Hey there, folks. In this episode, did you know sparkling water will help you lose weight? Do not do not eat that red dye. Also, your alcohol is about to get a new warning label possibly. Did you know beer will help you get a nice tan? There's now plastic in your tea. Coffee with lemon helps you lose weight too. The food you're gonna eat tonight has probably been recalled. And oh yeah, there's a quademic you need to worry about. We have no shortage of medical headlines. Thank god, we
got a doctor in studio with us today. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. The beer. The only one on this list I would immediately debunk is the tanning with a beer. You know people had. There was a thing going around people say, you throw beer all over yourself, it helps you get a tan.
That's hilarious. So does baby oil, sodas, tann accelerator. Anything that's reflective to the sun probably helps you get darker or burn faster.
I didn't think about it that way actually, since yes.
Who has spent part of their lives trying to be tan? Yes?
I spent my whole life being tan. So it's we had different championships.
You're fascinated by, like the tanning products and even Ava, my oldest going to a place where she paid to have bronzer sprayed on her.
Didn't get it.
You were confused.
And there is a base tan we'll get into this, but there's a thing that white women do that's called base tanning before they go on vacation. Did you know this, Andy, I didn't know.
You're not explaining this to any white woman listening. Oh, we all know.
Oh, I'm sorry, Yes, I don't have to explain it to y'all. My bad. This isn't one of the medical headlines. This is just something that trips me out recently in discovering that you go tan before you go to the beach. Yeah, didn't know.
You got to have a base hand so you don't burn.
Okay. So I guess this is why we have a doctor in the house to answer our questions and so many others and robes we have done. The medical headlines that have been I guess scariest to a certain degree. We've had deadly food outbreaks. We've had some deadly ones in the past. He seemed like six to eight months it seemed like every week we were doing a new and major recall.
That was It felt like that was much of twenty twenty four, hoping that twenty twenty five isn't a repeat. But again, we talked to my father who's a microbiologist, who pointed out that maybe we're just getting better at detecting. We're just getting better at connecting the dots and being able to warn people. It was always there, the food born illnesses and the bacteria all previously existed and was infecting people. We just didn't hear about it as much.
So, you know, he made that's one headline. He said, you should rest easy. We're catching it and catching it earlier, so that is a good thing. But I didn't several of these I mentioned off the top, the beer tan thing I kind of laughed about. But you do have people out there now looking at studies talking about coffee with lemon helps you lose weight, and sparkling water helps you lose weight.
You know what. Also eating less and exercising helps you lose weight too.
Who wants to do that? If you can just have coffee with limon in.
The morning to eat your French fries and your pizza yeah, that's the point.
But we do have with us. Again, both a lot of these are getting our attention. I know you've been buzzing about him. You might be trying a bunch of things out there these days. So we have someone here in studio with this is going to help us confirm or in some cases maybe debunked, but debunk some of these things, but just help us answer some of our questions about the headlines we have been seeing. We do have a medical contributor at NBC News. She is also
a clinical associate professor at NYU. Lang Gone, doctor Natalie Azar is in the building with us. How'd you like that intro? What did you hear in our intro there that made your ears kind of perk up?
That you identified me correctly. This is amazing and I always I always find it interesting because I'm affiliated with the two ends, NBC and NYU, and I'm super loyal. I've been at NYU since nineteen ninety six and we just talked about starting my eleventh year at ABC.
So yeah, you are super loyal.
I am loyal.
I like to find a place and stay.
Isn't that cool? We'rebes We've done we obviously We've been doing this for good decades in the business, but getting someone's name and title right is so important and it sets you on a good path that you get off to a good strong.
Yeah, because so often that doesn't happen, and so we're just grateful that at least we started off right. Let's hope we can continue that now as we get into the actual podcast. But we are so happy to have you here, doctor Azar. There there are so many headlines out there, as TJ just listed several of them, and there were probably even more circulating. Is there one out there that concerns you the most that people here read and then say, oh, my goodness, I'm going to do that.
