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Sanjay Gupta MD

Back From The Dead; Banning Trans Fats; Getting Dressed in a "Snap"; "Low-T" Therapy

Aired November 10, 2013 - 07:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN HOST: Welcome to SGMD. We got a busy, important show today.

The Food and Drug Administration is making a major recommendation: get rid of trans fats. It's the ultimate junk food. This could happen. How soon? We're going to tell you.

Also, you might be in for a shock when you see the potential replacement.

Also I'm wearing a magnetic shirt. Take a look at this. There's an amazing story behind this shirt.

Let's get started.

First off today, I want you to meet a young woman. Her name is Liz and she's been struggling with heroin addiction. I recently came across this remarkable video that shows her overdosing, even close to death and then being revived with a drug called Naloxone.

Advocates say, look, if more people, including nonprofessionals had their hand on this drug, it could help stop this overdose epidemic.

This is controversial stuff for sure, but watch just how powerful this medicine can be.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): What you're looking at is pretty shocking: a heroin addict overdosing. Her name is Liz. She's been using drugs since she was 11. Today, she's 29.

Adam Wigglesworth and Louise Vincent were both with her that night in August. They both volunteer with a program in Greensboro, North Carolina, that provides clean needles and other assistance to addicts.

ADAM WIGGLESWORTH, SAVED FRIEND WITH NALOXONE: She seemed to be pretty unresponsive and we were noticing blueing of the lips, lack of oxygen and her breathing became quite shallow.

LOUISE VINCENT, SAVED FRIEND WITH NALOXONE: Well, once someone's not breathing and they're responding to any sort of stimulus, you give them breath, and at that time, I usually administer Naloxone. GUPTA: Now, watch what happens next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We gave her about 60 units of Narcan.

GUPTA: Narcan, also known as Naloxone, can reverse an overdose from heroin and other drugs like Oxycodone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Liz?

GUPTA: Another sternal rub, another shot of Narcan.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) give her some more Narcan.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give her the rest of this whole CC.

GUPTA: And, finally, Liz begins to come to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Liz? You OK? You went out. We're giving you mouth to mouth resuscitation. We're giving you some Narcan. You overdosed.

Can you sit up?

LIZ, HEROIN ADDICT REVIVED BY NALOXONE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, come on. You want a glass of water?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: It is just a remarkable video to watch and you might wonder as you watch that video of Liz, is it real?

Well, we showed it to four separate emergency room doctors who all said, yes, this is what a recovery with Narcan looks like. We should also point out that the right answer always in situations like this is to call 911.

Liz joins us now.

It's good to see you.

LIZ: Good to see you, too.

GUPTA: Good to see you well.

LIZ: Thank you.

GUPTA: Are you feeling OK?

LIZ: I'm feeling great.

GUPTA: What is it like to watch that?

LIZ: It's very difficult to watch.

GUPTA: Did you know ahead of time that they were going to be recording --

LIZ: No.

GUPTA: -- or did they only talk to you about it afterwards?

LIZ: They talked to me about it after.

GUPTA: When you look back on it, how close were you to not being able to get through this?

LIZ: Pretty close.

GUPTA: Had you overdosed before?

LIZ: No.

GUPTA: That was the first time.

The point that they were trying to make and what they're talking about is this medication known as Naloxone or Narcan, which can do what it did for you, bring people out of an overdose like that. What do you think of making a medication like this more available?

LIZ: I think that it should be, but I think it is kind of a fine line between having that false sense of security and making it widely available to absolutely everyone.

GUPTA: How hard an addiction is this to beat?

LIZ: It's really hard.

GUPTA: You just were in rehab --

LIZ: Yes.

GUPTA: -- is that right?

LIZ: Uh-huh.

GUPTA: What went on there?

LIZ: It was pretty difficult the first week was still not feeling too good physically, but it wasn't my first time getting clean either. It was actually my third. So, I've been through it before, and I knew that if I could just stick it out, that it would get better and eventually I would feel the way that I feel now.

GUPTA: I think it's such an important point because we do have these preconceived notions of what to expect and then we get to meet someone like you. And, again, I'm glad you're well. You look well.

LIZ: Thank you.

GUPTA: I hope you stay well.

LIZ: Thank you. GUPTA: Stay really strong, OK?

LIZ: OK.

GUPTA: All right.

