Weird Medicine: The Podcast - 629 - (Don't) "Drink or Die"

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Dr Steve and Dr Scott discuss: Bradford pear trees stink kudzu too measles classic vaccine NOTE: I'm DONE WITH VACCINE AND COVID TALK UNTIL I GET IT AGAIN the "p" in pneumonia walking "p"neumonia what is a seizure breast cancer and mistletoe KP10 and testosterone hypochondria DRINK OR DIE (don't do this) beer fat meloxicam Please visit: simplyherbals.net/cbd-sinus-rinse (the best he's ever made. Seriously.) instagram.com/weirdmedicine x.com/weirdmedicine stuff.doctorsteve.com (it's back!) youtube.com/@weirdmedicine (click JOIN and ACCEPT GIFTED MEMBERSHIPS. Join the "Fluid Family" for live recordings!) youtube.com/@normalworld (Check out Dave and crew, and occasionally see your old pal!) hackamania.com offer code WEIRD (you won't regret it) CHECK OUT THE ROADIE COACH stringed instrument trainer! roadie.doctorsteve.com (the greatest gift for a guitarist or bassist! The robotic tuner!) see it here: stuff.doctorsteve.com/#roadie Also don't forget: Cameo.com/weirdmedicine (Book your old pal right now because he's cheap! "FLUID!") Most importantly! CHECK US OUT ON PATREON!  ALL NEW CONTENT! Robert Kelly, Mark Normand, Jim Norton, Gregg Hughes, Anthony Cumia, Joe DeRosa, Pete Davidson, Geno Bisconte, Cassie Black ("Safe Slut"). Stuff you will never hear on the main show ;-) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You get nothing. You lose. Good day, sir. If you just read the bio for Dr. Steve, host of Weird Medicine on Sirius XM103 and made popular by two really comedy shows, Opie and Anthony and Benz, you would have thought that this guy was a bit of, you know, A clown! Why can't you give me the respect that I'm entitled to? I've got diphtheria crushing my esophagus.

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Very good. Check out stuff.com. dot dr steve.com that's stuff dot dr steve.com scroll down you can see the rody robotic guitar and bass tuner i think you tuned up your mandolin with it once too didn't you did you try that i believe it will i believe it does yeah yeah it'll tune just about any stringed instrument and uh or you can see it at r oa d i e dot dr steve.com they also have the rody coach that'll teach you to play your instrument or if you have a friend or a kid that has a guitar just laying around throw them a roadie coach see if they can learn how to play

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All right, very good. Well, Dr. Scott has things going at simplyerbils.net. Pretty well. We've been busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tis the season, as you can tell, from my voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got the Bartlett pear disease or whatever.

I've got the Bradford pear tree blues. Not Bartlett Pear. What is a Bradford? I think the Bartlett's are the good ones and the Bradford's the bad ones. Does it make actual pears? They do make pears. Really? Yeah, but they're not edible.

Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Why do people have them? Well, because they're like dogwoods. They just, they're, no, they're, no, they're not even that pretty. They're more like, it's more like weeds. I mean, they just drop and they grow like crazy.

No, here's the thing that says why, this is from Reddit, why Bradford Pair is so hated. Yes. Oh, I can tell you why. It's derived from a wild calorie pair native to Eurasia, but it has several traits would make it more desirable. But, okay. Go ahead. Well, it's, it's very easy to break. It's not a real stable tree.

Okay. The limbs break off really easy and they fall in wind. They don't have a great deep root system. Yeah. And they have these beautiful white blooms every spring that I'm so allergic to. It just makes me absolutely miserable. Says here, the fruits, which are assumed to be inedible due to their abundant cyanide-laced seeds. Oh, Jesus.

They're hard, almost woody, till softened by frost. after which they are readily taken by birds with dispersed the seeds and their droppings. And they grow like crazy. But the ones around here, they have thorns. I mean, I'm talking like two and three-inch thorns on the branches, and they're just awful. Awful trees.

Yeah, they're remarkably resistant to disease. So that makes it even worse in some ways. Well, now they look nice if you've got a whole bunch of them down a pathway or something. Yeah, well, and I think that's why a lot of times they do it, especially like in our hospital system and we've got them. Popular with landscapers because they're cheap. Exactly. They transport well and grow quickly.

I've got them all over. Well, you and I both have them around our whole building. You look out the window. They're everywhere. Yeah. And then it became an invasive species. That's typical because they're native to Vietnam. So they brought them here.

This is, don't do that. I remember reading a science fiction story. story once when I was a kid about a planet where they had like these pests, so they imported these other pests, and of course those took over and made it worse, so then they had to bring in even worse predators, and by the end of it, you know, they had these, the whole place was just a mess. And it's kind of like Kudzu. Oh, yeah, right.

Kudzu was brought here, I guess, is ground cover, and then there were a whole swaths of land in the south that, you know, the trees are just covered with Kudzu. It's just killing them. If people don't know what it is, it's a vine that just grows like crazy. But apparently the root is edible. Do you know anything about that? Yes, we actually use it in Chinese medicine. Oh, is that right?

We sure do, yeah. I was just trying to think of the Chinese name for it. Not kuzoo? No, it's not kuzzi. But it is, we use a dried root. Oh, yeah, it's pure area. Oh, yeah, I'm looking at it pure area, but that's not a Chinese name, though. No, well, I think that's the normal scientific name.

Okay. But, yeah, they've used it for years. They may treat liver damage. Yep. Rich and antioxidants. It's not necessarily good. You know, the body needs oxidants to fight cancer and stuff. So you've got to be careful.

You know, there was this big push for antioxidants back in the 70s and 80s, and people who smoked were taking antioxidants actually increased the rates on cancer because they were taking away part of the body's defense again. cancer cells, which is to be able to kill them with oxidants. At least that's the hypothesis anyway. Yeah, but so the vine, the roots are good in Chinese medicine, but man, the plant itself is just, I mean, around here, it will cover a whole hillside. Yep, yep. Tree, trees, you know, telephone poles. It's called the vine that ate the south.

Yep. Creeping, climbing perennial vine terrorizes native plants all over southeast and United States is making its way into the Midwest, northeast, and even o'clock. Oregon. Oh, geez. Yeah. Native to Japan and southeast China first introduced the United States during Philadelphia. Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 where it was touted as a great ornamental plant for its sweet-smelling blooms and sturdy vines.

There you go. And then from the 1930s to the 50s, soil conservation service promoted it as a great tool for soil erosion. I bet it is for soil erosion control. It was planted in abundance throughout the south. Little did we know, Kudzu is quite a killer overtaking and growing over anything in its path. If you've never seen it, it's, you know, there's trees, but they're completely covered. Completely covered, yeah. By this stuff.

