Dr. Cate

This author has written 238 articles
General
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January 29, 2010

Low Carb Diets Reduce Blood Pressure

A new study suggests Dr. Atkins was right: A high carb diet is not a healthy diet, and cutting carbs trims more than just your waistline. While both low-carb and low-fat diets can help you loose weight, Duke University’s well-designed study makes it pretty clear that if you want to reduce your weight and your pressure, a low-carb diet is a better choice. From Today’s Medscape Family Medicine: “January 25, 2010 (Durham, North Carolina) — A new randomized trial comparing a low-carbohydrate diet with a low-fat diet in combination with the weight-loss drug orlistat has found that both strategies produced meaningful weight…

Diabetes
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December 30, 2009

FDA Officially Unconcerned that Crestor Causes Diabetes

Imagine a world where everyone is on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs. Not just sick people. Everyone. Astra Zeneca has imagined it, and now they’re going to see their dream come true. On December 16, the FDA announced their approval of Astra Zeneca’s cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor for use in people without high cholesterol despite the fact that a new study showed conclusively that the drug causes diabetes. By a vote of 12 to 4, the panel judged that even people at very low risk of heart disease should take the cholesterol medication anyway. “I do think the diabetes problem is real, but…

Vaccine Shot In Child's Arm
Vaccines
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December 16, 2009

Humans as GMOs? New Vaccine Technology Alters our DNA

I am not a vaccine skeptic. I think that most of our vaccines are safe enough for widespread utilization as long as they don’t do anything stupid during the production process, like contaminate them with squalene or mercury which they often do.

Science and Medical News
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December 5, 2009

Can Cancer Go Away Without Treatment?

The USPSTF has recognized that by treating tiny, early stage breast cancers so aggressively, doctors may also have unknowingly subjected hundreds of thousands of American women to unnecessary procedures, leading to needless complications including disfigurement and even death, all the while assuming they were saving people’s lives.

Brain Health
Fitness
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November 27, 2009

Tiger Woods’ Concussion: What kind of recovery can he expect?

Tiger Woods recently had a single car accident–a nasty one. Reports say he was out for as long as six minutes when his wife found him. When a doctor hears that a patient has suffered a brain injury severe enough to alter consciousness, they get concerned. Loosing consciousness altogether suggests a significant insult to the brain. With an injury like that, I would tell a patient to expect between six weeks and six months of after effects, including headaches, irritability, and concentration deficits. This can be frightening and frustrating for both patient and the people they live and work with.…

Science and Medical News
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November 4, 2009

Is the H1N1 flu vaccine safe?

The two big questions I’ve been getting about the flu this year are, Should I get the H1N1 vaccine? and Is the H1N1 flu as scary as people seem to be saying? Let’s start with the second question first. Is the N1H1 flu especially dangerous? The N1H1 swine flu virus is, like any other flu virus, potentially deadly — particularly to very young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with certain chronic diseases, like diabetes. But this particular flu has the potential to pack a little more punch than other flu viruses because, to put it simply, our immune…

Science and Medical News
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August 16, 2009

Does Caloric Restriction Prolong Life?

You may have heard Oprah’s Dr. Oz talking about an amazing new diet that, he claims, might allow us to live 150 years. I noticed that Dr. Oz seemed to be doing his best to highlight the benefits of this diet and downplay any risks, though he wasn’t following the diet himself – and I think I know why. The diet he’s referring to is called “the calorie restriction diet,” a diet that requires you to limit your calories to 20 or 40 percent fewer than what’s currently recommended as a healthy amount, often as low as 1200 calories per…

Who Should Get Vitamin D Testing?
Anti Aging
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August 9, 2009

Who Should Get Vitamin D Testing?

We all know our skin makes vitamin D during sun exposure, so you’d think that most of us here in Hawaii would have plenty of vitamin D, right? Wrong. A study done on prototypical surfer-dudes in Honolulu, titled: Low Vitamin D Status Despite Abundant Sun Exposure (Binkely, 2007) found that, amazingly, more than half (51 percent) had less-than-optimal blood levels of vitamin D and were therefore putting their bodies at risk. At risk for what? Low vitamin D has been associated with overweight and obesity, as well as a variety of serious medical conditions, including cancer, heart failure, mental illness,…

Food
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May 18, 2009

Is Coffee Bad For Your Health?

Coffee: Friend or Foe? Coffee is one of the most popular breakfast items on the most popular diet (a Paleo Diet) menu. Indeed, I’ve read reports claiming that coffee has antioxidants that may prevent heart disease and other compounds that may help to prevent certain cancers. At the other end of the argument, many natural health newsletters treat coffee like it’s worse than cocaine–blaming coffee for everything from “burning out” our adrenal glands and harming our kidneys, to mood swings, fatigue, and depression. So is starting your day with coffee really going to make you “Bulletproof”? Moderation is the key. …

Science and Medical News
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May 3, 2009

Recommended Vitamin D Intake Overdue for an Increase

“Vitamin D’s star is on the rise and researchers say it’s about time.” –AMA News, April 27, 2009 The government’s recommended intake (RDA) for D may underestimate the true amount we need by a factor of ten, according to Michael Holick MD, Ph.D., at Boston University Medical center. Current recommendations are for 200-400 I.U. per day, depending on age. But Dr. Hollick suggests that our true needs may be on the order of 2,000 I.U. Since studies show that most people consume very little D and don’t get enough from sun exposure, there is a nearly universal shortfall of vitamin…

Science and Medical News
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April 12, 2009

Thermograms versus Mammograms: Which test is best?

Thermograms detect infrared rays to show patterns of body temperature. What most people I know who have gotten a thermogram don’t seem to have been told is that thermograms only detect surface bloodflow, so any cancer growth deeper than a few millimeters may not be detected unless it also happens to be large enough to disturb the surface blood flow patterns. Mammograms use radiation to find calcifications hiding anywhere in the breast tissue, even deep ones. What most people who’ve gotten mammograms don’t often hear is that mammograms are really difficult to interpret. The true power of any diagnostic image…

Science and Medical News
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April 12, 2009

Breast Cancer: Is Early Detection A Good Thing?

When it comes to breast cancer, not all “cancer” is really cancer, study says. According to the ACS, something like one in seven women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes. That’s scary, not only for women but for the family and friends who love them. But a recent study from the well-respected Cochrane Commission says that there is reason for hope. According this meta-analysis (a meta-analysis is a study of many studies), many growths often presumed to be deadly cancers based on mammogram and biopsy results may not be as life threatening as we once thought. They…

Heart Health
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November 18, 2008

Statins and Heart Failure: A Deadly Mix?

If you have been diagnosed with heart failure, statin drugs, which most cardiologists will prescribe to you if your cholesterol levels are not where they recommend, may need to be stopped.

Children's Health
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November 16, 2008

Celebrity Album: Second Sibling Syndrome

Birth order and spacing may affect our looks more than we realize. Quite often, the most photogenic member of the family is the oldest, as seen in the celebrity sibling pairs shown here. While not a universal rule, this principle bears investigation.

What Do All The Healthiest Diets Have In Common?
Diets
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November 16, 2008

What do all the healthiest diets have in common?

French Paradox, Mediterranean Diet, Okinawa Diet…Oh my! How do you chose? You don’t have to choose, you can enjoy them all. All authentic cuisines the world over include foods that belong to these four categories: Meat on the Bone Organ meats Fermented and sprouted foods Fresh, uncooked ingredients While most of my patients are aware of the importance of fresh foods, few people realize that we also need to include foods from the other three pillars. Here’s what you need to know about each: Meat on the Bone Cooking meat bone does two great things. 1) It enables the bone…

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