Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks.
Speaker 2: I'd be.
Speaker 3: Dumb shot wish.
Speaker 4: Jack do.
Speaker 2: There's a party downtown ett everybody had party.
Speaker 3: Everybody and welcome back to the Weekend Collective. By the way,
Speaker 3: as I mentioned, I'd like to mention every hour if
Speaker 3: you've missed any of the hours and you want to
Speaker 3: catch up with a couple of really interesting chats with
Speaker 3: the first with Alan Clark, former Prime Minister, about Luxon's
Speaker 3: visits to China, which did sort of stimulate a few
Speaker 3: of you to make some comments and calls, which is great.
Speaker 3: And also Warwick bag who is the dean of the
Speaker 3: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences about the new announcement
Speaker 3: by Simeon Brown about what's the press release said something
Speaker 3: about patients first, which is as he admit, as I
Speaker 3: put to him, it is sort of putting patients first
Speaker 3: is sort of medicine one oh one. But it was
Speaker 3: more about the systems and everything. So you can go
Speaker 3: and check that out and the talk back as well
Speaker 3: by looking for the Weekend Collective on iHeartRadio and News
Speaker 3: Talks hed B. But the sound of that other person
Speaker 3: breathing in the background. There is my Sorry, I'll stop breathing.
Speaker 3: I thought that was your explanation of air about the
Speaker 3: about the politics side of things. Anyway, he's just back.
Speaker 3: He's just back, well, a couple of weeks ago from
Speaker 3: the accompanying the cricket our cricket team in Sri Lanka.
Speaker 5: What Bangladesh?
Speaker 3: Bangladesh? Sorry? What am I saying?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay, completely wrong? Sorry in Bangladesh? Where do I get
Speaker 3: Sri Lanka from? I don't know? Anyway, And he was
Speaker 3: to show me the videos of just the rigmarole and
Speaker 3: get into the ground with this. Here's our bus, here's
Speaker 3: the decoy bus. Here's another decoy bus, and here's the army,
Speaker 3: and here's the ambulance. And here's some armed people and
Speaker 3: small police.
Speaker 5: And the fire engine to wash the blood off the
Speaker 5: road at the end of it.
Speaker 3: Is that what it's for? Anyway? John Cameron, Hello, how
Speaker 3: are you? It's good to be back. Did you have
Speaker 3: a good trip?
Speaker 5: Fascinating always fascinating Southern Asian countries. It's brilliant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you actually how do you eat when you
Speaker 3: go on? What what do you how do you choose
Speaker 3: your what do you eat? Do you like to eat
Speaker 3: local or do you like.
Speaker 5: To absolutely yep, yeah, curry cutty cuddy, just non stream
Speaker 5: for breakfast, curry for lunch, curry for tea.
Speaker 3: It's like being on a cruise. And what about the team,
Speaker 3: how do they go?
Speaker 5: Yeah they have to Basically we're locked down, so we
Speaker 5: can't leave the hotel. And so know what the hotel
Speaker 5: gives you? Yeah, they've got some western foods. You never
Speaker 5: so you.
Speaker 3: Can't go for a walkout on the street. Are you
Speaker 3: a good boy? Or do you sneak out? You just don't.
Speaker 5: Because three and a half weeks lockdown into a hotel.
Speaker 3: Wow, it doesn't quite sound like the international travel experience
Speaker 3: that people might imagine it to be. So hotel cricket ground,
Speaker 3: hotel cricket ground, you got it, that's it. That's okay.
Speaker 5: Swimming pool we're okay.
Speaker 3: What about so that's that what you do for exercise
Speaker 3: and a gym? And of course Bangladesh no booze.
Speaker 5: It's dry, absolutely dry.
Speaker 3: And well that ties in whether I want to talk
Speaker 3: about it for a health AUP. We want your cause.
Speaker 3: By the way, our one hundred eighty ten eighty text
Speaker 3: nine two nine two. There was a story that got
Speaker 3: my attention because the headline was something that would instantly
Speaker 3: irritate people, because you know, it's one thing to be
Speaker 3: told alcohol is a cart and a journ in it.
Speaker 3: If you the more you drink of it, the worse
Speaker 3: your health outcomes are, et cetera, et cetera. But this
Speaker 3: particular article was directed at women and it was aimed
Speaker 3: at reducing your risk of breast cancer if you are
Speaker 3: predisposed to it. I guess I think the risk went
Speaker 3: up from eleven out of one hundred to fourteen or
Speaker 3: something if you drank alcohol. And the recommendation was that
Speaker 3: no more than six glasses of wine per year, And
Speaker 3: I thought, no one's going to be I mean, who's
Speaker 3: going to pay attention to that? But I'd love to
Speaker 3: know your You have your cause on this as well, though.
Speaker 3: Have you ever given up alcohol? And how did you
Speaker 3: do it? And was it in response to you simply
Speaker 3: worrying about I mean, alcohol is one thing, but just
Speaker 3: drinking alcohol and health outcomes is it something that you
Speaker 3: pay attention to or not? I mean, John, as a doctor,
Speaker 3: you might have a tipple between even song.
Speaker 5: If you were going to market a drug today and
Speaker 5: alcohol was that dragon hadn't been marketed before, you wouldn't
Speaker 5: be able to bring it onto the market. There are
Speaker 5: so many risks and harmful events that happened from alcohol,
Speaker 5: both physiologically, sociologically, psychologically, all of the bits around our
Speaker 5: body and everything else. It's not a good substance. So
Speaker 5: when we're talking about alcohol, we don't have a safe level.
Speaker 5: There is no such thing as a safe level of
Speaker 5: alcohol intake. There is a low risk or lower risk
Speaker 5: level which you can look at, which is probably somewhere
Speaker 5: around about twelve to fourteen standard units of alcohol in
Speaker 5: an average week over all. Well, that's not the breast cancer.
