Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum’s Reichert Planetarium, 180 Little Neck Road, Centerport will premiere a new show, We Are Guardians: How Satellites Help Us To Save the Planet, on Saturday, April 22, at 3 p.m. Other dates include April 29 and May 6.
We are all connected. Come and find out how.
Join us on a journey into, under, and around the many ecosystems across our planet. Discover how each component fits together, and how the health of each part is vital to the health of Planet Earth. Find out how, with the help of satellites and scientific study, we can understand the links between human activities and climate change, and what we can do to work together to improve the health of our shared home.
This visually stunning show is an immersive science film that features beautiful animation and creative storytelling that viewers of all ages can enjoy together.
Best suited for ages 8 and up.
Tickets are $15 adults, $13 seniors and students, $13 children ages 12 and under.
Dietary changes can help control or reverse chronic kidney disease
By David Dunaief, M.D.
Dr. David Dunaief
Your kidneys are workhorses; they perform an array of critical functions for you. Primarily, they filter waste and fluid from your body and maintain your blood’s health. They also help control your blood pressure, make red blood cells and vitamin D, and control your body’s acid levels.
When your kidney function degrades, it can lead to hypertension or cardiovascular problems and it may require dialysis or a kidney transplant in later stages. For the best outcomes, it’s critical to identify chronic kidney disease (CKD) early and adopt techniques to stop its advance. However, of the estimated 37 million U.S. adults who have CKD, as many as 9 in 10 are not aware they have it (1).
One of the challenges with identifying early-stage CKD is that symptoms are not obvious and can be overlooked. Among them are high blood pressure, hand or feet swelling, urinary tract infections, and blood in your urine (2).
Fortunately, there are simple tests, such as a basic metabolic panel and a urinalysis, that will indicate whether you may have mild CKD. These indices for kidney function include an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), creatinine level and protein in the urine. eGFR is a calculation and, while the other two indices have varying ranges, depending on the laboratory used, a patient with an eGFR of 30 to 59 is considered to have mild disease. The eGFR and the kidney function are inversely related, meaning as eGFR declines, the severity of CKD increases.
What can be done to stem early-stage CKD, before complications occur? There are several studies that have looked at lifestyle modifications and their impacts on its prevention, treatment and reversal.
How do other medical issues affect your kidneys?
Among the greatest risks for your kidneys are uncontrolled diseases and medical disorders, such as diabetes and hypertension (1). If you have – or are at risk for – diabetes, be sure to control your blood sugar levels to limit kidney damage. Similarly, if you currently have hypertension, controlling it will put less stress on your kidneys.
For these diseases, it’s crucial that you have your kidney function tested at least once a year.
In addition, obesity and smoking have been identified as risk factors and can be managed by making lifestyle changes to reduce your risk.
Can diet help protect your kidneys?
Fruits and vegetables may play a role in helping patients with CKD. In a one-year study with 77 patients, results showed that fruits and vegetables work as well as sodium bicarbonate in improving kidney function by reducing metabolic acidosis levels (3).
What is the significance of metabolic acidosis? It means that body fluids become acidic, and it is associated with CKD. The authors concluded that both sodium bicarbonate and a diet including fruits and vegetables were renoprotective, helping to protect the kidneys from further damage in patients with CKD. Alkali diets are primarily plant-based, although not necessarily vegetarian or vegan. Animal products tend to cause an acidic environment.
In the Nurses’ Health Study, results show that animal fat, red meat and sodium all negatively impact kidney function (4). The risk of protein in the urine, a potential indicator of CKD, increased by 72 percent in those participants who consumed the highest amounts of animal fat compared to the lowest, and by 51 percent in those who ate red meat at least twice a week. With higher amounts of sodium, there was a 52 percent increased risk of having lower levels of eGFR.
The most interesting part with sodium was that the difference between higher mean consumption and the lower mean consumption was not that large, 2.4 grams compared to 1.7 grams. In other words, a difference of approximately a quarter-teaspoon of sodium was responsible for the decrease in kidney function.
The National Kidney Foundation recommends diets that are higher in fruit and vegetable content and lower in animal protein, including the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet and plant-based diets (5).
In my practice, when CKD patients follow a vegetable-rich, nutrient-dense diet, there are substantial improvements in kidney functioning. For instance, for one patient, his baseline eGFR was 54. After one month of lifestyle modifications, his eGFR improved by 9 points to 63, which is a return to “normal” functioning of the kidney. Note that this is anecdotal, not a study.
What are our takeaways?
