Brain-Body Breakthroughs - Larry McCleary MD

Have you ever gotten to the point where you only had 5-10 pounds more to lose but were unable to get there no matter what you did? Well, what might have done the trick for you was probably the last thing you would have considered -- SLEEP! My guest today is Dr. Michael Breus who has a new book out called The Sleep Doctor's Diet Plan: Lose Weight through Better Sleep (http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Doctors-Diet-Plan-through/dp/1609611330/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313279596&sr=1-1). He is an expert in sleep disorders and will be talking about why we need sleep, who is most in need and how to get all the beauty rest that is required. He has even developed a better sleep system that is based on the concept of thermo-neutrality (http://www.thesleepdoctor.com/the-dr-breus-bed/index.html). Please join me to hear why you shouldn't drink coffee before bed even if you have no trouble falling asleep, what is the real skinny about melatonin and who is most likely to sleep walk! You'll even hear what to do to prevent jet-lag.

I watched a recent video from the Onion News Network (http://www.theonion.com/video/social-security-reform-bill-encourages-americans-t,21006/)that promoted a tongue-in-cheek way to keep social security solvent. It outlined an approach that encouraged Americans to live faster and die younger. It cut taxes on cigarettes, outlawed helmets and encouraged sleep only "when dead." In place of senior citizen's checks, vouchers were handed out for grain alcohol and hang gliding. The goal was to cut health costs by shortening lifespan by 15-20 years. Another way of achieving the same cost-cutting goals while lengthening lifespan and living a mindful, fulfilling and healthy life might be to listen to my guest today Dr. Lorene Wu -- a specialist in blending Western and Eastern medical approaches that balances energy through mind-body-spirit medicine. She is an MD who is board-certified in Family Medicine and is also a Diplomate of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. She describes how you can lead a truly "balanced" life and benefit from the best of both medical worlds. You will be thoughtfully walked through the ins and outs of Eastern medical philosophies, learn how they complement our Western medical approach and how and when to choose one over the other in a manner that best suits your mind and body. She founded The Whole Life Center (http://www.thewholelifecenter.org/)in the Chicago area and will change how you think about medicine and life. Please join us!

The news wires have been buzzing this week and you'll soon hear why. From Lt. Columbo's Fatal Miscalculation -- and why that's important -- to a discussion about one of the most misunderstood aspects of women's health (thyroid disorders) and also including some compelling insights from two huge new studies on calcium supplementation (http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d2040.full.pdf), bone health and the darker side of calcium (http://womensvoicesforchange.org/calcium-supplements-what-does-it-all-mean.htm)-- where more is definitely not better. You'll learn about the trade off between prevention of broken bones and the increase in heart attacks and strokes; how you can be hypothyroid and have normal blood tests; and why general anesthesia can put you at higher risk for Alzheimer's disease -- breaking news that's not available anywhere else. So stay tuned!

If you have ever been told that "a calorie is a calorie" and you need to cut the calories you eat to lose weight, you will be very surprised at what we will be discussing on the program today. Children don't go through a growth spurt because they eat too much and we don't gain weight because we have poor will-power. You'll hear why what we've been told for the past 40 years (and are still being told by the USDA) is all wrong. Learn why the My Plate (http://www.choosemyplate.gov/)dietary guidelines encourage you to eat a fattening diet -- one that is not much different than swine fattening chow (http://www.ehow.com/list_7587821_ways-increase-pigs-weight.html)! It's easy to see that the current dietary guidelines have made us all fat and there is no end in sight to the current obesity epidemic. To understand such a difficult problem you need to think outside the box and that's exactly what you'll be hearing. "They" have it all backwards and have been experimenting on the American public by making eating recommendations that do more to support the farmers than keep us thin and healthy. If you're mad, you should be. If you get fat following the MyPlate food guidelines it's not because you're gluttonous, it's because the food choices you've been told to make are preventing you from losing weight ... and they've actually made you get fat in the first place.

If you have ever asked your doctor how to lose weight the response has probably been that you need to "eat less and exercise more" with the caveat that you should get accustomed to feeling hungry. We have also been told to banish fat from our plates if we want to lose weight and avoid a heart attack. If you've tried this approach and are heavier than ever before, you need to listen to this program. Kirstie Alley (http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20276768,00.html)is the poster-child for yo-yo dieting based on these recommendations and exemplifies how what we have been told for the past 30+ years is all wrong. The MyPlate (http://www.choosemyplate.gov/) (the new USDA dietary guidelines) approach is at the epicenter of a vortex of poor food choices and allows us to eat a diet that is one third sugar and two thirds empty calories. It is no surprise that obesity is rampant and is now a major risk factor for cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease and has even eclipsed alcohol as the major cause of liver disease. Tune in to hear how "sticky" fat cells are the culprits behind unwanted weight gain and are the cause of those dreaded weight-loss "plateaus." Learn what you need to know to make healthy food choices and get prepared for the resistance your doctor will give you when you confront him/her with what you are about to hear. LINKS: Feed Your Brain Lose Your Belly -- Link to: http://www.amazon.com/Feed-Your-Brain-Lose-Belly/dp/1608321010/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309349283&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Feed-Your-Brain-Lose-Belly/dp/1608321010/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309349283&sr=1-1)

