There’s nothing nice about cold sores, also called fever blisters, and some people tend to suffer from these unsightly ailments more often than others. ’Tis the seasons for cold sores, which are spread through kissing, sharing food, utensils or toothbrushes, and any other exchange of bodily fluids. Stress, sun and wind exposure can induce a breakout, too.

But your genes could be partially to blame for cold sores, which are actually the herpes simplex 1 virus, also known as HSV-1. A new study published in the Journal of Infectious Disease found that a certain gene is responsible for 21 percent of cold sore outbreaks. Researchers call the gene the cold sore susceptibility gene one. If they can narrow down exactly how it makes some people develop cold sores more frequently, they could test new treatments. It could also explain why 50 to 100 percent of people have the virus, but only a third suffer from regular breakouts.

If you are one of the unlucky few who get frequent cold sores, there are a few things you can do to lessen the likelihood of breakouts. Zap potential infections by spreading zinc oxide on the line between your lips and skin before going out in the sun. This danger zone is called the vermilion border and is particularly sensitive. Also, know when you’re susceptible: Stress, wind and menstruation also trigger outbreaks. As soon as you sense a sore coming on, apply antiviral cream to reduce heal time. A little prevention can soothe sores until a better remedy is revealed.

On Feb. 15, ShandsCair will launch “ShandsCair 2” in Marion County, just south of Ocala. The ShandsCair 2 base will be staffed by eight additional ShandsCair employees and will be supported by an orange and blue helicopter with the call sign “ShandsCair 2.”

“The new ShandsCair base will greatly enhance Marion County’s already outstanding emergency response program, benefitting the residents both north and south of Gainesville and Ocala,” said Edward Jimenez, Shands at UF senior vice president and chief operating officer. “We’re looking forward to the opportunity to more closely serve the residents of Marion County.”

The new ShandsCair base is located at Marion County’s Spruce Creek Fire Station 30 in Summerfield, seven miles north of The Villages, and will be shared with members of Marion County Fire Rescue. ShandsCair will staff a flight nurse/paramedic and a paramedic 24/7 at Station 30.

“By creating a permanent base south of Ocala with an additional helicopter and flight crew, ShandsCair will significantly improve our coverage throughout north central Florida, enabling us to retrieve and deliver both trauma and medical patients to the right facility, even faster than was possible with a single helicopter,” said Staccie Allen, RN, EMT-P, ShandsCair program director.

ShandsCair is the only critical care transport system in north central Florida that offers ground, helicopter and fixed-wing transports. ShandsCair transports patients from all parts of Florida to many other hospitals as required, not just to the UF&Shands Academic Health Center. Med-Trans Corp. will provide pilots and mechanics for ShandsCair 2 in addition to the aircraft.

The UF&Shands Level 1 Trauma Center, led by Frederick Moore, M.D., a nationally recognized leader in trauma and surgical critical care, is well-equipped to serve the growing demand for emergency services throughout north central Florida. It also has the only state-designated Burn Center in North Florida and serves as a referral center for services from the southeastern United States.

In December, ShandsCair marked 30 years of service to north central Florida. The program began in December 1981 with a flight to West Palm Beach to bring a patient back to Shands at UF. Since then, ShandsCair has provided care to more than 44,700 patients.

“We’re very proud of our ShandsCair Flight Program and its commitment to excellence, and we’re excited about this opportunity” Jimenez said. “We look forward to continuing to provide high-quality care for the residents of north central Florida.”

Michael J. Hass, Ph.D., looks at samples in his lab at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville. Hass is among the authors of a study showing nicotinic acid could help produce more “good” cholesterol. (Photo by Nelson Keefer)

Maintaining healthy cholesterol levels can keep heart disease, heart attack and stroke away. And a commonly used vitamin could help by increasing production of “good” cholesterol in the body, researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville have found. The findings were published recently in the journal Metabolism, Clinical and Experimental.

Physicians have long prescribed a B-vitamin called nicotinic acid to help keep good cholesterol levels high. Early studies suggest that niacin prevents the removal of good cholesterol — known as high-density lipoprotein or HDL — from the body, and in so doing, raises the concentration of the substance. But the new results from studies of human cells suggest that niacin plays an even greater role, not just preventing removal, but actually boosting production of good cholesterol in the liver and small intestine.

“We’ve known the value of nicotinic acid for years, but this shows there could be even more benefits than we thought,” said the study’s lead author Michael Haas, Ph.D., a research associate professor of medicine.

A person’s cholesterol reading is made up of two major parts: HDL and low-density lipoprotein, also called LDL or “bad” cholesterol. HDL is responsible for moving cholesterol out of various tissues and into the liver so it can be flushed from the body. Doctors recommend keeping good cholesterol levels high and bad cholesterol levels low.

The body uses nicotinic acid to convert carbohydrates into energy. It is found in many over-the-counter multivitamin formulations and is sometimes prescribed on its own to lower triglycerides and increase good cholesterol.

But until now, researchers weren’t quite sure whether niacin could actually increase good cholesterol levels.

To find definitive evidence, the UF researchers tested human liver and intestine cells in the first study of its kind. They found that nicotinic acid increased the activity of a gene that produces a protein called apolipoprotein A-1, which is the major component of good cholesterol in the blood. Not only that, the researchers were able to identify the specific region of the gene that was responsible for making new HDL.

The work was funded by a $20,000 grant from the Endocrine Fellows Association to former UF fellow Abdul-Razzak Alamir, M.D.

“We have hoped for a long time that we would develop a medicine to raise the good cholesterol. Unfortunately many people do not tolerate the side effect of the drug nicotinic acid,” said Stewart G. Albert, M.D., a professor of internal medicine at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. “What Dr. Haas and his group have done is demonstrate how nicotinic acid can increase the body’s ability to make the good cholesterol. This may enable researchers to find other medications that will accomplish the same benefit with a lower rate of side effects.”

The other authors of the study are Arshag D. Mooradian, M.D., professor and chairman of the UF College of Medicine-Jacksonville department of medicine; Joe M. Chehade, M.D., a UF associate professor of internal medicine; Senan Sultan, M.D., a former UF fellow; and Norman C.W. Wong, M.D., M.Sc., a professor of medicine, biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Calgary.