Well. It's interesting that you mentioned the carbonated water and the coffee with lemon. It's like, I think it kind of speaks to where we are right now, with everybody kind of a on a search for wellness number one and on a search for weight loss, which kind of opens up a little bit of Pandora's box, a little bit about how we talk about obesity in this country. You know, I still will often say to people, you know, my generation of training Gus remember fen Fen back in
the nineties, right, it was. It was this medication that a lot of people took for weight loss, and it ended up resulting in a really serious condition called pulmonary hypertension, which you know even now has a high mortality, but even even back then, and I remember sort of the feeling. Back then, the way we thought about obesity and overweight and weight loss was calories and versus calories out, and that if you were overweight it was a behavioral failure.
And now fast forward to where we are today, where we're talking about obesity as a disease, and in addition to calories in and calories out, there's a lot about genetics and metabolism and all this kind of stuff that
contributes to people's struggle with weight. That said, you know, we still we still are hearing about all of these sort of like quick fixes and everything, and so it worries me on that level sometimes that people might be doing things that could potentially be harmful to their health that they see on TikTok or on social media and just try But I think it also again sort of highlights where people are right now that if they you know, don't have access to GLP ones or they've been on them,
and they've been taken away that they're willing to do just about anything, you know, to lose weight.
Yeah, and that is scary because I know my daughters who are in college get their information from TikTok yes, from social media. Yep. They don't have televisions, they aren't watching or consuming traditional news, right, and so they're there to believe everything or every headline. Some influencer says this worked for me, and then they try it. Although I will say, is there a risk in drinking too much sparkling water? Is there a risk and putting lemon in your coffee?
You know, probably not, you know, sar let You know, if it's if it's naturally flavored, it's probably okay. But carbonation in general, I think too much of it isn't supposed to be that good.
For me to get the bloat.
You can get a bloat, absolutely, and certainly coffee with uh with lemon, you know, four hundred milligrams max a day, So if you're drinking a lot of caffeine, that's also not not the right way to go.
Okay. But again, these generally, it seems like another study comes out every week saying coffee is great for you, coffee is terrible for you. Drink this much coffee and you'll live forever. But don't drink this much or you'll die soon. I mean, so what do you tell people to do with these studies that we go back and forth. Oh, this is great for you, this is terrible for you.
So it's funny because my dad was a physician. My mom wasn't, but she thinks that she kind of earned two medical degrees, having been married to one and raising a daughter who became one. And she was always, you know, a little bit skeptical, you know, of medical advice, not in a conspiracy theory way, but just sort of you know, that kind of stuck with me a little bit. You know that one week we say something and then the
other week we say something else. But if you will recall during the pandemic, there was criticism too of saying something and then a week later saying something else. And I think that just also just speaks to the fact that our knowledge is constantly evolving, right, And so if there's a new study that maybe comes to a different conclusion than a study before that we have to report on it. But I think we're always waiting in medicine
for kind of the grand tie breaker. And I know we'll probably get to this later, but is alcohol good for you or not good for you? I think is probably the most representative of where we are right now in that classic debate of well, last week we said this, and this week we're saying that.
Okay, so we can take there are people out there drinking coffee with lemon, and there are people out there drinking sparkling water thinking it's helping them lose weight.
So those folks, you say, to those folks, I say that any effect is probably modest at best, and I would I wouldn't spend too much time or money on that.
And given all that we've learned since the days of fen fen and I mean I remember, especially after I had had both of my daughters, having to lose weight and literally writing down my calories and going with the calories in calories out formulation, like I made it a mathematic equation, trying to get back to my pre baby weight. What do you say, now, with all the information we have, what is the best truest way to lose weight?
So they're they're for a good percentage of the population, it's still that it's still I think we say about eighty percent what you eat and about twenty percent of physical activity.
Hey cannot you said a good percentage of the population. Is that the formula for most folks, like how many.
You know what the majority?
