Health Topics – Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts
Episodes
Should you be concerned about a malaria comeback in the US? Elizabeth Tracey reports
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mosquito borne illnesses may include those caused by viruses or parasites. With factors such as frequent international travel and climate change, cond...
Now that summer is here mosquitoes are all around us, Elizabeth Tracey reports
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Along with longer days and warmer temperatures, summer heralds much more robust mosquito populations in the northern hemisphere. Johns Hopkins mosquit...
Can a new method for developing CAR-T cells to treat cancer be expanded? Elizabeth Tracey reports
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Making CAR-T cells from donor bone marrow already used to treat someone’s cancer helped rein in cancer recurrence, a new study shows. Kimmel Cancer ...
Can donor CAR-T cells have an impact on cancer treatment? Elizabeth Tracey reports
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
CAR-T cells developed from bone marrow donors whose bone marrow had already been used to treat someone’s cancer may be able to rein in cancer recurr...
Are CAR-T cells coming into their own as therapeutic agents? Elizabeth Tracey reports
19 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Specially engineered T cells, one component of immune cells in your body, are called CAR-T cells, and for several years now have been used to treat bl...
An AI model may help predict who is more likely to develop pancreas cancer, Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Pancreas cancer is associated with a very poor prognosis, with many people diagnosed with the disease given only months or a couple of years of predic...
Will GLP1 drugs tease out the relationship between insulin and cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In trying to discern factors that may account for colorectal cancer incidence in younger people many diet and lifestyle factors fell short, a new stud...
Is there a relationship between diet, obesity and colorectal cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A new, comprehensive study takes a look at lifestyle factors and colorectal cancer in younger people and fails to find a relationship. Kimmel Cancer C...
What accounts for increases in colorectal cancer among younger people? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A comprehensive look at lifestyle factors and cancer rates among both older and younger people has left many people scratching their heads. The UK stu...
A new drug for pancreas cancer may be a game changer, Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Daraxonrasib is the name of a drug for pancreas cancer that almost doubled survival for people with the disease in a clinical trial. William Nelson, d...
A new drug for pancreas cancer may be a game changer, Elizabeth Tracey reports
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Daraxonrasib is the name of a drug to treat pancreas cancer that has extended survival in many with the disease, a just reported clinical trial finds....
Certain groups of people seem to be missing out when it comes to optimizing cardiovascular disease prevention, Elizabeth Tracey reports
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
New guidelines for managing cholesterol levels have recently been released by the American College of Cardiology. Cardiologist Roger Blumenthal at Joh...
What markers are found in blood that indicate cardiovascular risk? Elizabeth Tracey reports
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cholesterol found in your blood is just the beginning of the story when it comes to markers found there that are indicative of cardiovascular risk. A ...
What does a blood marker called lipoprotein A have to do with your risk for cardiovascular disease? Elizabeth Tracey reports
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to assessing your cardiovascular risk, your blood tells an eloquent story. It’s not just cholesterol but several other factors that ca...
What’s involved in lowering your risk for cardiovascular disease? Elizabeth Tracey reports
08 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cholesterol management, per new guidelines from the American College of Cardiology, is just one aspect of measures you can take to lower your risk for...
Cancer Headlines for June with William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
03 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Becoming educated about your own cardiovascular risk is pivotal to prevention, Elizabeth Tracey reports
01 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The most important person in reducing your risk for cardiovascular disease is you, and managing your blood cholesterol levels is just one part of an o...
Monitoring cholesterol and other factors should be done regularly to prevent cardiovascular disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports
01 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Management of blood cholesterol is a major factor in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as reflected in new guidelines released by the American...
What LDL cholesterol level should you be aiming for? Elizabeth Tracey reports
01 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to ideal LDL cholesterol levels in the blood, ideal is a bit of a moving target. Johns Hopkins cardiologist Roger Blumenthal, chair of a...
The first strategy to improve blood cholesterol levels in lifestyle management, Elizabeth Tracey reports
01 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been told you have high LDL cholesterol in your blood, the first place to begin to try to improve it is with diet and exercise. That’s a...
New guidelines from the American College of Cardiology for cholesterol guidelines are here, Elizabeth Tracey reports
01 Jun 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A quarter of US adults have elevated levels of LDL, the type of cholesterol in the blood most often associated with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular...
Should you have a commercially advertised cancer detection test? Elizabeth Tracey reports
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Depending on your media exposure you have likely seen commercials or advertisements for cancer detection tests that look for markers of the disease in...
Can epigenetics point the way to treatment for pancreas cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Changes to DNA that are added on top of the baseline order of its building blocks are known as epigenetics, and these changes are implicated in a numb...
What do gut bacteria have to do with breast cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Certain bacteria commonly found in the gut produce toxins that promote breast cancer, a Johns Hopkins study shows. Kimmel Cancer Center director Willi...