Speaker 3: It's Interestingly, when I had a chat with Warreck Bagger
Speaker 3: from the Faculty of Medicine in Auckland, he had heard
Speaker 3: my introduction that we're going to talking about this and
Speaker 3: he took an opportunity, took the opportunity to say that, okay,
Speaker 3: this policy, aside that the government's announced prevention we need
Speaker 3: and he hit that two or three times. We need
Speaker 3: to focus on prevention. But if you could stop, if
Speaker 3: you could prevent the problems that alcohol causes in New Zealand,
Speaker 3: human can I use a technical extent you've known humongous.
Speaker 5: Our emergency apartments would be sitting around twiddling their thumbs
Speaker 5: on a Saturday night. Just the amount of the damage.
Speaker 5: And you know, domestic violence, true alcoholism and stuff prevably
Speaker 5: have problem drinking, the way it disinhibits people and the
Speaker 5: actions that happened from that distmdibition. Yes, it's fascinating because
Speaker 5: it's such an easy substance to obtain. You can make
Speaker 5: it in your garage, there's no problem with that. It's
Speaker 5: a natural product from the rotting of sugars, So that's
Speaker 5: what happened to it. And people go do lely google juice.
Speaker 3: So and yet a nice chardonnay of an evening can
Speaker 3: feel like quite a civilized sort of you know that.
Speaker 3: The argument, of course, it's like reducing a bit of
Speaker 3: stress and sitting back with your loved wine and having
Speaker 3: a glass of wine over a meal. Ah, what a
Speaker 3: nice way to end the day.
Speaker 5: Is that going to cause you any damage or harm?
Speaker 5: Probably not?
Speaker 3: What about the study six lasses of wine year, And
Speaker 3: it's easy to just it's easy to look at it
Speaker 3: and go, oh, just another bloody study. It's ridiculous, But
Speaker 3: it's not. The study they've just invented stuff out of
Speaker 3: thin air.
Speaker 5: So alcohol per se does not cause breast cancer. People
Speaker 5: who have a higher alcohol intake are more likely to
Speaker 5: develop breast cancer. Yes, so it is not the one
Speaker 5: thing that causes it. It's an amplifier of base risk.
Speaker 3: So if you are at risk of cancer of this
Speaker 3: particular case breast answer, you are slightly more at risk
Speaker 3: if you drink alcohol.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, the highest risk for breast cancer is being female
Speaker 5: and having breasts. Yeah, you've got about a one and
Speaker 5: twelve lifetime risk. One on twelve women during their life
Speaker 5: will develop breast cancer. Yeah, so things that will accelerate
Speaker 5: that away. It's a small percentage acceleration on a rather
Speaker 5: common thing. So you see more events there.
Speaker 3: So what do people do with a story like that,
Speaker 3: or a study like that, or a recommendation because that
Speaker 3: came from the United Nations Health sort of I can't
Speaker 3: remember what the name of the body is, but it
Speaker 3: hadn't wasn't something that came from sort of to a taper.
Speaker 5: So you put the information out there and saying if
Speaker 5: that is a big fear of what you're concerned about
Speaker 5: about your life, your health, put that into your framework
Speaker 5: of what you will accept your risk of so coming
Speaker 5: to the show today. Guess what. I sat in my
Speaker 5: car and I drove across town and did you know
Speaker 5: that three hundred and sixty people a year die from
Speaker 5: doing that exact same thing. So you always got to
Speaker 5: weigh up your risk benefit risk outcome where does it
Speaker 5: sit within your paradigm of worry or concern.
Speaker 3: That's actually quite a good way to put it, because
Speaker 3: life is full of risk, and if you were to
Speaker 3: suddenly think, well, there's an increased chance of a negative
Speaker 3: a negative result from any particular activity, wouldn't get out
Speaker 3: of bed in the morning, although staying in bed all
Speaker 3: days probably a risk.
Speaker 5: So we always weigh up risk benefit risk how it
Speaker 5: fits into our lives. And when I'm talking to a client,
Speaker 5: I say how much does this affect you? What is
Speaker 5: your worry about this particular thing, and then you can
Speaker 5: framework a way that you're the person you're talking to
Speaker 5: can understand how where it sits within their life. Yep.
Speaker 5: So yes, if you wanted to completely remove your risk
Speaker 5: of breast cancer as a female, minimizing alcohol's a good idea.
Speaker 5: Picking your parents well, again, so there's no strong family
Speaker 5: history of breast cancer, making sure you don't have any
Speaker 5: of these weird other syndromes that can do it.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I think it's you know that. This is
Speaker 3: why I think it's useful to have these conversations to
Speaker 3: soften when if you're just reading the news and you
Speaker 3: see a headline on that you know, recommendation NA more
Speaker 3: than six last one a, you think, oh my goodness, stress, stress, stress,
Speaker 3: And yet it's it's it's worth hearing from someone who's
Speaker 3: in terms of about the actually understanding risk because the
Speaker 3: headline will just make you think, oh my goodness, it's
Speaker 3: catastrophic and.
Speaker 5: It probably turns people off doing anything about it. So
Speaker 5: what you turn around to say, we know that having
Speaker 5: a moderate alcohol intake where an elkolon tape will increase
Speaker 5: your breast cancer. It's roughly around about this frame. See
Speaker 5: how fits for you? Yeah, been saying six six drinks
Speaker 5: a year, it's not going to help people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, be keen to hear from you. I mean, are
Speaker 3: these sorts of things, I mean, how do you approach
Speaker 3: risk when it comes to negative health outcomes for alcohol?
Speaker 3: And have you ever changed your drinking habits simply because
Speaker 3: you thought? You know what I mean? And plenty of
Speaker 3: people I know have I know people have stopped drinking
Speaker 3: because they thought, you know, I just realized I was
Speaker 3: drinking too much, and you know what, I don't miss it.