But the cold reality of such revelry is that those extra calories can take a toll on growing boys and girls. Add them all up and over the course of a year, the pounds could pile on.

A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition, Education, and Behavior found that kids can eat as many as one-third of all their daily calories at a typical half-hour birthday party. No one wants to be the sweets police, but too much sugar is cause for concern considering one in five children in the United States is overweight or obese.

For the study, researchers observed four classroom birthday parties for preschoolers and kindergartners and took note of what food and drinks were served and how much kids ate. Typical birthday fare included chocolate cake, ice cream, punch and chips.

Each kid ate an astounding average of three hundred forty-four to four hundred fifty-five calories. But when fresh fruit was served alongside the caloric confections, the damage dropped to two hundred fifty-nine to four hundred five calories.

The results give reason to slim down school parties. Serve healthy snacks like low-fat popcorn and graham crackers. If cake is required, downsize portions and limit kids to one serving. Even better, make parties more about fun and less about food. Provide plenty of active games or designate the birthday boy or girl as the teacher’s special assistant to deliver items to the front office. Keeping the classroom low in calories can be a smart step toward a healthier lifestyle.

A study that was part of a project called “Growing Up with Media” found that kids are more likely now to be harassed through text messages. The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, surveyed more than fifteen-hundred young people aged 10 to 15 and asked them questions about how often they visited violent sites depicting death, war or terrorism. The kids were also asked if they had been bullied online or through texts. The results revealed no increase in exposure to violent material, bullying or unwanted sexual encounters on the Internet, but there was a boost in texting-related bullying or harassment.

The results run parallel to the project’s findings that rates of rates of text messaging among adolescents increased 13 percent from 2008 to 2009, while Internet use remained steady at 93 percent from 2006 to 2008.

One in four who reported being bullied said they were “strongly and negatively” affected by the experience. So what can parents do to keep their kids from being bullied in the first place — or becoming bullies themselves?

For a start, lead by example and teach them compassion and respect for others. Demonstrate how to effectively resolve relationship problems with good communication skills. And while there’s no way to supervise texting … short of reading them yourself … you can at least monitor Internet use. Blocking bullying starts at home.

Doctors call this rare condition Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome. For some people, the flood of stress hormones can weaken heart muscle and produce heart attack symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath and low blood pressure. But in rare cases, broken heart syndrome can prove to be fatal.

Now, researchers have discovered women are more likely than men to suffer from this stress-induced condition.

After studying patients diagnosed with broken heart syndrome from around 1,000 hospitals, researchers found that women are seven-and-a-half times more likely to suffer from this rare condition.

The study findings also report that older women living in their golden years are at greatest risk for broken heart syndrome. Women over the age of 55 were almost three times more likely to suffer from this condition than their younger counterparts.

The news isn’t much better for women under the age of 55. When compared to men, they were about 10 times more likely to develop the syndrome.

The good news is the symptoms of broken heart syndrome are usually temporary and don’t cause long-term damage to the heart. A small percentage of people diagnosed with the condition will suffer a second episode.

Broken heart syndrome is the only cardiac condition with such a discrepancy in female versus male sufferers. Researchers think hormones play an important factor in the prevalence in women, but they don’t know for sure.

So don’t underestimate the power of heartbreak. Since a broken heart is usually only a temporary bump in the road, just remember, time heals all pain.

British scientists recently unveiled a new breed of broccoli with super nutritional powers.

These turbo-charged veggies have been on sale as Beneforte in select stores in California and Texas for the last year. Soon, they could be on sale at a grocery store near you, too.

The broccoli was specially grown to contain two to three times the normal amount of a nutrient called glucoraphanin [glue coe raff a nin], which is believed to help ward off heart disease and reduce cholesterol.

Sold as “super broccoli,” the new vegetable variety was created by cross-breeding a traditional British broccoli with a wild, bitter Sicilian variety. The enhanced hybrid was patented, with no genetic modification used.

This isn’t the first vegetable beefed up with extra nutrients. In 2011, a new kind of tomato with extra selenium was put on the market. It was touted as having super cancer-fighting and immune system-boosting powers.

And don’t forget about your superhero fungi. Vitamin-D enriched mushrooms have been on the market since 2008, helping people get an extra dose of vitamin D.

It’s not surprising people are looking for another way to boost their nutrition … because many folks aren’t always getting it from the food they eat. A 2005 study showed that many Americans were not meeting the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowances for a number of nutrients. That deficiency can boost the risk of chronic illness, including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Still, some experts said if you are going to spend the extra cash on super veggies, you may want to work in improving your health other ways as well, like exercising and eating healthier overall.

After all, super broccoli can’t save the day by itself.

At least that’s the theory of an anthropologist, who believes the move toward foods that were easier to chew had a big effect on the size and shape of human jawbones. His findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To test his theory, the anthropologist studied the shape of human skulls and jawbones from 11 different countries. He included skulls from countries such as Italy and Japan, where there has been a long tradition of eating cultivated foods, and also places like Australia and Alaska, where there were more hunters and gatherers.

He found a big difference in the size and shape of people’s jawbones. The hunters and gatherers tended to have longer, narrower jaws that left plenty of room for teeth. In contrast, the farmers had jaws that were more short and squat.

What accounts for this difference? Well, hunters and gatherers ate a widely varied diet, and needed strong jaws to be able to chomp through whatever was on the menu that day. The farmers tended to eat the same things over and over: corn, grain, rice and wheat.

So while the size of human teeth has remained unchanged, the space available for those teeth shrank. That means the teeth are more crowded, which can make them crooked.

Sorry, kids. In today’s environment, it’s pretty unlikely we will ever go back to hunting and gathering. So it probably means enduring a few years of being called metal mouth before showing off your shiny — and straight — set of chompers.

Paul Okunieff, UF Shands Cancer Center director

Cancer that has spread from the site of an original tumor to other places in the body is often viewed as a death sentence. But if there are just a few of those secondary tumors, called metastases, some patients have a good chance of survival if treated with a type of radiation that precisely targets small tumors, researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Rochester report online and in an upcoming print edition of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics.