Just the thought of cancer in a child conjures up images of pain, suffering and injustice. If that's the case, you'll be overwhelmed with the outpouring of emotion and the uplifting message in this program. I am not interviewing an expert in treating cancer who wears a white coat all day long but the mother of a young woman who developed cancer as a teenager -- an expert in how to live with childhood cancer (http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/cancer/cancer.html). When her daughter was told by one doctor to go home and die with her Wilms' tumor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilms'_tumor), Megan said to her mother, "That doctor doesn't know me very well." If you have never met a child with cancer and her mother, there is no better place to start. The interview chronicles the journey of a resilient young woman from the world of Irish dancing to the inside of an operating room and then through two stem cell transplants (http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/heart/stem_cells.html). All with a homecoming dance, some intense mother-daughter bonding, being told by a hall monitor at school to take her hat off after she lost all of her hair and a wake that was attended by almost 1,000 friends. You will hear from an inspirational mother who supported her entire family through the darkest hours and brought them out the other side able to love the moment, appreciate the little things and enjoy everything life has to offer. What she has to say about the "good" in cancer will surprise you. Finally, you'll hear how important hope is for getting through the tough times and being able to wake up and smile every day.

If you want to lose weight, stay healthy and protect your heart, exercise is a dose of just what the doctor ordered. However, it may be one of the best things for your brain if you want to think more clearly, learn faster, prevent Alzheimer's disease and age more gracefully. My guest, Arthur Kramer, Ph. D., Director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (http://www.beckman.illinois.edu/about/index.aspx) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tells how his interest in science and jock-like activities conspired to propel him into a career as a distinguished scientist who specializes in cognition and brain plasticity. Brain plasticity was recently popularized by Norman Doidge in his book The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (http://www.amazon.com/Brain-That-Changes-Itself-Frontiers/dp/0143113100/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307663432&sr=1-3). While much has been said of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to re-wire itself on the fly) and its ability to help heal from stokes, head trauma and even Alzheimer's disease, there have been painfully few therapeutic interventions designed to use it in a meaningful fashion. In this episode of Brain-Body Breakthroughs Dr. Kramer reveals how certain types of exercise can literally revitalize brain structure and function. He discusses startling new findings illustrating how exercise can turn back the clock on brain aging, especially involving the frontal lobes where executive functions such as working memory are located. He'll tell us what to do if we want to make that memory center called the hippocampus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus)bigger and better and how to learn faster at any age. And he'll provide insight into tools that work effectively on refurbishing brain skills whether you're 20 or 70.

Cholesterol. It's the buzz-word in medicine. It's the darling of the cardiologist. The lower the "normal" level of cholesterol is set, the more patients cardiologists have to see. And what's considered "normal" has fallen dramatically in recent years. The question is "Why?" Today millions of Americans are being told by their doctors that they need to take a potentially toxic, and very expensive, medication for 40, 50, or more years. Many of them are totally asymptomatic. Their only mistake was to have their cholesterol level checked in the first place. Once that is done, many of them will end up taking one of an army of statin drugs. And can they ever lower cholesterol ... often by up to 50%. The only kicker is that how much the cholesterol level is lowered has NO relation to any benefit the drug may provide. If this sounds absurd, you need to read the book The Cholesterol Delusion (http://cholesteroldelusion.com/). If you do, the trust in your doctor, and in medicine in general, will be changed forever. We have all been inundated by the adds for drugs like Lipitor and Crestor. We will be discussing how these drug companies "legally" distort the purported benefits of these drugs with a well-known statistical trick. You'll learn how funding of heart research for the last generation has been more political than scientific. And you'll get a sense of why doctors feel compelled to treat a number (your "high" cholesterol level) rather than treating the patient (you!).

Have you heard there's a new drug that can slash your risk of a number of deadly cancers by up to 50%, almost eradicate childhood diabetes, diminish the risk of multiple sclerosis and double the health benefits of exercise? Sound too good to be true? That's because it doesn't exist. However, if it did, the drug company would be advertising it every chance they got and they'd probably sell billions of dollars of it each year. Don't despair because there is a solution and you can get it for free. My guest today is someone who stuck with his guns and dared to buck the medical system. He was forced to resign as Professor of Dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine by the same person who had previously nominated him for a prestigious research award and actually made the presentation. He did so because he believed that current medical dogma he was being asked to support was incorrect. He will provide some startling insights about the vitamin deficiency that afflicts almost 2 billion people worldwide including approximately 160 million Americans and many newborn children. If you're overweight or have dark skin you are at even higher risk. The pressing problem is that of vitamin D deficiency (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-deficiency/). You will hear as Dr. Holick (http://www.bumc.bu.edu/endo/faculty/holick/)estimates that correcting this problem could eliminate $260 billion from our yearly health expenditures. He will also provide some unexpected insights about tanning beds and explain why millions of Baby Boomers have the wrinkles they do today and how it's due to their sunscreen.