Speaker 3: So I'm fine. What motivated you to make a change
Speaker 3: in it? Was it the fact that the impact on others?
Speaker 3: I guess eight hundred eighty and eighty. By the way,
Speaker 3: of course, we have John in the studio to take
Speaker 3: your calls on anything that's particularly bothering you, and so
Speaker 3: if you want to get in quickly, then it's always
Speaker 3: good to pick up the phone right now, because otherwise
Speaker 3: we get to the end of the show and it's like, well,
Speaker 3: we've got three calls holding what We're not going to
Speaker 3: get you to you in time? How genetic you say,
Speaker 3: pick is one of your one of your life? How
Speaker 3: much various diseases and let's just focus on various forms
Speaker 3: of cancer. How much of it is genetic and how
Speaker 3: much is environmental or do we have a sort of
Speaker 3: I mean, depends on the cancer.
Speaker 5: Of course, cancer is not one disease. It's a squillian
Speaker 5: press cancer. It's breast cancer. Pre Minopausal breast cancers are
Speaker 5: very strong genetic link, very strong familial link. Postmenopausal breast
Speaker 5: cancer less so so breast cancers and young females. This
Speaker 5: is a disastrous disease I hated because it normally presents
Speaker 5: late despite screening and is very difficult to manage.
Speaker 3: Okay, I love to take your calls that they've got
Speaker 3: a few texts to get cracking with for a start,
Speaker 3: and this is completely unrelated, but let's get let's get
Speaker 3: into it. I was put on statins after heart attack.
Speaker 3: Blood tests show cholesterol down to one point too. Would
Speaker 3: it be okay to reduce statin dosage?
Speaker 5: It depends if you want to live or die. Up
Speaker 5: to you. Ok let's talk about what you want, the
Speaker 5: hard answer, the short answer, you got the short answer.
Speaker 3: Ah, I'm guessing that that coming off them as the
Speaker 3: if you want to die and staying on them as
Speaker 3: the you're on them for long term.
Speaker 5: So what we're dealing with here a secondary prevention someone
Speaker 5: who's had an event and survived it. We know that
Speaker 5: as low the lower that we can drive your low
Speaker 5: density life of protein fraction of your cholesterol picture, the
Speaker 5: less likely you are to have a subsequent event stroke,
Speaker 5: heart attack. And it's you know, when we started talking
Speaker 5: about getting your LDLs below two that it's gone to
Speaker 5: one point eight. Now it's one point six, now it's
Speaker 5: one point four. Really, the only way you're going to
Speaker 5: do that is by using these well, what are the
Speaker 5: commonest ways of doing it is by using a medicine
Speaker 5: called a stat And there are some newer hum fangle
Speaker 5: things which are coming out which are going to be
Speaker 5: even more lipid lowering than the statins. But currently the
Speaker 5: best thing you can do is use medicines for secondary
Speaker 5: prevention if you've survived an event, so yeah, my advice
Speaker 5: would be to stay on the stat.
Speaker 3: Can I just ask one quick question on alcohol and
Speaker 3: addiction and why people who are alcoholics you just cannot
Speaker 3: touch it? What is the physical craving or the reaction
Speaker 3: that happens that means people just you can't touch alcohol
Speaker 3: because otherwise one sip and your back off it again.
Speaker 3: You know you've fallen off the wagon. Why Why is
Speaker 3: it basically abstinence or nothing for people who are alcoholic.
Speaker 5: Because controlled drinking is really hard to do because alcohol
Speaker 5: dis inhibits. So as soon as yeah, sort of alcohol
Speaker 5: plays havoc, the only organ alcohol doesn't play heivoc with
Speaker 5: is your kidneys. Alcoholic style with beautiful kidneys, absolutely pristine. Really, yeah,
Speaker 5: the rest of your bodies?
Speaker 3: Why why why the kidneys?
Speaker 5: Liver gets stuffed, pancreas gets stuffed, heart gets stuffed, brain
Speaker 5: gets stuffy. Stuff. He just struck on making weak brilliant. Wow,
Speaker 5: So one drink is always too much and never enough. Okay,
Speaker 5: that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, I've had a few people ask me for that article,
Speaker 3: and I'll look. I'll try and find the link to
Speaker 3: that one so you can all read it, because headlines
Speaker 3: are one thing. Reading It is actually quite useful. And
Speaker 3: after I read it, I thought, oh gosh, it's not
Speaker 3: as catastrophic as I thought, because I was about to
Speaker 3: say with my wife, put that glass one down, I'll
Speaker 3: drink it for you and give it to me. Somebody's
Speaker 3: got to do it.
Speaker 5: I'll take one for the fun out.
Speaker 3: All right, let's take some calls, shall we? Twenty past
Speaker 3: twenty past four? Fell? Hello, good, we've got good things.
Speaker 2: And get to your guests there as well. Yes, John, Yes,
Speaker 2: and John? And how are you who going?
Speaker 3: Well? Good? Right, let's get into it. What's your question?
Speaker 2: Okay? Oh well, it's not so much a question. I
Speaker 2: just sort of wanted to bring up and give my
Speaker 2: experience about alcohol because I I'm a heavy drinker and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to I'm trying to ease it back, and
Speaker 2: I am easing it back. I did give it up
Speaker 2: for a month and a half at one stage because
Speaker 2: I ended up losing my job through through the drinker,
Speaker 2: and before that happened, I was trying to prove that
Speaker 2: I was an alcoholic, that I could go without a
Speaker 2: certain amount of time for a drink. I hope that
Speaker 2: it's kind of relevant because you just said I'm about
Speaker 2: bringing up to say what made you danger behavior?
Speaker 5: You have?
Speaker 3: You have?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 3: Have you stopped drinking? Where are you at.
Speaker 2: Not stop drinking? And I haven't managed the stop drinking
Speaker 2: and I don't know if whatever will because I'm caught.