“The dogma is that this type of disease is incurable and that if there’s a metastatic tumor in one organ, then others must be present throughout the body,” said investigator Paul Okunieff, M.D., director of the UF Shands Cancer Center and chairman of the UF College of Medicine’s department of radiation oncology. “It’s considered an all-or-none phenomenon, but the fact is this view is probably not correct. We need to think about metastasis like we think about the primary tumor: determine how much it has spread, then decide whether it’s treatable based on existing technology.”

Nearly 1.6 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer last year, and nearly 600,000 died from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute. Experts estimate that up to 90 percent of those deaths were from metastases.

The researchers studied 121 patients who had five or fewer tumors that spread from areas such as the breast, colon or lung, to up to three additional organs. Tumors were treated with a one- to two-week radiation course strong enough to kill them and prevent their recurrence while sparing healthy tissue. In about 20 percent of the patients, who were enrolled from 2001 to 2006, long-term follow up revealed that the treated tumors did not return, nor did new ones pop up elsewhere. Very few regrowths occurred among patients who made it to three years.

Breast cancer patients fared even better, with one-third of patients being free of tumor regrowth after three years. Six years after treatment, almost half of breast cancer patients in the study were still alive — five times the survival rate for people with forms of metastatic cancer other than breast cancer. In addition, for more than one-third of breast cancer patients, the cancer did not become widespread after six years, whereas only one-eighth of people with other forms of metastatic cancer did not see their cancer spread. In general, survival was greatest among patients whose secondary tumors were relatively small and responded well to chemotherapy or hormone treatment given before radiation.

“Our results suggest that patients with metastases that are limited in number and extent should be considered for potentially curative radiotherapy, said investigator Michael Milano, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Rochester. “Further studies are needed to ascertain which patients are most likely to benefit, either through prolonged survival or, perhaps, a cure. We need a better understanding of the biology of cancer, and what makes one person’s cancer behave so differently from another’s.”

Some patients in the study had recurrence of a small number of tumors, and retreatment with targeted radiation controlled their disease.

The researchers call for further investigation into the most appropriate types of treatment for cancer that has spread to limited areas, and the types of cancers most likely to respond.

“Given the promising results of precisely targeted radiation in controlling the spread of disease, easing pain and even unexpectedly extending patient survival — as we’ve seen in our own clinical experience and in the published literature — we must pursue research that advances our understanding of the mechanisms at work,” said Raymond B. Wynn, M.D., executive director for stereotactic radiosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cancer Center, and a clinical professor of radiation oncology at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “Fortunately, we are more than halfway there.”

In fact, more than 726,000 women who take birth control pills have never had sex. More than 95 percent of those users say they take the pill for reasons other than contraception.

The research was compiled by the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute, which used data from the National Survey of Family Growth. They found that 14 percent of all women who take the pill do so for reasons unrelated to controlling pregnancy.

Birth control pills are a kind of medication that are made up of hormones — typically estrogen and progestin. The hormones in the pill work by preventing a woman’s ovaries from releasing eggs, which keeps her from becoming pregnant.

So why else would someone take a birth control pill? More than 30 percent of the women surveyed said they take the pills to reduce menstrual pain and cramps. About 30 percent said they wanted to regulate their menstrual cycles, which can help prevent side effects such as migraine headaches.

Another common reason is controlling endometriosis, a condition where tissue from the uterus grows in other areas of the body, such as the ovaries, bowel or bladder. Some women also take birth control pills to reduce acne. In fact, almost half of the women surveyed said they took the pill for multiple reasons.

There are also some risks associated with the pill. Users are at a slightly higher risk for rare but serious problems such as stroke, heart attack or blood clots. The risk is much higher for users who are thirty-five and older, overweight or are smokers.

Your doctor can help you assess these risks and choose what form of birth control is best for you.

When rainfall and humidity are high, wild mushrooms pop up overnight. Curious pups can gobble up these toxic treats, leading to serious illness.

In general, poisonous shrooms can cause one of two syndromes. Common red ones tend to cause liver damage, which is often fatal if enough of the poison is ingested. The toxins in white or brown mushrooms often cause neurologic signs such as drooling, tremors, fever and seizures.

These latter problems carry a better prognosis, but prompt treatment by a vet is crucial in either case. So enjoy the mushrooms on your burger, but keep pets away from the wild ones to prevent a trip to the emergency clinic from showing up on the menu.

The report was based on a survey of the nearly 1 billion acres of land and 4 million square miles of water that comprise public property in the United States.

The findings suggest that wetlands have been a clear conservation success, with many avian species more than doubling their numbers. But desert and marine habitats have seen declining numbers.

The report also shows that publicly owned forests and arctic environments are home to large numbers of birds, and that the Hawaiian Islands represent an especially unique habitat for many endangered species.

Good management of these areas may spell the difference between survival and extinction for many of our feathered friends.

Both dogs and people are susceptible to this tickborne disease, suggesting that rates of canine infection may mirror human risk. Using blood tests from dogs in 46 states, scientists discovered that if 1 percent or less of canine tests were positive in an area, then human risk was low. If 5 percent or more of canine tests were positive, then human risk was high.

Such information can be used to direct prevention efforts to areas they’re most needed. Of course, it’s always a good idea to use repellent and to check for ticks after walking through potentially infested grasslands. And if you see ticks on Fido, make sure to check everyone in your household for unwanted stragglers on their skin, not just your furry friends.

But over the years, a series of rescue centers have sprung up in South Florida to tend to everything from maimed manatees to sick squirrels.

The Miami Seaquarium in Key Biscayne treats up to 30 manatees and turtles each year. Seabirds can look for rehabilitation therapy at the Pelican Harbor Sea Bird Station, which takes in more than a thousand injured birds a year. Other places like Wildlife Rescue of Dade County and the South Florida Wildlife Center in Fort Lauderdale tend to thousands of injured animals across hundreds of species.

These home teams know what winning is really all about.

Unsettling changes that can set off a stressed kitty include visitors, a new pet, bringing home a new baby, a family member moving out, or strange noises or smells.

