Dive into the complete episode list for Causes or Cures. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Pub. Date
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06 Feb 2022
How Measles can Wipe Out Your Immunity to Other Viruses: Immune Amnesia, with Dr. Guillermo Barrios Morales
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Guillermo Barrios Morales about his recent research that modeled the effects of Mealses-induced "Immune Amnesia" while another outbreak is happening simultaneously. In this podcast he will discuss what immune amnesia is and its association to Measles, his predictive model and the assumptions he made, and the impact immune amnesia could have on the immune system's ability to fight off other viruses, both at the individual and population level. Could Measles wipe out herd immunity for another virus? Find out. Dr. Barrios Morales is a scientific researcher and physicist affiliated with the Universidad de Granada in Spain. A link to his study on measles and immune amnesia is here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Tonya Winders, CEO of the Allergy and Asthma Network, an organization that represents millions of Americans, about the relationship between asthma and COVID-19. The relationship has been "confusing" to decipher from news articles, so she will shed light on that for us. She will also discuss what her organization prioritized during the pandemic to address COVID. In addition, she will provide information on the types of tools her organization offers for folks struggling with asthma and allergies and talk about advances being made in research, the social determinants of health that lead to worsening asthma and her thoughts on lifestyle changes and steroid treatments.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Trine Tetlie Eik-Nes about her new intervention for obesity with binge eating disorder (BED) that was recently tested in a feasibility study and published here. Obesity is an epidemic affecting many developed nations, and rates only increased during the pandemic, for both adults and kids.
In the podcast she will discuss in detail her intervention, called People Need People (PnP), along with the link between obesity and binge eating disorder. She will also discuss the relationship of obesity and binge eating disorder with stigma, shame and our attachment style, and why it is crucial to address those issues in order to help someone recover.
Dr. Eik-Nes is an Associate Professor at the Department of Neuroscience and Behavioral Medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She completed her MSc at NTNU and has her PhD in public health. She has worked as a clinician for 20 years in the mental health sector and also conducts research with a special interest in adult psychopathology, the epidemiology of obesity, weight disorders, eating disorders, body image and stigma.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Lisa Parker on her research about how drug companies influence DTC (Drug and Therapeutic Committee) decisions at hospitals in Australia. She describes who is part of a DTC and what it does, conflicts of interest with industry, ways DTCs try to decrease industry's influence and the things drug companies do to get around those mitigation efforts. Finally, she makes suggestions for improving the system.
Dr. Parker is a honorary senior lecturer in the school of Pharmacy at The University of Sydney and on the faculty of medicine and health. Her research focuses on public health ethics and policy, specifically the influence of values, evidence and industry on healthcare policy. She is also a practicing clinician and works in the field of oncology.
In this episode of The Causes or Cures Podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Katherine Roe, a neuroscientist working on developing evidence-based strategies to replace animals in scientific research. While preclinical studies with animals is widely accepted in scientific research as a necessary step, many people worry about the welfare of the animals and wonder if there are viable, better alternatives. Some researchers do not want to do research on animals and struggle with the idea that they might have to, to advance their career. In this podcast, Dr. Roe will discuss potential alternatives to animal research, her view on how valuable and applicable results from animal trials are for humans, the "pressure to publish" and how that might lead to unnecessary animal trials, and why she believes it is more valuable for overall human heatlh to fund other kinds of research. Dr. Roe is a neuroscientist who used to work at the National Institute of Health. She is the chief of the scientific advancement outreach division at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
(Keep in mind that this is a podcast. It's a conversation and/or philosophical discussion, not news.)
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Sergio Sismondo, a professor of philosophy at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada about his work titled "Epistemic Corruption, the Pharmaceutical Industry and the Body of Medical Science" published in Frontiers Research Metrics and Analytics. His years of empirical research has shed light on the various ways drug companies influence the practice of medicine and the body of medical science for profit. His research also allowed him to develop a framework for understanding the relationship between politics and pharmaceutical companies. In addition to his research, he has published two books titled: An Introduction to Science and Technology and Ghost-Managed Medicine, Big Pharma's Invisible Hands.
(Keep in mind that this is a podcast. It's a conversation and/or philosophical discussion, not news.)
Some people call it the "War On Antidepressants" and others call it the "War Over Antidepressants." Either way, antidepressants are in the news a lot, most recently related to the topic of withdrawal. Many doctors and stakeholders believe that antidepressant withdrawal ( symptoms that occur when you stop taking the drug) lasts, on average, up to 2 weeks. Others say that isn't true, and that symptoms can last much longer. Some say antidepressants are very effective for clinical depression. Others say that just isn't true. Strong opinions are at the heart of the debate over antidepressants, which has escalated to a heated social media exchange and what some call a "Twitter War." Today's guest is Dr. Michael Hengartner, a highly published senior researcher and lecturer at Zurich University of Applied Sciences whose area of expertise includes psychiatric epidemiology, public mental health, psychosomatics, health services research, social psychiatry and psychopathology. In this episode, he presents evidence that challenges the notion that antidepressant withdrawal lasts, on average, only two weeks and also presents evidence that challenges the notion that antidepressants are effective drugs for clinical depression.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Msgr Stephen Rossetti about his work as an Exorcist. He has conducted hundreds of exorcisms. In this podcast, he will describe what it means to be possessed and how possessions manifest, how one discerns possession from an underlying mental or physiological issue, who Spiritual Sensitives are and why they are important, what happens during an exorcism and some of his scarier moments, how long exorcisms take and what he says to the doubters. Msgr. Rossetti is the author of A Diary of an American Exorcist. He has a Ph.D in psychology and is a licensed psychologist, is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and is President of the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal and a research associate professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington. He helped create the app, Catholic Exorcism , which provides deliverance and exorcism prayers in English and Spanish and maintains an active blog.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Joel Lexchin about his recent research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine titled: A Ray of Sunshine: Transparency in Physician-Industry Relationships Is Not Enough. He will discuss what the Sunshine Act was designed to accomplish in terms of being transparent about physician-industry relationships, what it actually did, and how it did or did not change physician behavior, industry behavior and consumer behavior.
Dr. Lexchin is a professor at the York University Faculty of Health where he taught pharmaceutical policy, an emergency medicine physician, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the author of over 160 peer-reviewed publications. He was a member of the Ontario Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee and chair of the Drugs and Pharmacotherapy Committee of the Ontario Medical Association for 2 years.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Janet Currie about the factors that caused the opioid epidemic. They will discuss her recent research published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, "The Opioid Epidemic was Not Caused by Economic Distress but by Factors that Could be More Rapidly Addressed." In this podcast, she will discuss the history of the opioid epidemic, how it started and explain why prescriptions for opioids and healthcare market policies are what fueled the epidemic, not economic factors. Dr. Currie is an economist and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the co-director of Princeton's Center for Health and Wellbeing. She is also codirector of the Program on Families and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She was named a Nomis Distinguished Scientist in 2019 and 1 of the top 10 women in economics by the World Economics Forum in 2015. She has served as the President of the American Society of Health Economics, The Society of Labour Economics and Vice President of the American Economics Association. She is considered a pioneer in the economic analysis of child development and her current research focuses on the socioeconomic differences in health, access to healthcare, and environmental threats to health.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Andrea Saltelli about his recent paper on regulatory capture titled: Science, the Endless Frontier of Regulatory Capture. He will discuss what regulatory capture is, what cultural capture is, what an epistemic ladder of corruption is and how all of these things impact science, influence policy and ultimately, all of us. He will use specific case studies to highlight elements of regulatory capture in science that make it easier to understand. He will also discuss ways to make regulatory capture less of an issue for science and subsequent policies.
Dr. Saltelli has done a lot of research on physical chemistry, environmental science and applied statistics. His main area of focus is sensitivity analysis of model output, where statistical tools are used to interpret outputs from mathematical and computational models, and sensitivity auditing, an extension of sensitivity analysis applied to the entire evidence-generating process from a policy context. Till 2015, he worked at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission, leading a team devoted to econometrics and applied statistics. Between 2016-2020, he was associate professor at the Center for the Study of the Sciences of Humanity at the University of Bergen. His recent work includes the reproducibility of scientific results, principles of modeling & the ethics of quantification. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
Rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's Disease, are only increasing in developed nations as scientists race to find treatments and identify preventive strategies. In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Margaret Gatz about her research published in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association titled: Prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in indigenous Bolivian forager-horticulturalists. In the podcast she will discuss these indigenous populations, including their lifestyle, diet and educational levels, how she conducted her research to assess their risks and rates of dementia, how their rates compare to the developed world, some intriguing findings, and what developed nations with growing rates of Alzheimer's disease can potentially learn from them in terms of risk factors for dementia and prevention.
Dr. Gatz is a professor of psychology, gerontology and preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Lenoard Davis School of Gerontology. Studies in her Gatz lab include age-related changes in cognition, depression, personality and preventive factors for Alzheimer's Disease and other kinds of dementia.
