimulates dopamine and endorphins which are neurotransmitters that make a man fee happily ecstatic during and after an ejaculation.  These neurotransmitters also stimulate the Hypothalamus to make oxytocin, a bonding hormone that binds couples together. Many nerves, vessels and the brain are involved in a successful sexual encounter. The culmination of a sexual encounter is complex and involves the whole body. I find it interesting that the “medical view” of orgasm is still divided into 4 different steps when, if you are a male (or even a female who has had sex with a male) the divisions seem very arbitrary and is ALWAYS connected to ejaculation. It is a fact that men and women can have sexual intercourse and orgasm without ejaculation. The following is how the practice of medicine describes the male sexual act.   In contrast I have educated my patients by comparing sex to a on the fact that men can have orgasms which occur in the brain when endorphins flood the neurons, even without ejaculation.  So I will discuss, the male sexual experience to them, not with the “4 easy steps of male sexual response”, but as a “process” of achieving orgasm in men.  It is more like a recipe, that requires each ingredient to be added in order, but sometimes you can stop in the middle and start again.  It is not always a straight line from sexual desire to orgasm. In general, all men need testosterone to have sexual desire, and sexual desire to have sex, however both men and women can be physically or visually stimulated to be aroused without true sexual desire. If the man has a long history of having sex often, then the habit of having a sexual response can be achieved without enough testosterone, however the erection will not necessarily last long enough.   Continued physical stimulation can bypass desire, and therefore testosterone, and a man can be stimulated into having an erection of sorts and into having an orgasm with or without ejaculate An erection requires testosterone to become fully erect, however there is a “work around” now and men without testosterone can have an erection with Viagra, Cialis pills, or prostaglandin injections into the penis itself. Men can also have a penile implant placed so they can have sex without testosterone or Viagra/Cialis. However, let's talk about sex with testosterone in men who have good pelvic blood flow who don't require medication to become erect. The second necessary ingredient after testosterone is stimulation, which can be with touch, visual stimulation, auditory stimulation or even imagination that causes a man to be stimulated. The sexual response to any of these stimulations send messages through the nerves from the brain to the pelvis that dilates his veins and arteries. This sends blood to the penis from the arteries and blocks the veins from draining the blood out.  This creates an erection. Testosterone's role is to cause the arteries to dilate by stimulating the production of nitric oxide from the arterial walls. Remember the stimulation? The ongoing stimulation (mental, visual, auditory or imaginary) keeps the erection hard with vascular dilation. At this point stimulation can be changed or paused and other stimulation can prolong this part of the process.  Holding the base of the penis can keep it hard, or any tight encircling toy can keep the erection from proceeding to orgasm for some time or the erection can go away without continued stimulation. The third step is the preparation for orgasm which can last from as long as 30 minutes and as short as 2 minutes. A clear “pre-ejaculate” is produced that lubricates the penis for intercourse, and if ejaculation is to take place there is a “loading of semen” that takes place from the seminal vesicles readying the man for ejaculation.  At this point the penis contracts the muscles quickly in rapid repeating emissions that shoot the semen out of the urethra. This is the orgasm and ejaculation that occur together, which is typical of normal youthful ejaculation.  As men get older the force at which they ejaculate decreases. After ejaculation/orgasm the brain is flooded in endorphins, the feel-good neurotransmitters, that make a human feel happy and satisfied.  This is solely the result of the orgasm after a sexual encounter. The feeling of ejaculation does relieve pelvic pressure but is not needed to experience orgasm in most men. Medical science has been able supply an assist for desire (testosterone) and erectile function (vasodilation and release of nitric oxide but they have not discovered the “pill” to make ejaculations occur or to improve their volume.  It is important for an aging man to accept that orgasm doesn't require ejaculation since we don't have an answer to recreating the youthful ejaculation.  Besides age, vasectomy can also limit ejaculation.  dehydration, vasoconstrictors, anti-hypertensive drugs and diuretics can limit the volume of the ejaculate as well. After the “process of sexual orgasm” the penis loses tumescence, blood leaves the pelvis and overall relaxation occurs throughout the body. Then a period of time must pass before another erection can occur.  Over time some “twice a day men” can turn into once every week…..this can be changed by practicing…..having sex more often. The sexual response in both men and women is more like a symphony with several movements, than a recipe, but it is definitely not a series of steps that is followed in every human in every circumstance. It is the job of the physician to help patients both understand and live with any variations in the sexual process.  Much of what I do is act as a teacher to my patients who need to understand their own bodies and any dysfunctions thereof.  Understanding becomes treatment over time.

A special initiative and data registry at the National Cancer Institute is helping researchers understand and treat rare childhood cancers. Dr. Mary Frances Wedekind, a pediatric oncologist and assistant research physician with the Pediatric Oncology Branch at NCI, explains how the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative follows children, teens and young adults for many years to collect key information about their cancer diagnosis, imaging and treatments. She added that the initiative along with the Rare Cancer Data Registry are critical to helping researchers access and analyze the clinical and genomic data that could potentially lead to more effective targeted therapies and new drug developments that could  improve the standards of care for young patients.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog On the last Heath cast #662 we talked about the choice of doing nothing when faced with symptoms of hormone deficiency and symptoms of aging, versus the choice to actively live a healthy life. I believe that concentrating on yourself as you age can save your lifestyle and or your life!  Preventing illness as you age is as important as paying your taxes! An unhealthy living plan without replacing deficient hormones can lead you on  a road to illness and early death.  If that doesn't motivate you, then consider yourself warned. Recently I saw a man in his late 70s who I had seen about 7 years before this.  He and his wife entered my office, and I could see that some of my medical predictions had come true.  This man had developed every disease I told him his blood work and physical self-predicted. Despite the treatment plan I gave him, he ignored me on diet, exercise, supplements, stopping smoking and drinking I gave him 7 years earlier.  He admitted that everything I told him would happen, did happen and now he is in constant pain, he is morbidly obese, and has trouble even walking.  He now has diabetes and has had a heart attack and 7 ER admissions for his heart since.  He did not do one thing I told him, except just recently he stopped drinking alcohol. He now is ready to live a healthy lifestyle however since he has so many diseases, he spends an enormous amount of money on medications and medical care.  The cost of care was his reason to ignore hormones, but he ignored my lifestyle advice as well.  Even though now a lifestyle change and testosterone pellets will improve his life, he still has done damage to his blood vessels and heart not to mention his joints and back.  These aging changes I cannot prevent, just stop the rapid progression. When you become our patient, we ask you a variety of questions that help us design a treatment plan, more accurately named a “longevity plan”. Symptoms of Testosterone, Estradiol and Thyroid deficiency: A combined list of symptoms of aging for men and women include: Loss of Testosterone Symptoms: ·      Loss of sex drive ·      Loss of erections, and morning erections ·      Loss of orgasms for women ·      Fatigue ·      Insomnia ·      Depression/anxiety attacks ·      Loss of strength and muscle mass ·      Frailty ·      Can't think clearly or remember names of things ·      Loss of motivation ·      Loss of efficiency at work ·      Weight gain ·      Belly fat increase ·      Sagging skin ·      Arthritis ·      Osteoporosis Loss of estradiol (women): ·      Hot flashes ·      Night sweats ·      Anxiety attacks ·      Irritability ·      Dry vagina ·      Painful intercourse ·      Sagging skin ·      Frontal balding ·      Urine loss ·      Dry skin ·      Shrinking vagina ·      Osteoporosis ·      Arthritis    Thyroid deficiency: ·      Hair loss ·      Fat gain ·      Fatigue ·      Depression ·      Feels cold all the time ·      Very dry skin ·      All body swelling ·      Constipation ·      High cholesterol ·      Low blood pressure and pulse These symptoms above can be treated and in treating them you will experience not only a lack of symptoms, but a longer healthier life. However, if you also change your lifestyle you can avoid the diseases of aging too! Through replacing your deficient hormones, add only individually chosen supplements and develop a healthy whole food eating plan, with 3-7 days a week of exercise (1 hour/ session).    What do I mean? What is a healthy Lifestyle? ·      If you smoke STOP! ·      If you Drink more than 15 alcoholic drinks a week, then stop, If you aren't addicted to alcohol, you should decrease your drinking to < or = 7 drinks a week. ·      Exercise 30-60 minutes a day (consecutively) ·      Throw out all the simple carbs in your kitchen: all cereals and granola, use olive oil to cook and no vegetable oils, Processed dry food in boxes or cans should be donated to charity. ·      Buy fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, cheese yogurt, fresh or frozen meat, fish chicken, turkey for meals at home. ·      Sourdough bread is the best choice in breads—it has no gluten but still has carbohydrates, so small amounts are advised. ·      Do something you love every day ·      Look for opportunities to have fun You CAN turn your bad genes off through a healthy lifestyle!  Now we know even your genes can be combatted through healthy living. The diseases of aging can be adjusted or avoided.  When thinking about what your risks might be, remember that Family history is a broad and faulty way to determine your risk, but genetic testing is a better way to determine your risk of disease that is found in in your chromosomes and genes. The combination of your genes are uniquely yours. Knowing what your genes are can guide you to an individual healthy lifestyle for avoiding disease and living a long life.   We offer this service for our patients who want to know what the perfect diet and lifestyle plan is.  It is called the   Nutrigen test is optional but a great idea if you are trying to renovate your life! This saliva test (no needles) can determine the genetics you inherited from your ancestors.  We then share the information with you and develop a lifestyle plan that includes lifetime changes in eating to decrease carbohydrates from grains and sugar, increase protein, and remove as many processed foods as possible. The Nutrigen test tells you what genes you inherited that impacts your health, but it doesn't tell me whether you have turn any of your bad genes off or your bad genes on! We offer that test to our patients who are trying to lose fat or just reframe their life so they can live more productively and as much without disease as possible, Now if you aren't convinced that you need to replace your hormones with testosterone plus estradiol if you are a postmenopausal woman, or if you figure you will   Does a future of having Alzheimer's disease strike your panic button enough to change what you eat and how much you exercise, and to replace your Testosterone with Pellets?  Or is it losing a limb from diabetes? Being unable to talk from a Stroke?  Would losing your ability to move around as you do today from a Stroke or heart attack make you scared enough to value your health and clean up your lifestyle?  Or would the prospect of never having sex again be the trigger that causes you to be as careful with you own health, body,  and mind, preserving it for the rest of your life? Medical care is not just about fixing the sick through medications or surgery anymore, although that is the paradigm we have all grown up in.  That dated belief may have dominated our  belief  about what medical care can do for us and how it works because until recently medical experts didn't understand how diseases sprouted from a bad lifestyle, or because we were taught that our genes determine our health and there is nothing we can do about it…..but we now know that leading a healthy lifestyle, using food as fuel and not entertainment, and being moderate in everything from food, to alcohol to exercise is the key to a long healthy life. New information in the last 20 years has come to light  revealing that an individual can turn off bad genes through a healthy lifestyle…. Your genetics do not  dictate your fate, but it is your behavior that dictates the diseases you will suffer fromwith through the last half of your life  and eventually die from. Let's talk about the most dangerous lifestyle choices that you can make. You must think about your body as a luxury car that requires a lot of maintenance, the best quality gas to fuel it, and loving care every day to maintain its value and performance.  Our bodies are a thousand times more complicated than the highest- performance car, and I contend that the most beneficial maintenance you can do is to think about your health every day especially when you are presented with behavioral choices.  For instance, when you wake up you should stretch and make sure your muscles are not spasmed.  YThe you should think about the two most important choices you will make all day, “When will I work out for an hour?” and “What shall I eat today?”. .  Exercise is key to managing your insulin sensitivity and blood sugar, protecting you from diabetes and heart disease.  Why would you avoid this inexpensive protection from these deadly diseases?   Planning what you will eat that day (or for the next week) should include  healthy, non-processed foods and drinks with plenty of water and protein and limited carbohydrates from grains especially from wheat. But you counter my suggestion ,” Wwhat should I do when everyone around me is overeating processed foods and drinking alcohol and sugared soda?”.  My answer is, “Stop and think! Do you drive over a cliff because the guy in front of you does? No!  Be brave and don't make a scene., just choose to eat and drink in a healthy manner…if that is not available, leave and find the food and drink your body needs!”  You are no longer a teenager when all the mistakes we make are “forgiven” by our bodies.  That stops working after age 20!   I think you should look at taking care of yourself like being engaged in working toward a goal, whether it be in sports, climbing the corporate ladder, getting a raise or getting your degree.  Health is a goal that will repay you throughout your life. I no longer work in OBGYN not because I didn't enjoy it, or it wasn't profitable enough, I stopped running around with my hair on fire, stressed out and exhausted without adequate sleep or nutrition because it was bad for me!  My medical practice literally made me sick!  I gained weight, felt terrible, looked old, was crabby and depressed, so I made a choice to make my health a priority and a priority for my patients. In terms of how  my medical practice changed…from doing insurance paid medicine which is paid for the patient by someone else I was daily faced with patients who didn't value my advice and didn't follow it!  I now have a medical practice where patients pay for their care themselves.  There is something about paying for something that makes you value it more! Instead of seeing patients yearly that I gave the same advice I give to my BioBalance patients today and repeating myself year after year without my patients making any progress, I now recommend lifestyle changes and treat my patients with replacement testosterone and estradiol pellets and they immediately feel better and follow my advice! I am blessed to watch my patients achieve health by changing their hormones, diet, exercise, changing medications and taking supplements to round out the nutrition offered by their food choices. The one most important health goal should be weight loss so you can achieve your ideal weight while you maintain your muscle mass. That change will take effort and sacrifice and if you are over 40 you will need testosterone to make this happen!    Here are the diseases that are caused by obesity: ·      CANCER! All kinds! ·      Diabetes-Type II ·      Heart disease, Myocardial infarction and stroke ·      Alzheimer's disease ·      Autoimmune diseases ·      Endometriosis ·      Arthritis and joint replacement ·      Hypertension and kidney disease ·      Immune deficiency Are you afraid of getting any of these diseases?  What is your most terrifying disease that keeps you awake at night?  Any of these in the list above?   I have always been fearful of Alzheimer's Disease and stroke because not being able to think and speak is my biggest fear!  I have gone so far as to have genetic tests for Alzheimer's Dx and I have 1 of the 2 genes that cause this devastating condition. However, because I have taken estradiol and Testosterone pellets since I was 47, my chance of getting this disease has been delayed 20 years.  Other factors that increase my risk for stroke and dementia are inflammation from being overweight, eating a high carb diet, lack of exercise, hypertension, poor neurotransmitters from a poor diet and bad gut bacteria.  One by one I have changed my lifestyle to decrease these risk factors. If I can do this, you can!  You don't have a harder work schedule than I have had or less time to choose foods to eat.  I choose to turn down more than one alcoholic beverage, to take my own healthy snacks when I travel and at my office. 

