i'm arthel neville. time now for "sunday housecall." >> i'm eric shawn. joining us is dr. marc siegel, professor of medicine of langone medicalered? an author of "the inner pulse". >> and dr. david samadi chairman and professor of urology at lennox hill hospital and chief of robotic surgery. good to have you all together. >> good to have you back. >> good to be here. >> and start with a really warming and inspiring story in maryland. a little boy lost use of both of his hand, lost them completely

when he had an infection as a toddler and new he's youngest patient to ever receive a successful double hand transplant. dr. siegel takes a look. >> there is one very fortunate boy at children's hospital of philadelphia. zion harvey lost his feet and hands due to infection at age 2, but now thanks to the gift of courageous parents who donated the arms of their lost child he has a new set of hands at eight 8. he's very first child in the world to receive a hand transplant. what did zion expect now? we sat down with a head of a transplant team of 12 surgeons saying children are more adaptable when it comes to adults in regenerating nerves and muscle. a couple weeks out of surgery young zion is already playing with his ipad. >> as he strengthens with intense therapy over weeks and weeks and months and monies it's our belief that he'll have a good grip, functional hands and whether he throws a football or

a baseball or a basketball we hope he'll be throwing something. >> the surgical team relied on knowledge and skills developed from years of previous hand transplants in adults. the first hand transplant was done in 1997. levin and his team have now brought new hope to children everywhere. potential recipients of new hands will be children who are born without arms or are burned or have their hands blown off in accidents. there is always the risk of the body rejecting the donor part. since zion had received a kidney from his mom four years ago he was already on immunosuppressants, but for most patients that's the major obstacle. >> it's not the technical ability to do the operation. we've been able to do that for years, but to transplant hands and have a patient accept those hands and modulate the immune system for a lifelong requirement of drugs, that's -- that's the obstacle that remains.

>> the screening and selection of patients for hand transplant is a very careful process involving psychologists, social workers and medical experts. and, of course, there is the major challenge of having a donor and hands that actually match the transplant patient. >> dr. siegel, this is like science fiction. >> eric, it's unbelievable. first of all, they chose him because at the age of 2 he had a life-threatening infection, lost his feet, lost his hands, also lost kidney function so he got a kidney from his mother at the age of 4 which meant he was already going to be on immuno suppressives. the number one problem, according to dr. levin, is that the hands would be rejected and all body organs that you transplant could be rejected so he has to be on lifetime immuno suppressive therapy to prevent the body from rejecting it and already was on that and that's why he was chosen and then there's 15 or 20 possible donors a year for children this age and over the next six months or so

dr. levin and his team will watch him and so far already playing with an ipad and already using his fingers and his thumbs and they will see how well he does. >> that's just amazing. >> he also told me that his hands are going to grow with the body, will grow with the size of the body. >> dr. siegel -- >> dr. samadi, you're chief of robotic surgery. how does this work and what does it entail. >> important for people to know exactly what it entails. when you get a child like this at the age of 8, there's a lot of process that goes on before you enter the actual operation. is he a good candidate to get this transplant? psychologically is he competent enough to be able to follow? will there be compliance? major transplant programs in the country exclude people like him because he's too long and don't like to do transplants. this is an exception and what makes this story fascinating. plus the fact that instead of one hand transplant, this is a double hand transplant and also

he's already on immuno suppression and he's trained and the body is already taking medications and headaches it very unique. if you listen to this kid and his attitude which is a huge part of this thing. he's very positive and optimistic and wants to fight. now comes the actual operation and this is where it gets very tricky because in order to do this operation you need to have at least, in this particular case, a child. 40 members of the team, 11 surgeons, a lot of assistants and residents are involved. this particular team it's basically involved in offense and defence so you have people that are working on the donor, exposing the hand and exposing all the arteries and nerves. >> what's in there? >> i'm going to explain in just a minute and the defense are the ones on the recipient end. eric, everybody in the room are working together. what happens is when you get the piece of arm, when it comes, first they have to connect the actual bone. you have radius and ulnar and put them together with screws

and plates and that's the structure of the billing. you're actually building a whole skyscraper, a building, so first is the foundation of this, the bone. you put it together with screws in place and then the team will expose all the arteries and tendons. 23 tendons they have to put together and then they bring the microscope and at that time everyone is involved in putting these two major arteries and the vein. it's a very critical. >> all the veins. >> all the veins. >> that's amazing. >> and now comes the sensation part which people are going to ask. doctor what, happens with the nerves? this is very tricky because every nor-of-has to be connected and i'm talking about like we're using sutures that are thinner than your hair. it's a very, very sensitive operation. if you look at the movement of my movement of my fingers,cismle things you do all the time that you take for example, for example, closing your fing es. these are all the tendons pulling the fingers together, the flexor and reflexor, they have to put it together and finally this surgery has gone

