Immune Health

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #16 – Dr. George Munoz – Covid Risk and Prevention

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Podcast #16 – Dr. George Munoz – Covid Risk and Prevention

Dr. George Munoz is a board certified Rheumatologist with over 30 years of experience with complex immune related disorders. He obtained his undergraduate degree from Columbia before heading to Mount Sinai School of Medicine for his medical degree. He pursued a Rheumatology fellowship at Harvard before we crossed paths during our Fellowship in Integrative medicine at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine.  George is a thinker and a gentleman whose mission has been to change the lives of individuals suffering from Rheumatologic disease.

As Covid has been omnipresent in our lives, we decided to sit down and discuss the underlying risk factors of Covid disease and what can be done to reduce future risk. It is a wide ranging conversation that covers the gamut of lifestyle related factors predisposing us to disease.

 

I hope that enjoy my conversation with Dr. George Munoz,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 11, Covid Updates 56

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Coronavirus Update #56 – This audiocast is a deeper dive into covid and children’s mental health.

In my opinion, our children’s mental and physical health need to take primacy over pandemic fear at this time. We will dive deeply here. Also, Omicron’s sibling is the new variant BA.2. It appears to be very very similar to Omicron from the same lineage genetically with 50 amino acid changes. It is more infectious by 10-30% by most recent data. No data that it is more deadly to date in humans although a preprint article from a Japanese research group noted that in an animal model the disease is worse than BA.1 Omicron. (Yamasoba et. al. 2022) They noted more cellular fusion increasing infectivity and also more lung cell infection increasing morbidity. The immune protection from BA.1 against BA.2 was reduced by 6X. This does not mean that humans will respond the same way as the animal model results. It bears watching. So far, I have seen no data that humans are suffering worse disease. United States BA.2 numbers remain less than 10% likely due to the quality immunity achieved following the massive Omicron BA.1 surge the past 8 weeks. Our T and B cell immunity from BA.1 should serve to protect most of us from any issues with BA.2. Time will tell, but so far so good.
Be well,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 7, Covid Updates 54

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Coronavirus Update #54 – This audiocast is a deeper dive into policy and opinion based on the same for Omicron.

In my opinion, our children’s mental and physical health need to take primacy over pandemic fear at this time. They are in a very very very low risk scenario from COVID, however, they remain in a high risk scenario from a mental and metabolic health perspective. The scales do not favor current school based mitigation measures based on risk and health from Omicron and the downstream events relate to it. If you are a young person, boosting is questionable, especially if you are a male with myocarditis risk. The WHO and European Union are not recommending it at this time. The CDC is recommending down to age 12. Let us say that you are 18 years old and male. If a young adult receives a third dose of an mRNA vaccine which provides marginal to no transmission benefit for 90 to 110 days and minimal disease severity reduction because it is already almost zero after a 2 dose series, what is the point. Are our youth supposed to protect the unvaccinated? The vaccinated and boosted with risk factors? For how long? Then what? Do it again, and again every three months as immunity wanes rapidly? Has this ever been done before or well studied? Nope.
Be well,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #9 – Dr. Tracy Shafizadeh, Evivo Probiotic for Babies

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Dr. Tracy Shafizadeh is a nutritional scientist, speaker, and author with over 15 years of experience in scientific communications and life science research. Prior to serving as the Director of Scientific Communications at Evolve BioSystems, she led both product development and research services at various start-up life science companies, including Lipomics Technologies, Tethys Bioscience and Metabolon, Inc. Dr. Shafizadeh received her PhD in nutritional biology from UC Davis, studying intestinal development and folate metabolism in newborns.

Today, we spend the hour discussing the maternal and infant microbiome with respect to maternal breastmilk, human milk sugars and childhood outcome. Evolve Biosystems has produced a probiotic with excellent science to help guide us in new therapeutic discovery. We head to the beginnings of disease onset when the infant is only starting to take his or her first breaths.

I hope that you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Tracy Shafizadeh,

Dr. M

 

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #8 – Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, A Womb With a View

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Dr. Kjersti Aaagard, is an expert in maternal-fetal medicine holding the distinction as the Henry and Emma Meyer Professor and Chair in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital. She serves as vice chair of research for obstetrics and gynecology and is a professor in the Departments of Molecular and Human Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics. She is an expert in the study of the maternal microbiome and metagenomics Research.

She is a tour de force of knowledge in the evolutionary understanding of the maternal-fetal communications throughout pregnancy and post delivery. We share a fascinating hour discussing the maternal microbiome, breastmilk, diet and much more as they relate to mom and her babe.

I hope that you enjoy this stimulating conversation with Dr. Aagaard,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #7 – Dr. William Parker, The “Macrobiome” and Human Health

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Dr. William Parker, Associate Professor of Surgery and Global Health at Duke University, will discuss the biome depletion theory and how our cleanliness is disrupting normal immune function. These processes can have profound downstream effects on maternal and child health. From the Duke Medical School: What is widely known as the “hygiene hypothesis” is more appropriately described as the biota alteration or biome depletion theory: Changes in symbiont composition in the ecosystem of the human body in Western culture has led to immune dysfunction and subsequent disease. We are working on several aspects of this theory. Our earlier studies probe the immunological differences between laboratory-raised and wild-raised animals as a means of assessing differences between humans with and without Western culture, respectively. Other studies probe the role of biome enrichment, in particular the addition of helminths, in the treatment of disease. Studies are ongoing in both humans and in animals, with particular attention to the role of biome depletion in cognitive dysfunction.

We discuss the future of human health with a specific focus on our macrobiome friends, parasites, with whom we have co evolved. They are now missing and we are not better off because of it.

 

Please enjoy my conversation with Dr. William Parker,

Dr. M

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