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog The medically accepted belief that testosterone is bad for men has finally now been superseded by a huge study from Australia that proves that men with healthy levels of Testosterone live longer and healthier than men with low Testosterone! All you men who have been told that testosterone is bad for you or will cause prostate cancer by your doctor, you can tell you provider that he or she is out of date!  At BioBalance Health® we have been treating men with testosterone pellets for years and our patients are our evidence that testosterone not only keeps men's sexuality healthy, but youthful testosterone blood levels keep men healthy in many ways, eg. strong muscles and bones, excellent immune systems, healthy heart and blood vessels, lean muscle mass and it prevents the diseases of aging too!   I have been treating men and women with Testosterone for over 20 years and I concur with how this study plays out in real life, in my own practice. When my patients replace men's low testosterone levels with testosterone pellets and they follow my recommendations for a low carbohydrate diet and weight training exercise, supplements and treatment of pre-diabetes and pre-cardiac disease, they live more productive, longer and more enjoyable lives. My goal for my medical practice is to keep both men and women healthy as they age, and testosterone replacement is the most important necessary element to that end.  My intent is to defeat the aging process with interventions that have the potential to delay the onset of age-related diseases and preserve your ability to live life to its fullest, no matter what age you are!  We have based our treatment on hundreds of other studies that literally studied one symptom of testosterone deficiency or disease of aging at a time in relation to testosterone levels and found bioidentical testosterone to be beneficial to the health and longevity of men. However, we treat all the symptoms of aging and low T with testosterone pellets. Australia's Men's Study found that men who continued to produce normal youthful levels of Testosterone or replace their Testosterone to achieve normal youthful levels lived longer, more active lives than men who let aging take its course and drain them of testosterone! We have known this for two decades and we have treated men and women with testosterone pellets, the most effective and safest way to prescribe T.  Many smaller studies have been done that prove the same thing, but none so dramatic as the latest study we are referencing. At this point I have two questions to answer for most of your inquiring minds: Why did all the experts tell you that testosterone replacement is dangerous? and, why are the experts in the field of men's medicine, Urologists, still advising men not to replace their low testosterone as they age? Let me explain that why everyone is so negative about testosterone and why most medical doctors still believe that prescribing testosterone to men is evil.  This all started in the 1950s based on the study of only 3 men, who had had prostate cancer. They said they were testing them to find out if testosterone caused prostate cancer recurrence in men after prostate cancer.  During the study one of the men had a recurrence of prostate cancer when he was given testosterone injections.  In the “olden days” that provided the basis for the belief that Testosterone CAUSED prostate cancer!  The doctor even got a Nobel prize.  Based on this minimal and falsely extrapolated information, 50 years of doctors have been taught that prostate cancer is caused by testosterone, when in reality testosterone is only dangerous if a man already has an aggressive cancer already, will testosterone replacement stimulate the growth of prostate cancer. This misinterpretation of a faulty medical study has prevented generations of men from being treated with testosterone to prevent diabetes, heart disease, loss of muscle mass and the ability to walk and lift, as well as the inability to have sex throughout their lives.  This has been a grave dis-service to American men, because the world follows us with all of our medical protocols, this misinterpretation and lack of preventive care with T has spread around the world. The second question you should ask is: Why are the experts in the field of men's medicine, Urologists, still advising men not to replace their low testosterone as they age? Well, this is not just your doctor's fault.  Other than being trained by generations of doctors who believed the inaccurate information about the danger of testosterone causing prostate cancer and passing it on, there is a problem with how we train the doctors who take care of men. Urologists are surgeons first and not particularly interested in anything that has to do with preventive medical care.  Their training is based on surgery: they go through a general surgery residency after medical school for 5 years and then do a specialty in urologic surgery which doesn't include treatment of anything medical or preventive.    More than that, their College of Urologic Surgery and their journal has been blinded by supporting the surgical treatment of prostate cancer, so their motivation to prevent prostate cancer is generally opposite their type of practice of medicine. They can only operate on prostate cancer when a man has it. Now if you have a penchant for conspiracy theories you may then jump to the conclusion that both the practice of medicine, the business of pharmaceuticals and the government have monetary benefit from keeping all of us sick, and limiting our longevity, since we are a drain on the system after we stop working and live off Social Security and Medicare.  In other words, old Americans don't provide value to the whole of society.  I contend it is only because we don't help aging Americans stay productive and healthy that they are a drain on the rest of the population…However, that conspiracy theory is just a theory I have heard from my patients. This study is big news because it is the most important study that has been allowed through the blockade of powers, to the public!  We at BioBalance Health® can now give you men what you need, and when other doctors criticize our treatment, we can defend our treatment plan with this Australian study and the other hundred studies that came before.  You have your ability to ask for what you need from your doctor, based on sound evidence! The second study is below and was in the Journal of Internal Medicine about the same time as the Australian men's study. Study links low testosterone to increased mortality A study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found that men with low testosterone levels had a higher risk of all-cause mortality, and those with very low levels also faced an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality. The findings suggest potential links between testosterone concentrations and health outcomes, emphasizing the need for further investigation into underlying mechanisms and potential therapeutic implications.

In the this episode, Dr. Christopher Tookey answers a patient question which type of M&M are the heathiest.  We're providing general guidance but everyone is different and you should always discuss with your health care professional management of any disease and therapy before trying anything you discover from a source on the internet (including this podcast). This podcast does not reflect the opinion of our employer.

As the nation's largest integrated health care provider, the Veterans Health Administration prioritizes how technology can address challenges in how it is delivering patient care and securing its infrastructure. Indra Sandal, chief of innovation at VHA in Tampa, Florida, breaks down how more than 300 participants collaborated and addressed challenges in a three-day hackathon. She highlights the takeaways from that hackathon and what it means for veterans. David Rhew, global chief medical officer at Microsoft, also discusses how the organization supported the hackathon and what lessons learned the public-private partnership has for the future of VA health care.

A recent National Cancer Institute study shows that a new targeted therapy can help prolong the time cancer patients are in remission. Called the ViPOR regimen, the non-chemotherapy treatment shrinks tumors of those who suffer from B-cell lymphoma. Dr. Christopher Melani, associate research physician with the Lymphoid Malignancies Branch in the Center for Cancer Research at NCI, highlights the importance of combining five therapies and administering them during a fixed cycle to maximize drug synergy and make tumors disappear. He also shares details about the second phase of the study that is expected to take place later this year as well as how precision medicine could potentially lead to a cure for all types of cancer.

Climate change has a major impact on public health, especially for vulnerable communities. Rising temperatures, severe storms and other severe events can negatively affect health outcomes. Agencies are increasingly using data and technology for programs and tools to boost health equity. Dr. John Balbus, director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the Department of Health and Human Services, speaks about the ways that technology can be used to build resilience against climate-related negative health outcomes. He discusses his career, his role in shaping policies and his agency's Health Climate Outlook tool for predicting climate-related health risks.

Artificial Intelligence is impacting two main areas of cancer research: image analysis and managing massive amounts of clinical data. The National Cancer Institute sees AI as a key capability in precision oncology. Dr. Eytan Ruppin, chief of NCI's Cancer Data Science Lab, recently published a study about a new AI tool researchers are implementing to foresee how a patient will respond to immunotherapy by providing an in-depth look at the clinical characteristics of the patient as well as the Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB). Ruppin discusses the NCI/CCR Synthesis Clinical Trial expected to start this fall and shares details about how the research will impact the treatment of aggressive breast cancer.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has its sights set on advancing health equity through “Health Equity By Design” and U.S. Core Data Interoperability standards to ensure that everyone has fair and equal access to the highest quality of health care regardless of race, gender, disability, location and a host of other factors. Artificial intelligence is also playing a pivotal role in helping agencies achieve national health goals. Recently appointed acting chief AI officer of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tripathi said AI is helping to close health equity gaps when it comes to analytics, determining patient demographics and informing decision-making for treating patients. Tripathi also highlighted ONC's collaborative efforts with the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) and other agencies that are improving interoperability and the integration of public health data.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog You may be like I am, and you took your “young skin” for granted, because it had always looked good, healthy, and glowing. Sadly, the damage that causes wrinkles brown spots, age spots, and sagging jowls occurs years before the damage shows on your face!  At age 40 I woke up, looked in the mirror and realized what I had been doing to my skin with baby oil and iodine plus 8 hours of sun a day, every summer, without sunscreen and moisturizer for the 30 years before and I realized I had to do something to reverse that process. I then began my study of skin, skin damage and how to heal it! I still and studying the new advances in skin care, nutrition for skin, and skin-care products. But why is our skin so important? I have two answers, one as a doctor and another as an esthetic specialist.   My “doctor answer” is that our skin is the largest organ in the human body, and it provides many benefits for us.  The skin not only protects the more delicate organs of the body, but the skin excretes toxins for us from sweat glands, it cools us with perspiration, and protects our muscles and internal organs from trauma and the sun's rays.  Our skin also protects us from cold with hair that grows on our head and body. The condition of the skin also acts as a reflection of our health.  It is possible to look in the mirror and determine if you are healthy or not.  The skin is also a window for others to judge our general health.  This is a double-edged sword.  It helps us self-diagnose medical problems or at least determine that something is wrong so we can make changes to our lifestyle or seek medical attention.  Our skin also reflects fatigue (dark circles under our eyes, sallow color and lack of glow or shine), BUT it also allows others to discover our age, health status and whether we have cared for our skin or not!  Our skin is a window to our internal health, so if you want to appear rested, healthy, and desirable, then you MUST take care of your skin! I am not saying that nonphysicians consciously look at you and say to themselves, “that person's skin looks sick”, but the condition of your skin determines unconscious judgements of the state of your health.   It is for this unconscious knowledge that we have about the appearance of our skin, that drives women to seek out ways to make their skin beautiful and young.   When we notice signs of aging, fatigue, and over-indulgence in our own skin we should take action if we want to reflect the impression of health and youth. Very perceptive people can tell what our age is by looking at our skin….that is why women spend time trying to fool them by improving the natural condition of our skin!  Our instinct to be and feel young motivates us to seek help.   No one wants to look their age!  Everyday Instagram and Facebook show ads that say…”Buy this and you will look #—- years younger” are barraging us. Those advertisers know our instinctive drive to turn back the clock and they use it to sell…but in general those “one answer ad campaigns” help the seller make money but won't do a thing for your skin….Don't be sucked into their sales job. If you are over 40 you will require a multipronged approach to get your youthful skin back. This process requires a change in your routine, your lifestyle….the very hardest thing for humans to achieve! As a doctor one of my observational skills that helps me diagnose patients before I even interview them Is my  first impression of their face and skin—if the color of their skin is dusky,  they probably don't have good blood flow (atherosclerosis, alcohol consumption or illnesses like Diabetes) and if the texture of their skin is thick and “piled up” I know they have poor skin care habits and often are not healthy.  I also look at the creases or wrinkles as well as brown spots that give away a patient's age and sun damage history.  There are many more signs of illness that I look for, but skin is like having Hercule Poirot (famous detective) sitting next to me whispering in my ear.” For non-doctors the appearance of your skin gives strangers an impression of your age, and how healthier you are.  Think of speed dating….you  are introduced to Mr. Right and he immediately is not interested.  He doesn't even care to talk to you.  His instincts say to him that you are not healthy and that you are older than you say you are, because of the condition of your skin.  The same thing can happen at job interviews….you don't want to look sick and old when you are going for a job.  No one even consciously knows they are judging you…they just know instinctively get the message that you aren't a candidate for whatever you are trying out for because of perceived old age and poor health….it is an unconscious reason for not choosing you! So why not consider the simple steps it will take to transform your skin, and yourself, from looking old and sick to young and healthy?  To get great skin, we must BE HEALTHY, in other words we must develop healthy habits as well as give our skin the attention and care it needs.  Here is a list of what is required to heal you skin and begin to look younger and healthier. DIET: whole foods, with a lot of water and fresh vegetables and fruit. No fast or processed food. SUPPLEMENTATION: Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Biotin, Methyl Vitamin B12 and methyl Folate DAILY EXERCISE: Gives your skin a glow with healthy oils and perspiration. REPLACE HORMONES THAT ARE MISSING: Whole body Testosterone (pellets), Estradiol, Thyroid if it is deficient CLEAN AND PROTECT YOUR SKIN: Treatment of the skin itself by washing and exfoliating dead skin off the surface twice daily, using serums specifically for the aging problem that bothers you most, and Moisturizers to keep the skin hydrated. Ok. so you think, you can do this, but here is the kicker—you also need to make harder lifestyle changes, and stop your bad habits: Stop Smoking Stop Drinking more than 4 oz of wine /night Stop fast food Get 7-8 hours of sleep every night. Now I hear the typical negative response coming through the computer…as if I am spoiling your party…I KNOW you don't want to change your habits….or stop excessive drinking, smoking, and staying out late, so you are already finding excuses why this obvious, simple answer  won't work for you!  If that is you, then stop worrying about your skin, because it won't be any better than it is today….and it will get WORSE with age! But if you will spend an extra 7-10 minutes a day on the health of your skin and you realize that it is time you clean up your act, then continue to listen to the things that you should do to have a beautiful body covered with glowing skin!  A little work and change of habits will get lots of compliments and people may ask you how you got beautiful skin!  The “happy” side-effect of taking care of your skin is that you are concurrently building a healthier body that will live longer without disease. The above changes are a start but protecting and feeding your skin is important too! In the list below I will share what products and   I use, but I have skin concerns that you might not have (I'm 69 and had a lot of sun damage as a teenager). These are examples, however if you are serious about having beautiful young and glowing skin, then using the medical grade skin products (those bought at your spa or dermatologist) are the most effective. Internal Nutrition for Your Skin (Diet)—Whole food diet (lean meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables every day!) + Supplements to give you what you are missing in your diet, in higher doses Stop Bad Habits (see above) and exercise every day Cleansing skin that is exposed to sun, lack of humidity, and air pollution requires daily cleansing and humectants. Cleaning off your makeup from your face, neck and decollate (Face Wash= e.g. Glycolic Renewal- Skinceuticals) twice a day Topical Nutrition (Serums) Skinceuticals e.g. CE Ferrulic, hyaluronic acid (Skinceuticals HA Intensifier) and other serums that feed your skin from the outside. Protect Your Skin from Dehydration (Moisturizers), and drink plenty of water especially in the winter when the heat is on to replenish the moisture to your skin from the inside. My moisturizer is usually Triple Lipid Moisturizer from Skinceuticals®, but AGE Interupter Moisturizer is my favorite during the winter or when I am vacationing in cold or dry climates, because it holds skin moisture in the best. Intermittently I use Defenage Serum and Moisturizer Professional products when I want to take a break and expose my skin to alternative treatment (this makes both types of products more effective). Protect your skin from damaging radiation from the sun (Sunscreen). You should wear sunscreen every day! In Missouri it is winter longer than summer (or so it seems), but until I found the ColorScience tinted sunscreen, I forgot my sunscreen all the time. This sunscreen is easier to remember because it is part of my makeup the I apply daily. It is a combination moisturizer, sunscreen, and foundation, I rarely wore sunscreen in the fall and winter before I found this product…not now! Daily exercise to bring blood flow to your skin, brings healthy oil and blood to the surface of the skin and releases toxins through sweating. Taking care of your skin at home is fairly simple and for the most part can be integrated into your daily routine.   Here are the basic skin care steps: Step #1 Cleansing your skin in the AM and before bed when you with a non-drying face wash. (Skinceuticals Gentle Face Wash or LHA face wash). Follow this with a serum specific to the needs of your skin to repair sun damage, to fade age spots, or to improve the texture of your skin. For example, Skinceuticals CE Ferulic— It lasts all day and assists in maintaining hydration and improving the condition of your skin. Step#2 Moisturize and Protect your skin from drying out during the day and while you are sleeping and not drinking water.  The 8 hours you sleep is the longest time you go without oral hydration, so your skin needs protection to hold the moisture in.  Moisturizers are generally a shield to prevent drying out.  The best of these moisturizers both feed your skin and protect it from drying, like Skinceutical's Triple Lipid Moisturizer before bed. Your morning routine is just like your bedtime steps, except after you moisturize, you should use a sunscreen that is equal to or greater than SPF 30, ideally with a tint instead of foundation. Hint: If you brush your teeth twice a day, then add 5 minutes to your morning and evening self-care you can clean and apply your skin care routine to your dental care.  Of course, there are many other types of topical products that preserve the beauty of your skin, but they are directed at specific problems such as acne, rosacea, deep wrinkles and discoloration, but it requires an expert in skin care to help you choose the most effective product for you. My patients ask me what skin care routine I follow, and I give them the following list of products and vitamins I use because I know that skin requires nutrition from my diet as well as topical products. Oral water intake: 80 oz of clear water a day for hydration Diet filled with daily raw vegetables/fruit, and a salad daily High protein and healthy fat in my diet (meat, fish, eggs, cheese, a variety of nuts, olive oil and yogurt) Products I use: Face Wash Skinceuticals: Replenishing Cleanser twice a day Serums: Skinceuticals CE Ferulic to improve skin tone and texture, HA Intensifier to increase Hyaluronic Acid for skin hydration, and Advanced Discoloration Corrector for brown (age) spots. Skinceuticals Triple Lipid Moisturizer, AGE Interrupter Moisturizer, or Defenage Serum and Moisturizer Tinted Sunscreen by Color Science   If you have taken excellent care of your skin with medical grade skin care products throughout your life, then all you have to do as you age is continue the care you already established and add some serums. Serums treat the skin with needed vitamins, minerals and peptides that are applied externally. medical grade products cost more because they actually penetrate the epidermis penetrate the epidermis and provide building blocks to repair and supply your dermis with needed “supplies” for healthy “daily reconstruction”.  So healthy diet with varied healthy and unprocessed foods, plenty of water, healthy fat and protein to “feed” your skin is a required step toward beautiful skin as you age. In the end most of us have not been aware of the needs of our skin until our skin starts to show aging and damage.  Because that is a common occurrence,  BioBalance Skin  offers a variety of treatments that you can receive at our Medical Spa that are all aimed at reversing the aging process by tightening sagging skin, removing age spots and wrinkles, elevating facial skin, fillers to inject to fill lost fat in our face as well as treating sagging upper arms and skin around our knees just to name a few.  Next week we will be talking about the more aggressive methods of improving aging and damaged skin available currently available in our Medical Skin Care Spa and other spas like it.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog My goal for BioBalance Health® is to guide my patients to live a healthier life by offering them the newest preventive treatments, and safest hormone treatment available. My patients make an appointment with me and Dr. Sullivan for help with their current symptoms of aging and hormonal treatment to replace their missing hormones.  They also receive a plan for unique preventive lifestyle changes to assist them in continuing their lives in health. But first, I believe that treating the symptoms of aging is the first thing on the agenda, and those symptoms are treated by replacing the hormones that disappear with age, testosterone, estradiol and often thyroid hormone. These symptoms are classic and appear within a short period of time, together: This is a combined list of symptoms of Testosterone and Estradiol loss for women after age 38, combined with loss of Testosterone in men after age 50.   Symptoms of loss of Testosterone and Estradiol   ·      Loss of normal youthful body, muscle and shape ·      Loss of sex drive ·      Infrequent or absent orgasms ·      Fatigue ·      Depression   or Anxiety ·      Insomnia ·      Memory loss/ Difficulty thinking ·      Loss of motivation ·      New migraine headaches ·      Decreased muscle mass ·      Joint aches/ arthritis ·      Dry eyes   ·      Loss of balance ·      ED in men (men) ·      Poor or decreased ejaculation (men)   ·      Increased belly fat Loss of waistline ·      Weight gain   ·      Cellulite ·      Ringing in the ears   ·      Dry vagina (women) ·      Painful intercourse (women) My patients frequently tell me that they feel so good after getting their first testosterone pellets that they wish they would have come to see me years before because they have been suffering and now their symptoms are improved or gone. They also comment on how great their sex life is, their improved stamina to walk, play golf or run and how much younger they look! That is the enjoyable part of my practice. Replacing these hormones gives my patients their lives back and gives them their energy back so they can make changes in their lives to keep themselves healthy to avoid the diseases of aging. The Diseases of Aging are these: Cancer Type II Diabetes Arthritis Heart Attack Stroke Dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's disease Osteoporosis Frailty, inability to walk or climb stairs Immune deficiency Autoimmune diseases Depression and anxiety We find that we get great results with one or two hormones, but because we are preventive medicine doctors and hormone replacement doctors we are not just interested in your current condition and symptoms, but we are concerned about the diseases you are at risk to get when you get “old”.  We then go over your family history of diseases with you and use it to determine what you are at risk for. Let me say that family history is only ½ of your risk factor because each parent only carries 1/2 of the genes you own. This means that your risk is usually watered down by the relative who has the disease, and your risk usually goes up if two relatives on opposite sides of the family have the same disease. Even though we use family history as an estimate of your risk for diseases in the future it is not very specific or accurate.  The information your family tells you about their history may not be accurate for the real diseases your parents and grandparents had.  My family history is a good example of bad information in an individual's medical history: I thought I was at risk for Adult-Onset Diabetes because my grandfather on my father's side and my grandmother on my mother's side had Type II Diabetes. I was worried since medical school that I would eventually get AODM too. When I had my genetics done, I found that I had 4/5 genes that foretell obesity, but NO DIABETES genes! This changed my approach to my own health from avoiding carbs totally, to losing weight until I was at ideal weight.   In case you don't know it, almost all obese people develop Type II Diabetes eventually. If they don't change their lifestyle soon enough and lose weight as well as get the proper nutrition it is in their future. Diabetes is a disease that will follow them through their lives, putting them at risk for other diseases like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, dementia of all kinds, arthritis, and joint deterioration needing joint replacements. This list includes the most common causes of death. So the moral of the story is, my family history didn't tell me what I was going to be at risk for!  You can plan your healthy living plan based on your family history, or you can get your own genetics done to tell you what you are at risk for based on your genes, OR you can just clean up your lifestyle, receive your hormone replacement using the safest delivery system (pellets) and begin a healthy lifestyle as soon as possible. Get real information based on your individual situation now with blood work and add your genetics or family history to help motivate you to get healthier. Changing your lifestyle is the hardest thing you can do so getting expert advice from a physician, and then follow it.  Look for a doctor who will help keep you motivated to follow your healthy living plan and do your half of the path to health and healthy aging without disease.   Please join me, Dr. Kathy Maupin, BioBalance Health® next time when we outline a plan for health and longevity to avoid the pain and disability of aging.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog T.E.D.  a NEW painless high intensity ultrasound treatment that actually regrows 65% or more of your hair.  It is the most effective treatment overall and really the most economic treatment with the least amount of time investment, no pain and best results.  Unlike hair implants, you can't tell you have had a treatment to make your “lost hair” grow again! The Problem of Hair Loss: Many of my patients (most of whom are over 40) complain that they have thinning or balding hair-loss before we even start our hormone treatment with hormone pellets. Testosterone treatments with Testosterone pellets rarely increase the DHT blood level enough to increase hair loss.  DHT is the metabolite of Testosterone which is responsible for “male pattern balding” also called hair loss associated with aging in men. Most of my patients have genetic hair thinning or balding, hypothyroid hair loss, or loss from a medication that they take.  We treat these metabolic causes, but we can't make hair grow back metabolically, we can just stop the loss!  NOW WE CAN MAKE LOST-HAIR GROW BACK with TED!   Features of Alma TED:                                 TED is a FOCUSED high intensity ultrasound that drives serums into the scalp to the level of the hair follicle. Alma has worked 17 years on a serum for hair loss and they have achieved their goal!  Only with TED will the serum get to the hair follicles that are “sleeping” and make them grown again!  This pairing of ultrasound and specific serums are key to the unique success of TED. Comparison OF TED with other treatments for hair loss: #1 TED is the only FDA approved treatment for regrowing hair! Six months ago, I was looking at various options to help my patients, and my husband, grow back their beautiful hair. After a comparison of multiple available treatment types for hair loss, I chose Alma Laser's high intensity ultrasound treatment, T.E.D. that combines a unique hair growth serum delivered deep in the scalp to awaken sleeping hair follicles, stimulating growth, even in follicles that are dormant. In 4 treatments that each last 45 minutes or less, TED brings hair follicles back to life without pain… I finally found the “holy grail” of hair restoration!  It is affordable and PAINLESS.  My medical skin care practice, BioBalance Skin®, offers free consultations to those men and women who want to have TED treatments to bring reverse hair thinning and balding. TED this works for men and women with all causes of hair loss! Total number of treatments: one a month for 4 months Time of each treatment =45 min Maintenance is at least one treatment/ year (average) Cost of treatment package: $3,400 Cost of each Maintenance treatment, after $450 1-2 times a year Pain= None! Effectiveness= 65% of hair lost regrows No down time! Who is a candidate for this treatment> Men and Women, all ages with hair loss of any kind (the younger you are the better) All patterns of hair loss up to Stage 3 hair loss (stage 4 has areas of balding without any follicles) Thinning hair all over the head Hair loss due to medications, genetic hair loss, and androgenic hair loss This treatment replaces the drug finasteride! (finasteride decreases libido and erectile function) without the side effects. This treatment can accompany thyroid treatment (but not replace it) for hypothyroid hair loss. Women with extensions can be treated and will eventually replace extensions.   Who is not a candidate/ or will have a less than optimal result: People with metal implants in their brain or skull or metal plates in the skull People with long term complete hair loss (their scalp has no hair and is shiny) > 5 years balding Patients currently on Chemotherapy but is OK after chemo is completed. Patients currently on immunotherapy Trichotillomania- Mental health condition where the patient pulls her own hair out. Patients with skin cancer of the scalp Infections, open wounds on the scalp   Information on Hair Loss: All these types of hair loss, except the most extreme will obtain a good result from TED Hair treatments.  Hair loss that occurs with age has typical patterns of loss. The examples shown below are examples of male and female age-related hair loss.  The same patterns occur from elevated androgens in some people. Some types of age-related genetic hair loss are merely thinning of the hair, where individual hairs are spaced out making hair look “see through”.         PATTERN OF HAIR LOSS                       NORMAL———– STAGE 1———STAGE 2————STAGE 3   TED HAIR GROWTH TREATMENT WILL WORK WELL WITH STAGE 1 AND 2 HAIRLOSS, IT  IS ONLY PARTIALLY EFFECTIVE  FOR STAGE 3 hair loss THE CONDITION OF THE SCALP IS IMPORTANT IN PREDICTING YOUR SUCCESS: SMOOTH, BALD LONGTERM LOSS OF THE SCALP RARELY RESPONDS THIN AND SPARSE AREAS DO RESPOND!   PROGRESSION OF FEMALE HAIRLOSS PATTERN                                   BOTH PATTERN AND CONDITION OF SCALP DETERMINES THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TED TREATMENTS WOMEN'S HAIR LOSS—In general women lose hair all over the head or at the temples and crown of the head. The stages of female hair loss above all respond to TED except the most severe-long term loss.   COMPARISON OF OTHER TREATMENTS TO TED I am asked by my patients, “How do I get thicker hair?”…or for the most common questions from those men who have been experiencing their hairline creeping backward every year, “How do I make this stop, I look like my dad!”.  Over the years my Medical Health Spa, BioBalance Skin® has attempted to help my aging  hormone replacement patients regain their thick and healthy hair and hairline with scalp injections with PRP and  Aqua gold injections of serum and PRP, however effective these treatments are in stopping the loss for a period of time, none of our patients were able to tolerate the pain of the injections in their head for an hour, even after topical pain relief. These invasive treatments really hurt not matter how we tried to remedy the pain.  It turned out that our patients couldn't tolerate one hour session, much less a series of treatments necessary to make a visible difference. Hair implants take so much time and money (>$15,000) that it is like taking on another job and is really only effective for receding hairlines, not thinning hair.  Patients have to have multiple treatments. There are other options that do not regrow hair but mask the process.  These all require ongoing treatment such as hair extensions, hair implants Hans Weiman hair restoration, all of which are prohibitively expensive, and are also painful and time-consuming. The one drug therapy to slow hair loss that is used by men, Propecia® finasteride is minimally effective at stopping the loss of hair, and it does not grow hair where it no longer grows. This drug also has significant side effects that many men can't tolerate including loss of muscle mass and erectile dysfunction.  Our patients who receive T pellets tell me that finasteride decreases all the sexual and muscle improvement they have gained from T pellets. Other new options for hair loss I investigated the required lifetime ongoing supplements (many of them) and ongoing treatment. The other option was significantly painful and not as successful as TED. When I find a new and unique treatment to solve the problems of my patients as they age, I am compelled to find an answer! For hair loss, TED is it! If you have thinning, receding, or balding hair don't wait, the sooner the better for bringing back hair follicles permanently! If you need visual documentation, please go to the Alma TED results page with this link to see picture proof of the results from TED treatments: Link to example pictures of the results from TED. https://almainc.com/products/almated

