Dr. Steve Info: Thursday

Dr. Steve with a couple of his best patients, producer Oji & stagehand Dennis - just look at those happy & healthy faces!! Do you have a question for Dr. Steve, CLICK HERE

7:00am Segment Info:
GHB is a hypnotic depressant, which means it can make you drowsy & lethargic & slur your speech. It's often used as a date rape drug and has lots of different street names. It usually comes in a liquid... And has no color or taste, so it can be ingested without even knowing it. Believe it or not, there are recipes on how to make this stuff all over the internet.

What can it do to you and what should parents do if their child ingests this stuff?

What can it do to you and what should parents do if their child ingests this stuff?

Besides the drowsiness, you also get loss of muscle tone but it can also cause seizures. Slow down breathing and heart rate and can lead to coma and death. The US drug enforcement agency had reported 60 deaths associated with GHB use back in January of 2000. High school kids are using this drug as an alternative to alcohol because it leaves no odor for parents to detect, and the effects are gone by about 8 hours. If you have Aquadots and your child ingests the dots or puts them in their mouth you should call 911 or poison control.

In other news, there may be hope for smokers who find it so hard to kick the habit.

One of the reasons why smoking is so hard to quit is because smokers get a nicotine buzz from cigarettes. It's part of every addiction. What if you took that buzz away from cigarettes? Would it make it easier to quit? A new shot that robs smokers of that nicotine buzz is showing promise in clinical trials. In a study, more than twice as many people given five of the shots stopped smoking compared to those who were given fewer or phony shots - about 15 percent versus 6 percent after one year.

That sounds great, but 15 percent isn't a big number..

I agree. Part of the problem is that while the treatment prevents nicotine from reaching the brain, but some still gets in. 15 percent is low, but it's comparable to some of the other tools that are out there. Of the roughly 46 million smokers in the united states, 40 percent try to quit every year, but less than 5 percent are successful long-term. But it still could be an important new weapon to help people who have failed other methods. The point is there's enough here to warrant further testing.

8:00am Segment Info:
The other day I told you about a study that found yoga can help improve the symptoms of heart failure patients by about 25 percent.

Now researchers from Germany say daily exercise can help reverse some of the bad effects of heart failure and actually improves the heart muscle itself... Reversing the damage. The say exercise produced a six fold increase in the formation of muscle repairing cells compared to people who did not exercise.

Should everyone with heart failure get to the gym and start exercising?

Heart failure is a very broad term. There are lots of different causes of heart failure and there are also various degrees of heart failure. Some patients take medications that may limit their ability to exercise. So if you have heart failure or someone in your family is suffering from heart failure you should speak with your doctor or cardiologist before starting any exercise regimen.

There's been a lot of news recently about this drug-resistant staph infection. Should we be concerned?

I think people need to be informed and educated but they should definitely not panic.

According to the CDC while MRSA is in the community and it can be difficult to treat it's not something that is just floating in the air that you can breathe in. You have to have direct contact with the bacteria. That means you don't want to share items like towels.. Razors.. Or roll around on a mat where MRSA may be lurking. If you get an infection that may look like a boil or abscess take it seriously and get it checked out.

And what is the way to protect yourself?

It comes down to basic good hygiene. Soap and water is easy and effective. There are two distinct forms of MRSA., one that's found in hospitals and the other that's found in the community. Most cases are found in the hospital, only 14 percent or serious MRSA cases are found in the community. Community spread MRSA is still easily treated by routine antibiotics, so besides hand washing. You should wash and bandage any cuts or scrapes if you have them. Remember, germs will always be one step ahead of antibiotics. It's a constant battle. But the basics of good hygiene are still the first line of defense.