I'm giving a full disclosure. I don't know if I have a percentage for you on that, which I think is interesting because certainly there we all know, you know, someone don't take my husband, for example, who needed to lose a little bit of weight and it wasn't overweight, but you needed to lose about ten or fifteen pounds and really got strict with his carbs and did a fantastic job. And he's always were around that. He's fifty four.
I think I'm fifty four, Yes I am, and I couldn't remember for a second time.
I totally thirty five.
Same, so, you know, and that worked. That worked for him, you know, but it took like six months and he's been great. So But to your point, I don't know the exact percentage, but for a good percent of the population, it still works that way. And then there's everyone else, and I see them in the office. I have patients who are overweight or OBEs, and they say, I barely eat. Not that that's the right thing to do, right. We know that your metabolism can slow down if you restrict
too much. But I think that our our understanding scientifically of what is sort of what the roadblock is with insulin resistance, with metabolism, with the way the body utilizes energy, the way it stores fat, the really important relationship between hormones of hunger and satiety and you know, and gastric emptying. We talk about that motility. I think there's just a very complex biological interplay there that people cannot overcome if they just start running harder on the treadmill or if
they reduce their carbs. And I think, and that's what we've seen with the with the introduction of the GLP ones, that they are flipping the switch on those patients. And
it's dramatic and it's really amazing. We have this conversation and in parallel, yes, we all acknowledge that we need to understand why we got to the place where we are where we're having more rates of obesity and overweight, but I think we can do that at the same time that we can still acknowledge that the GLP ones have made such an amazing impasse on this obesity epidemic, but still understanding why we got here. And it's not
just all ultra process foods. It's probably a lot of things in our environment that have gotten us here.
Oh and so when you say GLP ones, O, Zimbig, there are some other brand names that are out there as well. Yeah, what are the risks and who is who do you recommend that to for your patients?
So what's interesting? So risk wise? You know, first of all, the glp ones have been around for a couple of decades. It's just that with ozempic, Wagovi, Manjaro, and zep bound, the four that are always in the news, more recent approvals and more dramatic weight loss than some of their predecessors. In terms of long term side effects, I don't know that we necessarily know if someone's on them for five, ten or fifteen years, if there are going to be
significant side effects. I don't think that the people who study these drugs and are truly expert in them think that there's any concern about duration or cumulative dose leading to X, Y and Z. But there are some people who shouldn't be on them, people who have a personal history of certain types of thyroid cancer, who have family histories of certain type endocrine issues where there could be an increased risk of thyroid cancer, just to name a few.
And then there are side effects. People can have gi side effects that are very limiting. I've had a lot of patients, you know, with either diarrhea, nausea, bloating, they just can't tolerate them. And then more serious kidney issues, pancreatitis like you know, real medical issues. And then of course the one that makes the headline when someone has a bowel obstruction where their bowel slows down so much to the point that it can become a surgical emergency.
That's not common, but it can definitely happen. I think the biggest issue with them is the fact that people probably do need to stay on them indefinitely question mark. You know, I work one of my colleagues at NYU has been involved in a lot of these clinical trials and the number really stands at about you know, patients will probably regain about two thirds of the weight when they stop the medications because again that switch that was
flipped gets switched back off again. And you know, some patients I have who maintained the weight loss because they're like, I really learned how to eat differently, and this is maintaining it and that's great. So not everyone is going to gain all the weight, but they don't really know yet how to identify the people who definitely will and definitely won't.
Another big headline. You mentioned a moment ago alcohol. The Surgeon General yes, as he wants it to have a warning label about a cancer risk. I guess I'll ask first, is there anything new we've learned recently that would have prompted him to have this change in thinking or thinking that the government should have a changing thinking or is this just one guy decided this is what he believes.
