the top of the hour when cnn saturday morning continues. >> but first "sanjay gupta m.d." begins right now. good morning, i'm dr. sanjay gupta. welcome to a place where we're going to help you to live longer and stronger. i'm going to be your doctor but also your coach and your guide. we're going to start with the news of the moment, health care. imagine going to a third world country and getting first class health care for a fraction of the cost. i went along with these patients to see for myself. remarkable stories. also the segway, the inventor is a man, many call a modern day thomas edison. extraordinary views on health care. in fact, he thinks he has that solution. we'll tell you about it. elizabeth cohen thinks that having more sex is good for your health. we'll tell you all about it. let's go.

well, here we are. sanjay gupta m.d. it's a new journey for me and i'm delighted to be able to take it with you. we're going to do this together and learn a lot along the way. but we start with the ongoing battle over health care. your best option is going to a third world country to save money. >> we're all dressed, packed, ready to go. >> people, patients, from all parts of the world. packing up and heading here. all in search of the same thing. so we found ourselves in delhi, where are all of these patients congrega congregating? if you google it, you'll find more than 5 million results, $60 billion will be spent on medical tourism this year, in the next two years, $100 billion. came here to the hospital, we

want to find the patients. hello? hi, how are you? nice to meet you. sandra has been waiting more than three years for surgery to treat her. >> how much is it going to cost here, sandra? >> it will be under ten. >> reporter: $175,000 versus $10,000. her story is typical. on average the cost of some operations could be 10% of what they would cost in the west. no surprise, some of them are venturing beyond their borders for the first time to get medical care. what they often find is a new culture, a new language. but also a new kind of patient experience. a balance of western medicine and eastern hospitality. but, of course, it's the quality of medical care that really matters. i scrubbed in on a few operations while in delhi to get

an inside look. first up, a surgery for sandra's heart. >> how are you feeling? >> good. >> she's been a little nervous, but said one of the things that helped her is her doctor back home has been communicating with her doctor here in india. gives her a real sense of comfort. >> ready to see the inside of your heart? take a look over here at these images. what you're looking at is her beating heart, the catheters are going in, they're about to do the critical part of the procedure. >> we're enjoying to check in with sandra in a second, but we were curious, how does a hospital like this take care of patients from so many different countries? most tourists book their operations online with a help of a medical travel planner. companies like planet hospital facilitate the whole trip. wi-fi in your room, access to food chain restaurants, coffee shops, a book cafe all in the hospital lobby. but with all of this personal

attention, high-tech machines, highly trained doctors, how can the price be so much cheaper? >> we keep our administration costs very low. we negotiate our machines very, very hard. i get paid less than a tenth of what a neurosurgeon in the united states would make. our personal costs are much lower. >> reporter: of course, no matter how far you travel for medical treatment, there are concerns like post-op care and also what your legal rights are. and there's no guarantee it's going to work out as planned. as for sandra, her surgery was a success. i had a look at her heart scans post-op and the fiblation was gone, for now. >> it was a remarkable trip for sure. and after spending so much time in india, it's clear to me that this concept of medical tourism has only begun. we're going to travel to to show you stories of what's happening around the world. take a look at this. a new feature on the show every

week. i'm going to post an image like this one on cnn.com/sanjayguptamd. so far we've gotten all sorts of different guesses. sponge in the brain was one of the guesses, brain tumor, stroke. the mystery will be solved later on in the show. also, something a lot of people are talking about. the new body scanners. there are reports question a lot of people are asking, could they be exposing you to harmful radiation. i'm going to answer that on "ask the doctor." and a conversation with one of my favorite guys, an inventor of sorts and also has a fascinating view on health care. introduces-- drum roll please-- new breathe right extra. the only strip with an extra spring-like band, it's 50% stronger for congested noses that need extra help in opening nasal passages... so you breathe even better. and now get two free samples... and experience a better night's sleep for yourself.

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visit totalcereal.com and get a coupon. we're back. every week at this time i'm going to be answering your questions. think of this as a your own appoint. . no waiting, no insurance, as well. we've been getting a lot of questions about something on the news lately. about the safety of the new airport scanners. a lot of the scanners are already in airports and more are on the way as we heard from

president obama recently. and annette in washington, d.c. writes this, i would like to know if it presents any health hazards. more specifically, harmful radiation that could lead to long-term problems. annette, let me start off by saying this. i travel all the time, i have a wife and three kids who also travel a lot. i want to break this down for you. first of all we're talking about this thing called back scatter x-ray screening. the important thing to sort of notice as you look at images like this is you're actually bouncing some radiation off the scan and it's coming back to the machine. that's how authorities can scan and get images like the ones you're looking at right here. they're trying to look for some dangerous items that might be underneath someone's clothes. but we've checked into this. the radiation is at low levels. again, it's bouncing off the skin, not penetrating the skin or more importantly penetrating your organs. this is unlike a medical x-ray. you know, you get an x-ray like this and you see a hip implant.

