By Richard P. Holm M.D.
Last night at a lecture about the value of education in Afghanistan, the speaker told us of kids growing up surrounded by war, without being able to play outside safely. He said kids throughout the rest of the world need to step away from their computers and TV sets, and exercise their freedom by going outside to play. The place erupted in applause.
This simple statement is supported by a recent “Move Muscles” or 2M study we did with first to fifth grade children. It was a combined effort by staff at the Brookings Boys and Girls club, researchers from SDSU, South Dakota med students, and the SD Internal Medicine organization, the ACP. We found pedometer and activity readings were greater when children were simply encouraged to have free-play, as compared to organized activity, or screen time.
For as long as humans have lived, until now, kids have been encouraged to go outside and play. As a kid growing up in DeSmet, I was outside for all four seasons. I remember jumping into piles of leaves, building snow forts for ferocious snowball fights, floating stick rafts down melting snow gutter-rivers, and biking everywhere.
But things have changed. Now we drive our kids to school to sit and listen all day to people talking, they watch while a few athletes compete in a game of some kind, and then they come home to play video games of action heroes, while they sit on a couch eating high caloric snacks. Unless something changes, this generation of kids will grow up to be adults who drive to work while they earn money sitting in an office, and who have labor-saving devices do the work while they continue to sit and watch other people play.
It is easy to understand why there is an epidemic of obesity and diabetes; why adult joints are so stiff and immobile; and why life expectancy in this country is dropping. Simply put, people will die and are dying young from diseases of inactivity and this problem is only getting worse.
We could do something to change this deadly trend if we would simply send our kids outside to play.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Mental health and mortality
By Richard P. Holm, M.D.
Mental and emotional problems are everywhere. More than half of what I do, as a general internist, is to help people deal with emotional problems. It comes with the heartbreak and suffering of loss, pain, or growing old, with debilitating illnesses, and with the burden of mental illness itself. It is truly a challenge to try to help people cope with such trouble.
This September a large, 13-year Canadian study reported a 322-percent higher death rate in people taking minor tranquillizers compared with those not taking such medicines. Use of this type of drug can be taken as an indicator of emotional problems. Looking closer, there were huge socio-demographic and lifestyle differences between groups.
The study implied that if one comes from a tough neighborhood, drops out of school, struggles with addiction, abuses alcohol, smokes, does not exercise, and has mental health problems, then the risk of premature death is more than three times higher than one without such problems. In other words, emotional illness often walks side-by-side with tough social, economic, and health problems. And the combination is associated with premature death.
There was also an inference from the study that the use of minor tranquilizer-type sleeping medicine might alone carry some risk to one’s physical health. My personal interpretation from the data is that sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medicines can cover up or make worse an underlying depression. What’s more, these tranquilizers often put off or prevent appropriate therapy, such as counseling, exercise programs, and very effective antidepressant medicines.
Mental health is truly an important ideal but it comes and goes for each of us as we struggle and meander through our lives. Physicians and care providers have tools to help, including ears to listen, words of advice, and sometimes even good medicine to prescribe. To ignore indicators that there might be a mental health problem could mean the difference between life and death.
Dr. Rick Holm wrote this editorial for “On Call®,” a weekly program about health on South Dakota Public Broadcasting-Television that is produced by the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service. “On Call” airs Thursdays on South Dakota Public Broadcasting-Television at 7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain.
Mental and emotional problems are everywhere. More than half of what I do, as a general internist, is to help people deal with emotional problems. It comes with the heartbreak and suffering of loss, pain, or growing old, with debilitating illnesses, and with the burden of mental illness itself. It is truly a challenge to try to help people cope with such trouble.
This September a large, 13-year Canadian study reported a 322-percent higher death rate in people taking minor tranquillizers compared with those not taking such medicines. Use of this type of drug can be taken as an indicator of emotional problems. Looking closer, there were huge socio-demographic and lifestyle differences between groups.
The study implied that if one comes from a tough neighborhood, drops out of school, struggles with addiction, abuses alcohol, smokes, does not exercise, and has mental health problems, then the risk of premature death is more than three times higher than one without such problems. In other words, emotional illness often walks side-by-side with tough social, economic, and health problems. And the combination is associated with premature death.
There was also an inference from the study that the use of minor tranquilizer-type sleeping medicine might alone carry some risk to one’s physical health. My personal interpretation from the data is that sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medicines can cover up or make worse an underlying depression. What’s more, these tranquilizers often put off or prevent appropriate therapy, such as counseling, exercise programs, and very effective antidepressant medicines.
