The Keys to Longevity with Peter Attia

In this episode of Revolution Health Radio (RHR) we discuss “RHR: The Keys to Longevity with Peter Attia.” Peter Attia and I discuss eight levers that influence one’s longevity, the commonalities of degenerative diseases, and the importance of social support and sense of purpose when it comes to your health.
In this episode, we cover: Peter’s approach to longevity Commonalities of degenerative diseases Social support and sense of purpose

[products ids=4577]

READ FULL ARTICLE: http://chriskresser.com/the-keys-to-l…
Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac, is a practitioner of integrative and functional medicine, the creator of one of the world’s most respected natural health sites, ChrisKresser.com, and author of the New York Times best seller, Your Personal Paleo Code. He is widely known for his in-depth research uncovering myths and misconceptions in modern medicine and providing natural health solutions with proven results.
The Revolution Health Radio Show is brought to you by ChrisKresser.com and http://14Four.me.

 

*This article is a repost which originally appeared on the Revolution Health Radio YouTube.

[product_categories number=”0″ parent=”0″]

Attitudes Toward Masculinity Keep Men From Accessing Infertility Support, Treatment

Attitudes Toward Masculinity Keep Men From Accessing Infertility Support, Treatment

By Sanskrita Bharadwaj

* This article is a repost which originally appeared on The Swaddle

Devraj Hazarika and his wife have been married for more than seven years, and they have been trying to conceive for the last two years. After a few futile attempts, they found out that Hazarika had a low sperm count. “What if my wife leaves me because I can’t give her a child?” Hazarika, 36, recalls wondering.

He did what men are asked to do by fertility experts: He started taking vitamins and antioxidants, and exercising. But his sperm count did not go up. So, his doctor advised the couple to pursue in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure in which an egg and sperm sample are collected from the couple, and the egg is fertilized by a sperm outside the body, in a petri dish.

During that time, Hazarika sought emotional support from his family and friends, but many didn’t know how to react. The fact that men’s fertility issues are not openly talked about left him feeling unsupported. It is very common for a man diagnosed with infertility to feel emotionally isolated, said Dr. Aditi Dani, a fertility consultant at Mumbai’s Masina Hospital. “People don’t talk about male infertility as much because of its association with male virility and sexual potency,” she said.

In its latest report on the status of infertility in India, the World Health Organization stated that out of all infertility cases, approximately 50% are due to ‘male factors’. “Their sperm might have a low count; they may have a lot of abnormal sperm … the sperm might not be moving well … and men above 40 might have a lower chance of having a child than people who are younger,” said Dr. Dani.

While data reveals that fertility problems are equally likely in both men and women, most fertility treatments and discussions revolve around the woman’s experience. “They’re the ones going through the physical trouble of undergoing these treatments, along with bearing an intrinsically patriarchal society,” said Dr. Dani. “I have often come across cases where men exhibit a reluctance to acknowledge that the issue could exist in them.”

In a study titled, “‘It’s Different for Men’: Masculinity and IVF,” authors Karen Throsby and Rosalind Gill discuss what they see as the influence of “hegemonic masculine culture on spousal relations … husbands feel that infertility threatens their masculinity; while wives are pitied, husbands are teased.” Men respond, according to Throsby and Gill, by casting blame on their wives.

Dr. Shilpa Agarwal, consultant, obstetrics and gynecology at Mumbai’s Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, said men’s reluctance to get their semen checked is fairly common among city dwellers, and much worse among people who come for treatment from rural areas. She said many women walk in, along with their in-laws or husbands, all of them with preconceived notions — due to lack of knowledge and traditional societal beliefs — that the problem lies in the woman; it could not possibly be because of their husbands.

Both fertility experts interviewed said when a couple complains they haven’t been able to conceive, the first step they take is to ask the couple to rule out the ‘male factor’ through a semen sample test. Sperm issues doesn’t come out in the open otherwise, Dr. Dani said.

Hazarika said he’s never blamed his wife for their difficulty conceiving, but he admitted to feeling shaken after having to resort to IVF. “It felt like I had lost my masculinity,” he said. (https://dentistinchandleraz.com) Now, he has his own advice for men who are also dealing fertility struggles. He said the best way to deal with this kind of “lost identity” is to be there for your wife, talk about what’s going on instead of suppressing your emotions, and reach out to counselors, health and fertility experts, and family and friends for support.

“There needs to be more awareness in society that infertility could be as much a man’s issue as it is that of a woman’s, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is as simple as something in our bodies not functioning well, which isn’t really in our hands, but can be fixed with proper and more informed processes,” he said.

3D printing might save your life one day

What can 3D printing do for medicine? The “sky is the limit,” says Northwell Health researcher Dr. Todd Goldstein.

  • Medical professionals are currently using 3D printers to create prosthetics and patient-specific organ models that doctors can use to prepare for surgery.
  • Eventually, scientists hope to print patient-specific organs that can be transplanted safely into the human body.
  • Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider, is pioneering 3D printing in medicine in three key ways.

Imagine that a health emergency strikes and you need an organ transplant – say, a heart. You get your name on a transplant list, but you find out there’s a waiting period of six months. Tens of thousands of people find themselves in this dire situation every year. But 3D printing has the potential to change that forever.

The technology could usher in a future where transplantable organs can be printed not only cheaply, but also to the exact anatomical specifications of each individual patient.

