Forks over Knives: How a Whole Foods Plant Based Diet can Cure You

In a country where 40% of the population is obese and 50% takes some form of prescription drug, how do we go about fueling a healthy lifestyle? Lee Fulkerson offers an answer in “Forks over Knives”.

 

 

In a 2011 American documentary directed by Fulkerson, the "profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods" is explored. In the film, Fulkerson himself changes his lifestyle to consume a “Whole Foods Plant Based Diet” while simultaneously reviewing the works of American physician Caldwell Esselstyn and professor of nutritional biochemistry T. Colin Campbell, two of the most prominent advocates for the diet in America.

Wanted: Targeted Drug Therapies

                        

              For our project, my partner and I are interested in why people who have survived a previous primary cancer are at a higher risk of developing a new, secondary primary cancer than people of the cancer naïve population developing a first cancer.  To attempt to answer this question, we are focusing on treatment that cancer patients commonly go through to try to eradicate their cancer.  Our hypothesis is that these treatments, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy, will make the patient much more likely to develop a whole new cancer later in life.  Also, genetic factors may contribute to a predisposition for a second or third cancer developing later.  An example of this that we have discussed in class is familial retinoblastoma patients, who have inherited a defective copy of the Rb gene.  It is very common for these patients to develop secondary cancers in adolescence, particularly osteosarcomas.  It is still unknown why these patients primarily get retinal and bone tumors if the Rb gene operates in a wide variety of different tissues throughout the body (Weinberg 221).    

               

Could Anti-diabetic drugs increase the risk of pancreatic cancer?

Check out the Anti-diabetic therapies affect risk of pancreatic cancer article!!!

Intro

While exploring the complex link between diabetes type II and pancreatic cancer, I have taken a so called “chicken and the egg” approach to my thoughts, what causes what. While diabetes type II has been linked as a consequence of pancreatic cancer in the near past, new studies look to diabetes and ant diabetes medications as a player in the role of pancreatic carcinogenesis.

Breeding the Next Generation of Doctors Through the Television Screen: Surgery on the Wii Remote

Last weekend I performed several surgeries on heavily traumatized patients, with my work ranging from pulling bullet shards out of a beating heart to extracting tumors from an older gentlemen’s abdomen.

“Trauma Center New Blood”, a surgical simulation game designed by ATLUS for the Nintendo DS and the Wii, has four titles released currently in America: Trauma Center: Under the Knife, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2, and Trauma Center: New Blood, with a new title, Trauma Team, recently released. This game simulates the tension and pressures of performing surgeries on patients who have undergone various traumas or accidents. One such accident encountered in the early stages of the game involves the hospital director collapsing, and after basic examinations, it is revealed that the director had several tumors on his lower stomach and intestinal tracts ("Mahalo: Learn Anything").

A New Contender in the Fight against Cancer: Aspirin!

Did you know that your over the counter Aspirin could possibly fight off cancer?

While researching cervical cancer and HPV, I came across an article that was published in the New York Times this past February, about how Aspirin has the ability of limiting cancer for women who have HIV. The only problem with the study was that its was of a small test group.