Future of Healthcare. Healthcare as an industry is changing through technology, medical and research innovations, physician reform and hospital re-organizations. Dr. David Samadi will explore long term issues, debates innovations directly influencing the healthcare industry and what both healthcare professionals and patients need to know.
Think of testosterone and almost always images of bearded, muscular men come to mind. We tend to associate it primarily as a hormone found in men. But testosterone is an equal opportunity hormone as it is found in both men and women playing a vital role in each gender.
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Read MoreWe are all conditioned to believe that “you can't teach an old dog new tricks,” that as we get older, we can't learn new skills easily and we just won't be as sharp as we were in our callow youth.But what if that's all it was: conditioning? What if we really do continue to learn the way we did as children well into our golden years?
Read MoreYou're not the only one who has wondered whether these seemingly random pictures were a silent cry for help. A team of researchers from North Carolina State University and Ohio University discovered that having an "alcohol identity" puts college students at greater risk of having drinking problems - and that posting about alcohol use on social media sites is actually a stronger predictor of alcohol problems than having a drink.
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Read MoreThe popularity of the vaginal seeding procedure has never been more popular, but exactly how safe is it? A recent discussion in the British Medical Journal casts a wary eye on the whole business.
Vaginal seeding refers to the procedure whereby a child born via a Cesarean section is swabbed shortly after birth with vaginal fluid. The intention is for the newborn to benefit from the vaginal microbiota.
Microbiota are the communities of microbes that colonize your body. These microbes actually outnumber your own cells 10 to 1. The key point here is that these complex communities are quite different from one body part to another. And characteristic differences in the microbiota are associated with various diseases. Studies have shown that early-life microbiota play a role in the developing immune system. Consequently, interest has been generated in the potential for manipulating our bodies' microbiota to promote health and treat disease.
The microbiota of the skin of a newborn baby born via Cesarean section most closely resembles that of the mother's skin. A vaginally-delivered baby, however, has skin microbiota that resembles the mother's vagina.
What's the difference? Nothing concrete, except that some studies have shown that babies delivered by Cesarean section have an increased risk of asthma, obesity, and autoimmune disease later in life. And we do know that our microbiota play a role in these conditions.
So, better safe than sorry, right? If the simple and inexpensive procedure of swabbing a newborn with Mom's vaginal fluid has even a slight chance of heading off some nasty ailments forty years later, why wouldn't you?
To start with, the vagina can carry pathogens that are neither screened for nor symptomatic in Mom, but can have serious effects on her child. For example, up to 30% of pregnant women are known to carry group B streptococcus, which is one of the most common causes of bacterial blood stream infections in babies. Other possible pathogens include the herpes simplex virus, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Chlamydia trachomatis. These last two can cause a form of neonatal conjunctivitis.
The authors of the British Medical Journal piece are of the opinion that “encouraging breastfeeding and avoiding unnecessary antibiotics may be much more important than worrying about transferring vaginal fluid on a swab." Given that we are many years away from the results of any kind of research that might conclude there is any concrete benefit, we'd had to agree.
Let’s take a look - be honest with yourself in how many you need to improve upon:
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