This Podcast Will Kill You

CW: discussion of disordered eating, eating disorders Did the word gluten manifest in everyone’s consciousness one day in 2010? Suddenly, grocery stores were filled with gluten-free crackers, cookies, buns, you name it. Everyone went on gluten-free diets or knew someone with a gluten intolerance or sensitivity. For some, it might seem that gluten-related disorders went from 0 to 60 overnight, but...

Going to the doctor is probably not at the top of anyone’s list of enjoyable activities, but when we do go, we expect and deserve to be heard, to have our concerns listened to and our questions answered. However, most, if not all, of us have at some point felt unheard, dismissed, or even gaslit by our healthcare provider. What is it about the doctor-patient relationship or the way medicine is prac...

CW: mentions of infertility, pregnancy loss, body-shaming The third and final installment of our series on IVF surveys the current and potential future landscape of this powerful technology. We first trace the growth of the IVF industry in the US since its inception in the early 1980s up to today before then giving an overview of some of the regulatory and ethical considerations facing this field...

CW: mentions of infertility, pregnancy loss, suicide In the second part of our three-part series on IVF, we’re picking up where we left off last week. From the historical side of things, that means investigating how the revolutionary technology of IVF was developed over the decades of the 20th century leading to the first “test tube babies” born in 1978, and how the field of IVF transformed from u...

Content Warning: mentions of infertility, pregnancy loss We’re coming at you with not one, not two, but THREE whole episodes on IVF (in vitro fertilization) and other forms of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) over the next several weeks. Our first episode in this series starts things off with a broad examination of infertility over space and time. We take a closer look at headlines claimin...

The word “poison” is much more subjective than it may first appear. It’s likely you’ve come across the phrase, “the dose makes the poison”, referring to some compounds that are beneficial in small amounts but deadly in others - such as digitalis. And then there’s the intended recipient of the “poison”; a poison to one animal might be a boon to another, like milkweeds and monarch butterflies. Our o...

Did our episode on maggots leave you wanting more squirmy wormy yet oh so cool content? You’re in luck. Because this week, we’re following up our maggots episode with a companion piece on leeches. Leeches have been used by healers and physicians for millennia, and they’ve come back into style for treatments today, for very good reason. If you’ve ever wondered what makes leech saliva so magical, wh...

The COVID-19 pandemic started with a bang - lockdowns, grocery store shelves cleared of their goods, toilet paper shortages, and a pervasive sense of panic. But more recently, it has slowly faded into the background for many of us. The WHO says that while we’re no longer in crisis mode, we are still in a pandemic. What does that mean for us in our daily lives? In this TPWKY book club episode, we’r...

Just reading the title of this episode may have been enough to make you feel grossed out and creepy crawly. And now we’re asking you to listen to a whole episode about maggots? But trust us, it’s worth the journey. Because these little creatures have a hidden depth to them that will surprise, delight, and, we would venture to say, inspire. In this episode, we explore the many ways that maggots hav...

What does it take to make the WHO’s list of high priority pathogens of pandemic potential? Ask Nipah virus. Extremely deadly with a wide host range and no effective treatments or vaccine (yet), Nipah virus has certainly earned its place on this list. In this episode, we explore where this virus came from, how it can make us so very sick, and the 1998 outbreak in peninsular Malaysia that put Nipah...

We live on the edge. Whether we fail to acknowledge it or try not to think of it, that fact remains true for most of us. A chemical shift, a rogue protein, a marauding molecule - our brains are vulnerable to an array of attacks that could dramatically alter our connection with the world and ourselves. In this episode of the TPWKY book club,  Dr. Sara Manning Peskin, MD, MS , assistant professor of...

Does it seem like the supplement section of your grocery store gets bigger every time you go in? Or that all television commercials these days seem to be advertising dietary supplements that promise to improve your concentration, help you lose weight, make you happier, healthier, smarter, stronger, cooler, poop better or some mix of those? You’re not imagining things. The explosion of the US dieta...