Speaker 2: And that you could say it's denial too, because it
Speaker 2: sounds like classical denial of being an alcoholic, because it's
Speaker 2: the sort of thing, is that thing an alcoholic would say.
Speaker 2: But I still believe that I am not an alcoholic.
Speaker 2: I know I've had a drinking problem in the past
Speaker 2: and up until now, and I've had suffered over the
Speaker 2: last a number of years with depression, and there was
Speaker 2: a time when I was suicidal when I thought, well,
Speaker 2: one of the ways I'm going to do this is
Speaker 2: I'm going to drink myself to death because I like
Speaker 2: the drink as well. That's the other thing. But I've
Speaker 2: changed that sort of I've got help and getting help
Speaker 2: luck enough to be getting help to decide through a psychologist.
Speaker 2: So I've changed that way of thinking. So that's I
Speaker 2: don't want to do that anymore because I've always and
Speaker 2: I've always believed too in my in my mind, I've
Speaker 2: always known that there is never at the bottom of
Speaker 2: a bottle, you know. The answer has got to be
Speaker 2: to come right is to be with yourself and find.
Speaker 3: So it's like you're trying to talk yourself back towards abstinence.
Speaker 3: Phil Johnny, I'll just bring john in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's very hard. It's making that step. One
Speaker 5: of the things, as you're saying, I've got a problem
Speaker 5: with alcohol, When you've got a problem with alcohol, it's
Speaker 5: that the next step is the first step is understanding that,
Speaker 5: but not just understanding it, but taking the next step,
Speaker 5: which is to say I need to remove alcohol from
Speaker 5: my life. That's a bigger step. Otherwise you're giving yourself
Speaker 5: permission to continue with the behavior that's hurting you and
Speaker 5: it gets really tough.
Speaker 3: It does sound like fels on that sort of zone
Speaker 3: where he's accepted he's got a problem. He's trying to
Speaker 3: he's pretending. He tells me he knows when he tells
Speaker 3: himself that he doesn't. But he knows.
Speaker 5: He doesn't want to do anything.
Speaker 3: So don't want to do anything about it. But anyway,
Speaker 3: good luck with that, fel We've got to keep moving
Speaker 3: with the cause. But well, first we'll be back after
Speaker 3: the break. It is twenty three and a half past four,
Speaker 3: is feeling down?
Speaker 7: Make you's welcome back to News Talks as we can
Speaker 7: collective the health up with John Cameron as my guest,
Speaker 7: Doctor John Cameron not to be mistaken with doctor John
Speaker 7: the New Orleans jazz artist.
Speaker 3: But I don't know, maybe you can play the piano,
Speaker 3: John anyway, talking about any questions you've got. But we
Speaker 3: did start the start the conversation around drinking issues and
Speaker 3: alcohol and you know your decisions around if you've ever
Speaker 3: changed your alcohol consumption habits, right Helga, Hello.
Speaker 8: Oh hello, how are you good?
Speaker 3: Thanks?
Speaker 8: I'm not ringing about myself because I don't drink. I've
Speaker 8: got a granddaughter. And whilst I wanted to ask you
Speaker 8: what's nati dudes, because she ended up two months ago
Speaker 8: completely getting it pancreas removed.
Speaker 5: Okay, of course of alcohol, would that be? It could
Speaker 5: well be so, yep, the alcohol is the direct tos
Speaker 5: into the pancreas. Oh really, there are other causes. There
Speaker 5: are other potential causes for pancreatitis or information of the
Speaker 5: pancreas and the teenager. It would be unusual. There's more
Speaker 5: like to be one of the other causes and people
Speaker 5: in middle years. Yes, it's one of the one of
Speaker 5: the major causes of pancreatitis.
Speaker 8: Oh wow, that's serious. She is rust and put on
Speaker 8: more theme.
Speaker 5: How's she doing that?
Speaker 8: I'll never drink again? But she said, I'm never drinking again.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it takes that, doesn't It Just a wake up call,
Speaker 5: which is makes you start thinking about the behaviors that
Speaker 5: you're doing and the cost to you and to your future.
Speaker 5: And so hey, look if she's had that wake up call,
Speaker 5: taking it on board and taking care of that problem,
Speaker 5: sweet as that's great.
Speaker 8: Oh, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: I should be very proud of her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Tom, Hello, good.
Speaker 9: Happening, sir. You said any question ahead.
Speaker 3: Finish health related but you know well, yes.
Speaker 9: Yes, the hipocratic. My son's lar krying to get his
Speaker 9: last exam form being anesthetist. I don't think he put
Speaker 9: I don't think he put a sticky on me. I've
Speaker 9: asked him for a reference and he totally refuses because
Speaker 9: he says he'd get sacked.
Speaker 5: That's a very hard job to do in the caesiology.
Speaker 9: Uh reference, a simple reference, nothing technical.
Speaker 5: Sorry, I'm just missing what you're after. Mate?
Speaker 9: Oh is my phone going for music?
Speaker 6: Shure?
Speaker 9: I tried to say, a simple reference, nothing technical.
Speaker 3: So what what?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 3: What would you like a reference to that?
Speaker 9: I'm not stupid.
Speaker 3: On what subject?
Speaker 9: The subject is shooting all my family shooters. My son
Speaker 9: shot the one I'm I'm shot his first person when
Speaker 9: he was eight.
Speaker 3: Okay, by the time, I think this is sort of unrelated,
Speaker 3: so I might we might just move on to Ray.
Speaker 10: Hello, gooday doctor Cameron?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Hi?
Speaker 10: Ray? You're saying how important statins are and that you've
Speaker 10: got to get the LDL down as low as possible right.
Speaker 5: For secondary prevention.
Speaker 10: Absolutely, What do you say to the doctors on videos
Speaker 10: that I've seen who are adamant that that calestola is
Speaker 10: not the enemy, that we shouldn't be taking statins, and
Speaker 10: that inflammation is the problem, not cholesterol.
