Jan 24, 20238 min read

January Newsletter

2023 Edition

“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women.”

Malala Yousafzai

The Editor's Take: Spring Semester

Hello AMWA UTD! Welcome back to a new spring semester! We bring to you articles on Space Medicine, Long COVID, and Cervical Health Awareness Month. We also have our returning paired articles - What’s Poppin, where your writers talk about the impact of weight loss influencers, and Spotlight on Rebecca Lee Crumpler. Here is our January Study playlist!

We hope the start of the semester has been great for all of you and as always, if you have any questions or topics you would like to see in future newsletters, email me at Tanya.Baiju@utdallas.edu. Also, if you would like to submit an article of your own, feel free to send me an email with examples of what you would like to write about.

- Tanya

Space Medicine: The New Health Frontier

By: Alyssa Chiev

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Neil Armstrong said when he first landed on the moon on July 20th, 1969. The U.S. had finally won its twenty-year competition with the Soviet Union. The whole world was watching, shocked that the U.S. was able to put a man on the moon. It raised one question in particular: What is next?

We have come a long way since the Space Race, and the world of aerospace since has been going through various developments. Recently, a new sub-specialty has come to rise: Aerospace Medicine. Aerospace Medicine was founded around 1948, making the subspecialty less than 100 years old. Aerospace physicians support the health, safety, and well-being of pilots, aircrews (Aviation Medicine), and astronauts (Space Medicine). There are currently 5 accredited U.S. residency programs for Aerospace Medicine, these include Pensacola Naval Air Station and the Army program at Fort Rucker. The civilian programs are the University of Texas-Medical Branch in Galveston and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. With the limited number of residency programs, this field is highly competitive with limited spots every year.

What exactly do aerospace physicians do? Aerospace medicine is a subspecialty with the main specialty being occupational and preventive medicine. The role of these physicians can be quite diverse. According to the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA), in the military, both active duty and reserves, their contributions range from medical support to a particular flight squadron and their families to evaluating military medical facilities. The civilian aerospace medicine physicians are usually employed by commercial airline medical offices, in private practice offices with aviator medical certification/review officer privileges, with regulatory agencies, in general, in aviator education, in accident investigation research, or with space centers for spaceflight crew medical support and related research. Because of the diverse responsibilities, their daily duties can range depending on their employment site as well, from establishing certification protocols for aviators afflicted with challenging medical conditions to provide medical ground support to a member of a spaceflight crew experiencing illness in space or effects of microgravity.

In terms of Space Medicine, the physicians can focus on clinical, research, or both. When it comes to Aerospace research, it is generally focused on the conditions that astronauts face such as radiation from the sun and lost bone density from space. According to AAMC, space wreaks havoc on the body. Bones, muscles, organs, eyes, and ears are all affected, which can lead to bone and muscle loss, reduced cardiac function, and blindness. “You can’t go up in altitude without having some physiological effects or having some protection against them,” said Dean M. Olson, MD. “That’s a lot of what we focus on—hypoxia, for example—in addition to those physiological changes caused by acceleration or deceleration.”

Space Medicine is a continually growing field despite it not being widely known. There is much to learn about the mental and physical changes that this harsh environment could cause. The Aerospace Medical Association is a good source for those interested in learning about this subspecialty and will be linked here.

What's Poppin': The Impact of Weight Loss Influencers

By: Zoe Du and Alyssa Chiev

Fad diets are far from a novel concept, but the explosive growth of social media in the past decade has provided a platform for individuals with no professional training or education in nutrition to spread misinformation with frightening ease and speed. From the liver king to keto dieting, and from binge eating to restrictive dieting, social media influencers, and especially health and fitness influencers often peddle unhealthy and unsustainable eating habits and body images to an impressionable audience.

When influencers who have built parasocial relationships with their followers post about their workout regimens and diets, it can have the effect of pushing messages that associate having the “ideal” body type with happiness, and it promotes their habits as the right way to achieve results, whether intentionally or not. This potentially leads to low self-esteem and restrictive dieting in attempts to emulate the unrealistic body image popular on social media. The impact of health influencers is also potentially very dangerous when diets that cut out entire food groups or demonize and unnecessarily avoid certain foods with no basis in the knowledge of good nutrition are promoted. Food is our source of nourishment; it provides us with the energy and nutrients our bodies need to function. To eliminate nutrients from one’s diet or to build an unhealthy relationship with food is harmful to the body.

Recently, Texas' attorney general is suing fitness influencer Brittany Dawn, accusing her of misleading customers with eating disorders and promising customized nutrition and fitness plans. According to the Insider, the attorney general stated that the plans were not personalized, and claims Davis and her company "largely ignored consumer complaints," including from one "who almost passed out from inadequate nutrition." One customer stated, "I currently have an eating disorder and horrible body image views. I am underweight for my height." The influencer advised cardio exercises and a low-calorie eating plan, which could only cause further weight loss, the suit stated.

Social media in general is known to cause anxiety and stress over one’s image. Although there are no possible solutions to the situation overall, listed here are some tips to help escape the social media comparison:

Curate your feed- Are there certain people on social media that make you feel bad when you see them on your feed? Unfollow them! Your mental health comes first.
Reduce your time spent on social media- If you feel that you have developed an unhealthy relationship with social media, it is not your fault! Social media was made to be addictive. Spending less time on it will improve your well-being.
Spend time with your best supporters- Spending time with those who have a positive impact on your life can be helpful. Not only is it a known way to promote both mental and physical health, and it feels good to be around people who love you for who you are!