The first step is a vet visit to check for underlying health problems. And in any case, make sure to keep the litter pan clean. If you have multiple cats, you should provide one box for each cat. Early neutering may help in prevention.

If the problem continues, talk with your vet about behavioral therapy. Punishment is a no-no because it increases stress and compounds the problem. The best approach to cats that are leaving golden notes is to figure out what’s going on inside their head so you can understand the message.

Only dogs and people develop bone tumors with any frequency, and the two forms of cancer are very similar. New research has found a genetic pattern that distinguishes aggressive bone cancer in dogs from milder forms of the disease. This gene pattern is also seen in people, suggesting that it might be possible to separate aggressive and tamer forms of human cancer.

This could lead to predictive tests that allow both human and veterinary oncologists to reserve high-risk treatment for those with the aggressive form, while treating other bone tumors with more conservative therapy that has fewer side effects. This is a win-win for all patients … and yet another way that dogs make our lives better.

Over the past 40 years, this U.S.-based testing has identified more than 100,000 cases of equine infectious anemia, a deadly viral disease. But is the Coggins test now a victim of its own success?

Because of this testing and efforts to stop the disease from spreading, fewer than 100 new cases have been reported in the past two years. With 4 million horses tested, this success comes at a cost of about 1 million dollars per positive. Such diminishing returns have caused some scientists to advocate for new strategies using fewer and less expensive tests.

Change is coming gradually, on a state-by-state basis, so check with your vet or extension service about current rules before you and Mister Ed hit the road.

In a recent study, researchers fitted 18 pet cats and 24 feral ones with transmitter collars. Even though the household tabbies tended to sleep much of the time, they roamed over five acres. Even more amazing is that the more active feral cats covered up to 500 acres.

A chilling aspect of the study was that seven of the cats were killed during the 16 months when the study was taking place. This highlights that letting cats roam outdoors is a dangerous practice.

The obvious danger is being hit by a car or other vehicle. Other hazards for outdoor cats include transmission of diseases, including rabies. Plus, their instinct to hunt can kill off prey animals that are important food sources for wildlife.

So let’s keep wandering cats indoors and keep everyone safer.

Wildlife carry Giardia [JEE-ARE′-DEE-A] organisms, and dogs pick them up from consuming feces or contaminated water. This single-celled organism settles into the intestinal tract, where it can cause diarrhea and other problems. In some cases, pets can pass it on to people.

Your vet can check your pet’s stool samples for these tiny critters, but they can be tough to find, so more than one sample may be needed. Infection can be treated with specific oral medication.

The best way to prevent the spread of giardiasis is to practice good hygiene … that includes washing hands, bowls and pet bedding.

In the insidious wobbler syndrome, horses have a characteristic stumbling, wobbly gait. Seen mostly in young male horses, the condition is caused by a narrowing of the bones in the neck, called the cervical vertebrae. The resulting compression on the spinal cord leads to the unsteady gait.

With rest and proper nutrition, some horses can grow out of it. Others, especially older ones, require surgery to stiffen the spine, which limits movement and decreases nerve trauma.

Unfortunately, not every horse is a surgical candidate, but many, like the Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, return to normal function after convalescence. So if your colt comrade starts to wobble, contact your veterinarian for a full assessment and treatment options.

Owners are sometimes less than honest about other things as well, from bathroom habits to chew toys and medications. They may fear being judged or thought to be not very knowledgeable. Or sometimes an owner just wants to pretend there isn’t a problem.

Whatever the reason, not telling the truth makes it more difficult for your vet to properly diagnose your pet’s illness. Animals can’t tell us how they feel, so vets rely on information from their owners. Leading your vet down the garden path may result in unnecessary testing, or even an inaccurate diagnosis and treatment.

So remember, tell your vet the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. He or she isn’t there to judge, just to make your best friend feel better.

One highly trained Border collie named Chaser knows more than a thousand nouns and can link them with verbs to recognize short sentences. This uncanny canine was the center of attention at a recent meeting of the American Psychology Association.

When asked to find one specific toy out of more than a thousand, Chaser always complied and knew the difference between nosing and pawing the toy. Through the process of elimination, Chaser was even able to fetch a new toy it had never seen.

When you combine this intellect with a keen understanding of human moods and body language, it’s no wonder that dogs can enrich our lives in so many ways.

The study, performed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that one out of 10 parents is not following the recommended vaccination schedule. While only 2 percent of the respondents refused all vaccinations for their child, many said they didn’t trust the recommended schedule, and 13 percent said they purposely delayed or skipped vaccines.

Even parents who did follow the recommended schedule expressed skepticism. Twenty-five percent said they believed delaying vaccines cut down on harmful side effects. Twenty-nine percent said parents could skip some vaccinations because they weren’t really necessary.

For the study, researchers from the CDC surveyed 748 families with children between the ages of 6 months to 6 years about their vaccine choices, education, income and demographics.

The results also showed that many parents were not aware of the risks posed by delaying or skipping vaccinations. For example, 81 percent of the parents who reported skipping or delaying vaccinations said they did not agree with the statement that leaving children unvaccinated leaves them and their community at a higher risk for disease.

Vaccine distrust has now become so commonplace that the American Academy of Pediatrics has drafted an official response for doctors to use with their patients’ parents.

While this skepticism likely isn’t going away any time soon, health experts are urging parents to get educated about the facts regarding this controversial issue. You can read all about vaccines on the CDC’s Website, www.cdc.gov.

The Fort Lauderdale-based foundation’s gift will establish the Lillian S. Wells Fund for Brain Tumor Research, allowing the university to round out its comprehensive brain tumor program by adding a proven basic science research team to work across the full spectrum of basic, translational and clinical sciences.

“Building on the excellence of the department’s clinical and educational programs, we are committed to strengthening its basic and translational research program,” said David S. Guzick, M.D., senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “Because of the extraordinary vision and compassion of the Wells Foundation, we will be in a position to utilize laboratory discoveries as a basis for new and better treatments for brain tumor patients.”

The relationship between UF’s neurosurgery department and the Wells Foundation dates back 30 years, with philanthropic support that includes a $5 million gift in 2006 to establish the Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy. The center, one of the nation’s leading comprehensive brain tumor programs, improved UF’s research endeavors by creating opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials.