Continuing our exploration of the pharmaceutical industry's influence on health and health policy at a global level, in this podcast, Dr. Eeks has a conversation with Emily Rickard about her research on how the industry influences the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Groups. She will explain what the All-Party Parliamentary Groups, particularly the health-related ones, are and what they do. She'll talk about both the direct and indirect ways the pharmaceutical industry influences those groups and why that matters from both a transparency issue and a health-policy one. Emily is a researcher and doctoral student with the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Bath.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Brad Pickering about COVID-19 spillover from humans into other animals, particularly his work on viral spillover into white-tailed deer in Canada, as well as the case he and his team discovered that might be the first, identifiable case of deer to human transmission of the virus. He will discuss the unique mutations in the deer viral samples, the potential first case of deer to human transmission (how it was identified and how it might have occurred), vaccine effectiveness against the deer viral samples and what this potential spillover and spillback might mean for managing the COVID-19 virus going forward. Dr. Pickering is the head of the Special Pathogens Unit at the National Center for Foreign Animal Disease for the Canadian Government. You can read his study here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Cheryl Juaire, founder of Team Sharing, INC. Cheryl will discuss Team Sharing, a not-for-profit for parents who have lost their kids to substance abuse disorder, including opioids, and why she started it. She will talk about what it was like to navigate loss and grief after losing two of her sons to the opioid epidemic and how Team Sharing helps parents and family members navigate through grief. She will also discuss what she thinks the public health response to the opioid epidemic should look like, and she will talk about what it was like to personally address the Sackler Family, owners of the disgraced pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma that led a wide and false marketing campaign that misinformed patients and providers about the addictive potential of prescribed opioids.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Mathias Schmidt and Dr. Nils Gassen about their recent research published in Science Advances that involves a protein in the brain that may link autophagy to metabolism to weight control and the fight against obesity. In the podcast, they will discuss why they are interested in obesity research, why they have a specific interest in this protein, what they knew about the protein before the study and what they learned, what autophagy is, how it is linked to the specific protein, how autophagy is linked to metabolism, and what their research might mean for weight control and the fight against obesity going forward.. Dr. Schmidt is the Research Group Leader of the Neurobiology of Stress Resilience at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany and Dr. Gassen is a Research Group Leader at the University of Bonn Medical Center in Germany. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. David Smith about the history and future of psychedelic medicine. He will discuss early research on psychedelics (including experiments the CIA ran), the potential health benefits and disorders they may treat, any potential side effects we should worry about, the current state of research, and why he remains cautiously optimistic. (You'll also hear about some of your favorite bands and how their contributions kept some of the earliest clinics open.)
Dr. David Smith is one of the founders of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, founded in 1967 during the Summer of Love. He is a recognized national leader in the treatment of addictive disease and the psychopharmacology of drugs. Now in his eighties, he continues to serve as medical director for several medical centers and is chair of addiction medicine for a residential center for teens with substance abuse. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Addiction Medicine and the California Society of Addiction Medicine and founding editor of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.
In this episode of Causes Or Cures, Dr. Eek talks with Dr. Marcelo Gleiser about atheism, agnosticism, belief in God and the intersection of science and the spiritual dimension. He explains why he believes radical atheism goes against the scientific method. What's a rational position to take? What about theism vs radical theism? What are the limitations of science, if any, when it comes to explaining how we got here and other "big questions"? These questions and more are addressed in the podcast. Dr. Gleiser is a theoretical physicist, author of several popular science books and over a hundred papers in peer-reviewed journals, professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, and recipient of the prestigious Templeton Prize. Take a listen.
Continuing the exploration of industry's influence on healthcare and health policy, in this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Joel Lexchin and Dr. Lisa Parker about the influence drug companies have over patient groups. They will describe what patient groups are (why they are needed & the variety of work they do), why drug companies have a vested interest in patient groups, how drug companies fund and influence the groups (and sometimes even create them) and how the groups influence healthcare policy. They will also discuss practical things that can be done to make the overall health system put patients over profit.
Dr. Lexchin is a professor at York University, where he teaches pharmaceutical policy, an emergency medicine physician, a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a member of the Ontario Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee and was chair of the Drugs and Pharmacotherapy Committee of the Ontario Medical Association. Dr. Parker is an honorary senior lecturer at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney and on the faculty of medicine and health. She is a clinician who practices in the field of oncology(cancer) and her research focuses on public health ethics and policy. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Vera Schluessel about her work on the cognitive abilities of fish, with a specific focus on her latest study published in Nature Scientific Reports, "Cichlids and Stingrays can add & subtract 'one' in the number space from 1 to 5. " Basically, she is going to tell us about fish doing math! In the podcast she will discuss why she started researching the cognitive abilities of fish, why the general public rarely considers it and wrongly assumes "fish are dumb", some of her unique fish studies and results, and the overall message she hopes to convey to the general public. Dr. Schluessel runs the Schluessel Cognition Lab at the Institute of Zoologie at the University of Bonn in Germany. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Dimie Ogoina about the human monkeypox outbreak that started in Nigeria in 2017, after the country had not seen a case for approximately 40 years. Dr. Ogoina is an infectious disease specialist and president of the Nigerian Infectious Disease Society whose hospital saw the first (index) case of human monkeypox in 2017. He has published several papers on this topic which can be found here.
In this episode, he will describe the beginning of the monkeypox outbreak in Nigeria in 2017, symptoms, thoughts on transmission and things that struck him as unusual. He will talk about how Nigeria tried to warn the rest of the world that they were seeing something unusual. He will discuss similarities between what he observed (and treated) in Nigeria to what many countries around the world are now experiencing. He will also discuss the rate of mutations in this particular monkeypox virus, possible animal reservoirs, the link to the smallpox virus and what we can do better going forward as a global health community when it comes to addressing outbreaks. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jerry Heindel about his and other researchers' recent reviews published in Biochemical Pharmacology on how chemicals in everyday products may be fueling the obesity epidemic here in the US and elsewhere. He will discuss what these chemicals are and how we get exposed; what the term "Obesogen" means and why that term should be on our radar; the potential mechanism of actions for how these chemical lead to obesity; when getting exposed to these chemicals puts us more at risk; the current evidence base for these chemicals fueling obesity, and things that we can do on both the individual and population level to reduce or mitigate our exposure. Dr. Heindel has his doctorate in biochemistry and worked in the area of reproductive biology and toxicology while a faculty member at the University of Texas Medical School and the Univeristy of Mississippi. He worked for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) for 25 years where he focused on the potential impact of environmental chemicals on the developmental origins of health and disease. He is currently the director of the Healthy Environment and Endocrine Disruptor Strategies (HEEDS), an organization that is funded by grants and personal donations, not corporate interests. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Melissa Mialon about how the food industry influences public health policy and nutritional guidelines. She will describe the many characters of the food industry, what corporate political activity is and how they use it to influence health policy and nutritional guidelines, food labels, conflicts of interests involving decisionmakers of important nutritional guidelines, how the industry biases the scientific evidence base and what we can do to make sure the system is not biased towards food industry interests and profits.
Dr. Mialon is a food engineer, a Research Assitant Professor at Trinity College, Dublin and an honorary Research Fellow at the University of San Paulo in Brazil. She is also an independent consultant currently working in France. She works for many health and consumer organizations, including the WHO, Blommberg Philanthropies and the Ministry of Health Ghana and is the co-cordinator of the Governance, Ethics and Conflicts of Interestin Public Health. She is highly published in the area of how the food industry influences health policy in numerous countries and is the author of a recent book, Big Food and CIE. You can learn more about her and read her publications on her website here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Krista Varady about the evidence base for intermittent fasting (IF). Dr. Varady has conducted numerous randomized controlled trials on intermittent fasting and is with the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Her recent review on IF was published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, which you can read here. You can follow her on Instagram here. In the podcast, she will discuss the evidence for intermittent fasting, its relationship to weight loss, if it helps with certain disease states, long-term results vs short-term results, different results in adults vs kids, if there is something "unique" about IF or if any health benefits come down to calorie restriction, and if she thinks it's a better diet to follow than others. Tune in! You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Tal Patalon, head of Kahn, Sagol, Maccabi (KSM), the Research and Innovation Center of Maccabi Healthcare Services in Israel about her recent study (still in preprint), titled: Naturally-acquired Immunity Dynamics against SARS-CoV-2 in Children and Adolescents, which you can access here. Currently, this is the largest, real-world, observational study looking at this research question during the Delta wave in Israel, with hundreds of thousands of kids and adolescents included in the study. In the podcast, she will discuss why she was interested in this research question, how she and her team conducted the study, what they discovered, any differences observed between reinfection rates without symptoms vs reinfection with symptoms in kids and adolescents, and since she is also a practicing clinician in Israel, what she is seeing from a clinical perspective and if that coincides with her research findings. Hope you tune in to the conversation! :) You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subcribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Hector Aguilar-Carreno about his and his team's research published in Nature, May'22 titled: A TMPRSS2 inhibitor acts as a pan-SARS-CoV-2 prophylactic and therapeutic.
In the podcast, he will break down the study and in an easy-to-understand way explain what TMPRSS2 is and how it relates to COVID-19 infection; the inhibitors and how they work; results when tested on cells and mice; why a nasal spray would be the most ideal way to administer this; public health implications, and where they are at in the research process.
