Dr. Deb

Looking for an awesome gift for Mother’s Day? How about the gift of health! Women are often the caregivers for their families, putting the needs of their spouses, children, and parents before their own. As a result, women’s health and well being suffer. National Women’s Health Week kicks off on this Sunday, Mothers Day, to empower women to make their own health a priority.

Dr. Deb’s National Women’s Heath Week Tips

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Have you ever been so stressed that you can’t eat? Me neither. My standard reaction to stress is to find comfort in food. Eating high fat/high sugar foods raises endorphins or happy chemicals that can calm in times of stress. Stress also provides a great excuse as we are “too busy to exercise”, but stress may do something more that actually increases fat even if we are eating the same calories. It raises cortisol, the fight or flight hormone, that actually creates more fat, especially around the belly organs (visceral fat) which can be the most dangerous kind of fat to our health.

The body responds to all stress whether physical or psychological in the same way. When you are stressed, your brain acts as if you are in physical danger and you go into flight or flight mode. The hormone cortisol is released which actually increases fat storage because it thinks your body just burned a bunch of calories fleeing, even though it was only your mind, and you actually burned very few calories. It also tells your body that it is hungry. As long as you are stressed, the body keeps making cortisol and making more fat. Cortisol also slows down your metabolism so you may not lose weight even though you are eating less.

Americans tend to live in a constant state of stress. Our bodies need some stress but lowering stress to a manageable level is not only good for our heart but our waist line as well.

Dr. Deb’s Stress Less, Lose Weight Tips

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Every single minute a woman will die from cardiovascular disease with more women now dying from heart disease than men. However, she is less likely to experience the typical “elephant on the chest pain” but frequently may be so exhausted that she can’t walk up the steps. Instead of thinking heart attack, many women will ignore this surprising sign, contributing to more women dying of cardiovascular disease than the next 5 leading causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer.

Learn the secret signs of heart attack in women that may start weeks before an actual attack, and most importantly act upon them.

Dr. Deb’s Surprising Signs of a Heart Attack in Women

1. Unusual Fatigue

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It’s crunch time for decorating, buying, wrapping and baking for the next week but nothing says BAH HUMBUG like someone in the family getting sick.  Check out my tips to stop sickness from being the scrooge at your holiday.

Dr. Deb’s Healthy Holiday Tips

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Every parent dreads that 4-letter word, LICE. Still, 25% of children will get lice each year making it the most common communicable childhood disease after colds. I had dodged the bullet for 11 years of schooling and became a little blasé when a lice note came home that once again a child was infected in the class. I put my daughter’s hair up about a week until she pleaded, “Please let me wear my hair down!  Look how beautiful I am?” I succumbed and let her clean long hair billow down for that prepuberty beautiful feeling doesn’t last forever, I rationed. It was not 4 hours later when school called and we had the bugs!

After a million loads of laundry and hours of combing hair, I have learned a few things that I will do differently that I would like to share to hopefully keep my and your house free of the louses, (lice).

Head lice are wingless insects that do not carry disease and are mostly harmless unless you are the parent that has to rid your family of them. They must feed multiple times a day and cannot survive off the head for 48 hours. They actually prefer clean hair so it not true that they only live with dirty people. Lice affect all socioeconomic classes. There is no shame in getting lice. The shame is not treating it completely. More information on lice treatment at can be found at the CDC.

This blog is talking about prevention and I am going a little rogue with some tips without the scientific studies but plenty of parental testimony.

One louse can lay 10 eggs or nits per day and they will hatch in about 7-9 days so it is critical to keep lice prevention measures at least 2-3 weeks after lice are noted in the class.

Dr. Deb’s Lice Prevention Tips

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