Health Illness

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the 20th century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.

Living with chronic illness is more than a medical diagnosis — it's a daily act of courage. Coping with Chronic Illness is a compassionate, practical guide for anyone navigating life with long-term health challenges. Whether you’ve just been diagnosed or have been managing symptoms for years, this book offers validation, clarity, and calm support every step of the way. Inside, you'll find clear explanations and gentle strategies for: Making sense of symptoms, flare-ups, and emotional ups and downs Communicating your needs with family, friends, and healthcare providers Managing work, ...

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognizable structures to define a modern city. Yet, for author Kevin Hines the bridge is not merely a marker of a place or a time. Instead, the bridge marks the beginning of his remarkable story. At 19-years-old, Kevin attempted to take his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge - a distance which took four seconds to fall. Recently diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, Kevin had begun to hear voices telling him he had to die, and days before his attempt, he began to believe them. The fall would break his body, but not his spirit.

It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.

This comprehensive book is the first to explore all six of the critical lifestyle factors that are the root causes of autoimmune conditions - and the sources of regaining health. Drawing on her own inspiring return to resilient health, as well as the healing stories of a dozen medical doctors and practitioners, plus years of research with autoimmune experts, Palmer Kippola gives listeners the tools to beat autoimmune disease - and the hope that relief and healing are possible.

Alan Gordon, a psychotherapist and the founder of the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, was in grad school when he started experiencing chronic pain and it completely derailed his life. He saw multiple doctors and received many diagnoses, but none of the medical treatments helped. Frustrated with conventional pain management, he developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a mind-body protocol that eliminated his own chronic pain and has transformed the lives of thousands of his patients.

Pain can be a big, unwieldy box that we struggle to carry all day. But what if we could put down this box, unpack it, and tackle the contents one by one? Outsmart Your Pain is Dr. Christiane Wolf's radically clear, evidence-based guide to relieving chronic pain with mindfulness, complete with 20 easy guided meditations and self-compassion practices.

She spent her life helping others, but when her own life is on the line—can she find the strength to help herself? Sara Davidson has it all: a career as an immunologist, helping countless strangers face life-risking illnesses; a loving, devoted husband; and fantastic, supportive children. Nobody ever had any doubts about where her life was headed, least of all Sara herself. So when the migraines began, Sara was determined not to let them stand in the way of her work. At first, they were just a nuisance. Then they became debilitating. Before she knew it, she was looking at an image of a ...

Humpback whales are among the most intelligent animals on Earth. Some scientists believe they might even surpass humans in self-awareness, empathy, and communication skills. In this episode, we swim with a whale as he teams up with other humpbacks to use bubbles to catch fish, rescues a sea lion, and puts his own spin on melodies sung by whales across the Pacific Ocean. This is the world in its natural state, defined by seasons, routines, and cycles. By the time this whale is ready to close one eye and go to sleep, you will be too.

Psychiatry has made great advances in the past 50 years but needs a new direction. Today's emphasis on psychiatric drugs will not stand the test of time. Recent advances in epigenetics and the molecular biology of the brain have provided a roadmap for the development of effective, natural, drug-free therapies that do not produce serious side effects. Psychiatric medications have served society well over the last 50 years, but the need for drug therapies will fade away as science advances.

The sun sinks over the Rio Grande, the mountains around it glow orange, and the world slows down. The Mexican free-tailed bats inside the Jornada Cave are just starting to stretch and murmur. In this episode, we visit the nursery where all the baby bats stay together, and we accompany a new mother as she journeys into the sky with the rest of her crew for a night of hunting bugs via echolocation.

Unlike canned nature sounds created in a studio, renowned acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton travels the world recording remarkable locations that capture the essence of the place itself. His lifelong mission is to preserve nature through sound, and his soundscapes are produced with such care and quality that you feel as if he has truly brought a slice of the world into your home...

From the moment Martha and her husband, John, conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them not to keep the baby.

Fennec foxes’ ears can be up to half as long as their bodies. They use them to track movement across the Sahara Desert, including under the sand. In this episode, we follow a fox as he meanders home to his family through the sand dunes as they slowly shift with the wind.

When Jane, a world-famous Harvard oncologist, suddenly collapses at work, the medical team resuscitating her makes a shocking discovery: she has advanced breast cancer that she’s been hiding for years. The results are catastrophic. In Sickness shows how even the most rational people can be nearly destroyed by their irrational fears. Tragic, moving, and wryly funny at times, this is an unflinching portrayal of a complicated marriage and its secrets.

Most cancer research dollars have been wasted asking the wrong questions, looking in the wrong places, and using the same failed approaches while expecting different results. Conventional cancer treatments damage health, cause new cancers, lower the quality of life, and decrease the chances of survival. In fact, most people who die from cancer are not dying from cancer but from their treatments!

It is 1919 and Elizabeth Hughes, the 11-year-old daughter of America's most-distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, has been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment - starvation - whittles her down to 45 pounds, skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases - a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition, and fistfights.

Inflammation is what happens when our body's own defenses turn on us - and it is a huge and growing problem. Written by the author of the groundbreaking Syndrome X, this essential updated edition of The Inflammation Syndrome draws on cutting-edge research conducted around the world to provide a revolutionary approach to healing inflammation-related problems through an easy-to-follow nutrition and supplement program.

Are you sick, but can't find any answers why? Do you have a seemingly unconnected collection of symptoms that leave doctors guessing? Or have you been diagnosed, but found that none of the treatments seems to make a difference? You may have Lyme disease and not even know it. Known as "the great imitator", Lyme disease and its associated co-infections can mimic the symptoms of and often be misdiagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and even depression.

The Wahls Protocol has become a sensation, transforming the lives of people with autoimmune diseases. Now in this fully revised edition, Dr. Terry Wahls outlines the latest research that validates the program and offers new, powerful tools to arm listeners and help them achieve total health.