Causes or Cures

Send us Fan Mail 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. Goe...

Send us Fan Mail 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 t...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 eligi...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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. W...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with medical historian Dr. Elena Conis, author of Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization . Together they trace how U.S. attitudes toward vaccines (especially from the 1960s onward) have swerved with culture wars, political shifts, scientific discoveries, and biotech breakthroughs. From polio pride to...

Send us Fan Mail 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, an...

Send us Fan Mail  In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks talks with Dr. Rachel Stein, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University, about the Amish community’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Stein’s research focuses on community building and health in Old Order Amish communities, and she shares how she became interested in studying them. The co...

Send us Fan Mail 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 requ...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 a...

Send us Fan Mail 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 glo...

Send us Fan Mail 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 finall...

Send us Fan Mail 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 incr...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 i...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 L...

Send us Fan Mail 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 some...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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;...

Send us Fan Mail 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,...