Doctors Take the Mic

For years, patients with dry age-related macular degeneration have been told to take their AREDS2 vitamins, check their Amsler grid and wait. In this episode, Jason talks with Dr. Gloria Wu, a retina specialist whose San Jose practice has just started offering Valeda, and Darren, a research assistant in her practice, about a new option for these patients. Valeda is the first FDA-authorized treatme...

Federal health officials are moving fast to let AI diagnose and treat patients, but is the technology ready? In this episode of Doctors Take the Mic, Dr. Wu looks at Christina Jewett's New York Times report "U.S. Health Officials Move Quickly to Deploy Medical A.I. Despite Concerns." It was published online September 14, 2026, and ran in print September 16 under the headline "Dr. A.I. Will See You...

In this episode of  Doctors Take the Mic , Dr. Gloria Wu discusses Valeda photobiomodulation (light therapy), an FDA-approved treatment designed for patients with dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) presenting with large drusen (greater than 150 microns). Dr. Wu explains how excess light exposure triggers oxidative stress in the retinal pigment epithelium—the cellular waste disposal system...

In this episode of Doctors Take the Mic , Dr. Wu discusses a troubling trend she has observed in her clinic over the past two years, where high-achieving executives, professionals, and everyday workers are increasingly turning to alternative substances like marijuana, cocaine, and various psychedelics to cope with unprecedented modern stress . She explores how individuals seeking quick relief are...

In this episode of Doctors Take the Mic , Dr. Wu discusses the practical applications and challenges of integrating artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Gemini into a private medical practice in San Jose . She highlights how AI serves as an invaluable tool to bridge communication barriers when managing patients who speak languages like Farsi or Arabic during urgent situations, especially...

Luxury psychedelic retreats promise healing in beautiful, spa-like settings, but the reality behind the marketing is often far less safe. In this episode, Dr. Wu and Darren dig into "Americans Encounter Risks at Psychedelic Clinics Abroad" by Noah Daly and Andrew Jacobs, published in the New York Times on August 26, 2026. The conversation covers the unregulated boom in ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT, and kam...

Millions of older adults take the same daily pills year after year without anyone stopping to ask whether they still make sense. In this episode, Dr. Wu and Darren dig into "3 Common Drugs Older Adults May Be Overusing" by Paula Span, from the New York Times' New Old Age column (published September 5, 2026). The conversation covers three widely prescribed medications, benzodiazepines like Valium a...

Can gene editing finally solve the oldest problem in dog ownership? In this episode, Dr. Wu and Darren dig into "Gene Editing Technology Offers New Ways to Create the Dogs of Our Dreams" by Emily Anthes, published in The New York Times' Pet Theory column on August 31, 2026 (print edition September 8). The story follows Kindred Companion Sciences and CEO Matt Walker, who used CRISPR to disable the...

What if the cotton shirt on your back and the sound of traffic outside your window count as food? In this episode, Dr. Wu and Darren explore three traditional medicine systems, separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles, that all arrived at the same radical idea: your environment is nutrition. Drawing on "Indian Traditional Ayurvedic System of Medicine and Nutritional Supplementation"...

Wet age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness among older adults in developed countries, and the standard treatment, anti-VEGF injections, works by blocking abnormal blood vessel growth in the eye. But can nutrition support that treatment further? In this episode, Dr. Wu and Darren break down "Effect of a Nutraceutical-Oriented Dietary Intervention on Serum Carotenoids and...

For two decades, menopausal hormone therapy has carried the shadow of the 2002 Women's Health Initiative panic. In this episode, Dr. Wu and Darren unpack a landmark nationwide Danish cohort study, "Menopausal hormone therapy and long term mortality: nationwide, register based cohort study," by Anders Pretzmann Mikkelsen, Thomas Bergholt, Øjvind Lidegaard, and Nikolai Madrid Scheller, published in...

