Causes or Cures

Send us Fan Mail

A scientist at an anti-plague research institute in Siberia died from severe pneumonia. Early reports suggested pneumonic plague and a possible laboratory exposure.

And suddenly, we got a LOT of plague.

There was just one problem: we didn't actually know that she had it.

Now Russia says it wasn't plague, WHO says there's no evidence of ongoing transmission, and thousands of laboratory tests have found no high-threat pathogen. But the cause of her death remains unknown.

In this WTF Health News, Eeks looks at Russia's not-plague plague story and what happens when scientific uncertainty meets the attention economy. How do we talk about a frightening possibility without making “possible” sound like “probable”?

Sometimes the scientifically accurate answer is simply: We don't know yet.

Unfortunately, that's a terrible headline.

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.

SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

NAD+ supplements have become a huge part of the longevity world. Compounds like NMN and NR are marketed for energy, cellular repair, and healthy aging.

But could some of the same things that help healthy cells survive also help cancer cells survive?

In this episode of Causes or Cures, Eeks talks with pancreatic cancer surgeon-scientist Dr. Jordan Winter about new research examining NAD+ precursors and pancreatic cancer.

The researchers studied three vitamin B3-related compounds that the body can use to make NAD+: nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), nicotinamide riboside (NR), and nicotinamide (NAM).

Eeks and Dr. Winter discuss what happened when researchers exposed pancreatic cancer cells to these compounds alongside chemotherapy drugs in the lab, what they found in mice, and why cancer is especially interesting when it comes to how cells use energy and respond to stress.

They also get into the bigger question raised by the research:

Something may be beneficial to healthy cells. But what happens when the cell we're helping is the one we're also trying to kill?

Importantly, this was preclinical research involving cells and mice, not a clinical trial in humans. Dr. Winter explains what the findings do and do not tell us about people taking NAD+-boosting supplements during cancer treatment.

Dr. Jordan Winter is a pancreatic cancer surgeon-scientist, Professor of Surgery at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Chief of Surgical Oncology at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. His research focuses on how pancreatic cancer cells survive in the unusually harsh, nutrient-poor environment surrounding tumors and whether those survival mechanisms can reveal new targets for treatment. He trained in surgery and pancreatic cancer research at Johns Hopkins and completed a surgical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.

SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Study Link Here. 

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

A bat lands on a restaurant table in California. It later tests positive for rabies. And somehow, that's only the beginning of the story.

In this episode of Causes or Cures, Eeks looks at rabies exposure, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), and the sometimes staggering medical bills that can follow—from tens of thousands of dollars to one initial bill topping $200,000.

Plus: rabid kittens, baby goats, a skunk, and an unfortunate childhood incident involving a veterinary family, a minivan, and a bookbag.

Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear—but it can be prevented after an exposure when treatment is given in time. So why can getting that treatment cost so much?

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.

SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Can cleaning the air in your home affect how your brain works?

 In this episode, Eeks talks with Prof Doug Brugge, Professor and Chair of Public Health Sciences at UConn, about a randomized crossover study testing HEPA air filtration in people living near busy highways.

 Researchers gave participants both real HEPA filtration and sham filtration and measured cognitive performance along the way. 

 Overall, the study did not find a statistically significant improvement in cognitive-test performance with HEPA filtration. But researchers found something interesting when they looked at age: among participants 40 and older, performance on one test of executive function and cognitive flexibility was about 12% faster following HEPA filtration compared with sham filtration. The finding was not seen among younger participants or on the other cognitive test. 

 Eeks and Doug talk about what we're breathing when we live near heavy traffic, how air pollution could potentially affect the brain, what HEPA filters actually remove, the study's unusual crossover design, the very real problem of getting better at a cognitive test simply because you've taken it before, and whether these results mean those of us over 40 should be shopping for an air purifier.

 And, importantly: what this study does and does not prove.

 Read the study in Scientific Reports

 Link to how to build your own Hepa Filter

UCONN Indoor Air Quality Initiative 

****************************************************************

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.

SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Would you want to know if you had a 50% chance of developing an inherited form of dementia?

In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Kolker about his new book, The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia.

The book follows a Pennsylvania family across generations as they confront a rare inherited form of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) associated with a mutation involving tau. For family members, genetic testing can answer an extraordinary question: Did I inherit the mutation or not? But knowing the answer can affect virtually everything that follows—relationships, having children, plans for the future and how someone interprets changes in their own behavior. 

Eeks and Robert discuss the very different ways family members approached genetic testing; whether getting older without symptoms means you're in the clear; having children when there's a chance of passing on the mutation; and the unsettling way FTD can first appear as changes in personality, judgment and behavior rather than something obviously recognizable as neurological disease.

They also get into some of the bigger questions raised by the book: How much of who we are is our brain? Would you want the option to end your life before a degenerative disease changed who you were? Can lifestyle meaningfully alter the course of a strongly inherited dementia? And what can medicine actually offer someone who learns today that they carry one of these mutations?

Finally, they discuss why researchers are so interested in this family's rare form of FTD. The mutation affects tau, a protein also implicated in Alzheimer's disease, making families like this scientifically valuable for understanding how dementia develops and potentially how it might someday be prevented or treated. 

Robert Kolker is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection and a New York Times Book Review Top 10 book of the year. He is also the author of Lost Girls. The Vanishing Family is published by Doubleday on September 29, 2026. 

The Vanishing Family — official publisher page

*Robert Kolker photo credit: Jeff Zorabedian

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.

Follow on X. 

Or Facebook here.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

What can hundreds of thousands of Reddit posts tell us about the side effects of GLP-1 medications?

In this episode of Causes or Cures, I talk with researcher Neil K. R. Sehgal about his recent study examining self-reported side effects of semaglutide and tirzepatide, commonly known by brand names including Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound.

