Blooming Wellness
Dr. Eek's Health & Wellness Blog
A rabid bat landed on a family’s dinner table. Not metaphorically. Literally. As reported in People, that’s what recently happened at the Yellow Deli in Vista, California. What would I have done? Probably just scoot my chair back a little. Growing up around my parents’ veterinary practice, I became oddly desensitized to wildlife. Bats. Rats. …
One of the strangest chapters in medical history involves a treatment that sounds completely backwards today. People once smoked cigarettes to relieve asthma symptoms. View this post on Instagram A post shared by EeKs (@doctoreeks) Before modern rescue inhalers, “asthma cigarettes” were sold in pharmacies and prescribed by physicians. They weren’t ordinary tobacco cigarettes. Instead, …
New York City is vaccinating raccoons against rabies again, with this fall’s operation running from October 14 through November (weather permitting) in Queens, Brooklyn, and parts of northern Manhattan. Translation: if you spot what looks like a fishy ketchup packet in the woods, it’s probably not a new snack trend, it’s an oral rabies vaccine …
Could gene drive mosquitoes be the key to ending deadly diseases like malaria and dengue or do the risks outweigh the benefits? Well, the jury is still out. Listen on Causes or Cures: On a recent episode of Causes or Cures, I chatted with Dr. Michael Santos about the controversial yet potentially groundbreaking technology known …
What is the public health equilibrium? It’s a term I coined to describe the balancing act that is public health, which I’ll describe in this blog. This is my perception, vision, thinking and not anyone I work for or consult for. This blog was inspired by one of my recent tweets: I don’t think the …
My quick review of Watch the Water: A few people wrote to me on social media and asked me what I thought about the recently released documentary, Watch the Water. I hadn’t seen it or even heard of it, so couldn’t offer anything substantial. Then I started seeing posts about “snake venom” on Twitter and …
A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine connects short sleep duration and obesity. A randomized controlled trial was conducted from Nov, 2014 to October, 2020 involving participants between the ages of 21 and 40. All of them had a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 and had a sleep duration of less …
A new approach to obesity and binge eating disorder: Hi everyone! Another Causes or Cures podcast is up. For 2022, I promised to focus on a few topics, one being obesity since rates have increased in the US and it’s a problem of epidemic proportions. A large body of data shows that obesity is a …
Measles in Afghanistan: Kills 74 kids. You might have noticed that I’ve been writing more about Measles and featuring guests on my podcasts to talk about topics related to Measles. It’s because I could see Measles making a comeback in a variety of ways, partially due to fear over COVID vaccines. Most recently, Blima Marcus, …
Addressing Childhood Vaccines in a Religious Orthodox Community In conversation I’ve noticed that several people who are skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccines are starting to be skeptical of all vaccines. I have no idea if this is an actual trend, as I’m only going off of my personal experience. I think it is a misguided …
Intermittent Fasting for Obesity and more: What’s the Evidence for or against? Episode 86 of my Causes or Cures Podcast! Should we try intermittent fasting for obesity? Will it work in the short-term and the long-term? What are some of its other evidence-based health benefits? Those are some questions I have about intermittent fasting or …
Another model for COVID vaccines- what did this one show? A recent study published in JAMA assessed how effective the COVID-19 vaccines were in the US during the vaccine rollout across a portion of the pandemic (October1’2020- June 30’2021) Researchers at Yale University’s Center for Infectious Disease Modeling built a predictive model that included transmission …