The ideas for clinical trials often come from basic laboratory research, where scientists develop ideas about mechanisms of disease that lead to new therapies or procedures in patients. UF’s department of neurosurgery, part of the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute, will recruit an internationally recognized brain tumor scientist to lead the research initiative, Guzick said.

“It is exciting to contemplate future achievements by dovetailing the clinical and research elements at the UF College of Medicine,” said Jim Ulmer, a director of the Wells Foundation. “The Lillian S. Wells Foundation is honored to continue its relationship with the College of Medicine.”

In recognition of the gift, the university will request that the UF Board of Trustees name the department the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery.

Approximately 20,000 new primary brain tumors are diagnosed each year in the U.S. These are tumors that start within the cranium. More than 200,000 metastatic tumors are diagnosed, which are tumors that begin somewhere else in the body such as lung cancer. Brain tumors are the second leading cause of cancer death in men ages 20 to 29 and the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women ages 20 to 39.

UF’s Wells Center uses a collaborative approach for treating and investigating brain disease, uniting key health care professionals and closely linking elements of patient care with research. The department performs more than 600 brain tumor procedures annually and cared for 4,500 patients last year, making it one of the 10 largest academic neurosurgical services in the country.

“Our department has been able to develop novel surgical approaches to the treatment of brain diseases,” said William Friedman, M.D., neurosurgery department chair. “These include the patented UF radiosurgery system, improved microsurgical anatomical approaches to the brain based on decades of research, and advanced computer-guided neurosurgical techniques.

“Due to the continued generosity of the Wells Foundation, we are now able to bring one of the world’s best brain tumor research groups to UF,” Friedman said. “Our goal, quite simply, is to create the team of scientists and clinicians who can find substantially better treatments for malignant brain tumors.”

The Wells Foundation gift, combined with matching funds from other university sources, launches a $20 million initiative that will have a significant impact on future brain tumor treatments and produce valuable results for the people of Florida and for people around the world, Friedman said.

To some, it might seem like mindless blather. But those tweets about flu-like symptoms can be a gold mine for researchers who want to learn more about epidemics and the way people deal with them.

A team of scientists tracked tweets about swine flu in 2009 and 2010. They then looked at how the short social media messages lined up with vaccination rates. Interesting patterns emerged regarding what people tweeted about flu shots and whether they became sick.

For example, the researchers found that people in New England posted the most positive messages about flu shots on Twitter. This region also had the highest rate of vaccination. Real-time data such as this could be invaluable to health care workers to help them predict an outbreak, alert the public or encourage vaccination.

Of course, using social media as a data source has its drawbacks, too. The medium is notorious for the spread of lies and misinformation. It also generates a huge amount of data, which can be incredibly hard to sort through. For the study, scientists needed the assistance of a computer, which they had programmed to evaluate tweets as positive, negative or neutral.

Now the researchers hope to apply what they’ve learned about studying health-related tweets to other areas, such as obesity and smoking.

So the next time you get the sniffles, go ahead and tweet about it. Who knows? Maybe your 140 characters will make a contribution to science.

UF’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety secured three areas of the building Thursday after air tests during routine asbestos abatement revealed higher than regulatory-approved levels for long-term occupancy. Subsequent tests overnight showed a more limited area was affected including a mechanical room and a small, localized area near the elevator on the basement, ground and first floors.

On Thursday, the first-floor Department of Ophthalmology Visual Science Lab, the morgue and autopsy suite on the ground floor, and Department of Physiology laboratories on the ground floor were immediately closed. Filters were installed and displaced employees were granted administrative leave. No patient areas were affected.

Asbestos fireproofing in a sub-floor steam tunnel connected to the mechanical room by a conduit shaft is believed to be the source. That area has been sealed.

All air samples of offices or rooms were within regulatory safe limits for long-term occupancy. The UF Medical Sciences Building contains research, administrative, service and teaching units for Health Science Center colleges.

“It was important we take these proactive steps because the health and well-being of our employees is our foremost concern,” said Curtis Reynolds, UF’s vice president for business affairs, which includes facilities and the university’s office of Environmental Health & Safety. “We will ensure that the affected areas will not reopen until they are safe.”

“Asbestos” is a generic name given to six naturally occurring minerals that have been used for decades in thousands of commercial products for its strength and fire-resistant properties, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Long-term exposure to asbestos fibers has been associated with respiratory problems, including lung cancer.

Provisions are being made for employees who would like to learn more or receive a medical examination. Cleaning and air testing will continue through Monday in hallways on the basement, ground and first floors, which may cause detours for some employees or require them to use alternative entrances to their work areas.

“Typically asbestos-related diseases are associated with exposure for an extended time, and most individuals at risk are individuals directly working with asbestos,” said Mark Brantly, M.D., chief of the division of pulmonary medicine at the College of Medicine. “It was prudent to quarantine the immediate area surrounding the work site until the testing could be completed.”

Gainesville resident Larry Ferguson relaxes at home with his dogs, Max, left, and Whiskey, who survived a coral snake bite after being treated at the UF Small Animal Hospital. (Photo courtesy of Larry Ferguson.)

“Red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black won’t hurt Jack” might be a familiar folk rhyme in Florida and elsewhere in the deep South to distinguish the deadly Eastern coral snake from the harmless scarlet king snake. But Larry Ferguson, who recently moved to Gainesville from Arkansas, had never heard of a coral snake, much less the danger they pose.

Alerted by his two dogs barking, Ferguson went outside to find a colorful banded snake dead near a clearly distressed dog in the yard. A call to his veterinarian, Dr. Janine Tash of Aalatash Animal Hospital in Gainesville, revealed that the dog, a 3-year-old pit bull terrier named Whiskey, had most likely been bitten by a coral snake.

Ferguson was told that the University of Florida Small Animal Hospital was the only place his animal could receive the antivenom that could possibly save his life. He rushed Whiskey to the hospital’s emergency room.

“In the yard, he’d been panting heavily,” Ferguson said. “On the drive to the ER, I could see him shaking. I knew he’d been bitten.”