Dr. Aguilar-Carreno is a virologist, professor and researcher with the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Professor Maggie Wang about the first, real-time platform to predict the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. The podcast is based on her and her team's work published in Nature Medicine in June of 2022. The platform has the potential to be used for other vaccines as well. In the podcast, Professor Wang will discuss the research behind the platform, how vaccine effectiveness relates to "genetic distance"; how, when using the platform, the different COVID-19 vaccine platforms compare; why over 80% of variation in vaccine effectiveness is due to the genetic distance measure; how the platform can predict vaccine effectiveness by vaccine type and geopgraphical area; reverse vaccinology, and the larger, practical implications of this real-time platform.
Professor Wang is founder and director of BethBio, a biotech company located in Hong Kong that focuses on vaccine development and translating frontier research results into vaccine technologies. She is also the Co-Director of the Master of Science Program in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a Review Editor for Human Genetics.
Talks about climate change are heated and ongoing. You often hear, especially from fans of The Green New Deal, "We literally only have 12 years to fix the problem!" Is that hyperbolic, or is that the truth? While there are various governmental committees working on solutions to reduce carbon emissions, one thing we don't hear a lot about is nuclear power. No one really dives into the details of nuclear power. Nuclear power sounds scary and turns a lot of people off. But what exactly is it and how does it compare to oil and coal? What are the risks and the benefits? Should nuclear power be part of the cure for man-made global warming or will it cause a host of problems? In this episode of Causes Or Cures, Dr. Andy Karam discusses nuclear power in detail and its potential role in reducing carbon emissions. Andy has a doctorate degree in environmental sciences and a masters degree in geological sciences. He's a graduate of the Naval Chemistry and Radiological Controls School and the Naval Nuclear Power School. Since 1981, Andy has worked in the radiation safety field. He started out working for the Navy and designed numerous radiation safety courses for the military and universities, including The University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, American University of Kosovo and The Center for Advanced Defense Studies. He's a board-certified international consultant for all radiological and nuclear matters, including radiological terrorism, and has consulted for the NYPD Counterterrorism division, NYC Department of Health, NASA Lewis Research Center, Honeywell, International Atomic Energy Agency, Panama Canal, the Canadian Army, Constellation Energy group and more. He's worked as a professor and has written over 200 peer-reviewed articles, several books and over 100 technical papers on the subject. This only touches on his extensive CV. For his full bio, please visit Dr. Karam's website here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks will chat with neuroscientist Dr. Mark Mattson about his new book titled, The Intermittent Fasting Revolution: The Science of Optimizing Health and Enhancing Performance. Dr. Mattson is a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, the former chief of the laboratory of neurosciences at the National Institute of Aging and someone who has done a lot of research on intermittent fasting. The National Institute of Health (NIH) considers him one of the world's top experts on the potential health benefits of intermittent fasting.
In the podcast, he will discuss how food scarcity sculpted the brain, including creativity and imagination; why 3 meals a day (plus a snack) isn't the best nutritional advice; the mechanisms of how intermittent fasting slows aging and prevents specific diseases; why stuffing our bodies with antioxidants may not be the best idea and why some "free radicals" are necessary; what hormesis means and why exercise and intermittent fasting are "good" kinds of stress; how intermittent fasting increases cortisol, but neurons respond differently to cortisol produced by intermittent fasting vs, say, chronic lifestyle stress. He will talk about how intermittent fasting relates to "old cells", Alzheimer's disease, cancer and autism. He will discuss a ketone ester that is on the market and finally, why we have an "ass backwards" health system.
The opioid epidemic is still raging, and people are still dying as a result. In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Jeremiah Lindemann about how he is using his data, geographic information system and mapping skills to combat the opioid epidemic. Inspired by the loss of his brother to the opioid epidemic, he will discuss the creation of the "Celebrate Lost Loved Ones" map, hosted by the National Safety Council, who visits the map, and stories being shared on the map daily. He will discuss how he became an "accidental" public health professional and how he obtains data to create specific maps that are useful for helping state and local governments take on the opioid epidemic in more efficient ways. Finally, he will share what he thinks needs to be prioritized to bring the opioid epidemic, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, to an end. Jeremiah is an ArcGIS Solutions product engineer with over 20 years of experience, including consulting for state and local governments.
If you lost someone to the opioid epidemic and would like to share his/her story and/or photo on the Celebrate Lost Loved Ones map, you can do so here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Marko Lukic, a physician and researcher at the Arctic Univeristy of Norway, who recently did a study on modifiable risk factors for colon cancer, an interesting and timely topic considering the concerning rising rates of colon cancer in young people. The study was published in the International Journal of Cancer.
In the podcast, Dr. Lukic talks us through his research and the data he used. He describes the specific, modifiable risk factors and how they link to new cases of colon cancer. He talks about how much these risk factors explain the burden of colon cancer, as well as how much of the burden remains unexplained. For the coffee drinkers out there, he also adds some interesting tidbits about his research on coffee and its relationship to cancer.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Jack Swain, head of clinical operations at Mindbloom. Mindbloom is a mental health and wellness company dedicated to expanding science-based treatments for depression and anxiety, and they are starting with at-home, sublingual Ketamine treatment that is supplemented with telehealth and peer support.
There is an explosion of interest in how psychedelics and other kinds of alternatives might be used to treat depression and anxiety, diseases that are notoriously difficult to treat, particularly for the long-term. In this episode, Jack will discuss a recent study involving Mindbloom that was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in October'22. He will discuss what Ketamine is, the theory for why it helps with depression and anxiety, and Ketamine's disassociation effect. He breaks down the "methods" section of the research (what the outcomes were, how they were measured and how the study was set up) and the results of the study. He talks any safety or side effect concerns with Ketamine and finally, the benefits of sublingual (under-the-tongue) Ketamine vs IV Ketamine. He'll also touch on what else is in store for Mindbloom.
In this Causes or Cures episode, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Shuji Ogino about his recent paper published in Nature Reviews, Clinical Oncology, titled "Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic? Current evidence and future implications." In the podcast, Dr. Ogino discusses what "early onset" means, what types of cancer are showing up earlier in people less than 50 years of age, and the evidence and data that supports this trend. He discusses how exposures early in life and in utero may be contributing to early-onset cancer in young people ( in their thirties and forties), and the specific risk factors that have been linked to early-onset cancer. He talks about why molecular pathological epidemiology is important for future analysis of this trend and what we need to do to slow this emerging epidemic from an individual perspective, a public health perspective, and a research one. Dr. Ogino, originally from Japan, is chief of the program in Molecular Pathological Epidemiology, Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Professor of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He is also a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. You can learn more about him here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Christoffer Clemmensen about his research on the psychedelic drug, psilocybin, and its connection to weight and energy balance. This podcast will mostly cover his animal study published here in Translational Psychiatry. As there is renewed interest in psychedelics and, of course, the ongoing obesity epidemic that is increasing around the globe, this is a doubly timely topic. Specifically, he will discuss psilocybin, how it works in the body, its relation to "cognitive flexibility", and how it might be used for obesity. He will explain the results of his animal study involving psilocybin, the dosing riddle, and why he feels it should next be studied in humans. Dr. Clemmensen heads the Clemmensen Group studies at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. His research focuses on the biological regulation of body weight and aims to develop new therapeutic approaches for obesity and its metabolic consequences. You can learn more about him and his lab here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here. Or Facebook here. Or Twitter. Subscribe to her newsletter here!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Carinne Chambers-Saini, CEO of DIVA and founder of the DIVA menstrual cup about how the mainstream dialogue around menstruation has changed over the years, what menstrual inequity and period poverty is, how the DIVA Cup works and its benefits over pads and tampons, anything we have to worry about with the DIVA Cup, and finally how she implemented a "menstrual health leave policy" at her company and how folks responded.
In this podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Christopher Murray about his recent article published in The Lancet (2022) titled The Global Burden of Cancer Attributable to Risk Factors, 2010-2019, a Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. This is the largest effort to date to determine the gobal burden of cancer due to risk factors. He will discuss what the global burden of disease study is, how he and his team estimated the burden of cancer, the risk factors and the assessment framework used to link specific cancers to specific risks, what percentage of cancer is attributed to risk factors, what the greatest risks are, differences in high income vs low income countries and public health implications.
Dr. Murray is Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He also leads the Global Burden of Disease collaboration ( a systemic effort to quantify the comparitive magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries and risk factors.)He is both a physician and a health economist and his work has led to innovative methods for strengthening health measurements, analyzing the performance of health systems and producing forecasts for the future state of health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House, European Commission, WHO EURO and Africa CDC have used IHME forecasts and policy scenarios as sources of evidence.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Emily Luisana about her recent study on dog bowl and dog food hygiene and the link to human and dog health published here. In the podcast, Dr. Luisana will discuss how she became interested in this topic and provide an overview of the potential bacteria/viruses that may grow on dog bowls and the potential impact for dog and human health. She'll discuss results from her survey that assessed how many people knew about the FDA's pet dish cleaning recommendations as well as the most common current practices for handling/storing dog food and cleaning dog bowls. She'll describe results from a survey to assess bacterial growth on dog dishes among groups, one of which used the FDA guidelines, and discuss differences. Then she'll offer general guidance and a bit of nutritional wisdom for dogs. Dr. Luisana is a practicing veterinarian and board-certified clinical nutritionist for veterinary medicine. You can read more about her here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz, PhD, about his and his team's study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine on the association between daily steps/step intensity and new cases of cancer, cardiovascular disease and death. (To date, it is the largest population sample and analysis of adults wearing an accelerometer.) In the podcast, Dr. Pozo Cruz will discuss his current research interests and why he is interested in the link between number of daily steps and health. He will explain how he and his team conducted the study and what they were measuring, including daily step counts, cadence-based metrics, and stepping intensity. He'll discuss their findings related to number of daily steps and association with cancer, cardiovascular disease and death, and if there were any differences noted among age groups. He'll answer the question, "Is there a magic number" of steps we should be taking to reduce our risk of disease and death. Finally he'll discuss limitations, potential individual and public health implications based on his findings and where he's taking his research next. Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz is a scientist, professor and senior researcher with the Department of Sport Sciences and Clinical Biomechanics at the Center for Active and Healthy Aging at the University of Southern Denmark.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with Dr. Thais Russomano to explore the fascinating topic of human health in space. Dr. Russomano will discuss the changes the human body undergoes in space, the health challenges of living on Mars versus the Moon, and how medicines might behave differently in these environments. She’ll also touch on the diagnostic tools required for space missions, long-term health monitoring, and how clinical trials could be conducted in space. Finally, Dr. Russomano will share her insights on the possibility of humans living on Mars one day and the health considerations involved in such an endeavor.