It's like you just dropped a carpet over it or a blanket of, like a blanket of green. Yeah, it grows at a rate of one foot per day with mature vines as long as 100 feet. And then you just Google image it. It's crazy. I mean, there are just places where it just looks like green sort of. of monsters growing out of the hill, but they're actually trees covered by, by, uh, Kudzu. But I understand that you can make bread out of it and stuff. Oh, really?

Yeah. We're kids. Our grandfather used to take us out and we'd burn the whole hillside off of Kudzu. But then the root, and that doesn't probably, doesn't, no, just come back next year. Yeah, anyway. Well, what the hell? What are you going to do? All right.

Well, you got anything, Dr. Scott? Nothing good, but a bunch of sneezes. Is those stored up for the show? Yeah, because of the Bradford Piers. Yeah, gosh. Now, we did have a call about the measles outbreak, and I thought since that's been in the news that we could talk about that a little bit,

you know, there's people are giving RFK hell because they think he's anti-VACs. And he'll tell you he is not. I'm not here to defend RFK because I don't know his position. I mean, we could get them on the show, maybe. That would be fun. But his thing is, is that the, you know, the blind allegiance to just whatever we're being told isn't always correct. Right.

And that there are, you know, none of these things are perfect. So, for example, he's touting the fact that the measles vaccine will wane an effectiveness over time. But the truth is, and he's right, he's right. But the truth is it's about 5% of people will, could be susceptible to measles if they've been vaccinated. 95% of people have been fully vaccinated as children have lifelong immunity to it. Gotcha. And, you know, we've had, in 2025, we've had 301 measles cases with a significant. significant portion occurring in children under 19 or 76%.

Most of the cases, this is 95% were among unvaccinated or those with unknown vaccination status. 17% of the cases resulted in hospitalization. And so one of the things that people say is, well, you know, on the Brady bunch, they had measles and they had measles party, and that's how they talk about it. Now everybody talks about it like it's, you know, it's a crisis. And neither one of them is exactly right. Right. Okay, so the measel, chickenpox parties totally, I understand that. Sure.

The measles parties, they did have those, but still one in a thousand kids and up to, you know, three to five in a thousand kids, depending on where they are in the world, will die from this. And I was in kindergarten in 1960. The vaccine came out in 63, and, of course, we'd all had measles at that point, but one of my friends in kindergarten died from the measles. Yeah, it sucks. It's highly contagious. It can cause severe complications, but most of the time it doesn't. Young children and unvaccinated individuals are mostly at risk.

The vaccine is a classic vaccine. It's been around forever since 1963. this one is pretty safe and effective. But around the world, in 2023, there are 107,000 deaths from measles, but not in the United States. These were in places where people had decreased health care and did not have, you know, where we're compromised already. The symptoms are a high fever, cough, runny nose, and a rash, and prevention. Now, okay, here's one, where the media was giving RFK shit for recommending vitamin A.

Oh, actually, it's correct. Vitamin A plus vaccination helps to reduce complications from measles more than either by themselves. Okay. And that's been demonstrated. So, you know, they got to, everybody just wants to get a W. for their team and assign an L to the other team. Stop it. The only team that

we have on this world is us, human beings. So let's look at the data and try to figure out what the fuck we should do about this stuff. So it is very contagious. Remember, we talked about R subnot

during COVID, which was the transmission number. So if you had an R subnot of 2.4, which the original COVID alpha was, then one person in an idealized population would infect 2.4 people. Omicron was 12. So one person would infect 12 people, which made masking ineffective. In the beginning, when this wasn't as contagious, maybe masking decreased. You know, we had a period. There was a window in there where wearing masks might have actually made some.

difference in some cases. When there's 20 cases in, say, Washington State and there's no cases in Tennessee, makes no sense, what's the purpose of me, you know, wearing a mask? And then when it hits here and the reproductive number is low, then any barrier to droplet transmission will reduce transmission. However, when the thing, when the virus mutates and now all of a sudden the reproductive number is 12, which is the same as measles, then there is no protection. Okay. You know, because one person is infecting 12 people.

It's everywhere. Gotcha. So that window is very, and that's part of the problem. And when masking was recommended at one point, it almost, you know, it made some sense. And then it stopped making sense, but then they wouldn't give up on it. Then you have people like that Taylor Loren saying that people who don't wear masks, even today in 2025, are raw dogging the air. That's what she said. And when you see her out and about, she's still wearing this cloth mask, which was already demonstrated that those things do.

nothing. So anyway, the point I'm making is not about masking so much, but that measles and Omicron are about the same as far as their communicability about one and 15. I mean, one person can infect about 15 people. So that's why you want, if you have a pocket of people who are unvaccinated with measles, they're probably all going to get it if they're living close to each other. Gotcha. So anyway, two doses of the measles, mumps, and rebella vaccine is 97% effective at preventing measles. And one dose is 93%. So it's not 100%.

Nothing's 100%. Breakthrough infections are uncommon. They can occur. And it's mostly during outbreaks. And it's usually the number of breakthrough infections. In other words, infections in people who have been vaccinated is about 5% if they're in the middle of an outbreak. okay got you all right so anyway um yeah so we had 301 measles cases in the united states so far in 2025 and uh 17 percent of the cases as i said resulted in hospitalization and with the highest

hospitalization rate among children under five they do have a hair trigger putting kids in the hospital i remember when my kids had rhodovirus they put them in the hospital and they didn't They probably didn't need to be in the hospital, you know. Right. So, you know, but they're kids. And you knew they can go bad quickly and they can get better quickly. So you put them in the hospital. One confirmed measles death in Texas and one under investigation in New Mexico.

Now, they said they reclassified three cases that were supposedly vaccinated. And so they were classified them as breakthrough cases. but three of those were reclassified. Two were vaccinated, too close to the symptom onset to be effective. So they had just been vaccinated. Then they got the measles because their parents went and got them vaccinated after they got exposed. It was too late. It was too late.

And then one was a vaccine reaction. It wasn't measles. So anyway. So there you go. That's what's going on right now. I'm neither 100% percent. sent pro all vaccines for everything. It took me a long time to get with the program on the varicella vaccine because I was, my concern

was, is that if you had, if you didn't get lifelong immunity from it, you were going to now have adults who were susceptible to chickenpox who wouldn't have been if they'd just gotten chicken pox. Gotcha. But then I was convinced down the road that that vaccine does provide lifelong immunity. we'll see, you know, it's not old enough for us to really see yet. Right. But if we start seeing a bunch of people getting chicken pox as adults,

then we're going to know we're going to need boosters if they've had the vaccine because they're never going to get the disease at that point. Well, that would kind of eliminate shingles. Hopefully eliminate shingles. Yeah, yeah, which would be really great. Yeah, it would be awesome. You know, we'll see. It's going to be another 20, 30 years before we know.

