Just reading the title of this episode may have been enough to make you feel grossed out and creepy crawly. And now we’re asking you to listen to a whole episode about maggots? But trust us, it’s worth the journey. Because these little creatures have a hidden depth to them that will surprise, delight, and, we would venture to say, inspire. In this episode, we explore the many ways that maggots have been used by medicine over the centuries up to the present day and the properties they possess that make them heroes of healing. With a discerning palate and something called extracor ..read more

What does it take to make the WHO’s list of high priority pathogens of pandemic potential? Ask Nipah virus. Extremely deadly with a wide host range and no effective treatments or vaccine (yet), Nipah virus has certainly earned its place on this list. In this episode, we explore where this virus came from, how it can make us so very sick, and the 1998 outbreak in peninsular Malaysia that put Nipah virus on the map. But we don’t stop there! We bring on expert guest, Dr. Clifton McKee, research associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to guide us through the ecological fa ..read more

We live on the edge. Whether we fail to acknowledge it or try not to think of it, that fact remains true for most of us. A chemical shift, a rogue protein, a marauding molecule - our brains are vulnerable to an array of attacks that could dramatically alter our connection with the world and ourselves. In this episode of the TPWKY book club, Dr. Sara Manning Peskin, MD, MS, assistant professor of clinical neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and author, joins us to discuss her book A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain. Deeply fascinating, occasionally ..read more

For our season 6 finale, we’re spending some time with menopause. How many nicknames can you think of for menstruation? Quite a few, I’m sure. “That time of the month”, “Aunt Flo”, “the red wave”, “period”, the list goes on. But what about euphemisms for menopause? We’ve got “the change” or “change of life”, “climacteric”, and… that’s it? There may be more out there, but the comparison is revealing. Despite the fact that roughly half of the global population has or will one day experience menopause, the lack of nicknames demonstrates the silence, often tinged with shame, still enveloping it. I ..read more

Does it seem like the supplement section of your grocery store gets bigger every time you go in? Or that all television commercials these days seem to be advertising dietary supplements that promise to improve your concentration, help you lose weight, make you happier, healthier, smarter, stronger, cooler, poop better or some mix of those? You’re not imagining things. The explosion of the US dietary supplement industry over the past few years is very real, and when you’re inundated with ads for supplements everywhere you turn, it can be very difficult to navigate whether these things actually ..read more

A dull pounding headache. Body aches that come and go. Chills that set your teeth to chattering and have you reaching for the fluffiest blankets to warm up. But the thing is, you’re already warm, hot even. At least according to the thermometer. That’s right, you’ve got a fever. Throughout the years of making this podcast, we’ve begun many a disease description with “it started with a fever” but we haven’t ever explored what that really means in depth until this episode. We take you through why fevers happen, how they work, why on earth you feel cold when you’re actually running a temperature ..read more

Raise your hand if you or someone you know has had their tonsils removed. If your hand is sky-high, there’s a pretty good chance that you (or that person you know) are from the US and were born before 1980. Of course, maybe that’s not the case, but tonsillectomies certainly fit in the category of 20th-century fads, along with Tamagotchis and the Atkins diet. While the procedure is still widely performed today (and for very good reasons), the frequency of tonsillectomies has dropped drastically from mid-20th century rates. In this episode, we explore why tonsillectomies became so popular, when ..read more

The TPWKY book club is back in action, and we’re thrilled to be starting this season’s reading journey with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, reproductive rights advocate, Associate Professor in the University of Connecticut history department, and award-winning author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. The history of science and medicine often focuses on the achievements of wealthy, white male physicians and researchers whose names are etched on medical school buildings, libraries, and dormitories. Rarely do these stories give voice to those whose ..read more

In many ways, this week’s episode on myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a companion piece to last week’s episode on Long Covid. The two share many similarities: a wide range of debilitating symptoms lingering long after infection, an illness which can transform from day to day or week to week, dismissal and downplaying by the medical community, a big question mark under “pathophysiological cause”, and so many others. These parallels can tell us a great deal about our concepts of disease and how we deal with uncertainty in science and medicine. But the differences be ..read more

This one’s not just for the dogs. It’s also for the cats, the raccoons, the wax moths, the birds, the mice, and so many other critters. Oh, and of course the humans. Even though most of us may be familiar with parvovirus through our canine friends, the world of parvoviruses is much larger. In this episode, we explore that world, focusing first on the biology of these tiny DNA viruses and how they make us sick before tracing the history of their discovery and the pandemic spread of canine parvovirus just a few short decades ago. We are joined by the amazing Dr. Steph Horgan Smith who acts as ou ..read more