We should do, so no to you know, a new groundbreaking study that suddenly showed that alcohol was a carcinogen. In fact, alcohol has been labeled a carcinogen for a very, very long time. The Surgeon General's report came on the
heels of one of two government commissions and studies. One was in December from the National Academy of Science Engineering in Medicine that actually said that drinking moderately, which is two drinks a day for men and one drink a day for women, lowered the risk of heart disease death as well as all cause mortality, but increased the risk
of breast cancer. And then in January, another report from HHS basically said the sort of the same but the opposite and said, Nope, if you drink in moderation you are more likely to die overall. And yes, you're going to increase the risk of breast cancer in addition to six other cancers. So that leaves us with, oh my god,
here we go again. Right, we have one report saying this, of one report saying that the Surgeon General basically said, I want to have a label on alcohol that states that it can increase the risk of cancer, on the heels of the tobacco Surgeon General's warning from the nineteen sixties, which reduced the rate of smoking by from forty two percent of the population to eighteen percent of the population. So labels can work. They're not a panacea, but they
definitely can work. And I think the Surgeon General's point was alcohol is a what's called a modifiable risk factor for cancer behind obesity and smoking, the third most common preventable cause. Does that mean that if you want to guarantee you're not going to get cancer. You shouldn't drink. No, of course not, because what you eat matters, how much you exercise matters, whether you smoke matters, your family history matters.
But he wants the public to be aware of that so that they can make an informed decision about their own alcohol intake. But the cancer story, to me, is very different than does a glass of red wine reduce your risk for heart disease? Because that's where you start to get into the weeds of all of these reports. And you ask me, is there a new study?
No?
Is there are meta analyzes? Right, that's like a review of dozens and dozens and dozens of studies, and these two government commissioned groups came to two different conclusions. So what is an individual to do. My best advice is don't start drinking to reduce your cardiovascular help. Okay, And you know red wine. The flavonoids, right, they're so good.
They're antioxidants, they're anti inflammatory. But they're also in blueberries and strawberries and tea and other things that are a have more of them and be are healthier for you than alcohol. I could go on and on. Well, this is such a dicey topic.
The truth is, I don't I don't know anybody who pours a glass of wine and says, wow, this is like medicine. I'm drinking this for my health. I think we're looking for an excuse to justify wanting the glass of wine. Yes, to relax and to chill and to have a mental Yeah, just to physically and mentally relax.
But that's okay. Like, I don't know about you guys, but I reporting on this is devastating to me personally because I absolutely enjoy my wine. But I do think that it forced me and I'm like full disclosure here, I had to rethink my relationship also with alcohol because I really started to feel like when I get home from my crazy busy days that I really like earned that glass of wine, you know, and I wanted to.
And it's forced me to have a little bit of a different relationship with it, just because like I have that nagging Am I increasing the risk? You know, I'm at a higher risk for breast cancer and things like that? But you know, Amy to your point about just sort of thinking about wine, and a lot of people have written about this now. I think there's so much out there that's really good for people to read about this.
You've heard about the French paradox, right, So this was I think a sixty minutes episode Morally Safer from nineteen ninety one, right, who reported on this and said, the French who drink wine every day and have lower rates of heart disease and this, this, this than Americans. Why is that happening? And the takeaway from the episode was
that it must be the wine. Drink more wine, and wine sales just skyrocketed after that, when in fact, you know, yes, they have a lot of butter and cheese and all of those things, but the French diet is also kind of a Mediterranean diet, and there's so many confounding variables. People who drink a glass of wine a day are probably also more likely to have healthy foods and things like that that you can't account for in these studies.
That was my question, because actually I think it was similar to that. I was reading an article about that saying, for if you think about it like this, every drink you drink, you're potentially losing five minutes of your life. Is that the same article?
Because I atlantic, yes, yes, my best friends send it to me because we're trying to figure out what we're going to do with our lives.
Yes, because yes, you're talking to people who love, yes to have a glass or two, and we take it very easy. In January. TJ's dry in January. I went damp this January. But if I think about every drink, okay, am I willing to give up five minutes of my life for this drink? That it forces you to look at it differently. But my question is with h S.