Dr. Russomano is an internationally recognized expert in space medicine. She holds both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in space physiology. She has worked as a space scientist at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Germany and founded the Microgravity Center, an international research hub for human space physiology. As a former head of the center, she has shaped much of the field. Additionally, Dr. Russomano has served as a professor of space physiology at King’s College London and a visiting professor at several universities worldwide. With numerous publications on space health, she is also the co-founder and director of InnovaSpace. You can read more about her and her work here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Rachel Stein about the Amish community and the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Stein is an Associate professor of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University. Her research focuses mostly on community building and health in Old Order Amish Communities. You can learn more about her here. She will discuss how she became interested in studying the Amish, specifics about the Amish community (their values and way of life), how the Amish responded to the pandemic and any risk-reduction strategies they used. She will discuss their excess death rate during the pandemic, their views on preventive medicine and vaccination in general, and then their views specifically on the COVID-19 vaccine. She will talk about where and how the Amish obtain health information compared to mainstream society and any issues with what people call "misinformation." Finally, she'll discuss their lifespan and specific attributes the Amish community values that might give them a health advantage over mainstream society.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Mandy Gulla about the PADs for Parkinson's Program, the first program of its kind in North America that teaches dogs how to detect an odor associated with Parkinson's Disease. In the podcast, she will provide an overview of Parkinson's Disease, talk about a dog's sense of smell and how good it is, and discuss when they first discovered an odor associated with Parkinson's Disease. She will discuss how the program trains the dogs to detect the odor, their accuracy rate, more specifics about the dogs that join the program, the importance of early detection, and the overall goals of the program. Dr. Gulla is a holistic physician and founder and medical director of the Living Medical Arts Center that serves the San Juan Islands. Her dog Piglet is one of the biodetection dogs in the PADs for Parkinson's Program.
In this episode of Causes Or Cures, Dr. Nicole LePera talks about her own personal journey and health struggles, her approach to overcoming them and how that experience, plus her experience with others as a professionally trained psychologist, guided her approach to healing the mind and body. With Dr. Eeks, Dr. LePera talks about whether the holistic lifestyle is accessible to everyone, how aging affects mindset, how to handle the challenges of social media and use it in a way that's beneficial for the mind and body, and the steps anyone can take, right now, to enhance his/her mind-body wellness journey. She's also very candid about facing obstacles and what keeps her motivated. Dr. LePera was trained at Cornell University and The New School as a traditional psychologist and went on to find the Mindful Healing Center in Philadelphia, where she focuses on relationships, gut health, sleep, cellular health, belief and mindfulness. She has close to 1 million followers on Instagram, and you can follow her here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Elena Conis, author of the book Vaccine Nation, America's Changing Relationship with Immunization. Dr. Conis will describe her interest in this topic and why she decided to write the book. She will discuss how the history of vaccination in the USA (particularly from the 1960s and onward) ties into the prevailing culture, societal beliefs and movements, political initiatives, an evolving body of epidemiological and scientific research, and biotechnological breakthroughs. She'll describe how and why the American public's views on vaccination changed over time, as well as shifts in regulatory power when it comes to things like mandates. She'll discuss anti-vaccination sentiment and vaccine skepticism, when and why they spiked in the population, and how they impacted political and scientific agendas and vice versa.
Dr. Conis is a writer, historian of medicine, and an associate professor at the graduate school of journalism in the department of history at the University of California, Berkley. Previously she was a professor of history at Emory University and an award-winning health columnist for the Los Angeles Times. You can learn more about her here and order her book Vaccine Nation here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Karen Van Nuys and Dr. Neeraj Sood about the pricing of insulin in the United States. It's no secret that insulin is unaffordable for many Americans who need it. This discussion will center around how the price of insulin is set, all the players involved, and who is to blame for the high price of insulin in the US. We will explore who benefits the most from increasing insulin prices, whether or not the Inflation Reduction Act will make a significant difference, and what can practically be done to make insulin more affordable for more Americans. Dr. Van Nuys is the executive director of the Value of Life Sciences Innovation program and a fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center. She is also a research assitant professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy. You can learn more about her work here. Dr. Sood is a professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy with joint appointments at the USC Keck School of Medicine and USC Marshall School of Business. He is also a senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer center and you can learn more about his work here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Col Michael McGurk (Ret), Director of Research for the US Army's Center for Initial Military Training, about the Army's Holistic Health and Fitness System, or H2F. Col McGurk was instrumental in the development of the system and directs test implementation, standards and evaluation of H2F components for the US Army. You can read his bio here. In the podcast he will discuss what H2F is, describe its components (physical, mental, sleep, nutritional and spiritual readiness) and link each component to the broader picture of holistic health. He'll explain why there was a need for H2F and relate it to soldier health and readiness. He'll tell us about H2F Human Performance Teams and plans for the Soldier Performance Readiness Center. Col McGurk will also discuss the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), one component of H2F, why it replaced the Army's Physical Fitness Test (APFT), some of its initial challenges, and how the Army is overcoming those challenges. Finally, he'll discuss how they are measuring outcomes and success rates for each of the H2F components, as well as ongoing and future research.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Kyle Flanigan, CEO and co-founder of US Specialty Formulations about his company's work on creating a COVID-19 vaccine you can swallow. Basically, a vaccine you drink instead of a shot in the arm. He will discuss his company's vaccine platform, called QYNDR, and how it produces oral vaccines. He'll tell us what an oral vaccine is and how it differs from the traditional vaccines we are used to, including differences in immune response, storage, accessibility and scalability. Dr. Flanigan will walk us through how they are testing the vaccine, the funding requirements involved, early results from an early-stage trial in New Zealand, safety concerns, and what's in store for the future.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Madeline Li about Canada's Medical Assistance in Dying Law or MAID. The Parliament of Canada passed MAID in 2016, allowing eligible Canadian adults to request medical assistance in dying. In 2021 the law was revised to allow for more chronic conditions to be included, and now they are in discussions to expand eligibility to those with a diagnosed mental disorder.
Dr. Li is a psychiatrist specializing in cancer and palliative care who also has clinical expertise in applying MAID. She has done eligibility assessments for MAID and helped develop the MAID program for the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada.
In the podcast, she tells us more about what MAID is, how the original eligibility criteria evolved since 2016, and describes how the law is applied to people who request MAID. She discusses the reasons put forth for expanding MAID to include those with chronic conditions, including mental disorders, and how she personally feels about that. She talks about the key challenges and ethical concerns. Finally, she offers her suggestions for improving MAID to overcome some of the challenges.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Nick Washmuth about how swearing (cursing, saying "bad" words, dropping "f bombs") can be used to help manage physical pain. He discusses the theories for why swearing helps with physical pain, the evidence for it, specific case studies, and how it might be used in a clinical setting. He also describes if some swear words are "better" than others for managing physical pain and whether or not making up swear words has any benefit. In addition, he'll talk about how swearing might help build a therapeutic alliance and help with physical performance too. Dr Washmuth is a doctor of physical therapy and an Associate Professor at Samford University, School of Health Professions. Disclaimer: If swearing disturbs you, this isn't the podcast for you. If you're fine with it...then let's f'ing go!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jay Shah about why he believes that high blood pressure is a silent epidemic affecting millions of people. Dr. Shah will first describe what blood pressure is and how we measure it, what high blood pressure is, and why he believes we are experiencing a silent epidemic of high blood pressure. He will also make the case for why we should be continually monitoring blood pressure versus traditional methods of monitoring blood pressure, such as periodic visits to a healthcare provider or taking measurements at home with a blood pressure cuff. He'll explain the technology he is currently working with to do this. Finally, he'll also offer a few lifestyle tips for improving cardiac health.
Dr. Shah is a cardiologist who trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine. He founded and built the cardiovascular services at The Portland Clinic and served as the medical director of the Aortic Disease Program at The Mayo Clinic. He currently serves as the medical director for Aktiia.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. James Giordano about narrowing in on the cause of Havana Syndrome, a mysterious illness targeting the intelligence community. Havana Syndrome was first identified in 2016, when diplomats and intel officers working in Havana, Cuba began experiencing a mysterious set of symptoms. Dr. Giordano was one of the experts tasked to investigate the cause of Havana Syndrome, and while other reports of Havana Syndrome have occurred in other locations, this podcast will focus on what happened in Havana in 2016.