And coming up, the FDA is going to move to ban trans fats and this is a substance in just about every food out there -- pizza, popcorn, cookies. The question is what are we going to eat?

Well, our resident foodie is going to stop by and make a case for pure fat, real butter, real lard. I may disagree with her a little bit on this.

Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUPTA: You know, the FDA went on the attack this week against artery- clogging trans fats, saying that they're not just unhealthy, but that they're unsafe at any level, and they are now ordering the food industry to phase them out.

It's an ingredient in a lot of our favorite foods. Microwave popcorn, cookies, cakes, frozen pizza, and much more. Trans fats. They increase shelf life and they add flavor to processed foods.

But the FDA is now saying they are not safe and wants to ban them. It's a move they say would save thousands of lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA (voice-over): It's an ingredient in a lot of our favorite foods -- microwave popcorn, cookies, cakes, frozen pizza and much more -- trans fats. They increase shelf life and they add flavor to processed foods. But the FDA is now saying they are not safe and wants to ban them. It's a move they say would save thousands of lives.

MICHAEL TAYLOR, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, FDA: We think it's time to address and really phase out the remaining uses of trans fat in the diet, so that we can reduce the incidence of heart disease and deaths resulting from heart attack.

GUPTA: You see, trans fats lower good cholesterol and they raise bad cholesterol.

What we're trying to avoid is this -- LDL or bad cholesterol building up as plaque in the blood vessel walls, because that plaque buildup is what can cause heart attacks.

The CDC says ditching trans fats would prevent up to 20,000 heart attacks a year and as many as 7,000 more deaths from heart disease. New York City banned trans fats from restaurants in 2007. And many companies and popular chains around the country have already phased them out. The Grocery Manufacturers Association says that it looks forward to working with the FDA to better understand their concerns and how the industry can better serve consumers.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: Now, none of this is a done deal yet. There's a 60-day public comment period. The FDA's going to consider concerns, suggestions that anybody including the manufacturers might have.

But, again, this is a pretty big deal. I want to talk more about this with CNN Eatocracy managing editor Kat Kinsman.

Welcome back to the program.

KAT KINSMAN, CNN EATOCRACY: Thanks, Sanjay.

GUPTA: What are we talking about with trans fats? Which foods are the worst offenders here?

KINSMAN: Well, a lot of them are sort of your treat foods, microwave popcorn, frozen pizzas, frosting in a can, coffee creamers -- they're little things that probably don't make up the bulk of your diet but they might make up the treat portion of your diet, except for margarine which is a fairly significant part of often a household's cooking.

GUPTA: So, how do you -- how do you see our landscape of food sort of changing, then, when these types of foods go away? Do they go away?

KINSMAN: Well, you know, there's still going to be a certain amount of allowable trans fats, and there are also naturally occurring trans fats that happen in an animal's body, but as for the artificial stuff, funny thing is, New York City banned trans fats in restaurants and in bakeries back in 2007.

Now, New Yorkers we're a pretty cantankerous bunch, we yell a lot about things that displease us, and the funny thing is the follow-up studies found that New Yorkers didn't actually notice the difference all that much, which is -- but there was a significant health benefit that they found that people were eating a fair amount less trans fat but not necessarily noticing the taste difference.

So, it's incumbent upon the manufacturers to be able to do that pretty seamlessly and put in some more beneficial fats or at least less detrimental fats into these products that we're very, very used to in our diet.

GUPTA: That's a good point about New York City because a lot of people may raise the concern. My food is going to be a lot different. It's going to be a big change, it may not be.

But it is interesting. You wrote this piece of CNN.com, "Making the case for pure fats." In large part, trans fats were created as a result of wanting to get rid of these pure fats. We know it can taste great, pure fats, but you say it may not be such a bad idea. There may be some benefits to it.

KINSMAN: This is true. And it wasn't necessarily to get rid of some of these pure fats, those were, in a lot of ways, unfairly demonized, studies have found out that they're not as detrimental to your health as originally thought. The reason that so many of these trans fats came into being is because they're cheaper. They're cheaper for manufacturers. They're cheaper for consumers and people got used to the taste of them.

I advocate for butter, for non-hydrogenated lard, for olive oil which sort of doesn't have the bad things of trans fats, but it also has heart healthy benefits as well. And people I think once they get used to, again, to the taste of these, they're going to be really in for a surprise. It takes much less of these --

GUPTA: Right.