that's what a medical x-ray looks like used to see bones and other tissues. passing through these scanners exposes to you 100 times less. now, when flying as you know you're exposed to cosmic radiation because you're closer to the sun. so as far as this goes, bottom line it would take about 125,000 trips a year to hit the yearly max dose. every expert that we've talked to said these are safe even if you're a frequent flier, the radiation's not going to add up. tsa does add, as well, if you want, you have the option of a pat down if you're concerned. now, i want to switch topics to something i've thought a lot about. this whole idea when we're talking about health care, we've really got to talk about personal responsibility, as well. and we're here to help you with that component of things. i'm going to show you some video that may change your mind about drinking that next soda. it's the latest youtube sensation, it's not a water

skiing squirrel or a dancing baby, but a public service announcement about soda. some viewers may find this revolting, but dr. thomas farley says it is starting to get people's attention. >> we have an epidemic of obesity. we wanted to communicate in a way that people understand. and the visual images are the ways we communicate. >> just one soda a day, that's 100 calories could add ten pounds to your waistline over the course of a year. and recent research from ucla confirms the link saying that one soda puts you at 27% increased risk for being overweight. >> people tend not to notice those call a ri calories. in a statement posted on the website, the ada says "if the goal so to reduce obesity among new yorkers, then this campaign

should be based on fact not simply sensationalized video that's inaccurately portraying our industry's products. products that are fat-free" they go on to say that they offer no calorie and locw calorie option. farley says people have known that for years but they still don't get the point. >> most people have a very positive image of sugar-sweeten beverages. the treat at the end of the day. we wanted to drive home the idea that these are a risk. >> reporter: and the video seems to be getting that point across. >> not sure i'm going to be drinking too much soda in the near future. but i do want to stay on topic. i'm going to do my first triathlon. i've challenged six viewers to join me, as well. next week we'll reveal those folks across the country. they're going to join me and we'll start our challenge together. tune in, join the challenge. maybe you made a new year's

resolution to lose weight or eat better, those are common ones. but how about this for a new year's resolution? have more sex. well, a new report released shows sex can help you live that longer and healthier life. elizabeth cohen joining us to talk about this. i love this topic. what are some of the health benefits of sex? >> well, it's interesting, an article in the journal of sexual medicine. in the article they talk about all of the health benefits of sex, one hoch them is you live longer if you have frequent sex. now, let's look at some of the specifics. people who have frequent sex have fewer heart attacks, lower rates of prostate cancer for the men and lower rates of breast cancer for the women. everyone's asking what is frequent sex. some studies define that as three times or more a week, others define it as a more than once a month. >> sorry, doing some math here. sorry about that. but i think that lot of people wonder, how does sex do all of these things? the health benefits? >> researchers don't agree on

why they seem to be healthier. one is just that sex's good exercise. you burn about a 60 calories every time you have sex. that means -- we did the math for you, sanjay. if you have sex 12 times a month, that's the equivalent of running seven miles. you can run or have sex. there's the choice. >> i told you we were going to give valuable information. you wrote about a couple who got some of these health benefits. >> that's right. there's a couple, she lives in new york, and they decided last month to have sex every day for the month of december. they said they felt much better and they had all sorts of good things happen to them. so you can read all about that in my column. >> thank you so much for bringing this to us. you had to talk about sex -- >> of course. >> i hope you'll come back. >> of course, every week. >> stay at home, as well. we've got some answers to this whole health care mess we've been talking about. and some of them could be found in adventure machine shop. i'll explain that. and check this out. any ideas on what's going on here? the medical mystery of sorts. can you solve it?

i've got the answer later in the show. stay with us. n't have about hala i assure you it does. i can only taste... only taste the crunchy clusters, honey, and brown sugar. no madam, i don't have esp. (announcer) fiber one. cardboard no. delicious yes.

we're back with the program. every week, i'm going to be taking you into the lives of some really fascinating people. something new we're doing on the show. they could be scientists, medical innovators or even celebrities. and today we start with the inventor of more than 400 medical devices, dean cayman. >> sir, how are you? >> how are you doing? >> terrific. >> i'm so excited to be here. >> dean kamen is an inventor.

on a bitter cold day, i went to visit him at his home in new hampshire. >> well, actually, just to give you a sense of how things are going to go today, i thought i'd light the situation up. so are we ready? >> this is how you start an interview with dean kamen. a lightbulb hanging and burning. >> and burning. >> i've had this house described to me by various, one of the best ones. it's a cross between willie wonka's chocolate factory and the museum of technology. >> dean kamen, you've probably seen his most famous invention, the segway. you might know about the first robotics competition for teenagers, kamen started it. that's his true love. it was all built on medical breakthroughs. he started inventing the first

insulin pump when he was in high school. he and his company developed more than 400 patents. here's that home dialysis machine. and here's the home bot. >> you fight with somebody in these, you're going to go down. >> it's basically an i-bot on two wheels instead of four. >> you may go to lots of different places, but this may not be the first thing that comes to mind. dean kamen's machine shop, but that's where we are because technology, innovation, all of that, you believe has a very strong role when it comes to health care. what do you think of what's going on with health care right now? the whole health care debate? >> well, sadly i think it's a debate that has so polarized two sides that there's not a lot of common sense being said by anybody.