I'm looking at the website right now. Yeah, it says seven hundred and forty one thousand, three hundred cancer cases worldwide were you attributed to alcohol consumption in twenty twenty. With all of the other factors, how you eat, how much you exercise, how much you sleep, how can they possibly How can doctors? How can researchers say it's a link to alcohol. I'm curious with all the other.
Factors, you can't right, the only way I mean, you can say member correlation is not causation. These are all observational studies. The study that can't be done or hasn't been done, I guess it can be done. You take two groups and you run a clinical trial, randomized placebo control. No one is drinking, one isn't drinking, and everything else is corrected for, and then you can say that it was the alcohol that caused it. Yeah, that data point
is global. The Surgeon General cited one hundred thousand new cancer cases a year attributable to alcohol and twenty thousand deaths a year attributable to alcohol. But everyone will say that, like, if you compare two groups, the people who are drinking moderately versus the non drinkers, why are the non drinkers not drinking? Are they Maybe they can't afford alcohol, And so that that socioeconomic group may also not have good health literacy, they may not have good access to healthcare.
They you know, they may be recovering alcoholics.
And so the.
Moderate drinker's benefit is kind of inflated because the comparison group isn't really that accurate. And that same article, Amy, I loved that Atlantic. It makes you feel good about your glass of wine. Right, we want to read the things that make us feel good. But yes, every drink reduces your life by five minutes, and every minute of exercise gives you five minutes back.
Right, So can the two you know cancel each other out.
That's what I always want to know. I want to know if I have my anti inflammatory plant based diet and my exercise, am I you know, am I canceling out my alcohol risk? And the answer is you have to I think it. Of course you are at some point, but I don't know that it like gets you to zero. But it has to.
Help, right, Yeah, I like that answer.
Yeah, I knew that you would. You oll definitely should not go out drinking together. But a couple of headlines just red dye number three. Who even knew? But for general in general out there was this a whole lot we needed to be worried about. Red dye number three has now been banned banned.
Okay, this is where I sigh, because like, why did it take the FDA so long? Right? I mean? Red dye number three has been around since nineteen oh seven when it was first used in foods, and then it was banned in cosmetics in nineteen ninety and there have been petitions to get it banned in food for a very long.
Time, banned in Europe in some places exactly exactly behind.
So the only data we have is rat data. We don't like animal data in science right, we want to see that it's doing something bad in humans before we get all crazy. But we've had we've had data that it causes cancer and rats since the eighties. In humans as as recently as twenty twenty one, there was a really important study that showed that it could increase the risk of hyperactivity in kits. And you know, sort of the takeaway from that is, well, is it the sugar
or is it the red dye? And is it all children or is it kids who might be predisposed to hyperactivity? And I think we don't really know the answer to that yet fully, but I think at the end of the day, if you can have something like beats or other natural things that can give color, then use that
instead of a chemical. And for parents out there, I mean, you know, are you going to have your children not have any cakes and candies and this and this, and you're not going to give them a seat of minaphin when they have a fever?
No?
But like in moderation, right, if your children's diet is filled with processed foods anyway, I know, right, Well, it's kind of in everything that's the problem. Like it's in cosmetics and in food and redepressants.
Number forty they've been using exactly and.
Same thing, same thing. It's like it could also increase hyperactivity, and it's linked to all these other things. But the quality of the data is poor. I think it's just another reminder that you can't rid yourself of every toxin in your life unless you live on an island somewhere. But to be aware of it and like, let your kids have it on special occasions. But I wouldn't keep it in the cupboard for them to just grab. They should grab a you know, some cherries instead of the.
Red doll cake cupcakes. Yeah, or you know, oh twizzlers. Oh you just had a nerve, mean.
Right, but at the movies, you're gonna have Twizzlers, like you can't.
I don't like that explore every night at your teaching at homes when he especially when he's in dry January mode, he is in full Twizzlers mode.
Doctor, I am the this is the unhealthiest month for me. I cut out meat and I cut out alcohol. But because I do that, I end up grabbing a chip so I would normally grab I end up eating in.