It is important to have your kidney function checked with mainstream tests. If the levels are low, you should address the issue through medications and lifestyle modifications to manage and reverse early-stage CKD. If you have common risk factors, such as diabetes, smoking, obesity or high blood pressure, or if you are over 60 years old, talk to your doctor about testing.
Don’t wait until symptoms and complications occur. In my experience, it is much easier to treat and reverse a disease in its earlier stages, and CKD is no exception.
Dr. David Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com or consult your personal physician.
Last month we explained in some detail what benefits New York automobile owners/drivers enjoy under its No-Fault Insurance Law. We also enumerated the instances where a motorist is not covered by the No-Fault Law. Today we explain how your No-Fault Insurance Application is processed by your insurance company and what rights you have under the New York No-Fault law.
The first crucial thing to remember is that you keep a copy of your No-Fault Application after you have filled it out, before you send it to your insurance carrier. If you have already consulted with or retained a lawyer, you should email your completed application to your attorney so he or she has the opportunity to make suggestions or approve the application.
After your application has been filed, you should receive a communication in writing from your insurance company acknowledging receipt. The insurance carrier should have already assigned what is known as a No-Fault claim number to your file, and the name and contact information of the representative who has been assigned your claim.
If you do not receive such an acknowledgment within approximately 10 days of the date you filed your No-Fault Application, you should follow up by contacting the company. Anytime you speak to a representative, you should be sure to obtain their name and all their contact information.
What other obligations do I have in order to obtain or keep no-fault benefits?
Your automobile insurance policy requires you to cooperate with your insurance company at all times. This cooperation comes in several forms. Your claim representative may contact you with questions about the forms you have submitted. You must answer his or her questions, after you ascertain that they are actually a representative of your company.
The insurance company representative often wants to ask you about your injuries and treatment, and you are obliged to respond. You should, however, be very careful in responding, as your insurance company has to the right to deny coverage for certain treatment it deems unnecessary.
Therefore, you should include all of the injuries you believe you have sustained and complained about to your physicians or other health care providers.
Your No-Fault Insurance representative will probably ask you exactly how the accident happened. Even though your own insurance company is obligated to pay your reasonable medical and out-of- pocket expenses regardless of fault, its representatives are permitted to ask about the accident. You should be careful describing the accident, as what you say may end up being discovered by the insurance company for the other driver and used against you.
Further, your insurance company is entitled to have you examined by a doctor of its own choosing after a certain period of time has elapsed. This is so it can have a doctor confirm your injuries and treatment plan. These doctors often recommend that the No-Fault carrier pay for a certain amount of visits to, for example, physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists and specialties of various kinds. This examination is known as an IME (independent medical examination), but we contend that there is nothing independent about it. The doctor who examines you gets paid by your insurance company to render an opinion, so he or she may have a bias against recommending further treatment, or any treatment at all. Nonetheless, you must cooperate by submitting to these exams.
Your lawyer can often intervene to set the time and place of these examinations so they are convenient for you and may attend if it is warranted.
What can I do if the No-Fault carrier denies coverage for, or limits, my treatment?
There are several remedies you and your lawyer have in that situation. These will be discussed in our next article concerning No-Fault Insurance.
Shannon L. Malone, Esq. is an Associate Attorney at Glynn Mercep Purcell and Morrison LLP in Setauket. She graduated from Touro Law, where she wrote and served as an editor of the Touro Law Review. Ms. Malone is a proud Stony Brook University alumna.
Pictured above, Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker, right, presents a proclamation to Lesaya Kelly. Photo courtesy Anker’s office
Suffolk County Legislator Sarah Anker (D-Mount Sinai) recently recognized Lesaya Kelly for her years of dedication and leadership in the local and global community.
“As the founder of Crossover Christian Church, Lesaya has displayed outstanding leadership and has touched the lives of folks spanning all ages and backgrounds,” Anker said. “Lesaya has been, and continues to be, a powerful force in our community.”
Kelly has been in pastoral ministry for 35 years. She served in her homeland of South Africa before traveling worldwide for Youth with a Mission, an interdenominational Christian training organization. She then settled and became a U.S. citizen. When she met her husband, Chris, she relocated to Long Island, where they raised their daughter, Savanna.
For more information, contact Anker’s office at (631) 854-1600.
Amid an increase in adult and congenital infections, the Suffolk County Department of Health Services is urging pregnant mothers to get tested for syphilis.
Untested and untreated, infants born with the congenital bacteria can appear normal and healthy but can encounter developmental delays and health challenges later in their lives.
