Author: Danielle Grant
Lupus is a disease with notable pop culture recognition thanks to the American television series “House, M.D.” where it is often suggested as a probable illness plaguing the show’s patients until the suggestion is typically shut down because “it’s never lupus”. When a friend of mine was diagnosed with lupus she recalls phoning a loved one only to be met with a joke utilizing the same House tagline, “but it’s never lupus”. An ill-timed joke aside, this highlights a frustration for many lupus patients, not many Canadians are aware of what lupus actually is. October is lupus awareness month, offering the opportunity to start a dialogue about this autoimmune disease often called The Disease with a Thousand Faces.
Read MoreAuthor: Carly Pontifex
What are GMOs? Are they really safe for my family to eat? Unless you have formal training in biological sciences, these are questions that might have kept you up at night. Are scientists playing God? Do they know what they’re doing? How do they know that there won’t be some terrible unintended consequences to their inscrutable science experiments? Maybe it’s our fault, the scientists, for not making it clear to you what is fact and what is fiction, and we can’t blame you. In this world of misinformation, it’s hard to know the difference between fiction and reality. Here I am, a concerned scientist, and I want to help you understand GMOs. As a disclaimer, this article was written with absolutely no conflicts of interests to report. I have never been contacted by any GMO corporation, nor have I been swayed to write this article by the agricultural industry. I just want you to know the truth.
Read MoreAuthor: Vienna M Doenni, M. Sc.
Before the rabies vaccine was invented people were so scared of the horrible disease progression that they would end their own lives upon getting bit by a rabies-infected animal. Here we will discuss how can one get infected with the virus, who is at risk and what the rabies virus will do to an infected person or pet.
Read MoreAuthor: Charmaine Szalay
The gut-brain relationship seemingly associated with autism may even begin before birth. Children with autism may not only be affected by what they eat, but also by what their mothers have eaten during gestation. In one rodent study, researchers compared the offspring of obese mothers, who consumed a high fat diet likened to those primarily related to human consumption of fast food, to healthy controls. The obese mothers gave birth to pups that displayed behavioural deficits, much akin to autism, and a different microbiota profile. The gut flora of the pups was less diverse and was lacking one bacterium known as Lactobacillus (L.) reuteri, which produces oxytocin. Oxytocin is an important chemical for promoting sociability. Normal offspring’s gut had nine times more L. reuteri. Interestingly, when mice that lacked L. reuteri were repopulated with the bacteria, sociability was detectably improved, in addition to an increase in oxytocin producing cells.
Read MoreAuthor: Nikita Burke, Ph.D.
Addiction to opioids has reached epidemic proportions in North America. Fentanyl is an opioid, which are a class of painkillers that includes morphine, oxycodone. Fentanyl has proved to be particularly insidious. The beloved musician Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose last year at the age of 57. In Alberta, six people died from fentanyl overdose in 2011. In 2016, this soared to 343 deaths.
Read MoreAuthor: Erik Fraunberger, M.Sc.
Have you ever been inside a drug or natural health store and wandered into the herbal remedies section mixed in with all the vitamins? I’m not talking about the herbal teas and spices that have a tangible taste or smell. I am referring to the remedies with interesting names in Latin and dosages in the c-scale instead of milliliters. These are not your ordinary remedies: these are homeopathic. Unfortunately, whatever clinical efficacy homeopathic remedies may display is hidden within highly theoretical and, some would say, implausible science. How do we separate fact from fiction? Let me take you through the underlying ideas and science-surrounding homeopathy and see what we can find.
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