An ertos and twizzlers.
Never eat that stuff. So really to be healthy, I cut stuff out, but.
I could you have a craving for that or you just feel like you deserve it.
But no, I get rid of all these other things my body's used to having. So I start craving sugar, I start craving carbs, and I'm interesting looking at all these places.
You have more candy in January than you do all all year round. No alcohol, not drinking alcohol.
But we'll see for a month. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. And your DNA is like it is done already.
You like tiger blood. Agree, and you know what, you haven't been sick, but apparently the whole country's sick with what. Yes, we're hearing a quademic is happening. And then I say that, right, quademic. There are four problems out there. It's RSV, flu, COVID nineteen, and neurovirus, and they're all happening at the same time. Yes, what's going on is this tip of it? It's a medical mystery.
We love, we love a demic in medical journalism.
No.
Well, yeah, so a couple of months ago we got a little bit on alert because the UK was having a lot of the RSV covid, flu and neurovirus at the same time, and we're like, well, what happens there ends up happening here, and so we kind of braced ourselves. Well, the good news is that COVID rates are really down,
but flu is really up. We think because we had such a horrible COVID summer, Sarge, that that kind of has sort of there's a little hangover benefit from that, and that COVID, you know, all the new descendants that are coming, the strains are not becoming more and more deadly or vere your land as we call it, and causing milder disease.
And that's what you want to happen.
We want that to happen, right, Like I read, there's so many headlines all the time. I didn't read it, but it caught my eye. Is COVID the common cold? Like not people still are from COVID, So it's not fair to say that it's the common cold, But for a lot of us, yes, it's a very mild upper respiratory tract infection never becomes you never even go to the doctor from it. But flu rates are really high right now for a number of reasons. One because COVID
is taking a vac seat. So, you know, respiratory viruses are opportunists, right, It's like it's going to flourish if COVID get out of their buddy. It's my turn now. And flu vaccination rates are just at an all time low because.
People are sick of getting vaccinated.
People are getting sick of getting vaccinated and being told to get vaccinated. If I had like a parody of myself of all the times in the last four or five years I said get your flu shot or get your COVID shot, I would probably be shocked with myself, you know. And then neurovirus just because like it's so disgusting and highly contagious and the most common cause of gas er intestinal illness. Where is this happening everywhere everywhere, right outside this studio?
Okay, And what's our biggest problem of the four right now?
Flu?
Who is on flu? Covid is kind of in the backseat right now. RSV cases are kind of going down, which is good in a very I think predictable way. COVID hasn't settled into a totally predictable pattern yet, you know, a lot of the experts are very reluctant to say that we can anticipate uh two surges every year because we don't know. There could be a new strain anytime, and that could pop up in May and we just don't know. But for right now, settling, what's that?
You know?
It was.
The grim Reaper, she says with a smile, Right, I know.
It's like, why is doctor Natalie here? Again? RSV is respiratory sensicial virus, and it's something that I think we all appropriately associate with little kish just because they are really really vulnerable to getting sick with RSV, but so are older folks, and we have we have a vaccine now for older people as well as pregnant women, and we have something called the ont A clonal and a body to treat little kids if they get sick with
the RSV. So a lot more protection than we did even five years ago, which is great.
Okay, virus again.
Virus GI. It is the most common cause of GI illness and food born illness in the country.
Cruise ship breaks, cruise ship out.
I'm so sorry, I asked, can you have all of these? You said? If flu, if covid gets out of the way, flu has an opportunity, can you have and which of these can you have at the same time you.
Can have all four of them?
Oh my goodness, Technically that would be horrible. Technically that's a fate almost worse than death if you never had a virus and oh my god, those two.
Together, I know, I mean, that is just super super bad luck.
I can't even imagine. All Right, I know as a practicing medical physician and a TV doctor as well, that you clearly like to steer clear from politics. How I have to ask. With RFK Junior about to be potentially confirmed as the head of AHHS, is there talk among doctors, among physicians, any concerns about changing guidelines, changing vaccination protocol? Like what are what is the medical community talking about in preparation for his potential confirmation?
