Forget the water! Don't drink out of the glasses!

I was Cruising the 'net and ran across this bit of video, it was eye opening.
Basically these motels were simply rinsing out the glasses and putting them right back out for use.
Now I'm not a "sterile environment" kind of guy. I 've seen the studies on the bedspreads and floors in a hotel room and I still stay in hotels and motels. I drop stuff on the floor and employ the "10 second rule". I drink after my family and friends. Hey I even eat food that I 've left out overnight on occasion. My daughter won't eat these things. (Hey, I'm a bachelor what can I say).
But this is over the edge.
My advice? Use the individually wrapped plastic cups.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!!

The greatest of happy wishes to you and your family from me and mine!
As you sit and eat all those great treats (of course I am) think about what you are going to do in the new year to TAKE CHARGE of your health.
there are a lot of small things you can do to start down the road of a healthier lifestyle.
THREE SIMPLE STEPS TO START ON A HEALTHIER YOU!!

1) Think about what you are eating! vow to eat little or no fast food. Start those fish oil/omega three supplements. Vow to eat less processed grains, swith to whole grain breads and pastas. Eat more vegetables! carrots, peas, broccoli tomatoes More whole fruits! Don't buy snack cakes and candy. GIVE UP SODA AND DRINK WATER! Dont even bring it into the house. Tree grown nuts are very healthy, almonds walnuts. Go to www.symmetrydirect.com/sservices and get a great body friendly absorbable once a day vitamin.

2)Start some sort of an exercise program. Walk 3-4 times a week. Join a club. Get a treadmill.
Get a jazzercise tape. or Tae Bo. Do a few sets of dit ups and push ups a day.
Do anything that burns calories.

3) Quit smoking. Try to get 8 hours of sleep a night. Drink 6-8 glasses of water during a 24 hr day.
the loss of even 5-10 lbs can give you more energy and make you even more motivated to reach a weightloss goal.
Do it for yourself, do it for your family heck do it to get the most out of social security if that will motivate you. But do it!!
doc

A tragedy not averted

A sub cruises into Pearl harbor, not far fromTripler Army Medical Center

I was reading the Sunday Columbus dispatch today and they had a front page story about a young Ohio State University football player who was paralyzed during spring practice in 2006.
When I hear or read about an athlete or some other person with a tragic neck injury like that it often takes me back to my training at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.
I was on the neurosurgery rotation (a familiar theme here huh?) and we received word that a young sailor was in the Air Evac system heading our way with an apparent herniated disc in his neck with severe upper extremity numbness and weakness.
We rarely got much of a heads up about air evacs but this case was a little different.
This sailor had the distinct misfortune to be in a sub on station somewhere in the Pacific ocean when he herniated his cervical disk.
We heard nothing about this patient for three to four days.
Then he appeared in the ER off an Air Evac plane into Hickam Air base not far from the hospital. A tall blond haired blue eyed muscular young man.
Tragically, at this point the disc had completely herniated and he had progressed to a C6 quadriplegic.

He was taken to the OR for disc removal and stabilization, but the damage was done. He had limited ability to raise his arms but had no use of his hands or lower extremities.
I got to know him and the family, including his young wife that rushed to his side quite well.
I don't believe I've ever heard of a longer or more complicated medical evacuation chain. A sub to helicopter transfer which as one can imagine is not an easy task, a launch by fixed wing off a carrier to a hospital to await medevac hundreds if not thousands of miles to us at Tripler.
If this had happened pretty much anywhere else he would have been operated on long before the disc completely herniated and essentially severed his spinal cord.
But it didn't happen anywhere else it happened while he was on a submarine under the waters of the Pacific ocean somewhere.
I often wondered when they had left on this cruise, if this disc had begun to herniate just a week? a month earlier?
We heard more pieces of the complicated story later.
The medevac flight from the naval base somewhere in the Pacific to us was evidently delayed TWICE for lack of aircraft.
I cannot even IMAGINE how irate the physicians on that small island clinic must have felt as they watched a young sailor become paralyzed for life while waiting for a damn airplane.
Holy Jesus! Get the President to send Air Force One if you have to, this kid will be PARALYZED FOR LIFE because the Air Force doesn't have a damn C-141? The richest, most powerful nation and air force the world has ever seen can't scrounge up a C-141 to prevent this tragedy?
Did they even know what was at stake here?
Evidently this small hospital/clinic wherever it was did have an operating room and there was an orthopedic surgeon there, but he was untrained in the discectomy and stabilization procedure and I doubt they would have had the equipment needed to perform it anyway.
The patient and his family were never bitter or angry that I saw.
I both tremendously respected him and felt a deep sense of sorrow for what he lost to serve our country. And a little angry that the system appeared to have let him down.