A dull pounding headache. Body aches that come and go. Chills that set your teeth to chattering and have you reaching for the fluffiest blankets to warm up. But the thing is, you’re already warm, hot even. At least according to the thermometer. That’s right, you’ve got a fever. Throughout the years of making this podcast, we’ve begun many a disease description with “it started with a fever” but we...

The TPWKY book club is back in action, and we’re thrilled to be starting this season’s reading journey with  Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens , reproductive rights advocate,  Associate Professor in the University of Connecticut history department , and award-winning author of  Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology . The history of science and medicine often focuses on the a...

In many ways, this week’s episode on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a companion piece to last week’s episode on Long Covid. The two share many similarities: a wide range of debilitating symptoms lingering long after infection, an illness which can transform from day to day or week to week, dismissal and downplaying by the medical community, a big question mark under...

We’re back with our season 7 premiere, and we’re kicking things off with a topic that we’ve wanted to cover for a long time, even if the topic itself hasn’t been around all that long. That’s right, we’re taking on Long Covid. When SARS-CoV-2 began making its way around the world in 2020, it was thought to cause a mild illness in most people, with complete recovery a couple of weeks after first get...

For our season 6 finale, we’re spending some time with menopause. How many nicknames can you think of for menstruation? Quite a few, I’m sure. “That time of the month”, “Aunt Flo”, “the red wave”, “period”, the list goes on. But what about euphemisms for menopause? We’ve got “the change” or “change of life”, “climacteric”, and… that’s it? There may be more out there, but the comparison is revealin...

Raise your hand if you or someone you know has had their tonsils removed. If your hand is sky-high, there’s a pretty good chance that you (or that person you know) are from the US and were born before 1980. Of course, maybe that’s not the case, but tonsillectomies certainly fit in the category of 20th-century fads, along with Tamagotchis and the Atkins diet. While the procedure is still widely per...

This one’s not just for the dogs. It’s also for the cats, the raccoons, the wax moths, the birds, the mice, and so many other critters. Oh, and of course the humans. Even though most of us may be familiar with parvovirus through our canine friends, the world of parvoviruses is much larger. In this episode, we explore that world, focusing first on the biology of these tiny DNA viruses and how they...

Often, the more we learn about a disease, the more we learn about ourselves and the world around us. The story of the genetic disorder osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), colloquially known as brittle bone disease, illustrates this perfectly. As researchers continue to uncover the mechanisms responsible for OI development and progression, the better we understand the varied and crucial roles collagen pl...

Parkinson’s is a disease of many dimensions. On the shelves of any bookstore or library you’ll find at least a handful of titles exploring the topic from a myriad of perspectives, and extending that search to the internet will turn up dozens upon dozens more options: how-to guides for the recently diagnosed, in-depth textbooks exploring the neurophysiology of disease development, memoirs about car...

In the 16th century, a series of deadly epidemics swept through much of the region of Mesoamerica known as the Aztec Empire, killing untold millions. By the start of the first of these epidemics, the area had become woefully accustomed to devasting epidemic disease, as the Spanish conquistadors had introduced smallpox, measles, typhus, and influenza, among other infections. But this disease, with...

With a history extending back millennia, with a biology that leads to permanent disability for tens of millions of people globally, and with a bacterial endosymbiont that may prove to be its Achilles heel, the filarial parasites that cause lymphatic filariasis are quite the complex creatures. In this episode, we explore the intricacies of this neglected tropical disease - also known as elephantias...

For every article about the risks of sun exposure or a guide to sunscreens, you don’t have to look far to find one about the health benefits of sunshine or a how-to for achieving the best tan. Messaging around sun exposure is mixed, to say the least, and it’s no wonder that despite having more sun protection tools than ever before, rates of skin cancer have never been higher. In this episode, we d...

On the night of December 2, 1984, a deadly gas leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India led to what has been described as the world’s worst industrial disaster. In the immediate aftermath of the gas leak, thousands of people died and hundreds of thousands were injured from exposure to the toxic gas methyl isocyanate. But long after the international headlines and news reports dwi...