Avoidance of healthcare is defined as keeping away from medical care that is thought to cause mental or physical harm. On the face of it, seeking healthcare for medical conditions seems to be an intuitive thing to do. However, many people seek to avoid healthcare even when they need it. It is necessary to understand how often and why this […]

Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba Syndrome (BRRS) is a congenital genetic condition defined by a group of characteristic features. These include macrocephaly, intestinal polyps, pigmented penile macules, multiple hemangiomas, and lipomas. First described in 1971, BRRS has an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. The signs and symptoms of Bannayan-Riley-Ruvalcaba syndrome appear at birth or in early childhood. Despite the lack of formal diagnostic criteria, […]

Introduction We often find people glancing at a nutrition label in grocery stores but only a small percentage of them can interpret the nutrition label correctly. With the variety of packaged food available nowadays it has become essential to know what ingredients we’re consuming and how much. The numbers on the nutrition labels can be quite tricky to understand, however, […]

Together again. A tight-knit group, the Class of 2022 at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis gathered in person and with their loved ones Friday, March 18, to celebrate Match Day, the momentous milestone when U.S. medical students learn where they will train as residents after graduation. For many, the ceremony allowed collective, palpable excitement — an atmosphere […]

The innate/general resistance system and the adaptive system are the two main subsystems of the immune system. To generate an efficient immune response, the innate and adaptive systems constantly interact with one another. The innate immune system, also known as general resistance, consists of several defensive mechanisms that are constantly active and serve as the first line of defense against […]

As modern-day humans began to emerge from Africa, the divergent characteristics of archaic groups, which were precursors to other archaic human groups, namely Neanderthals and Denisovans, began to overlap spatially and temporally. Modern DNA sequencing has unearthed several regions of the modern human genome that show evidence of introgression from a small number of meetings between human and archaic ancestors […]

Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy disorder that is characterized by high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine. The condition typically arises after 20 weeks of pregnancy and in severe cases, red blood cell breakdown occurs resulting in low blood platelet count, compromised liver function, kidney dysfunction, shortness of breath due to fluid buildup in the lungs, swelling, […]