… study provides empirical evidence that watching a 9-minute episode of a fast-paced television cartoon immediately impaired young children’s EF relative to watching an educational television show or drawing. Children in the fast-paced television group scored significantly worse than the others despite being equal in attention at the outset, as indicated by parent report. This result is consistent with others showing long-term negative associations between entertainment television and attention. Lillard, P. (2011). The immediate impact of different types of television on young children’s executive function. Pediatrics.

This study is far from conclusive, but for me it as a reminder that my kids should be out playing in the dirt more often.

The newest drug to help people stop smoking seems to cause heart attaks in a small but significant number of users:

Our meta-analysis raises safety concerns about the potential for an increased risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events associated with the use of varenicline among tobacco users. Despite the limitations of our analysis, our findings have potential regulatory and clinical implications. Drugs that receive priority review have limited safety data at the time of approval.34 The initial safety signal regarding ardiovascular events in people using varenicline was not followed up by an adequately powered safety trial. Until such trials are conducted, clinicians should carefully balance the risk of serious cardiovascular events and serious neuropsychiatric adverse events associated with varenicline use against the known benefits of the drug on smoking cessation.

Singh S et al “Risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events associated with varenicline: A systematic review and meta-analysis” CMAJ 2011; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.110804.

This is in addition to the major mood disorders that it (Chantix) sometimes causes.

Once again, we see that many pharmaceuticals have surprising risks that are not noticed by the FDA until long after they are released. Proceed with caution…

We just had a new baby. On June 14th, my wife gave birth to a 7 lb 4 oz baby boy by C-section due to “breech presentation” (he was right-side up instead of the usual head first position). We’ve named him William Edward, after my father.

He’s been in and out of the hospital due to jaundice. He was put under the “Bili lights’ and received a new (to me at least) IV immunoglobulin treatment. Fortunately, he’s doing well and his mom is well, too. He’s still a little yellow, but it appears to be a benign condition called “breast milk jaundice”.

Many thanks to Drs. Cahill, Gennaro and Grafani (the OB’s) and Dr. Lasky and her partners at the Pediatric Center. More to come…

Thanks to Dr. Mercola at Mercola.com, check out this video.  It will only be live for a day or two, so check soon or you will miss this free viewing.

Otherwise, you might want to search “Burzinski, MD” and “cancer” if your are investigating cutting edge alternative cancer therapies.

Natural treatments For ADD/ADHD by Michael E. Doyle, MD

Is your son unable to pay attention to details or easily distracted? Does he fidget and squirm, or seem hyperactive? Does your daughter have difficulty following through with instructions in school or at home? Perhaps she seems not to listen even when spoken to? Do you know an adult with these symptoms? These problems can occur in any healthy person, but they can also be symptoms of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). If these problems become troubling enough, a doctor or teacher may recommend that your child (self, or spouse…) get medically evaluated and treated. Once the diagnosis of ADHD (previously known only as ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder) is made, stimulant medications are usually prescribed to help the patient focus. While stimulant medications can aid in controlling symptoms, they have many potential side effects.

Read the entirety of the article @ Natural Awakening Website

Jacques Hertoghe was a third-generation Belgian physician and thyroid specialist. He was the grandson of Eugene Hertoghe. In the 1970s, this Hertoghe was so disappointed by the ineffectiveness of Europe’s synthetic thyroid treatments that he traveled to Colorado (without a drug company sponsor) to study Dr. Barnes’ use of Armour Thyroid.

He was originally intrigued by the reports in Barnes‘ book and soon Jacques Hertoghe recognized that natural desiccated (natural) thyroid was the most effective medication available for treating hypothyroidism. Hertoghe used the Armour brand of desiccated thyroid as his primary treatment for hypothyroidism for the rest of his career. To this day, Belgium is the only country in Europe where Armour Thyroid is legally imported.

Broda Barnes Foundation (BBF) is the sole copyright holder of the above video.

Common Symptoms of Hypothyroidism include fatigue, cold hands and feet, hair loss, weakness, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, joint pain, muscle pain, muscle cramps, autoimmune disease, menstrual difficulties and much more.