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog The Problem: I see women and men every day who are deficient in their own production of testosterone because of age, testicular trauma, removal of their ovaries, chemotherapy, chronic illness, and medications.  The cause of testosterone deficiency is as varied as the side effects and benefits of every different type of testosterone. This means that when you hear or read a headline like the one that came out last week: “Testosterone Treatment Fails to Offer Protection Against Fractures in Men with Hypogonadism, Research Indicates” You cannot take It at face value.   This headline should read Testosterone replacement in the form of testosterone cream given at a low dose given at a low dose to men who already had osteoporosis doesn't offer protection against osteoporosis. The headlines that read the way this one is an example of the reality that everyone loves to hate testosterone. This makes informed decision making by a patient very difficult because of the jaundiced view by physicians and drug companies about replacement of one to the hormones that men and women both make when they are young, but which becomes deficient in most of my patient population as they age. Why is there all this subterfuge and confusion about testosterone replacement? I believe it is the fact that allowing American's to age out of jobs and make room for the younger workers; many people cannot afford testosterone on their own so they are jealous of those people who can and do afford it; The insurance companies don't want to pay for anything they don't have to; keeping people youthful and healthy is not a priority for American medicine based on acute care in the ER and operating room; The group of naturalists who think aging is great, are people who either are out of touch or are very young; the use of testosterone by both sexes often makes the use of other medications unnecessary (anti-hypertensives, statins, autoimmune medications, etc, and also prevents patients from getting communicable diseases so the largest industry in the US, pharamaceutical companies cannot make more and more drugs to treat each symptom and disease individually; and lastly the government has made a very safe and natural hormone scheduled like amphetamines and pain killers by the DEA. Now why are these tests misleading?  All research studied are manipulated to have a desired outcome.  You can do a lot with statistics…you can make a blue sky look black! By given too little of a medication or vitamin, or by treating a disease for too short a time, or by picking the age group such that they won't respond you can make any drug look ineffective! So when you look at the studies on testosterone, you must look for the type of testosterone: is it a cream (which turns into estrogen as it passes through the skin? Or is it an injection of testosterone cyprionate which is not equivalent to natural testosterone and lasts 2 weeks because it keeps circulating through the liver and making more and more of the byproduct DHT than pellets or pure T injection? Simply if the type of T is not the type that you are taking or are contemplating taking then you should ignore the studies conclusions because each type of T and each delivery system of T has a variety of effects, each different from one another. “One testosterone is not equal to another form of testosterone. Therefore, a study that tests one type of testosterone does not apply to other forms of testosterone.” Dr Kathy Maupin MD The factors that matter as to how much improvement you will get when you choose a form of T replacement are: Testosterone chemical structure (the best is pure testosterone like in sub dermal T pellets) Testosterone delivery systems (subdermal pellet, cream, vaginal tablet, oral, patches) The dose/day or week or month Duration of use What tissue or organ system you are studying (e.g., bone takes many years to show improvement, while muscle increases relatively quickly with T pellets) The age and condition of the patients studied The starting blood level of testosterone Total and Free testosterone. The resultant blood level of free T The length of time a man or woman has been without testosterone before treatment I see research articles every day in the many journals I read that are shared with the public, that denigrate testosterone replacement in general, while in my practice, with the most effective form of T I have found, that T pellets literally transform  men and women who have T deficiency, most of whom are recently menopausal or over 55. The successful studies that recommend testosterone seem never to make the front of journals, but this recent study about bone density made all the title pages of the digital version of journals. The result will be that doctors and patients everywhere who should treat their osteoporosis with the safest treatment available, testosterone, will be the victims of VERY expensive drugs that have more side effects and less effectiveness. Research trials no longer look for the truth.  They look for “how do we get the answer we want to , so our drug that is not testosterone, will sell?”. These headlines deceive patients and scares them from asking for testosterone treatment, which can relieve their symptoms with one hormone, Testosterone, instead of many drugs. An even greater benefit of testosterone given at the dose that relieves testosterone deficiency symptoms, this one hormone gives my patients back their quality of life. In 2002 the WHI study scared menopausal women from taking their menopausal hormone therapy (ERT and HRT) which caused these women to develop anxiety, depression, frailty, osteoporosis, dementia, poor critical thinking, fatigue and many other symptoms that required treated multiple drugs to relieve just a portion of them. Women also developed marital problems because sex was so painful that they stopped having sex with their life partners.  An unproven fear of breast cancer led to the loss of these women's quality of life! An example of one of my most severely affected patients went off her ERT (estrogen only hormone replacement) that she had been on for decades since her hysterectomy because her doctor refused to prescribe it for her.  By the time she came to me she had developed depression, suicidal thoughts, agoraphobia, frailty and osteoporosis and she refused to leave her home.  It took her months for her son, a doctor friend of mine, was able to bring her to my office to restart her treatment. Today she is still traveling all over the globe and fully enjoying her well-deserved retirement! It has been estimated that in the 5 years after the WHI demonized estrogen replacement, more than 100,000 women died of diseases related to a lack of estrogen, and more experienced a loss of quality of life.   Even now over 20 years later, many doctors have not restarted giving estrogen to their women patients. Medical Thinking and rapidly changing standards of medical care when it comes to sex hormones has affected how we live, if we live, and how many drugs and diseases we get in our lifetime.  We have effective inexpensive treatments for loss of hormones, why are we always looking for expensive and non-hormonal answers to the symptoms of menopause.  In the last year pharmaceutical companies have developed a new drug with many side effects to treat hot flashes (fezolinetant/ Veozah, another new drug for osteoporosis (Tymlos 1pen, 1 injection/day = $2,134) and even a new drug for waning sex drive (Vylessi injection 2 times a week prn 1 month is $3,066/month) , also exorbitantly expensive!  Instead of recommending replacement of relatively inexpensive hormone replacement with estradiol and testosterone (with pellets for women approximately $140/month, and for men $200/month), the Big Pharma companies try to strike it rich with multiple piece meal treatments for the symptoms of menopause and low T.   I did not even mention medication for insomnia, migraine headaches, Viagra for men, lubricants for women and many other symptoms and treatments that T and E2 completely resolve. Back to the research article in question about testosterone for men, which employed testosterone as a transdermal gel, at a low dose, and determined testosterone (over-generalization) was not effective, for building bone in osteoporotic elderly men!  This was a defective study in every way, but the most important way was that it used T gel which turns most of the T into estrogen, so the effects are really from E2, E1 in men who do not respond well to E2.  The abstract is at the bottom of this page for your reading pleasure. I hope you are more selective in the future about what you believe and question the research that criticizes testosterone treatment, estradiol treatment especially the safest delivery system, pellets, when the research is short term, and generalizes the results from one form of Testosterone or estrogen to all forms. Testosterone Treatment Fails to Offer Protection Against Fractures In Men With Hypogonadism, Research Indicates MedPage Today (1/17, Monaco) reports “testosterone treatment didn't offer protection against fractures in men with hypogonadism, a” subtrial indicated. The research found that “compared with placebo, men who were on a testosterone gel actually had a significantly higher risk for fracture.” The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. HCPlive (1/17, Iapoce) reports “the findings showed the 3-year cumulative incidence of all clinical fractures was nearly 4% among those treated with testosterone, compared with 2.8% in the placebo group.” Additional “data revealed the fracture incidence was also numerically greater in the testosterone group for all other fracture endpoints.”