well. if you look at report that marc did, they see that the blood flow is coming in, and that's the moment where everyone starts to celebrate. >> dr. siegel, this will grow with him, that's unbelievable. >> this hand is going to grow with him which also they have to pick the right physique, the right size and the right everything, and, of course, he has to be on all of these immuno suppressants, arthel, which is important and it's not an easy ride, a lot of rehab and occupational therapy. a long road ahead. >> will he get to a point where he uses the hand? >> let me see if i can get a word in here. listen, in the first place he was chosen because he was already on immunosuppressants and the techniques they used have been in place for a while and first time they have ever transplanted on a child and they have to reconnect as david said the bones, tendons and nerves, but he thinks the biggest obstacle is the

immunosuppressant because a child, when it comes to the nerves, dr. 11 says, will be much more likely to regenerate than in an adult and says the next six months to a year is crucial. that's when you really watch it. a huge team was gone into selecting this, psychologists, psychiatrists, internists, surgeons, social workers. >> right. >> once the selection was made, now the surgeon was successful and the team works with him in physical therapy and early signs are optimistic that this child will do well and this boy's spirit and courage, can you see it on his face, great candidate. >> and what's also important as time goes on we'll see exactly where he'll fall. now, is his fingers, his function of the hands going to be exact like you and i, eric? probably not, but when you don't have that hand, even a minor major advance in this, whether he can grab the pen or whether he can use the ipad, this is a

drastic advancement. the next question is why are we not using prosthetics because the whole robotic brought the robotic arms and now the prosthetics are phenomenal. we've done arms and legs and soldiers coming back that with run legs with prosthesis. why are we not doing that? there's no replacement for the tactile feedback that you'll get as a result of nerve sensation, no question that the original hand is always better than a pros prosthesis. i also spoke to a couple of surgeons from england who have been the pioneer work. they are extremely excited and very happy about the advancement and this doctor, dr. 11, should be congratulated and the entire team. >> really is a miracle, amazing and absolute our hats off to zion. we've got to go. got to run >> you may have heard the debate over statins, right?

millions of heart patients take them to deal with their symptoms but now a new class of drugs is promising the same results without so many of the side effects. so is that really the case is the question which we're going to ask the doctors when we come back. ♪ [music] jackie's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today her doctor has her on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. is it beating?over your heart. good! then my nutrition heart health mix is for you. it's a wholesome blend of peanuts, pecans and other delicious nuts specially mixed for people with hearts. planters. nutrition starts with nut.

so what i'm saying is, people like options. when you take geico, you can call them anytime you feel like saving money. it don't matter, day or night. use your computer, your smartphone, your tablet, whatever. the point is, you have options. oh, how convenient. hey. crab cakes, what are you looking at? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

some cardiologists now raving about a new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs that are being marketed as better alternatives to statins. a lot of people take statins, dr. samadi. >> that's right. >> what's the new drug and does it work? >> as you know statins are used to lower cholesterol, and when you think about cholesterol you want to think about the good, the bad and ugly. the good is the hdl and the bad tri-glycerides and the bad is the ldl, the bad cholesterol that causes heart disease. guess what, arthel?

statin changed a whole world of myocardial infarction and heart attack since 1987 but 20% of patients have severe muscle pain when they take this. it's completely debilitating, in pain and can't take it or there's something called familial hypercholesterol, families with high cholesterol, doesn't matter how much you exercise or what you eat you'll still have high cholesterol. the new drugs called praluent, praluent is a new intentijectio you'll get, fda just approved t.worked by a completely different mechanism and works on the liver and works on the ldl receptors so it can coast guard late all the cholesterol out of your blood. it's fairly safe and the jury is

out on this. i talked to afew cardiologists and they will wait until they make up their mind. it's a great option. >> is it out there and available if you want to trade in your statin? >> fda just approved it on friday, eric, so it's out there now. the way it was studied in "the new england journal" is to look at people at very high risk of heart attacks and angina or stroke, cardiac event, we call them, and those people even on a statin weren't achieving what we call target. what's target? where the bad cholesterol is supposed to be. usually 70 is the number, the magic number but the lower the better. the lower the better, lipied experts say so if they get close to those numbers and this drug praluent is a possible treatment. you give it every other week as a shot. a lot of people don't like shots. that's a big challenge. it's extremely expense, eric. right now it's about $14,000 for a year. lynn insurance cover it?

