Dr. Turek's Blog

Getting it Just Right

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Had a wonderful evening out with my wife last night at a Caetano Veloso concert at Masonic Hall on Nob Hill in San Francisco. Caetano Veloso is Brazil’s equivalent of Frank Sinatra and is endowed with an absolutely otherworldly voice and reigns from Bahia. He is an historically important figure having led the Bossa Nova […]

No Fizzy Colas in the Cathedral

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

How much coffee or tea do you consume everyday? Since many of us buy Slurpee sized cups of coffee in the morning, you should break those down into units of 8 ounce cups. How about cans of soda and in particular colas? Might be a good idea to keep track of this for a moment, […]

Handling The Truth

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

How would you react to a doctor who, instead of explaining the entirety of your medical options, simply said “trust me, this is the right choice.” Maybe that style of “care” worked a generation or two back, but today’s patients have access to any piece of medical information that their doctors do. Patients want to […]

Genome: Repair Thyself

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Imaging parking your car at home after work and all the nicks and scratches are removed while you sleep, before heading to work the next day. All shiny and new, polished even, while you sleep. Believe it or not, this is normally what happens to your genes and chromosomes on a minute-to-minute basis. DNA mismatch […]

Stem Cells are People Too

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Not all stem cells are alike. News to you? Maybe not, but it has hit researchers pretty hard over the past several weeks. As you may have garnered from prior essays on this blog, stem cells are potentially capable of morphing into many different tissues, such nerves, heart or liver, and are the next wave […]

Adding Hope to Health

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

The couple had been trying to conceive for 5 years unsuccessfully. The tension and anxiety in the relationship was palpable and strained. They had spent well into the 5 digits to have a child with test tube baby technology (IVF) and yet were still not pregnant. His vasectomy reversal had also failed them. And they […]

Good Job Government!

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

A couple sees a reproductive specialist for infertility. She gets a complete evaluation and he gets a semen analysis checked. It looks like his semen quality is low and they are recommended to pursue in vitro fertilization  (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to conceive, the highest level of what is termed “assisted reproduction.” They […]

Your DNA Barcode

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

How many of you would take a blood test to learn exactly how long you will live? How about whether or not you will become demented? Since the Human Genome Project ended, the genes and mutations associated with a vast array of diseases are being discovered daily and it is pretty easy to just put […]

Metabolomics: The Picture of Fatherhood

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

Call me a nerd, but I have to admit that I am pretty excited about metabolomic technology. Uh, what? Metabolomics is the study of the chemical fingerprints that cells leave behind. It does not look at genes, DNA, RNA or proteins, but is a peek into the products or metabolites that result from all this […]

Circumcision Pros & Cons

For the Good of the Hood

Posted on by Paul Turek, MD

To circumcise or not? It’s a loaded subject to be sure. The practice of male circumcision is ancient, likely far older than the biblical account of Abraham in Genesis. The Jewish faith, but not that of the Greeks or Romans, routinely recommended circumcision for newborn males. In the past century, it became “medicalized” as a […]