What other innovations could 3D printing bring to medicine and health care? The sky is the limit, according to Dr. Todd Goldstein, a researcher with the corporate venturing arm of Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider and an industry leader in 3D-printing research and development.

“It comes down to what people can think up and dream up what they want to use 3D printing for,” Goldstein says. “Ideally, you would hope that 50 years from now you’d have on-demand, 3D printing of organs.”

While that’s still on the horizon for researchers, 3D printing is already improving lives by revolutionizing medicine in three key areas.

[products ids=4554,4537,4527]

?Printing realistic, customized organ models

3D printers can take images from MRI, PET, sonography or other technologies and convert them into life-size, three-dimensional models of patients’ organs. These models serve as hands-on visualization tools that help surgeons plan the best approaches for complex procedures.

They also allow doctors to customize patient-specific models prior to surgery. For example, Northwell employs 3D printing in several clinical applications:

  • Tumor resection models clearly highlight the tumor and surrounding tissue
  • Orthopedic models are useful for pre-surgery measuring and medical device adjustments
  • Vascular models identify malformations in organs, tumors, sliced chambers, blood flow, valves, muscle tissue, and calcifications
  • Dentistry oral implants and appliances can be created in just one day, significantly reducing wait periods for Northwell dentists and their patients

Using realistic models not only delivers better health results but also shortens operating times. That gives patients less time under anesthesia, and hospitals potential savings of millions of dollars over just a few years.

Being able to visualize procedures before they occur also helps to comfort patients and their families. Take, for instance, the case of Barnaby Goberdhan, a man who discovered that his young son, Isaiah, had an aggressive tumor in his palate. Goberdhan met with Neha A. Patel, MD, a pediatric otolaryngologist at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, a Northwell Health hospital, to discuss the procedure and learn about it with help from a 3D-printed model.

“Having a 3D printed depiction of my son was really helpful when talking with the doctor about his surgery,” said Mr. Goberdhan. “The doctor was able to do more than talk me through what they were going to do – Dr. Patel showed me. There is almost nothing more frightening and stressful than having your child go through surgery. There were several options Dr. Patel walked us through for the best way to preserve Isaiah’s teeth and prevent additional cuts within his mouth. I wanted all of my questions answered so I could be less fearful and more prepared to talk my son through what he was about to face. I wanted Isaiah to feel prepared. With the 3D model, we both felt more at ease.”

For years, 3D printing surgical models was prohibitively expensive. Now, more affordable systems such as Formlabs’ Form Cell give more hospitals across the country access to the technology in order to produce realistic, patient-specific models, usually within one day.

[products ids=4521,4517,4495]

3D-printed prosthetics

 

While 3D-printed organs are a long way in the future, today’s technology is well suited for manufacturing prosthetics. 3D-printed prosthetics are often remarkably more affordable and personalized than their traditional counterparts. That’s a big deal for many families, especially those with children who outgrow prosthetics and are forced to buy new ones.

One recent breakthrough in 3D-printed prosthetics came when Dan Lasko, a former Marine who lost the lower part of his left leg in Afghanistan, wanted the ability to swim with his prosthetic leg. Wearing prosthetics in water has been possible for years, but they typically slow swimmers down. No device had been able to go seamlessly from land to water or to help propel its wearer through the water.

To fix that, Northwell Health recently funded a project that developed The Fin – the world’s first truly amphibious prosthetic. With The Fin, Lasko and his family can go straight into the pool from the locker room – or the diving board.

  “I got back in the pool with my two young sons and for the first time was able to dive into the pool with them,” Lasko said.

3D-printed prosthetics will help improve the daily lives of the nearly 2 million Americans who’ve lost a limb. That’s promising because the increasing prevalence of Type 2 diabetes is expected to greatly increase the number of amputees in the U.S., according to a study published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

3D bioprinting

For years, 3D printers have manufactured various products: phone cases, toys, and even operational guns. To produce these objects, the machines heat a raw material, typically plastic, and build the object layer-by-layer according to a particular design.

3D bioprinting, a young field developed by researchers with Northwell Health, may someday perform the same process but instead with living cells in a raw material called bioink.

Daniel A. Grande, director at the Orthopedic Research Laboratory in the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, an arm of Northwell Health, said he and his team first pursued 3D bioprinting by modifying 3D printers so they’d accept living cells.

“My initial concept of 3D printing was early studies that looked at modifying ink-jet printers, where we incorporate a bioink that includes cells within a delivery vehicle,” Grande says. “That hydrogel can then be polymerized, or hardened, upon heat or UV-light stimulation, so that we can actually make a complex structure, three-dimensionally, that incorporates living cells. The hardened hydro-gel is then able to keep the cells alive and viable. It’s also biocompatible, so it can be safely implanted in humans.”

It’s a promising enterprise, and it can radically change how we experience medical care.

“3D bioprinting’s potential is almost limitless and has the potential to replace many different parts of the human body,” says Michael Dowling, president and CEO at Northwell Health, and author of Health Care Reboot. “Researchers envision a future with 3D printers in every emergency room, where doctors are able to print emergency implants of organs and bones on demand and revolutionize the way medicine is practiced.”

Dr. Todd Goldstein explains more about 3D bioprinting below:

* This article is a repost which originally appeared on BIG THINK.

[product_categories number=”0″ parent=”0″]