Quita: for our weekend daybreak health segment with mens health expert, Dr. Randy Fagin, and since November is lung cancer awareness month, weve got some questions about that disease this morning. Good morning Dr. Fagin, thanks for joining us.
Dr. Fagin: Pleasure.
Quita: Now, I know we all live in Austin where allergy issues are high, can you speak to a few overall lung health issues that affect men?
Dr. Fagin: Sure, you know there are some genetic problems that folks can have with their lungs that actually the way they function. Sometimes the cells make too much mucus, or their too small, or the little hair follicles help to protect it, just dont work the way they are supposed to, and when that happens you can get chronic bronchitis, allergic bronchitis, emphysema. Essentially, were not able to transport and absorb oxygen the way were supposed to, and that leads to the symptoms we have.
Quita: Now are males or females more likely to develop, say asthma?
Dr. Fagin: Yeah you know its interesting, there was a study put out by the American Journal of Respiratory Health and Critical Care and what they found was, in boys, boys before puberty are more likely to get asthma, but girls after puberty are more likely. Now we not sure whether its the rise in estrogen and progesterone that can protect women, or the rise in testosterone that protects boys, either way it kind of flips when puberty happens.
Quita: Now in September the American Cancer Society released a report that had some disturbing news about lung cancer and men, now can we talk a little about that?
Dr. Fagin: Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer related death in men. Over a million cases diagnosed world wide, about 80% of those cases due to smoking, but 15% of them in non-smokers, and whats really disturbing for mens health is, in male non-smokers who get lung cancer, they are 25% more likely to die as a result of their disease, as opposed to women non-smokers who get lung cancer.
Quita: Well what can you do, how can you lower the risk?
Dr. Fagin: Since over 80% of these cases are due to smoking, smoking cessation, stopping smoking is the most important thing you can do. And regardless of how much you smoked, when you started smoking, you can stop today and every year that you remain smoke free, your risk of lung cancer drops.
Quita: Alright well thats definitely good news. Lets switch gears a little bit and talk about what happened with 67 year old, US Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, he collapsed during a speech Thursday night, he has been given a clean bill of health, one aide said it was nothing more than a fainting spell but something like this, what can bring on these symptoms?
Dr. Fagin: Yeah the most worrisome thing, the most important thing to diagnose is a stroke, or a TIA. Now these are kinda linked. Stroke is more serious, TIA is a little bit more kind of a watered down version. If you watch the video of him, he actually starts to stutter, then he starts to drop to his right hand side, almost a facial droop on the right, these are the sort things we have to look for for the possibility of a stroke or a TIA. Now when a stroke or TIA occurs, it means theres been a lack of blood flow to a part of the brain, and when that occurs a stroke means that its happened for long enough that theres actually permanent damage, it leaves a foot print. If you do a CAT scan or a MRI, you see an area of damage. Whereas a TIA, the damage hasnt occurred for long enough to leave a permanent foot print there, so the person has the symptoms and then gets better and recovers fully. Signs of a stroke, really important things, people who have trouble finding the right words, they start to slur their speech or have trouble grasping the right word to say, people who have difficulty with weakness, specifically on one side of the body, all the sudden, like our Attorney General, dropping to the right hand side, specific weakness that is on one side of the body is a sign. Difficulty with their motor ability or their walking patterns, that happens all the sudden, thats also a sign that can be worrisome. Also, visual disturbances. People who have sudden onset of difficulty seeing. That can be a problem. So, walking, talking, unilateral, or one-sided problems with their motor weakness, or visual disturbances, signs of a stroke. Really important, diagnose it early, got to get the person to the hospital, minutes matter when it comes to a stroke.
Quita: That is correct. Dr. Fagin, thank you so much for being with us this morning, we appreciate it.
Dr. Fagin: Pleasure.
Quita: Great information. And we will have Dr. Fagin on every other week. If you have a question for him or a topic youd like him to discuss, log on to Kvue.com, go to our web link section, and ask your question on Dr. Fagins website and he will answer it in the coming weeks.
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12-20-08 Dr. Fagin on Healthvueby urologyteam323 views
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