What does too many copies of a part of a chromosome in pancreas cancer tell us? Elizabeth Tracey reports
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There are too many copies of one arm of chromosome one in pancreas cancer, a Johns Hopkins study finds. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer ...
Can too many copies of a gene drive pancreas cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports
26 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps you recall from high school biology that you have 23 pairs of chromosomes. A Johns Hopkins study has shown that one arm of chromosome one, the...
Why do kids 9-11 years of age need a cholesterol test? Elizabeth Tracey reports
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
About one in five adolescents have cholesterol levels that are too high, and that’s why new guidelines from the American College of Cardiology speci...
There’s a very good reason to test preadolescents’ cholesterol levels, Elizabeth Tracey reports
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know that one in five adolescents have cholesterol levels that are too high, some of them very high indeed? Those at the highest levels may ha...
There’s a test your adolescent should have to help avoid cardiovascular disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Your preadolescent child should have their blood drawn to test their cholesterol levels, new guidelines from the American College of Cardiology specif...
Even kids who appear very healthy can have very high cholesterol levels, Elizabeth Tracey reports
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Familial hypercholesterolemia is just what it sounds like: abnormally high cholesterol levels that run in families due to their genetics. Turns out th...
New cholesterol screening guidelines capture childhood risk, too, Elizabeth Tracey reports
14 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A new clinical guideline to manage cholesterol levels in the blood has been released by the American College of Cardiology. Johns Hopkins cardiologist...
Does a program exist to implement comprehensive lifestyle changes to preserve cognitive function? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to slowing down cognitive decline in those with early Alzheimer’s disease a total package of lifestyle interventions is superior to cu...
How exactly do lifestyle interventions benefit brain health? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you have mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease, changes in lifestyle are more likely to provide benefit to your cognitive capaci...
Comprehensive lifestyle changes impact wellbeing in those with early Alzheimer’s disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Lifestyle interventions are more effective than medications in early Alzheimer’s disease, a study led by Majid Fotuhi, a neurologist at Johns Hopkin...
How is it that medications to treat Alzheimer’s disease appear to show such a benefit? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Declines of several fold in rates of progression- sounds pretty good, doesn’t it, if you have the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease and are ...
If you’ve been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment what’s the best strategy to slow decline? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Comprehensive lifestyle changes are better than medications to slow, stop or even improve mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease, a ...
How did the current situation with kratom develop? Elizabeth Tracey reports
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Many substances marketed as ‘supplements’ enjoy a lack of oversight and regulation, among them kratom, a plant based extract from Asia. While some...
What is the likelihood that you’ll experience a problem with a product labeled as kratom? Elizabeth Tracey reports
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Over a thousand fold in the last year. That’s the increase in the number of emergency department visits nationally due to use of kratom, a drug sold...
If you have a bad experience after taking kratom, can medical professionals help?
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When someone presents to an emergency department after having taken an unknown drug, screening is typically undertaken. Yet for kratom, which last yea...
Consuming kratom products may result in an ED visit, Elizabeth Tracey reports
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Kratom is a drug that has been unregulated and sold for decades in smoke shops and elsewhere, now associated with over a thousand fold increase in eme...
Kratom is accounting for a dramatic rise in ED visits, Elizabeth Tracey reports
04 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
You may have noticed among the offerings at gas stations and convenience stores something called kratom. This is a plant based drug with the potential...
Increasing rates of obesity and severe obesity may presage increased rates of heart failure, Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The good news is heart failure in people with severe obesity may be reversible with common weight loss drugs. The bad news is both obesity, with BMIs ...
Is there another benefit besides weight loss of GLP-1s in people with severe obesity? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
GLP-1 receptor agonists are effective in helping most people lose weight, and now a new study suggests that in those with severe obesity, a BMI of 42 ...
Can GLP-1 agonists help in heart failure and severe obesity? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
There’s a relationship between severe obesity and one type of heart failure, and it looks like it’s mediated by adding more phosphate groups, a pr...
What is severe obesity doing to the heart muscle’s ability to contract? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Severe obesity may impede the ability of units inside heart muscle cells called sarcomeres to contract, and losing weight may reverse that condition. ...
How is obesity related to a common form of heart failure? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, so-called HFpEF, is happening more frequently, especially in those with severe obesity. David Kass, a ...
A model of your brain may one day be grown in a lab, Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Brain organoids, collections of cells found in the brain, have been grown from blood samples of people with Alzheimer’s disease and used to assess t...
What can be learned from what cells dispose of? Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Extracellular vesicles are membrane bound packages cells use to jettison materials from inside the cell, a sort of trash can. Johns Hopkins genetic me...
Brain organoids can resemble specific parts of the brain, Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
What might a model of the hindbrain, which helps control functions like sleep, breathing and heart rate, tell us about using a common depression drug ...
