Causes or Cures
Dr. Eeks
"For the Nerds and the Nerd Nots"Causes or Cures is a health podcast hosted by Dr. Eeks—an independent, grassroots show driven by curiosity and a passion for breaking down complex health topics into bite-sized, easy-to-understand insights. Dr. Eeks works as a public health consultant, in the realm of epi/scicomms. She's all about making science relatable and often uses a blue-collar sense of humor to drive the message home.On this podcast, Dr. Eeks talks with experts from around the world (doctors, researchers, public health pros, and more) to dive into the latest hot topics in health and research, all in a down-to-earth kind of way. She also includes people with compelling stories of healing and "characters" because life is too boring and short to leave out characters. ;)DISCLAIMER: Some topics are more controversial than others, so keep in mind that this is information only and not health advice. Dr. Eeks doesn't endorse any of her guests' views, and despite a strict health routine, nor does she endorse any products, supplements, oils, magic socks or potions. If an episode is sponsored by a company she likes, she will say so in the show notes! Causes or Cures is not a "news site." It's about having conversations, and Dr. Eeks is confident that she can have a respectful conversation with anyone, even people who think far differently than she does. (At least that's been her experience at hole-in-the-walls & on the NYC sidewalks.) The point is to not take anything here as Gospel. Sometimes Dr. Eeks' dog Barnaby makes his opinion known, but the good news is that he's a smart dog. Most importantly, she hopes this podcast encourages folks to stay curious, empathic, hopeful, compassionate, honest, open-minded, and engaged. Freedom of discussion is a beautiful thing, delightfully messy, and one that many take for granted.*The views on this podcast do not reflect the views of anyone she contracts with or consults for. You can contact Dr. Eeks through her website, bloomingwellness.com.If you are interested in sponsoring an episode, write erin@bloomingwellness.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Dec 18, 2022 • 1h 14min
Can We Truly Live on Mars? With Space Medicine Guru Dr. Thais Russomano
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with Dr. Thais Russomano to explore the fascinating topic of human health in space. Dr. Russomano will discuss the changes the human body undergoes in space, the health challenges of living on Mars versus the Moon, and how medicines might behave differently in these environments. She’ll also touch on the diagnostic tools required for space missions, long-term health monitoring, and how clinical trials could be conducted in space. Finally, Dr. Russomano will share her insights on the possibility of humans living on Mars one day and the health considerations involved in such an endeavor.Dr. Russomano is an internationally recognized expert in space medicine. She holds both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in space physiology. She has worked as a space scientist at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Germany and founded the Microgravity Center, an international research hub for human space physiology. As a former head of the center, she has shaped much of the field. Additionally, Dr. Russomano has served as a professor of space physiology at King’s College London and a visiting professor at several universities worldwide. With numerous publications on space health, she is also the co-founder and director of InnovaSpace. You can read more about her and her work here. *SUBSCRIBE FOR BONUS EPISODES HERE"You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Dec 7, 2022 • 41min
Steps of Longevity: Mapping the Optimal Number of Steps for Lowering Risk of Death, with Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz, PhD, about his and his team's study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine on the association between daily steps/step intensity and new cases of cancer, cardiovascular disease and death. (To date, it is the largest population sample and analysis of adults wearing an accelerometer.)In the podcast, Dr. Pozo Cruz will discuss his current research interests and why he is interested in the link between number of daily steps and health. He will explain how he and his team conducted the study and what they were measuring, including daily step counts, cadence-based metrics, and stepping intensity. He'll discuss their findings related to number of daily steps and association with cancer, cardiovascular disease and death, and if there were any differences noted among age groups. He'll answer the question, "Is there a magic number" of steps we should be taking to reduce our risk of disease and death. Finally he'll discuss limitations, potential individual and public health implications based on his findings and where he's taking his research next.Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz is a scientist, professor and senior researcher with the Department of Sport Sciences and Clinical Biomechanics at the Center for Active and Healthy Aging at the University of Southern Denmark. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Nov 29, 2022 • 36min
Hygienic Chow: Dog Bowl Cleanliness and the Intersection with Human Health, with Dr. Emily Luisana
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Emily Luisana about her recent study on dog bowl and dog food hygiene and the link to human and dog health published here. In the podcast, Dr. Luisana will discuss how she became interested in this topic and provide an overview of the potential bacteria/viruses that may grow on dog bowls and the potential impact for dog and human health. She'll discuss results from her survey that assessed how many people knew about the FDA's pet dish cleaning recommendations as well as the most common current practices for handling/storing dog food and cleaning dog bowls. She'll describe results from a survey to assess bacterial growth on dog dishes among groups, one of which used the FDA guidelines, and discuss differences. Then she'll offer general guidance and a bit of nutritional wisdom for dogs. Dr. Luisana is a practicing veterinarian and board-certified clinical nutritionist for veterinary medicine. You can read more about her here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Nov 23, 2022 • 38min
The Global Burden of Cancer that is Attributed to Risk Factors, with Dr. Christopher Murray
Send us a textIn this podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Christopher Murray about his recent article published in The Lancet (2022) titled The Global Burden of Cancer Attributable to Risk Factors, 2010-2019, a Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. This is the largest effort to date to determine the gobal burden of cancer due to risk factors. He will discuss what the global burden of disease study is, how he and his team estimated the burden of cancer, the risk factors and the assessment framework used to link specific cancers to specific risks, what percentage of cancer is attributed to risk factors, what the greatest risks are, differences in high income vs low income countries and public health implications. Dr. Murray is Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He also leads the Global Burden of Disease collaboration ( a systemic effort to quantify the comparitive magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries and risk factors.)He is both a physician and a health economist and his work has led to innovative methods for strengthening health measurements, analyzing the performance of health systems and producing forecasts for the future state of health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House, European Commission, WHO EURO and Africa CDC have used IHME forecasts and policy scenarios as sources of evidence. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Nov 13, 2022 • 34min
