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Queen Latifah is debunking the false stereotypes of obesity in her latest campaign with pharmaceutical company Nova Nordisk. AfroTech previously reported that Queen Latifah signed an audible deal to highlight activists in different sectors. Now, her latest venture hits closer to home as she tackles an issue that has loomed over her career for decades. Conceptualized with director Chris Robinson, “It’s Bigger Than Me” allows Latifah to share her experience of living with obesity through four impactful and creative video snippets. View this post on Instagram A post shared by It's Bigger Than Me (@itsbiggerthan) As a star in the industry, Latifah developed insecurities struggling to maintain a healthy weight in the limelight. The Hollywood actress first learned she was obese upon working with a trainer for a movie role earlier in her career. “I fell into the category of obesity, and it took a trainer to educate me about what it was when I was trying to lose weight for a project,”...
Dr. Brian Nwannunu, an adult-reconstruction fellow in orthopedics at Baylor College of Medicine, specializes more than just in the musculoskeletal system; he’s working to diversify the orthopedic surgery industry. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reported that as of 2018, 84.7 percent of orthopedic surgeons identify as white, 6.7 percent identify as Asian, and 2.2 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino. This lack of diversity intensifies since only 1.9 percent of orthopedic surgeons identify as Black, and less than one percent are Native American. There isn’t just a lack of diversity in the orthopedic industry; there’s a lack of acceptance that Black people can work in this medical field. “A few of my rotations, the general culture, and the underlying message was, ‘We don’t want anyone that doesn’t look like us,'” Nwannunu, who is a first-generation Nigerian American, told the Houston Chronicle in an interview . “They don’t feel like they can relate to you. They would...
Mashudu Tshifularo, a professor at the University of Pretoria made history by performing the world’s first 3D-printed middle-ear replacement surgery in 2019. Based in South Africa, Tshifularo used innovative 3D technology to print the bones that make up the middle ear (hammer, anvil, stirrup and the ossicles) and successfully implanted the model into a trauma patient. “By replacing only the ossicles that aren’t functioning properly, the procedure carries significantly less risk than known prostheses and their associated surgical procedures. We will use titanium for this procedure, which is biocompatible. We use an endoscope to do the replacement, so the transplant is expected to be quick, with minimal scarring,” Tshifularo said, according to Good Things Guy. Tshifularo — originally from Venda in Limpopo — is the Head of the Department of Otorhinolaryngology at the University of Pretoria and considered the top Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) specialist in the country. Under his leadership...
As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, people are beginning to look into its medical possibilities. Recently, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) announced the development of AI to predict breast cancer. The AI model can help detect breast cancer up to five years in advance, Engadget reported . That alone is significant, but the researchers also claimed that their method helps eliminate racial disparities. “Rather than taking a one-size fits all approach, we can personalize screening around a woman’s risk of developing cancer. For example, a doctor might recommend supplemental MRI screening for women with high model-assessed risk,” MIT professor Regina Barzilay, a breast cancer survivor and senior author of the team’s paper in Radiology said. Researchers trained the AI model by showing it mammograms and known outcomes from over 60,000 patients treated at MGH. By doing so, the AI was...