Upon Whiskey’s arrival at UF, however, emergency veterinarians noted that the dog was bright, alert and responsive with no visible signs of a snakebite, although they said this is not unusual because coral snakes have very small teeth. Whiskey received antivenom, but unfortunately developed paralysis despite the treatment.

“Within only a few hours, Whiskey began showing clinical signs, becoming totally paralyzed and unable to breathe,” said Dr. Luiz Bolfer, a resident with the UF Small Animal Hospital’s emergency and critical care service.

The dog, unable to breathe by himself, was placed on a mechanical ventilator for four days. The snake’s venom also led to acute kidney disease. Several different medications were administered to perfuse the animal’s kidneys, increase his urine output, decrease the acid in his stomach, regulate acidic content in his blood and control his irregular heartbeat, Bolfer said.

“Whiskey had no muscle ability,” said Ferguson, who manages a textbook store in Gainesville. “His diaphragm wouldn’t work. His lungs were fine, but his muscles wouldn’t allow him to use them.”

So Ferguson waited and hoped.

“My first inclination was to pay for the antivenom and if that didn’t work …” he said, his voice trailing. “I’d always heard of people spending a lot of money on pets. Initially, you might say you won’t do that, but you never know what you’ll do when you’re in the situation. I wound up doing a lot more than I thought I would.”

After four days at the UF Small Animal Hospital, Whiskey started to breathe on his own. Veterinarians took him off of the ventilator. The dog remained paralyzed, but was breathing normally. He began to improve a little every day, although veterinarians continued to treat him for the other problems and for pneumonia, a common complication associated with ventilator treatment.

“Finally, he started moving his legs and we moved him to a bed on the floor,” said Bolfer. “Whiskey was still not able to swallow due to his muscle paralysis, so we placed a feeding tube that bypasses the mouth to deliver food directly to his stomach.”

On the eighth day, Whiskey began eating canned food on his own. The feeding tube was removed and 10 days after arrival, Whiskey was finally discharged and able to return home with his owner.

“He’ fine,” Ferguson said. “He’s just tired a lot, but he’s been walking a lot. He’s just a sweet dog to begin with.”

During the course of treatment, UF veterinarians finally found the snake’s tiny bite marks … on Whiskey’s tongue.

Now, the latest recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics encourage parents to set limits on the amount of time babies and toddlers under 2 spend in front of screens.

The recommendations are the result of the abundance of media products and programs geared toward babies on TVs, computers and smart phones.

Though many programs are often marketed as educational, health experts say there is little evidence that any media is beneficial for babies. Even having adult programs on in the background can prove to be detrimental and distracting to both parent and child. Though there are few studies linking media exposure to developmental side effects in children, spending too much time in front of TVs and computers keeps children from the most educational interactions of all — face to face with mom and dad.

The A-A-P’s new policy is less restrictive than the one the group released in 1999, which called for parents of children under 2 to avoid television completely.

Parents are now encouraged to set media limits for their young ones and have a strategy for managing electronic media if they choose to use it.

Instead of screens, the guidelines suggest opting for unstructured playtime that may help spark a toddler’s creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Also, keep televisions out of a baby’s bedroom and be aware that having television shows aimed at adults on in the background isn’t always best for baby.

Children’s health experts hope the new guidelines will encourage parents to turn off the electronics and turn on playtime.

The new health plan, to be called GatorCare, is expected to be effective January 2013, with open enrollment occurring for most in fall 2012.

When implemented, pending legislative approval for UF employees, the model will result in a consolidated health insurance plan that will encompass all eligible faculty, staff, graduate assistants (on appointments), Health Science Center house staff/residents, and postdoctoral associates at the University of Florida; Shands employees (Gainesville and Jacksonville); and employees of all direct support organizations and affiliates of the university.

“The goal of GatorCare is to improve the health of our employees at lower cost by providing them with easy access to our clinical faculty and facilities, to electronic information about their health records, and to services that emphasize prevention and early intervention,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “It’s about Gators taking care of Gators.

Our faculty value the privilege of providing health care services to the faculty and staff of the University of Florida and Shands, and wish to do so in a manner that promotes their health, reduces their episodes of illness and creates a high level of satisfaction.”

One of the most important goals of the new model is to be as responsive to employee needs as possible by seeking ways to help improve health care access, health outcomes and quality of life — while keeping health care costs as low and competitive as possible, said Paula Fussell, UF vice president for human resource services. For state employees, such efforts are also mindful of the current uncertain health care benefit landscape and the probability of changes to state employee health plans that could lead to higher costs or reduced benefits for employees, Fussell said.

The project is guided by a governing structure that includes executive sponsors, a project steering committee and various implementation work groups involving many faculty and staff. In addition, feedback was collected during the fall from focus groups involving more than 150 employees from a variety of areas within the university community.

More information, including a list of frequently asked questions, is available at http://www.healthplan.ufl.edu. Regular updates, further details and plan information will be provided as they become available.

UF&Shands physicians have been approved to offer a new minimally invasive treatment that improves blood flow by using an artificial valve to take over the work of a diseased aortic valve.

For patients who have severe narrowing of the aortic valve, a condition known as aortic stenosis, standard treatment is surgical replacement of the damaged valve. But advanced age or medical problems such as lung disease prevent many of those patients from having open chest surgery. In the past, the best such patients could hope for was to control their symptoms with medications.

Now they can live longer thanks to a new minimally invasive treatment that involves inserting an artificial valve that takes over the work of the diseased valve. The University of Florida is among a limited number of facilities around the country initially approved to offer the procedure.

“It’s exciting — this technology opens an option for patients who otherwise do not have a repair option,” said cardiologist Anthony A. Bavry, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of medicine. “Previously we had to treat these patients with medications, and unfortunately many did not do well. This is a big change.”

The new valve replacement technique, called transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November 2011. Medical practices approved to perform the procedure had to demonstrate high levels of expertise and collaboration in cardiology and surgery, as well as high-quality facilities for conducting the procedure and collecting data for patient care and monitoring.