Neil and his colleagues used AI to analyze more than 410,000 Reddit posts mentioning the medications. Among users who reported taking them, researchers found plenty of familiar side effects, particularly gastrointestinal symptoms, but they also identified potential signals involving fatigue, menstrual changes, and temperature-related symptoms such as chills and hot flashes. 

We talk about why clinical trials can't capture every possible side effect before a drug reaches the broader population, how AI can sift through enormous amounts of online conversation, and why finding a signal on Reddit is not the same thing as proving that a medication caused it.

We also get into a bigger question: Could social media eventually become a useful early-warning system for drug safety?

In this episode, we discuss: why Neil turned to Reddit to study GLP-1 experiences; how AI analyzed more than 400,000 posts; which potential side-effect signals emerged; the difference between correlation, a safety signal, and causation; how researchers distinguish genuine signals from social-media influence; and how AI and online communities could complement traditional pharmacovigilance.

About Neil: Neil K. R. Sehgal is a researcher affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Computer and Information Science and Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. His research includes using large-scale digital data to better understand patient experiences and healthcare. He led the analysis and was first author of the study discussed in this episode. 

Read the study:
Self-reported side effects of semaglutide and tirzepatide in online communities — Nature Health

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.

Follow on X. 

Or Facebook here.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

A woman named Victoria went viral after sharing that a prescription medication that would have cost her $1,000 out of pocket in the U.S. cost just $25 when obtained through a Canadian pharmacy from an Indian manufacturer.

But perhaps the most interesting part wasn't the price difference. It was the reaction.

The comments filled with people sharing their own stories about prescription prices, insurance, and the sometimes absurd cost of healthcare in America.

In this episode of WTF Health News, Eeks looks at why Victoria's story struck such a nerve, touches on some of the mysteries of U.S. prescription drug pricing, and asks what our collective reaction says about the American healthcare experience.

Because maybe the biggest WTF isn't that one medication cost $25 instead of $1,000.

It's how many Americans heard the story and thought: Yep. Sounds about right.

Here's the original IG video: https://www.instagram.com/lemonsnlyme/reel/DZYgShBBKIP/

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.

Follow on X. 

Or Facebook here.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Yes, scientists have invented smart underwear.  And yes, we're going to have to talk about farts. 

But this isn't really a story about underwear or even intestinal gas. It's about finding a new way to study the gut microbiome in real time.

In this episode, researcher Dr.  Brantley Hall joins me to talk about the development of wearable “smart underwear” that continuously measures hydrogen produced by gut microbes.

We discuss why hydrogen can provide clues about what's happening inside the gut, how the device compares with traditional breath and stool testing, and what happened when participants wore it for more than 11 hours a day. 

We also get into the engineering challenges of making smart underwear both comfortable and safe, including the rather important matter of not putting a lithium-ion battery in your underwear.

Brantley also explains how the device detected changes after participants consumed inulin, what this technology could teach us about individual responses to food, and whether continuous monitoring could someday have applications for personalized nutrition, IBS, food intolerances, and other digestive conditions.

And, naturally, we address the important question: When you've helped invent smart underwear, how exactly do you explain what you do for a living?

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.

Follow on X. 

Or Facebook here.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Are you sharing your microbiome with your roommate? What about your romantic partner?
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with microbiome researcher Dr. Nicola Segata about new research showing that we may share parts of our microbiome with the people we live with—including family members, roommates, and romantic partners.
They discuss how our microbiomes are shared between people, why romantic partners show particularly high levels of oral microbiome sharing, and whether kissing may be partly responsible. They also explore the surprising connection between the oral and gut microbiomes and what the findings could mean for our health.
Dr. Segata and Dr. Eeks also discuss whether some microbes are better at spreading than others, what the research does—and doesn't—tell us about cardiometabolic health, whether probiotics can meaningfully change our microbiome, and how much control we really have over the microbial communities living within us.
And if we're sharing our microbiomes with the humans we live with...what about our dogs?

About Dr. Nicola Segata:
Dr. Nicola Segata is a professor and microbiome researcher at the University of Trento in Italy and a principal investigator at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan. He founded his research laboratory in 2013, bringing together computational scientists, experimental biologists, statisticians, and clinicians to study the human microbiome, its diversity, and how it may influence human health and disease. 

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.

Follow on X. 

Or Facebook here.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Support the show

Send us Fan Mail

Once upon a time, people blamed tuberculosis on vampires.

Seriously.

In this Public Health Is Weird episode, we head to 1892 Rhode Island, where the deaths of several members of one family led to an exhumation, a suspected vampire, and a truly horrifying attempt at a cure. The real culprit was tuberculosis. 

We explore the strange connection between TB and vampire folklore, the discovery and treatment of tuberculosis, a messy Nobel Prize controversy, and a bigger question: Why do humans reach for supernatural explanations when something frightening happens that we can't explain? 

Vampires, tuberculosis, human psychology, and somehow, Dr. Eeks' great grandfather and groundhog grease.

Welcome to Public Health Is Weird. 

Be sure to check out the other Public Health is Weird episodes too! 

Work with Eeks? Perhaps you are a good match. 

Keep Causes or Cures Ad-Free with Listener Support

You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.

Follow on X. 

Or Facebook here.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to the Eeks Weekly here! (the bits not posted on socia media)

Sources used in the podcast are listed below and in my blog here. 

Food for the Dead, by Michael Bell

Mysterious, medieval child vampire, The Independent

Consumptive Chic, by Carolyn Day

Smithsonian Magazine, Kat Eschner, March, 2017

CDC MMWR, 1982

Streptomycin, American Chemical Society, 2014

World's Top Infectious Killer, Science Alert, 2025

Support the show