time now as always for "sunday house call." >> so glad you could join us. we have chairman and professor of urology and chief of robotics surgery. >> and professor of medical medicine. unlocking the secret code of sickness and health author. and he's joining us from sunny los angeles. >> good to see both of you. we're going to begin with shocking details from the german

wings tragedy. the co-pilot was suffering from impression and i want to start with you. how common is it for depression to get that extensive? >> well, it's an excellent question you're bringing up. there's about 350 people all over the world in the globe suffering from depression but the question is how many of them go far enough to be able to take the plane into the mountains, and it's important for people to recognize what are the signs and symptoms of depression. if anything comes out of this, looking at the guy that works next to you in the subway, conductor flrk a. it's good to see the symptoms. if somebody not showing any kind of interest in usual daily activities, if their energy level is down and finally when it all adds up and they become suicidal is usually the huge problem.

as a pilot they go through a lot of screening. over the age of 40 they go through the physical examine and history every six months. the issue is they go through the hearing and visual and all this but no psychological evaluation in the history or physical. >> i want to bring dr. mark into this. a lot of times we say i'm depressed but how do you know when it's really serious to the point of it's beyond feeling sad where you have to actually get treatment? >> you may not know, arthel. you may not realize it or you may realize it and you may be trying to hide it. there's 50,000 pilots in the united states and canada, and i have to say that the vast majority of them are functioning at a high level. i want our viewers out there to know we're talking depression and depression in pilots. there's problems with some pilots even with substance abuse. there are issues to talk about

but the vast majority are doing thousands of hours a day safely. for physicians to screen and find depression, we're talking about 3,000 faa sanctioned doctors who do as david mentioned twice a year in pilots over 40. they're looking for general things. is their appearance difference? do they communicate as well? are they sad? a lot of people in high functioning jobs may not admit. david has a related career. he's a top level surgeon and has many, many years of training where w people observing him not under scrutiny but they can see the level of function that goes on. i wanted to ask him about that. >> no, actually, i want you guys to bring the conversation back to the people at home. we understand that pilot was suffering from extreme depression to the point of being suicidal and willing to kill 149 people. i want to talk, though, about the people here watching. you know, are there, dr. siegel, i'll go back to you, are there

times in your life where you might be more depressed an others? >> look, there are attacks on this person. >> arthel, that's an excellent -- >> so breaking up with a girlfriend, long relationship, a pilot who is going to tear those prescriptions knowing that his career is going to end. all of these attacks on him has brought him to the point of saying that enough is enough. there's a story about him saying that one day i will make big enough name of myself and everybody will remember. guess what? we are remembering this. but this is a coward act of jeopardizing your life and 149 overs. >> how do you determine this? the girlfriend said he said that he was going to do something. apparently they broke up. the owner of german wings said he passed the tests. what do we do at home? what medication does work and how do you treat this seemingly growing -- >> you have to pay attention to signs and symptoms.

simple things that may not really look important to you, that's important. the big question that i want to also. >> things like what. >> if somebody says i'm tired and i've had enough and maybe i just might take a chance. i just came from somebody who was a driver and said we were playing music he said i had a rope around my neck and if my son would not have told me what do i tell my son if you're going to kill yourself, that was enough for this guy to wake up. pay attention to details and the other question is if as a doctor, i know we have hipaa rules and you can't break those because of privacy but if a doctor sees someone is going to jeopardize a lot of people's lives. should they break the rules? my answer is yes. in those circumstances, yes. what do you think? >> i agree with that. i was going to make that point. it has to do with observing behavior and feel rg they going to cross the line where public health is involved.

arthel, to your point, bringing it to the viewers. 80 to 90 % of the time depression is treated and it's treatable and i would say curable so that if someone is suffering from it they go on medications and eighty to 90% of the time they return to normal. we have to have additional level of scrutiny and performance for someone putting other people's lives on the line but depression is an illness and extremely common and easily treated. >> when a patient comes to you, w these symptoms what do you do? what do you prescribe? what do you suggest? >> i'm the front lines on this. the first thing i have to make sure that s that i have a repore with the patients and that they're telling me the truth. is there changes in their relationships? that's number one, and that may be true here. did you have a break up? are you getting a long with your family?