Red Wine and You

As a physician one sees a lot of trends come and go, medicines that have great benefits that we find out later are harmful, surgeries performed for a generation that may not be as beneficial as we were taught.
So I've always tried to really see through the hype, do the research and not be taken in by the next greatest trend.
Well unless it really is the next greatest trend.
This can be hard in the world of nutrition and nutritional supplements.
I'm a firm believer that if we would all make the right choices supplements would be totally unneeded. But that is in an optimal world. The bottom line is it quite difficult to get all the things you need to maximize your health unless you are very disciplined about it.
The vast majority of us need supplementation with Essential fatty acids because of how our nations food system feeds corn to all livestock, but I've already talked about that.
I do believe most of us would benefit from a complete multivitamin.
But I 'll save that for another day.
The supplement that I have spent a lot of time researching is basically red wine.
Red Wine has a particular molecule in it that has garnered a lot of press. Its called resveratrol and its been getting a lot of attention over the last several years.
Its been rumored for years to be one of the main reasons for the perceived "French paradox".
This is the observation that in certain regions of France have lower rates of heart disease that is really not easily explained.
Correlational studies seem to hint that the regions with the highest red wine consumption have the lowest rates of heart disease.
It turns out that red wines have antioxidants that are cardioprotective. The science behind it has been well studied and there are at least 4 major ways that this molecule protects the heart. This has generated a good deal of research by some of the most well respected institutions in the country. The science would take hours to get into here, but the main way it helps the heart is it increases the amount of the artery expanding NO2 in the bloodstream. All one needs to do is Google it to see the excitement in the scientific community.
Where does this molecule come from? Well it turns out that resveratrol is a natural anti fungal that helps protect the grape, and the highest amounts of resveratrol are found in grapes exposed to wet and cooler weather that produce higher levels of resveratrol to protect the plant.
There are many more benefits too. It seems that resveratrol and red wine also help prevent colon cancer. The American College of gastroenterology confirmed that wine drinkers have fewer polyps that can lead to colon cancer.
It is an anti-inflammatory and enhances the activity of insulin in the body.
the list of benefits goes on to the point that its easy to become skeptical.
It certainly has antiviral activity, and is FDA approved to be placed in a topical form to help heal cold sores. The National Cancer Institute has many trials ongoing with this agent to test its effectiveness against several cancers. Several well respected scientists tout it as so beneficial that they have dubbed it an "anti-aging compound".
Is some of this hype, well no doubt but one thing is clear, 3-5 glasses of red wine a week is probably beneficial.
And if you are one of the folks who don't like red wine? Of course there are supplements.
But try to eat better naturally. Avoid refined grains and refined carbs. This is not easy. Pop, cookies, cakes, sugar coated cereals, high fructose corn syrup in almost every processed food we eat, it can be daunting.
I choose to take a supplement, it is basically a red wine with no alcohol, but has other antioxidants from pomegranate and apple and other herbs.
Its called Genesis if you are curious you can go to www.symmetrydirect.com/sservices to check it out.

The taller the breadfruit tree, the harder they fall.

The Hero of Truk Island.

During my training at Tripler Army hospital in Hawaii we took care of a lot of civilian patients from surrounding islands like Truk that had little to no health care available.
It could be a challenge because they rarely spoke English. All information usually went through interpreters.
One evening when I was doing my neurosurgery rotation I got a call from the emergency room that a head trauma patient from one of the outer islands was in the ER.
At that time there was no fellows on the service so the junior residents and interns took call and ran the floor under the direction of the staff neurosurgeons.
This system gave a lot of responsibility to the residents, but was a great learning experience. One had to be confident and on the ball to run the service well and once you proved your competence to the staff the residents were given a lot of leeway.
So off I went to the ER as "The Man" for the neurosurgery service.
In the ER I was pointed to a trauma bay where I found an 8 yr old boy native boy who lay on a cot, unconscious.
He was surrounded by his entire family who appeared understandably distraught.
The story unfolded through the animated gestures and speech of his mother and father as told through the interpreter.
Apparently he had been climbing to the top of a breadfruit tree when he lost his grip and fell to the ground from an estimated height of "the top of the tree".
I fought to keep a straight face at such an answer in such a serious situation and pressed them for an estimated fall of 30 feet.
Well the mortality rate from a 30 foot fall is 50 percent. So certainly a serious mechanism of injury.
I cleared the family out of the room and the nurses and I did a head to toe exam and I did my best neurological exam complete with abnormal reflexes, ocular reflexes basically the top shelf ten dollar neuro exam.
What I found wasn't good. He basically had evidence of minimal higher brain function, no evidence of increased brain pressure, abnormal motor reflexes and brain stem level ocular reflexes. The exact findings elude my memory, its been 15 years ago now, but it was a severe closed head injury.
The CT revealed no evidence of bleeding or elevated ICP, and as I presented the case to the staff it was agreed by all that he was not a surgical candidate and he was admitted to he SICU.
The task of speaking to the family was mine. I explained my immediate prognosis to the interpreter, and stood solemnly as she deliver my words to the family.
A severe head injury from which he may never recover, bad enough that he may never wake up. With a hopeful comment or two on miracles that kids recover from these types of injuries eventually but it remained grim.
They were besides themselves with grief.
I was called away to the floor as I finished the orders for the boys admission to the ICU
A busy evening of admissions, traumas and ward medicine followed. Morning came quickly.
I was late to rounds because of an ER trauma and when I joined the staff and other residents that had not been on call they were just getting to the boys room.
The staff that I had presented the case to last night was now outlining the case to the rest of the doctors on the service.
But something was amiss. As I approached the team went quiet and some of the team was suppressing a tell tail snicker.
"Doctor I think there is something you should see" the staff neurosurgeon said to me pointing inside the room.
Inside sat the boy smiling, eating breakfast. (breadfruit no doubt)
My mouth was agape. As I walked into the room the family rushed up to me and gave me hugs and pats on the shoulder.
"They want to thank you for fixing there son so quickly!!" the interpreter said excitedly.
I had obviously over diagnosed this head trauma.
The Neurosurg team broke into laughter at the spectacle of the entire scene and me being hailed as the hero of the day on Truk Island.