Good Day Health
Where You Live Can Affect Your Heart Health
9/3/24 - Host Doug Stephan and Dr. Ken Kronhaus of Lake Cardiology (352-735-1400) discuss a renewed hyper focus on COVID-19 and vaccines, symptoms to expect from the latest variants, long-COVID in children, and symptoms in teenagers may be different than past variants, too. Additional conversation includes why healthy eating is so important in overall healthy, specifically the Mediterranean diet, what to know about heart attacks, why living in a noisy area affects your heart health, how being glued to your phone damages your health, weight loss drugs and Medicare, HPV vaccines, a rare mosquito-borne virus and what you can do to protect yourself.
- Duration:
- 31m
- Broadcast on:
- 03 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
At King Super's Pharmacy, Care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's Pharmacy. So come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's, a world of care is in store. Visit kingsoopers.com/vaccines for more restrictions and exclusions apply seaside for details. The Good Day Health Podcast with Dr. Ken Cronhouse, sponsored by Calendron. The safe proven way to lose weight and keep it off. He's very knowledgeable. He's very astute. And he's very available. So if you call 352-735-1400 you can get a date with Dr. Ken either at the clinic or thanks to telemedicine, the Zoom guys connect your Bing Bang Boom and you can have a conversation with Ken that way. Whatever may be bothering you, you need cardiological help. That's great circulation. All that got heart problems, issues. There's that, but then there's everything else that goes on in your body. 352-735-1400 I promise you you will not be disappointed in the conversation. This week, a lot of focus on COVID again. Would you believe it? So let's get started, Ken, with some of the things that are available. Although the vaccine is a controversy and some people say, you know, it's just an opportunity for Pfizer to sell something that may or may not be necessary. The FDA has approved these vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna. How are they different than the ones that we had before? Well, if you've been around at all talking to your friends and family, you know that somebody's got COVID right now. It really has been a big peak this summer. My daughter just got over it. The patients call on the phone. You know, doctors encourage them to call first. Don't come to the office. I'll stop for obvious reasons and call and we're getting calls left and right patients having COVID. This is a national, international issue. It's not localized to any one specific area because there's new variants. And this is just easy to understand. It's like the flu. This is going to be a yearly item just like there are new variants for the flu each year. And they vary. COVID is looking to be exactly the same in this summer. There's new variants and that's why so many people are getting the COVID-19. And I guess for many of the good news for some, it's annoying, but the FDA has approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine for people six months and older that targets the new circulating variants. That's the key. This is a different vaccine targeting new variants that are out this summer. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, they're manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna. Plan to have them available in just a few days or they may even be there at your pharmacy already. The formula will more closely target Doug, the currently circulating variants and provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death. And just like the flu vaccine, this is going to become an annual update. And talk to your doctor about whether you think you should get one, but they are approved if it matters by the FDA for people six months and older. All right. So what's the difference or is their discussion seem to me that at one point there was a focus on having the COVID flu vaccine be mixed up with regular flu. So you got one shot, it took a very care of everything because COVID is just another flu. So why don't they just have a vaccine that's good for whatever flu is maybe around this year? Well, COVID, Doug, let's not unintentionally confuse COVID is not just another flu. COVID is another virus and there are zillions of different viruses and the treatment is different. Some of the symptoms overlap and some of the impacts on people are dramatically different. And the long-term side effects are different between these two illnesses. So eventually, and this is probably where it's going to come, they will I would predict be combining these things and you'll get an annual vaccine. But this is the way it's coming out this year. So far, I haven't heard yet that that option is available, but it wouldn't surprise me if not too distant future. There's going to be one shot that'll cover these and it'll be updated each year just like the flu vaccine. All right, COVID part two, long COVID with children. This is a different story than with adults and one