Speaker 5: I agree that inflammation is a problem. But when you
Speaker 5: see there's a direct correlation between your LDL levels and
Speaker 5: the risk of future CURRENTY events, that data is pretty
Speaker 5: strong and pretty solid. And you talk to any cardiologist
Speaker 5: in the town, I'm sure they will say the same thing.
Speaker 5: So you'll always find people who are finding other theories
Speaker 5: and things. Look to the evidence behind it. And when
Speaker 5: I'm talking to people, whether on the radio or in
Speaker 5: my surgery, I try and bring the best knowledge that
Speaker 5: I can that's got the best evidence behind it. The
Speaker 5: evidence that I can see for the use of bringing
Speaker 5: your LDL levels down is incredibly strong.
Speaker 10: Yeah, well that's what my doctors telling me to do
Speaker 10: as well. But I've just seen so many videos from
Speaker 10: I presume reputable doctors on YouTube.
Speaker 5: There are no reputable doctors on YouTube. Sorry, move on,
Speaker 5: don't trust YouTube.
Speaker 10: Mate, But not even if it's a reputable doctor on YouTube, Wow.
Speaker 5: I find reputable. Sorry, it's it's anyone can go on
Speaker 5: YouTube and an MD after the name or NBC HB
Speaker 5: after the name and spout where the evidences is where
Speaker 5: it really matters, Mate. I would trust my cardiologist rather
Speaker 5: than my.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are there are people who who've yeah, who
Speaker 3: are doctors, who've got some peculiar views on things and
Speaker 3: not necessarily end up always being doctors. But while they're
Speaker 3: on YouTube, you know, they can put it up. Just
Speaker 3: be cynical about the stuff that you see on YouTube
Speaker 3: or regardless of what someone's qualifications are. Right, That's that's
Speaker 3: where we're up to. So twenty eight minutes to five, Jeff, Hello.
Speaker 9: There go mate.
Speaker 6: I'd just like to say people who drink and drive
Speaker 6: are totally disgusting. I've been involved with two incidents, and
Speaker 6: once when I was a security officer in Tara and
Speaker 6: a guy and I was on a corner of eleventh
Speaker 6: and Cameron Roade and a guy went right straight through
Speaker 6: a stop sign, red light, went down to the next one,
Speaker 6: hit a car, rolled the car over, the baby went
Speaker 6: out the window and was decapitated, et cetera. Now, when
Speaker 6: the police turned up, they breath tested him and he
Speaker 6: was he was well, so far over the limit it
Speaker 6: wasn't funny. I've been to the RSA club and and
Speaker 6: she says to me, oh, his wife said to me,
Speaker 6: I should have driven, mate, and I said, yeah, well
Speaker 6: you should have done lady, because I said, you've just
Speaker 6: killed those people's baby.
Speaker 5: Yea, it's horrible and all horrible jocking.
Speaker 6: I was absolutely so. People who drink and drive mote,
Speaker 6: I've got absolutely no time for and the next incident
Speaker 6: that ever happened to me or was supposed to meet over.
Speaker 3: Actually, Jeff, I think we've we've made the point drinking
Speaker 3: and driving is bad. But I don't want to I
Speaker 3: don't want this show at three at four thirty in
Speaker 3: the afternoon to be filled with the stories of woe
Speaker 3: and sort of explicit details on what happens. We're trying
Speaker 3: to address the health, so if anyone wants to share
Speaker 3: anything it's too gruesome, we might not continue with those calls.
Speaker 5: Let's bring enough. I think I think people are changing
Speaker 5: their habits of alcohol and driving. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 5: finally getting through. It hasn't got through completely, but we're
Speaker 5: are very much more careful with how we manage drinking
Speaker 5: and driving these days. Overall, there are still instances, but overall,
Speaker 5: I think we're doing all a lot better.
Speaker 3: Yeah. In fact, you know, people worry everyone worries about
Speaker 3: the future generations and younger people, but I'm not sure that.
Speaker 3: I mean, there always things to worry about for every generation,
Speaker 3: but I'm not sure that alcohol's nest. I mean, binge
Speaker 3: drinking is one thing, of course, but I'm not sure
Speaker 3: that today's youth are going to be particularly at more
Speaker 3: RISKU or anything. In fact, I've seen a few things
Speaker 3: which are indicating maybe they're not drinking as much as
Speaker 3: their earlier generations.
Speaker 5: I think our behavior is our society is changing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just an expression, Eric view, an expression of hope.
Speaker 3: And somebody's basically saying and yet just having a crack
Speaker 3: at me saying constantly looking up Google. Well, I'm reasonably
Speaker 3: good at picking my sources for Google, and I avoid anything,
Speaker 3: by the way, where the website has the name truth
Speaker 3: in the title. That's always as a bit of a
Speaker 3: red flag for me. Twenty five minutes to five, Peter Halloe.
Speaker 11: Oh it's big. I've got a friend that's been in
Speaker 11: hospital for a couple of years under mental health and
Speaker 11: she went in at seventy kilos and now she's one
Speaker 11: hundred and thirty and she might be coming out in
Speaker 11: six months time. Now, she's getting read really depressed about
Speaker 11: her weight. And I can't understand how you go into
Speaker 11: hospital and eat the hospital food and you almost double
Speaker 11: your weight in two years.
Speaker 5: I don't know enough about this to comment. Some of
Speaker 5: the medicines that we use in psychiatric medicines have a
Speaker 5: really nasty habit of putting on weight gain, and they
Speaker 5: do it quite excessively. So whether it's the actual food,
Speaker 5: whether it's the way it's working, whether it's secondary to
Speaker 5: the medications that have been used for your friend, there's
Speaker 5: a lot of factors in there. And also, once again,
Speaker 5: you've got to pick what's the most important thing to
Speaker 5: get somebody well. And if the first thing is controlling
Speaker 5: their disorted thought process, then sometimes you have to put
Speaker 5: up with some weight gain if the medicines have caused that.
