Dr Tiffany Gebel

09/06/2026

08/22/2026

08/16/2026

ALZHEIMER’S CLUE: A large Stanford study is shedding new light on the potential connection between menopause treatment and brain health.

Women who reported using estrogen-only hormone therapy had 35% lower odds of Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology and 39% lower odds of dementia over their lifetimes, researchers found.

The study also uncovered differences in memory, independent functioning and biological markers. Here’s what the findings could mean — and what they don’t yet prove.

08/13/2026

I secured an emergency court order ensuring that baby Gabriel receives life-saving care in Texas.

08/04/2026

Thalidomide was one signature away from being sold to pregnant American women. Frances Kelsey stopped it and saved thousands of lives.

The year was 1960. Thalidomide was already the best-selling sleeping pill in Europe, handed out for morning sickness, marketed as completely safe. Its American manufacturer expected a rubber stamp, and the application landed on Kelsey's desk, one month into her job at the FDA, precisely because it looked easy.

She read the file and something bothered her. "Here was a drug that looked like it should be no problem," she said later, "but at the same time there was just a feeling that there was something in the data or the absence of data that was a cause of concern."

Under the law back then, a drug went to market automatically if the FDA didn't act within sixty days. So she used the one power she had: she asked for more evidence. And when the clock ran down, she asked again. For fourteen months.

The company came at her roughly fifty times, again and again going over her head to her superiors, and finally threatened to sue her for libel. They had the brochures printed and raw material waiting for fifteen million pills. Executives had names for her.

"Most of the things they called me, you wouldn't print," she recalled. Her own diagnosis was simpler: they "were losing money by my pigheadedness."

Then the news arrived from Europe. Babies born with devastating birth defects, more than ten thousand of them, everywhere the pill had been sold.

In the United States: seventeen cases, traced to samples the company had already handed to doctors as "research." Not because America was lucky. Because one scientist would not be moved.

On August 7, 1962, sixty-four years ago this week, President Kennedy presented her with the nation's highest award for civilian service, only the second woman ever to receive it.

"Her exceptional judgment in evaluating a new drug for safety for human use," the citation read, "has prevented a major tragedy of birth deformities in the United States." Congress then rewrote the drug laws around her example. The sixty-day automatic approval died. The "research sample" loophole closed. Proof came before profit, for every pill since.

The modern FDA, the agency standing between your family and the next thalidomide, was built on one woman's refusal to hurry. She stayed forty-five years.

Sixty-four years later, that is the exact species of public servant this government is driving out.

RFK Jr. fired all seventeen members of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel in a single day. The CDC director who refused to sign off on his vaccine changes lasted twenty-nine days. The FDA's top vaccine scientist is gone. And measles, which this country eliminated in 2000, is at 2,371 cases, the most since 1991, with America's elimination status now under formal review.

The scientists who say "prove it" are now being replaced by men who say "trust me bro."

They called her stubborn. Difficult.

Thank god they were right.

07/29/2026

Guess what? Even your friendly neighbor gynecologist is having trouble getting her estrogen patches! What are your options if this national patch shortage is affecting you? Because believe me, going without your hormones is not an option for most women, present company included.
👉 Call other pharmacies in your area.
👉 Check if your insurance has availability through mail order.
👉 Try switching to a weekly patch instead of a twice weekly patch. Or see about availability of name brand versus generic. Consider utilizing Good Rx to get the best price.
👉 Switch to another retail prescription: vaginal estrogen cream, ring, or tablet. My least favorite form is oral estradiol because of clotting risk, although it is a consideration if you are not pregnant or at risk for clotting.
👉 Switch to compounded hormones: available as vaginal cream, vaginal suppositories, sublingual troches, or oral. These can be more expensive than retail for some but can also be combined with other hormones like progesterone or testosterone.
👉 Companies: why can't you just make more??!! Signed, Hormonal Women of America

07/25/2026

“Results: Improvement was reported across all eight domains, with energy/fatigue showing the strongest response (84.3% improved). Depression, irritability, anhedonia, and sexual interest each exceeded 65% improvement. Cognitive domains showed a delayed trajectory, with meaningful gains emerging at 4 to 6 months. Quality of life improvement was reported by 89.7%, with significant improvement rising from 5.4% at 1 month to 51.5% at greater than 12 months. Energy/fatigue (64.2%) and mood (49.7%) ranked above sexual desire (41.3%) as self-identified areas of greatest benefit. All five biomarkers changed favorably: total testosterone +151.8% (d = 3.60), free testosterone +216.7% (d = 3.01), hemoglobin +5.5% (d = 2.03), SHBG −13.3% (d = 1.57), and triglycerides −12.6% (d = 1.28).“
Elggren CW, Iverson CH, Morris MD, Cooper-Leavitt EF, Parker G, Richardson AW, Reynolds AP, Cortes PM, Bikman BT, Reynolds PR. Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Women Is Associated with Improved Symptom Burden and Favorable Biomarker Changes: A Retrospective Observational Study. J Pers Med. 2026 Apr 22;16(5):231. doi: 10.3390/jpm16050231. PMID: 42188326; PMCID: PMC13208132.

07/19/2026

The Black Death of the 14th century was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, killing up to half of Europe’s population. Genetic studies show that certain immune‑system variants, especially in the ERAP2 gene, gave some people a survival advantage.

ERAP2 helps the body present pieces of invading pathogens to immune cells, and during the plague, individuals with a specific ERAP2 variant mounted stronger defenses against Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for the Black Death. Those who carried this variant were more likely to survive and pass it on to future generations.

But evolution is a trade‑off. The same ERAP2 variant that once protected people from a medieval pandemic appears to make the immune system too reactive in modern environments.

Today, researchers have linked this variant to a higher risk of autoimmune disorders, including Crohn’s disease, where the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. In a world without constant plague exposure, the hyper‑vigilant immune response that once saved lives can become harmful.

This discovery highlights how historical events can shape the genetic landscape of modern populations. The Black Death exerted enormous evolutionary pressure, rapidly increasing the frequency of protective genes like ERAP2.

Centuries later, those same genes persist but in a world with different diseases, diets, and environments, their effects have changed. It’s a striking example of how ancient survival mechanisms can echo into the present, influencing human health long after the original threat has disappeared.

03/25/2026

With Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce – We just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