KINSMAN: -- you know, to make things taste great, to have fantastic texture.

And the problem is, though, I so distinctly remember moving to New York City when I was 23 years old on a student budget having absolutely no money, and thinking, OK, maybe I'll try to eat better and I went to the grocery store and looked at butter. And it was something, like, $5.69 a pound, as opposed to the 30 cents I was used to paying for the margarine.

So, I realized when I am advocating for real fat, there's going to need to, something is going to have to happen in the marketplace in order for that to come into being. But, you know, we can't stop yelling about it.

GUPTA: Thanks for joining us. Really appreciate it.

KINSMAN: Thanks so much.

GUPTA: Also this week pro-football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett opened up about his symptoms of CTE, we talk about it a lot, it's a type of brain disease often found in athletes who suffer chronic blows to the head.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY DORSETT, FOOTBALL HALL OF FAMER: Memory loss more so than anything has been my big deal. Sometimes you can have, you know, sensitivity to light and things like that. But my thing was, you know, not remembering, you know, I've been taking my daughters to practice for years and all of a sudden, I forget how to get there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Dorsett has been part of this UCLA study looking at the brain of former NFL players.

Let me show you something here. This is a normal brain over here. And this is the brain of players who were in this study who had at least one concussion. Look over here, you see this bluish hue in the normal brain, you see that in these other brains as well, but pay more attention to the areas of bright yellow and also bright red over here. That's what researchers are concerned about. They believe that that could be tau -- those are proteins typically seen in people with Alzheimer's disease.

Now, of course, it's not just the presence that's important, it's also very important where it shows up in the brain. But in the worst cases of CTE players have suffered these memory problems. They've suffered rage and depression just like Tony Dorsett described.

For now, the UCLA test is not conclusive. And CTE is still typically diagnosed after death in an autopsy. But if it pans out with these larger studies, these could mean knowing more about how CTE progresses and I guess more importantly, how to potentially treat it one day.

Up next, we've got some dramatic news, I'd say, for anyone and the families of anyone struggling with depression, bipolar disease or any other sort of mental illness.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUPTA: You know, in any given year more than one in four American adults will suffer from a clinical mental disorder. Barely a third of them will get treatment. Now, part of it is that the services simply aren't available and also insurance coverage or the lack of it is a big reason as well, but that's about to change.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman is president of the American Psychiatric Association. Thanks for joining the program.

DR. JEFFREY LIEBERMAN, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION: My pleasure.

GUPTA: You know, we've been talking about mental health parity for some time. The act was passed back in 2008. And basically it says insurance companies have to cover mental illness the same as any other illness, a physical illness. But the rules to make it effective weren't really put into place until just this week. I wonder if you can tell us what's going to be different now?

DR. JEFFREY LIEBERMAN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION: I think this is really a historic milestone for health care in this country and particularly for health care providers who treat people with mental disorders which is as you were saying a very substantial number of people. And the reason it's so important is because that even though we provide health care through private and public insurance to people for reasons that have to do with historical misunderstandings, stigma, lack of knowledge, people have not gotten coverage through their insurance benefits for seeking what would be evidence-based, scientifically proven treatment for mental illnesses.

And in 2008, that was rectified symbolically with the passage of the Mental Health Parity Addiction Equity Act but there was no specifications as to how the rule should be applied and enforced.

And today, we're seeing that final rule finally issued. GUPTA: And it's I think very important to talk the specifics about this as well. What is this going to mean in practice?

People out there who say, look, I was paying attention to this parity in 2008. It's been five years. Nothing really changed.

What is it going to mean in reality for them?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it means that insurance plans that you subscribe to have to provide comparable levels of benefits for treatment of mental illness as they do for medical and surgical treatments. So, for example, if you go to an emergency room and you have an acute abdomen and need an appendectomy, nobody is going to call your insurance company and say he has fever or he has a lower right quadrant pain, he has an elevated WBC, do you think we can admit them and wait them for them to approve it?

But if you go to the emergency room and you're suicidal, you may not be able to be admitted depending on your policy, you may need some prior approval and in the time you could walk out of the emergency room and kill yourself before you get the treatment.