Receiving his B.S. from Cornell University and his M.D. from Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Michael Doyle is a board-certified family physician with nearly two decades of clinical experience. His background includes extensive experience in both conventional and alternative medicine. Interested in healthcare and alternative medicine since childhood, he decided to pursue a career in medicine as he went off to college. After completing his Family Medicine residency at the University of Rochester, he practiced Emergency Medicine for several years. He later served as Medical Director for a group of outpatient health centers.

Thyroid hormone actually refers to four hormones made by the thyroid gland. I think of thyroid hormones as hormones as the dimmer switch on human metabolism. They literally go into every single cell in your body, including adrenal glands, to boost metabolism. The most common problem with the thyroid is low thyroid function, also called hypothyroidism. The symptoms of hypothyroidism are widespread and extremely varied. They range from fatigue, low temperature, depression, weight gain, and hair loss to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, early heart disease and much more.

Your adrenal glands also make a variety of hormones. The most important of these is called cortisol. Contrary to popular opinion, this natural form of cortisone is not an evil substance that makes you fat. In fact, cortisol is a crucial hormone that allows your body to adapt to stress, to produce energy and to control inflammation. Cortisol, also known as hydrocortisone, is also necessary for maintaining normal thyroid function.

Situations that might require increased cortisol include infections, injuries and emotional stresses. Or even breathing. That’s right, cortisol is so important that a person who completely stops making it will die within a couple of days. Fortunately, complete failure to make cortisol is pretty rare. But milder deficiencies of cortisol appear to be much more common. This condition is often called adrenal insufficiency, and in certain severe cases it is called, Addison’s Disease. Common symptoms of adrenal insufficiency include fatigue, low blood pressure, dizziness, palpitations and anxiety.  Since cortisol helps control inflammation, low cortisol also appears to contribute to allergies and autoimmune diseases.

We’ve known how to treat low thyroid for more than one hundred years and we’ve understood cortisol treatment for over half a century. Unfortunately it sometimes seems as if this is all but forgotten. Proper treatment of these conditions requires restoring and maintaining a healthy balance of both thyroid and adrenal hormones. In general, the best way to do this is to treat these shortages by simply replacing what is actually missing. That is, by using bio-identical thyroid and cortisol to a restore healthy levels of these hormones.

The bottom line is that low thyroid and low cortisol are common, important and highly treatable problems. To learn more about effective treatment for thyroid and adrenal insufficiency please review my website or call my office to schedule an appointment to begin your evaluation and treatment.

A classic example occurred two nights ago. I was eating chicken and salad, then my wife offered me a big baked potato (remember, its always someone else’s fault) No problem, I figured. Just a few hundred extra calories. meUnfortunately, I spent the rest of the night rummaging through the kitchen looking for more starch.

Obviously my willpower was weak, but I’m certain that many of us have a drive to eat high carbohydrate foods that is fueled by, ironically, high carbohydrate foods.

It’s time to get back in gear.

WT: 188.6 lbs.

Fluzone

“The FDA and CDC have detected an increase in reports of febrile seizures among children younger than 2 who received Fluzone, the trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine made by Sanofi Pasteur. Fluzone is the only vaccine recommended for use during the current flu season in infants and children from 6 to 23 months of age.”

Unfortunately, seizures are just one of many possible side effects of flu (influenza) vaccinations. Flu shots have also been associated with local reactions, systemic flu-like symptoms, allergic reactions (both mild and severe) and even severe neurologic conditions like Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

This potential tragedy could easily have been avoided by using a little common sense.
The first step would be to simply demand that the manufacturers and “experts” prove that the flu vaccine actually improves the health of young children. The next step is to require that manufacturers prove that the benefits, if identified, outweigh the harms and costs.

In the case of giving flu vaccines to young children, there appears to be no scientific basis for giving these shots.

According to the Cochrane Collaboration,

“In children under the age of two, the efficacy of inactivated vaccine was similar to placebo.”

“ It was not possible to analyze the safety of vaccines from the studies due to the lack of standardization in the information given but very little information was found on the safety of inactivated vaccines, the most commonly used vaccine, in young children”

Until someone can prove to me that flu vaccines offer more benefit than harm to young children, I cannot recommend them to my patients or allow them to be given to my children.

Related Links:

• Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children (Cochrane Collaboration)
• Uptick in Febrile Seizures Tied to Flu Vaccine (Medpage Today)