"Dr James Giordano is Pellegrino Center Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry, and Chief of the Neuroethics Program at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC. He is Senior Bioethicist of the Defense Medical Ethics Center, and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences/Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, and is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Brain Science, Health Promotions, and Ethics at the Coburg University of Applied Sciences, Coburg, Germany. He is the author of over 350 peer-reviewed publications, 9 books, and 40 government reports on brain science, ethics, and biosecurity. Dr. Giordano was elected to the European Academy of Science and Arts; is an International Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK); was a Senior Fellow and Task Leader of the EU Human Brain Project; and was an appointed member of the US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections."
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Sebastian Goetze on his and his team's discovery of fungi-killing compounds, which they subsequently named after the famous actor Keanu Reeves. (You can read the study here in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.) While the study has created a lot of buzz for being named after Keanu, in the podcast, Dr. Goetze will describe the need for anti-fungals, particularly in a world experiencing an "anitmicrobial crisis." He will walk us through how they discovered the compounds, break down the chemistry, and teach us what "gene mining" means. He will discuss how these "Keanumycins" may be beneficial for our health (and the Earth's health), the difficult process of developing an anti-fungal drug, safety issues, and answer a question a lot of folks have: why/how he and his team named the compounds after Keanu and not John Wick. He'll end the podcast by describing future avenues of research. Dr. Goetze is a scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology. You can learn more about him and see his publications here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Joseph Maroon about hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), what it is, and how it is administered. He will explain why he believes it is beneficial for improving brain health, particularly for helping people recover from traumatic brain injuries, strokes and PTSD. Dr. Maroon will also explain how it can be used to promote healthy aging and describe his own experience with HBOT at Aviv Clinic, as well as how he uses it with his patients. Dr. Maroon is a neurosurgeon, a former doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Vice President of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, founder of the New Global Aging Consortium, a competitive triathlete and marathoner. You can read his book Square One and learn more about him on his website here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks interviews Dr. Fiorella Belpoggi about the potential health risks of wireless technology and radiation from EMFs (electromagnetic fields). The safety of EMFs is in the news due to the rollout of 5G and because of a recently resurfaced petition to the World Health Organization that was signed by 250 scientists warning about EMF exposure and health effects. That said, there have been no randomized controlled animal trials involving 5g. The 2 largest animal trials to date did not evaluate 5g. There has been no formal guidance to minimize exposure and no regulatory body has stated that there needs to be such guidance.
Dr. Belpoggi is the head of research at the Ramazzini Institute in Italy and Director of the Cesare Mal-toni Cancer Research Center, where she has worked since 1981. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and has done research on a variety of environmental exposures, including pesticides, plastics, food additives and hormones. To date, she has performed the largest animal study involving EMF (cell phone) exposure and cancer risk, which is covered in this interview, along with her recommendations for use of cell phones and wireless technology. ( For those with short attention spans, a summary of her recommendations will also be included in Dr. Eeks' blog at bloomingwellness.com.)
Dr. Belpoggi is a fellow of the International Academy of Toxicologic Pathology; a member of the European Society of Toxicologic Pathology, and she has served as an expert witness or adviser for the European Parliament, the World Health Organization, the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs, and the European Center for Environmental Health.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Siwen Wang about her research published in JAMA Internal Medicine on the link between pre-infection healthy lifestyle factors and risk of Long COVID. She will talk about the 6 lifestyle factors they assessed and why, how they did the study and created a "healthy lifestyle score", and how they defined "Long COVID" for the purposes of her study. Then she will discuss results, "take-home" points, and implications for a wider population.
Dr. Wang is a medical doctor and Research Fellow at the Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
On this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Professor Marianne Nissen Lund, who is a researcher and professor of food chemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She will elaborate on what "food chemistry" means and how the chemical mechanisms in food and between foods can impact quality, stability and health. In this episode, she will focus on her recent work here and here and break down the chemistry into plain language to show how adding milk to coffee can increase its anti-inflammatory effects and lead to positive health outcomes. She will explain how they did the research, what they measured and describe the potential health benefits. A great one for coffee drinkers! ;) (Photo Credit: Claus Boesen)
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with author Susan Salenger about her book, SIDELINED, How Women Manage & Mismanage Their Health. Some of the topics covered in the book and on this podcast include why women put themselves second when it comes to health issues, why "nice girls finish last," the shame and blame game for when women are hit with an illness, a breakdown of communication when navigating the healthcare system, how pharmaceutical industries target women with their ads, the downside of the wellness industry and positive psychology, and an intriguing stroll through history to explain the context for why women mismanage their health. She will also provide tips on how women can better manage their health and even save their lives. You can learn more about Susan on her website.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Anushka Ataullahjan about her research on the polio eradication efforts in Pakistan. Wild polio is still endemic in Pakistan, and Dr. Ataullahjan will discuss different eradication programs and initiatives they've tried over the years and the different barriers they've met, including threats of insecurity and people's beliefs and concerns. She'll discuss how various global events impacted polio eradication efforts, including how the CIA's 2011 fake vaccine campaign in Pakistan contributed to widespread vaccine mistrust. She also will offer insights and recommendations for future efforts. Dr. Ataullahjan is a professor, poet and researcher who studies public health issues as they relate to Pakistan, including this study on polio eradication efforts published in Expert Review of Vaccines. You can follow her on Twitter here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Brennen McKenzie, a veterinarian, epidemiologist and Director of Veterinary Medicine at Loyal, a clinical-stage veterinary medicine company developing drugs to prolong the lifespan and healthspan of dogs. He discusses the aging process in dogs, age-related biomarkers, and the link between dog size (big vs small) and lifespan. He explains what a dog's "methylation age" is, how that relates to "epigenetics" and how that is similar to and differs from a dog's chronological age. He talks about the studies Loyal is conducting and the drugs they are developing to prolong a dog's lifespan. (You may be able to enroll your dog in a study, right from home, if interested!) Finally, he describes when he thinks we might see a "noticeable" difference in a dog's lifespan.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats wit Dr. Michael Santos about the A-PLUS trial, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, which looked at the effects of a cheap, widely available antibiotic, Azithromycin, in preventing sepsis and death in women during childbirth in low- to middle-income countries. Dr. Santos will explain the prevalence and life-threatening nature of sepsis in women during childbirth, particularly in low-resource settings. He will discuss what they knew about Azithromycin and maternal sepsis prior to the study, how they recruited for this study and conducted it, the results they found, and the wider public health implications.
Dr. Santos is Vice President of Science at the Foundations for the National Intitutes of Health (FNIH) and was in charge of the work FNIH did on the A-PLUS trial. He was previously Deputy Director of the Global Health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Would you ever donate your kidney to a stranger? In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Elaine Perlman, Director of Waitlist Zero, an organization with the mission of representing kidney donors and ending the waitlist by making it easier for living donors to donate a kidney. Elaine will walk us through her journey (from start to finish) of donating her kidney to a stranger. She'll also tell us about the journey of her son, who donated his kidney when he was just a teenager. Elaine will also explain what the "kidney crisis" is, how long the wait on the waitlist is, and the cost to living donors, a burden which Waitlist Zero hopes to decrease. Finally, she'll talk about the biggest reason people give for donating a kidney to a stranger, and the main reasons people give for not wanting to do it.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Victor Tseng about his and his team's study on how AI (ChatGPT) came close to passing the United States Medical Licensing Exams (USMLE), tests that all medical doctors must take and pass in order to practice medicine in the US. The study was published in Plos Digital Health here. Dr. Tseng will tell us more about what ChatGPT is and its current capabilities, how they set up the study to test its performance on the USMLE, results of the study, future studies his company may perform, and perhaps most importantly, where ChatGPT could take medicine and public health in the future, while highlighting some of the major ethical and philosophical concerns. Will robots replace us?!? Let's see... Dr. Tseng is a practicing pulmonologist (lung doctor) and the Medical Director and Executive Vice President for AnsibleHealth, a digital theranostics and AI-enhanced medical practice focused on care for diseases of the lungs.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Naveed Sattar, a clinician, researcher, and professor of metabolic medicine at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow and a leading expert in diabetes and cardiovascular disease research. In this podcast, he discusses the most accurate ways to measure body fat and why that matters, and he talks about the "obesity paradox", what that is and how it unravels when using more accurate measures of body fat...particularly when it comes to a specific kind of heart failure. (If you are interested, you can read his study on it here.) He discusses how tackling chronic diseases without specifically focusing on and tackling excess weight leads to significantly more problems. (And you can read his study on that topic here.) He shares his views and concerns on the new obesity medications that are trending in the news, and finally, what a good, population-level approach to obesity might look like. You can read his bio here.
