At the risk of sounding like a broken record, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has once again shown there to be no link between the use of the MMR vaccine and the risk for asthma in children. This study linked information from 657,461 Danish children with their vaccine history and autism…
The anti-vaccine movement, which has been born out of fraudulent research and unethical behaviour by Andrew Wakefield, has led to the reemergence of numerous infectious diseases that had previously been controlled and nearly eradicated by vaccines. Contrary to the claims of many conspiracy theorists and ‘Facebook trained doctors’ vaccines do not cause autism and are…
There is growing concern about the threat of antibiotic resistant microbes and their impact on our health and health care system. Antibiotic resistant infections kill around 23,000 people per year in the US and cost the health care system about $2 billion per year. Over use of antibiotics in the food industry and in consumer…
Obesity and diabetes rates in the US have tripled in some states over the past 25 years with overall rates rising from approximately 11% of the population to around 20-35% of the population. Much of this rise can be attributed to the consumption of more refined sugars than in the past. While the rise in…
Air pollution is recognized as one of the top global health burdens having been associated with 3.2 million deaths per year. These deaths are primarily due to lung disease (43%) and lung cancer (29%) but there is a growing appreciation of the impact of air pollution on heart health. Indeed, the WHO states that 25%…
The use of e-cigarettes or vaping devices has exploded in the past 5 years with new and smaller devices continuously being developed. These devices are marketed as safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes that can help a user quit their cigarette habit. There is an accumulating body of evidence that suggests e-cigarettes are not harmless and…
Acute gastroenteritis, commonly called the stomach flu, affects millions of children in the US every year causing diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Gastroenteritis is usually caused by viruses, although not the flu virus contrary to popular thought, and it can last up to two weeks. No treatment is currently available for kids with stomach bugs…
Cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, is the leading cause of death worldwide kill approximately 8-10 million deaths a year. Risk factors include poor diet, diabetes, obesity, a sedentary life style, and cigarette smoking. Physical activity can go a long way in reducing a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease with most of the studies…
The prevalence of obesity and overweight people in the world is at an all time high with nearly 2 billion people over the age of 19 being overweight and 650 million people being classified as obese. Shockingly, in many countries overweight and obesity kill more people than being underweight. There are many risk factors that…
Air pollution is a significant problem for global health, especially in low- to middle-income countries where air quality is not up to the World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Exposure to air pollution worsens existing disease and can increase a person’s risk of dying from lung cancer, lung infections, stroke, heart disease, and COPD. Among children,…
Current estimates suggest that there are nearly 38 million people in the US who smoke cigarettes and an estimated 10.8 million people use e-cigarettes with this number rising every year. Nicotine is an addictive drug found in both conventional cigarettes as well as e-cigarettes, cigars, and hookah. Many of the harmful effects of smoking in…
Scoliosis is a condition in which a person’s spine curves sideways, sometimes resembling an ‘S’ or ‘C’. It is the most common childhood musculoskeletal disorder affecting around 0.3% of all children. While mild cases can often be treated or corrected with a back brace, severe cases require surgical correction and affect 1 in every 10,000…
Antibiotic resistance is an enormous problem that affects approximately 2 million people in the US each year. Most of our antibiotics attack bacteria by interfering with their ability to make DNA and therefore preventing their growth. Bacteria that develop resistance to these antibiotics have mutated and developed a way to get around the effects of…
Cells in the human body have a limited capacity to divide and grow; once this capacity is used up, the cells retire and become senescent. Senescent cells no longer grow or divide and instead begin to release proteins that are associated with inflammation and numerous chronic diseases. Senescent cells have been associated with chronic diseases…
Asthma is a complex disorder that is made up of both heritable genetic factors and environmental exposures. There are a number of genetic mutations that change a single letter in the DNA of a gene, called single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs, which have been linked risk for asthma. Many of these SNPs are in genes…
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