Talking about That Time of the Month, with DIVA CEO Carinne Chambers-Saini
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Carinne Chambers-Saini, CEO of DIVA and founder of the DIVA menstrual cup about how the mainstream dialogue around menstruation has changed over the years, what menstrual inequity and period poverty is, how the DIVA Cup works and its benefits over pads and tampons, anything we have to worry about with the DIVA Cup, and finally how she implemented a "menstrual health leave policy" at her company and how folks responded. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Nov 5, 2022 • 37min
The Link between Psilocybin, Weight Control & Energy Balance, with Dr. Christoffer Clemmensen
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Christoffer Clemmensen about his research on the psychedelic drug, psilocybin, and its connection to weight and energy balance. This podcast will mostly cover his animal study published here in Translational Psychiatry. As there is renewed interest in psychedelics and, of course, the ongoing obesity epidemic that is increasing around the globe, this is a doubly timely topic. Specifically, he will discuss psilocybin, how it works in the body, its relation to "cognitive flexibility", and how it might be used for obesity. He will explain the results of his animal study involving psilocybin, the dosing riddle, and why he feels it should next be studied in humans. Dr. Clemmensen heads the Clemmensen Group studies at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. His research focuses on the biological regulation of body weight and aims to develop new therapeutic approaches for obesity and its metabolic consequences. You can learn more about him and his lab here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Nov 2, 2022 • 57min
Evidence for an Emerging Epidemic of Cancer in Young People, with Dr. Shuji Ogino
Send us a textIn this Causes or Cures episode, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Shuji Ogino about his recent paper published in Nature Reviews, Clinical Oncology, titled "Is early-onset cancer an emerging global epidemic? Current evidence and future implications." In the podcast, Dr. Ogino discusses what "early onset" means, what types of cancer are showing up earlier in people less than 50 years of age, and the evidence and data that supports this trend. He discusses how exposures early in life and in utero may be contributing to early-onset cancer in young people ( in their thirties and forties), and the specific risk factors that have been linked to early-onset cancer. He talks about why molecular pathological epidemiology is important for future analysis of this trend and what we need to do to slow this emerging epidemic from an individual perspective, a public health perspective, and a research one. Dr. Ogino, originally from Japan, is chief of the program in Molecular Pathological Epidemiology, Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Professor of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. He is also a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. You can learn more about him here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Oct 19, 2022 • 57min
At-Home Ketamine Treatment for Depression & Anxiety, with Jack Swain, Mindbloom's Head of Clinical Operations
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Jack Swain, head of clinical operations at Mindbloom. Mindbloom is a mental health and wellness company dedicated to expanding science-based treatments for depression and anxiety, and they are starting with at-home, sublingual Ketamine treatment that is supplemented with telehealth and peer support. There is an explosion of interest in how psychedelics and other kinds of alternatives might be used to treat depression and anxiety, diseases that are notoriously difficult to treat, particularly for the long-term. In this episode, Jack will discuss a recent study involving Mindbloom that was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in October'22. He will discuss what Ketamine is, the theory for why it helps with depression and anxiety, and Ketamine's disassociation effect. He breaks down the "methods" section of the research (what the outcomes were, how they were measured and how the study was set up) and the results of the study. He talks any safety or side effect concerns with Ketamine and finally, the benefits of sublingual (under-the-tongue) Ketamine vs IV Ketamine. He'll also touch on what else is in store for Mindbloom. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Oct 4, 2022 • 46min
Understanding the Link Between Lifestyle Choices and Colon Cancer, with Dr. Marko Lukic
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Marko Lukic, a physician and researcher at the Arctic Univeristy of Norway, who recently did a study on modifiable risk factors for colon cancer, an interesting and timely topic considering the concerning rising rates of colon cancer in young people. The study was published in the International Journal of Cancer. In the podcast, Dr. Lukic talks us through his research and the data he used. He describes the specific, modifiable risk factors and how they link to new cases of colon cancer. He talks about how much these risk factors explain the burden of colon cancer, as well as how much of the burden remains unexplained. For the coffee drinkers out there, he also adds some interesting tidbits about his research on coffee and its relationship to cancer. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Sep 20, 2022 • 37min
Mapping the Opioid Epidemic to Help Bring It to an End, with Jeremiah Lindemann
Send us a textThe opioid epidemic is still raging, and people are still dying as a result. In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Jeremiah Lindemann about how he is using his data, geographic information system and mapping skills to combat the opioid epidemic. Inspired by the loss of his brother to the opioid epidemic, he will discuss the creation of the "Celebrate Lost Loved Ones" map, hosted by the National Safety Council, who visits the map, and stories being shared on the map daily. He will discuss how he became an "accidental" public health professional and how he obtains data to create specific maps that are useful for helping state and local governments take on the opioid epidemic in more efficient ways. Finally, he will share what he thinks needs to be prioritized to bring the opioid epidemic, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, to an end. Jeremiah is an ArcGIS Solutions product engineer with over 20 years of experience, including consulting for state and local governments. If you lost someone to the opioid epidemic and would like to share his/her story and/or photo on the Celebrate Lost Loved Ones map, you can do so here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