On a topic near and dear to her, in this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with "misinformation scientist" Dr. Sacha Altay on what we are getting wrong about misinformation. This podcast will focus on his and his peers' paper published in the journal Social Media and Society titled Misinformation on Misinformation: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges. His article identifies 6 big misconceptions about misinformation and provides a lot to think about when it comes to our current aproaches to identifying and managing misinformation. In the podcast, Sacha will discuss some of the misconceptions about misinformation when it comes to prevalence and circulation, as well as misconceptions associated with its impact and reception. Essentially, concerns with how we are measuring the impact of misinformation and communicating that to the public. He will then discuss how the aformentioned things are associated with misinterpretation of research results. Finally, he will suggest a better path forward when it comes to misinformation.
Dr. Altay is an experimental psychologist working on misinformation, misperceptions, and (dis)trust. After completing his PhD in Cognitive Science at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he did a postdoc in Oxford at the Reuters Institute. As "misinformation policies" is a "triggering" topic for many, I request that you listen with a few deep breaths and a curious mind.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Andrei Gudkov and Dr. Joseph Wakshlag about their research on extending a dog's lifespan. They both are part of a group of scientists at Vaika, a non-profit medical research organization that is dedicated to extending the lifespan of domestic animals. In the podcast, they will discuss the aging process, how it might be reversed and how some of the things they are learning may apply to humans too. They will also talk about some of the research they are doing, including testing drugs to slow or prevent the aging process in retired sled dogs that were in kennels around the US and are now living out their retirement on spacious grounds in upstate NY. You will hear more about the dogs and their way of life in the podcast too.
Dr. Gudkov is one of the founders of Vaika and a professor of oncology and senior vice president of research technology and innovation at Roswell Park Cancer Center. Dr. Wakshlag is a veterinarian with Cornell University and the medical director of this "sled dog study."
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Comninos about Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) and his and his team's research on a potential new treatment called Kisspeptin. He will discuss prevalence, diagnosis, symptoms, how the diagnosis may be misdiagnosed as Erectile Dysfunction Disorder, and current treatment approaches to HSDD. In detail, he'll describe what Kisspeptin is and how it might help. He'll also talk about the clinical trials he has conducted involving both men and women diagnosed with HSDD and how well Kisspetin worked in those clinical trials. Dr. Comninos is a Consultant Endocrinologist at Imperial College London where he also leads the Imperial Endocrine Bone Unit. He has authored over 75 clinical and translational publications in reproductive endocrinology, with a focus on reproductive hormones and their influence on both behavior and bones. You can learn more about him here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Stephanie James about the potential use of genetically modified mosquitoes (GMMs) to fight diseases that mosquitoes carry and spread, such as Malaria and Dengue Fever.
In the podcast, Dr. James provides an overview on GMMs, as well as what something called Gene Drive Modified Mosquitoes (GDMMs) are. She talks about the current state of research, testing, and describes the GeneConvene Global Collaborative "GeneConvene", which was created to advance best practices and informed decision making for developing GMMs and GDMMs. She talks about the potential benefits versus the potential risks, how they are conducting risk assessments, how they plan to test GMMs, the ethical and safety concerns, and how local communities will be included in the decision-making process.
Dr. James is the Senior Scientific Advisor, Population Health Science at the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. She helps lead the work being conducted by the GeneConvene Global Collaborative, has a doctorate in microbiology and a background in research on parasitic disease. She’s also led global health programs at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/NIH and the Ellison Medical Foundation.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Lance Price about his recent study published in One Health on the link between the meat we eat and urinary tract infections (UTIs). In the podcast, he explains how he conducted the study and breaks down the more technical stuff so that it is understandable. He discusses the results of his work, antibiotic resistance, the types of meat most significantly linked to UTIs and how eating and preparing these types of meat may lead to UTIs. Then he talks about preventive strategies on the individual level and the population level. Dr. Lance Price is a professor at George Washington University's School of Public Health in Washington DC and the founding director of the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center. You can learn more about him here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Tom Parsons about his study called The Weight of New York City, Possible Contributions to Subsidence from Anthropogenic Sources published in Earth's Future. He tells us what subsidence is and how it is measured, how and by how much the skyscrapers and buildings of NYC are contributing to it, why we should care about it, and what the potential short-term and long-term implications are. He talks about the potential implications from a "One Health" perspective, specifically in the realm of how our environment impacts our health. He also talks about what his study shows versus how it was presented by many media outlets, serving as an interesting case study for those in the scientific communications field. Dr. Tom Parsons earned his PhD in geophysics from Stanford University and is a Research Geophysicist at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California. You can learn more about his work, publications and research interests here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Ari Green about the latest thinking on what causes Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and who it impacts most, current treatment approaches, and research on potential new treatments involving remylenation therapies. He chats about the ReBUILD trial and something called the "Myelin Water Fraction" and how it can be used to measure remylenation. He also discusses the latest evidence on preventive factors for MS. Dr. Green is a neurologist and neuro-ophthalmologist and medical director of the UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center. He is also director of the UCSF Neurodiagnostic Center. His research focus is on reparative treatments for people with MS and slowing down neurodegeneration. You can learn more about him here.
There has been recent reports and concerning articles suggesting that COVID-19 is leading to an uptick of new cases of Type 1 Diabetes in kids but is this potential link something parents and kids have to worry about? Dr. Lars Stene joins Dr. Eeks on the podcast to discuss risk factors for Type 1 Diabetes and the trend of diagnosing new cases in kids over the last several years. He then discusses the potential, talked-about link between COVID and Type 1 Diabetes and provides his perspective on the current evidence. He discusses relative risk vs absolute risk (a good lesson for everyone), his current research on risk factors for Type 1 Diabetes and also talks about the "exposome." Dr. Stene is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. For over 20 years, his focus is researching environmental factors, infections, nutritional factors and gene-environment interactions that may be risks for Type 1 Diabetes. You can learn more about his work here. And thank you to everyone who leaves a review and rating for the podcast! :)
In this episode, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Nicholas Seyfried about his research on a protein(s) in the brain that may hold the key to making people resilient to Alzheimer's Disease, a growing concern in western nations with aging populations and those who have a family history of the disease. In the podcast, Dr. Seyfried discusses what the pathological hallmarks are of Alzheimer's Disease and why cognitive impairment happens. He then describes why certain proteins in the brain, with a special focus on one called Neuritin, may make people resilient to Alzheimer's and how approaches to Alzheimer's disease may evolve over the next several years. He also discusses evidence-based prevention strategies that are good for everyone to know.
Dr. Seyfried is director of the Emory Integrated Proteomics Core at Emory University School of Medicine and a professor in the department of biochemistry. The Seyfried Lab at Emory focuses on the relationship between proteomics and biology to tackle Alzheimer's Disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with filmmaker and documentarian David Krissman about his investigative podcast series, "The Great Social Experiment," about America's only experiment with universal healthcare, the treatment of patients with kidney failure. David takes us back to 1972, when congress guaranteed healthcare coverage for people with kidney failure regardless of race, socioeconomic status and age. And while on the surface, this sounds like a great and altruistic endeavor..., David describes why it is a cautionary tale of inequity, faulty decisions on life-or-death matters, putting profits first, questionable incentives and at the core, a cautionary tale about what drives human behavior. Throughout the podcast, David references media reports, government data, interviews with prominent experts and kidney patients. So fasten your seatbelts, because this is an incredible story by an amazing storyteller. (And after you listen to this, absolutely check out David's podcast here.)
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Andrew Sikora about the link between HPV, the most common sexually-transmitted disease, and head and throat cancers in men. While we hear more about HPV-linked cervical cancer in women, Dr. Sikora will discuss the types of cancers HPV causes in men, risk factors, signs and symptoms, how it is treated once diagnosed, and prognosis after treatment. He will also talk about prevention and the HPV vaccine. Dr. Sikora is professor and director of Research in the Department of Head and Neck surgery at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is also the Co-Deputy Division Head for Research in the Division of Surgery at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. His clinical expertise is in throat cancer and HPV-related heaed and neck cancers and his research focuses on tumor immunology and immunotherapies for cancer. You can learn more about him here.
Benzodiazepines (Benzos) are some of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the world for anxiety. Despite how common they are, most people, including doctors and pharmacists, don't know the extent of benzodiazepine withdrawal, including the vast array of symptoms, nor do they know how to treat it. Many doctors and stakeholders confuse addiction with chemical dependence, which can be extremely frustrating for the person going through withdrawal, who took the medication as prescribed. Folks afflicted often turn to online forums and seek out others with similar withdrawal symptoms for advice. They are part of the "prescribed harm" community. Between searching for answers and managing symptoms, many people become so frustrated and exhausted that they resort to taking their own lives. As Dr. Huff mentions in the podcast, in the past year alone, she knows of at least 30 people who were going through benzo withdrawal and ended up killing themselves. In this podcast, Dr. Huff opens up about how she felt while on benzodiazepines and her horrific experience coming off of them. She talks about the guidance she did/did not receive and what ultimately helped her. She does not mince words. Dr. Christy Huff is a cardiologist by training, a mom and currently serves as director of the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Kirk Schneider about his new book Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World. In the podcast, Dr. Schneider tells us about himself and his own struggle with anxiety and how that got him on the path to discovering life-enhancing anxiety. He explains how we get from a state of anxiety to a state of Awe and why it's important that we go through that entire (often difficult) process and not plug or drug it away. He discusses ways to overcome the fear of uncertainty, COVID and life-enhancing anxiety, the shortcomings of Positive Psychology and even how life-enhancing anxiety can be used to bridge political divides.
