Voices

Medicine Medley with Dr. Sanjay Gupta

In case you were wondering, trampolines are dangerous. And teeth and feet are the two parts of the body many say in retrospect they wished they would have treated better.

These may seem like insignificant factoids, but Dr. Sanjay Gupta was full of them when he shared his thoughts with customers here at Sage Summit.

Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN journalist, told the audience about medicine and the media, sharing his own personal experiences traveling overseas, facing his own mortality and performing surgery.

“Being on television, I don’t typically get to give talks like the one I’m going to give you, he said, adding that he became a reporter eight years ago. “Doctors sometimes aren’t the best communicators. But I do enjoy being able to tell stories.”

But back to teeth.

Gupta noted that by age 60 Americans have lost one-third of their teeth. Experts can tell someone’s age within five years simply by looking at their choppers.

Jumping from one topic to the next, Gupta noted that women between the ages of 25 and 54 are the primary health care drivers in the family.

He touched upon nutrition and weight issues, saying that plate size makes a big difference in how people can cut calories.

Smaller plates can reduce calories about a third, Gupta said, adding that people should push away the plate when they are 80 percent full. We misinterpret hunger as thirst. Our body is not good in distinguishing between those two things.

He also said that while it’s positive that people go to the gym during lunch, Western culture is an aerobics-based society and human bodies are designed to be active all day long, not just for one part of the day.

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