In the Ladies' Room with Dr. Donnica

You’ve heard a lot of doctors—including your own—talk about the importance of diet & exercise from many different perspectives. But today we’re going to break down nutritional information into the particularly exciting area of cellular nutrition & preventing Age Associated Cellular Decline. Today’s guest has been dancing through life from a young age. Dr. Noelle Reid is a board-certified Family Medicine physician who was a trained dancer prior to medical school. She bridged her love for dance through the practice of Yoga, Pilates, & movement, which she has creatively made into a focal point of her medical practice. Dr. Reid is a graduate of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine & completed her residency at Harbor UCLA Medical Center. She has also been a medical contributor for ABC/ Good Morning America, & a frequent guest on other shows including Fox Soul TV, Good Day LA/ Fox 11, and “The Doctors”. This episode of “In the Ladies’ Room with Dr. Donnica” is sponsored by Celltrient Cellular Nutrition, a new line of nutritional beverages and supplements from Nestle Health Science that are formulated with cellular nutrients that go to work deep within your cells to address key sources of Age-Associated Cellular Decline (AACD).

Dr. Erika Moseson is a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician aka a lung and ICU doctor. She’s a graduate of Cornell Medical School. She’s the founder of Air Health Our Health, an educational resource regarding the intersection of breathing healthy air and the well-being and weals of our communities. She hosts the Air Health Our Health podcast where she interviews experts on everything from tobacco and vaping to policy options to improve public health. She is one of the American Lung Association’s Health Professionals for clear air and climate action. Erika and Donnica talk about clean air. Erika believes in the motto “don’t light things on fire and breathe them into your lungs”. This pertains to tobacco, marijuana, diesel, fire, and more. When you light something on fire, the particles that are generated hang in the air. Even though you can’t see them, they are there and you are breathing them in. This year we’ve seen an unprecedented number of wildfires in California. Californians are now having to check the air particles before they can walk outside to know if the air is safe to breathe. The particles that you inhale go into your blood veins and can stay there and lead to heart attacks, strokes, and other diseases. Erika goes over what needs to be done policy-wise to create cleaner air. A lot of companies rely on transportation methods that are terrible for the environment and finding cleaner solutions are key to cleaner air. They discuss how smoking and tobacco sales should change to support the environment and people who are looking to quit smoking. Tobacco companies target lower-income communities and people of color in their advertising. This is directly impacting the health of those communities at a disproportionate rate. Now kids are being introduced to vaping, which has an insanely high amount of nicotine compared to smoking cigarettes for something that is flavored like bubblegum.

If you’ve watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, you know organ transplant is a TV writer’s dream for high drama. In real life, roughly 20 people on transplant lists die everyday while donors remain elusive. This gap is particularly significant in New York, which is home to approximately 10 percent of those waiting in the US for organs but has a lower donor registration rate than the national average. A single donor can save up to eight lives and aid up to 50 more through tissues like blood cells, bone, and corneas. Dr. Amy L. Friedman is a transplant surgeon and the Chief Medical Officer/Executive Vice President of LiveOnNY, the non-profit that oversees transplant donations in the greater NYC area. She received her undergraduate degree in biology from Princeton University, her MD from Downstate Medical Center/SUNY in Brooklyn, her training in general surgery also at Downstate, and her training in transplant surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been on the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania, the Yale University School of Medicine, and SUNY Upstate Medical University. She talks about the importance of blood and organ donations. She goes through the life of a donated organ, which can include anything from a liver to a face. She also tells us about the effects of COVID on organ donations and transplants. You can be an organ donor living or dead, and it is absolutely essential to helping other people get the organs they need to survive.

Like 3.4 million people in the U.S., Laine Richards has active epilepsy and faces the daily challenges of this commonly - but also misunderstood - condition. People living with epilepsy are in the constant state of the in-between - an anxious juggling game of seizure activity, recovery, and wondering when the next episode will occur. During a seizure, patients can experience a wide range of symptoms that can include loss of consciousness, inability to swallow, tremors, and rigid or tense muscles. Regardless of the severity of their disease, epilepsy can be incredibly frightening for patients and their caregivers. Laine has been inspired to help others in her shoes. She has been to Capitol Hill to speak with members of Congress about the importance of epilepsy research and funding, and for the past four years, she has represented the state of Michigan with the Epilepsy Foundation of America’s “Teens Speak Up!” program. She is a freshman at Grand Valley State University and plans to advocate for greater accessibility on campus while pursuing her dream of becoming a special education teacher. Laine talks about her misdiagnosis with ADHD as a child and then finally getting the correct diagnosis of Epilepsy. There are numerous types of seizures that people can have, and they affect everyone differently so it’s important to talk to your doctor and get a proper diagnosis. Laine opens up about explaining epilepsy to roommates and friends to create clear communications of what to expect in the case of a seizure.

Are you sick of false information circulating in the news and social media about important health care topics from COVID 19 to vaccines to what we should eat to what undies we should wear? Well, so am I and so is today’s guest Dr. Nina Shapiro, a graduate of Harvard Medical School. She is the Director of Pediatric Ear, Nose, and Throat at the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and Professor of Head and Neck Surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. With more than two decades of experience in clinical and academic medicine, she’s a trusted expert whom her patients and the media rely on to set the record straight about health fads and misconceptions. Her book “HYPE: A Doctor’s Guide to Medical Myths, Exaggerated Claims, and Bad Advice - How to Tell What’s Real and What’s Not” addresses these myths. Today in the ladies’ room, Dr. Donnica and Dr. Shaprio go through some of the big hype that we hear about medical issues and figure out what is true and what isn’t. There are so many products and trends about our health, but it’s important to remember to get the medical information as opposed to the hype about medical treatments. She also talks about the importance of risk. Every day there is a certain amount of risk we face, but how do we factor in risk when it comes to medical procedures? And they talk about the celebrities who try to sell dangerous, overpriced products to women.