Dr. Schneider PhD is a licensed psychologist and leader for contemporary existential-humanistic psychology. He was a 2022 Candidate for President of the American Psychological Association and cofounder and current president of the Existential-Humanistic Institute. He is a presenter of the bridge-building dialogue approach the Experiential Democracy Dialogue and a trained moderator for the conflict mediation group, Braver Angels. He is also a faculty member at Columbia University and Saybrook University. You can learn more about him and his book here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Raj Khanna, director of NYU's Pain Research Center and professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU School of Dentistry, about his and his team's new research on potential future ways to tackle chronic pain. Given that chronic pain is a growing issue that impacts people of all ages and that there really are no good, long-term, reliable solutions out there, this is a key area of research. Without reliable, long-term solutions from conventional medicine and therapies, many suffering from chronic pain seek out more alternative and unconventional approaches to find some relief. This is an especially timely topic given the ongoing US opioid epidemic.
In the podcast, Dr. Khanna starts with the basics and defines chronic pain and its causes. He describes his and his team's research and why a "special" sodium channel and a "special" protein that regulates this sodium channel are important when it comes to regulating chronic pain. He explains how he and his team used gene therapy to influence the interaction of the "special" protein and sodium channel, tested their hypothesis in animals and cells, and the results and outcomes related to chronic pain. Towards the end of the podcast, he discusses if the field may move towards replacing animals in research with other ways to test treatments, alternative approaches to chronic pain, and what the future of chronic pain treatment may look like.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Michelle B. Slater, PHD about her book Starving to Heal in Siberia. After working with a team of medical experts, trying everything in the book and contemplating assisted suicide, Michelle went all the way to Siberia as a last effort to heal from late-stage Lyme Disease, a chronic illness that devestated her. She spent months in Siberia where she was monitored by a Russian physician and engaged in a rigorous dry-fasting routine, along with other more unconventional therapies. Michelle credits dry-fasting for putting her on the path to healing. What drives a person to go all the way to Siberia to engage in an unconventional therapy that many would consider risky and dangerous? What did her team of conventional doctors, friends and family think? What do folks suffering with chronic illness do and feel if all conventional approaches to treatment have been exhausted, but the person just isn't getting better? Michelle answers that, and more, in the podcast. *PLEASE NOTE: Eeks does not recommend anyone hopping on a plane to Siberia to try dry-fasting. She does not endorse dry-fasting. This podcast episode is not an endorsement of Siberia or dry-fasting or dry-fasting in Siberia. Eeks works in public health, doesn't practice medicine, and advises everyone to work with their team of doctors when it comes to overcoming a chronic illness. She didn't know much of anything about dry-fasting until she read Michelle's book, and there are currently no peer-reviewed published studies to support its effectiveness. She doesn't think she'd make it through the Siberia routine, but everyone is wired differently. (She once went to a juice camp where they ban coffee, but feeling like a tranquilized bear, she ended up breaking the rules and running to a mini mart to sneak some in.) However..., she recommends reading Michelle's book because it's a compelling close-up look of what it's like for someone struggling day after day with a chronic illness and what happens when a feeling of hopelessness starts to set in. This is a podcast (not news or advice or Gospel), and this episode is one woman sharing her story. (Apologies for the long disclaimer, but we need them in today's painfully reductive, slap-label-happy world.)
Why do some people NEVER get sick from COVID? In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jill Hollenbach about her recently published research on how a person's genes may keep them from getting sick from COVID. In the podcast, Dr. Hollenbach explains why genes influence how a person responds to a virus; she describes the specific genes she studied and why, and then explains how she carried out her research in an easy-to-understand way. She also discusses the potential public health implications of her work, including how it may impact future vaccine development. Dr. Hollenbach is a Professor in the Department of Neurology and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. You can learn more about her and her lab here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with journalist Kristina Marusic about her book A New War on Cancer, the Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention. In the podcast, Kristina discusses how rising cancer rates are linked to our widespread exposure to chemicals, specifically chemicals in everyday products that we all use. She provides an overview of how the United States regulates these chemicals compared to other countries and what testing is or isn't done before a chemical hits the market. She talks about the public health researchers and health advocates who are revolutionizing our understanding of cancer and its causes, as well as leading the fight against chemical pollution and corporate influence with scientific evidence. Finally, she describes her vision for the new war on cancer, including putting a "face" to prevention.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jay Joshi about his new book, Burden of Pain, a Physician's Journey through the Opioid Epidemic. Dr. Joshi was a practicing physician at a clinic in rural Indiana when his world was turned upside down. The DEA, using a fake patient and a prescription monitoring system, investigated Dr. Joshi for his opioid prescription practices. He was eventually arrested, tried in court and served a prison sentence. While in prison he wrote the book Burden of Pain, which is his side of the story. After serving his time, he is back to practicing medicine. No matter your views on the causes and perpetrators of the opioid epidemic, in this episode Dr. Joshi provides valuable insights on the complexity of the epidemic; how we view and treat pain; the patient-Doctor relationship, the role of the DEA; and what he feels are the best steps forward. He also shares what it was like to be a doctor in prison, coming out and starting over.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Tera Fazzino about her research on how the biggest US tobacco companies owned the leading food companies from 1988 to early 2000s and disproportionately produced hyper-palatable foods (HPFs). She explains what a hyper-palatable food is and how they are created, the theory for why some Americans get hooked on them, and how these foods may impact our health. Then she takes us back in history to describe when and why the tobacco industries owned and controlled leading food companies (Kraft, Nabisco, General Foods...) and how her and her team determined that they were making hyper-palatable foods. She also discusses what is happening with the current food industry, why this is a big public health issue, and what we can do to move toward a healthier food supply.
Dr. Fazzino is Associate Director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment at the University of Kansas and a Professor in the Department of Psychology. She has a doctorate in experimental psychology and her research focuses on addiction, obesity, eating disorders and health-risk behaviors.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jamie O'Driscoll and Jamie Edwards about their research recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on what is the best exercise for maintaining a healthy resting blood pressure. In the podcast, they explain how they conducted their study, their results, and the theories behind why one exercise did significantly better than others at lowering blood pressure. They will tell you how you can do the best exercise right now and also offer advice on how their findings should impact current exercise guidelines when it comes to high blood pressure, a serious health problem that affects millions of people! Dr. O'Driscoll is a researcher in Cardiovascular Physiology at Canterbury Christ Church University and a Clinical Scientist in Cardiology. You can learn about him here. Jamie Edwards is a PhD student at Canterbury Christ Church University.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. David Clarke about the hidden causes of chronic pain and something he refers to as "the biggest blind spot" in the healthcare community. He discusses how adverse childhood experiences, traumas and stresses create chronic pain in adults and how they makes changes in the body. He also shares remarkable stories of patients he has successfully treated with something called Pain Relief Psychology. Dr. Clarke is the President of the Psychophysiologic Disorders Association (PPDA), a nonprofit dedicated to ending the chronic pain epidemic. He earned his medical degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and is Board-certified in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology. His organization’s mission is to advance the awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of stress-related, brain-generated medical conditions. You can learn more about him atEndChronicPain.org.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with neuroscientist Dr. Katja Valli about what the function(s) of dreams is. She describes what a dream is and the potential theories for why we dream. She discusses the content of our dreams, who appears in our dreams, and if our dreams impact our behavior. She touches on nightmares, lucid dreaming and if we can "make ourselves" dream things we want to dream. Finally, she chats about the meaning of dreams and the important link between dream research and unraveling the mystery of consciousness. Dr. Valli is a neuroscientist and senior researcher who has researched various aspects of dreams and dreaming for the past 20 years. She works as a senior researcher at the Department of Psychology University of Turku, Finland and as an Associate Professor at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Skovde, Sweden. Her research focus is states of consciousness and the biological function of dreaming. You can learn more about her here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Daniel Barvin, Vice President of Operations and Patient Advocacy at Coya Therapeutics, a trailblazing company working on groundbreaking treatments for ALS and Alzheimer's. In the podcast, Daniel will tell us more about the debilitating and fatal disease ALS and the therapies they are testing at Coya Therapeutics which target T cells, cells that form an important part of the immune system. Daniel's fight against ALS is personal. He has lost several family members to ALS, including his father, uncle, grandfather, and aunt. He is also a carrier of the ALS gene, and realizes it may only be a matter of time until he shows signs of the disease. As a young man now, he discusses what that feels like in the podcast. Daniel also talks about finding a way to have kids with his wife to avoid passing on the ALS gene and finding the group End the Legacy, a not-for-profit organization that provides support and resources for the 1 million individuals with or at risk of genetic ALS and FTD. Thank you to everyone who reviews and rates the podcast!