of course, i'll tell you what else is expensivexpensive, hear attacks. so -- and the study in "the new england journal" looked like it did cut down on the risk of heart ait is a and cardiac events. we need more studies on this. david brought up a point about people who are statin intoler t intolerant. now, that hasn't been studied with this drug, but there's a very good possibility that for those who get muscle problems with statins, we're talking 15% to 20%. they just say can't tolerate it. come to my office every week, can't tolerate it, can't tolerate it and you end up having to try to get them to tolerate it, and if they still can't a drug like this may be of value. >> when is it going to be available? >> soon because it's been approved by the fda. >> months or years? >> within the next months, because once statins don't work it doesn't mean that you can't switch to another one. don't give up on statins because they have improved. in this particular drug that we're talking about parluent and

another one rapata, they solve 40% to 60%, lowered ldl or the bad cholesterol. i think this is a great option. we also have talked about exercise, weight loss. sometimes even using niacin, another medication, vitamin b-3 that can help lower your cholesterol. talk to your cardiologist. just because you have one lipitor or one medication that doesn't work for you don't give up. >> okay. >> having an option is tremendous. i think the cost is not an issue it's like $40 a pill. lk as a >> cardiac disease, people are dying from this, the costs of that and costs of taking care of angina and cardiac stent and other things are more than that so if this works. >> $40 a day. >> the point there is whether somebody can afford it and whether insurance will cover it.

first of all, we need more study. first of all, the liver is getting rid of the bad cholesterol but in a lot of cases the liver stops getting rid of the bad clift roll. this the drug is part what have we call targeted therapy. we're talking about it with cancer all tile. you take an antibody and it targets the enzyme that's causing the problem in the liver. it's a really, really phenomenal idea, but we've got to see if the insurance companies will cover it. i think it's a great drug >> the insurance companies are listening to fox news and after this they are going to like basically comply, believe me. >> we'll see when it comes on the market. >> you know you guard your body against infection, but what happens if your white blood cell count is too low, what do you do? the doctors will tell us about that straight ahead.

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♪ and on our segment, should i worry? one viewer writes, my white blood count is low, should i worry? usually you hear about them being high. what about them being low? >> the magic number is 3500. if it gets too low, you have a risk of infection and you may not have your ability to fight off infection. why does it happen? either because the bone marrow isn't working right or your body is destroying these. could be med eication you're taking but if this is low, your

doctor has to take very seriously. >> is there a way to increase your white blood cells? >> you don't necessarily want to manipulate. this could be a very transient, meaning this went down because you had some viral or bacterial infection and your body's act reacting. if you're on some medication or dieratics or thyroid hormones, your white count may come down. if you have a chronic disease, we see this in hiv patients. and it's possible that you make these cells but somebody is eating it alive. if your spleen starts eating up

all of your white counts, so i would say repeat the blood test, find out if your on any of these medications, don't panic and it should come back on its own. >> good advice. >> very good. well, we have new signs of recovery in new orleans. we'll tell you about it after the break. erian.com. erian.com. kaboom... get your credit swagger on. go to experian.com. become a member of experian credit tracker and take charge of your score.

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♪ there are new signs of recovery in new orleans, nearly a decade after hurricane katrina. and they open the and it's the center piece of the big easy's medical system. and charity was the primary health care provider for years before katrina hit in its devastating situation and you all remember what happened. >> this is really good -- >> great for the home town. >> yeah. and it's supposed to boo a good alternative but is frozen yogurt really good for you?

>> before we jump into that, the number of these frozen yogurt shops have almost doubled and more so, to about 21% of sales for frozen yogurt and they did a survey and 95% of americans thought it was healthier to ice cream. and put them head-to-head, number of calories, almost the same, the number of carbs almost the same, ice cream has more fat but frozen yogurt has more sugar. and portion control, only one scoop. >> dr. seagull, yogurt or ice cream? >> well, i brought along some ice cream but i'm not in the mood to have it anymore. but basically ethe problem is that yogurt has been promoted for the last couple of years and

it has a lot of sugar in it. it depends what you want to do and diabetes is caused by all the sugar, so i've opened the ice cream today. >> how about that. could more emails released mean more problems for hillary clinton? and the state department has at least five more batches to go as clinton's campaign starts to show signs of weakness, could that inties another democratic heavy hitter. and they're trying to figure out if debris found in the ocean is from a malaysian airliner that disappears and they say it is from a 777. what does this find mean interest t