GUPTA: Finally, let me ask you, doctor, if people watching are concerned about themselves or a family member, what should do they do immediately?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I tell people you can't be timid and cautious when trying to determine whether they or a loved one needs -- possibly needs mental health care. If somebody -- if one of our family members or you are experiencing chest pain or stomach discomfort are a severe sort of headaches, you know, you'll say something, you'll ask somebody about how are you feeling? Is there something wrong? Is there something I can do? Maybe you should call a doctor. Should we call an ambulance?

But if somebody's acting funny and behaving strangely and not up to their usual pattern, you don't immediately jump the gun, but if it persists for some period of time, a matter of more than a day or several days and there are people really acting unusual, there seems to be something that's out of sorts with their circumstances, ask them about it. It's better to be safe than sorry.

And the best point of contact if you have no -- if you don't know exactly who to refer to or seek help from is to go to your primary care doctor and to ask them, look, I think I'm having this kind of problem. What do you think I should do?

GUPTA: Don't ignore this. Don't ignore these symptoms in yourself or a loved one. It's an important message, I'm glad more people are going to hear it.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, great job. Thanks so much.

LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Dr. Gupta.

GUPTA: Still ahead on SGMD, you've probably seen those ads for, quote-unquote, "Low-T," they're kind of funny ads. But what could extra testosterone or T be doing to your heart? Ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUPTA: You know, it's often said that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, that couldn't be more true for Don and Mora Horton, they used magnets to turn a diagnosis into a business opportunity.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON HORTON, SUFFERING FROM PARKINSON'S DISEASE: Red 18, go! Right, man.

Right there. Good job right there.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): For more than three decades now, Don Horton's life has been mostly football.

D. HORTON: Division I, Division II, III, and also high school coach -- all very rewarding experience.

GUPTA: Then in 2006, Don became one of the 60,000 Americans diagnosed every year with Parkinson's disease. Perhaps the worst day came in 2009. That's when Don found himself unable to button his own shirt.

Russell Wilson, who is now a quarterback with the Seattle Seahawks, helped Don with his buttons so their team could get back on the road.

D. HORTON: It's a humbling experience to be helped. You know you have to do something. You can see it there. You've done it before. It seems so easy for everybody else to do.

MOIRA HORTON, DON HORTON'S WIFE: There were so many challenges he was going through that I couldn't help with but this was one change I thought I could do.

GUPTA: Calling on her own experience as a children's clothing designer, Don's wife, Moira, got to work, creating a line of magnetic clothing free of buttons and zippers that would help her husband and others regain their independence.

M. HORTON: So it's as simple as lining it up.

D. HORTON: So brought it at the beginning (INAUDIBLE) but as it grew, the e-mails that she got were incredible, helping so many people across the nation.

GUPTA: The magna-ready magnets are strong enough to keep the shirts closed but not so strong that the shirts are difficult to open.

M. HORTON: And you're dressed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: I had to see this for myself. So, actually, all show, I've been wearing one of these magnetic shirts. Let me show you how it works. Look at that. And you pit it right back on, magnets, and you get dressed in 20 seconds. This is perfect for me.

These shirts are really great for anyone who has limited mobility or if you're just in a hurry. Not just Parkinson's disease, arthritis, stroke, even ALS.

Good luck, Mora.

Testosterone replacement therapy, a lot of people have been talking about this. It could give men a boost in the bedroom and with their mood even, but we're not show it even works and a new study says it might increase the risk of heart problems. Researchers say that men who had previous issues with heart disease who also used low-T therapy had a 30 percent increase of stroke and death as to men that didn't take this therapy.

Now, I should point out, it's important, it's an observational study so it isn't known if the men in the study were taking the proper dosage of testosterone or even doing other things that may have increased their risk of heart disease overall. But given the findings, it makes you think men should question whether they really need this therapy, is it really working and they should definitely talk about the risks with their doctor before beginning this sort of treatment.

Before we go, a quick reminder about our Fit Nation challenge. You've got you really have to think about these, these triathlons that I've been doing they've changed my life. We're accepting submissions for next year's team as well, I'm going to be looking at them to put together a great team.

If you're tired about making excuses regarding your health, just do this -- logon to CNN.com/FitNation and you and I will train together.

That's all the time we've got for SGMD today. Time now to get you back into the "CNN NEWSROOM" with Don Lemon.