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog Last week one of my pellet patients asked me to see her daughter, even though I don't see young women anymore since I began BioBalance Health for people over 40.  I asked her why she couldn't see her gynecologist and she told me that she was told that she had PMS and that was a condition that was treated by a psychiatrist!  I have treated PMS successfully by replacing one hormone that is missing, Progesterone, two weeks a month, the same two weeks that women experience the symptoms of PMS.  I agreed to see her although I wish my fellow gynecologists would learn how easily this can be treated and not make young women feel like they are crazy, because they aren't! NOTE: Before I give you the impression that I treat PMS currently at BioBalance® Health, I want to clear that up: I only treat PMS in my younger cycling patients (36yo. to menopause) who take testosterone pellets for other symptoms.  My recommendation for finding a doctor who treats PMS in your area is to contact a local compounding pharmacy and ask the pharmacist which GYNs treat PMS, or contact one of the large compounding pharmacies, eg. College Pharmacy in Colorado Springs, or Belmar Pharmacy in Colorado as well to find a doctor in your area who can treat you.  There are many good compounding pharmacies who have pharmacists who can tell you which doctors prescribe progesterone for PMS. What is PMS? PMS symptoms are only present 2 weeks a month, the 2 weeks before menstruation. This condition causes patients to feel different, not like themselves in the ways listed below, and also caused menstrual changes in the menstrual periods that follow the PMS symptoms. The Emotional and physical Symptoms of PMS:  All occur monthly, for 14 days Depression Anxiety Anger and irritability Bloating, Migraine headaches, Water weight gain, Pelvic pain Fatigue Insomnia   The Menstrual Symptoms associated with PMS: The GYN Symptoms that can occur secondary to PMS (poor progesterone production) include: 1)irregular periods, spotting for a week before the period starts 2) heavy bleeding, sometimes uncontrollable bleeding, 3) infertility, 4) multiple miscarriages 5) lack of ovulation, and lack of periods for months at a time like with PCO Polycystic ovaries My History Treating PMS (skip if you already know this) I have been a gynecologist in private practice in St. Louis County since 1985 when I graduated from my OBGYN residency at Mercy Hospital. My training gave me an excellent knowledge of GYN Surgery and Obstetrics, but a very minimal understanding of the hormonal cycles of women, including Premenstrual Tension (PMS). Since the 1980s when PMS was recognized as a condition of women, OBGYNs have been taught that PMS is a psychiatric disease that must be treated with psychiatric medicines, primarily anti-depressants. Most OBGYNs today still believe that women who have PMS are “crazy”, and either give them an antidepressant which rarely work to treat the symptoms or refer their PMS patients to a psychiatrist.  In my case, I do not do either because PMS is a hormonal imbalance that causes emotional symptoms, and because psychiatric diseases are not cyclic every 28 days lasting 2 weeks, followed by 2 weeks of normalcy. The Cause of PMS Since 1988 I have studied the cause of PMS and with the help of a very intelligent compounding pharmacist, Pete Hueseman, I found the answer to the cause and treatment for PMS.  I began to treat PMS hormonally and now have successfully treated hundreds of PMS patients with bio-identical Progesterone.  It is a simple answer. PMS is caused by a deficiency of the hormone Progesterone during the two weeks after ovulation, from around days 14-28!  This is not a complicated diagnostic discovery, and the treatment should be obvious to all doctors who treat young, fertile women. More about that in a minute… From 1980- the present there has been no effective treatment for PMS approved by the FDA         (just ineffective anti-depressants) because it is still  categorized as a psychiatric disease.   When I took my second American Board of OBGYN test in 1999, a question on my test was: “Is PMS a Psychiatric Disease that should be treated with antidepressants?”  And the correct answer according to the American College of OBGYN was that that statement was TRUE, they believed and still do in 2024 that PMS is a psychiatric disease!  In 1999 I had been treating PMS successfully with bio-identical compounded progesterone for over a decade with bioidentical progesterone in non-oral form (suppositories, vaginal tablets, vaginal cream, and transdermal creams), given only during the second half of the menstrual cycle, from ovulation until the onset of the period. To understand PMS you have to understand how the three sex hormones work during a woman's 28 day cycle.  We count the days of a cycle starting at the first day of bleeding, which is day 1.  While we have a period our estradiol, progesterone and testosterone are all at their lowest level in the blood, but by the end of our period estradiol (estrogen) and testosterone start being produced by the ovary. They increase and both peak at ovulation, usually day 14, giving a woman a viable egg and a surge in her sex drive to motivate her to have sex and fertilize the egg. On day 14 the egg is released from the ovary and the corpus luteum (where the egg came from on the ovary) starts secreting progesterone.  This hormone increases and plateaus during the next 14 days, while estradiol and testosterone level out.  The day before bleeding, when the egg is not fertilized, all three hormones drop precipitously and that causes the uterine lining that was growing under the control of estrogen, to shed and bleed. PMS occurs during the second half of the menstrual cycle when the developing egg is not ovulated or is immature and ovulated but is not “ripe” enough to stimulate a decent progesterone blood level.  In the case of PCO, many eggs develop but are trapped and don't ovulate at all so no progesterone is produced.  In all these cases, women with PMS are symptomatic both in the symptoms above and the menstrual abnormalities listed earlier. All of the physiologic changes that take place in the PMS patient indicate an inability to conceive, or to conceive but have multiple miscarriages. The Treatment for PMS: The Treatment is bio-identical Progesterone, but the FDA didn't have a form of bioidentical Progesterone that worked until the last 10 years, when Prometrium was produced. Prometrium is an oral pill containing natural progesterone in peanut oil.  This works well for some women, but not for others. For those women we prescribe bio-identical compounded progesterone in sublingual, vaginal, transdermal and BLA Progesterone oral forms. The most important fact about diagnosing PMS is to remember that the symptoms of PMS only occur 2 weeks a “menstrual” month (28 days of the cycle).  The most important fact about treatment is that PMS should be treated with Progesterone the second two weeks of the menstrual cycle at bedtime. Now my patients ask me to treat their daughters who are cycling and whose OBGYN follow the guidelines of ACOG blindly even if the suggested treatment (anti-depressants don't work or make them worse).  I can only hope that the method of treating PMS as a hormone deficiency, instead of a psychiatric disease, will be accepted by American College of Gynecology and that you can find doctors you can be treated by, by finding a compounding pharmacy who will refer you. Compounding pharmacies in St. Louis: Neels's Pharmacy, and Medical Arts Pharmacy (ask for Brock) in Clayton MO, Jennifer's Pharmacy in Clayton, MO. neelspharmacy.com Phone number (314) 849-3123 Medical Arts Clayton Pharmacy https://www.medicalartsrx.com › compounding jenniferswholehealthpharmacy.c… (314) 862-7400

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog There is a lot of New Medical Information that is important for patients to make healthy decisions about their care or the care of their loved ones that you won't hear about on the news. For new research to reach you, the public, a researcher or a drug company has to spend a great deal of money for the public relations people to push information into the light.  I compiled the research I thought you might want to know about that has been discovered during the past 6 months. I always use these studies to educate my patients and to change my protocols for treatment, although many of them have been part of my practice for quite a while, because they just confirm what I have been seeing in my Integrative and preventive medical practice for years. The First Group of Discoveries Relate to Menopause,  and the Risks of Being Menopausal The most recent article in Lancet confirmed what has been obvious to me in my GYN practice for years. I am not sure why this actually required a study to prove that Menopause is tied to a higher rate of depression and anxiety, in conjunction with insomnia, higher stress perception, and hot flashes.  This study documented what the loss of estradiol, progesterone and testosterone can do to women in menopause.  The sad fact is that this article doesn't tell the reader what they need to know, how to treat these symptoms. However, I will let you in on a self-discovered fact:  The replacement of the hormones that disappear before and during menopause can be replaced in a non-oral delivery system to treat these symptoms.  I have 40 years of medical practice that proves my findings that agree with the problem, and my treatment with hormones. The Lancet: Menopause tied to mental health issues in certain women A study found that when certain women are menopausal, they increase their risk of Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder who experienced stressful life events, had poor sleep related to hot flashes, or had previous depressive symptoms of depression were more likely to develop menopause-related mental health problems. Researchers wrote in the journal The Lancet that some women escape the mental health effects of menopause altogether. HealthDay News (3/6) Another recent study about menopause discovers that a lack of estradiol in the post menopause causes women to have trouble thinking. I agree with that revelation, but why doesn't the research take the next step and suggest a treatment to prevent this result of hormone loss?  Why doesn't the research tell us how to help women think by replacing their estradiol? Many other studies confirm that replacing estradiol will delay the onset of dementia by 10 years.  Another study reveals that the replacement of testosterone will delay dementia it 10 more years. These studies occurred over 20 years ago, but this study doesn't cite them. Poor and worsening cognitive function is one of the most frequent complaints of my new patients coming to BioBalance Health® for treatment of menopause and low testosterone with bioidentical hormone pellets. Dr Maupin: I am continually reminded of the importance of testosterone and estradiol replacement is to aging men and women when they come back for their second pellet insertion and review their list of the symptoms they complained of before they started E and T pellets The most frequent response I witness when I ask if a woman's ability to think, do her job and stay organized is completely better after 3 months of Estradiol and Testosterone pellets, is crying with relief!   Many patients are deeply worried that they are developing dementia, specifically Alzheimer's Disease when they first come to me, but are able to go back to work and or experience a renewed quality of life because their ability to think, they can now feel confident in their professions and careers. Dr M Estradiol associations with brain functional connectivity in postmenopausal women Testo, Abigail A. BS1; Makarewicz, Jenna BS1; McGee, Elizabeth MD2; Dumas, Julie A. PhD1 Author Information From the 1Department of Psychiatry 2Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT.  The results illustrate the relationship between estradiol level and functional connectivity in postmenopausal women. They have implications for understanding how the functioning of the brain changes for individuals after menopause that may eventually lead to changes in cognition and behavior in older ages. © 2024 by The Menopause Society I have another problem with studies that should be shared with patients is that they often imply that menopausal women are “crazy” instead of saying that women after menopause develop mental health issues that can be treated with hormone replacement. Women who are menopausal are not mentally ill they are hormone deprived! I view this as a “slam” and divisive attack on aging women. The fact that if we gave women what they need …hormonal replacement ….they would not suffer the symptoms of mental health disorders. Menopause tied to mental health issues in some women A study found that women who experienced stressful life events, who had poor sleep due to nighttime hot flashes, or who had previous depressive symptoms or depression were more likely to have menopause-related mental health problems. Researchers wrote in the journal The Lancet that some women escape the mental health effects of menopause altogether. Full Story: HealthDay News (3/6) The Second Group of Articles Is About The Loss Of Estrogen In Menopause Causes Heart Failure and Atrial Fibrillation.  This article from the European Society of Cardiology reveals that the longer women live without estrogen (e.g. is menopausal), the higher risk of developing heart failure and atrial fibrillation. Once again, there is no mention about how to prevent this disease!  Why can't they study the women who replaced their hormones and compare them to the women who didn't?                             Hormone Therapy May Boost Weight Loss for Postmenopausal Women Who are Overweight or Obese On Semaglutide, Study Finds My practice BioBalance Health® has a weight loss program that is very effective for weight loss using Semaglutides, and terzipatide.  For women who are menopausal we have found that they lose weight much more quickly if they are on E2 and T pellet hormone replacement.  This research article confirms the findings of this study. If you are menopausal and have gained weight after menopause that is hormonal and the faster, you can get on non-oral estradiol and testosterone replacement then you will be more likely to get to your ideal weight! March 18, 2024 Hormone therapy may boost weight loss for postmenopausal women on Semaglutides. Healio (3/18, Welsh) reports, “Hormone therapy was associated with an improved weight-loss response for postmenopausal women with overweight or obesity treated with Semaglutides, according to cohort study results published in Menopause.” In the study, “postmenopausal women on hormone therapy had a higher percentage of total body weight loss at 3 (7% vs. 5%; P = .01), 6 (13% vs. 9%; P = .01), 9 (15% vs. 10%; P = .02) and 12 (16% vs. 12%; P = .04) months of semaglutide treatment compared with no hormone therapy.” How and Why to Treat Metabolic Syndrome  Metabolic Syndrome is a combination of hypertension, high lipids, insulin resistance, obesity, prediabetes or diabetes, large abdominal measurement.  This combination puts patients at risk for heart disease and early death.  Many conditions and outcomes have been associated with metabolic syndrome, but now we have a treatment that can prevent one of the outcomes of this syndrome, the generic drug Metformin ER. Metformin, Cognitive Function, and Changes in the Gut Microbiome Endocrine Reviews, Volume 45, Issue 2, April 2024, Pages 210–226, Published: 21 August 2023 Article history Abstract The decline in cognitive function and the prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders are among the most serious threats to health in old age. Metformin can preserve cognitive function by treating metabolic syndrome and improving the gut biome that produces neurotransmitters. I am not naive enough to believe that the only thing that your brain needs to perform well is two sex hormones (E2 and T).  This new research from the Endocrine Society describes how the generic, inexpensive medication Metformin ER, can help preserve an aging patient's ability to think.  That is primarily because the brain has insulin receptors, and when a patient has insulin resistance brain cells don't receive enough blood-sugar to be able to think!  By taking metformin ER (extended release) plus replacing estradiol plus testosterone in pellet form, the brain gets what it needs (blood sugar) and patients can think again! The second factor the researchers found to be important to brain health and problem solving, is healthy gut bacteria in the intestines.  This requires eating whole foods, especially fruits and vegetables every day, and not eating fast food, alcohol, simple sugars, and preservatives that kill good bacteria. We recommend a daily probiotic by Mega + the lifestyle changes above. If you want to keep your ability to think for your whole life then you need E2 and T in pellet form if you are a woman and T if you are an aging male, plus Metformin ER daily and the above lifestyle changes. Metabolic Syndrome, Obesity, is the Biggest Risk for Cancer Metabolic syndrome may increase cancer risk by 30% People with metabolic syndrome had a 30% higher chance of developing cancer over the course of a decade after diagnosis, according to a study published in the journal Cancer. The researchers also studied inflammation by tracking C-reactive protein, concluding that elevated levels of the protein along with metabolic syndrome were “significantly associated with subsequent breast, endometrial, colorectal and liver cancers.” Full Story: National Public Radio (3/11) The struggle to stay young and healthy is a difficult fight but the most important battle that you will wage as an adult.  If people knew the whole truth, would they stop overeating, drinking, smoking, avoiding exercise, or stop taking illicit drugs?  I can only hope that if we convince people to take care of themselves better and replace the hormones that are missing as soon as they are clinically deficient, then they will also listen to the truth about the various ways to support their health and prevent disease.  I also hope that the doctors who write articles and do research stop treating women like crazy people instead of the gender that actually runs the world and not only nurtures the children but also organizes homes and businesses.  We are NOT crazy when we need hormones to be replaced (PMS, MENOPAUSE), we are experiencing symptoms of hormone-deprivation, and we just need to be treated with the hormones that are missing!

