Even blink when they see teenagers coming in to have their elbows rebuilt. Stephen strasburg and matt harvey, this year Jose Fernandez and chris medla with surgery number two. Young stars on the shelf. Now, these guys throw hard. Straussburg throws an average 95 miles an hour. The Cincinnati Reds chapman has closed at 106 miles an hour. Not only are the balls coming faster theyre coming with more stuff. Throwing the ball 95 to 100 miles an hour is a ridiculous amount of torque on your arm. After 15 durable years as a pro, Bronson Arroyo of the Arizona Diamondbacks recently announced hell undergo tommy john surgery to replace a torn elbow ligament. I thought i would take time off and a lot of swelling but i was totally surprised when he said the ligament was totally ripped off the bone. Despite intense monitoring and cautious pitch limits a third of big league pitchers have now had this operation. The American SportsMedicine Institute calls it an epidemic. But they say the damage doesnt start at the professional level. What pitchers are doing in their teen years, you know, how much baseball theyre playing, how much throwing theyre doing, i think it has a direct correlation to what were seeing later on in their careers. Mark silverman has coached his sons Little League team for four years. Kids are playing three, four, five games a day. Pitching six, seven, eight innings a day. And youre looking at kids going up well into the 100s of pitches, one afternoon, one game. So yeah. And joining me from new york is david epstein, hes the author most recentof the sports gene inside the science of extraordinary athletic performance. You know, what strikes me, david, when i hear about these things, you know, we seem to baby, if you will, pitchers more than ever in the big leagues and yet these arm injuries are at an alltime high. So, how do you reconcile those two things . Thats right. Theres no question that Major League Pitchers are pitching less than they ever have before. Pitch counts are kind of at historic lows. But these injuries are set in motion in the developing elbow, right . So, this is something where the groundwork is set by microtears in the ligament when that elbow is developing, you know, during puberty when the arms growing and so what were seeing at the Major League Level is something that cant be prevented at the major heeg level. It has to be prevented in the developing pitcher. Youre saying all this happens before they even get to the big leagues. They show up as good as they may be they show up with the microtears or microinjuries. Thats right. Theyre pitching less than ever at the major league. Theres only so much less they could even possibly pitch at the Major League Level, but their lifetime pitch counts are higher than ever before. Youth pitchers are playing for multiple teams now. The teams that arent coordinating between one another. So instead of having maybe 80 pitches on 5 days rest, youre having 80 pitches on one or two days rest for youth pitchers. There are these showcases where youth pitchers are sort of made to show up if they want to be scouted by other teams so theyre pitching like crazy. And radar guns have become ubiquitous, not just coaches but parents are using them now. So they are throwing harlder than ever before at a younger age. One of the things weve been thinking, the number of operations are increasing and its reflective of the fact that theres all these problems with elbows in particular. Could it be that not so much you have more injuries its that were diagnosing them more, players are more likely to get the surgery as opposed to before . So it may not have changed that much its just our approach toward intervention has changed. I think theres an aspect of that certainly more getting diagnosed and sort of continuing to want to pitch rather than sort of dropping out of the sport altogether. At the same time the surgeries are going up among, you know, high school and youth pitchers as well, so i think some of is actually a higher prevalence of the injury itself as well as some increased diagnosis. I remember doing a story and some of the orthopedic surgeons are saying the young people are coming in, i get the tommy john, for example, where i have two ligaments in that area of the elbow, instead of one, makes my arm stronger and makes it more resilient long term so theyre more likely to get the surgery. We dont know obviously and i dont think that orthopedic surgeons would saying they are doing unnecessary surge ril, but no question the numbers have gone up. Is it just pitch count . I remember they used to be concerned about kids throwing curveballs, for example, is it the type of throw theyre doing or just the number of throws . I think some of the emphasis on the curveball because it can be this weird arm motion. Thats actually sort of receded a little bit and the studies are pointing to number of throws and strength of throws. So the kids are trying to throw harder, again, partially because of radar guns. Theyre not having the offseason they used to have that you can use to strengthen your rotator cuff the muscles and ligaments to build the flexibility in your shoulder. They miss the time that they were building up the support to resist throwing harder, to resist the damage from throwing harder and instead theyre spending more time throwing harder. The issue of throwing junkballs and curveballs seems to have receded a little bit and not quite as important as we once thought. Always great to have you on the program. Thanks for having me. Any time. Coming up why a federally funded, supported study of medical marijuana just ran into some big trouble. Well explain. Wouldnt it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters shopping online is as easy as it gets. And even piano tuners were just as simple . 