Speaker 5: So I wouldn't be too down on either your friend
Speaker 5: or the hospital situation in that matter.
Speaker 11: Yeah, she's doing really well, and I go in and
Speaker 11: talk to the people, and we've got to go into
Speaker 11: the gym, and we've got and I'm glad to take
Speaker 11: her out for a supervised walk for a couple of hours.
Speaker 11: But she's starting to think now she's going to come
Speaker 11: out soon and she's doubled her weight and that's done.
Speaker 11: I mean they can see it, the psychologists and all
Speaker 11: that people can see it. And I'm you know, I think,
Speaker 11: you know, you might be right. It's the medication, but
Speaker 11: surely there's something here that's not. It just doesn't seem
Speaker 11: fair to me when you go in and yeah.
Speaker 5: Hell, look well done for you for staking in that
Speaker 5: contact with that individual. I think that is really really
Speaker 5: amazing to do, because sometimes when people have a psychological
Speaker 5: unwollness and remove from society, we remove society from them.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, big ups for this.
Speaker 3: Must be one of the hardest things to deal with
Speaker 3: if you have a long term illness. It's a sense
Speaker 3: of isolation you must feel. Must be really tough. Thanks Peter.
Speaker 3: Twenty three minutes to five News talks a b eight
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty ten eighty back and a tack. This
Speaker 3: news talks the ten beverage bunch of cars lined up
Speaker 3: for John Cameron, who's my guest today for the health up.
Speaker 3: So let's carry on.
Speaker 12: Hell on, Hello, Yeah, hi, Hi, Kim and doctor John.
Speaker 12: Now we've got a told them of alcohol in my
Speaker 12: family and when when I look at the back family tree.
Speaker 12: There's a rather repetitious array of but there's still as
Speaker 12: wine brewer, brewers, wine merchants and to Republicans, So I
Speaker 12: think that might be a bit of a red flag.
Speaker 12: So I have given I've given it up, but I'm
Speaker 12: not absolutely totally. I mean, there's a wine tasting or
Speaker 12: something like that, but I certainly wouldn't I certainly wouldn't
Speaker 12: buy buy it and take it home with me. I
Speaker 12: used to sort of get into some binge drinking in
Speaker 12: my twenties, and my father was quite a violent whiskey drinker,
Speaker 12: and my brother was just out in mountain. More So,
Speaker 12: I think I'm being very.
Speaker 5: White here, very well for recognizing it. And there is
Speaker 5: quite often a very strong familial process. And if you
Speaker 5: add that in with the liquor industry, oh you're sitting
Speaker 5: on a powder keg. Well done, well done, good stuff.
Speaker 3: Quick question here. This person says it's a bottle of
Speaker 3: whiskey a week too much. My husband says he and
Speaker 3: he has a couple of SIPs a day, but it
Speaker 3: seems to wear a bottle a week. Many thanks from Sue.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it does depend on size the bottle. I think
Speaker 5: we're talking about fifty that a week is excessive.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it is amazing. It goes when you're having
Speaker 3: good conversation for a few days, when you're staying with friends.
Speaker 3: I've got a friends asking for really sorry, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: let's carry on.
Speaker 1: Yes allo, yes, hello, good afternoon.
Speaker 9: Hello.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I'm interested in what the doctor says about
Speaker 1: fetal alcohol syndrome.
Speaker 5: Horrible thing.
Speaker 1: I've been reading about it, and if you I had
Speaker 1: a grand from who went crazy at school, primary school,
Speaker 1: and they said that he needed to see the doctor.
Speaker 1: Well the doctor didn't make any difference apparently, but they
Speaker 1: found out what feetal alcohols and rhyme did to unborn babies.
Speaker 1: Now what does the doctor say about it.
Speaker 5: It's a horrible thing. And that's the problem we have
Speaker 5: is we have no idea what a safe alcohol intake
Speaker 5: is during pregnancy. And that's why we strongly counsel people
Speaker 5: if they're planning pregnancy to remove alcohol from their lives.
Speaker 3: That that's the thing that sometimes people have an unplanned
Speaker 3: pregnancy and they were drinking for the first.
Speaker 5: We just have to just have to run with that.
Speaker 5: So we try and strongly advise people to be alcohol
Speaker 5: free drink pregnancy to reduce that risk. The risk is small,
Speaker 5: but it is that it's measurable and the outcome can
Speaker 5: be very difficult.
Speaker 3: Okay, right, let's say text more calls Susan, Hello.
Speaker 2: Oh hi, how are you good?
Speaker 3: Thanks good?
Speaker 4: It's good for doctor John about thyroids. And I'm being
Speaker 4: I'm pretty short the thyroid for a couple of eas
Speaker 4: now I've.
Speaker 3: Been sorry, sorry, your line's just dropping out there, Susan,
Speaker 3: say that again. You've been on.
Speaker 7: Loan silent.
Speaker 3: Replacements.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, and get the blood
Speaker 4: tet couple of months super which it's now treated my thyroid.
Speaker 3: And I was wondering, Sublin.
Speaker 4: Have another blood taste and yeah, I'm to have another
Speaker 4: blood taste.
Speaker 11: In a few weeks.
Speaker 4: So I just wonder what does it what?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Okay, So low thyroid hypo thyroidism is really common. It's
Speaker 5: there's various reasons why it can happen, and it's one
Speaker 5: of the easiest intochronal ones into chronology ones to fix.
Speaker 5: We simply give you a replacement. There's two hormones which
Speaker 5: we can measure, one as a stimulating hormone and the
Speaker 5: other one is the actual thyroid hormone itself. Now low
Speaker 5: clinical stuff. You've probably got to rise in your TSH
Speaker 5: and a low normal T four probably and we're we're
Speaker 5: actually getting with figures rather than symptoms, so you're not
Speaker 5: patently clinically low thyroid, but the biochemistry's trying to change.