Mental health is truly an important ideal but it comes and goes for each of us as we struggle and meander through our lives. Physicians and care providers have tools to help, including ears to listen, words of advice, and sometimes even good medicine to prescribe. To ignore indicators that there might be a mental health problem could mean the difference between life and death.
Dr. Rick Holm wrote this editorial for “On Call®,” a weekly program about health on South Dakota Public Broadcasting-Television that is produced by the South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service. “On Call” airs Thursdays on South Dakota Public Broadcasting-Television at 7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The medicine wheel, the Great Spirit, and John Wesley
By Richard P. Holm M.D.
The American Indian medicine wheel is thought to have existed for more than 5,000 years and has been the basis for not only medicinal but also religious approaches to problems of living.
Although there are significant differences between regions and tribes, the medicine wheel reflects not only certain botanicals but also the circle of life and the Great Spirit surrounding all of us. East is spring, sunrise, childhood, physical, and yellow; south is summer, noon, adolescence, social, and red; west is autumn, sunset, adult, intellectual, and black; north is winter, night, elder, spiritual, and white. Up is sky and Father; down is earth and Mother; and center is fire.
The history of modern medicine in the Americas starts with the spiritual and herbal knowledge of the Indian. As the Europeans made their great western migration into this new land with Mediterranean medical concepts, there was a great mixing of ideas with the American Indian’s spiritual and herbal way. This resulted in the evolution of a uniquely American way of caring for the ill, especially helped by Indian knowledge of the medicinal nature of flora and fauna, and their respect for the spiritual element needed for healing. This in turn, influenced health care throughout the world and reflections of it remain with us today.
In 1735, when young John Wesley the famous English Methodist came to a new American colony at Savannah, Georgia, he was impressed by the rugged health and the medical practices of the American Indian. Later back in England he even composed a book, which described many Indian secrets to the art of healing.
Wesley wrote that Indian illnesses, during this era, were exceedingly few because of their continual exercise and lack of excessive alcohol. The great epidemics brought from Europe followed, however, and the physically rigorous life was no longer required. It resulted in decimation of about 80% of the Indian population with severe injury to their spiritual focus and culture.
We should learn and never forget the lessons from American Indian heritage: the proper use of medicinal ingredients, the value of a physically active life, and the spiritual power of the circle of life and the Great Spirit surrounding us all.
The American Indian medicine wheel is thought to have existed for more than 5,000 years and has been the basis for not only medicinal but also religious approaches to problems of living.
Although there are significant differences between regions and tribes, the medicine wheel reflects not only certain botanicals but also the circle of life and the Great Spirit surrounding all of us. East is spring, sunrise, childhood, physical, and yellow; south is summer, noon, adolescence, social, and red; west is autumn, sunset, adult, intellectual, and black; north is winter, night, elder, spiritual, and white. Up is sky and Father; down is earth and Mother; and center is fire.
The history of modern medicine in the Americas starts with the spiritual and herbal knowledge of the Indian. As the Europeans made their great western migration into this new land with Mediterranean medical concepts, there was a great mixing of ideas with the American Indian’s spiritual and herbal way. This resulted in the evolution of a uniquely American way of caring for the ill, especially helped by Indian knowledge of the medicinal nature of flora and fauna, and their respect for the spiritual element needed for healing. This in turn, influenced health care throughout the world and reflections of it remain with us today.
In 1735, when young John Wesley the famous English Methodist came to a new American colony at Savannah, Georgia, he was impressed by the rugged health and the medical practices of the American Indian. Later back in England he even composed a book, which described many Indian secrets to the art of healing.
Wesley wrote that Indian illnesses, during this era, were exceedingly few because of their continual exercise and lack of excessive alcohol. The great epidemics brought from Europe followed, however, and the physically rigorous life was no longer required. It resulted in decimation of about 80% of the Indian population with severe injury to their spiritual focus and culture.
We should learn and never forget the lessons from American Indian heritage: the proper use of medicinal ingredients, the value of a physically active life, and the spiritual power of the circle of life and the Great Spirit surrounding us all.
Friday, October 1, 2010
A lousy essay about cooties
By Richard P. Holm M.D.
Remember a cruel playground game about cooties or “you’re it?” Also called pediculosis capitis, cooties, or a head louse infestation truly is something from which to run. Head lice are small wingless insects that get into the hair and scalp. Except for the common cold, this infestation is the most common communicable condition of childhood, affecting something like 10-20 million people per year.