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog If you have hypothyroidism (Low thyroid), fibrocystic breasts, fatigue, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hair loss, obesity, or high cholesterol then taking supplemental Iodoral can improve these diseases.  These conditions have become an epidemic in the United States due to Iodine deficiency. My longevity medical practice is all about keeping my patients healthy so they can live not only a longer life but one with quality. In the last 20 years of my BioBalance® Health practice, I have seen a flood of new patients with conditions that are in part secondary to iodine deficiency.  Today in America, the majority of people need iodine and other supplements to their diet for many reasons: Food manufacturers don't supplement our foods as they did in the years from the 1940s to 2000. The food that we eat (even fresh food) contains less nutrition than they did 50 years ago. Fast food diets, processed foods and preservatives remove necessary vitamins and minerals that we need to be healthy. Alcohol leaches nutrients from our bodies and alcohol consumption is increasing. Chemical pollution has entered our food supply and now is stored in our bodies. We have added a chemical to our drinking water, fluoride, which displaces Iodine in our bodies leaving us Iodine deficient. Today I am going to address the symptoms and diseases of Iodine deficiency. This blog about Iodine is to inform you about the need for Iodine and what it does.  I hope to never have to remind my patients about taking this supplement again after listening to the associated podcast or reading this blog! Iodine is a micronutrient necessary for life. In a research article in the Journal, Frontiers of Nutrition, March 2024, a very succinct review of the illnesses that occur because of iodine deficiency and that can be treated (partially) with iodine supplementation. I recommend all of my patients who live in my area which has no iodine in the soil or ground water and where all the drinking water is fluorinated.  The Iodine supplement, Iodoral, is not a drug, but a nutritional supplement that is sold over the counter. The Iodoral 12.5 mg bottle of 90 is $14.50 for 3-6 months supply.  You can't afford NOT to take it! Why do we need this supplement at this time in America and many first world countries?  Governmental intervention in our basic need for water caused most of our deficiencies.  Iodine is produced naturally in the ocean by seaweed, and it is contained in the soil and ground water in areas of the country that are near the ocean and those areas that were covered by ocean water millions of years ago. So, if you think geographically, most of the US is in that “map”, except the Midwest.  However, man and government has intervened and caused our population to be iodine deprived by adding Fluoride to our water. The government and the FDA make decisions for us without looking at the subsequent damage that might be done by those decisions. In the 1949 the US government decided that EVERYONE needed to be protected from dental cavities so 75 years ago we fluorinated our water and that decision led to the epidemic of iodine deficiency. Fluoride in your drinking and cooking water literally replaces iodine, and takes its place molecularly, leading to generations of people with 25% fewer cavities and 100% increase in the list of diseases I have listed in the first paragraph!   Fluoride is the biggest cause of thyroid disease. Wouldn't it be better to use fluoride toothpaste once a day than drink it? In some areas of the country, called the “Goiter Belt”, we don't have any iodine in the natural ground water, so locally grown food does not contain Iodine.  These regions have had a history of high percentage of the population with low thyroid, and goiters, even before we added fluoride to drinking water.  This compounds the problem and the diseases from Iodine deficiency. I live in that area! Before the 1970s iodine was required to be added to bread, salt and a few other foods. Ever since I have been seeing more Eating designer salt has caused people to not even get iodine in the salt they eat,  Now we use all kinds of salt most of which don't have iodine in them,. So now you know what the problem is today as well as the answer, Iodine supplementation with Iodoral® every day! How do you know if you have low Iodine and or Hypothyroidism? Symptoms of low iodine mirror those of low thyroid: fatigue, swelling, Abdominal bloating and pain Constipation hair loss and broken frizzy hair, brittle nails, dry skin, cold body temperature BBT less than or equal to 98 degrees Fahrenheit, weight gain, depression, slow metabolism, slow pulse low BP fibrocystic breasts So what will taking Iodoral® do for you beyond reversing the symptoms above? Improved thyroid function which decreases fatigue, weight gain, hair loss, brittle nails, swelling, and slow metabolism…. The benefits to you and your thyroid gland are immense! Your thyroid hormones control your metabolism and control your thermostat. Every cell in your body requires thyroid, and therefore require Iodine.  If your body doesn't have enough heat, then your enzymes can't work and our cells can't do their jobs, heal themselves and skin, muscles and all our tissues suffer. How does that work? Thyroid hormones T1, T2, T3, and T4  are made from one amino acid, Tyrosine, an 1-4 Iodine molecules!  The molecular structure of Iodine calls for plenty of iodine nutrient in the blood stream to make thyroid hormones and  to attach to iodine receptors on each cell that uses thyroid in your body. Preserve the health and function of your thyroid gland. You will feel warmer, your pulse and blood pressure will normalize. You will lose weight. Your thyroid hormone keeps your body warm by stimulating mitochondria to burn calories.  In this way thyroid hormone controls your weight, how fast you burn calories, how energetic you are, how well you think, how your hair and nails grow just to name a few benefits of thyroid. You need to add iodine to your diet to produce thyroid hormones to maintain all these vital functions for you! Prevention of Fibrocystic Breast Disease. Women's breasts absorb a lot of iodine and need Iodine to be healthy. The absorption by the breasts of iodine steals I from the thyroid and accounts for women having a much higher incidence of Hypothyroidism.  The thyroid is starved without iodine and “dies”.  Hypothyroidism is a Woman's disease! Fibrocystic Breast Disease. Women's breasts are iodine sensitive and years of low Iodine can cause Fibrocystic Breast Disease. This is not a precancerous condition, but it makes it harder to find a cancer in a breast on a mammogram. Weight Loss/Avoid Metabolic Syndrome For both sexes Iodine is needed to maintain blood sugar control and the control of obesity.  It is one of the necessary nutrients when it comes to weight loss.  More importantly it can prevent Metabolic syndrome which is a combination of high blood sugar (diabetes/prediabetes), obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol. If you have Metabolic Syndrome, you are at higher risk for Cancer, Heart Disease, Stroke, and early Death.  It doesn't take just iodine to treat this syndrome once you have it, but Iodine is key to making your medical treatments, diet, and exercise work to decrease your medical risks of disease and early death. Lower your LDL Cholesterol Hypothyroidism causes an increase in LDL Cholesterol; therefore it may increase the incidence of heart disease. Organ Systems Other than the Thyroid Need Iodoral: As you can see by the list above, vital organs other than the thyroid accumulate/store Iodine: salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, ovary and testes, which has led to the new realization that Iodine has effects outside of the thyroid. Other Results of Replacing Iodine to what is clinically considered a high level in the US. Blood sugar is lowered by adequate Iodine blood levels (199-299 mcg/L). Insulin resistance is improved by taking Iodoral Hypertension lowered to its lowest point when blood levels were between (300-499) Gout: the higher the iodine, the lower the uric acid in the blood, therefore fewer Gout attacks. Mortality rates increase to 33-75% higher in people with low iodine levels. Inflammation and inflammatory diseases improve with iodine supplementation Immune modulation is one of the benefits of iodine. If you have a poor immune system, it improves your resistance to communicable diseases. If you have autoimmune disease Iodine improves these diseases. How could supplementing Iodine, removing Fluoride, from our drinking water do for us individually and our country? Japan is an example of high Iodine levels that benefit health.  What happens in other countries with adequate iodine levels?  Japan has the highest level of iodine in the blood because they consume seaweed in their diet and most of their water and food has iodine in it. Of course, Japan is an island surrounded by iodized seawater! They consume 7 x the average amount of Iodine as Americans with healthy consequences. Japan has one of the lowest incidences of Metabolic syndrome and the diseases included in it.  A study on Iodine consumption revealed that obese women had a significant weight loss when eating food in Japan. Summary: We all need iodine in our food and water or if we can't get it, we must supplement it with an over the counter supplement, Iodoral ½-1 tablet a day (12.5 mg tablet). The “normal” reference ranges are skewed to the low iodine level, so many people stop taking iodine when they follow the reference ranges, however in this research paper the ideal blood levels were considered healthy up to 100- 399mcg/L while the Quest and Labcorps reference ranges are 52-109, much lower than what is considered healthy by research studies. Iodine does not cause hyperthyroidism, however if someone has hyperthyroidism there is controversy as to whether Iodine should be supplemented. Make your choice: Health with an inexpensive supplement (Iodoral) or illness with fluoride and without Iodine.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog You are what you eat, and you use what food and drink you eat based on your genetics. Weight loss requires professional advice, direction and oversight.  Combining receiving the best advice on what you should eat and drink as well as tailoring it to your metabolism and medical condition is what you should receive from your weight loss program.  Before you embark on a weight loss program you need to know the following lessons. Lesson #1: All Calories Do Not Create the Same Energy/Heat/Weight Loss in All People. You can put a gallon of gas into a Maserati and Ford Fusion and they do not provide the same performance (different acceleration or speed, pick up and ride) different MPG or speed because these two engines are not the same.  The Maserati burns fuel (calories) faster than the Fusion; it operates at a higher level of speed and performance, and it uses more gallons of gas per distance.  Just like the difference in cars, the difference in our bodies is VAST! I explain this truism every day in my office.  One of my female testosterone replacement patients returned for her first follow up consultation. The blood levels were ideal and all the symptoms relating to testosterone deficiency were gone!  However, the only thing she could think about was the fact that she did not lose weight (although she did gain muscle and lost fat) and her friend lost 15 lbs in the first 4 months!  Even though she and her friend were the same age their metabolisms were very different AND the fact that her friend did everything I told her to in regard to diet, limiting alcohol, taking supplements  and exercise, but she did not,  tipped the scales to cause her not to get the same result as her friend…in other words, her friend had a genetically faster metabolism, AND she put Premium “gas” into her metabolic car, changed the oil and took care of her car so it ran faster and better than the patient sitting in front of me who used regular gas, didn't care for her car and drove too fast and hard.  Two people the same age with different metabolisms, diet, exercise, supplementation, and stress level have widely different responses to weight loss.  Therefore, medical weight loss advice must be individualized to fit just you! The individual variables include: Genetic programing Current weight and diet Length of time you have been overweight Age Blood type (also genetic need for certain foods) Medical history/current diseases Medications you are on Supplements that you take or need to take Exercise and physical movement  Fad Weight Loss diets are a fraud to sell books or to get attention.  If it takes a 300-page book or a Social Media fad to sell a diet that is supposed to be good for everyone…it is a lie and may backfire! When the cabbage soup diet was a fad many of my GYN patients did it.  I had access to their blood types and knew that cabbage was bad for A blood types and slowed their metabolism. Despite my advice they still did the diet, and you know what happened?  They gained an average of 10 lbs!!!! Their blood type determined whether this particular diet would work for them. This is an example of how important your genetics are to weight loss.  What are the genetic variables that affect your approach to weight loss?  Inheritance how our body burns calories—are you a Fusion or a Maserati?: there are many genetic variables that make you as an individual require specific foods and exercise programs to get to your ideal weight and be healthy. It is the job of your medical advisor to determine what these are for you and tailor your diet accordingly. Your Blood type determines the best and worst foods for your metabolism and the number of days you should exercise. Do you burn calories at rest, or does it take active exercise for you to burn more than the baseline of calories? If you are warm while you sleep, then you burn calories at rest and therefore will burn more calories than someone who does not, even if you eat the same things and expend the same active calories a day. How much of each type of food do you eat? Protein/carbohydrates/fats. Protein takes more calories to metabolize than carbohydrates, and a lot more than fat, so the most calories are consumed by eating a high protein diet. Mood Determines your Mindless Eating: Genetically are you more apt to eat when you are anxious or worried? This is a behavior that can be changed by counselling, behavior modification, or even just making you aware of your inherited problem. Genetically do you always feel hungry? Genetically are you never full? These are genetically inherited qualities that affect the amount you eat and how often you go back for seconds.  There are medications and behavior modification that can counteract this genetic reality. Genetically does exercise or dieting result in the most weight loss? Believe it or not some people just have to diet without a lot of exercise to lose weight, others are programmed to exercise only for weight loss and then most of us have to use both methods to lose weight.  Let me say that exercise does use up more calories, whether you are built to burn more with dieting. Genetically how much lean muscle mass do you have? The more the better! Weight loss is aided by weight training three times a week, and the replacement of testosterone when you become deficient. Both of these muscle building methods increase muscle and decrease fat. Did you know that your muscle mass burns 80-90% of your calories.   More muscle means more weight loss, but your muscle metabolism must be turned on with testosterone, insulin sensitivity, good blood flow and more metabolic factors. The more fat you have the harder it is to lose weight because body fat doesn't burn many calories. High muscle mass burns a lot of calories even at rest! The more muscle you have compared to fat the faster your body will lose extra fat. Weight training is helpful to building muscle and losing fat. What percentage of food should you eat of each food type? That is genetically set. Your ideal % of Protein, Carbohydrates and fat are genetically determined. Many of us have discovered our ideal food chart through trial and error, but a weight loss genetic test can tell you as well! Your Age: The older you get the lower your sex hormone testosterone is. As you age testosterone, growth hormone decreases while estrone increases all of which cause and cause weight gain. Testosterone stops being produced from women's ovaries between 40-50 years of age. Men never lose all of their T but the level decreases from age 35 on to hit a clinically symptomatic level between 50-55 years of age. Estrone increases as Testosterone decreases and causes both sexes to gain belly fat. Do you have your sex hormones or not (particularly Testosterone)? Without T your muscles stop growing and burn fewer calories every day you go without T. This is why people tend to get old and fat as their T stops being produced (in women) or becomes clinically too low a level of free T at a certain age in a man's life. Growth Hormone decreases with age—adding nonoral T replacement increases Growth Hormone. Menopause immediately makes women who don't replace their estrogen and testosterone to gain up to 20 lbs without changing diet or lifestyle. Osteoporosis occurs and worsens with age because estrogen and testosterone in women decrease over time. Testosterone in men decreases in men which thins bones. Loss of bone causes loss of muscle and both cause weight gain.  More importantly, osteoporosis decreases the activity level of affected patients. Lifestyle impacts your ability to lose weight: How much water do you drink? You need sufficient water to lose fat. You should drink ½ your weight in pounds, in ounces of water to be able to lose weight.  That volume of water you should drink increases to ounces of water = weight in pounds if it is hot outside or you are doing work that makes you sweat. Do you eat cleanly- do you eat whole foods? Do you eat one salad a day? Do you turn down sugary foods and desserts. If the answer is yes, then keep it up because it is helping you lose weight! Do you eat fast food cereal, cookies desserts and or doughnuts? If so, stop! All of these foods are massive producers of blood sugar, metabolic syndrome and obesity!   These foods are literally bad for everyone! Do you eat a balanced diet? Humans are built to eat a varied diet with some fruit vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, butter, healthy fats (non-meat fats), with some grains and we were NOT built to eat sugar!  Do you eat a lot of carbs? A Low carb diet can allow you to improve IBS, prevent cancer, and Alzheimer's Disease, dementia, avoid bacterial and viral infections, high cholesterol and heart disease, diabetes, obesity….all the diseases that cause us to be sick and age are related to too much carbohydrate in your diet!  In Japan, Alzheimer's Disease is called Type 3 Diabetes! Do you sit all day or exercise and move your body –taking 10,000 steps actually helps you lose and maintain our weight as well as exercising your heart! Do you take vitamins and supplements to prevent deficiencies in your diet? If not then you need to write down everything you eat for a week and have your medical professional review it….My bet is that everyone in America needs supplements ! The minimum daily requirements on a vitamin bottle is the MINIMUM AMOUNT OF A VITAMIN THAT MERELY KEEPS YOU ALIVE!  These levels are not the amount of a nutrient you need to be healthy!  I bet you think alcohol is a food? It isn't!  Alcohol is a toxin, use it with care. Just because your friends drink a bottle of wine a night doesn't mean it is healthy…bad habits always want company! Diseases that you currently have affects your ability to lose weight. Are the glands that set your calorie burning rate healthy?   If your thyroid is low, you will have to work harder at exercise, and you will have to eat less calories to lose the same amount of weight a person your size who has a normal thyroid. If you have sick glands you are bound to be “over-fat” Diabetes and insulin resistance (abnormal your pancreatic gland) cause weight gain and an inability to lose weight if it is not treated. Metformin recreates insulin sensitivity, as does Mounjaro and Semaglutide medications. Liver and kidney disease your ability to get rid of the fat you are burning and you store up toxins that also slow your weight loss. Follow the directions of your doctor and get the healthiest liver and kidneys you can!  Fatty liver is secondary to Metabolic Syndrome, so treatment with Metformin, Semaglutide and Tirzapetide can cure this disease! Heart disease—high carbs not high protein diet causes arterial plaque! You have been lied to because statins make money!  Stop eating carbs and eat all the animal proteins you want! One of my patients has only eaten fruit, vegetables, grains, sugar and alcohol his whole life and he has severe atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) before he was 60! Avoiding animal products does not prevent heart disease. Endocrine disorders like overactive adrenal (high Cortisol) and hypoactive thyroid, pituitary adenomas can cause an imbalance of the metabolism and they can cause weight gain and fatigue that make it hard to lose weight. I will talk about Medications that cause weight gain—beta blockers, blood pressure medications, Statins, and others in a future blog.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog I bet you have heard the idiom, “There is no free lunch”, or  “There is no medication without a side effect”, but did you know that medications that are prescribed by your doctor can have negative effects on your health that are never even discussed with you….so you should protect yourself by replacing the nutrients that your medications  remove from your body, and that must be replaced for you to be healthy. Statins -→ COQ 10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression Beta Blockers -→ COQ-10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression Oral contraceptives and oral estrogen/progestins-→ COQ-10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression Antidepressants called SSRIs-→ COQ-10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression Dosage: If you take any of these medications you need to take COQ10 200-400 mg/day every day! Thiazide Diuretics=HCTZ -→ Magnesium and Zinc Deficiency muscle spasms, prostate issues, constipation Take 50 mg of Zinc and 400-600 mg of Magnesium Glycinate a day to replace what is lost. NSAIDS (Motrin, Advil, Aleve, Ibuprofen, Meloxicam, Naproxen, Indomethecin, Daypro, Mefenamic acid, Voltaren)-→ malabsorption, depression, anxiety, and the vitamin and mineral deficiencies listed: Folic Acid Deficiency- Take Methyl- Folate 500 mg Iron Deficiency—Take Iron Bisglycinate (Ferrabsorb) Vitamin C deficiency—Take Vitamin C 500-1000 mg/day Amino acid deficiency—take Arginine +/- Ornithine. OR change your medication to Celebrex 200-400 BID  PPIs=Proton Pump Inhibitors (Omeprazole, Prilosec, Pantoprazole, Lansoprazole, Protonix) are taken for stomach ulcers, H. Pylori infection and gastric reflux PPIs Increase Homocysteine which increases your risk of stroke, MI, and Pulmonary embolism.  PPIs decrease the absorption of many nutrients.  They actually cause malabsorption of essential nutrients.   Replace these nutrients with supplements, but much of what you take won't be absorbed unless you take daily Probiotics:  B12 – take methyl B12 1000 mcg/day Folate – take as methyl folate 5,000mcg/day Vitamin D – take 5,000 IU/day Note: PPIs can even cause the growth of dangerous gut bacteria causing chronic Hemophilus. If you have chronic vaginitis that smells fishy, it could be your PPIs! If you have this stop the PPI, take Pepcid instead (histamine receptor blocker) or nothing and take probiotics to repair the damage the PPIs have caused. These nutrients need to be replaced to keep you healthy, however it is better for most patients to only take PPIs for 2 weeks at a time or substitute a histamine receptor blocker like: Pepcid, Zofran. Surgery It is not just the medications doctors prescribe for their patients; sometimes surgical procedures can cause chronic diseases through preventing nutritional nutrients to enter your body.   Removal of the gall bladder must be done, yet patients are not told what they can do to be healthy after the surgery. The gall bladder provides enzymes that help you breakdown foods, primarily fats and absorb fatty vitamins from your food and supplements.  If you have had your gallbladder removed you can become nutritionally deficient in A, D, E fat soluble vitamins, and you will promote the growth of abnormal gut bacteria and are at risk for leaky gut, Celiac disease, autoimmune diseases and malnutrition. Everyone who has their gallbladder removed should take digestive enzymes with every meal and take Probiotics daily. Bariatric Surgery for Obesity The last iatrogenic nutritional deficiency that I will discuss is Bariatric surgeries, all kinds that remove part of the stomach, or band the stomach or in any way physically makes the stomach smaller is related to nutritional deficiencies caused by malabsorption of vitamins and minerals.  The way to combat these deficiencies include taking: a probiotic daily digestive enzymes with every meal and all vitamins should be chewable or sublingual to be absorbed from the mucosa of the mouth  In Conclusion: Remember I am a physician, and my job is to promote wellness in my patients.  It is sometimes more important and lifesaving to take the above medications or have these surgeries, than to prevent a nutritional deficiency in the future.  We must follow those medical decisions with trouble shooting addition of nutritional supplementation to replace what these necessary medications and surgeries remove.  That is preventive medicine and why supplementation is often needed for our health.  

