Tag Archives: health

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 11 Issues 40 and 42

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Audiocast #40 – Epigenetics

Humans, like most organisms on earth, grow and maintain their biological systems through a complex interplay between the environment and their genes. Epigenetics is the study of the ability of environmental signals to silence or activate these genes, thus effecting cellular function and species survival. I was once given an analogy, by Dr. Randy Jirtle, that your genes are like a computer hard drive. They do nothing until the software inputs change activity. The environmental signals like food, chemicals, stress and much more are the putative software inputs for us. Good lifestyle inputs have been epidemiologically proven to reduce disease risk.

Audiocast #42 – Stress, Psychiatry and the Intestinal Microbiome

Humans develop disease from many different routes including toxic exposures, genetics, poor nutrition, injury, microbial exposures and much more. One of the biggest risk factors for the development of disease is mental stress. Specifically, chronic stress of the psyche is traumatic to the cellular machinery of the body like the protective telomere tails of DNA strands or the functioning intestinal microbiome.
Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast – Putting It All Together #1

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This week on the show, I sit down to put the first three maternal/child health podcasts into perspective. We take a more nuanced view of how these three experts are tied together. We examine the basic underpinnings of maternal health risks through the eyes of these thought leaders in preparation for the next three experts who will take us on a tour of human health from a microbiome and environmental perspective. This show is also a way for the folks that are on the go to get a summary of the podcasts for their benefit.

 

Be well,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 11 Issues 36 and 38

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Audiocast #36 – Vision and Breathing
What are the connections between breathing and vision? Dr. Huberman, a Stanford Neurobiologist has been researching this topic for years and his findings are fascinating.
From a 2020 Scientific American article: “But Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University who studies the visual system, sees matters a bit differently. Stress, he says, is not just about the content of what we are reading or the images we are seeing. It is about how our eyes and breathing change in response to the world, as well as the cascades of events that follow. Both these bodily processes also offer us easy and accessible releases from stress. For more: https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter/999-volume-11-letter-36
Audiocast #38 – Type II Diabetes and Covid in Kids
The pandemic has taken an amazing toll on human health. According to two new studies that are not yet in print, the pandemic caused a doubling in diabetes in children. This is not a trivial matter as insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome in general are the diagnostic diseases associated with increased risk for cancer, coronary artery disease and early death from issues like COVID. The antecedent triggers have been well studied and discussed in this newsletter. Sedentary behavior coupled to a high fat, high refined carbohydrate diet are the main drivers of disease and the pandemic forced many a child’s hand. They were less likely to exercise and move during the poor quality zoom events. Physical education classes were non existent. Food quality plummeted from a poor school based place to a worse home based place. For more: https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter/1007-type-ii-diabetes-and-covid-in-kids
Best,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #4 – Ken Cook, the Environmental Working Group and Your Health

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Ken Cook, President and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, is widely recognized as one of the environmental community’s most prominent and influential critics of industrial agriculture, U.S. food and farm policy and the nation’s broken approach to protecting families and children from toxic substances. Under Cook’s guidance, the organization empowered American families with easy-to-use, data-driven tools to help reduce their exposure to potentially harmful ingredients in foods, drinking water, cosmetics and other household products. These unique digital resources are searched hundreds of millions of times by consumers. 
We discuss the state of the nation with regards to environmental triggers of disease which can cause problems in mothers and children. It is a conversation that every parent needs to hear as it is loaded with news to use for a healthier life.
Please enjoy my conversation with Ken Cook,
Dr. M
Here are two links to the podcast:
Apple Podcasts
Women and Children First
SPA Podcast Page – will be loaded this week

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #3 – Dr. Randy Jirtle and the Discovery of Maternal Risk

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Dr. Randy Jirtle joins the show today to discuss his groundbreaking research that ushered in the era of epigenetics. Time Magazine nominated him for person of the year in 2007 and had this to say about him: “Dr. Jirtle’s pioneering work in epigenetics and genomic imprinting has uncovered a vast territory in which a gene represents less of an inexorable sentence and more of an access point for the environment to modify the genome. His trailblazing discoveries have produced a far more complete and useful understanding of human development and diseases” — Time Magazine. This interview is ground zero for the Women and Children First Podcast as we discuss the underpinnings or mechanisms of disease risk for all humans as it relates to the environmental inputs of our lives that are driving health or disease at both the pregnancy and post natal periods. We look specifically at how maternal nutrition and later chemical exposure directly affected the health of the agouti mouse offspring. This experiment was the first of its kind and paved the way for a complete shift in human disease understanding. For parents, this podcast is really the beginning of everything that I am trying to convey regarding a healthy pregnancy and childhood. Without this interview, the following interviews will be more difficult to understand. The picture becomes very clear once his research is cemented in our minds.

His biography is as follows: Professor of Epigenetics at the Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, and a Senior Scientist at McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. He was previously professor of radiation oncology and associate professor of pathology at Duke University, Durham, NC, where he had been a faculty member since 1977. He graduated with a B.S. degree in nuclear engineering in 1970 and a Ph.D. degree in radiation biology in 1976, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His awards list is long but the key to Dr. Jirtle is that he is a curious thinker and we are grateful for this.

Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. Randy Jirtle,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 11 Issue 31 Covid Update #40

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It is time for a change of direction for me and my vaccine thoughts. A lot of risk analysis this week in children and opinions on masking to be in schools. I have been steadfastly in the push to vaccinate high risk kids over age 12 years only and all else make individual choices. The data keeps shifting and the risk of a potential concern is increasing for adolescents. Read on….
Quick hits
1) COVID mRNA vaccines for 12 and over – a few days ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Danny Benjamin, Professor of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Duke University and Principal Investigator on the NC school COVID study, about the COVID vaccine, variants and risk factors for problems in children. He is a brilliant and thoughtful teacher and someone that I truly trust. Our interview will be live in 1 – 2 weeks at the Women and Children First Podcast on Apple podcasts. However, there was one HUGE takeaway that I wanted to share now.
According to Dr. Benjamin, the COVID vaccine has already surpassed the necessary amount of time and number of inoculated children over 12 years of age to steadfastly discuss safety as a net known entity. In the history of vaccine development, there has never been a case of a new unknown side effect being discovered 6 months post any individual vaccination if enough people have been vaccinated to see a signal….. Read More Here: https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter/977-volume-11-letter-31-coronavirus-update-40

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 11 Issue 29 Covid Update #39

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Coronavirus Update #39 Quick hits
1) Repeat with new information as an important follow up on MIS-C, multi inflammatory syndrome – c., from 2 weeks ago. Remember that in children, MIS-c is associated with poor intestinal function from a microbiome perspective coupled to genetic weaknesses in immune suppression of chemokine CXCL9 post inflammation. Research from the lab of Dr. Alessio Fasano has shown direct evidence of intestinal permeability in children with multi inflammatory syndrome – c:
The authors found that children, unlike adults, the SARS2 virus decides to take up residence in the intestines and replicate there. The virus can be found in the child’s stool via testing. This is a unique finding to children as the intestine is not known to be a harboring site for the virus in adults. The expert researcher on this paper, Dr. Fasano, has extensive knowledge of the function of the intestinal mucosal lining and the fact that the cells are held together by tight junctions made up of different proteins forming a semi impermeable membrane…….
Read more at https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter
Have a great day,
Dr. M

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