compared to where we were 10 or 20 years ago, our average age is a lot older. older people need a lot more health care than younger people. there's more health care available and they all want whatever there is. if it works, they're going to live longer and need more of it. we are generally sadly less healthy than we were. and oh, by the way, we want to make that health care available to another 50 million or 60 million people that we all claim weren't getting it before. none of those statements is likely to lead to, oh, we should be spending less of our collective resources on health care. none of it. >> do you think that with where we're headed and you've been following this very closely, that we could potentially go backwards in terms of all the progress we made in health care? >> what i'm afraid of is the result of this debate will be that we will have optimized some short-term wins. everybody will get a little health care tomorrow and they'll lower that premium by a little bit for this and lower the

co-pay for that and everybody will feel like they won. but could you make more medical care available to more people over the next couple of years b those docs stop doing all that research that will cure this disease in 5 or 10 or 20 years. don't fund that? >> dean kamen's big broad world of looking at things, what's your vision of fixing health care? >> if the next generation comes along and one by one start wiping out the diseases that we're all terrified of, besides giving us a healthier life, it will be way cheaper. now, personally, i think that will just meanwhile all expect to be 100 or 150 and there will new problems. but that's why i say this debate is unreasonable. the debate shouldn't be about we've got to spend less and less and less on health care. the debate should be we all want to live longer and healthier and happier and better. and to do that we ought to focus

our national attention on curing all these diseases and that requires a focus, serious financial commitment. you know, we want to win a war, when we're worried about our security, money's no object. why aren't we putting the same passion and focus on wiping out diseases? >> reporter: and so what is his solution? if you had a moment with president obama and he was collecting all these opinion on health care now, you just had a couple of moments, what would you say to him? alright. that's great. i want to personally thank you for 100 calorie hearty chicken rotini. well, it's not just me. you're so funny. i like you. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. the chevy malibu and toyota camry received 5 star crash safety ratings. but only malibu has onstar. big deal. i'll just use my phone. let's say we crashed. whoops, you lost your phone and you're disoriented. i'm not disoriented. now you are.

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we're back with sgmd.

he came with an inventor of 35-year record. it's remarkable. what he says is politicians are trying to us out of this health care mess are potentiallying moring a huge opportunity. what do you think, the people are not being visionary enough. not only should they not stop putting money into innovation, they can't, you're saying. what's interesting here as well, what i'm holding in my hand is in many ways the genesis of everything that you see around here. 1975. that's when dean came up with this. the auto syringe. this insulin pumps came out of this. insulin pumps is not a cure for diabetes, but it could dramatically reduce a lot of the complications that you were just talking about. how big a deal is something, you know, everything that came out of this toward the health care debate? >> if you add up the direct cost of diabetes and all the indirect costs, the higher, for instance, cardiac problems, credible people will tell you it's about one-third of what the federal

government is paying for health care. so you look at the way they extrapolate, oh, my god, the sky is falling in 30 years, this will go bankrupt and that will go bankrupt. where in the next 30 years did they pop out this young lady that is going to come up with the vaccine to virtually eliminate some major disease like diabetes. i think diabetes in 30 years will be looked at like polio or smallpox. something that you read about in history books and realize it was a terrible scourge and a plague. >> big companies and big government, to some extent as well. if you had a moment with president obama and he was collecting all of these opinion on health care now, just had a couple of moments, what would you say to him? because he wants to spend less and get more. that's what he's saying. you say, mr. president, that's not possible? is that what you would tell him? >> i would say, mr. president, i

think that there's no investment, no stimulus package, nothing you could do that would have a better return collectively to the country, to our companies, and to our citizens than to put more resources into finding really good sustainable solutions to our medical problems. what better place to focus more and more of our collective genius and innovative capability than on health care? why is the debate a fight to spend less time, less money, less resources in the thing that we all claim is the most important thing we want? it's crazy. >> these are the exact kinds of conversations we're going to have on this show. we call them colorful conversations. much more of them going straight to the source to hear people from all sorts of differents points of view on very important topics check this out now. it's the most recent invention of dean kamen. it's a swim fin built for a

double amputee. you're going to see her and meet her next week and talk a lot about that. also m you figured this out yet. so far, we've had lots of guesses. a clue, it is a scan of the brain and something happening to the brain. damage after a stroke to a brain tumor. who is right? i'll tell you next. stay with us.

we are back with "sgmd." it's time to solve the mystery. take a look here. for those of you who guessed brain tumor, you were right. this white area over here is, in fact, a tumor. if use guessed that it was also a epidermal turmer, you're right. it's a tumor that's benign. after removing the tumor the patient is, in fact, cured. you see all the area of white is obviously the tumor. the brain sort of comes back out after that tumor is removed and the patient is doing quite well. this is something we're going to do all the time. i want you to play along with us at home as well. i want you to check out the website. we'll post an image this week and then send in your guesses.