dr. natalie azar will put us to the test. why i got you on my mind >> and what has grandma this .excite gave her the ride of her life, monday, december 28th, 2015. >> celebrating my mom's 50th birth day all the way from hots a springs, arkansas. celebrating 50 years of adventure on the "today" show. >> celebrating my 80th birthday with my family! >> we made it to new yo , mma. >> from alexandria, indiana. >> here on a family trip to new york. >> happy holidays to third graders here in fringefield, wisconsin. >> we're here on the "today" show. >> good morning, everybody. it's monday, december 28th, 2015. it's a beautiful day. got al here, dylan here, carson is here. carson is married! mucb to celebrate. good morning. nice to have you with us. >> thank you very much, guys. coming up, with temperatures finally dropping, you can feel that they are indeed drop, and a monster storm is starting to sweep across the country we've got some tips for you, for youri house to get you ready for the worst of it. >> we've got a sweet way to e

dr. natalie azar.roughs that are on the horizon or if not happening right now. let's talk about the universal flu vaccine. tell me what this is and what's being developed. >> yeah, what's great about this is normally the flu vaccine is developed before, you know, before flu season hits, and by the time it hits the strain of the vaccine that you're protected against has mutated. ed with the universal flu vaccine, what you'd be able to do is get inoculated against a part of the flu that doesn't mutate. >> dr. natalie, sounds like a great idea but it's obviously been hard to produce, right? >> it, and it's also a couple years away from really being implemented into practice and primarily even though the one part of the virus that doesn't change. when it's on its own it's actually a pretty flimsy unstable molecule let's say so they are still trying to figure out how we can really capitalize on that -- that fact that the virus can stay the same from year to year. ideally the universal flu vaccine would only

dr. natalie azar is here to explain what this means for women. dr. natalie, we know taking anti-depressants during pregnancy can be harmful to the baby but this study says what types of anti-depressants you take and when you take those anti-depressants can be of most harm for autism. >> the conclusions for the study is that the use of ssris, prozac, zoloft, paxil, those types of medicines, particularly in the second and third trimester can significantly increase the risk of having child. most of the experts we reached tout are really urging caution when interpreting these results for a number of reasons. number one, again, the relative risk number was kind of frightning, 87%. the absolute risk, on the other hand, was actually quite low, less than 2% risk. secondly, and this is also really important and talked about this many times, an association or correlation that's incredibly important. >> right. >> and finally, and i think maybe most importantly is the issue of maternal depression. the women takingans depressants in the send and third trimester ve

dr. natalie azar here. and when you read it on the face, it is alarming, but break it down for . >> and when you d d hear that, you say, i think that false positive means i'm in the clear. >> exactly, good news. >> so right before the s sment, itits really important for peopllto remember that if you get a false positive on the mammogram, it means something so you will be referred for closer look or biopsy. and so you have a buyiuyiopsy which is classified as a benign lesion, and some of those is such as atypical plasia do indicate cancer down the line. aa so, some of the experts said this is not surprising, because even some of the lesions that we identify as benign do increase the cancer rate. >> do they tell you when you do the test, andndhey say, benign, but do they say, however, this might lead to x-y-z? >> 100%. and breast cancer is in the news all of the time as it should, and so,here is a cancerous lesion that we talk about all of the time, because sending a woman home say ging it is a benign lessn,

dr. natalie azar is here with five things you need to know about the treatment natalie, good morning to you. >> good morning, matt. >> let start with the most basic, what is immunotherapy? >> in its basic form it's a kind of cancer therapy that employs your body's own immune system to fight off cancer cells. very different than traditional chemo which tends to wipe out a lot of things, including cancer cells. this is very directed therapy. specific. >> okay. >> it blocks the checkpoints on cells. what does that mean? >> okay. so really, really, real basically, a little lesson in your immune system. we have in our bodies these things called t-cells that are naturally supposed to go out and try to kill the cells that cells. some cancers, like some part things on their surface and it blocks the t-cells so it can't kill it. what happens with these therapies, it's called a monoclonal antibody, comes in and blocks the interaction. the t-cell can do its job and do its to be. >> former president carter had advanced melanoma. >> let's talk about who is a good candidate and who is not and also called

dr. natalie azar. the e. coli outbreak originally tied to costco's chicken celery has expanded to more stores. company has expanded the investigation. it includes foods sold at walmart, safeways, albertson's and starbucks. britain's prince harry has released a collection of personal photos and videos documenting his summer visit to south africa to work on animal conservation projects. the collection highlights challenges faced by workers trying to protect rinos and elephants from poachers. the animals are killed for their tusks and horns. >>> and a battle of green giants had golfers affording the fourth hole. take a look at the south carolina golf course t.pitted goliath, well known into the smaller and lesser known challenger. guy yatd claimed his victory and sent the other one with no name limping away. >> david maybe? >> didn't work out. >> little david would have won, i didn't want to -- okay. >> the and you thought your golf stories were good. again of the missing grandfather on the holiday. >> all right