Speaker 5: And yeah, it's a very simple thing just to top
Speaker 5: that up a little bit. Once we get the dose right,
Speaker 5: we only only measure it once a year and you
Speaker 5: should be fine from there.
Speaker 3: Okay, hey, thanks for your call. Thanks for your call, Susan.
Speaker 3: Just quickly, as a GP, I just wondered because you've
Speaker 3: been doing it for a few years years, but actually
Speaker 3: when you first come out, when you first started practicing,
Speaker 3: when you first started practicing as a GP, yeah, how
Speaker 3: comfortable did you feel doing what you did versus another
Speaker 3: period a few years later when you're like, I'm on
Speaker 3: top of this now. Yeah, I mean the journey of
Speaker 3: Joarney of confidence.
Speaker 5: I talk about a U shaped curve because when you
Speaker 5: come out of medical school GP, doctor training, hospital training,
Speaker 5: GP training, you've got a lot of information, but not
Speaker 5: a lot of knowledge, right, and it can be a
Speaker 5: bit scary. And then over the years you get into
Speaker 5: the bottom of the you where you're normally firing really well,
Speaker 5: and then you get to be like me. As the
Speaker 5: age is increasing, the knowledge is falling away and you
Speaker 5: start to become more dangerous. So it's no good. So
Speaker 5: it's no when to step away before you become too dangerous.
Speaker 5: So yeah, it's great. And my practice, we've got some
Speaker 5: really young doctors coming through and they'll come and tap
Speaker 5: tap on my door and say, I've got this, I've
Speaker 5: got this. What do you think we should be doing?
Speaker 5: And I just ask them how they're going to work
Speaker 5: it through? And it's lovely, and I.
Speaker 3: Say, we're saying in the break, I feel for practitioners
Speaker 3: who are on their own, because you were saying how
Speaker 3: you you know, you have a lot of conversations within
Speaker 3: your practice, which I would imagine in a field of
Speaker 3: medicine would be essential just to keep that dialogue and
Speaker 3: another person to go we'll have your thought of this,
Speaker 3: or oh I hadn't thanks for that, or just sharing
Speaker 3: the burden of the stress of dealing with people's people's ls.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we don't always get it right, we don't
Speaker 5: always know all the answers, but as long as we
Speaker 5: make sure we have a good safety line in there
Speaker 5: and make sure we keep the patients and ourselves safe.
Speaker 5: Then we can normally work things through.
Speaker 3: Right, We're going to come back with more calls. I've
Speaker 3: got a bunch of text. We'll try and pick the
Speaker 3: eyes out of some of those before we wrap it up.
Speaker 3: It is thirteen minutes to five. There are some spear
Speaker 3: lines there, so we've just got one caller holding. So
Speaker 3: if you've got something you want to talk to John about,
Speaker 3: you jump on the blow quickly. Well we shall be
Speaker 3: able to get to your back in a tack News
Speaker 3: talks z'd be with Tim Beverage talking taking your course
Speaker 3: for John Cameron. Sarah.
Speaker 13: Hello, Ah, Hi Tim and John, thank you. I just
Speaker 13: I got up alcohol about six and a half years
Speaker 13: ago after reading message is going without a lot of
Speaker 13: lot of dan box and just haven't looked back so
Speaker 13: that she was talking to me. But I just want
Speaker 13: to have about the organs. How long does it take
Speaker 13: for it to the toxins to actually leave the body?
Speaker 5: Pretty quick?
Speaker 3: We'll give that one to John. Actually I'm the host.
Speaker 5: He's for your Jeezace toxic anyway, don't worry, he's really toxic.
Speaker 5: Oh look, the actual toxins go away really quick, but
Speaker 5: it's the damage which they have done. So from a
Speaker 5: Hart point of view, we think we've got to think
Speaker 5: called cardio myopathy, where the actual muscle fibers get damaged
Speaker 5: by alcohol. The pancrash, you get inflammation in the pancras
Speaker 5: and you get scar tissue. For me on there, the liver,
Speaker 5: if you're really pushing it out, you're going to end
Speaker 5: up with cirrhosis where the structural processes within the liver,
Speaker 5: the scaffolding that the liver cell sit on, gets damaged,
Speaker 5: and therefore the liver doesn't work so well. So those
Speaker 5: are the sort of things if you're pushing alcohol, they
Speaker 5: don't tend to come back well, but the actual acute
Speaker 5: toxic effect of the alcohol within a couple of days,
Speaker 5: you're well on the way to getting rid of those.
Speaker 13: Okay, I just wanted to know about the organs. I
Speaker 13: got told that the other day that it takes about
Speaker 13: six years.
Speaker 9: I knew.
Speaker 13: I knew instantly, you know, within six months to a year,
Speaker 13: I felt much better about it. It's cool, yeah, no,
Speaker 13: and then yeah, he really involved with AA at the moment.
Speaker 13: So it's just well done for those out there. That
Speaker 13: are looking for something, just give it a go, you know.
Speaker 13: Just we're not too much of a mad bunch.
Speaker 9: We laugh a lot.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, we're a good supportive cruise.
Speaker 5: So the most important thing is recognizing you may have
Speaker 5: the problem and putting your hand up. If you try
Speaker 5: and do it on your own, you were going to
Speaker 5: fall flat on your face and fail, absolutely guaranteed.
Speaker 3: Thanks Sarah, good stuff. I always think with I mean,
Speaker 3: I've spoken with a few people like that, and it's andy.
Speaker 3: You can easily think too far ahead about what if
Speaker 3: I go dowck on what'salon this and this and this
Speaker 3: and this. It's like, you know what, just pick up
Speaker 3: the phone or head out the door and just put
Speaker 3: one foot in front of the other and walk on
Speaker 3: the door. And from what I've heard, it's fine, it's great.