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog Last time I talked about the ways you can keep your skin healthy and the products I have found that medical grade products are effective to keep skin looking young and healthy.  My last Healthcast/Blog was about what you can do at home to improve your skin and look younger. This week we are going to talk about how to get the treatment you need to improve your skin if it is damaged and aging at the medical spa, and you may not have been able to be out of the sun or been able to follow the lifestyle changes I recommended that are necessary to avoid skin and sun damage.  The problem is bigger, and the treatments are more drastic, and expensive. When you have finally decided to do something to help your skin look younger, you must   do an introspective survey of your face and prioritize the problems that you see, placing what bothers you the most as your first priority.  I think writing this on a list and taking it to your consultation is the best way to proceed. When nothing is getting better with your own self-care, It is then time to get a consult from an expert who can tell you what you need to reverse your skin problems. Bring your list to the office consultation and decide on how much you can spend a month/or a year, on your own “renovation”. What to know when you have your consultation: When you have your consultation, you should be aware that there are at least 3 different treatments to treat any problem that you have. They have different levels of effectiveness and cost.  At our spa you will be able to choose between three levels of treatment, but often, the consultant will weigh in on what the best procedure is for you. The least expensive treatments take the longest time to reach your goal and are usually the least effective. There is generally a medium level treatment, which is a little more expensive and more effective than the least expensive but will take more time to get the results, and finally the most dramatic results and faster outcomes cost the most.  If you need fast results and can afford the procedures, then tell your consultant at the beginning of your interview.  On the other hand, if you have a limited budget but have an open time frame then tell her that too. This will help you get to the desired treatment fastest and make your consultation the most profitable for you. In case this doesn't make sense, here is an example:  The treatment of age spots or brown spots has three possible solutions. The least expensive treatment is achieved by the use of topical serums at home and a series of facials in the spa. The outcome takes time and is not as effective as the other two options.  The medium level of treatment (medium cost and effectiveness) is a VI or TCA Peel that has more immediate results and has some down time, but is less expensive than the most effective treatment, and more effective than the least expensive. The Laser IPL or Pixel treatments are the most expensive outside the operating room, they have some pain involved, but it takes only a couple treatments to rid yourself of the brown age spots that are on your face and decollate. In addition to the excellent results, these two treatments also tighten skin, and diminish wrinkles, while they remove the precancerous skin spots that make us look old.  This is the highest price treatment but is faster and more complete than other available treatments. Choosing the Treatment that is right for you: Your Goal, Time to get to Goal, Effectiveness of treatment, Downtime, Pain, and Cost. I think it is best to inform your Skin Consultant about how much time you have before you reach your skin goal, if you can have some downtime or not, and how much money do you want to invest in your skin “re-birth”. In terms of choice of treatments at a med spa, you will get what you pay for.  On our BiobalanceSkin.com website we have the three or four options for each skin problem (wrinkles, brown spots, sagging skin, eye lid droop, poor texture) that our patients present with.  I like that method of comparing treatments for each skin care problem. It should be transparent as to what your choices are, and what you get from a particular series of treatments. You should make your opinions known as to your priorities. That means what bothers you most about your skin. Think about it before your consultation and give her a list of priorities in writing which will keep her on track. BTW, none of these treatments work if you don't follow the instructions given to you for aftercare and follow-up treatments. Ask about before and after care at your consultation. For example, If a patient has chosen a pixel laser resurfacing to remove her brown spots, and after 2 weeks all of her brown spots have come to the surface and peeled off, and she doesn't use effective skin care products and doesn't wear sunscreen and stay out of the sun for the appropriate time, then there is no guarantee that her results will remain excellent. You must take control of your own self-care because it is 50% of the treatment, and 50% of the outcome of our treatment.  Please don't use products from Walgreens if we told you to use something else after or before the treatment! Price of each treatment series is usually critical to decision making…..each of us has a budget. However, you should understand that the least expensive treatments generally have a lower cost to the spa and are least expensive.  For example, what follows is a comparison between the three choices for improving texture and tone of facial skin are as follows: Least expensive: a series of Hydro-facials (30-45 minutes) one per month for three months, and three months of products, followed by a 3-month maintenance:  This is the least expensive and doesn't transform skin texture and tone as much, and doesn't last as long as other available methods of treatment.  If you have very little damage, are young and healthy, or you just want to maintain what you have, this is ideal for your needs. There is no downtime. Medium price: For example, Micro-needling treatments, are a medium cost and effectiveness treatment. This treatment uses a pen that contains a tiny needle that makes tiny “holes” in the skin's dermis all over the facial skin, neck and decollate, which then stimulates collagen production over the next 4-6 weeks, tightening and lifting the skin.  In general, this treatment is done in a series to achieve the results you are looking for.  2-4 treatments done every 4-6 weeks is the typical number of treatments needed.  Maintenance requires a few of these treatments a year. Down time is minimal, there is a redness that occurs for 24-36 hours and peeling of the superficial dead skin for up to a week, but it is not severe and can be covered with makeup. Micro needling is ideal for younger patients to prevent the sagging and loose skin that comes with aging.  It also makes the skin look fresh and glowing. Micro needling offers an Add-On of PRP to be applied and “injected” with the needles into facial skin to stimulate collagen production faster and more efficiently. Of course, this increases the price of the treatment. Highest price: The highest price treatments are generally appropriate for older patients, or impatient patients: those women who have a timeline for improving their skin ( a wedding or event), and those who have the most sun damage. You also get extra goodies when you get Laser Pixel treatments. The Pixel resurfacing not only improves texture and tightness of skin, nut it also removes brown spots and helps fill in wrinkles!  Lots of extras which makes the price worth it! There are several choices for the top-of-the-line procedures to improve texture and tightness and they are not all lasers. One non-laser treatment is called Aqua Gold treatment which has three choices for what is injected and three prices. It uses a small disposable applicator that has many short gold needles to deliver a serum by “stamping it into the skin”.  The injectables are hyaluronic acid injected below the epidermis and which combines the micro-needling technique with filler (very expensive) and Botox (very expensive) with an option to add activated platelets (a blood draw, spinning with an expensive activating compound). This treatment is expensive, but it is immediately effective, and the change is great.  There is no real downtime, and the changes are immediate. A series of these treatments can revolutionize the quality of your skin. The last component of getting the most out of your facial treatments includes buying the right products to help you maintain the beautiful results you have achieved through any of the above treatments.  It is a waste of your money to buy inferior products that may reverse the improvements you have paid for.   This is essential for preserving the improvements you have received from any of the esthetic treatments discussed in this blog. Now if you think you need a facelift, you should see an injector consultant to ask if she can help with a much less expensive injection of Botox, filler, or both.  Another treatment which is done without needles is the EmFace which uses magnetic energy to stimulate lift and muscle tone to literally do what a facelift does without a knife. Facelifts total cost is $75,000-$150,000 and has down time of months, and includes drains, and pain.  A series of EmFace series of treatments (4) is about $3500, without pain and without downtime.  When faced with surgery, always look for another way to do the same thing! Now you know what is ahead of you when you talk to a Skin Care Expert about how to achieve your beauty goals.

The National Cancer Institute's partnership with St. Jude is helping researchers to better understand how cancer accelerates the aging process of survivors who were diagnosed as children. The team is also developing therapies that can decrease risks of frailty and dying at an early age. NCI's Jennifer Guida and St. Jude's Kirsten Ness say the Behavioral Research Program as well as the Human Performance Laboratory have been instrumental in helping determine which survivors are more likely to experience physical and cognitive decline. These programs have also assisted researchers with identifying interventions that can possibly prevent premature death and other complications caused by cancer and cancer treatments. Guida and Ness discuss how technology like artificial intelligence is playing a critical role in improving care for childhood cancer especially in conducting screenings, tracking a person's risk for heart failure as well as creating a patient's survivorship plan.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) aims to recruit a more diverse pool of candidates to work in public health care. ONC Deputy National Coordinator for Operations and Chief Operating Officer Lisa Lewis Person helped create the Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility Council back in 2020. An employee-led committee, the council develops policies and programs that ensure all Americans are represented in ONC's workforce. Person also sponsors the Public Health Informatics and Technology (PHIT) Workforce Program, which gives minority serving institutions the ability to provide certifications as well as degrees in public health. She discusses why diversity in health care matters and how it impacts health IT.

Proteomics is an emerging field in cancer care and research. The National Cancer Institute's Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) aims to get to the heart of cancer by studying its molecular basis across different cancers. The group believes expanding open-source resources and other data can lead to new treatments in cancer and expand precision medicine. Dr. Henry Rodriguez, the founding director of the Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research at NCI, discusses the program and how the related International Cancer Proteogenome Consortium (ICPC) is helping researchers pull together resources necessary to innovate cancer care.

The Participant Engagement and Cancer Genome Sequencing Network (PECGS) part of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative is a collaboration between the National Cancer Institute and research institutions to engage cancer patients directly and ultimately better understand cancer genomics. One of six funded projects is with Washington University, which is focusing on rare and understudied cancer populations with health disparities. Dr. Bettina Drake, professor at the university's School of Medicine, discusses how her team is studying molecular changes in tumors for cancers like cholangiocarcinoma, multiple myeloma in African Americans and colorectal cancer under age 50 in African Americans. NCI Program Director Dr. Leah Mechanic also discusses how the PECGS Network overall is advancing health equity and precision medicine efforts around cancer care and treatment. This is an in-depth peek into one of many programs within a broader collaborative effort to better understand cancer and accelerate the White House's Cancer Moonshot's mission to end cancer as we know it.

Indian Health Service CIO Mitchell Thornbrugh joins HealthCast to talk about ways that IHS is progressing in its modernization program and the need for a patient-centered, human-centered approach to care. He notes that IHS is working with across levels of government to provide better health care, ultimately, to Native Americans and Alaska Natives living in diverse communities nationwide. Modernizing a health care system is a big task, with organizations having to prioritize customer experience and leverage technology to move toward modern, patient-centered care. At the Indian Health Service (IHS), replacing the existing Resource and Patient Management System (RPMS) means replacing the oldest legacy system in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The National Cancer Institute is utilizing a host of new technologies to diagnose and detect cancer thanks to its Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT) and Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) programs. These programs are developing methods that are enhancing cancer research, including artificial intelligence. Dr. Kelly Crotty, program director for NCI's Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives, said not only have the programs helped researchers better identify and screen for cancer, but also they've been instrumental in driving progress in clinical care. Crotty also shares updates about NCI's Liquid Biopsy Consortium and discusses the benefits and challenges she's seeing with AI.

HealthCast, along with GovCast and CyberCast, will now be published in the GovCIO Media & Research Podcasts feed. Subscribe and listen today on the podcast platform of your choice.

CyberCast, along with GovCast and HealthCast, will now be published in the GovCIO Media & Research Podcasts feed. Subscribe and listen today on the podcast platform of your choice.

Dr. W. Kimryn Rathmell is one month into her post as National Cancer Institute's new director and is already rolling up her sleeves on initiatives impacting health outcomes of cancer patients. Dr. Rathmell discusses her priorities for the year ahead, including a renewed focus on deepening connections across agencies, communities and the nation. She highlights how the agency fits into broader White House priorities around Cancer Moontshot. She also discusses upcoming plans for artificial intelligence and how it might boost cancer prevention as well as improve cancer screenings. Plus, she shares her story about an organization she co-founded that is near and dear to her heart.

Government is typically not one to take risks, but Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) CIO Nikolaos Ipiotis said failing and learning are key parts to tech and health innovation. The agency, the newest one within the National Institutes of Health, aims to transform and innovate in health IT, medicine and other lanes of research that aren't easily available through traditional approaches. Ipiotis, who joined the agency in December 2023, said in his first podcast interview that taking risks, "controlled failure" and collaboration are all keys to his IT strategy. He discusses what lies ahead for data strategy as the agency begins to collaborate with industry and set in motion major initiatives for the health community.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog This subject is for men who have had a high PSA and who have been advised that they need a prostate biopsy to determine if they have cancer. Many men go into the doctor for the biopsy necessary for diagnosis without expecting the “blind biopsy” procedure that is done through the rectum and is extremely painful when the doctor blindly takes pieces of the prostate…over and over again.   Blindly, means he is randomly picking a place to biopsy without a real target….with the urologist biopsying everywhere in the prostate 10 or more times. Finding a small cancer with this random or “blind” biopsy method is a less than effective way to find a small area of prostate cancer. Men who have had this procedure done rarely agree to a second round, under any circumstances and I agree with them. I always do a PSA test before I treat a man with testosterone so I often am faced with the question of what advice I should give him in this situation before I feel it is safe to give him testosterone. Of course, if he has prostate cancer, even a high PSA, I will not give a man testosterone until his urologist says he is safe to receive it.  Until recently there was no radiologic way to screen a for prostate cancer. Now urologists use Ultrasound or MRIs to find an abnormality in the prostate that they can biopsy.  This makes the procedure both more accurate and less painful. The way this procedure was done in the past, and is still done throughout the US, always caused me to wonder why urologists hadn't figured out a way to do it in a way that accurately biopsied a high risk area of the prostate, with one or two biopsies.  Now Urologists use rectal ultrasound or MRI, like Gynecologists use vaginal ultrasounds to find and drain or biopsy ovarian masses, or to harvest eggs in IVF. The urologists have even borrowed the idea to use numbing medicine as well to make it comfortable.  In the last 2 years I have found a few Urologists who have embraced the new, accurate biopsy procedure that used the MRI to find high risk areas and ultrasound to locate suspicious areas for biopsy, then used the same radiologic method to locate and  treat discrete focal areas of abnormality with cryotherapy (freezing) or focused ultrasound.  Finally in August of 2023,  a research article titled, “Focal Therapy for Localized Prostate Cancer in Older Men”, was published in the Journal of Urology. This article describes a much more accurate method of treating prostate cancer that resulted in the diagnosis and treatment of  low grade prostate cancer without recurrence and without complications, allowing men to have a conservative treatment for low grade prostate cancer, following a less painful and invasive diagnostic procedure. Compassion has finally come to diagnosis and  treatment of prostate cancer. We applaud the authors. August 22, 2023 Focal Therapy for Localized Prostate Cancer in Older Men Allan S. Brett, MD, reviewing Habashy D et al. J Urol 2023 Jul Lomas DJ and Frendl DM. J Urol 2023 Jul In an observational study, focal therapy was compared with radical treatment. At some centers, focal ablative therapy (generally with high-intensity focused ultrasound or cryotherapy) is a treatment option for selected patients with localized prostate cancer. This option could be attractive for some older patients with comorbidities who might be candidates for radical prostatectomy or radiotherapy (according to tumor grade) but who wish to avoid complications from radical intervention. Using data from national registries, U.K. researchers compared 262 patients (age, ≥70; median age, 74) who underwent focal ablative therapy with 262 propensity-score–matched patients who underwent radical treatment (mostly radiotherapy with androgen-deprivation therapy). At baseline, nearly all patients had intermediate- or high-risk disease. Estimated 5-year failure-free survival (the composite primary outcome, which included absence of salvage radical treatment, systemic treatment, distant metastases, or prostate cancer–specific death) was significantly higher in the radically treated group than in the focal-therapy group (96% vs. 82%). Estimated 5-year overall survival with focal therapy was 96%. COMMENT The better failure-free survival with radical treatment than with focal therapy (a 14 percentage-point difference) is not surprising. The challenge for individual decision making is to balance that difference against the higher rate of complications with radical treatment in older men — especially men with substantial comorbidities. We don't have long-term data from randomized trials to compare focal therapy versus radical treatment, active surveillance, or watchful waiting. But in the meantime, editorialists from Mayo Clinic conclude that focal therapy is “a reasonable strategy in older patients.” About 34,800,000 results (0.53 seconds)  Search Results Featured snippet from the web They insert a needle through the wall of your rectum and into the prostate to extract the cells for testing. This is a “transrectal biopsy.” Doctors usually take a dozen samples from various parts of the prostate. In some cases, they do the biopsy by inserting a needle through the skin between the scrotum and the anus.May 29, 2023