The impact of these fitness/dieting sort of influencers could have dire consequences on one when it comes to mental health and body image, especially with influencers that take it to the extreme. It is important to understand that these standards are unrealistic and unhealthy and that all body types are different. Remember to stop comparing yourself to these influencers, and know that you deserve to feel good about yourself!

Long COVID

By: Zoe Du

COVID-19 has in many ways defined our lives over the past 3 years. For several months, the world seemed to pause as tragedy swept across the globe: people entered quarantine en masse, travel bans were put in place, and jobs and schools moved remote. Even though the COVID-19 virus is still making its presence known and highly infectious, it now often feels as though the pandemic is behind us. Quarantines ended, people are traveling (except when flying Southwest over the holidays), jobs and schools are largely back in person, and media coverage and mask-wearing have died down. However, for some, the battle against COVID is long from over.

COVID-19 is best known for its attack on the lungs, but the slew of symptoms associated with infection vary widely from a cough (respiratory symptom) to loss of taste and smell (neurologic symptoms) to diarrhea and stomach pain (digestive symptoms). In mild cases, symptoms typically resolve within a week or two, but for around 20% of adults 18-64, diagnosed with COVID, these symptoms can persist for several weeks, months, and even years. Much like COVID, post-COVID conditions, also termed “long COVID,” are multisystemic with the most common symptoms being chronic fatigue, fever, and respiratory symptoms including shortness of breath and coughing. Other possible symptoms include heart palpitations, brain fog, joint and muscle pain, and more.

Long COVID can be debilitating, and as of July 2021, it has been recognized by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a condition that can cause disability. Because long COVID is not a particular disease, there is no test available to specifically identify prior COVID infection as the cause of chronic symptoms, and diagnosis is made through health history and examination. Unfortunately for some individuals with long COVID, symptoms cannot be easily explained physiologically with various tests and labs coming back normal. In these cases, long COVID resembles chronic fatigue syndrome and other chronic conditions and may lead to an uphill battle to be diagnosed and receive appropriate treatment.

People with long COVID are also experiencing challenges in the workplace. Because the symptoms of long COVID can be disabilities, surveys have found that between 22-27% of individuals affected who were previously employed are now unemployed. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic becomes normalized, we should not allow the lasting consequences to become normalized as well. If you know anyone struggling with long COVID, show them your support and stay safe!

Spotlight: Rebecca Lee Crumpler - Doctress of Medicine

By: Siya Kumar and Tanya Baiju

Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler is an American physician who challenged societal and racial constructs to become the first African- American woman doctor in the United States. Dr. Crumpler was born on February 8, 1831, in Delaware to Absolum Davis and Matilda Webber. At an early age, Dr. Crumpler was exposed to the field of medicine when she would accompany her aunt when going to take care of sick neighbors.

Dr. Crumpler attended New England Female Medical College and Boston University School of Medicine. She received her Doctress of Medicine in 1864 from New England Female Medical College. At the time that Dr. Crumpler got her degree, “there were 54,543 physicians in the country; 270 of them were women-all white- and 180 were African American men.” Later, in 1883, Dr. Crumpler published her book, based on journal notes she kept during her practice - A Book of Medical Discourses. The book is thought to be the first medical text written by an African American author.

Dr. Crumpler died on March 9, 1895. Her work has fundamentally impacted the healthcare workforce, however, only recently has she been properly recognized. Much of Dr. Crumpler’s legacy is understood through the work of one of the first medical communities for African American women, the Rebecca Lee Society. Virginia’s governor declared March 30, 2019, as ‘Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler Day.’

Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was a trailblazer who was often unrecognized. She brought care to those who were rejected by major hospitals and offered treatment to those who were unable to pay. Her perseverance during a prejudiced time against women and African Americans makes her an influential pioneer in medicine. Here are a few articles and videos to check out to learn more about Dr. Crumpler and her legacy.

Cervical Health Awareness Month

By: Siya Kumar

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month and in the U.S., cervical cancer was a leading cause of death due to cancer for women.

Cervical cancer occurs in the cells of the cervix and can start spreading. Once the healthy cells in the region develop a mutation in their DNA, cells uncontrollably multiply leading to a tumor. HPV which stands for human papillomavirus is a sexually transmitted infection that can cause cervical cancer. The signs/ symptoms of cervical cancer are vaginal bleeding after intercourse/ between periods or after menopause, watery/ bloody vaginal discharge that may be heavy and have an odor and pelvic pain or pain during intercourse.

The two types of cervical cancer are squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Squamous cell carcinoma begins in thin flat cells and eventually spreads out. Adenocarcinoma begins in column-shaped cells. It is important to understand the risk factors of cervical cancer such as not practicing safe sex, having a weakened immune system, and smoking. To prevent any risks of contracting cervical cancer it is significant to have routine pap tests. Pap tests are recommended to begin at age 21 and can detect cancerous regions around the cervix and allows one to start treatment in earlier stages of cancer if needed.

It is important that we educate ourselves on cervical cancer and how to protect ourselves and others due to how common it is. Getting routine check-ups and living a healthy lifestyle

decreases the chances of potentially contracting cancer.