They do not jump or fly, or live on any other animal but humans, but these little blood-sucking invaders are extremely easy to spread by head-to-head contact. This happens especially in pre-school, kindergarten, grade-school spaces, where kids will be kids, and personal hygiene has nothing to do with it.
The diagnosis is confirmed by finding the louse, which is clear to tan and the size of a sesame seed, crawling around the ears and at the nape of the neck, or discovering tiny white to grey eggs, also called nits, attached to hair shafts.
It is nice to know that head lice generally do not crawl outside the scalp, and other than causing severe itching, the condition does not cause any other important problem or carry any illness.
This is in contrast to their cousin “body lice,” who reside below the scalp, after feeding set up in the creases of clothes, and can carry infectious diseases such as typhus, trench fever, and relapsing fever. Head lice are also different from bed bugs who are brown and larger, can live away from the human body, and can feed off warm-blooded mammals other than humans. It is a relief to know that bed bugs carry no disease, which is similar to head lice but unlike body lice.
The treatment of head lice involves attacking from several directions. Start with over-the-counter Permethrin lotion (Nix), or Pyrethrin (Rid, A200, or Pronto shampoo). These need repeating in one week to get the next egg hatch. (Suffocating with mayonnaise, herbals, olive oil, or butter does not work.) What is most effective and yet underutilized is to thoroughly comb wet hair every two days for two weeks with a special fine-tooth comb. Finally wash all bed linens and clothing that came in contact with those infested, drying in a hot dryer for 40 minutes. Bagging stuffed animals and clothing for two weeks also works.
So when your little one comes home with cooties, don’t panic and don’t run. Get out a fine-tooth comb, special lotion, and get to work.
Remember a cruel playground game about cooties or “you’re it?” Also called pediculosis capitis, cooties, or a head louse infestation truly is something from which to run. Head lice are small wingless insects that get into the hair and scalp. Except for the common cold, this infestation is the most common communicable condition of childhood, affecting something like 10-20 million people per year.
They do not jump or fly, or live on any other animal but humans, but these little blood-sucking invaders are extremely easy to spread by head-to-head contact. This happens especially in pre-school, kindergarten, grade-school spaces, where kids will be kids, and personal hygiene has nothing to do with it.
The diagnosis is confirmed by finding the louse, which is clear to tan and the size of a sesame seed, crawling around the ears and at the nape of the neck, or discovering tiny white to grey eggs, also called nits, attached to hair shafts.
It is nice to know that head lice generally do not crawl outside the scalp, and other than causing severe itching, the condition does not cause any other important problem or carry any illness.
This is in contrast to their cousin “body lice,” who reside below the scalp, after feeding set up in the creases of clothes, and can carry infectious diseases such as typhus, trench fever, and relapsing fever. Head lice are also different from bed bugs who are brown and larger, can live away from the human body, and can feed off warm-blooded mammals other than humans. It is a relief to know that bed bugs carry no disease, which is similar to head lice but unlike body lice.
The treatment of head lice involves attacking from several directions. Start with over-the-counter Permethrin lotion (Nix), or Pyrethrin (Rid, A200, or Pronto shampoo). These need repeating in one week to get the next egg hatch. (Suffocating with mayonnaise, herbals, olive oil, or butter does not work.) What is most effective and yet underutilized is to thoroughly comb wet hair every two days for two weeks with a special fine-tooth comb. Finally wash all bed linens and clothing that came in contact with those infested, drying in a hot dryer for 40 minutes. Bagging stuffed animals and clothing for two weeks also works.
So when your little one comes home with cooties, don’t panic and don’t run. Get out a fine-tooth comb, special lotion, and get to work.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sharing of Cultures and The Art of Healing
By Richard P. Holm MD
The earliest records of medical teaching came from very ancient Egypt, Babylonia, India, and China. Accounts of experimental and scientific thought, however, first began in Greece and expanded into the medical teaching of Hippocrates and his students. Medical learning then spread to ancient Rome where the word medicine was derived from the Latin “ars medicina,” meaning the art of healing, and this knowledge spread throughout the Roman Empire.
Alas, the ancient knowledge of the Mediterranean would have been lost with the burning of the Library of Alexander and the sacking of Rome except for the collections saved in the Arab world.
Probably the first medical school developed one thousand years ago in the southern Italian coastal city of Salerno. It happened because of a monk named Constantine the African, who understood Arabic and other languages of the time. He could translate, back into Latin, the surviving ancient Grecian and Roman medical texts, which were then written in Arabic and had been invigorated by more than a hundred years of medical practice in Arabia. So it was that in a small library in a Salerno monastery, ancient medical knowledge became accessible once again to the Western world.