dr. natalie azar, thank you. >>> up next on "trending" move over jolly st. nick. why santa getting a makeover. i don't like the makeover. >>> plus, what led jon stewart to return to "the daily show" for first time since his departure. >>> and dolly parton growing up in a small cabin with 11 brothers and sisters. but first on a "today" morning, these messages. the snow is starting to fall... and all the decorations are just right. and our loved ones are gathered all around. so share that extra joy in your heart... and make this christmas even more special than the last. walmart has everything you'll need for a christmas meal they'll never forget. share wonder every day. walmart. the citi double cash card comes in very handy with cash back twice on purchases. earn once when you buy, and again as you pay. that's cash back now, and cash back again later. it's cash back d\j vu. the citi double cash card. the only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1% when you buy and 1% as you pay. with two ways to earn, it makes a lot of other cards seem on

dr. natalie azar. natalie, good morning to you. so we saw in stephanie's piece the legitimate reasons for hgh to be prescribed. what are the reasons it's appealing? what do people think they are going to get out of it? >> i think, savannah, the three main reasons thaha experts are saying that people are using it is really to improve athletic performance. people who use it for body building purposes and also this anti-aging idea. there is a natural decline in growth hormone as we get older, and i think some people think that if there's a deterioration in your body because of reducing levels of certain hormones, perhaps if we give those hormones back we can, you know, that, and i think here the idea is this -- t tt growth hormone does regulate body composition so it is involved in muscle mass and bone strength and -- and other functions, and the idea that you're going to gain muscle mass and reduce body fat i think is the main appeal for most people in this anti-aging idea. >> doc, any drug that works you know, prevent aging and help

dr. natalie azar is here with us to tell us what you need to know. good morning, good to see you. >> hi, good morning, tamron. >> obviously this will be confusing to people. so many of us have gone to the dermatologists to get full body scan yearly. what's the deal here? >> the message is in the wording. what the statement is saying there's insufficient evidence to weigh the benefits of the benefit and harm versus screening. this is not a recommendation for or against the screening. they are simply saying that the available evidence out there in the literature, we real can't say whether or not doing the skin check is changing the outcome of people. meaning is it actually decreasing mortality. they claim the data is just not there. sentiment from the american academy of dermatology and a few other medical groups who strongly endorse early treatment and diagnosis because that's the best way to beat skin cancer, and the way you can do that really importantly is also to do self-checks, to look and see if moles are changing. are they itching? are they ble

dr. natalie contributor. doctor, good morning. >> good morning, savannah. >> the stuff your kid will be asked about when going to the doctor. >> depending on what age they are. >> let's start with the first thing we're talking about, cholesterol screening, a little controversial. what do they recommend? >> the rationale for this is atherosclerosis, the process that increases your risk for lessens. the important thing to remember is although they are recommending universal screening, that is, every kid between the ages of 9 and 11, they are stopping very short from saying everybody needs to be treated in their cholesterol is high. rather they have a very complex algorithm that takes in account family history, their age and what the lipid profile looks like. a very small percentage of children are candidates for statin therapy if they have something called familial hypercholesterol meaning their numbers are sky high, not overweight necessarily. the justice department tonight know, the development ultimate life

dr. natalie is here. good morning. how do we end up in this study? it's saying weight gait in between pregnancies is the issue? >> yeah. that's kind of what sets this study apart from many other studies. we know from a wealth of leicester, maternal overweight in obesity complicates pregnancies period. some studies having looed at whether gaining 28 between the first and second pregnancies increase cans risks and stillbirth. some studies have found that in the past. not that many studies have looked at infant mortality. that's what separates this study from ones previously done. >> are we talking weighing gain like you can't lose the last ten pounds? are we talking more weight gain than that? >> that's exactly the question we want to talk about. it's actually a small amount t. was 4 bmi units, which roughly translates to 2.8 kilograms which is around 6 pounds. for example hello, i think every woman pregnant says i'm six pounds more than the first one. >> the medical stories this week a all important in terms of interpreting them in the context statist

dr. natalie azar is here to explain what this means for women. we know that taking antidepressanters during pregnancy can be harmful to the baby, but when you take them can be of most harm for autism. >> right, the conclusions from the study, natalie, are that the use of ssris, those are like prozac, zoloft, paxal, particularly in the third and the third trimester can increase the risk of having autism disorder in your children. and dock to or thes are urging caution. the relative risk number is frighten, 85%. the risk was actually quite low, less than 1% risk. secondly, this is really important, we have talked about this many times. things does not prove causation. finally, the issue of maternal depression. that is the women who are taking antidepressanters have more severe depression an depression alone can be a risk factor for autism. please, we urge the patients to discuss with their doctor before stopping their medicine. there might be alternatives. but this again opens up the discussion about this very important issue. >> very important to