When teaching as an assistant professor, I had an experience which I shared in a post in 2012 called Guardian Angels and Mental Health. I’ll tell a bit of the story here. I was teaching an introductory course in persuasion at a nearby university Simultaneously challenging and fun, I spent most of my time keeping my learning curve...
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It doesn’t seem possible that high blood pressure numbers can damage kidneys. But the way kidneys work can give you an understanding of the reason. Below is a video explaining the kidneys and blood pressure connection, especially the important filtration parts of the kidneys–nephrons. The kidneys and blood pressure connection...
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The Cleveland Clinic has surveyed about 1000 US men every year over the last six years. The survey asks about healthy behaviors, or how they take care of themselves. The answers are fairly consistent. In 2019, 72 percent of men surveyed said that they would rather clean the bathroom or mow the lawn than go to the doctor. In that same...
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Are you up-to-date on what the latest advice is on getting a COVID-19 vaccine or booster? If you’re not, you are not alone. Public awareness of a new booster is “modest,” according to the results of a non-profit organization’s survey called the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor, published September 30th. Their survey found that fully half of...
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Are you ever skeptical when you see drug claims? One of my first questions when I read about a new drug or a statistic of some kind is: How do they know that? When I read about two new weight loss drugs presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Stockholm, Sweden (19-23 Sept), my antennae went up. Here’s the story. Drug...
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While smoking remains the primary cause of lung cancer, 10 – 20% of people who develop non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) never smoked. NSCLC in non-smokers happens more often to women, and at an earlier age, than it does in smokers. What would cause cancer to develop without smoking? [1] One theory is that environmental factors,...
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KRAS, one gene present in some cancers, was considered “undruggable” for years.[1] Mutated KRAS is an important target for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) because it’s present in 20-25% of cases.[2] Finally, one drug, sotorasib (Lumakras), is approved to treat one mutant form of KRAS gene, KRAS G12C.[3] This mutation appears in...
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Recent studies contribute to the evidence that there are benefits to drinking coffee. Here’s the current scientific thinking on the subject. Recently published research: One study, published in 2022, examines data from a 16,000 person study called Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC). ARIC’s study goal is to see if there’s any...
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Fourteen people no longer have stage 2 or 3 rectal cancer because of an experimental use of immunotherapy. Enrolling in a clinical trial has, for the past 25 months and counting, spared them from surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, which are the standard treatments for colorectal cancer. [1] Fourteen people may not sound like many, but it...
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Each year in the United States, approximately 264,000 women and 2,400 men are diagnosed with breast cancer. Of those people, about 30% will go on to develop metastatic breast cancer (cancer that has spread beyond the breast, often to the brain, lungs, bones, or liver). Biopsies of breast cancer tissue determine if the surface of the cancer cells...
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Looking at other animals, reptiles, and insects with suspicion these days? Despite the fact that the actual origins of the COVID-19 virus are still unknown, bats and the endangered pangolin were maligned as possible sources. We do know that the monkeypox virus originated in laboratory monkeys in 1958. To balance the bad publicity, there is also good...
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CAR-T therapy is a relatively new immunotherapy treatment for advanced B-cell lymphomas, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). It is usually reserved for patients who have had more than one previous line of treatment but relapsed anyway. The standard course of treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is chemotherapy, which cures about 70% of...
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