MCF

Come on out to the 15th Annual Medical College Forum.

Karma Cream Fundraiser

With this warm weather that Florida has been getting lately, ice cream sounded more than appetizing to AMSA members. It made Karma Cream the hot spot in town Thursday night! This past Thursday, January 26 Global Health hosted a fundraiser at Karma Cream to raise money for their water well in Ethiopia and mission trip to Ecuador. Waves of AMSA members trekked in and out of the ice cream parlor helping to raise funds for GH’s upcoming Water Well project as well as their upcoming trip.

“This is so exciting. There are way more people than we expected,” said GH directors Natalia Arroyo and Genevieve Mallen.

The directors also wanted to point out one special member of the Global Health Committee for helping put it all together, Raye Ng. Different members of the committee are in charge of different events. Raye had a huge part in the success of this event. “We’re so grateful for the work she’s done” Genevieve says.

Global Health has been actively raising money all year and past fundraisers have been very successful; the Karma Cream fundraiser was no different. “We raised $190 from the concession stands and we’ve had a great turnout at Karma Cream so far with just an hour into the fundraiser,” said Shelby Frantz, one of the Global Health directors. The yearly medical mission trip is Global Health’s largest project. This year, they will be traveling to Ecuador and participating in mobile clinics, construction projects, shadowing and a bit of sightseeing.

The event was a huge success. With the great turnout the directors are very thankful to everyone that came out and supported. A huge amount of funds were raised and the directors are looking forward to the GH trip and the Water Well project. There will be another fundraiser at Moe’s in late February so be sure to come out and support Global Health in their volunteer efforts!

Written by: Jasmine Dywer and Christine Ho

Picture By: Jasmine Dywer

Excersice in a Pill

A new section of our blog will be short summaries of new research
going on in the Medical field, we hope you find them to be good
insight.

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have successfully
isolated a protein in the muscle cells that triggers some of the health
benefits of exercise. The most exciting part of the discovery is that
this protein could be extremely useful in treating obesity and diabetes,
both of which are growing epidemics. This hormone called irisin is able
to "talk to" various tissues in the body and has a direct effect on
adipose tissue, which is a key player in the development of obesity.
When someone exercises, their irisin levels rise and the bad white fat
is converted to good brown fat.

So does this discovery mean that in the future, going to the gym won't
be necessary because people can just take irisin supplements? Well,
researchers have mentioned that irisin does not benefit muscle strength
at all - it only affects white fat. But this does mean there could be a
natural and effective treatment to obesity in the future. And who knows,
maybe irisin based drugs will play a key role in cancer research as
there is more and more evidence that obesity is tied to cancer
development!

Written By: Christine Ho