wonders how it impacts children as they're growing their vulnerability, the immune system, all that good stuff, for bad stuff. So there are specific symptoms that parents ought to know when they are wondering about whether their children have long COVID, what might they be can. This is a report out of the Journal of the American Medical Association. It's a rather extensive report, the kids and teens are vulnerable to long COVID just as adults are with a set of distinct symptoms, however, showing long-term health effects. There are 10 symptoms that they identified in the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association out just this week in school-age children and eight in teenagers indicate the likely presence of long COVID. And do we have time now or do you want to wait because this is a long list? And I'd like to mention the 10 for children and the eight for teenagers. Mom and Dad, you want to be aware of this? All right, so let's pause for a moment and we'll continue with our focus on COVID. There's a lot of information this week that Ken wants to pass along. Speaking of information, the Affordable Connectivity Program, which is a government-sponsored program that provided internet access to low-income households, has gone away. But there is one company that seems to have committed itself to keeping customers, keeping you connected. So here's the update on that company and the program from Chris Sorego. Verizon Forward keeps eligible consumers of low-income households connected by giving them access to fast, reliable speeds of Verizon Home Internet at an affordable price, as low as $20 a month. New or existing qualifying customers can enroll following these three steps. Pick your plan, check your eligibility, and start saving. Some restrictions apply. See if you qualify to save with Verizon Forward at verizon.com/verizonforward. Back here with Dr. Ken, brought to you by Calitrim. Their Labor Day of Sale is happening this weekend. Check it out at toploss.com. You won't regret the time that you spend checking how you can lose weight. Well, listen, there are all kinds of options you can choose. I was going to say you can pick your poison, but that's probably not a good analogy. Here, Calitrim is there at toploss.com. Check it out if you want the drug-free way of losing weight. And then we're going to talk about it a little bit later on. Right now, though, back to our discussion of COVID and the symptoms for young children and the symptoms for teenagers because apparently they're different. So let's start with children first, the 10 symptoms of long COVID can. And remember what long COVID is? It doesn't have the clearest of definitions, but it's usually thought of when the symptoms just persist for at least a couple of months or they come back a couple of months after the initial infection. So here are the different symptoms that have been reported just this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Big picture first, 10 symptoms for children, 8 distinct symptoms for teenagers. And this shows how long COVID presents differently in children, teenagers, and adults. So first, the 10 symptoms in children. Let's go over them. Trouble with memory or focusing, back or neck pain, stomach pain, headache, phobias, refusing to go to school, itchy skin or rash, trouble sleeping, nausea or vomiting, feeling lightheaded or dizzy before I go on to the adolescent. Should we do them again or go right to the adolescent? Yeah, no, I think it would be worthwhile to start with memory and back aches and things. Let's go through the list one more time just so people get an underscore. The symptoms, the 10 symptoms, these are for long COVID in children. Trouble with memory or focusing, back or neck pain, stomach pain, headache, phobias, refusing to go to school, itchy skin or rash, trouble sleeping, nausea or vomiting, feeling lightheaded or dizzy, the 10 for children. So the problem it would seem to me that is in terms of acknowledgement. The COVID problems this summer have been greater than usually flues are. Flues are not much around in the summer. I know you caution me and others. It's not just a flu, it's a virus, but it was for a while tracking the way flues did. You get it in the winter and you don't get it in the summer. So why has it changed now would be the question a lot of people are asking whether we want to save it for questions for Dr. Ken later on or whether it makes-- That's fine, and then we'll go on to the adolescent. Yeah, the teens. COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-dug especially is an indoor virus. You don't get COVID outside and the feeling is it's been a really warm summer for most of us. We've been inside in the air conditioner much, much more and then July 4th, we all got together and we were inside a lot and this all seemed to start after July 4th this summer. No, okay, that makes sense. All right, you want to go through the list for the eight items the teenagers have to be or we have to be concerned about symptom-wise. Sure, change in or loss of smell and our taste. Notice that was