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog There are almost as many different human metabolic variations as there are people in the world.  Our genetics make us all unique in ways that vary the way we can lose weight or even gain weight. On the other hand, we all had to descend from humans who survived famine, lack of water and lack of nutrition sources, so in one way we are all the same…we have genes that helped us survive times that required of us the ability to maintain our weight even without eating!  The people who genetically were unable to gain fat and keep it to hold them over during famine just didn't make it to an age they could procreate. The rest of us whose ancestors survived, have given the majority of us the genes to maintain body fat.   Unfortunately, we have been blindly unaware of what man's evolution and progress has led us to physically, and most of us are over-fat, and have trouble losing it!  The very genes that allowed us to survive the beginning of man's existence, are the same ones that make it hard to become slender. In addition, in our current societies in the western world, food is plentiful and inexpensive.  Our genes have not changed, but our environment has, and we are becoming sick because of our obesity…how do we survive this “new world”? You may hear a lot about insulin resistance, and I talk about it a lot on my Healthcasts, but it is insulin resistance that has allowed us to survive and has also led us to obesity today.  The humans who were insulin resistant who also held on to their fat in times of starvation are also the humans who have become obese in the face of plenty. We can't change our genes, but we can turn some of the obesity genes off through lifestyle and sometimes with the help of medication. Despite our basic sameness, we are also each individual, and genetically programed so that some of us lose weight if we restrict calories, others lose weight only if they exercise; Some of us don't lose weight with exercise; some people don't lose weight with carbohydrate restriction or fat restriction, and some do.  This is the ugly truth that lies behind the millions of books on diet, none of which work for more than a small number of us, and because it is a diet we can't maintain it...what we need is to determine is the best weight loss program for each of us, by using trial and error, or by using genetic testing that tells us what our best pathway to a normal weight looks like.   To begin we must take baby steps and learn about food and what the words mean that we use when referring to food.  Because there are many people who may have several hurdles to jump before they can live at their healthy weight, we need to all speak the same language of weight loss.   So let's start with a bit of education about food.   WHAT IS A SIMPLE SUGAR?   A simple sugar is a nutrient meant to give you energy for physical activity. Eating a small amount of a simple or a complex sugar before exercise is a good idea. However, if you sit most of your day, working with your brain instead of your body, simple sugars can increase your fat storage because you aren't physically working. This is true whether restricting sugar is your genetic method of weight loss or not. Too many simple sugars make you hungry and cause everyone to overeat.….causing weight gain and fat gain. So what are simple sugars?   Examples of simple sugars:   ·      Sugar, white, cane  and brown ·      Molasses ·      Regular Soda ·      Agave ·      Honey ·      Syrup-maple or any ·      Rice, white and brown ·      Cereals-all ·      Oatmeal ·      Donuts ·      White potatoes ·      Bread ·      Pancakes/waffles ·      Noodles ·      All Grains: wheat, oats, rice, corn and anything made from them including flour ·      Sweet tea ·      All Cakes, brownies, candy, chips, and many energy bars ·      All bagged snacks like pretzels, chips, cookies, and fruit with sugar added ·      Pies and most desserts, except fresh or frozen fruit. ·      Dried Fruit (has sugar added eat frozen fruit instead.) ·      All non-milk-based salad dressings except plain Olive oil and vinegar.   Note: All diet sodas have chemicals that stimulate insulin like sugar.  There are a few brands that use Stevia (an herb that is sweet, and not a chemical) and they are the exception so you can drink those without stimulating fat production.  Other options are unsweetened bubble water or plain water.     Eventually eating a diet filled with simple sugars leads to obesity, and diabetes no matter who you are, therefore if you are in not working physically with your body all day, every day ( machinists, farmers -in the summer, factory workers, outdoor laborers) you should not eat these foods except in small amounts with a protein to lengthen the time until you feel hungry again. The rest of us should rarely eat these foods. They should be considered foods for “special events”.     If you exercise aerobically and/or with weights for more than an hour at a time, then you may eat a small amount of simple sugars but eating small amount of complex sugars is healthier to help you maintain your muscle mass and your exercise stamina while losing fat.       COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES: EAT INSTEAD OF SIMPLE SUGARS     SWEET POTATOES   Sweet potatoes taste sweet and have complex Carbohydrates so it takes longer for them to be digested which means they do not stimulate the secretion of insulin as fast or as high as white potatoes. They are a complex sugar.   Sweet Potatoes also have several health benefits including antioxidant healing role and anti-inflammatory properties.   CHICKPEAS (GARBANZO BEANS, BLACK BEANS AND LENTILS) Legumes like chickpeas, black beans, and lentils are not only complex carbohydrates buy are a great source of dietary fiber, making them wise choices for a filling you up and satisfying the pre-workout carbohydrate requirement.   QUINOA   Quinoa is a good source of plant protein. It can be a substitute for bread or pasta.   WHOLE GRAIN BREADS LIKE DAVE'S LOW CARB & HIGH PROTEIN BREAD   Whole grain bread like Dave's Bread has enough fiber and nut protein to prevent excessive stimulation of your insulin. Too much insulin leads to insulin resistance and causes fat gain instead of giving your cells energy. One piece of bread per meal is all you should eat if you are overweight and or have Type II diabetes in your family. Make sure you are not eating more than 25 grams of carb in any meal.   WILD RICE- is a seed and not a “rice”   You should eat wild rice instead of any other type of rice and only in small amounts.  All complex carbs should be eaten in small portions because in large portions they act just like simple carbs and increase weight gain.     NUTS: Cashews, Almonds, Walnuts, Chestnuts,   Nuts of all kinds can be a substitute for carbs in any form.  A handful of nuts should be enough to decrease your hunger and increase your protein as well as decrease insulin response to eating.   The Combination of foods that you eat is also important.  If you are going to eat any carbohydrate it should be paired with a protein and or a fat.   For example: If you are going to eat a piece of bread, then you can eat it with butter and or peanut butter or cheese or eggs.  This slows the absorption of the carbohydrate from the bread and prevents your blood sugar from surging and plummeting after you eat, leaving you fatigued and sleepy.   In The Dr. Maupin's Diet in my book the Secret Female Hormone, I recommend eating multiple times a day and controlling simple carbs and carbs from sugar and grains.  Scientifically it is a fact that if you eat 25 grams or less of carbohydrate foods from sugar or grains per meal then you can prevent Insulin resistance and the additional fat that follows insulin resistance.  It is also a good way to lose fat.  In my diet a person can eat as much fruit and veggies as they desire, except white potatoes and bananas.   WHAT YOU EAT, IS AS IMPORTANT AS HOW MUCH YOU EAT!   Other Strategies for weight loss include eating a protein with each carb which decreases the total volume of food you eat and increases satiety.   ·      Saving your carbs to be eaten before exercise.   ·      Portion Control of all food.   ·      Limit alcohol.  0- 4 drinks a week   ·      Daily exercise for over an hour/day.   ·      Drink a glass of water before you eat.   ·      Skip dessert   ·      Eat a salad daily   ·      Eat more than half your weight in grams of protein (Meat, cheese, eggs, milk products, whey protein and more)    The basic information was from my over 45 years of practice and Information provided by Inbody.  If you know by experience or you have had your genetics tested to reveal that limiting carbohydrates is needed for you to lose fat, then I hope this blog helped you understand what I mean when I tell you to limit your carbohydrate intake to less than 25 grams per meal.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog When I tell my patients that they need a high protein diet, all they can think of is meat…but protein sources are found in many parts of our diet and eating a variety of protein sources is the key to health, we should find out what we should eat and why? Protein contains amino acids that are the major building blocks to make our muscles, skin, connective tissue, tendons, ligaments and bones.  It also supplies the components of our skin, hair and nails, and carries with it calcium (the major component of bones and connective tissue).  Protein is found in cheese, milk, all milk products, whey for protein shakes, pea protein, fish, all seafood, chicken, lamb, eggs, Quinoa and beans for building muscle. Pieces of proteins make up every fluid the body makes, including hormones, enzymes, peptide communicators, the immune globulins, semen, breast milk, and vaginal discharge….is it any wonder that I tell my patients to increase protein in their diets! Despite the need for amino acids and short chains of amino acids called peptides, we also need a variety of foods, all colors at every meal to provide the other building blocks of our body.  For example, fat is a very necessary food for every person, at every meal.  When I was pregnant, I wanted to feed my baby everything she needed to build a healthy beautiful brain, so I ate Braun Schweiger every day (made from liver) for lunch with a salad.  The Braun Schweiger provided Rachel, my daughter, with the building blocks for an amazing brain. Our brains are almost all fat.  That is the type of tissue that nerves are made of, but nerves also need B12 to work properly and B12 is primarily from animal products. It is relatively easy to include fat in our diets, but it is truly difficult to get enough protein to build muscle on a vegan diet. My vegan patients must be experts in obtaining protein from their diet and must be aware of the components in all the food they eat to get the proper nutrition. Carbohydrates are made for “action”.   Carbohydrates are required for exercise, walking and brains also burn carbohydrates when you are doing “brain work”. Carbohydrates are stored as fat if we eat them but don't exercise!  Think before you eat carbohydrates about your next 12 hours and whether you are going to exercise to burn the carbohydrates in your diet. So How Much Protein Do We Need? Growing teenagers, people who lift weights and try to gain muscle, pregnant women (need a minimum of 100 grams a day) and patients like mine on testosterone need more protein in their diet than the average sedentary, adult. To quantitate the number of grams of protein you need to sustain your body with a high percentage of muscle, a person needs more than ½ their weight in grams of protein. For example, a 125 lb. woman with average to high muscle mass will need more than 62.5 grams of protein a day. A person with higher muscle mass will need more than that. For athletes, weight lifters, patients trying to lose weight and sustain their current muscle mass, they need to eat the equivalent number of grams of protein to their weight, every day.  To do this a person will have to know how many grams are in each serving of their current foods and if they aren't eating enough, they should add high protein, low carb protein shakes times before or after they work out or exercise.  A typical protein shake will have 15 to 20 grams per serving and less than 5-10 grams of carbohydrate. An average size  hamburger has about 20 grams of protein.  Add beans, peas, cheese, yogurt, butter, ricotta cheese, milk, eggs, custard, chicken, fish fillets, shrimp, and protein bars.  Be careful not to overeat carbohydrate with your protein which can cause you to gain fat, while you make muscle. Why do we need more protein on the days we work out, especially with weights?  Weight training is a great muscle builder, in fact it is the best form of exercise for increasing your muscle mass.  But why do people who engage in this type of activity require more protein than those who walk?  The answer is in the physiology of human muscle when stressed by weight training exercises.  When you work out with weights you put specific stress on your muscles, and during the hour or hours you engage in this type of exercise your muscles are broken down. That's right, initially you LOSE MUSCLE! The act of physical labor on the human body that uses weights against gravity causes stress on the muscle fibers and they are broken down, their components (all made of protein) are then excreted from the body.  We don't recycle much of the broken-down muscle! Instead, we must provide new building blocks, or amino acids that are circulated to the muscles from our diet, tp build back the muscle and even build more than was there the day before your exercised! This is the reason weight-lifters work out the top half of their body one day and let it rest (to build muscle) the next day while they exercise the bottom half of their body! Now let's talk about protein necessary for aerobic exercise like running or fast walking.  Distance running does not build muscles in the legs (or anywhere else), because this type of aerobic activity breaks down muscles that are working hard, but they are not stressed against gravity enough to build muscle, unless the runner is obese. Obese people who do or do not exercise have huge calves not because they work out, but because their legs have to hold up more weight than it is designed to support so their lower legs lift a fat body every day!  Runners, however, are usually slender, and their calves, quads, and hamstrings are slender too.  They do not build muscles while running.  The purpose of running is the production of endorphins for enjoyment, and the aerobic benefit to the cardiovascular system.  Running also burns alot calories so carbohydrates are needed to give the current muscles energy to run.  If you have ever looked at runners' legs, they are not “cut” like lifters legs, that show the muscle bellies of the legs, but they are narrow long and smooth. These people don't need as much protein as a lifter even though they are running every day, because they don't require as much protein to build back what they already have plus more protein to make the muscles bigger! They just must sustain the muscle mass that is being used.  Their need is in carbohydrates that give them energy to feed the muscle fibers. As people age, they lose muscle mass unless they take testosterone and eat a high protein diet. Left to nature their muscle mass decreases by 3-8 % EVERY YEAR between the ages of 40 and 90, unless you take a healthy dose of testosterone.  Aging adults are advised to eat more protein to prevent this catabolism but truly it doesn't work if you don't replace the hormone that signals muscles to grow which is testosterone. Remember that protein comes primarily from animal products but can also be found in many kinds of beans and peas, but not in any fruit. Remember to grow muscle you need.   ·      Protein in grams per day equal to your weight ·      Varied colorful diet with enough fat and carbohydrates. ·      Testosterone ·      Weight bearing exercise Another reason supplements might not be necessary: “Protein is in every food group except fruit,” Dr Webb says. Every human was born to eat a variety of foods to satisfy all their daily nutritional needs. The benefits of variety include the types of protein sources. Meat is an obvious source of protein, but “thankfully we can find protein in a multitude of plant-based sources, including lentils, tempeh, tofu, and beans,” Corwin says. Barkoukis, a researcher on protein and nutrition, advises that "Variety in diet is the best plan,” she says. “Beans are an amazing powerhouse," however they do not have all the amino acids the body needs to sustain life. “Not all protein sources are alike, or equivalent. Animal proteins are “complete” in that they contain all nine essential amino acids, while most plant proteins often have some—but not all—of those aminos that we cannot make in our bodies, so we must get them from a food source.” Quinoa has all the essential proteins; beans are incomplete and should be combined with other sources. For those who always ask how food work, here it is taken from a book called Human How do the proteins from foods, denatured or not, get processed into amino acids that cells can use to make new proteins? When you eat food the body's digestive system breaks down the protein into the individual amino acids, which are absorbed and used by cells to build other proteins and a few other macromolecules, such as DNA. Nutrition. 1.    In the mouth your saliva begins the metabolism of proteins with amylase that is produced in your salivary glands. Your chewing breaks protein down into small pieces to help digestion. 2.    In the stomach acids (Hydrochloric acid from gastric juices and an enzyme pepsin to break down protein. Proteins take longer in the stomach to break- down so you feel full longer when you eat proteins. 3.    The small intestine is the major player in protein digestion. Here the Pancreas secretes trypsin and chymotrypsin These enzymes break food protein into amino acids. 4.    At the end of your small intestine there are specialized cells that transport protein into the bloodstream, and it circulates to where it is stored to make vital enzymes and building blocks for when you haven't been eating. 5.    Amino acids are recycled to make new proteins (muscle, enzymes, skin hair, etc. Amino acids to build other biological molecules containing nitrogen.   “It is critical to maintain amino acid levels by consuming high-quality proteins in the diet, or the amino acids needed for building new proteins will be obtained by increasing protein destruction from other tissues (stealing protein from your muscles) within the body, especially muscle. This amino acid pool is less than one percent of total body-protein content. Thus, the body does not store protein as it does with carbohydrates (as glycogen in the muscles and liver) and lipids (as triglycerides in adipose tissue). such as DNA, RNA, and to some extent to produce energy.”  Eating protein is vital to life!