Bavry and R. David Anderson, M.D., M.S., director of interventional cardiology at UF, will team with thoracic and cardiovascular surgeons Thomas M. Beaver, M.D., M.P.H., and Charles T. Klodell, M.D., to do the procedure at UF&Shands, the University of Florida Academic Health Center. Working in such multidisciplinary teams streamlines and speeds patient evaluation and decisions about the best course of action.

“You have both a surgeon and a cardiologist seeing a patient, reviewing the data and making the best decision about how to treat,” Bavry said.

Among the elderly, severe aortic stenosis is the most common abnormality of the heart valves. But up to one-third of such patients are considered ineligible for surgery. They are instead given medicines to control heart rate and blood pressure, and their heart volume is monitored in order to head off congestive heart failure. Medical treatments ease symptoms but do not prolong life.

In the new TAVR procedure, the artificial valve — framed by a stent and wrapped around a balloon — is transported up to the aortic valve via a large catheter in the leg. The new valve is then anchored into position inside the diseased valve by inflation of the balloon. Placement of the stent is monitored with X-ray and ultrasound imaging.

Patients’ survival chances improve with the new technique. In clinical trials involving 700 patients, treatment with the new procedure cut the death rate nearly in half after one year of having the implanted device, compared with medical therapy alone.

“This is one of the best things that has happened in the last 10 years in interventional cardiology,” said Samir Kapadia, M.D., an interventional cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic who is one of the leaders in clinical trials of the new technique. “Procedurally, it’s like a miracle — patients are sick, you do the critical part of the valve replacement in 15 to 30 seconds and all of a sudden the heart starts working more efficiently. It has changed the way we do things and has provided treatment options for lots of people who did not have an option before.”

The procedure has also been compared with traditional open surgery in patients who were operable but had a high risk of dying if they did have surgery. After a year, patient outcomes were comparable to those of surgery patients. Additional studies are being carried out to see how the procedure works among patients who are at lower risk of death if they have surgery.

The UF team has begun evaluating patients to see who might be good candidates for the procedure. Tests include chest CT scans, cardiac catheterization and EKGs. They are also reaching out to physicians whose patients might benefit.

Research continues on new ways to insert the valve, as well as on new types of valves, including one that can be repositioned after it has been placed inside the body.

Recognizing veterans and their families’ sacrifice and commitment, the UF College of Medicine pledged to partner with the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System to train the nation’s physicians to meet veterans and their families’ unique health care needs, including post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

“It is an honor and a privilege to join with the VA to address the health care needs of our military, our veterans and their families as part of the Joining Forces Initiative,” said Michael L. Good, M.D., dean of the UF College of Medicine. “Through our strong affiliation with the VA, health care trainees have the opportunity to receive clinical training while serving the heroes who have dedicated their lives to keeping our country safe.”

The initiative focuses on key priority areas — employment, education and wellness — while raising awareness about the service, sacrifice and needs of America’s veterans and military families.

First lady Obama and Jill Biden, Ph.D., created Joining Forces to bring Americans together to recognize, honor and take action to support veterans and military families as they serve our country and throughout their lives. The initiative aims to educate, challenge and spark action from all sectors of society to ensure veterans and military families have the support they have earned.

“I’m inspired to see our nation’s medical schools step up to address this pressing need for our veterans and military families,” Obama said. “By directing some of our brightest minds, our most cutting-edge research, and our finest teaching institutions toward our military families, they’re ensuring that those

who have served our country receive the first-rate care that they have earned.”

Together, the North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System and the College of Medicine — with the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine — will work to enrich medical education to ensure that physicians are aware of the unique clinical challenges and best practices associated with caring for military members, veterans and their families.

The group also aims to develop new research and clinical trials on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, share information and best practices through a collaborative web forum created by the AAMC, and grow the body of knowledge that leads to improvements in health care and wellness for military service members, veterans and their families.

“The NF/SGVHS has many nationally recognized physicians and staff who specialize in re-integration issues for veterans and their families along with treating veterans with TBI and PTSD,” said Bradley Bender, M.D., North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System chief of staff. “By providing opportunities in the classroom and patient encounters, new physicians will learn about the specific medical needs our returning combat veterans face.”

The Joining Forces initiative focuses on key priority areas — employment, education and wellness — while raising awareness about the service, sacrifice and needs of America’s veterans and military families. More information is available at www.JoiningForces.gov.

Stereotactic breast biopsy is a minimally invasive procedure used to confirm whether an abnormal breast mass is cancerous. This outpatient procedure uses highly detailed computer-generated imagery to enable physicians to precisely target and remove small samples of abnormal breast tissue through a slender needle. A pathologist analyzes the sample to determine whether it is harmless or requires more extensive treatment.

“We’re excited about this accreditation and that we’re on par with what the American College of Radiology has established as the standard of care for breast imaging facilities,” said Julia Marshall, M.D., a clinical assistant professor of radiology in the University of Florida College of Medicine. “It’s nice to have this stamp of approval.”

In addition to stereotactic breast biopsy, Park Avenue Imaging Center offers mammograms, ultrasound-guided breast biopsies and breast ultrasounds. It is also ACR accredited in mammography and breast ultrasound.

The UF&Shands Breast Center is a nationally recognized center of excellence in breast cancer. It provides a multidisciplinary patient care team including radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, plastic surgeons, radiologists, pathologists, rehabilitation specialists and social workers, who deliver the best practices currently existing in breast care.

“This ACR accreditation is something of which our multidisciplinary breast cancer program is very proud,” said Stephen Grobmyer, M.D., a UF College of Medicine associate professor of surgery and director of the UF&Shands Breast Center. “It compliments very nicely with our recent National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers accreditation. Both are reflective of a full programmatic and institutional commitment to provide the highest quality of care with regard to early detection and treatment of breast cancer.”

According to the ACR, Park Avenue Imaging Center underwent a peer-reviewed, educationally focused evaluation process to make sure the highest levels of image quality and safety were provided. The facility met accreditation requirements for equipment, continuing education and personnel. Clinical and phantom image quality review as well as radiation dose assessments are critical elements of accreditation.

You start to worry that he’s getting sick, and the next day it happens again when he goes outside. He doesn’t have a cold, and he’s never had allergies. What in the world could be happening?