not in the children, change in or loss of smell and our taste, body, muscle or joint pain, daytime tiredness, fatigue after walking, back or neck pain, trouble with memory or focusing, headache and feeling lightheaded or dizzy. All right, so those are things that you need to keep in mind if you're a parent, your children could be suffering from any number of these things. They come to you and complain about them and then give them a COVID test, right? COVID test should be available. Everybody should have them at home just for their own reference and not hard. Well, they're probably long over being positive for COVID is just to understand them and talk to the doctor and just get their general nutrition up and just don't ignore it, rest, good health and mention to the doctor. Talking about the symptoms of COVID and the vaccines for COVID, but maybe you don't need them if you're eating well. It looks like your favorite the Mediterranean diet may be the key or at least one of the keys to staying healthier, staying away from COVID, Ken. What's the scoop? The great breaking news out of the very believable medical journal POS1 for all of those myself included who want to do things in our lifestyle to lower our risk of getting COVID. So yes, COVID-19 cases that you've mentioned have surged this summer, but this new study Doug suggested following the Mediterranean diet might spare all of us from infection. In this review published in the journal POS1, Doug, Indonesian researchers, they discovered that the healthy eating regimen, which centers on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fish and heart healthy fats like olive oil and nuts actually lowered the risk of COVID infection. I know you're going to ask me, how can this possibly be? And the thought is- Yes, Ken, how can this possibly be? I figured you'd ask. The Mediterranean diet is known for having a dramatic anti-inflammatory effect and it's felt that this anti-inflammatory effect of the Mediterranean diet dramatically helps lower the risk of getting COVID. All right, eat well, keep your immune system strong and you don't have to worry. I think that's what I knock on wood. That's been my saving grace, not getting COVID. I know you think I might have had a brief case of it early on. I don't remember who knows, but there are, as you have pointed out- I think he's so awesome. Yeah, well, you pointed out that there have been a lot of cases this summer in there. Evan, I know a lot of people who've been sick and been out of folks that I know that work in government, people that are not much on the farm because we're not in the open. We don't get, as you said, it's got to be in an area office-wise, you're in the home, it's hot, so you're confined. When I'm out on the tractor on the farm, doing a lot of work on houses, so anyway, that's how that thing shakes out. One of the things that I know you don't like talking about, but I think I have to mention it. Because I observed watching a little bit of the Democratic National Convention, the Republican National Convention, they seem to ignore something that a lot of people care about. They don't seem to care about COVID anymore. But listening to you, and actually talking about what happened after the Democratic Convention in Chicago, infections were rampant. As a matter of fact, a lot of staffers got very, very sick. A lot of convention goers got very, very sick, but there was somebody who went to the Republican National Convention. Yeah, I got it, but it was worth it. And so I don't know that I think getting COVID under any circumstances is worth it. But anyway, the virus, as you pointed out, is ever-present. And you wonder, you know, whether or not it be when they have their debate, again, I know you don't like talking about the politics of it, but I do think it's interesting. Because Kennedy, Robert of Kennedy Jr., has been a very vocal opponent to vaccines and stuff, now that he endures Trump. So some people are saying he's going to be the director of health and human services. I mean, Trump kids elected an interesting reality, won't it? So anyway, you have a comment or not. Hey, Sarah, Sarah. That's whatever it will be, will be. The future is not ours to see. Okay, Sarah, Sarah. Owning a rental property sounds like a dream. Collect a rent and relax. That is until you realize how much work goes into getting it ready. First, do you need to conduct market research to understand local rental trends and determine a competitive rent price? Then there's cleaning, staging, repairs, and hiring a professional photographer. Next, develop a marketing strategy. List the property on rental sites. 