All about the science of disease
In an apparent attempt to taint the remaining vegetables that haven’t been Daily Mail-ized, some of the popular media has turned against asparagus over the last few days. It turns out, asparagus gives you breast cancer! For once, some of the media also started fighting back, in an attempt to explain why the winter vegetable … Read more
I cannot do anything without having a cup of black coffee in the morning and I feel this sentiment is shared by a really large segment of the population. Coffee is delicious and like most other foods and beverages can both be bad or good for you. Some very interesting and trustworthy studies have been … Read more
Popular newspapers have spent their time, money and energy promoting this exciting piece of news on their platform. Apparently, eating five (not four, not six) mushrooms a day will protect us not only from cancer, but also from heart disease and from dementia. Is it any wonder, I thought, that a lot of the general public finds it hard … Read more
One of the most interesting aspects of the “Age Of Misinformation” is the flourishing of thousands of medical myths. These are usually propagated by people who are not qualified medical professionals or scientists, who peddle misinterpreted or flat-out incorrect information to the Internet masses. Whether these myths are started to sell products or in good … Read more
As a scientist, it is part of my job to keep tabs on new scientific discoveries and recent publications. It was in this context that I recently ran into a fascinating paper by researchers at the University Of Cambridge looking into how formaldehyde (a known carcinogen) selectively destroys BRCA2 – a protein in the cell … Read more
As a cancer scientist and someone interested in the ever-evolving relationship between science and the media, my eye was caught this week by the flashy headlines claiming that good-old tomatoes might just be the cure for gastric cancer. All the media fuss appears to stem from a paper accepted last week in the Journal Of … Read more