Reinvigorated with these translations, the medical practitioners of Salerno became the best care providers of the medieval world, and, in turn, drew the sick in hope of discovering a cure and students seeking to learn the art of medicine. Over time, the sharing and learning accelerated. Salerno thus became known as the “Town of Hippocrates,” where Greek and Latin medical traditions merged with Arab and also Jewish wisdom.
The coming-together of different cultures and information led to a wonderful augmentation and synergy of medical knowledge, where men and women of mixed backgrounds reveled in learning how to care for the sick in a medieval world. Of course this golden time ended by forces of political and cultural hatred, but the knowledge that almost had been lost still survived. Some of it is taught in medical schools today.
May we always remember the lessons of the past, the value of recording knowledge, and the wisdom of sharing cultures.
The earliest records of medical teaching came from very ancient Egypt, Babylonia, India, and China. Accounts of experimental and scientific thought, however, first began in Greece and expanded into the medical teaching of Hippocrates and his students. Medical learning then spread to ancient Rome where the word medicine was derived from the Latin “ars medicina,” meaning the art of healing, and this knowledge spread throughout the Roman Empire.
Alas, the ancient knowledge of the Mediterranean would have been lost with the burning of the Library of Alexander and the sacking of Rome except for the collections saved in the Arab world.
Probably the first medical school developed one thousand years ago in the southern Italian coastal city of Salerno. It happened because of a monk named Constantine the African, who understood Arabic and other languages of the time. He could translate, back into Latin, the surviving ancient Grecian and Roman medical texts, which were then written in Arabic and had been invigorated by more than a hundred years of medical practice in Arabia. So it was that in a small library in a Salerno monastery, ancient medical knowledge became accessible once again to the Western world.
Reinvigorated with these translations, the medical practitioners of Salerno became the best care providers of the medieval world, and, in turn, drew the sick in hope of discovering a cure and students seeking to learn the art of medicine. Over time, the sharing and learning accelerated. Salerno thus became known as the “Town of Hippocrates,” where Greek and Latin medical traditions merged with Arab and also Jewish wisdom.
The coming-together of different cultures and information led to a wonderful augmentation and synergy of medical knowledge, where men and women of mixed backgrounds reveled in learning how to care for the sick in a medieval world. Of course this golden time ended by forces of political and cultural hatred, but the knowledge that almost had been lost still survived. Some of it is taught in medical schools today.
May we always remember the lessons of the past, the value of recording knowledge, and the wisdom of sharing cultures.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Hippocratic Promise
Richard P. Holm MD
Through ancient and modern history, there is a tradition in the medical profession that the graduating medical student publicly and formally takes an oath and promises to uphold high ethical standards. It is a med student rite of passage, which has been handed down from our ancestors.
Historically it has been the Hippocratic oath, which is to swear by Apollo the Physician, and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, to preserve life and to care for all regardless of rank, age or intellect. This apparently represented a shift in attitude in ancient Greece, as earlier many had used the knowledge of medicines and herbs to poison. Also it asked that the life of a slave, the life of the Emperor, the life of a foreign man, and the life of a child with a disability should all be valued as equal in importance.
But this traditional oath is replete with modern controversy. For example if the old oath is followed, the children of physicians would have preferential admission into medical school; we could not cut out kidney or bladder stones, or do any surgery for that matter; physicians could not take payment for providing care to patients (except maybe room and board); and there would be conflict with how we presently give suffering terminal patients enough pain medicine. Indeed, the old oath was meant for another time.
At the Sanford USD School of Medicine as in every medical school graduating medical students still give a contemporary version of the Hippocratic oath. Although there is some variation between schools, every version promises to diminish suffering and enhance health; to do no harm; to search for truth through science; and to respect the freedom and right of self direction for every patient. Modern versions also speak to just distribution of care when resources are limited, avoiding over and under-treatment, asking for help when necessary, and the art of a warm, sympathetic, and caring bedside manner.
Every physician upon entering the medical profession has made an oath and covenant to uphold a worthy ethical standard. This is more than tradition. It is a promise.
Through ancient and modern history, there is a tradition in the medical profession that the graduating medical student publicly and formally takes an oath and promises to uphold high ethical standards. It is a med student rite of passage, which has been handed down from our ancestors.