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Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit at your local King Super's pharmacy. So come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's. A world of care is in store. Visit kingsuper's.com/vaccines for more. Restrictions and exclusions apply seaside for details. If you have a heart problems, perhaps consult with Dr. Ken 352735-1400 is the number to be in touch with him and his office 352735-1400. Okay. Height attacks. Risk of heart attacks. This is one that's a head scratcher, noise. How does noise affect your heart? Well, in England is a meeting going on the European Society of Cardiology, this three major world meetings. You mentioned the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and the European Society of Cardiology, the third one is going on now. You can hear a lot of news about the heart this week out of England. One of the important studies already reported is that your heart health before and after a heart attack, Doug, is influenced by how loud your neighborhood is. Doug, people under 50 are more prone to heart attack if they live in a noisy area, according to this big study, while the prognosis for heart attack survivors is worse if neighborhood noise is an issue. This just brings to everyone's attention how important peace and quiet it is to your heart health, and it just seems like it puts added stress, which puts added inflammation around the heart. It diminishes sleep quality, which puts added inflammation around the circulation, which causes plaque heart attacks and then strokes. So isn't that the case with life, though, in general? We all have, I mean, whether it's our neighborhood, it's noisy or they're in traffic on our way to work, whether it's being on a tractor on a farm, there's lots of noise. Noise is a factor in life. I think the key is how does it create mental stress and how does it affect our sleep? Because I think, as you point out, there's noise everywhere, but I think how it affects those two aspects is how it connects with increasing the risk of heart attacks and also impairing the ability to get better after a heart attack. All right, now, here's something for people the younger folks listening in their 20s, especially to this program or parents or grandparents or people who are in their 20s, all the time that they are spending on their screen. This is very interesting. There's a whole big deal in lots of cities around the country in towns where junior high school and high school kids are not being allowed to bring their devices into school. They're putting them in a bag. I heard a story yesterday of a school that spent $30,000 buying these bags into which children have to put their device for the entire school. For the six and a half, seven hours they're in school every day, they have to put them in these pouches, and they collect them, and then they give them back to them at the end of the day, which I think is great, frankly. Maybe that's my, but the effect of having all the screen time that youngsters, teenagers, people in their 20s have does a number on your heart, apparently, right? Absolutely. This is out of the Journal of General Internal Medicine this week. Spend your youth glued to your phone, computer, and TV, and you cut your odds of making it to 60, according to this new study. This is data from a study tracking the health of more than 4,000 young adults for over 30 years. It found a higher odds for a heart attack for those who spent a lot of time watching TV in their early 20s. Seems like more screen time. It substitutes for more exercise and better sleep, and this new data comes from the long-standing coronary artery risk and development in young adults called the Cardia Study, which has tracked the heart disease risk of thousands of adults for decades. Yeah. A word to the wise is efficient. Of course, people in their teens and 20s don't think people that are old or know anything, so they'll blow this off at their own risk, because that's really what we're doing here. You're risking your life. It's pretty obvious, frankly, what's going on. I talk about this with regularity, and some people take me to task for it because of my attitude toward some of these, what I refer to as big fat kids who are working in these retail stores as supposed experts when it comes to using devices, and that's just it. They sit around, and they are obese, and they smell. I don't know how much more I can point you like it be, but I find it offensive. It's like people smoking and blowing the smoke out second-hand smoke. I just find being around these people that smell as bad as they do, because they're so big and fat. Anyway, I don't know how many friends I'm making with that, but that's really how I think about it. It's selfish. It really is. It's selfish. Now, we're talking about being heavy. There's a new Medicare rule that will help you if you want to use Wagobi. How's that working, Ken? This may help a lot of people. There's a new Medicare rules that could make 3.6 million Americans are even more eligible for treatment with a pricey weight loss drug, Wagobi. Under the new rules, the government will pay for Wagobi treatment. That's semaglotide ozempic in the diabetes form, but GLP-1 agonist, this new class of weight loss drugs, which is amazingly effective for weight loss. Under the new rules, the government will pay for Wagobi treatment if a person with a high BMI also has heart disease. We're still waiting for them to define the word "heart disease," and this