Medicine & Health

Animals and humans have a lot in common, including some health problems that plague them. In her book Zoobiquity, Dr. Barbara Patterson-Horowitz explores how studying animal illness -- from cancer to sexual dysfunction -- can help us better understand human health.

Nearly 15 million Americans have a moderate to severe food allergy. In kids, the rate is on in 13. Kari Nadeau, who studies food allergies at Stanford, in currently testing a technique to desensitize children who have multiple severe allergies to foods like nuts, soy, milk, wheat and shellfish.

In the United States, an orphan disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 patients. These conditions often involve chronic pain or fatigue, and can be controversial and difficult to diagnose. Yet they affect around 30 million Americans. Author Laurie Edwards is one such patient.

Frances Ashcroft's new book details how electricity in the body fuels everything we thing, feel or do. She tells Fresh Air about discover a new protein, how scientists are like novelists and how she wanted to be a farmer's wife.

In The Violinist's Thumb, writer Sam Kean goes inside our genetic code, looking at the stories written by the fundamental building blocks within us. The book explains things like why some people can't handle drinking coffee and why some human babies are born with tails.

AIDS is the primary killer of African-Americans ages 19 to 44, and the mortality rate is 10 times higher for black Americans than for whites. A new Frontline documentary explores why.

Navigating medical information is tricky, particularly when patients receive advice from doctors, family members, guidelines, the media and the Internet. In Your Medical Mind, two Harvard physicians offer advice on how patients can make the best medical choices for themselves and their families.

Ian Brown's son Walker as a rare disorder that left him with severe cognitive, developmental and physical disabilities. Brown's new memoir, The Boy in the Moon, is about his journey trying to answer medical and philosophical questions about his son's existence.

Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles how our understanding of cancer has evolved in his new book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

This interview was originally broadcast on Nov. 17, 2010. Siddhartha Mukherjee recently received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for 'The Emperor of all Maladies.'

New York Times investigative journalist Walt Bogdanich discusses his ongoing series on mistakes made during radiation treatments. He also details what a patient should always ask before receiving an type of X-ray, scan or radiation treatment.