The county recommends that pregnant women get tested for syphilis at their first prenatal visit, at the beginning of their third trimester and again at delivery.
“Syphilis during pregnancy is easily cured with the right antibiotics,” Mary Pat Boyle, bureau chief for the Suffolk County STI Control Unit and member of the New York State Congenital Syphilis Elimination Strategic Planning Group, said in an email.
Pregnant New Yorkers can qualify for Medicaid at higher income levels. Uninsured pregnant residents may quality for a Special Enrollment Period to enroll in private health insurance through the NY State of Health Marketplace.
The county recognizes that “barriers to testing and treatment do exist,” Boyle said. “The county staff is aware that patients turning to urgent care for support find that the centers don’t treat syphilis and are referred to another provider causing delays in their treatment.”
At the same time, staff at Suffolk County, which has been social messaging about STIs during STI Awareness Week, has confronted issues with insurance companies that don’t cover benzathine penicillin G 2.4 million units, the medication needed in one to three doses as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the only treatment safe for pregnant women.
Suffolk County Department of Health Services brought this to the attention of NYSDOH, which is “looking into the matter,” according to county officials.
The incidence of syphilis for the population of the country has climbed dramatically. A report from the CDC showed that the number of cases of syphilis rose 32% to over 176,000 in 2021 from the prior year.
In New York State, pregnant persons with reported syphilis increased by 51% in 2020 to 53 from 35 in 2016.
In July 2022, Suffolk County’s Board of Sexually Transmitted Disease staff launched the Suffolk County Congenital Syphilis Prevention Initiative.
“The groups have been raising awareness of increased cases of maternal and congenital syphilis among those who work with at-risk women of childbearing age and mobilizing to implement evidence-based practices to prevent congenital syphilis,” Boyle said.
The bureau staff has visited over 167 Suffolk County OB/GYN providers to discuss best practices and distribute educational materials emphasizing the importance of STI testing and timely treatment.
The county’s STI unit is planning training for team members at St. Catherine of Siena Hospital, Southampton Hospital, Stony Brook University Hospital and Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, noted the increase in congenital syphilis and suggested that newborns don’t necessarily show clear signs of the infection.
“You sometimes don’t know until perhaps years later, when the baby is not growing, thriving and meeting developmental milestones” that it has syphilis, Nachman said. “There are no abnormal blood tests. The baby looks fine.”
Nachman said that parents and doctors don’t want to “be in a position where you’re picking it up late” because untreated and untested syphilis could have a “lifelong” effect on the growing child.
Nachman added that testing for syphilis in newborns often involves a spinal tap, in which doctors take a small amount of fluid through a spinal tap. Spinal tap procedures in newborns can involve pain and tenderness, but do not generally present risks to the developing child.
Penicillin shortage
At the same time, the supply of penicillin could become a concern. As a generic drug, the profitability of penicillin has decreased dramatically.
The injectable form of penicillin, which is used to treat syphilis, may become a problem later this year and will “definitely be a problem next year and afterwards,” Nachman said.
Researchers are checking to see if there are other drugs, they can fine tune instead of penicillin. They are exploring whether they can convert other therapies that are short acting into longer acting treatments.
“Everyone is aware of the question and [researchers] are carving out different ways to answer” it, Nachman said.
If the county uncovers a shortage of syphilis treatment, it will work with the New York State Department of Health to address the problem, county health department officials said.
For adults, Nachman suggested that seeing an increase in syphilis among newborns suggest that the bacteria may be prevalent in the community.
“When I see an uptick in neonates, I think, ‘Oh, gosh, there are more adults out there’” with this infection, she said.
Suffolk County Police have arrested a man for allegedly attempting to scam an elderly woman out of $10,000 on April 14.
A 79-year-old woman flagged down Fifth Precinct Sergeant Christopher Racioppo, who was on routine patrol, at approximately 1:30 p.m., and informed him that she was on the phone with a man who had contacted her the night before via email about a purported fraudulent PayPal charge on her account, and had instructed her to withdraw $10,000 cash from her bank account. Believing this was a scam, Sgt. Racioppo escorted her to her bank in Patchogue to confirm she had not yet lost any money, then to the Fifth Precinct for further investigation.
Fifth Precinct Anti-Crime Team, Crime Section officers, and Financial Crimes detectives set up a sting operation, along with Sgt. Racioppo, who kept the suspect on the phone and arranged a meeting with him at a local 7-Eleven, where the suspect arrived in a Mercedes SUV and identified himself.