Yeah, that hearing is this is this week. Yeah, I hope I have time to actually listen in on it. I don't even know where to start, Like between OURFK Junior and then we're pulling out of the World Health Organization, Now we might reconsider pulling out of the World Health Organization. I can say I'm not going to speak for the entire medical community, but I think for most of us
we are very highly expectant about what's going to happen. Vaccines, hands down, in addition to antibiotics and the discovery of penicillin, is probably one of the if not the most important public health achievement ever in terms of the number of deaths it has prevented and the number of you know, just chronically ill sick folks from common illnesses once what
were once common illnesses. So that's terrifying because we don't need anything else to pepper the vaccine skepticism that already exists in this country, which is a leftover from the pandemic, which was sewed by the right and conspiracy theorists period, And so that is extraordinarily unfortunate. And when he says things like we're going to reinvestigate the MMR vaccine and it's linked to autism, It's been done. And I'm not
saying that you shouldn't have a critical mind. I have been doing TV medical journalism and practicing medicine long enough to know that sometimes dogma is wrong and you have to think outside the box and be open minded because the way you're taught things sometimes actually either wasn't right or has changed so much that where you are in your thinking is no longer correct. I give that, but it really worries me when you start talking about polio
vaccines and things like that's that's done. That's done science. The only place where I would say, yeah, let's see what you got is make America. Make America healthier again. Another great article a week or two ago was what period of time were you talking about? Because one hundred years ago, no, we were dying from smallpox whatever, the fifties definitely not when people were smoking, and like the meat and Potatoes era, people were really unhealthy at different
parts of our American history. So I don't know exactly what they're talking about about that little catchphrase. But what I am interested in is great, look at our food supply, look at the I don't want to put all ultra processed food in the same category, because not all of it is terrible at all. But if you want to look into what is maybe making us a sicker than we need to be by all means, but don't romanticize the past. Don't do that. That is just scientifically not
the right place to be. And the who thing is like, that's just a no, that's just an absolute no.
We need to stay in for you. I know it's a double edged sword here, but is it the opportunity as well to have health at the forefront. You all have a microphone like never before. Yeah, I know he has a bigger microphone at HHSY. But there's an opportunity now if we're all going to be talking about health, that some of it could be a posible.
I mean, I hope. So, you know, like I always think about like the Maria Medical Association, Like you know, we have big, powerful medical organizations who will put out statements in support or in protest of certain things. But I just how powerful are they, you know, compared to Washington. That's that's always the that's always the thing for me.
Well, if we can get you out of here, we have a couple of TikTok claims.
Oh Mike, we're going to kind of okay.
Rapid fire these. We'll kind of do these quickly, but some might deserve more than a one or two word answer. So a few things here. I didn't know about this first one, did you No?
I did not know this.
Okay, Touching printed sales receipts can interfere with the hormone system.
That is, technically true, so there, yes, if you wow, But but how much do you need to touch to have it be a problem?
Wait?
Why can't it interfere?
Well, the chemical the actual chemicals on the ink of a receipt can can contain some chemicals that are technically what we call hormone disrupt So if you're really again, this is like, if you want to get to zero exposure in your life, ask for a digital person.
You'd like it email instead it printed.
I would like to know how many receipts I've been touching receipts my whole life? Doctor the problem?
Read right, the receipt explains or fold it up of of like the laundry list of things that should be you know, front of mind for people. I would not put receipts at.
The top of the lip.
That's crazy.
But there's some Yeah, there's some truth true or false.
Everyone needs to supplement with vitamin D.
Oh god, I love this one. Okay, here is the answer. Everybody every day needs calcium and vitamin D. Okay, period. If you don't consume or ingest calcium in the form of food or supplement, your bones are going to be like oh man, or your body. I should is going to say I need calcium. Where am I going to get at? Your largest reservoir of calcium is in your bone, so they'll start to leach out. You need vitamin D
in order to absorb calcium. The issue is that, and all the studies that have been done people who are vitamin D sufficient, meaning you have enough, taking extra isn't going.
