Causes or Cures

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with transplant surgeon and author Dr. Josh Mezrich to talk about xenotransplantation—the use of animal organs, primarily from pigs, to try to address the massive shortage of human donor organs. More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are currently waiting for a transplant. For many, time runs out. Xenotransplantation offers a po...

Send us Fan Mail Can what you eat influence your risk of colorectal cancer? In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks speaks with Dr. Fred Tabung, PhD, MSPH, a researcher studying diet, metabolism, and cancer prevention, about how certain dietary patterns may reduce colorectal cancer risk. Drawing on data from nearly one million people across the United States and Europe, Dr. Tabung explains ho...

Send us Fan Mail Can a plant-derived polysaccharide formula affect Alzheimer’s symptoms? A researcher explains his study, and its limits.   In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with researcher Dr. John Lewis about his study investigating an aloe polymannose multinutrient supplement in Alzheimer’s disease. We discuss what polymannose is, why he feels mainstream wellness gets sugar w...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Majid Fotuhi about brain aging, memory, intelligence, Alzheimer’s disease, and his new book: The Invincible Brain: The Clinically-Proven Way to Age-Proof Your Brain and Stay Sharp for Life We explore whether Alzheimer’s is being overdiagnosed and the idea that what we call Alzheimer’s may...

Send us Fan Mail Exploring the Spiritual Realm Where spiritual belief meets health, culture, and skepticism  Disclaimer: This episode discusses spiritual and metaphysical beliefs that are not evidence-based medical treatments. Nothing in this conversation is medical or public health advice. If you have a health concern, please seek care from a licensed clinician. This is entertainment only.  In th...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with Gil Bashe, author of Healing the Sick Care System , about why the US healthcare system is failing the very people it is meant to serve. Bashe argues that the problem isn’t a lack of innovation or investment, but a system that has drifted away from empathy, human connection and patient-centered care. We discuss the growing d...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Causes or Cures Podcast, Dr Eeks speaks with Dr. Sam West, a researcher at the University of Oxford, about his study on what happens after people stop taking GLP 1 weight loss medications. While much of the attention has focused on how these drugs work while people are taking them, this conversation looks at what happens when people stop. Dr West discusses h...

Send us Fan Mail "So how'd that person die?" In this episode of Causes or Cures, I’m joined by forensic pathologist Dr. Roger Byard , an internationally recognized expert who has spent decades investigating deaths that are rare, misunderstood, and often deeply unsettling. We talk about what really happens at the edges of life and death, including: Fatal animal encounters involving k...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr. Eeks talks with Joel Stanley , entrepreneur and biotech founder, about the long and often misunderstood road from plant based therapies to FDA approved medicines. Joel shares the personal story behind building Charlotte’s Web, the company named after a young girl whose experience with severe epilepsy helped spark a global conversation about medical cannabis. H...

Send us Fan Mail Healthcare corruption doesn’t just happen in broken systems or far away countries. It happens in hospitals with shiny floors. In billion dollar healthcare industries. In systems filled with rules, audits, and professionals sworn to protect patients. It happens quietly. And it happens everywhere. In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with Professor Graham Brooks, an...

Send us Fan Mail Exploring the Spiritual Realm Where spiritual belief meets health, culture, and skepticism  Disclaimer: This episode discusses spiritual and metaphysical beliefs that are not evidence-based medical treatments. Nothing in this conversation is medical or health advice. If you have a health concern, please seek care from a licensed clinician. This is entertainment only.  Recent surve...

Send us Fan Mail What if cancer didn’t have to be eradicated, but could be remembered, monitored, and controlled by the immune system itself? In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with Dr. Zachary Hartman, the lead researcher who revisited an extraordinary breast cancer vaccine trial conducted over 20 years ago. The trial involved a small group of women with advanced breast cancer....