Speaker 3: It's just those just take the simple steps. Don't imagine
Speaker 3: the whole journey.
Speaker 5: But the other thing is recognizing the problem isn't with
Speaker 5: other people around me. The problem is within me, and
Speaker 5: I have to give up that ownership of it to
Speaker 5: other people to help me get the sink sort of right.
Speaker 3: Bearyl, good good.
Speaker 14: Afternoon, Hello Tim and John, Hello dtr John and doctor John,
Speaker 14: I want to put to bed and old what maybe
Speaker 14: an old wife's tale. But I've heard other people tell
Speaker 14: me just as well because their mother's told them. When
Speaker 14: I grew up, if we had a boil or anything
Speaker 14: that was sort of an infectious in the system, my mother,
Speaker 14: like many mothers, would say, you know, boil up some
Speaker 14: parsley and that cleans out the blood. Now we know
Speaker 14: that party is good for iron, but is it true
Speaker 14: or not true that? And I don't wish it to
Speaker 14: be an unfair question to you, but from what you know,
Speaker 14: does party actually clean the blood out and help you
Speaker 14: to get either having a boil or a skin on sexture?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 5: Not to my knowledge, Okay, I can't. I can't remember
Speaker 5: any scientific papers on it, so I don't know about it.
Speaker 5: But it doesn't seem to make sense. Boils are normally
Speaker 5: caused by an infective agent, normally staphlococcasaureus and passed down
Speaker 5: forty You.
Speaker 3: Won't kill that, Okay, that's a no. Not to my
Speaker 3: knowledge is such a nice way of going I would
Speaker 3: have I was just wain if you go no, But
Speaker 3: thank you Beryl's here's a few texts. Can your liver
Speaker 3: with cirrhosis ever recover.
Speaker 5: Once the structure is damaged. No, but the liver can
Speaker 5: still function. Stop hitting it with alcohol and you may
Speaker 5: be able to make it last as long as you
Speaker 5: want it to.
Speaker 3: Okay, what's best to help me sleep? A small glass
Speaker 3: of wine with my meal or a quarter of a
Speaker 3: zopper Clone thanks?
Speaker 5: Neither good sleep.
Speaker 3: I've never I mean, I have a colleague of was
Speaker 3: to a friend of mine who's saying he took a
Speaker 3: zopper Clone and I was think, gosh, what are you
Speaker 3: taking zopperclone for. I've never taken a sleeping tabin in
Speaker 3: my life, even if I'm in a bad nights sleep,
Speaker 3: because I just have the suspicion that it's a slippery
Speaker 3: slope of reliance.
Speaker 5: It can be. Yeah, so try and avoid those sleeping ones.
Speaker 5: If you're doing it, you do it for a short
Speaker 5: period of time to re establish a seat sleep pattern
Speaker 5: and stop.
Speaker 3: Actually, somebody's asked a question I'll paraphrase it about having
Speaker 3: to get up in the middle of the night to
Speaker 3: go to the peak to get to pee, and sometimes
Speaker 3: sleeping like a baby when nothing's changed. You're in fluid
Speaker 3: in take hasn't changed. Why are some nights you're up
Speaker 3: and then the night's just when you're out to the count.
Speaker 5: It's because God's a horrible woman. She gives me in
Speaker 5: this prostate gland. And it happens to all men that
Speaker 5: they start to have prosthetic enlargement and better outflowbstruction and
Speaker 5: sometimes it'll just flick off during the night.
Speaker 3: Here's just a story of change here, Hi, Tim and John.
Speaker 3: I recently gave up alcohol because one gin and night
Speaker 3: was a trigger for ongoing reflux. By giving up drink,
Speaker 3: I was able to give up the emet presole brilliant
Speaker 3: that I had to take to manage the reflux. I
Speaker 3: feel so much better because of the change. Bingo good
Speaker 3: news story.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And some people don't realize it's the alcohol that's
Speaker 5: causing all those problems guest writers common from alcohol.
Speaker 3: Actually, we probably just we've only got about a minute
Speaker 3: to go. But I guess the thing is, what would
Speaker 3: be Is there any way of quickly say what are
Speaker 3: the questions you should ask yourself if you if there
Speaker 3: is a potential problem with alcohol. I guess if you're
Speaker 3: asking yourself the question, you probably have a problem, do you.
Speaker 5: One of the things I'd suggested is to ask other
Speaker 5: people around you do you think do you see me
Speaker 5: having a problem with my drinking? Because they will give
Speaker 5: you an object of view if they say you're something
Speaker 5: that's worrying me. Man, Yes, you've got a problem. You
Speaker 5: need to address it.
Speaker 3: And if one of those if you're intimidating personality, you
Speaker 3: need to give them permission to be completely honest. Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 3: I won't hold this against you. Please be honest. Yeah,
Speaker 3: good stuff. Hey, when's the next trip?
Speaker 10: Trip?
Speaker 5: Nick Cricket? Trip is January next year?
Speaker 3: You're going on holiday somewhere.
Speaker 5: Then maybe and Zimbabwe?
Speaker 3: Are you a sunny sort of holiday guy? Do you
Speaker 3: like to go to that skiing instead?
Speaker 5: I like to sit in the sun.
Speaker 3: He's just stunning himself on a rock somewhere. What a side?
Speaker 3: No no for that project. Joe stuff, John, I thanks
Speaker 3: so much. Great Tavy in the studio as always, that's
Speaker 3: doctor John Cameron. We'll be back with Amanda Morale is
Speaker 3: next talking about is it a personality type when you're
Speaker 3: good with money or can you actually do something about it?
Speaker 3: I e one hundred and eighty ten eighty back shortly
Speaker 3: for more from the Weekend Collective. Listen live to News
Speaker 3: talk sed be weekends from three pm, or follow the
Speaker 3: podcast on iHeartRadio.