But those people, once you vaccinate them as kids, you're handcuffed. If they don't get lifelong immunity, they will not get chicken pox, though, until they're adults, which is bad. Chickenpox and adults is bad, so you've got to keep vaccinating them if it's not lifelong immunity.

So we'll see. We're going to find out soon enough. Could they do blood tests? They're like antibody tests or anti-tests or anti-tests? Yeah, you're going to antibody test the whole country, though, because now, you know, all the kids have been vaccinated for this. That's true. That's true.

But anyway. So, yeah. So like I said, the MRNA vaccine as far as I'm, no, the FDA still hasn't approved them. Okay. You know, they're still under emergency use, so you can't mandate them. I think that if you feel that you're at high risk for complications, then go for it. Okay. It does provide some protection.

I know that at the end of Delta, when things were starting to calm down, everybody, we had in the ICU was unvaccinated. That's just, it doesn't, you know, that's not good science or anything, but, you know, it is, was interesting. But, so I never was a fan of mandates on that. I think that if you have a mild respiratory infection, that treatment is the way to go, and we now have some pretty effective treatments for it. So it took a friggin' long time.

But now the classic vaccine. scenes. No one's seen diphtheria in this country. You don't want to see it. No one's seen tetanus in this country in years. I mean, we've seen a couple of cases. I've seen one case of tetanus in my career. You know, we don't see rabies much anymore. It's extremely unusual for people to die of rabies, although not zero. Could you look at the number of human rabies deaths in the United States? I can't, but real quick. I was just looking up TB because I saw the other day there were TBs coming back. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not good. Well, tuberculosis is one of those things that, you know, we don't have a lot of

protection against once we're exposed to it. So now I did give somebody who supposedly had active TV mouth-to-mouth back in the 80s when they died and they were in the hospital with active TV, and at that time, we were still doing mouth to mouth. But I never converted. Interesting. Would you, on the skin test, you think you would show as having a... No. I never have shown positive.

That's what I'm saying. Wow. Yeah. So, none of those things are 100%. Yeah. You know, somehow either the diagnosis was incorrect, which is possible, although they grew tuberculosis out. Or I would just have a natural immunity.

I just got lucky as hell. Yeah, I think, I don't know if I told you this. My grandfather was one that always tested positive, but never had it. Yeah. He was just, I guess, a carrier of some sort. Well, he got exposed to it. He was infected, his body fought it off, and that was it. Yeah, that's crazy.

Maybe he's just a tubble cuder, you know. Yeah. Now, in some countries, they get the BCG vaccine, Basile-Kalmette-G-G vaccine, and I know. a lot of my friends who grew up in India had that, and it's used in countries with high rates of TB. And it's not routinely

used in the United States, because we have a low risk of TB infection in the country, but if that starts to kick in, we may start seeing BCG. They also use BCG for bladder tumors and stuff like that. It's crazy. Yeah. Interesting. They're working to

develop new and improved TB vaccines. But, you know, rabies, classic vaccine measles classic vaccine you know all the classic vaccines like you know we just don't see these diseases

anymore because of vaccination so you'll never hear me criticizing the idea of vaccination because I will criticize specific vaccines and specific policies when it comes to a vaccine you know mandates

and stuff but you know if you've ever seen rabies, which I've never seen a case of it, but I've read about them. Sure. And when I was a kid, rabies was, you know, we didn't have rabies

vaccine for dogs, and so stray dogs were monsters. Oh, jeez. I had a friend who came over. She was from India and they didn't have, and where she lived, they didn't have rabies vaccine. She was terrified of any dog because they were just taught

that they were monsters because they, you know, you get one bite and that's it. You know, so I'm watching that show 1923. You watched that, so Taylor Sheridan. Did you see the woman got bit by a rabbit wolf? And they were giving her intraperitoneal rabies vaccine, which was a real thing until not too long ago. Intraperitoneal, meaning that they had to put the needle through your abdominal wall.

Why, I don't know why they had to do that. Apparently, you know, it grew, I don't know why. We need to look that up. Yeah, and they had to do it every single day. day for like, yeah, for like 12 days or something like that. Peritoneal rabies vaccine. Let's see what it said. Ah, shoot. Can you

look it up? I'm looking up real quick. All right. All right. Very good. Let's do some questions. Number one thing. Don't take advice from some asshole on the radio. Very good. Thank you, sir. All right. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Oh, okay. Hi, Dr. Steve.

I've got a question about pneumonia. Okay. First of all, why does pneumonia start with a silent pee? Right. Well, I can tell you that. The pee and pneumonia is silent because the word is derived from the Greek numon. And I don't know if in Greek they pronounced the P or if it was just a symbol, but it's P-N-E-U-M-O-N meaning lung. and the suffix iA means disease so disease of the lung and the thing is is that when when borrowed into

english the word was modified to fit our pronunciation words which don't allow for certain consonant clusters at the beginning of words so words beginning with P.N. or P.S. have silent P in English, such as psychology or psalm and pneumonia. And, you know, other words with silent peas include, like, teradactyl, and raspberry is a good one, too. So it's just a silent pea, and it's because the Greek had it, and we don't pronounce peas like that. That's it. Let's see if he had something else.

And then the other question is, is sometimes classified as walking pneumonia. What does that mean? Okay. Walking pneumonia is, that is a specific type of respiratory infection caused by an organism called mycoplasma. And it's, mycoplasma is weird. It's not exactly a bacteria. It's not a virus. It's kind of, it's a quasi-bacteria.

And it is one single-cell. So, but it's different. And you kill it with different antibiotics. you tend to use, you know, erythromycin or azithromycin to kill it. And you just get a cough and you have pneumonia and you're just walking around with it. That's basically where that came from. It causes generally a very mild syndrome. And so you could have pneumonia from mycoplasma and still go to work and not even know that you had it.

So that's where the term came from. And a lot of mycoplasma around in hospitals and, like, respiratory, when they do a lot of respiratory rehab stuff. You're thinking of Legionnaires disease, Legionella? No, I thought it heard of mycoplasia. Legionella is found in water and stuff. And so when the first Legionnaires disease outbreak happened, if I remember correctly, it was an air conditioner that had water pooled in it and the Legionnaires.

was, you know, was blown into the atmosphere and people were picking it up. But it's like the third most common pneumonia. I remember that, I guess. And so we have to treat for it. If somebody comes in and we don't treat for legionaires, if they have community-acquired pneumonia, we don't cover it, then it's really kind of considered malpractice.

