From the office of Robert S. Grimshaw Jr MD FACP Internal Medicine 3535 Hill Blvd Yorktown Hts NY 914 962-3180 NEWS Recognized Provider  “With Distinction” by the American Diabetes Association/National Committee for Quality Assurance 2/99-2/02

94                          January-February  2001

 

Welcome: Kathy Berkowitz

MS, RD, CDE, CDN

We will once again be offering expert dietary guidance from a real pro. Kathy is an NYU-trained Registered Dietician with her Masters in Nutrition who is also a Certified Diabetes Educator and a Certified Diabetes Nutritionist. She has extensive experience at NYU and at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York. Her Bachelors in Nutrition is from Cornell. In addition to helping people with diabetes, she can help you with dietary guidance for blood pressure, cholesterol, calcium (for osteoporosis), bowel issues such as irritable bowel syndrome, weight gain for those who need it and weight loss for those with arthritis of the back, hips, knees or feet. Kathy Berkowitz will be available on the first and third Tuesdays monthly. Please call for an appointment!

We’re now on the World-Wide Web. We hope that this will add a new dimension to our care for you. We plan on having all of these newsletters on (until they’re superceded by events), as well as the current guides - such as the Vertigo guide on the back of this newsletter. This way, if you didn’t get the guide or can’t find it, it will be there if you have internet access. We also have directions to the office, links to health assessments, a lot of links to non-profit organizations, and others related to diabetes. There is even a section for you to organize your history and your concerns for upcoming visits. We plan to do a lot of adjustment as we hear from you as to what you want on the site.

Daffodil Days: Soon you’ll be seeing daffodils in our office. They signify our support of the American Cancer Society.

And a daffodil derivative, galantamine (Reminyl) has been approved by the FDA for treating Alzheimer’s disease (see our Nov 99 newsletter). It will hopefully be in drug stores in May.

Red, White, Rosé or Bud-Lite? Was the title of a review of alcohol and the heart at the annual ACC Cardiovascular conference. Dr. Robert Vogel of the University of Maryland said that all forms of alcoholic beverage can help the heart. The key, as always, is moderation. One ounce of spirits is the same as 1 12 oz beer or 4 oz of wine. The best benefit, according to Dr. Vogel, is to drink with a meal - 1-2 drinks for men, and ½-1 drink for women. One drink a day gives the same benefit as running 10 miles a week. "So," Dr. Vogel says waggishly, "the healthiest people are those who run - from bar to bar." But he cautions that 10% of people can’t drink - even a little.

Dr. Marco Zenati, Director of the Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery Program at the University of Pittsburgh, showed clips from the new Zeus robotic surgery device. With such microscopic manipulators, bypass operations can be done on the beating heart. Currently Dr. Zenati is doing some 85% of his surgery without stopping the heart. Since the heart is not stopped, there is no need for the heart-lung machine, and that avoids the strokes and should avoid the memory loss recently linked to bypass surgery/ (New England Journal of Medicine, Jan 20, 2001).