This podcast might not actually kill you, but Erin Welsh and Erin Allmann Updyke cover so many things that can. In each episode, they tackle a different topic, teaching listeners about the biology, history, and epidemiology of a different disease or medical mystery. They do the scientific research, so you don’t have to. Since 2017, Erin and Erin have explored chronic and infectious diseases, medications, poisons, viruses, bacteria and scientific discoveries. They’ve researched public health subjects including plague, Zika, COVID-19, lupus, asbestos, endometriosis and more. Each episode is accompanied by a creative quarantini cocktail recipe and a non-alcoholic placeborita. Erin...
Latest episodes
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49 min
Special Episode: Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris & The Sleuth-Hound
Since his first appearance in A Study in Scarlet in 1887, Sherlock Holmes has captured hearts and imaginations around the world. Featured in countless tv shows, movies, books, play…
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1 h 04
Ep 225 Peptides: What your peptide dealer doesn’t want you to know
Looking to get swole (do people still say that)? Want to rewind the clock and smooth those bothersome wrinkles? Trying to lose weight rapidly and without a prescription? If you’ve…
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57 min
Ep 224 Snake Oil: The Great American Fraud
Come one, come all to learn of the miraculous news we’re buzzing to share with you at this limited time, low price offer. If you’ve been troubled by aches and pains, sores and snee…
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48 min
Special Episode: Robert Kolker & The Vanishing Family
A diagnosis of dementia of any kind is devastating. For those with the hereditary form of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), it could mean an entire family is destined for the same fat…
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1 h 20
Ep 223 ALS: Unraveling the mystery
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, has long mystified the medical community and brought tremendous sorrow to those impacted by the condition.…
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1 h 06
Ep 222 Vitamin K: Calling the shots
Shortly after birth, many newborns are given vitamin K to help their blood clot properly and reduce the chances of hemorrhage. Increasingly, especially here in the US, parents are…
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52 min
Special Episode: Dr. Alanna Skuse & The Surgeon, The Midwife, The Quack
Imagine yourself as a 17th century English peasant or merchant or noble. Let’s say you’re dealing with some intense stomach pain or a cut on your leg that won’t heal. Where do you…
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58 min
Ep 221 Electroconvulsive Therapy Part 2: A current conversation
This week, we’re picking up where we left off last episode in our exploration of ECT by examining how this therapy is administered, which conditions it’s used for, and what we know…
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51 min
Ep 220 Electroconvulsive Therapy Part 1: A charged history
For many, a mention of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) conjures images of torture or mind control from popular media like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Requiem for a Dream. Co…
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45 min
Special Episode: Clayton Page Aldern & The Weight of Nature
Already this summer, heatwaves are causing thousands of deaths across the world, catastrophic flooding threatens millions, wildfires rage across enormous swathes of the globe, many…
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59 min
Ep 219 The Brown Recluse: Fearsome foe or slandered spider?
Few spiders hold the dubious honor of name recognition among the general public. Most that do, like black widows, Australian funnel-web, the Goliath birdeater, are renowned not for…
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52 min
Special Episode: Deborah Cohen & Bad Influence
If you have a medical question, where do you turn? How often is google or social media your first stop? As you sift through the AI overview and countless reels professing to have t…
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1 h 10
Ep 218 The Lowdown on Statins
Last week, we set the stage by breaking down the science behind cholesterol: how it moves through our body, why it causes disease, and when we discovered the link between LDL and a…
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1 h 03
Ep 217 The High Stakes of Cholesterol
So your latest blood test results have come in, and you see a couple of numbers for cholesterol. What do those numbers mean, and why do we care about them? In this first part of ou…
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55 min
Ep 216 Cyclospora: Explosive Diarrhea Everywhere
You’ve seen the headlines: a food-borne parasite is infecting people across the US, leaving them chained to the toilet sometimes for weeks on end, as they are ravaged by wave after…
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49 min
Special Episode: Alev Scott & Cash Cow
Social media ads for egg freezing. A craigslist-like site for breast milk. Fertility fairs featuring IVF clinics alongside shamanic nutritionists. Surrogacy contracts offering a di…
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54 min
Ep 215 The Hidden Depths of Earwax
In keeping with last week’s theme of “bodily excretions that are kinda gross that you don’t really think about but are actually really important”, we’re devoting this episode to ea…
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1 h 02
Ep 214 Boogers: Digging for treasure
Hard and crusty. Green and gloopy. Clear and watery. Boogers come in a veritable rainbow of colors and a full spectrum of textures from liquid to solid. They’re really quite impres…
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58 min
Special Episode: Dr. Carl Elliott & The Occasional Human Sacrifice
Stories of unethical medical experimentation often center around the individuals who spearheaded such atrocities or highlight how patient protection laws were changed in response t…
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59 min
Ep 213 Burns Part 2: It’s like sci-fi but real
At the turn of the 20th century, a severe burn was often a death sentence. Today, that is no longer the case. Over the past eighty years, burn care has undergone a profound transfo…