Dr. Gloria Wu and Darren walk through six research posters their team presented at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting, exploring AI and diabetes patient education. They start with two posters showing how a physician-built AI chatbot, restricted to trusted medical sources, can deliver clear and accurate health guidance that real patients found genuinely helpful. Then they dig into fo...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez, joined by Jordan Tsay and Kosuke Kimura, explore a striking paradox at the intersection of urban lighting, plant biology, and allergic disease, drawing on Artificial Light at Night Extends Pollen Season and Elevates Allergen Exposure , published in PNAS Nexus in 2026 by Brandt Geist, Lin Meng, Daniel S. W. Katz, Huidong Li, Franz Hölker, and Qia...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez explore a striking paradox at the intersection of diabetes and neuroscience, drawing on  Type 2 Diabetes Impairs Odour Detection, Olfactory Memory and Olfactory Neuroplasticity; Effects Partly Reversed by the DPP-4 Inhibitor Linagliptin , published in  Acta Neuropathologica Communications in 2018 by Grazyna Lietzau, William Davidsson, Claes-Göran...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez unpack a striking finding from  Odor Olfactory Dysfunction in Chronic Kidney Disease and Diabetes Mellitus and Its Association with Nutritional Factors , published in the  Caspian Journal of Internal Medicine in 2025 by Kamyar Iravani, Aida Doostkam, Jamshid Roozbeh, Leila Malekmakan, Seyed Reza Kasaee, and Amir Soltaniesmaeili of Shiraz Universi...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez explore one of the most surprising findings in recent neuroscience: simply diffusing essential oils in your bedroom for two hours each night led to a 226% improvement in memory scores among older adults. Drawing on  Overnight Olfactory Enrichment Using an Odorant Diffuser Improves Memory and Modifies the Uncinate Fasciculus in Older Adults , publ...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez explore a surprising finding from the 2015 study  The Effect of Olfactory Stimuli on the Balance Ability of Stroke Patients , published in the  Journal of Physical Therapy Science by Mi-Na Gim, Sang-bin Lee, Kyung-Tae Yoo, Ji-Young Bae, Mi-Kyoung Kim, and Jung-Hyun Choi of Namseoul University in South Korea. The study found that simply smelling b...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez unpack one of the most urgent crises in modern healthcare: a $4.5 trillion chronic disease epidemic driven largely by what Americans eat. Drawing on  What Does Food is Medicine Mean? , published by the Columbia University Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Dr. Wu's own clinical observations as an ophtha...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez unpack a striking statistic: tennis players live an average of 9.7 years longer than sedentary individuals. Drawing on Dr. Wu's research notes on racket sports and dementia prevention, and on Bozyiğit, Karagöz, Karsai, and Tornóczky's 2026 study  Contribution of Tennis Involvement to Successful Aging: The Case of Masters Tennis Players , publishe...

In this episode, Dr. Wu and co-host Darren Gonzalez explore how a team of researchers is engineering a solution to one of emergency medicine's most overlooked problems — the involuntary freeze response triggered by traumatic smells in the field. Drawing on Framework for Microdosing Odors in Virtual Reality for Psychophysiological Stress Training , published in  Sensors journal in 2024 by Daniel An...

Summary: "The Epidemiology of Chagas Disease in the Americas," by Zulma M. Cucunubá ,  Fernando Abad-Franch , and colleagues, published in  The Lancet Regional Health – Americas  (2024), reviews how  Trypanosoma cruzi spreads via insect vectors, congenital, oral, and transfusion routes. Despite control efforts by WHO and PAHO, millions remain infected, often undiagnosed. The authors emphasize para...

Tick season is already breaking records — and the rules of the outdoors have quietly changed. In this episode, Dr. Wu digs into a May 2026 New York Times report by Maggie Astor revealing that four tick species are now spreading into regions where they've never been before, bringing Lyme disease, a mysterious red meat allergy, and a malaria-like parasite along for the ride. We break down the alarmi...

Your doctor may have a new kind of assistant in the room — and it's not human. In this episode, Dr. Wu breaks down a May 2026 New York Times investigation by Simar Bajaj into the rapid rise of AI scribes, the software tools now recording and transcribing millions of doctor-patient conversations across the U.S. We explore what actually happens to your audio after the appointment ends, who has acces...

In this episode, Dr. Gloria Wu — lead author of the 2025 UCSF study "Chatbots and Diabetes: Is There Gender Bias?" — brings her research directly to you as both researcher and host. Published in the Journal of Patient Experience , the study tested four leading AI chatbots — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek — asking each the same question about diabetic vision loss, changing only the patient's...

Here's a one-paragraph summary with the AMA citation: This episode examines Medvi, a telehealth startup founded by Matthew Gallagher that is projected to generate $1.8 billion in revenue in 2026 with just two employees — Gallagher and his brother Elliot — operating out of a house in Los Angeles. Drawing on Erin Griffith's front-page New York Times investigation, the episode traces Gallagher's path...