Guus Veldkamp The concept of vaccination has been around since the 18th century. It was a British doctor named Edward Jenner who first tried to use a scientific approach to controlling an infectious disease by the deliberate use of vaccination [1]. His work introduced the world to an entirely new concept of fighting diseases. A concept that is so common in these modern times, we cannot imagine a world without it. Or can we? Data from the National Institute for Public Health and the … [Read more...]

Simon Crox Sitting through the first lecture of our research internship program, the lecturer invited us to introduce our subjects. After Pietje (for the sake of anonymity) had spoken about his subject, the lecturer smilingly said ‘ah, one of the sitters’. Apparently, five out of 20 students were involved in the popular research topic of sedentary behaviour (i.e. sitting and lying down). You probably know the phrase “sitting is the new smoking”,  but you probably did not know “the chair … [Read more...]

Tanja Reutelingsperger This time of year, the temperature drops below zero and together with the bleak wind this results in a freezing cold winter. However, these temperatures are nothing compared to the temperatures people are voluntarily exposing themselves to in whole body cryotherapy (WBC). They even pay big bucks for three minutes in -110 degrees of Celsius in wellness centers. Is this something we should all try or should we leave these crazy colds up to Wim Hof, the … [Read more...]

Jamie Hulzebos I was browsing the website of the BMJ Christmas editions, and my attention was caught by an article about ‘The science behind man flu’ written by Kyle Sue [1]. Recently, this article was in the Dutch papers NRC and Volkskrant and called unscientific [2, 3]. However, I was curious about the concept of the “man flu” and did some research. I think every woman in a relationship with a man can relate to the concept of the “man flu”. The Oxford dictionary defines it as: “A … [Read more...]

By Mylène Gorissen When being tense about a presentation or the coming Christmas holidays, many children experience abdominal pain as an expression of stress. Once the presentation is over or the gifts have finally been received, this belly pain has vanished. In some of these children however, the abdominal pains take the form of functional abdominal pain (FAP) or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Unfortunately, these types of pain can not be treated by opening a present. Abdominal pain is … [Read more...]