Send us Fan Mail *Disclaimer*   This episode is part of the Causes or Cures Public Health Is Weird bonus series and is for educational and entertainment purposes only. If you’re worried about a child or pet eating a poinsettia, contact a medical professional or veterinarian. This podcast is not a poison control center.  :) Every December, poinsettias show up, and so does the panic. Suddenly, a fes...

Send us Fan Mail Microplastics are everywhere—but what are they doing inside the human body? In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with Dr. Christian Pacher-Deutsch about his lastest study and the growing evidence that micro- and nanoplastics may affect the digestive system, the gut microbiome, and long-term health. He explains why this problem has reached crisis level.  Rather than...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with Dr. Zohar Rubinstein, a clinical psychologist, researcher and trauma expert about an early and deeply sensitive study examining how different substances may have influenced early trauma responses among survivors of the October 7 Nova music festival attack. Many survivors had taken substances just hours before the traumatic...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with Dr. Claudia Suemoto in Brazil about her new 8-year study looking at whether artificial sweeteners are linked to changes in thinking and memory. We cover: • How she started studying dementia and why she became curious about sweeteners. • What the research team hoped to learn and what they actually found. • Why these results ar...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with Dr. Jaap de Roode, an evolutionary biologist and author of Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves , about one of the most fascinating corners of biology: the ways animals use plants, minerals, insects, and even toxins as medicine. They talk about: What sparked his interest in animals treating the...

Send us Fan Mail Episode: Why Single Women Are Happier than Single Men, with Elaine Hoan Guest: Elaine Hoan, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Forget the “sad cat lady” cliché. In this episode, Dr. Eeks chats with researcher Elaine Hoan about her new study showing that single women are, on average, happier than single men. They explore what that says about modern love,...

Send us Fan Mail Episode: Psychedelics and  Prolonged Grief with Dr. Greg Fonzo Guest: Greg Fonzo, Ph. D., Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Charmaine and Gordon McGill Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy at Dell Medical School. In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks speaks with Dr. Greg Fonzo about how psychedelics might help people suffering from prolonged grief, a form o...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Debbie Dobbins, international prosperity consciousness speaker/teacher and author of Your Inner Billionaire. Why listen: Debbie’s origin story isn’t a soft-focus vision board. It's not feel-good Instagram or TikTok reels. It’s making millions... , then dollar-store cookies on food stamps; addiction, cancer, and IRS debt....

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Acosta returns to Causes or Cures to talk about the next big leap in obesity research: using genetics and machine learning to predict which patients will get side effects to popular GLP-1 weight-loss medications like Wegovy and Zepbound. Previously, he was on Causes or Cures to discuss your individual obesity type .  He and his team are uncovering why some people experience ma...

Send us Fan Mail Disclaimer: Entertainment only. Eeks is not a public health historian; just a gremlin who reads too much and asks weird questions  BONUS Episodes are part of the "Public Health is Weird" Causes or Cures Series.   What’s inside The myth of “truth serum” and why scopolamine never earned the badge From twilight sleep in childbirth to spy stories and interrogation lore What...

Send us Fan Mail On this episode, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Carlijn Wagenaar about the Plants for Joints research in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA), exploring how a plant-centered lifestyle (not just diet) was tested and what changed in disease activity, inflammation, pain, and function. Episode at a glance: Study design, plainly: who enrolled, program length, and how PFJ was eval...

Send us Fan Mail What if cancer could be detected years before symptoms ever appear? In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks sits down with Dr. Yuxuan Wang, cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins, to discuss her team’s promising work on multicancer early detection (MCED) blood tests. These ultra-sensitive sequencing tests can spot tiny fragments of tumor DNA circulating in the blood. In their re...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Causes or Cures , Dr. Eeks chats with Katie Stewart, Holistic Nutritionist and founder of The Clear Skin Solution , about the emotional and physical toll of breakouts and unhealthy skin, and why lasting healing requires more than just spot treatment. Katie shares how her own struggles with acne led her to ditch conventional prescriptions and create a protocol fo...