Oh, wow. Okay. That's how common it is. Way more common than people think it is. Yeah. Anyway, you were looking something up. Yeah, I did. You know, the information I found was that the WHO says it's technically an I-M, so it's an intramuscular and or intradermal.

What is? Wait, what is? The rabies vaccine. Oh, okay. Yeah. It wasn't supposed to be intraperitoneal. It was supposed to be intramuscular. It wasn't supposed to me?

Why did they do it? I don't know. I'm just reading different things. It's hard. Hell, it's hard to see. No, it is. It is. I'm telling you.

The WHO that says intradermal is easier now. Well, yeah, it's easier, but, I mean, why did they have to do the one intreparentneal? Let's see here. Let me see. Let me see. Okay, intreparentneal vac. Where is it? Okay, induced rabies-specific antibodies.

Well, I don't know. I can't, okay. Now, I can't find it. But that was the old school thing. Because I remember when I was a kid, it was like when they came out, finally came out with the rabies vaccine for adults that I remember they were saying, listen, don't get around dogs because if you, just because we have a rabies vaccine, they're going to stick these needles in your abdomen.

Yick. But, okay, it says here. I'll keep looking. Okay. Okay, now here we go. It says the rabies vaccine's not been given in the abdomen since the 1980s. And let's see, they were, it used to be that you had to get the shots in the abdominal muscle. So it wasn't really intraperitoneal.

Yeah, says I am. Yeah. I guess it was to get through the fat part into the muscle part, yeah. I guess. So it may have been the same intraperitoneal, but just it was just intramuscular. Yeah. In the old days, the schedule was 25 injections of rabies vaccine, three on the first day, two on the second, two on the third, one each day after 18 days. And this is one of those things that you're vaccinating people after they were exposed, so it has to work fast.

Right. Because they've been bitten by something, and now you're giving them a vaccine. It's not like we give people, as we've demonstrated, the measles vaccine takes 14 days to kick in. If your kid is exposed to measles, you can't. then go, oh, let's go get them vaccinated right now because they might, they're probably going to get measles anyway, so. But yeah, pretty interesting. All right. Good stuff.

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Come on now. Come on, man. Come on, yeah. Hello, Dr. Steve. Here we go. Hey, man. Hello, Scott. What's up?

Oh, God. And the fluid family? She's not here. A question popping in my head I've never really known the answer to it before. What is a seizure? Is it electrical? Yeah. Short circuit?

Is it chemical-based? Well, can I use to? Yes. Yes to both. We have electrochemistry in our bodies. That's how it works. So you have calcium and sodium channels and all these things that move ions around. And then that takes electrical charges and moves them around.

So, yes, it's electricity and it's chemical. I have a friend who was a kid who was prone to his grand mal seizure. Correct. We were just brutally violent to see. Yep. Yeah, so there are lots of different kinds of seizures. It's basically a temporary episode of abnormal electrical activity in the brain, and it's just runaway electrical impulses, causes involuntary movements, can cause changes in sensation,

changes in behavior sometime or awareness. So the least recognizable seizures are things called absente seizures, where people just go blank. Okay. And I remember in medical school seeing a video EEG of a person who had absente seizures. And so people thought that this person was faking or something because they would just sort of blank out. And then you could talk to them and then their eyes would flutter and stuff. And people thought they were faking. So what they did was they put a video camera on them and recorded them and then had an EEG machine and put a camera on that.

Oh, wow. And when this person's eyes would blink, the EEG machine would go crazy. So they obviously were not faking. They were actual seizures. And when they gave this person seizure medication to suppress those bursts, then they stopped doing the behavior. So, you know, brain injury, stroke, brain tumors, infections, lack of sleep, certain medications can induce seizures. Low blood sugar. That's how they used to do shock therapy before they had.

the electrodes. They would give people doses of insulin and get them to have such a low blood sugar that they would have a seizure. Oh, geez. So the absent seizures, then you have the sort of partial Jacksonian seizures, which is where it might start in the finger and then work their way up the arm and then, you know, other parts of the body, but the patient doesn't lose consciousness. And then if you have a generalized seizure, that affects the entire brain, and those people will lose consciousness. And then the tonic, clonic seizures, the ones he was talking about, is where they jerk and, you know, bite their tongue and that kind of stuff. So, you know, and that's basically what it is. And it's, you know, there'll be a focus of electrical activity that somehow propagates to the rest of the brain.

And when you have those focal seizures, they might only affect one. area of the brain, so some people will smell weird things. Gotcha. There was a guy once that when he had seizures in the temporal lobe of his brain, he saw himself and it was as real as it could be

in ancient Rome. Oh, wow. And so his thing was is that this is the breaking through. As a matter of fact, Philip K. Dick wrote a story about this, you know, science fiction story. But, you know, sort of the past breaking through into the present, but it was a

temporal lobe seizure. So you can alter your awareness and something in it. That is insane. Yeah, so if you have a seizure and you're an adult, they're going to restrict your ability to drive until they know that you're not going to have a seizure. And sometimes they make you not drive for a specific period of time. And it varies from state to state and what the rules are and stuff. So check with your primary care provider.

All right. Great question. That was a good one. Okay, now this one. Okay, let's see what this is. All right, Dr. Steve, I'm going to try to get through this without saying, um, a million times. Don't worry about it. That's all I do.

So it's fine. When I re-listen to these, don't worry about it. My mother is an alternative medicine wacko. Okay. She had breast cancer eight years ago and a full mastectomy, refused standard of care, such as chemo, radiation, and estrogen blockers. eight years later that cancer has recurred she had another lumpectomy a few weeks ago pathology showed that it was two different types of cancer one being very aggressive and

liking to go to lymph nodes quickly has not reached the lymph nodes that they tested okay but it was showing it was encroaching on the lymphatic system already okay get the terminology for that stuff she again has refused standard of care adamantly does not not want radiation and is going to her naturopath who is treating her with mistletoe, which I stupidly thought was some brand name for some fancy protocol. Turns out it's just mistletoe extract. It's truly a mistletoe. Like Christmas time kissed me under the mistletoe extract.