Following an investigation, he was arrested, along with a female suspect, who was a passenger in the Mercedes. Taidong Lin, 46, of Flushing, was charged with attempted Grand Larceny 3 rd Degree and Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance 7 th Degree. Xiuying Lin, 36, of Flushing, was charged with Criminal Possession of a Controlled Substance 7 th Degree.
The investigation is continuing. Anyone who has additional information, or who believes they may have been a victim, is asked to call Financial Crimes detectives at 631-852-6821.
A criminal charge is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
Save the date! Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Stony Brook, 380 Nicolls Road, E. Setauket will host a Le Petit Salon de Musique classical music concert featuring acclaimed pianist and Yamaha featured artist Alexandria Le on Sunday, April 30 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 adults, $15 students with valid I.D., $10 for children ages 12 and under at the door or at www.lepetitsalon.org. Please call 631-751-0297 for group pricing (10 or more).
Suffolk County Police Sixth Squad detectives are investigating a crash that killed a man in Rocky Point on April 14.
Hamilton Bogan was driving a 2013 Nissan Altima when his vehicle left the road and struck a tree in
front of 23 Miller Place/Yaphank Road at approximately 8:15 a.m. Bogan, 37, of Mastic Beach, was
pronounced dead at the scene. The vehicle was impounded for a safety check.
Anyone with information on this crash is asked to call Sixth Squad detectives at 631-854-8652.
A development proposal has caused uproar over the past month among residents of St. James, as reported in The Times of Smithtown. Mills Pond Group, owned by Fort Salonga developer Frank Amicizia, proposed the construction of an assisted living facility on the former Bull Run Farm on Mills Pond Road.
The proposal included a two-story, 97-bed assisted living facility to be built on the property, which is 9.02 acres in total and is in residential zoning. At a public meeting with lawyers of the developers of the project in March, many residents were outspoken in their disapproval of the proposal. This ultimately resulted in Town of Smithtown Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) announcing that a special exception would not be made for the assisted living facility.
Additionally, Wehrheim intends to legislate that assisted living homes will not be approved to be built in areas zoned residential. Smithtown public information officer, Nicole Garguilo, said that “for the longest time there was this loophole in the town’s code” which provided an opportunity for a “special exception” for developers when attempting to gain the rights to build on a piece of land.
“One of the most common criticisms was that developers often used this loophole to get through the process without having to go through a zone change,” Garguilo said.
This special exception essentially enables them to “go right to the Town Board rather than going through all of the zoning boards and environmental reviews — it was very frustrating to residents.”
Garguilo went on to explain that the Town Board intended to propose legislation to remove the loophole even before this issue arose with the Bull Run Farm proposal. She said she believes this would reflect the interests of the community.
“You’re going to be hard pressed to get anybody in the whole hamlet of St. James to support an assisted living [facility] on that land,” Garguilo said. “That land people want to see preserved. They want to see it maybe become an active farm again.”
Garguilo went on to explain that “a lot of it has to do with the sentimental value of the farm and the history there.” People remember when the farm was active, she said. Some might have fond memories such as sleigh riding or feeding carrots to the horses. Garguilo herself used to spend her allowance money on Blow Pops from the farm stand, and her family would frequently buy pies from the Elderkins — the family that ran the farm.
As there does not seem to be a path to building this assisted living facility at that location, an alternative option that the developers could turn to is building homes on the property.
“When they originally presented their plan, they had presented a backup plan with it, which was to build a subdivision of homes,” Garguilo said .
She went on to say that while members of the community would likely prefer the land simply preserved, they may be more willing to accept this alternative as it would be in line with the town’s codes.
“I think it’s a pill easier for them to swallow rather than seeing assisted living go up on that land.”
The next Town Board meeting will be held Thursday, April 20, at 2 p.m. at Smithtown Town Hall, 99 W. Main St. Garguilo said it is unlikely that the board will be prepared to vote on removing the special exception loophole at this meeting, but that residents should expect a vote in the near future.
Earl L. Vandermeulen High School Tri-M Music Honor Society students. Photo courtesy PJSD
The Earl L. Vandermeulen High School Chapter 2172 of the Tri-M Music Honor Society hosted its 16th annual honors recital and induction on April 4.
This year’s inductees are students Thales Cheng, Caitlin Dickhuth, Kenneth Dixon-Lanza, Mari Fukuto, Iris He, Andi Kelly, Kay Moran, Fiona Reichers, Samantha Reichers, Alice Snyder, Emily Snyder, Kristina Shterengas and Madison Testa.
Requirements needed to become a member of Tri-M are based on the society’s five points of distinction: scholarship, character, cooperation, leadership and service.
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