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These could be signs of rare but serious side effects. Are you down with crestor . Ask your doctor if crestor could help you. If you cant afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. When it comes to medical marijuana there havent been nearly enough studies actually testing its effectiveness. We talk about all the time. That was a pretty big deal when the fda approved a study at the university of arizona looking at marijuana as a possible treatment for veterans with posttramatic stress. But, you know, this week the professor who was launching that trial was let go by the university. Sue sicily had been an associate professor in the college of medicine more than seven years and she thinks the move came down to politics. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Are you doing all right . Yes, we sure are. Were going to persevere, believe me. Its a jarring time for you. Oh, its so demoralizing because this is work weve been fighting for for over four years now and the veterans have actually been Standing Shoulder to shoulder with us pushing to get this work implemented and to have it cut off at the knees like this is so disheartening. I want to talk specifically about the study because as you know its something we report on a lot. But let me ask whats going on with you and the university. They say, look, this is not out of the ordinary. We make these decisions all the time and not renew peoples contracts. They wouldnt comment specifically on your case. What do you i mean, they dont seem to be thinking this is some big deal, though. Well, the university took away my work without giving me any reason, not even a fair hearing. It wasnt an issue of job performance, thats clear from my evals. It was an issue i was at the forefront of some of the most Controversial Research at the university of arizona, and it appears that the u of a may have buckled under the pressure of some very rightwing lawmakers in arizona who have gone on record to say that they oppose Marijuana Research. I want to point out, again, we did talk to the university. They wouldnt comment specifically on you, but they did say in 2013 specifically the university championed state legislation to ensure that universities could perform medical Marijuana Research on campus. They say they have not received political pressure to terminate any employee as has been suggested. Well, its clear that Marijuana Research was that is fda approved was always legal to do on campus. When youre doing federally regulated Marijuana Research it supercedes state laws. So, thats what we were urging the university to simply find us a home, but they refused suggesting it was illegal and that they needed to run this bill through the legislature, so that served to delay the implementation of this research another eight, nine months because they had to, you know, navigate a bill through the legislature and that succeeded in doing what theyd hoped was to impede the progress of this research. They could never seem to embrace the optics of conducting Marijuana Research on their campus. And just quickly, to button that up, were you political at all in any way . Did you try and influence an election or any part of the career of any of these elected officials . No. I was simply trying to educate the public about the need to eliminate all these unnecessary barriers to Marijuana Research. I was an outspoken advocate for conducting this work and trying to hem our veterans, so thats been my sole focus over the last four years how do we help our vets who are coming back in droves with ptsd that is treatment resistant, how do we help these folks . And it seemed we had a mountain of anecdotal evidence that many vets are using this plant successfully to manage their symptoms. Nobody is saying its a cure. Right. But it does seem to be effective for symptom control and the notion that theres a potential that a plant could reduce the human suffering of these vets and yet its being forced to sit on the shelf not being allowed to be tested rigorously is an abomination and i think we have a duty as physicians, you know, as the general citizenry to demand that this plant be put through the proper Drug Development processed of the fda and thats all weve ever wanted. Look, throughout history, right, there have been these constant conflicts between science and politics and theres been times when it just hasnt been easy at all. Hopefully i come down on the side of science and facts and data, let people be educated. I hope we get to that point. Yep. I agree. I think we will. I have hope. I still love the university of arizona. I will always be devoted to them, and i think this was just the decision of a few shortsighted, negligent administrators who dont see the value of this work. Theres a lot of fear out there still. Yeah, there really is. Appreciate you coming on the program. Its a challenging time for you, but hopefully this will help shine some light on it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. You