I looked at PubMed and there was some data on it, but always when used in conjunction with other forms of treatment like radiation and chemo and nothing on its own. if she wasn't 80 I would tell her she's being a complete asshole but well let me tell you something about 80 year old women and breast cancer a lot of times it doesn't kill them because there is an inflammatory aspect to breast cancer

for sure because young women with breast cancer tend to do much worse than old old ladies with breast cancer I have seen 80 and 90-year-old women that had a breast tumor for 10 years, and they didn't tell anybody. And now it's until it started fungating and smelling. And that still didn't kill them. My grandmother had breast cancer when she was 88. They did a mastectomy on her, and she lived to be like 100 or something.

So, you know, listen, she made it to 80. It's a free country. You can make these choices, but you have to understand. understand that there may be consequences to them. But yeah, chemo and radiation didn't a fun thing either. It's just that the data shows that there's an, you know, a percentage improvement in survival. But you're sacrificing quality of life in the short term.

So there's some people that just say, I'm not doing anything. And that's your choice. You have, as a human being, you have autonomy. But don't make those choices without being fully informed. You need to know the risk, benefits, and alternatives. to the treatment that they're proposing, and you need to know what the odds are that something untoward is going to happen if you don't proceed with that. Now, let me talk about mistletoe, and then I know you want to say something.

Preparations of European mistletoe is one of the most prescribed drugs in cancer patients in several European countries. They say that it stimulates the immune system and improves survival. Now, there was a review that they did of these patients found there wasn't enough evidence to reach any clear conclusions about the effects on any of the outcomes, and therefore it's not clear of what extent the application of methyl-toe extract translates into improved symptom control or prolonged survival. But, you know, there's no good quality independent trials and decisions about mistletal extracts are likely to be beneficial for a particular problem. got to rely on expert judgment and practical considerations, but we just don't have good enough data on this. But, you know, I just don't understand. This is what I don't understand.

Okay, I'm not going to do chemo. I'm not going to do radiation. But I'm going to do this other thing. You know, it's like, why? Why choose that? Why just not do anything? Why do anything at all? particularly when you're choosing something that has such shitty data, you know.

Well, I know people, it's human nature. You want to do something. Go ahead. Well, and I was going to say, you and I actually have a friend that lives in Switzerland, a sibling of a friend that had stage four liver cancer. Yeah. And metastases decided to go through the chemotherapy and mistletoe therapy. So the mistletoe therapy over there is done by the... Yeah, the oncologist.

Yeah, the oncologist, yeah, with really super high doses of the mistletoe. Yeah. And it's, you know, pharmaceutical grade stuff. Yeah, sure. And that's the, I think that, to me, is a big difference than going out to, you know, a store and getting mistletoe oil or. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

But still, if there's no data. Well, I think there's data there. Okay. Yeah, I don't think there's data here, but I think there's a lot of data there because that's one of their first line treatments. And this gal has done. exceptionally well and is considered in remission and does and does solely solely mistletoe now again well of course an n of one it is well and it's and I'm not saying that and I'm not saying that it curate anything but what I'm saying is that

if if you're going to do anything it's your choice but certainly go with the best the best most reliable resources you can you can acquire yeah so there may be something to what I'm saying is well yeah I mean how do we know No, you do studies. Yeah. Well, yeah, sure, sure. But I think over there, there are studies in Germany and Switzerland, and I don't think they've been as, what's the nice way to put this, is keen on research in that here for different reasons.

Well, okay, so I'm looking at PubMed and let's just look at the data. So, mistletoe for cancer, systematic review of randomized clinical trials. This is the International Journal of Cancer. Said mistletoe extracts are widely used in the treatment of cancer. Results of the clinical trials are, however, highly inconsistent. We therefore conducted a systematic review. So this is where you take clinical studies and then you mush all of the data together. Right.

So there's eight databases for searches to identify all studies that met our inclusion and exclusion criteria. They were independently validated and extracted by two authors, checked by the third according to predefined criteria. Statistical pooling was not possible because of the heterogeneity of the primary studies. In other words, they were shit studies because if they were good studies, in other words, double-blind placebo-controlled studies crossover or not, you would be able to combine the data of those. So they did a narrative systematic review. Ten trials were included. Most of the studies had considerable weaknesses in term of study design reporting are both. Some of the weaker studies implied benefit of methyl-toe extracts, particularly in the terms of quality of life,

none of the methodologically stronger trials exhibited efficacy in terms of quality of life survival or other outcome measures. So this is one of those things. It says rigorous trials of mistow extracts fail to demonstrate efficacy of this therapy. So this is, you know, because they traditionally use it in other countries and it's purified and all this, somebody might not have. purified stool extract and it's, you know, it's purified and everything, but it's still, I wouldn't want to give it to anybody. So, so that's the thing. Now, are there, is there a subset of people that this stuff is an absolute, you know, panacea and a cure? There may be. Maybe, yeah, but we got to determine who those people are. But right now, the studies, at least when this was

done, this was old, were shite. Right, right, right. Yeah. And again, I'm not saying one way there, but I'm saying if you're in that situation, it might be a, hell, you know as well as I do. Oh, no, I know. A lot of those medications come from herbal medicines anyway. Well, that is true. We've talked about that all the time. But let's look at clinical trials.gov and see if, okay, I'm just putting in cancer and then I'm going to put in mistletoe. And let's just see what we come up with.

Okay, here we go. There are 20 studies. Okay. Misseltoe extract, an early or advanced breast cancer, a feasibility study. That one's been completed. Randomized controlled trial with adjuvant mistletoe treatment in gastric cancer patients. That was completed as well, and let's just see if there are any results that we can look at. Okay, here are publications that came out of it, and here it is.

Okay. Quality of life, immunomodulation, and safety of adjuvant mistletoe treatment in patients with gastric carcinoma, randomized, controlled pilot study, but still said, let's see, global health status. I don't know what that is. So that's a, that's a parameter I'm not familiar with. It says diarrhea was less frequency reported in the intervention group, no significant treatment effect on levels of tumor necrosis factor, CD-19, lymphocytes, and liver function tests. It says additional treatment with, this is safe and associated with.

Improved quality of life. Okay, so they're saying, they're using this global health status. That was the only thing that they found. Well, okay, I'll take improved quality of life. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Would like a little bit more data on that. That sounds like they really wanted to have a positive result, so they finally found something.

At this point in our lives, we're shooting for not bad. Yeah. We're not shooting for good anymore. We're just shooting not bad. Here we go, mistletoe in treating patients with refractory. advanced solid tumors. This one was completed. Let me see if a publication came out of that.

Yep, it did. I love clinical trials.gov. Okay, here we go. This is a phase one trial. Now, listen, this is, you know, and this is 2008, too, and they did this phase one trial. I don't see phase two that was ever done. That's not good. Yeah.