Can drugs to manage Alzheimer’s disease be tested in organoids? Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Drugs to manage symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease may work in some people but not in others. Now a new method using brain organoids, which are derived...
Can brain organoids help in treating people with Alzheimer’s disease? Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Brain organoids are lab grown clusters of cells that have several of the cell types found in someone’s brain. Cells taken from a person’s blood ar...
Cancer Headlines With William Nelson, Director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
01 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Medicaid reductions may impact screening for cancer, Elizabeth Tracey reports
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Medicaid reductions being rolled out this year are poised to dramatically reduce cancer screening for millions, a new study estimates. William Nelson,...
Should breast cancer screening be targeted to those at greatest risk? Elizabeth Tracey reports
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Breast cancer screening is associated with false positives, where women are referred for further assessments and procedures that may be unnecessary. D...
Can older people with cancer benefit from telephone based contact? Elizabeth Tracey reports
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
People who were older and had advanced cancers benefited from a telephone-based intervention designed to regularly assess their symptoms and refer the...
Good news on cancer survival! Elizabeth Tracey reports
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Seventy percent of people diagnosed with cancer in the United States will still be alive five years later, the American Cancer Society reports. Willia...
There’s good news regarding survival when cancer if found, Elizabeth Tracey reports
28 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
American Cancer Society data find that the majority of people who are diagnosed with cancers of all types will still be alive five years later. Johns ...
Who is at risk to develop PICS? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
PICS stands for post intensive care syndrome, and it is characterized by a number of physical and mental health conditions that may follow someone’s...
What can be done about PICS? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Physical and mental health issues can follow a stay in an intensive care unit, a condition known as PICS, for post intensive care syndrome. Rohan Math...
How can you tell if PICS is present? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When someone has survived an intensive care unit stay, they may experience a host of challenges to their wellbeing known collectively as post intensiv...
What kinds of issues may remain after someone has been in an intensive care unit? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
PICS stands for post intensive care syndrome, and recent data indicate that perhaps the majority of people who’ve been hospitalized in an ICU will h...
What is post-intensive care syndrome? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Once you’ve made it through a stay in an intensive care unit, you can simply move forward in your life, right? Not exactly, as recent research indic...
There’s a new technique that may revolutionize one type of T cell therapy, Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you’ve heard of CAR-T cells, a type of cell you have in your body that is supercharged in a lab and put back in to fight things like cancer. B...
Can an injectable particle help supercharge your T cells? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
CAR-T cells are a type of immune cell that have proven very effective for treating some types of cancer, yet limitations to their use exist. Biomedica...
Can an mRNA containing particle help direct your T cells to specific targets? Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Using polyester to wrap mRNA to create an injectable particle may soon enable targeting of your T cells to fight some cancers and autoimmune diseases....
Temporary changes to T cells may empower new treatments for cancer and autoimmune disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Let’s say I take one type of immune cell from your blood, grow it in a lab and use a virus to cause changes in that cell so it recognizes cancer. Th...
Messenger RNA can be used to stimulate T cells to fight cancer and autoimmune disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Put together a shelf-stable particle with a polyester shell, a homing mechanism, and mRNA instructions, and what do you have? A new technology that ma...
Trust but verify may be needed for pulse oximeters, Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
With several studies saying oxygen measurements are too low and one saying they’re too high, how much can pulse oximeters be trusted in those with d...
How do we account for opposite results from studies on pulse oximeters? Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Critical care medicine relies on pulse oximeters, which estimate oxygen levels in someone’s blood, for many decisions regarding their care. Studies ...
What does a recent FDA funded study on pulse oximeters show? Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Do devices that measure oxygen levels in blood, known as pulse oximeters, measure too high or too low in those with darker skin? That’s the question...
Data from pulse oximeters can really impact patient care, Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you are a person with darker skin should you be worried about the levels of oxygen in your blood a pulse oximeter is giving? Critical care expert R...
What is up with pulse oximeters? Elizabeth Tracey reports
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Do the devices known as pulse oximeters, which measure the amount of oxygen in someone’s blood, underestimate or overestimate this value in people w...
Will brain training data change policy when it comes to Alzheimer’s prevention? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cognitive speed training using a computer to generate images and accelerate task completion was able to reduce the likelihood that an older person wou...
One type of brain training seems to be important in reducing Alzheimer’s disease risk, Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A novel study has shown that training the brain with cognitive speed training seems to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Johns Hopkins Alzheim...
Can cognitive speed training make your brain more connected? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you were asked to learn a computer based task that would require an hour twice a week for six weeks, and it was something you would largely have to...
How can we account for why cognitive speed training seems to reduce Alzheimer’s risk? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Working with images on a computer screen on a task that gets faster and more complex may reduce one’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by 25...