are you sleeping at night? are you angst? i look at their responses and see how somebody is relating to me. i think of therapy. do they need help, cognitive therapy. and then medication. >> is it something over the counter or prescribed by a doctor? >> absolutely not. it's something called the most commonly used antidepressant medication is something called an ssri. prozach, zo loft. as a primary care doctor i can prescribe them but i also have a very low threshold for getting a psychiatrist involved, especially if the patient isn't doing well initially. >> but the skpsychiatrist has t know when the pull the plug. i think he probably had a disorder which is a mild chronic depression that goes on for about two years because he has a history of this at the time when he left his training.

just pay attention but i think faa is going to look further into how to tighten up things on the plane. >> i think our whole country. i think we have to do a better job in this country in america dealing with the illness of mental illness to help people get better. >> it's okay to talk about it. >> that's an important point. it seems like it's taboo because it's a psych disorder. >> go to your doctor and tell the truth and don't try to hide anything. >> getting a scrape or cut can be painful and uncomfortable but now they say there's a new type of ther any in the works that be make the wounds heal a lot faster. not just band-aids. we'll tell you what it is coming up. sunday dinners at my house... it's a full day for me, and i love it.

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house call." imagine cutting in half the time it takes for a wound to heel. that's what researchers are hoping will happen with a new type of technology. nano technology. we start with a fancy term. what is it? it sounds like ho kus poke us. i just kiss it and make it better and use a neosporin. >> if you kiss your wound, you'll get more bacteria in it. don't kiss it. you have to understand that many people have problems with wounds healing. it turns out there's an enzyme that stops your rescue workers from coming to heal the wound. it stops your white blood cells and immune system and the good skin from coming to form over.

so now scientists have figured out a way to block that bad enzyme from forming and they take this treatment and they package it up in nano particles which means microscopic. that's what you want to know. it's a microscopic particle that gets to the source of the wound and heals it. your next question which i anticipate is when is this in the doctor's office? >> can i go get it? >> right now, it's passed mice and human tissue. it's going to go to pigs now which david will tell you we use in medical school to teach us how to sew. i failed that. that's why he's a surgeon and i'm not. from pigs it gets to doctor's offices a few years away. >> what exactly is it? >> think about nano technology as something that's almost at the level of a cell. it's tiny. something you would never be

able to see with the naked eye. nano technology is a very hot field and far lot of people who want to make money in the future, pay attention. >> we don't care about stocks. we want to know what it is. >> you put i on yot on your ski a band-aid? >> it can bring more blood flee. >> is it a cream or salve? >> right now we'll see how it's going to pan out. right now it's all investigation and right now it's a clinical trial. it's in mice and is going to go to pig. we'll see how it pans out but nano technology is get for treatment of die beet in the future, is to deliver chemotherapy at the cells. these are vehicles that we can give you an injection and the nano technology can go in and be directed at the areas it needs to be. for cancers, it's really the way of the future. >> so it can be an injection and

that'll make the wound heal faster. >> that's right. basically it inhibits the cells that delay wound healing and by half. this is all part of the study. and as part of reducing inflammation. >> it's not going to be in the show. >> wait. >> okay. >> i love the fact that erik is always looking for a quick fix. >> it's in the movie hunger games but it's not yet in the show. they use it in science fiction but it's not ready for prime time. >> his boo boo is waiting. >> still to come but one viewer's question about possibility having too much potassium in her blood and the risks that go along with that. we'll talk about that after the break.

. back now. time now for our weekly segment about everything that worries us. this viewer asks, i am a 68-year-old hispanic woman, and my health habgos been good unti last week and my blood work showed a high potassium level. should i worry? first of all, if you can explain what happens to the body if it has too much potassium, and how do you even check your potassium levels? z >> the doctor draws the blood, and potassium is responsible for cell muscles and the heart. if you have too much potassium you'll have heart problems. i would treat potassium under the supervision of a medical or cardiac doctor. things such as adrenal

insufficiency, if you are on potassium pills, all of these are reasons you might have this. there are herbs that i will put on my facebook page for everyone to see, there is a whole list of them over here which i will read to you. but they need to know about this because this is important and can increase this. >> while you look for that, let. may i? something dr. segel just said, some people do have high blood pressure, but then they have to take potassium because the blood pressure medicine drains the body of potassium. again, how do you even know if your potassium is too high, and what does too much potassium do to the body? >> you just made a great point, which is when you have high