So it says it possesses clinical activity, but that's all you get, you know, so it's. So today is not super great, but yeah. Well, let's go. I don't think it, it doesn't seem like it's doing. I was going to say, let's just go with this. Let's say if it may not hurt you. If it doesn't hurt you, it may be okay. Well, okay.

If it doesn't hurt, it still may be a placebo, but, you know, at least it's not doing any harm. Yeah. Okay. Hey, man. Guess who? Tagdale, man. Tagdale has been quite a few years since the old UNC group was together, and we just reach out and call you, man.

Okay. I don't know. Okay. Hey, Dr. Steve. Hey, man. A question on peptides. Yeah. KP10.

Yep. Using that instead of doing any type of testosterone or statins. Okay. What's he doing? Kiss peptin 10. It's called KP10. It is, it binds to this protein called GPR 54. It doesn't matter.

But it results in the release of gonadotropin release. hormone, which then causes the anterior pituitary gland to re-secrete lutenizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone. Now, in males, what that will do is we'll, you know, promote spermogenesis, in other words, increased sperm count, and increased testosterone. So this is another way, you know, we've talked about clomophene on this channel before. This is another way to stimulate testosterone production without just supplementing. testosterone and turning the testicles

off. This actually causes the testicles to do their job. It's like, just do your job. Now, the Kiss Peptin 10 in the human body is critical for puberty onset and reproductive function. And

it's being investigated as potential treatment for reproductive disorders. Where is that coming from? I don't know. Is that you or me? Not me. Maybe front door. What the hell? I don't know. I think my synthesizer.

Let me see. Yeah, there we go. It left me a swear. Yeah, it was my Moog subharmonicon. Sorry, everybody. So, yeah, this Kispeptin 10, you can buy it for research purposes. And it increases, like I said, it increases testosterone levels. And they're looking at it as a treatment for delayed puberty or, you know, hypoglyphysm.

gonadism and stuff like that. And it has a lot of potential therapeutic applications for any condition that involves testosterone deficiency. So now, would I advocate that you go to one of these research sites and buy this stuff and inject it yourself? Hell no. You know, there are some downsides to it as well. It's pretty well tolerated, but you can get hot flashes, headache, nausea, fatigue, reactions

at the injection site. etc. So they don't know what the long-term effects are. They don't know what the interactions are with other neuroendocrine systems. So it is a very interesting subject of research that's ongoing. I'm not ready to recommend it yet. Okay. That's what that's about. Cool. All right. Let's see here. Okay. This is- Hi, Dr. Steve. It's Tom from Michigan. Hey, Tom. Since I last spoke with you, I have been diagnosed with health anxiety, or as it used to be called, hypochondry. Correct. Yeah, we don't call it hypochondry anymore because that got on the euphemism treadmill.

Remember we used to talk about the euphemism treadmill. Yeah. That the word moron used to be a medical term. Yeah. And for a person with a specific range of IQs, and then people started going, ah, you moron. And so now you can't call people that anymore on a medical thing anymore. And now it's a pejorative. And hypochondriac became the same thing.

So now it's just health anxiety. Health anxiety. Gotcha. Okay. This all started when I lost my father and my mother-in-law two months apart, both due to cancer. Yeah, I'm sorry. Recently, I had some blood work, and I made the mistake of getting the blood work done 10 days after I started the flu. Okay.

So I got better from the flu, and then a couple of days later, I went for a physical. There were a couple of maladies in my blood work. Probably lymphocytosis. Three, T4 was high. The doctor rechecked it, and it was fine. Yeah. The other one that was high that she didn't recheck was my platelet count. The high range should have been 400 minus 502.

Yeah. My doctor said that the high platelet count could be due to the recent infection. Give myself a bell. Swelling or whatever you guys. Yeah, it's a, it's called. an acute phase reactant. He had a little bit of what we call thrombocytosis. We worry about thrombocytopenia.

In other words, insanely low platelet counts. And mildly, and that's mildly elevated, mildly elevated platelet count is usually a sign of recent inflammation in the body. So that goes with it. But since I'm a hypochondriacs, I don't believe her. Well, you're not anything. You have, you suffer from health-related anxiety. We're not calling people diabetics anymore or alcoholics.

That's kind of gone away now. You know, we say you have someone with, you know, alcohol abuse disorder. They're not an alcoholic that doesn't characterize them. You're not characterized by being a hypochondriac. You have health-related anxiety. Gotcha. Let me, you need cognitive behavioral therapy. That's the one that's going to help the most.

Find a PhD psychologist who practices cognitive behavior. behavioral therapy, usually six to ten visits, and you can have this under control. So you just need to talk to somebody about that. This is one, no pill's going to fix it. You need talk therapy. Okay. Yep. I want to get to this question over here.

It's called Drink or Die. Hey, Dr. Steve. How are you doing? Good man. How are you? All right. This is Mike calling from Chicago. Hey, Mike.

And I've got a question about a story that I was told that I was told that. I found particularly horrifying, and it may be apocryphal, where it might be true. I don't know, but I want your opinion. The story comes to me from a friend who was big into fraternity life in college, and they would throw these parties that they called drink or die. And in this party, everyone would be served a shot of methanol. Yeah, okay, I'm going to stop him. I don't want anybody doing this.

Methanol, so what they would do is they would do a shot of methanol, and then the treatment for methanol is alcohol and copious amounts of vodka, basically. Oh, geez. Because the body, the liver will metabolize the ethanol before the methanol, and then you'll excrete the methanol. This is, it doesn't take much to kill you. The, okay, drinking 25 to 90 M.L. That's 0.7 to 3 ounces of methanol can be fatal without proper medical treatment.

This is stupid. If you're in a fraternity that's hazing people with methanol, get the hell out of there. And you've got to report them because someone's going to die. Knock a shit off. Yeah, don't do that. Okay. All right. All right, Dr. Scott, so no methanol.

No methanol. Okay. What are symptoms of methanol poisoning? Well, the problem is methanol is ingested into the body. It's converted to formaldehyde and then into formic acid. And that makes your blood acidic, and then it's indistinguishable in the beginning from inebriation, from normal ethanol consumption, and then 12 to 24 hours later, they get abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, breathing difficulty, blindness, blurred vision, seizures, or comas. And there are places where people will put methanol into actual ethanol and sell it. Just to stretch it out, it's like stepping on heroin, you know, where you put it in, you know, milk or whatever the powder is that they use.

