The Weekly Check-Up Podcast

For thousands of years, urine was the primary tool physicians used to diagnose disease. It was referred to as the divine fluid and the window to the body. Tasting of urine to detect sweetness was common practice in the diagnosis of diabetes, giving it its medical name: diabetes mellitus. Mellitus is Latin for honey. On this episode, we explore the urinary tract, the organs that produce then excret...

Veins are low pressure pipes that remove waste and carbon dioxide from our bodies’ cells, while arteries are high pressure distributors of nutrients and oxygen. Arteries get more attention as their associated disease states are responsible for life threatening conditions like heart attacks and strokes. But veins should not be overlooked as we will learn in this episode.

Signs and symptoms – observations of changes in our body that compromise our sense of wellness – are nature’s way of warning us that our bodies are under stress. However, they can be difficult to navigate. On this episode, we discuss when to ignore and when to act. 

Breast cancer has been at the forefront of cancer research and prevention strategies. On this episode, we discuss the changing treatment paradigm of earlier systemic therapy and the ever-increasing issues that have developed around surviving a disease that just decades ago was a death sentence.

Few medical concepts have so captured the public’s attention with its promise of eternal life and eternal youth as has regenerative medicine. On this episode, our callers discuss the first widely commercialized applications of regenerative medicine: platelet rich plasma and stem cell injections.

Aches and pains, cough and congestion, weakness and fatigue. There are an infinite number of ways we describe illness, but what does it mean to be well? Is wellness a state of mind, a state of being, does it exist? We explore wellness and the different ways patients pursue it.

Remarkably, nearly one-third of U.S. adults experience heartburn with such frequency that it creates a multitude of problems from chronic cough to cancer. It thereby constitutes a disease: GERD (gastrointestinal-esophageal reflux disease). This episode finds three callers struggling with GERD.

As the entire body is a working machine, all of it is subject to wear and tear, but the joints deserve special attention in this regard. On today’s episode, we’ll skim the surface of joint health as our three callers entertain discussions about feet, shoulders, and spine.

In poetry and song, in phrase and idiom, and yes, in the more mundane statistics of medicine, the heart reigns supreme among the body’s organs. It's the leading cause of disease death, disability and healthcare cost. It is thereby no surprise that questions regarding heart disease are among the most frequent topics of our callers. In this episode, we discuss the three most common chronic heart...

One way to think about the body's functions is as a collection of integrated anatomic and physiologic systems like circulatory, respiratory, musculoskeletal, etc. The nervous system is the most complex of the body’s systems and is comprised of two parts: central (the brain and spinal cord) and peripheral (the nerves exiting the spinal cord innervating every cell of the body.)  This episode tou...

We are now three generations without witness to the crippling fear and loss created by polio, small pox and measles.  We were then a society embracing science, the space race and new medical technology. Post-Covid vaccine hesitancy has worsened an already disturbing trend and as a result we are now witnessing the lowest childhood vaccination rates in decades.  In this episode Dr. Feinberg has fran...

Medicine is usually obtained with a prescription from a physician or available over the counter (OTC.)  The OTC medicine designation was not intended to convey that these drugs are without risk, don't require a doctor's recommendation or can be used outside of their label, yet they so often are. In this episode callers help Dr. Feinberg take a deep dive into the world of OTC medicine.

Heart disease remains the number one cause of death in the U.S. Yet heart disease is not one thing as the heart is a complicated structure with muscular chambers, valves, and an electrical conduction system, any of which can malfunction leading to heart failure or even sudden death. In this episode our callers focus on the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood and the much maligned chol...

Body fat is not a four letter word, it’s a critical part of human design. When the body consumes more calories than it needs, those calories are stored as body fat and too much storage fat results in obesity. The obesity epidemic, the causes of that epidemic, and the modern miracle of new classes of obesity drug therapy are the topics of our callers.

Like the skin, the musculoskeletal system is often taken for granted and not understood as another complex organ system that plays a critical role in things such as blood production and immunity. Aging bones can have as much impact on life expectancy as an aging heart. Our callers share personal stories about their aging bones and the complexities of managing their bone health in a fragmented and...

From acne to rashes to cancer to nail fungus, the largest organ of the body is given too little attention. In this episode on skin, we’ll hear from three callers with three very different conditions that range from the mundane to the obscure, but all share a commonality as the skin condition is complicated by the human condition.