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Chinwé Williams about the teen mental health crisis, what is causing it, and how we can address it. Dr. Williams discusses how social media impacts teen mental health, the "lying" spiral of anxiety, and offers practical tips for parents and guardians to try at home. She also comments on the link between faith and teen mental health. Dr. Williams is a trauma therapist, best-selling author and speaker with over twenty years of experience working with teens and adults. She is the co-author of the books Seen and Beyond the Spiral. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Board Certified Counselor and a Counselor Educator & Supervisor, and a certified EMDR therapist with a doctorate in Counselor Education. You can learn more about her on her website and follow her Instagram here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jeffrey Iliff about his research on changes in sleep patterns over time and how that is linked to cognitive function. He discusses the relationship between sleep and cognitive function in general, and then describes how some sleep patterns over time may be more prone to cognitive decline than others and explains the theories behind that. He talks about the optimal number of hours of sleep a person should get each night and how that was determined. Finally, he explains the larger health impact of his work, particularly in an age when cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease are on the rise. Dr. Iliff is a researcher and professor at the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Associate Director for Research at the Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System. His research focuses on traumatic brain injuries and neurodegeneration.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Melanie Jay about the new weight loss drugs (Wegovy, Ozempic (Semaglutide), Manjaro (Tirzepatide), Zepbound). She starts by explaining what obesity is and how it impacts the body. Then she breaks down how the medications work; how effective they are at taking off weight and keeping it from coming back on; side effects; risks, and benefits. She talks about the best diet and exercise programs to follow while taking these medications and how to slow down muscle loss. She discusses access issues and how the medications may be widening health disparities related to obesity and remaining questions that require more research. Dr. Jay is an Associate Professor, Department of Medicine and an Associate Professor, Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She leads the "Jay lab" at NYU and her research focus is improving the treatment and prevention of obesity. You can learn more about her work on obesity here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Paul Sutter about the declining trust in science and why it is happening. They discuss how regulatory capture and the pressure to publish as many papers as possible is leading to bad science and fueling a culture of distrust. They discuss the difference between an effective scientific communicator vs a polarizing one and what happens when you politicize science. They talk about how to manage an overwhelming amount of information and opinions (often conflicting) in a digital, social-media obsessed age. Finally, Dr. Sutter outlines a path forward on how to rebuild trust in science. Dr. Paul Sutter is a theoretical cosmologist, award-winning science communicator, NASA advisor, U.S. Cultural Ambassador, and a globally recognized leader in the intersection of art and science. He is a research professor at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and a visiting professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is also a seasoned author and his next book, Rescuing Science in an Age of Doubt, is available this March.
In this episode of Causes or Cures I chat with Dr. Scott Kaplan about his research on the effectiveness of putting a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Sugar-sweetened beverages are significantly linked to heart disease, obesity and other chronic illnesses, and taxes are one (albeit controversial) approach we can take at the population level. Dr. Kaplan discusses price and purchasing changes afte a sugar-sweetened beverage tax was implemented in five major US cities. He discusses economic outcomes, health outcomes, and addresses criticism of these types of taxes, including that they are too "Big Brotherish" and discriminate against the poor. Dr. Kaplan is an applied microeconomist whose research interests include consumer behavior and food and health policy. He is an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at the United States Naval Academy.
"Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food." In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Marissa Toussaint about how she is using culinary medicine to help her patients lose weight, maintain a healthy weight and prevent chronic illnesses. Taking a holistic approach to health, she explains what culinary medicine is and how she uses it in conjuction with her training in family medicine and obesity medicine to help patients get to their healthiest state. She describes how people can eat healthier on any budget and what foods to prioritize, and she discusses our current approach to obesity, including the new obesity drugs, and what else needs to be done. She also describes how the body positive movement fits in with the war on obesity, as the two are not at odds with one another. Dr. Toussaint is a board-certified family physician, obesity medicine physician, and is certified in culinary medicine. With over fifteen years of clinical experience, she has spent much of her career working with underrepresented communities and is a champion for eliminating health disparities. If you are interested in learning more about her or are interested in working with her, please visit her website Anise Medical. You can also follow her food and cooking tips on her Instagram here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Erica Fernandes about the identification of a new syndrome linked to fentanyl exposure while in the womb. Dr. Fernandes first discusses how a new syndrome related to developmental or genetic abnormalities is identified and then explains how they carried out their study at Nemours Children's Hospital. She discusses the specific characteristics identified in the babies enrolled in their study and how fentanyl was identified as the common exposure. She explains how other known syndromes were ruled out and discusses ongoing research to determine how exactly fentanyl causes the new syndrome. Finally, she offers next steps in terms of informing the public and public health. Dr. Fernandes is a practicing physician and researcher in the division of medical genetics at Nemours Children's Health. Her and her team's study on the new syndrome was recently published here in Genetics in Medicine Open.
On this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats wtih Dr. Dmitry Abramov about his and his team's research on the impact of substance use on heart-related deaths over time in the US. The research was recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. In the podcast, he explains how he did the research, what substances have the greatest impact on heart-related deaths, and what subpopulations are most at risk, including some surprising trends. Substances assessed include alcohol, opioids, marijuana, and psychostimulants. He also describes how these substances may damage the heart. Dr. Abramov is a practicing cardiologist and researcher at Loma Linda University. His specialties include cardiovascular disease and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Wilson Merrell about his recently published research on the percentage of people who hide the fact that they are sick with an infectious disease. In the podcast, he discusses who hides the fact that they are sick, when they do it, why they do it and how they do it. He explains their motives, things the researchers found surprising and the wider implications of his research. Dr. Merrell is a researcher who completed his PhD in social psychology at the University of Michigan. He is currently doing postdoc research at the Center for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination at Aarhus University. His research focus is on psychological processes that help people manage fundamental threats and opportunities in their environment.
On this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Prabhat Jha about his fascinating research recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine on the extent and speed at which quitting smoking reduces death rates from smoking-related illnesses. What he describes in the podcast will be encouragement for anyone, no matter how long they smoked, to consider quitting. In addition to his research, we also chat about evidence for and against vaping, and he also shares a colorful tale on the lows the tobacco industry will go to keep people hooked. Dr. Jha is an epidemiologist, researcher and founding director of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. His research focus is death resulting from HIV, tobacco, alcohol, malaria and both infectious and non-communicable diseases in general. You can read more about him on his Wikipedia page here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with venom expert Tim Friede about his twenty plus years' "unusual" journey with the world's most venomous snakes: Seeking protection from snake bites, Tim purposely injected himself with diluted venom at escalating doses until he achieved a level of hyperimmunity unknown to humans. Working by himself in his Wisconsin home, Tim achieved the uncanny ability of being purposely bitten by the world's deadliest snakes, including cobras, rattlers, black mambas, et al and surviving with no major side effects. He has been bitten by snakes at least 200 times. He has had some close calls, which he discusses in the podcast. Understanding that his blood was an anomalous, potentially life-saving stew for future victims of snake bites, Tim joined forces with Jacob Glanville, founder of biotech company Centivax, to create the world's first fully human broad-spectrum antivenom. In the podcast, Tim explains how Centivax is using his blood to do this and where they are in their research to create universal antivenom.
Do you think the current political climate is impacting our mental health..., or are you living under a rock? If you are living under a rock, do you have room for a few more? Just kidding, sort of. There's been a surge of requests for therapists due to stress, anxiety and relationship troubles due to the current political situation. Social media sites are saturated with tribal and reductive back-and-forths that only increase our individual and collective sense of angst. Long-term friendships have dissolved, marriages have ended, Twitter is a battlefield and toxic stress is the name of the game. In short, we've come a long way, baby. In this episode, Dr. Eeks chats with Gabriel Nathan, chief editor of OC87 Recovery Stories, about the state of our mental health in the current political climate, why our interactions are toxic and broken, and what can be done to move us towards recovery. Be mindful that specific people and events are mentioned in this podcast, and though not the intent, some things mentioned might offend or anger you. Erin and Gabe have different political opinions, but let this serve as a fair warning to those whose blood pressure rises when politics comes up.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Mark Mamula about the vaccine he and his team created for cancer in dogs. In the podcast, he explains how they created the vaccine, how it works, how they are testing it in dogs, and what is currently known about how well it works. He describes the types of cancers in dogs that the vaccine is targeting, the similarities between cancer in dogs and cancer in humans and how the vaccine could one day also be used for cancer in humans. Dr. Mamula is a researcher and professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine. His lab focuses on cancer immunology, tumor biology and autoimmune disease. You can learn more about his work here. You can read a scientific paper on the vaccine for cancer in dogs here.
On this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Diana Noga about her new research on the relationship between short sleep and the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes. This is especially relevant in a busy world that doesn't prioritize sleep and is already facing growing rates of Type 2 Diabetes, even in younger age groups. In the podcast, she discusses how they conducted their study and the theories for why a short nightly sleep duration may increase risk for Type 2 Diabetes. She also explains a surprising finding, which was that a healthy diet did not mitigate risk of Type 2 Diabetes when short sleep was involved. Dr. Noga is a researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden where she focuses on the relationship between sleep and health. You can learn more about her work here.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks converses with Dr. Jay Maddock about his research on the scientific connection between nature and mental health benefits. The discussion centers on one of his recent studies, which examined the relationship between a community's "Nature Score" and levels of anxiety, stress, and depression. Dr. Maddock explains the concept of a "Nature Score," the methodology of the study, and its findings. He also highlights other research indicating that exposure to nature can help with PTSD and ADHD, and explores theories on why nature positively impacts mental health and why a lack of it can be harmful. Finally, he delves into ongoing research in this field and discusses its implications for public health practices.
Dr. Maddock is a researcher and regents professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Texas A&M University. He is director of the Center for Health and Nature, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Healthy Eating and Active Living and Chair of the Nature and Health Alliance.
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