Most of us have known someone who suddenly, and quite literally, "dropped dead." This is usually from a heart problem. And often it could have been prevented if it had been recognized. Tune in today to see how to avoid what happened to popular political journalist Tim Russert (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/06/13/tim.russert/index.html), the congenial anchor of "Meet the Press." He had just passed a cardiac stress test 6 weeks before he died of a massive heart attack. The average age for experiencing sudden cardiac death in men is between 58 and 62. In about 30% of such cases, sudden death is the first sign that something is wrong. The signing of the National Cancer Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Cancer#National_Cancer_Act_of_1971)in 1971 by President Richard Nixon is generally viewed as the beginning of the war on cancer. One of the subsequent discoveries was that early diagnosis is a cornerstone in curing cancer. This prompted an array of early screening programs for Cancer. Such has not been the case for heart disease. That is until now. Tune in to hear Dr. Steven Helschien talk about Cardiocrusaders (http://www.cardiocrusaders.com/for-the-young-at-heart-program.html) and the early warning tests now available that can detect cardiovascular disease and the risk for sudden cardiac death long before you befall the fate that Mr. Russert sadly experienced. We have all seen the popular pink ribbons that signify the Susan G. Komen Foundation promoting "the Cure" for breast cancer. However, did you know that more than 6 times as many women die from heart disease each year as die from breast cancer. Now the number of women dying of heart disease is about the same as the number of men. This is an epidemic and to make progress early diagnosis is critical. Listen and find out what you need to know to protect your family. Discover what your doctor probably has never discussed with you, and may not be aware of.

The Big C. Cancer. The disease that kills more Americans than any other. Believed by most to be a death sentence. Months of intolerable chemotherapy, surgery and radiation treatments. Lose your hair and your appetite and feel terrible for months. That doesn't have to be the case at all according to Boston College Professor of Biology, Dr. Thomas Seyfried. (http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/biology/facadmin/seyfried.html) Even if you're Michael Douglas or Teddy Kennedy (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Health/story?id=4894479&page=1), you would benefit from what this man has to say. He breaks all the rules by stating publicly why you should avoid x-ray treatments and how steroid medications (drugs used in most leukemia protocols and by most patients with brain tumors) can actually "feed" cancer cells. His incisive and scientifically-based insights use the same principles that main-stream medicine uses to identify cancerous tumors in the body, but takes them one step further. He makes recommendations about how these fundamentals of biology can be used to treat cancer. By identifying the metabolic basis (http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/7/1/7) for cancer, he outlines an approach that should become the template for all cancer therapies -- a treatment protocol that attacks cancer cells while enhancing function in normal cells. If you've ever had chemotherapy or radiation, you know all too well how they make you feel and what impact they have on your body. The revolutionary approach recommended by Dr. Seyfried relies on one unique difference between normal cells and cancer cells. Cancer cells don't have the metabolic flexibility to transition between fuel sources while normal cells do. It's like a hybrid car that can use gas and ethanol. Cancer cells only can use one type so when only ethanol is available, they die. In one of his peer-reviewed medical papers he even states that of all the chronic diseases we are afflicted by, cancer should be the easiest one to prevent! So, be sure you don't miss a word this respected scientist has to say. It may tip the world of cancer treatments on its head.

Learn how to choose food during your pregnancy that keeps you healthy and prevents your baby from becoming overweight as a child or developing diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure as an adult! Moreover, you'll hear from a mom and a nutritional researcher why this is so. Join us and hear how to eat a guilt-free diet that is good for you and your baby!

Learn how The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/dietaryguidelines.htm), a governmental description of what constitutes a nutritious diet, has become a political tool of the US Department of Agriculture. Listen to how the USDA operates under a large conflict of interest -- they must maximize the sale of American farm products, mainly wheat and corn, while providing guidelines for what Americans should eat. This typically means that their definition of "nutritious" is crafted to coincide with what the farmers grow despite the negative impact on our health.

Dr. Larry McCleary interviews Joan Pagano (http://www.joanpaganofitness.com), the personal trainer for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Caroline Kennedy, as she reveals training tips for keeping bones strong through the ages. Joan's book Strength Training for Women (http://www.amazon.com/Strength-Training-Women-Joan-Pagano/dp/0756605954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303876546&sr=1-1) is a classic. She dispels myths about strength training in women, outlines a 5-point exercise plan for osteoporosis and sets fitness goals for all age groups from 18 to the over 50 generation. She even provides pointers for enhancing self-confidence in the job market.