blood pressure, we tend to use agents that can actually bring your potassium up higher. i want you to understand the kidney is the filter here. the kidney has to get rid of the potassium in the body. if the kidney is impaired, then you end up backing up, and with too much potassium or if the adrenal gland needs repaired, both of those can lead to heart arrhythm irk arrhyt arrhythmia where your heart stops beating. i can look on an electric tro cardiogr cardiogram to see that potassium. i send the patient to a hospital which is the first priority in a situation like that. >> doctor, you mentioned herbs can help? >> there is something called

ginseng, which i have not used before, but it can increase your potassi potassium. or lily of the valley. these are herbs that people can use not knowing they're increasing their potassium. always talk to your doctor about what you're taking, but improve your blood pressure first before taking potassium. >> sometimes you get cramps in your legs when you take this kind of medication. what is that a sign of? >> it's a sign of interfering with your muscle capability and talk to a doctor. don't do it on your own. that's dangerous. >> i just get potassium from bananas. if you have my questions for your doctors, e-mail it. >> e-mail us and we may just answer it right here on the air, and by the way, all names and e-mail addresses are kept completely confidential. coming up, we have a new health alert for pregnant women. researchers are warning them to be more careful about how much weight they put on before and during pregnancy.

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i love making sunday dinners. but when my back hurt, cooking all day... forget about it. tylenol was ok, but it was 6 pills a day. but aleve is just 2 pills all day. and now, i'm back! aleve. and back now on "sunday housecall." there is a new warning for pregnant women. researchers say those who are overweight before pregnancy or gain weight while pregnant, they're more likely to have

obese children, and those children, they say, are more likely to become obese as adults. we know obesity is a widespread epidemic in this country, so what does this study show? >> this is a double problem, eric, not just a single problem. i can already tell you women who are pregnant nanthat are obese e risk of diabetes, risk of birth complications, actually. this study at columbia looking at low-income women discovers that at the age of seven, their children are three times more likely to be obese. guess what that leads to? those obese children go on to become obese adults. they, too, get high blood pressure with diabetes and risk of high blood pressure and strokes. it was reported in 2011 that we doctors are not even discussing weight with our patients. about half of the time, me and doctors like me are not even

saying, hey, you're overweight, you're obese. if you're going to have a baby, you better do something. >> well, i understand that you told me this before, dr. somati, that the patients don't want to hear they're overweight. another thing, how much on average, different for every woman, i'm sure, but how much is the average weight women should gain during pregnancy? >> normally 25 to 30 pounds, but if you're obese going into pregnancy, it's about 11 to 20 pound. if you catch obesity early on, i used to say age two and four, then we can do something before they become diabetic or before they become obese. now based on this study, i'm going to change my mind. obesity and diabetes is actually starting from birth. and when somebody goes into pregnancy, they should prepare themselves and try to lose the weight. this is a very important one. talking to the patients about their weight, i think, is important. there is a finesse and art to

medicine to tell your patient how to lose weight, but it can change somebody's future in diabetes, heart disease, et cetera. this is a very important study. >> doctor, what is your suggestion for losing weight and preventing this obesity epidemic? >> the best suggestion is to listen to what he just said, if people aren't listening, it doesn't matter how much talking i'm doing, so we have to figure out ways to get people to change their lifestyle, and i personally believe exercise is where it starts. if you can do some exercise every single day, even if it's just walking, ramp up to my favorite, the elliptical, or the bike or some running, but some cardio exercise every day and cut the bread out of your diet. my prescription for this week, get rid of bread. >> i think genetics plays a big role. there are people on all the time, they're listening to the show, they're changing their diet but they have genetic problems. for those i think we need to get serious help, but it does work. clearly, weight loss is the way

to go. >> clearly, the mediterranean diet, right? all right. thanks, dr. mark. get back to new york. we're jealous you're in l.a. thank you, dr. somati, dr. segel. >> we're here every sunday to make you healthier. 48 hours before the deadline to hammer out a deal on iran's nuclear program. the newly elected prime minister calls the deal worse than he thought and called iran's involvement in the war with yemen a disaster and it has to stop. we'll have this debate. this landing did not go as planned. the pilots of a canadian flight have a lot of questions to answer. their plane careened off the runway leaving passengers hanging on for dear life. we'll tell you what the plane hit on the bay weiway down. plus, millions of christian