West Nile virus is an infection that is spread to humans by mosquitoes of the Culex species. The virus is spread after a mosquito feeds on an infected bird and then bites a human. The viral particle contains a strand of RNA and West Nile is…
Lately, carbohydrates, or carbs, have gotten a bad rap – but not all carbs deserve it. What makes a carb healthy? It’s not the number of grams on the label, but rather it’s how the carb behaves in your body. Carbohydrates are chains that…
In men, hypogonadism (low testosterone level) generally has readily recognizable clinical manifestations, such as decreased libido and sexual activity, loss of secondary sex characteristics and muscle mass, hot flushes, and anemia. Testosterone…
A 27-year-old man with a history of asthma presented to the ER at a hospital in Malaysia with a five-day history of fever, vomiting, diarrhea, dyspnea (shortness of breath), and hemoptysis (coughing up blood). One year prior to his ER…
The terms metastasis, metastasize, etc. refer to the spread, usually hematogenous (via the bloodstream), of cancer. As a rule, the presence of metastatic disease is not a good sign. Today’s case is from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in…
It is estimated that approximately 600,000 people died in the Civil War, but two-thirds of them died from disease, not battlefield wounds. The diseases they succumbed to were diseases commonly seen in crowded areas with poor sanitation, for…
This case comes from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. A 76-year-old retired cardiovascular nurse presented to the ER with a two-hour history of chest pain that had been triggered by severe emotional distress and was…
When we think about cardiac arrest, we usually attribute it to older individuals. Unfortunately, the incidence of cardiac arrest, or the sudden cessation of heart pumping, is rising in younger people aged 18 to 40 years. It now occurs in for to…
Amino acids are vital building blocks to life and were an essential part of the “primordial soup” that is thought to have started life on our planet. Some amino acids are used in animals to make proteins. Amino acids that the human body…
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common electrical disorder of the heart in which the heart’s upper chamber, the atrium, quivers or fibrillates instead of contracting and beating. In the U.S., it affects about 10.55 million people and is more…