Historically it has been the Hippocratic oath, which is to swear by Apollo the Physician, and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, to preserve life and to care for all regardless of rank, age or intellect. This apparently represented a shift in attitude in ancient Greece, as earlier many had used the knowledge of medicines and herbs to poison. Also it asked that the life of a slave, the life of the Emperor, the life of a foreign man, and the life of a child with a disability should all be valued as equal in importance.
But this traditional oath is replete with modern controversy. For example if the old oath is followed, the children of physicians would have preferential admission into medical school; we could not cut out kidney or bladder stones, or do any surgery for that matter; physicians could not take payment for providing care to patients (except maybe room and board); and there would be conflict with how we presently give suffering terminal patients enough pain medicine. Indeed, the old oath was meant for another time.
At the Sanford USD School of Medicine as in every medical school graduating medical students still give a contemporary version of the Hippocratic oath. Although there is some variation between schools, every version promises to diminish suffering and enhance health; to do no harm; to search for truth through science; and to respect the freedom and right of self direction for every patient. Modern versions also speak to just distribution of care when resources are limited, avoiding over and under-treatment, asking for help when necessary, and the art of a warm, sympathetic, and caring bedside manner.
Every physician upon entering the medical profession has made an oath and covenant to uphold a worthy ethical standard. This is more than tradition. It is a promise.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Valuing Others
By Richard P. Holm MD
This week, in our little town in South Dakota, a young man in his twenties came into my office weeping and scratching his arms and legs. I was expecting a rash-type problem, when he blurted out that he was injecting methamphetamine two to four times a day. “It has destroyed my life,” he said. “I used to have a job, insurance, a house, and a life. Now I have nothing. Please help me,” he cried. I did my best for him.
By definition addiction is the state of physical or psychological dependence on a drug, which is liable to have a damaging effect. It’s a habit, a compulsion, or an obsession, which turns around and bites the user and everyone nearby. Alcoholism is the most pervasive and obvious addiction in our society. If it doesn’t directly affect you, most certainly it affects someone dear to you.
The potential for addiction is part of our collective human nature. I dare say that every one of us given just the right situation would be addicted to one drug or another, whether it be cigarettes, pain medicines, sleeping pills, marijuana, methamphetamine or a fine red wine.
What is it that separates the addict from normal happy people who are able to function in society? Some experts define addiction and, specifically, alcoholism with the four features of craving, loss of control, physical dependence, and tolerance. Others add that addiction means losing perspective about what has value in life. Vision of the surrounding world dims, and instead the addict obsesses on self and how to get another shot, pill, snort, drag, or drink. Addiction accelerates like a maelstrom into such selfness until nothing else exists.
It makes sense then that the opportunity for recovery comes with the sacred message of the Golden Rule: treating others with compassion and fairness. Valuing others is the key ingredient in order to sober- up the self-absorbed addicted individual. It is no wonder spiritual based programs for sobriety are the most successful.
No question, we are all at risk for the selfish cycle of addiction, and our best help comes by relearning how to care for others.
This week, in our little town in South Dakota, a young man in his twenties came into my office weeping and scratching his arms and legs. I was expecting a rash-type problem, when he blurted out that he was injecting methamphetamine two to four times a day. “It has destroyed my life,” he said. “I used to have a job, insurance, a house, and a life. Now I have nothing. Please help me,” he cried. I did my best for him.
By definition addiction is the state of physical or psychological dependence on a drug, which is liable to have a damaging effect. It’s a habit, a compulsion, or an obsession, which turns around and bites the user and everyone nearby. Alcoholism is the most pervasive and obvious addiction in our society. If it doesn’t directly affect you, most certainly it affects someone dear to you.
The potential for addiction is part of our collective human nature. I dare say that every one of us given just the right situation would be addicted to one drug or another, whether it be cigarettes, pain medicines, sleeping pills, marijuana, methamphetamine or a fine red wine.
What is it that separates the addict from normal happy people who are able to function in society? Some experts define addiction and, specifically, alcoholism with the four features of craving, loss of control, physical dependence, and tolerance. Others add that addiction means losing perspective about what has value in life. Vision of the surrounding world dims, and instead the addict obsesses on self and how to get another shot, pill, snort, drag, or drink. Addiction accelerates like a maelstrom into such selfness until nothing else exists.
It makes sense then that the opportunity for recovery comes with the sacred message of the Golden Rule: treating others with compassion and fairness. Valuing others is the key ingredient in order to sober- up the self-absorbed addicted individual. It is no wonder spiritual based programs for sobriety are the most successful.
No question, we are all at risk for the selfish cycle of addiction, and our best help comes by relearning how to care for others.
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