will really determine how many people become eligible for payment. I think that's outrageous, frankly. If people abuse themselves as they do, many people are on Wagobi or ozempic or any of these other weight loss drugs, they've made a choice in most cases, not all of them. I think if it's discovered or found that the person is obese through no fault of his or her own, the government and insurance companies ought to take care of it. But if you've abused yourself, you have no right to have me pay for you. Does that sound cruel? Maybe it is, but I feel very strongly about it. I didn't get you into the place where you are. You made your choice, your decision. With that in mind, the alternative to Wagobi that we talk about, the program sponsored by Calitrin, which is the opposite way, no drugs involved here. The fact that you're going to lose weight, it is not overnight, take you a while to do it, but it's so simple. 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It's toploss.com, the website for Calitrin, the country's only way to lose weight the natural way. Back with Dr. Ken Cronhaus here, HPV. What is that? Human papilloma virus. That's the virus that causes just about all cervical cancer in women. All right. So, it's another virus. We're talking about the olive areas, viruses that are out including COVID. This is another one. What is the latest here if men have it and what are they risk? Well, this is all about the vaccine that we have made available in the last couple of decades. And it's controversial because it's recommended for pre-teen and teenage women before they're sexually active. And the whole issues of I'm not expressing an opinion one way or the other, but I've heard the debate of discussing sexual activity with women who are not even thinking about it. Is that a good idea? And that's a debate for another time. But the point being is that this is a hot button because it has originated as a way to prevent a horrible cancer, cervical cancer in women by bringing it up and giving it to the women when they most effectively need it, which is as pre-teens and teens. And a big debate that grew out of that was should men be also vaccinated because they're very much involved in spreading it. This spreads sexually is how women get this virus. The virus spreads sexually. And when the virus spreads sexually, it ends up in the cervix of women and causes cancer. So human papilloma virus, Doug HPV has largely been seen as a health problem of women, given that it causes nearly all cases of cervical cancer. But men also have reason now to both fear HPV and to get vaccinated against it. This is out of the medical journal this week, Frontiers and Cellular and Infection Microbiology. Doug infection with high risk HPV strains may interfere with a man's fertility. That's the headline this week. Men infected with these high risk strains, they show increased sperm death due to oxidative stress and a weakened local immune response to the urogenital tract. So men, pre-teen teenage boys need to talk to the pediatrician also about getting vaccinated. Even adults who've made it out of the pediatric office without getting vaccinated need to talk to their internist, their family physician about whether they as men need to get this vaccine against HPV. So it won't impair their fertility. All right. Now, viruses, viruses, viruses. Here in New England, there are a lot of people who the news media is scaring and maybe this is something to be scared about. There's a rare mosquito-borne virus that has killed one resident of New Hampshire. What do they call it? Equine. It used to be equine encephalitis. I don't know what they're. It's eastern equine encephalitis, E-E-E has been, this has been a dry summer for some, but it's been moist for others. This is the first time anybody's died of it, but it's the fifth case this year here in the northeast. So what is, this is because of its peak mosquito season. These viruses are dangerous for sure, but if one person has died, how much more of it is around? Yeah. The key is just getting rid of standing water and being very careful when you're out at sunset. That's when you're really vulnerable. In fact, Dr. Fauci was in the hospital just in the last week or two for a week because of he had one of these viral infections from a mosquito. Unfortunately, prevention is really the best way. Unfortunately, not everybody reacts. Dr. Fauci had the West Nile virus, and only a small fraction responds so severely that need to be hospitalized, fortunately, to keep the immune system up, get rid of the standing water, and prevent, prevent, prevent. This is Good Day Health, Doug Steffen with Dr. Ken Cronhaus, sponsored by Calendron, which is the safe way for you to lose weight and keep it off. 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Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit. At your local King Super's pharmacy. So come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's, a world of care, is in store. Visit kingsuper's.com/vaccines for more. Restrictions and exclusions apply seaside for details.