Powdered milk or whatever. Baking soda. I guess is it? I don't know. It looks like that, but I don't know what the hell. But they will do that, and you'll get outbreaks of methanol poisoning. Mass. There was, I think, a mass outbreak of methanol poisoning.

in Iran where like 600 people were affected by that. And India's had a few, and then there's some few in the United States and everywhere else, too. So just stay away from methanol. Not good for you. If you treat it within 10 to 30 hours of ingestion, it can be treated. You get them to a hospital that has dialysis equipment, and then they use this drug called Phomepazol, and it inhibits methanol metabolism. but it's not readily available everywhere.

And if they don't have it, then they give them ding, ding, ding, high doses of ethanol immediately. And as I said, the liver will process the ethanol first. And then the methanol poisoning is delayed and allows for more time to process methanol out of the person's system. They will give them sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the formic acid, but the patient may need to be put on dialysis. Oh, goodness. All right. And that's something. All right, what do you got from the fluid family, my friend?

So let's see. We got, we had a statement from, a statement. McRibbs. Hey, did Dr. Steve catch Anthony Akumia's subtle shout out to his, um, I heard about this. On his now syndicated AM radio show. I heard that there was a Dr. Steve fluid. He did a fluid. But I missed it.

If somebody can find that for me, I would love to find it. It was on his first show. Yep. I did watch some of it, but I didn't watch. all of it, but Anthony got a gig at W.A.B.C. doing two hours on Sundays. And then the next day, I mean, maybe two days later, he got an offer to syndicate to like 300 stations. Oh, wow. So, yeah, that was pretty interesting. So that's going to be fun. That's cool. And I'm looking forward to that. And really what it is, it's a test of cancel culture.

That's what this is. And because Anthony was, quote, unquote, canceled. And now he's back. Is he going to be able to maintain that? And he's had a YouTube channel, and he's had a network and all this stuff with paid subscribers. So it's going to be very interesting to see how this goes with him back on terrestrial radio. Gotcha. And, you know, Dr. Dean Adele, I'm way past my prime, and I'm not a good enough broadcaster.

But, you know, Dr. Dean Adele made his living doing an hour. a day doing what we do here for nothing, you know? So I, maybe Anthony will let me write his coattails onto something. There you go. I've always talked about doing a terrestrial show where we would still talk the way we do here, but we would just beep out all the F words and stuff. I think it'd be fun. You'd have to pre-record it.

You wouldn't have to be able to do it. Right. Well, and you know, as well as I do, the sometimes bleeping out those words, it's way funnier. Yeah. I mean, the greatest, the greatest, most hilarious thing I've ever heard done on this show was when you had Liam do that bit. Oh, yeah, Mrs. Madison or? Yeah, Ashley Madison, I had.

That is the greatest thing, because you can fill it in. Yeah, I just had him say poopy and stuff, and then I bleeped it out, so it sounded like he was saying something else. Yeah, that's funny. You know a question? Yeah, go ahead. Are you looking that up? I am. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Let me read you a question. This is from Barb. Okay. Hey, Dr. Steve, Dr. Scott. I've been taking Meloxicam for a week. My doctor gave me a two-week prescription for pain I was having in a knee and a leg. This stuff is unbelievable. Is there an alternative take when my two-week runs out?

So that's a lot deeper question than a... Well, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot through that. You want to talk about Meloxicam? We'll talk about Meloxicam. It's a cox two inhibitor. It's an anti-inflammatory. Give thyself a bell.

correct just about the same thing what that is well it's just it's just like celebrax and um um ibuprofen where it it blocks these pain sensors yep and the problem with meloxicam celibrexibrex ibuprofen they can be moxicam is sold as mobeck mobe cam and they do and they have a they have a topical form also which actually can is actually pretty good uh the cream they do a maloxicam i know they do a voltaeran i think volterin is malo oxygen cream I think oh it is yeah I'm pretty sure pretty sure I'm not a hundred percent you can check okay but yeah Barb that that is a great um medication taken

occasionally it can be kind of tough on your GI system that's that's one of the main main problems with it like a lot of the other medications in that class I knew that one right Volterin is DiClofenac was DiClofenac yeah it was not miloxicam yeah it's not molyoxicam okay the but so we Anyway, Meloxicam, great medication, but there are some alternatives. Because what she was wanting was some alternatives. Yep. We use curcumin, which is, you know, turmeric.

Yeah, when he says we, he means he. The freaks, the freaks. No, it's fine. No. Tumric is a cox two inhibitor. It is also a cox two inhibitor, and it is shown. And there is a topical malox cam, too. So go ahead.

And it's not called Volterin. No, that's dichlofenach. Shit. I was 99% here. But there's another thing. And Dr. Steve actually found this and sent it to me a few months ago that I actually personally used that's called dihydromyrusitin. It was a black, it's actually the berry of a black pepper plant.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. And there is a little bit of research on this. I use it for inflammation. And it is an oral thing that I take every single. single day, and it doesn't seem to have any ill effects on me. So there are some other things besides the molloxysm. And sometimes, you know, some of your doctors will put you out for long periods of

time if you'll monitor GI issues, like gastric ulcers, bleeds and things of the inflammation, gastritis is. Well, the Cox 2s also can increase risk of cardiovascular events too. Right. The blood thinner, yeah. So the thing that you are concerned about is, you know, the long-term effects on molyx cam, I have known people that take it every day. The one that you don't want to take every day is Katorilak, which is Toridol. That's a five-day maximum on that one because of the risk of kidney function damage or kidney damage.

But there's a new drug. There's a new drug on the market that is being covered pretty well by insurance called Sue Zetrogen. It's also sold under the trade name Jornavax. It's J-O-U-R-N-A-V-X. And, you know, as a brand-name drug, if you go to their website, jernivax.com, you can get a prescription card and you never pay more than $30. And they're not a, you know, sponsor this show or anything.

But it's a brand new drug just came out. It's not a non-steroidal and it's not an opioid. It is a completely different thing that blocks pain fibers at the, it blocks a certain sodium channel in peripheral nerve fibers. And those are nerve fibers out in the, you know, away from the central nervous system. And that sodium channel, NAV 1.8 or whatever it is. will normally transmit pain signals to the brain, and when you inhibit that, it blocks that. So the painful stimulus still happens,

but you don't experience the pain. And that might be something, because this stuff doesn't look like it causes ulcers. It doesn't look like it causes, you know, liver toxicity or anything like that. This is part of the problem. This is early. You have, right.