To help you.
In fact, it can almost hurt you. There's a study that actually shows that it can hurt you, especially if you're living in a nursing home. It can actually increase the risk of falls. So the answer amy is that you need vitamin D every day. The most natural source is the sun, but we are all very cautious about the sun for vanity and for skin cancer for obvious reasons. And so if you don't have enough vitamin D, you can check it with a blood test, then you need to supplement.
Okay, all right, this is fascinating. Now we should have led with this stuff.
Microwaving food reduces the nutrients.
No, yes, meanwhile, I haven't vetted any of these.
But hey, you know more than anyone else in this room.
I don't see why that would be the case.
I swear I've heard that, Yeah, I have too, right, Okay, dairy is the most inflammatory food.
Oh my god, that was a sigh for some people. For some people, it absolutely is. For some people, they truly cannot tolerate the caseine, the protein that's in milk, and certainly for people who are lactose intolerant that that's another issue. But if you don't have a problem with dairy, and you know if you do or if you don't, by yes, consuming it, then by all means, please consume it. It's the most amazing source of calcium and protein and vitamins.
Great that you shouldn't Oh, that's an old wives tale. You shouldn't have dairy if you're sick because it affects your mucus or your congestion or.
No, I just think it. No, But I don't you feel like remembering when you're sick you don't want feels gross because like you feel mucasine, it's like harder to swallow it. I don't think it like it doesn't call your mucus to be more like dangerous for birth.
Okay, what about this one? Drinking apple cider vinegar before a meal can reduce the glucose spike. Of that meal.
Oh you know what, I need Joy Bouer here with me. She's obviously you guys.
All love Joy.
Yeah, I feel like she would she would know the answer to this. I wouldn't be surprised if that's true. I wouldn't be surprised if that's true. But I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Okay, we'll investigate that. Yeah, further, warm lemon water in the morning detox is your body.
I think I know that people like warm lemon water, and I think it does have some benefits. I think the lemon actually does have some benefits in terms of like being kind of anti inflammatory antioxidant, But I don't know that it's like a detox and that you know, suddenly you have no evil humors and.
Do we even need to detach our body? That's the thing that's like that is such.
A misdomer, right, and even sort of that label like already sends a message that there's something wrong with your body. And it's like your liver detox is your body, you know, so if anything, like you know, be kind to your liver dot dot dot.
All right, Taking ibuprofen every day can ruin your stomach, lining and lead to kidney damage. Is that true or false?
So, ibuprofen is a non steroidal anti inflammatory and end said and yeah, if you take like a dose of ibuprofen and they do an endoscopy on you, you can already see that it is damaging the lining of your stomach.
Wow.
And chronic use of n sets one hundred percent can lead to kidney problems. So they are not benign even though they are over the counter. And it's like a message that I really try to make sure my viewers and my patients understand.
This has been fascinating. And I mean, doctor Asar, we are so happy you're here. We loved having you. We hope you'll come back because I feel like there's never we always have questions. I mean, my brother's a doctor, so I try not to annoy him and text him all the time. But that's pretty much when I text him is when I have a medical question. Yeah, So
it's wonderful to right. That's why he doesn't text me really that often at all, because he knows it's just going to end up with a medical question at the end of it. Yeah. Yeah, but we appreciate it. I loved happing you here. Thank you so much.
I loved being here you guys, and.
We certainly hope you will come back because there's always some medical headline that we'd like somebody to walk us through. Even if it's fifty to fifty, it's better than nothing. I'll try to improve my batting overage really, doctor, thank you so much, and folks, thanks welcome, and thank you all for listening. We appreciate as always you can catch us here. Also catch us every Monday through Friday on our morning run our daily news podcast as well. But for now, I'm TJ.
Holmes and I'm Amy Roebock. Have a great day, everyone,