Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine
Researchers have discovered more unintended consequences for antibiotics, this time for our earliest endosymbionts, the mitochondria. Commonly-used antibiotics in the tetracycline class have been shown to impair cellular respiration and mitochondrial function in eukaryotic cells, from plants to mice to fruit flies, and in human cell cultures. Tetracyclines have […]
Bernie Crespi has written a nice piece on Darwinian Psychology. Click here or on the image above for the article.
In 2001, a paper by van den Berghe and colleagues was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It described a trial of intensive blood sugar control in critically ill patients and reported improved survival with intensive glucose treatment using insulin. This study led to a substantial increase in […]
Mervyn Singer has published a review of multiple organ failure in patients with septic shock. Singer proposes that organ failure may represent a kind of organ hibernation that helps promote survival. He writes: “In summary, there is significant evidence that implicates mitochondrial dysfunction in sepsis-induced organ dysfunction. Whether this is […]
The International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health held its first meeting in Tempe Arizona! Its wrapping up, so you will have to go to the next one! Here is some more information about the meeting that is currently underway. Here is the link to join the International Society […]
Carina Schlebusch and colleagues just published an article in Molecular Biology and Evolution demonstrating human adaptation to the locally high arsenic levels in groundwater in the South American Andes. Read my brief review of Human adaptation to arsenic-rich environments in the Evolution and Medicine Review here. Updated: see March 13 […]
Eerie! Watch the NASA animation of the space probe Dawn approaching the dwarf planet Ceres. Eyes, right! When I saw this it reminded me of a moment hiking down a red rock canyon in Utah. I looked up and suddenly saw this: When I saw the pictograph, and when I […]
Yes and No. We have learned at this year’s Keystone Symposium on Gut Microbiota that microbes have adapted to specific mammalian hosts and undoubtedly vice versa. For instance Jens Walter has shown that specific strains of Lactobaccilus reuteri are adapted to specific hosts. This adaptation is expected to lead to […]
This blog used the term “macrobiome” (to indicate animals and plants of the visible type, such as the Borneo pygmy elephants above) back in March 2013. A quick google search reveals earlier uses of the term on the web. Some, though not all, appearances of “macrobiome” were typographical errors. In […]
Did you use this device today? And you washed your hands afterwards? If so, you are in the minority of humans on the planet. Only 19% of people worldwide wash their hands after excreting. Equally surprising, handwashing campaigns only have limited effectiveness in reducing infectious diarrhea, showing on average a […]
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