Well, they've gone through, phase three and they're in phase four now, but you're right. But it's early. It's early, but again, in phase three, you're going to see ulcers and liver toxicity and stuff because they're testing for it. But if there is, is there, once you get into phase four, which is aftermarket, it's going to be rare. Not rare with ibuprofen and all these other things. So number one, it is, oh, shit, and I forgot where I was going with it because fucking Dr. Scott. Oh, for God's sake, that's my fault.

Well, other options beside molyxicam, they can mix in a leave, which is a different kind of phantan inflammatory, which is not cardio-toxic. Naperson is a leave. It probably is the safest of the bunch. Oh, I know where I was going with us. Sorry, and let me get this out before I forget it again. So you got a little old lady, right? And maybe they're on a statin, and maybe they drink a little bit or something like that. So if you give them too much aspirin, or not aspirin, if you give them too much Tylenolol,

it's going to affect their liver. And even if you get above 3,500 milligrams a day, it may affect their liver. So we try to avoid Tylenol. Well, if you give them a non-steroidal, like ibuprofen or something like that, then you run the risk of not only cardiovascular events, but bleeding ulcers and stuff like that. So in those cases, the safest thing for some of them is going to be an opioid, except that those things can cause disequilibrium, cause people to fall. and break their, you know, knees and hips and stuff.

So, but it is safer than in some elderly, particularly, than a non-steroidal or Tylenol might be. This stuff may be an alternative for that, you know. A lot of people will, a lot of doctors will throw trammadol at people. Sure. And tramadol is sold as Ultram, and they think it's a safer alternative. It's still considered an opioid because it still stimulates the mu-opold. receptor. And the other problem with Tramidol is it is serotonergic, meaning that it increases serotonin levels in the brain. And so do antidepressants. So now you run the risk of getting

serotonin syndrome, which you don't want if you mix it with an antidepressant. So it's a dirty drug. But I see a lot of my colleagues just throwing it out there thinking that it's somehow safer than these other drugs when in fact it's dirtier and it still is it you know affects that mu opioid receptor so it causes you know it can cause euphoria withdrawal syndromes all the stuff that goes along with an opioid so so zetrogen or gernavax maybe something really interesting going forward so there are a bunch of other options yeah lots of other options exactly right all right last question of the day um from pun the number one pun yeah um it's got some weird medical issues He's been shot a couple times.

Oh, well. In his stomach and... Why? Advin thighs. But anyway, that's not his... Were you in the military or are you just like an asshole? We're probably better off not knowing. So here's...

Sorry, one funny. He's always in your eye. I need to be nice. Just wondering about belly bulge. Was overweight. Life crashed. Became homeless, ate like crap, drank a lot. Oh, okay.

I'm sorry. No, it was terrible. He's had a rough time. Yeah, so that and, of course, getting shot multiple homes. Yeah. So real quick, as far as that goes, some things that you can do that don't cost a whole heck of a lot of money. Yeah. There's an old saying that we have, he who walks a mile after dinner lives a long life.

Yeah. And part of that. The psychiatrist will say motion is lotion. Yeah. And that's, that will help a lot of those foods that convert early to. sugars burn off quickly so you don't store them as fat and you're storing them in a specific place in your abdomen that's what it is is the belly bulge is caused by fat that's stored in that you know well the pinnaculous but also the um the area of the body that um supports the intestines

and that part of the body for whatever reason will take on fat more than others. And so you think that there's just intestines and gas and stuff in there and that the fat is all in front of it, but it's not. It's actually behind it. So go ahead, Scott. So I think that's one thing. And again, just finding foods that don't convert really quickly to sugar in your bloodstream,

which will spike your glucose and do tend to get stored. So looking for more proteins. You know, and some proteins that are not super expensive would be like a peanut butter. You know, peanut butter that doesn't have a lot of salt in it. Peanuts, almonds or sugar. Yeah, yeah. Just don't get the ones that have sugar in them. So finding foods higher in proteins, that are nutrient dense.

And those will help some, too. And then finding drinks that aren't sugar, kind of full drinks. Yeah. Water, of course, is your best option. Yep. And I'm, you know, avoiding things. You know, high in sugars, which are wines and liquors and, sadly, beers. Well, beer is the worst.

It is the worst, I know. No, liquor, I mean, is low in carbohydrate content, so, but it's usually people get run into trouble with that they mix it with. Yeah, sure. But, you know, processed food, sugary drinks, and then just believe it or not, reducing your stress and getting enough sleep will help you get rid of some of that belly fat, which seems crazy. Yep. But limiting alcohol intake, choosing the healthy fats like Dr. Scott said, you know, avocado, nuts, olive oil, that kind of stuff. Controlling your portion size, staying hydrated, limiting alcohol intake.

And then fiber-rich diet really helps, you know, you don't process so much of the fiber. It keeps you full, but you're not digesting it and storing it as fat. Now, regular physical activity, as Scott said as well, they say 150 minutes of anaeroa. I'm sorry, aerobic exercise a week, walking, jogging, or swimming. I need to do that. You know, when my back went janky, then I kind of quit doing all exercise. Then I had two years of no pain, and I should have been exercising, but I was already in that lazy mode.

And now my back is back again. I just had another epidural recently, and now I'm all jacked up on steroids. But, yeah, so it isn't easy, but it is. doable. Lots of people can get rid of that belly fat, but it is the last, it does seem like the last to go. I drank two beers yesterday at the casino when I was playing Ultimate Texas Hold'em, and I gained four pounds. It's fluid, but there's a lot of carbohydrates in there as well, so beer is, you got to get rid of beer. Beer belly is a real thing. Yep. You know, But anyway, yeah, it is a process, and it may take you years to get there.

But as long as you're putting one foot in front of the other and staying on the program, you can get rid of the program. You will get there, yeah. And I'm glad you're doing better. I shouldn't, you know, he probably got shot when he was homeless, and now I feel like an asshole for making a joke about it. All right. Well, Lizzie, we'll try all those things and let us know. and Chris R

thanks for being a member of the fluid family and we appreciate you guys anything else Dr. Scott No sir I believe we'll do or all right well thanks always go to Dr. Scott thanks to everyone who's made this show happen

over the years listen to our SiriusXM show on the Faction Talk channel SiriusXM channel 103 I don't know when I think 7 p.m. on Sunday but sometimes on Saturdays too when there's not sports on-demand, other times at Jim McClure's pleasure.

And thanks to our listeners whose voicemail and topic ideas make this job very easy. I go to our website at Dr. Steve.com for schedules, podcasts, and other crap. Until next time, check your stupid nuts for lumps, quit smoking, get off your asses, get some exercise. We'll see you in one week for the next edition of Weird Medicine. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you.