How does learning by yourself compare with instruction when it comes to preserving brain function? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
When you have to teach yourself a task and adapt to having that task speed up, that’s one type of learning used in a study assessing different types...
Does having to figure things out on your own protect your brain better than other kinds of activities? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
People who received memory and reasoning training or those who didn’t receive any brain training were more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s...
What exactly is cognitive speed training? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Among a cohort of 2800 people, those who received cognitive speed training compared to usual care or memory and reasoning training we less likely to b...
If you’re looking to preserve brain health doing cognitive speed training may be best, Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re like many people you’d rather not develop dementia, so a new study demonstrating the benefits of a computer based intervention called co...
What does 20 years of follow up tell us about activities to protect the brain? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cognitive speed training, where a computer is used to present an image and require tasks based on images that speeds up, resulted in fewer dementia di...
Is it possible to make personal changes to stave off dementia and preserve independence? Elizabeth Tracey reports
23 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Showing someone a visual task on a computer and then speeding things up so they must complete it faster and faster preserves brain function better tha...
What is an assembloid? Elizabeth Tracey reports
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Brain organoids, cell collections grown in a lab to study diseases like Alzheimer’s, have created excitement because they are a bit more representat...
What is an organoid? Elizabeth Tracey reports
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Using induced stem cells helps create models for diseases like Alzheimer’s disease that can be studied in a lab, but now three dimensional cell coll...
How do stem cells derived from blood differ from those from embryos? Elizabeth Tracey reports
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Stem cells used to be derived from human embryos, but not anymore. Now a simple blood test can allow stem cells to be induced from cells found there, ...
Stem cells are just the beginning when it comes to modeling your risk for Alzheimer’s disease, Elizabeth Tracey reports
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cells from your blood can be induced to return to what they looked like when you were an embryo, then can be made to develop into different cell types...
What might reprogramming cells have to do with understanding Alzheimer’s? Elizabeth Tracey reports
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A simple blood test may soon help precisely identify your risk for Alzheimer’s disease by inducing some of your cells to go back in time, looking li...
A couple new approaches to treating a type of leukemia may help shorten treatment, Elizabeth Tracey reports
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Using one of two drug combinations versus ibrutinib alone to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia, one of the most common types of leukemia in adults, m...
Can the drug celecoxib help some people avoid colorectal cancer recurrence? Elizabeth Tracey reports
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
For people who’ve had colorectal cancer, celecoxib, a commonly prescribed medicine for pain, may help avoid disease recurrence, a recent analysis of...
Since most cervical cancer is caused by infection with a virus, when should screening start? Elizabeth Tracey reports
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Women may now choose to collect their own samples to test for human papilloma virus, or HPV as part of their screening regimen for cervical cancer, th...
Will women soon be testing themselves for human papilloma virus, or HPV ? Elizabeth Tracey reports
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The American Cancer Society has updated guidelines for cervical cancer screening to include self-collected specimens to assess for human papilloma vir...
As cancer cases in younger people rise, do they all need treatment? Elizabeth Tracey reports
18 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Cancers of several types are being diagnosed more often in those younger than fifty years of age, and no one really understands why. Because there are...
If you learn you have cancer would you be comfortable not treating it? Elizabeth Tracey reports
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rates of eight different types of cancer are increasing in those aged 50 and younger, new data reveal, and while researchers are struggling to identif...
Cancers increasing among those younger than fifty warrant investigation to discern causes, Elizabeth Tracey reports
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Eight different cancers are increasing among those younger than fifty in the US, data since 1992 indicate. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Canc...
What factors do we know are related to the development of childhood allergies? Elizabeth Tracey reports
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Following 125,000 children as they began to eat a wider variety of foods from infancy seems to show that early introduction of peanut helped many avoi...
What’s the best strategy to avoid food allergies in young children? Elizabeth Tracey reports
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Early exposure to peanut is credited with reducing the development of peanut allergy in young children, a recent study concludes, but Robert Wood, a c...
Should you feed your young child peanut to prevent allergy? Elizabeth Tracey reports
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Early introduction of peanut into a child’s diet may help them avoid development of peanut allergy, a recent study concludes. Robert Wood, a childho...
Can a new test help those at risk to develop ALS? Elizabeth Tracey reports
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new test may identify ALS up to a decade before symptoms appear, research by Alex Pantelyat, a movement disorders expert at Johns Hopkins, and colle...
Looking retrospectively at blood samples allows researchers to spot ALS, Elizabeth Tracey reports
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Testing hundreds of blood samples collected years ago allowed researchers at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere to create a panel of proteins that point to t...
A new blood test may spot ALS years before symptoms emerge, Elizabeth Tracey reports
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
ALS is a diagnosis no one wants to hear. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the condition robs a person of the ability to control their muscles, an...