got it. Up next an experimental treatment that doctors say just might be able to reverse the damage from a heart attack. , i have occasional constipation. Thats why i take doctor recommended colace capsules. [ male announcer ] for certain medical conditions where straining should be avoided, colace softens the stool for effective relief from occasional constipation. Go to colacecapsules. Com for savings. Consider this, this year alone more than a million americans are going to suffer a heart attack and the thinking has always been that the damage is permanent. That even if you survive a major heart attack, that the scarring will eventually lead to heart failure. Possibly even death. But a new experimental treatment out there using stem cells may be changing the picture. This is called the widowmaker. Gerald cartman a dermatologist near los angeles suffered a heart attack in march. All of a sudden, the pain started. I mean, i couldnt sit still. I mean, even in the car, you know, driving over there, i couldnt put a seat belt on. Im just moving around, just trying to, you know, think of something else, but the pain overtakes every thought. Doctors in the emergency room saved his life. But 20 of carpmans heart muscle was already dead. You can lose onequarter or even 40 of your functioning heart muscle overnight. During a heart attack, heart muscle is starved of oxygen and it dies. If the patient survives, a scar forms over that dead tissue. The remaining muscle cant pump as much blood. When the damage is extensive enough over time, months or years, the body tries to compensate by making the heart larger, but that only makes the pumping even less efficient. Its a vicious cycle, which leads in the end to heart failure. In april carpman checked into cedar sinai hospital to take part in a new Clinical Trial testing stem cells to actually reverse the damage from a heart attack. Heres how the treatment works. Doctors infuse 25 million stem cells into the damaged coronary artery. From there cells embed themselves in the heart tissue where they trigger the growth of new blood vessels. So, the end result is new heart muscle. Dr. Eduardo marban developed the stem cell procedure. The cells will be there. Theyll be this for weeks. And during that time they do their magic and their magic stays behind long after the cells are gone. Other small studies have also gotten good results using a patients own cardiac stem cells. This approach uses cells grown from the hearts of organ donors. Its simpler. And marban says it seems to work just as well. The study aims to test the treatment at more than two dozen hospitals around the United States on more than 300 patients. We caught up with gerald carpman nine weeks after his procedure. Hes back to walking four miles a day. What he doesnt know, though, is whether he actually got stem cells or just a dummy treatment, a placebo. That wont be revealed until the end of the trial. Probably late next year. Along with answers that could spell hope or disappointment for millions of patients. If you have the placebo effect, it may be the stem cells, i dont know. I havent thought too much about it. Im just happy im feeling better. That might be the future of medicine but, you know, there is another way to reverse heart damage thats decidedly low tech. I talk about this a lot. You heard me say this before. But the evidence just got Even Stronger for food as medicine. Cleveland clinic researchers have now confirmed that food can heal your heart. Their study published in the journal of Family Practice found a plantbased diet not only prevents heart attacks but can actually reverse the damage. First of all, out of the patients that tried the vegan diet, almost 9 out of 10 stuck with it. 81 had fewer symptoms and experienced fewer complications from heart disease. A whopping 22 reversed signs of heart disease. And the participants lost almost 20 pounds each on average. You have some easytoremember adages about how people can decide what they should or should not eat. We know what they shouldnt eat, that is oil, dairy, meat, fish, and chicken. What do we want them to eat . We want them to eat all those whole grains for their cereal, bread, and pasta, beans, vegetables, yellow, red, green, and fruit. Now, what particular vegetables do we want them to have . Bok choy, swiss chard, kale, collard greens, mustard green, napa cabbage, broccoli, kawer flower and arugula and asparagus and im out of breath. The mantra is eat nothing that has a mother or a face. The doctors insist if you stick to that advice you wont have a heart attack in the first place. Who doesnt want that . Still ahead, the kids already. Ill tell you who has the happiest, healthiest kids and what you can learn from this one particular kind of parent. F provokes lust. It elicits pride. Incites envy. And unleashes wrath. Temptation comes in many heartpounding forms. But only one letter. F. The performance marque from lexus. Thats why i always choose the fastest intern. R slow. The fastest printer. The fastest lunch. Turkey club. The fastest pencil sharpener. The fastest elevator. The fastest speed dial. The Fastest Office plant. So why wouldnt i choose the fastest wifi . I would. Switch to comcast Business Internet and get the fastest wifi included. Comcast business. Built for business. Well wrr, heres the headli children of samesex parents are happier and healthier than their