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog At Bio Balance Health I order blood tests to evaluate my future patients before I even have my first appointment with them.  I use them to find a baseline for an individual patient, and to see if hormones will help them with their symptoms.  Blood tests work well for establishing a diagnosis but are not the only factor in determining an ideal dose of hormone that works for that patient.  Symptoms and medical history supply most of the information for determining dosage as well as help me find other medical problems to treat at the same visit. Many diseases in the early stages are not treated by primary care doctors because they are overwhelmed with their number of patients and the short-time they are allowed to see them.  Our goal is to prevent disease that have been missed or treat conditions at an early stage before they become severe.   Blood tests establish and confirm both hormone deficiencies and provide a baseline level before treatment and the optimal level for each individual patient.   That blood level may or may not be within the range that is expected for a treatment success (written on the lab report). You are an individual and it is my job to find the ideal blood level of hormones for you.   Why would the blood level not tell the whole story?   Your body is genetically programed to both PRODUCE hormones from your endocrine glands and ACCEPT those same hormones in each cell.  Every person is an individual and each person makes hormones based on their genetic map and environment. Everyone is programed genetically to accept hormones into their cells in an individual manner. This is the key to understanding the differences between patients' responses to an equivalent dose of hormones, either excreted from their own glands or absorbed through their chosen delivery system (oral, vaginal, transdermal or subdermal pellets) after their glands have aged and don't produce enough hormone, like estradiol and testosterone.   I was in Cambridge in 2014 for the release of my first book, The Secret Female Hormone, when I visited a medical bookstore.  I discovered a large red book that weighed no less than 10 lbs was titled Testosterone.  I looked through this book and found that there was information that I had not discovered in my research of the American medical journals and books, so I bought it and read some of it on the long flight home to St. Louis, MO. I found that this book had answers to questions I had uncovered in my then,13 years of hormone medical practice. My biggest question at that time was why 2 people of the same sex having the equivalent blood level of free testosterone often feel completely different. For example, I was trained that if a man had a blood level of free testosterone that was above 129 pg/ml and under 350 pg/ml (using Quest Diagnostics lab), then he should feel normal, like he did when he was in his thirties (barring any other illnesses interfering). However, I observed that some men felt great at 110 pg/ml while others at 130 continued to have the symptoms of low T. This puzzled me, but at that time I had no answer. Then I read the first chapter of Testosterone.   The answer is found in the individual differences in the receptors on each cell for that hormone, the receiving end of the hormone physiology.  It informed me that receptor sites are genetically created differently in each individual and that one-size-does-not-fit-all!   You can bathe a person's cells with what is considered an adequate blood concentration of testosterone for most people, let's say men since that was the subject of the first chapter, of the book Testsosterone, but some men would receive and use only a small portion of the circulating hormone. Their cells were “resistant”, therefore they required a higher concentration of hormone, to activate their cells. This very important fact in endocrinology has been ignored until recently when we began to use genetics to find the differences between individuals' receptor sites for all hormones and all peptide communicators. In the last 10 years we have found that receptor sites are the missing link in determining a person's required dose of a hormone, and they are genetically determined.   Here is an example from the book in a very simplified translation. Think of a key and lock. Each cell has “locks” or receptor sites all over it, and the keys are the testosterone molecules.  Some people's cells have locks that are easy to open and turn on a cell. They are “sensitive” to that hormone.  Some cells have difficult “locks” and they must be bombarded with a hormone “keys” to turn the cells on. This led the researchers to look for the snips of DNA that were responsible for the difference. They found them and then tested men from all over the world to see if there were regional groups, genetic groups, that contained more sensitive receptor sites or more resistant.   The results are quite telling and explain the differences between races and peoples in terms of how their bodies use the testosterone hormones available.  The men with the most sensitive receptor sites live closer to the equator: Mediterranean, African, Brazilian, and those men with more resistant receptors had DNA from ancestors who came from closer to both North and South poles: Scandinavia, Canada, Europe, South Africa, Southern Argentina etc.  The results mean that if you have a clear genetic line from one of these groups, we can predict whether you need a higher dose or lower dose to get the same resolution of symptoms. Most people in America are mixtures of genes so most patients don't give me any information from their ancestry.   However, there are two catches to this system of determining an individual's receptor site sensitivity; 1) In this century we are able to travel and find a mate on the other side of the globe and have been able to do so for generations, therefore we are “mutts”, or people who have multiple genetic sources in our DNA and therefore how we look or where we are from is not a good predictable factor for how we will accept our testosterone. 2) There is no commercially available test to evaluate the sensitivity of our receptors. Currently, the best science has found is to test DNA for the snips that predict sensitivity or resistance to testosterone!   This too will come to the practice of medicine, but “medicine” moves slowly and the government and people in control are always looking for a one-size-fits-all approach to illness and or aging, which makes me think this type of test will not be embraced by general American medicine.   At this point all I can tell you about dosing and blood levels is that you have an individual level that is good for you, so I try to figure out what that is, and “mark it” with your “perfect blood level”.  I proceed with is the knowledge that there are many other factors that affect the blood level of free-testosterone (active form) and the effect it has on individual patients.  This leads me to practice individualized medicine like a tailor makes a dress or suit that fits one person only. I have a lot of experience to recognize resistant or sensitive T receptor patients and I now know how to approach their care.  It is NOT by trying to adjust their hormones into the very inaccurate free T levels printed on the blood lab sheet, however I do look at those numbers to establish a baseline for that person, and I do listen to my patients when they tell me whether their symptoms are resolved or not. Resolving all SYMPTOMS is the real sign of a successful replacement of testosterone in both men and women.

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog That is a strong statement, however I am confident in saying that belly fat can put you at risk for Alzheimer's disease, because it is a fact supported by medical research. These studies reveal that obesity, especially abdominal obesity (Beer belly, Gut, “Dunlap's disease”…..), increases the onset and rate of Alzheimer's dementia! Another reason to change your lifestyle to benefit your longevity. Abdominal obesity can come from fat accumulation right underneath your skin (the fat you can pinch between 2 fingers) OR the fat that grows inside your abdomen like an apron draped over the intestines. It is called “visceral fat”, and this type of fat is what places you in the crosshairs for several diseases of aging including Alzheimer's Disease, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and rapid aging.  A large belly is more common in men, but it is still a risk for women if they develop an apple shaped body. Below is a picture of visceral fat, and a diagram of what it looks like in an artist's sketch of a normal weight person. When the yellow fat doubles and triples in thickness the abdomen pushes out to look like a “beer belly”.   Visceral fat extends from your stomach over the transverse colon and your small intestines like an apron.  This fat pad thickens with alcohol abuse (beer belly), high carbohydrate diet, overeating, junk food, under exercise and creates a large pad of fat that secretes inflammatory cells.  The resulting inflammation is the vehicle that damages your brain leading to Alzheimer's disease and damages your arteries leading to heart disease and stroke. In my office we use INBODY machines that measure your Visceral fat, BMI, and percent body fat.  Normal visceral fat is below #10 on our machine, BMI less than or equal to 25, and fat % for men < 19% and for women < 26%. The Research: A recent study correlated the size of patient's belly (visceral belly fat), and obesity with the amount of amyloid plaque (the cause of Alzheimer's disease) in their brain. This was measured by MRI in the study subjects' brains.  The age of the patients studied was between 40-60. The study found that the amount of visceral fat (fat inside your abdomen) is directly correlated with the amount of amyloid plaque and inflammation in the brain!  That causes Alzheimer's Disease. If that doesn't motivate you to lose your belly fat, then you are making a choice to eventually suffer from Alzheimer's disease, a heart attack, a stroke or arthritis.  If you are thinking that you will just wait for “something to happen”, then not making a decision to change your lifestyle is making a decision to take on illness in the future. We have new medications to help you lose that belly fat and they really work. You should ask your doctor to help you and if they don't understand the importance of arriving at ideal weight then look for a different doctor who will help you. Even with medication you will have to put in the work and self-control to turn down unhealthy foods when others are being unhealthy.  You will also have to add daily exercise to your schedule if you really want to avoid Alzheimer's Disease, heart attack, stroke and early death. The possible meds and habits that can help you lose your “belly”: ·     Limit calories and or carbohydrates ·     Increase daily exercise ·     Diet pills (amphetamines that older patients usually can't take) ·     Xenical (Orlistat)-Side effect is fatty diarrhea ·     Qsymia (topiramate/Phentermine) can increase BP ·     Contrave for craving (naltrexone/bupropion) can decrease sex-drive ·     Semelanotide (Imcivree-new), darkens the skin, expensive ·     Metformin ER an oral, effective medication to treat insulin resistance, and promote weight-loss ·     Victoza and Saxenda injections are diabetic treatments, that can cause GI reflux, however they work well for patients who have Type II Diabetes who need to lose weight. Even though many patients lost weight with these medications, many could not tolerate the drugs listed above because of the side effects.  These side effects limited our ability to help all patients lose weight…until now! Now, for the first time we have an effective way to help most people lose their dangerous visceral (belly fat). If you have a big belly you are at high risk for inflammatory diseases like Alzheimer's dementia, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and stroke. The new weight loss drug's generic name is Semaglutide, and has been marketed under several names: Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus. A second generic drug that is in the same family of drugs is called Tirzepetide, includes Mounjaro (for diabetics) and Zepbound (for weight loss). All of these drug's work for weight loss, pre-diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes.  Most insurance companies do not cover weight loss and they require a precertification for you to get the medication covered by insurance.  This precertification process is time consuming for the doctor and her staff, which costs the doctor an increase in her overhead to employ a nurse to provide this service for the patient. In general people with a BMI under 30 will not be covered for Semaglutide or Tirzapeptide, however if their BMI is over 30, there is a chance insurance will pay for one of these drugs for a period of time. The market price at the pharmacy is between $900/$1200 per month if you pay out of pocket to your pharmacy. Because of this fact and because we have so many patients whose pellets are not paid for by insurance, we provide access to the generic form of these drugs through a compounding pharmacy. The cost is a fraction of the normal out of pocket cost, about $560 for 3 months supply. In this way we have been able to treat many people who cannot afford to pay the exorbitant going rate for this medication. Because it is costly for a patient to receive the medication no matter how they are able to get it, It is very important for weight loss patients to be compliant and follow a low carbohydrate diet, exercise daily and to refrain from alcohol consumption while they are taking weight loss medications.  We require our patients who request these drugs to be seen at least every 2 months by one of our NPs or our weight loss specialist to help them get the best results possible. These drugs work for weight loss and diabetes by multitasking.  The ways the medication actually works are listed below: Semaglutide and Terzapeptide, ·      decrease hunger between meals   ·     you feel full faster than normal so you eat less ·     decrease sugar and alcohol-craving ·     decrease the release of sugar from the liver when you are fasting, which turns into fat ·     Prevent hypoglycemia which causes hunger and fat gain ·     Makes patients more insulin sensitive. Obesity is not just a lifestyle problem; it is a disease that should be treated with medicine PLUS lifestyle changes. These drug actions take place in the brain, stomach hormones, pancreas and liver, as well as in all the cells in your body. At Bio Balance Health® have years of experience in treating patients with bio-identical testosterone pellets and we have observed that weight loss plus testosterone pellets for patients over 40 allows patients to lose fat without losing muscle. Now we add these weight loss medications to T pellets, and we have the perfect combo for safe weight-loss (really fat loss). The biggest worry for patients is that they may not be able to get off this drug after they achieve ideal weight.  I have found that the longer you have been overweight and the more overweight you are, the higher the risk of needing maintenance medications to maintain your ideal weight. We try to wean our patients off injectable meds by switching them to Metformin ER, a drug that insurance will pay for. With these effective meds we finally, we have an effective preventive treatment to add to our testosterone and estradiol pellets for those people who view Alzheimer's as their worst nightmare, and for those patients who are worried about heart disease, diabetes and stroke  we can prevent the diseases that can ruin our “golden years”.   KCM Research: People with large amounts of visceral fat as they age may have higher risk of Alzheimer's disease. NBC News (11/20, Carroll) reports, “People who have large amounts of” visceral fat “as they age may be at higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.” The findings were presented at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting. HealthDay (11/20, Thompson) reports that investigators “compared brain scans of 54 people between the ages of 40 and 60 with their levels of belly fat, BMI, obesity and insulin resistance.” The investigators “found that people who had more visceral fat compared with fat found just under their skin tended to have higher amyloid levels in the precuneus cortex.” The “relationship was worse in men than in women, and higher visceral fat measurements also were related to increased inflammation in the brain.”

See all the Healthcasts at https://www.biobalancehealth.com/healthcast-blog Every day in my office I hear horror stories about how my female patients are dismissed by the doctors they trusted to help them resolve their problems such as:   ·      Hot Flashes and night sweats ·      Loss of libido ·      Rapid weight gain ·      Brain Fog ·      Insomnia ·      Arthritis associated with lack of hormones ·      Anxiety/Depression starting in their late 30s ·      New irritability ·      New Migraine headaches ·      Lack of motivation ·      Fatigue   There doctors dismissed them, telling them they were just getting old, or they were “babies” because they can't stand a few hot flashes, the doctor changed the subject, or my most unfavorite response to a plea for help, “It is just in your head”. Many other demeaning responses have been recorded, but I am appalled at these responses.  For a patient it takes so much strength to ask these questions, and patients are literally at the doctor's mercy.  In case you didn't get it, the doctor who says these things is covering up for his/her own ignorance.  These are methods used by a person in charge who is challenged to answer a question he or she doesn't have an answer for.  In general, these doctors are men and women, however women have been trained by men and they taught women to do what they had been doing for years.  These “medical” responses are used to belittle the patient to hide their own lack of knowledge. If you are dismissed in this way you should not put up with it.  You can just never schedule with that doctor or practice again or you can find a new doctor who will hear your distress and treat you or tell you they don't know how to help and refer you to someone who does. You shouldn't put up with dismissive doctors.  Another dismissive phrase used by many doctors since the inaccurate WHI study is you're your doctor tells you that he doesn't BELIEVE in hormone replacement. You should respond that hormone replacement is not a religion, it is a medically necessary treatment for menopause! Board certified OBGYNs and Family Doctors should be trained in this treatment.  We women have not only been dismissed by doctors, but also by the Colleges (eg. American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology) that tell doctors how to practice.  In my OBGYN training I was taught that most of women's complaints were because they were depressed so they told us to put women on anti-depressants that just make them numb, but that did not treat our symptoms.   Misogyny is alive and well in the practice of medicine, even in the group of doctors who are supposed to dedicate their lives to the health of women, Obstetricians/Gynecologists. Discrimination CAN be taught, and I believe medical training still teaches these male oriented beliefs to new doctors who are almost 50% women. Medical schools allow women to become doctors because we are qualified, and they can't discriminate anymore.  When I was trained and for a few decades after I became a doctor, you would think I was a second-class citizen. I was left out of resident training run by the residents (almost all men).  Those older male doctors treated me like and. Interloper and some even told me I was not supposed to be a doctor because of my sex. …I was never treated as if I was an equal from the minute, I started medical training and women now practicing over the age of 50-something were all trail blazers and were told all women were hysterical and complainers.   I never accepted this view but now know that women complain because we are not believed and not treated with a treatment that really relieves our symptoms.  After my hysterectomy 2002 I was in private practice with like-minded women in Balanced Care for Women, and they tried to help me but admitted they didn't have the knowledge. I had terrible symptoms that I now know was from lack of testosterone.  The endocrinologists and primary doctors I sought help from belittled me and treated me like I was making the symptoms up!  The worst experience I had was with endocrinologists who were women just saying what their male counterparts had taught them without really thinking.  They “drank the Kool-Aid “from their male teachers and treated me like I was crazy because they were unwilling to admit they didn't know what was wrong with me!  I grew up in medicine (1977-now) under a cloud of sex discrimination and when I needed them most at the age of 47 my sister-doctors failed me…I know intimately how my patients feel when seeing doctors that demean them.   There has been a Federal Law to protect women since 1972, when the US government passed Title IX a Federal Civil Rights Law amendment, but in my experience the law was violated all the time.   Title IX 1972 (my interpretation is simplified and not the actual word for word amendment) Sex discrimination is unlawful in choosing an employee, a medical student, funding for sports at the collegiate level.   I am a champion for women and women's rights. We should require every medical student to be taught about this so the teaching from one generation to another doesn't contaminate young doctors.  Without this action the misogyny in medical care will continue. Recently The DEA required doctors to take an 8-hour course to help them learn to communicate with substance users in a more kind and sympathetic manner. The course's direction to be compassionate and supportive to substance users should be taken for treating women as well. That would be a giant step for all of us.  Wiping out discrimination takes generations but must start somewhere and that should be taught at the beginning of medical training. After we conquer the minds of physicians then we will have to work toward equity in drug development (all drugs are tested on men, but women were not tested on new drugs until 2014), the FDA, the DEA, and Pharmaceutical companies.  To make this happen patients will have to take part and not accept dismissive and discriminatory behavior by their treating doctors.