Your child could have photic sneeze reflex, a condition where you sneeze when you come in contact with direct sunlight. For the most part, the condition is shrouded in mystery since researchers aren’t completely sure why this condition makes people sneeze — in fact, they aren’t completely sure why anyone sneezes.

The reflex is also cleverly called autosomal dominant compelling helio-ophthalmic outburst syndrome, or ACHOO syndrome. It’s thought to be hereditary and affect about 25 percent of the population, although a study noted the condition may be more common in Caucasian women.

Usually, the problem is little more than annoying. You step outside, you sneeze two to seven times and you spend about 10 minutes explaining to your friends that you don’t have a cold or allergies. But the condition can be dangerous when someone is operating machinery or driving on the highway, and those with ACHOO syndrome should be wary when they feel a sneeze coming on while at the wheel.

ACHOO syndrome can also cause serious problems for folks about to have eye surgery. Sometimes, having needles inserted near the eyes can trigger the reflex even while anesthetized, and jerky sneezes are the last thing you want when there’s a sharp object near your eye. So make sure to tell your physician about it.

Sometimes, antihistamines or decongestants can help calm the sneezing.

The most important thing to remember is it’s a normal, relatively harmless condition. Just remember to say “Excuse me” whenever it acts up!

Threats of extensive cuts to federal support for medical research deserve the attention of Floridians who expect continued improvement in medical care — and who hope to see the state grow its innovation economy.

Click to access full release.

Results of a social experiment organized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development suggest that moving away from areas with high poverty rates might help people shed pounds and resist diabetes.

The experiment involved women raising children in very poor neighborhoods. A third of them received vouchers to help them move into areas with less poverty. Another group received housing vouchers for use anywhere. The last group received no vouchers.

Some of the women with vouchers used them, while others didn’t. Still, the group that received vouchers for low-poverty areas had a larger percentage of families living in such neighborhoods one year later. When researchers revisited the women 10 to 15 years later, that group also had a lower level of extreme obesity and unhealthful blood sugar measures than the control group did.

The researchers said they don’t know for sure why that was the case. It could be that the lower-poverty neighborhoods these women moved to were safer than their old ones, allowing for outdoor exercise. The new surroundings might have offered more access to fitness facilities, grocery stores and health-care providers. Perhaps healthful behaviors were more prevalent in the higher-income areas, encouraging women to make constructive lifestyle changes.

According to the Census Bureau, an estimated 49.1 million people in the U.S. are living in poverty. The National Center for Health Statistics says that the prevalence of obesity among women increases as their income decreases. Can our nation effectively combat obesity or diabetes by helping women and families escape poverty-stricken areas? It’s too soon to say for sure, but the idea definitely deserves more investigation.

Albert L. Rhoton Jr., M.D., founding chairman of the department of neurosurgery at the UF College of Medicine, displays photos, including the log cabin in which he was born, his first schoolhouse in which his parents taught, and he and his wife, Joyce, with President Jimmy Carter and Roselyn Carter at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. (Photo by Jesse S. Jones/University of Florida)

Albert L. Rhoton Jr., M.D., almost became a social worker. But with just one semester to go as an undergraduate, he found love in his physiological psychology class, where he was first exposed to the mysteries and wonders of the human brain.

“The function of the brain turned me on so much, I decided that I wanted to become a neurosurgeon,” Rhoton said.

He completed his social work degree before entering a premedical program at The Ohio State University and eventually attending the Washington University School of Medicine, where he graduated top of the class of 1959.

Now, more than 50 years later, Rhoton’s life and work are being celebrated during the UF College of Medicine’s annual Neurosurgery Research Days Friday and Saturday in Gainesville.

Hailed by international colleagues as one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons, he has trained thousands of fellows and residents from around the world and received numerous awards and high honors, including the Medal of Honor of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies and the Cushing Medal, the highest honor granted by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

And, fittingly enough, Rhoton never stopped being a social worker.

His career had an unlikely beginning. Delivered by a midwife in a log cabin in return for a bag of corn in rural Parvin, Ky., Rhoton flunked his fifth grade classes.

When Rhoton, the R.D. Keene Family professor of neurosurgery, arrived at UF in 1972 after an internship at Columbia Presbyterian in New York and a faculty position in neurosurgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., there was no department of neurosurgery.

“We started with two neurosurgeons in a little division,” Rhoton said. “I felt like I found my place here and decided to stick with it. The vision of growth in neurosurgery and building a brain institute were accepted by the institution and the leadership.”

His work placed UF prominently on the neurosurgery map.

“Dr. Rhoton took a relatively unknown division and turned it into one of the best neurosurgery departments in the world,” said William Friedman, M.D., the Albert L. Rhoton Jr., professor and chairman of neurosurgery at the UF College of Medicine. “He is the reason I came to UF to train.”

In 1975, Rhoton began to teach microneurosurgery, which involves using microscopes and miniaturized precision tools to perform intricate procedures. More than 1,000 neurosurgeons and residents have come to UF from Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America to attend his courses. He also developed more than 200 neurosurgical instruments, such as Rhoton Micro Dissectors to dissect aneurysms and tumors.

“I incorporated microsurgical techniques into my practice because it appeared to increase the safety with which we could delve deep into and under the brain,” he said.

Rhoton’s personal motto is to provide more accurate, gentle, safe and precise ways to approach and manage neurosurgery.

“I’ve made the motto a theme of what we do every day to improve neurosurgery, so that our patients receive better care,” he said. “Rather than becoming impulsive and excited quickly, our goal is to stay focused and calm in difficult situations.”

His background in social work helped him to better understand fear, anger and other emotions his patients experienced.

“Competence and compassion are two traits of physicians,” Rhoton said. “Social work taught me to bring the element of compassion into what I do.”

It is a no-brainer, then, that this calm and mild-mannered gentleman who was named Neurosurgeon of the Year by the journal World Neurosurgery, is an inspiration to many.

“The opportunity to train under Dr. Rhoton at the UF College of Medicine has been and continues to be among the most significant personal and professional highlights of my life,” said J. Richard Lister, M.D., M.B.A., associate chair and professor of the College of Medicine’s department of neurosurgery.

Rhoton and his passion for helping others through medicine also motivated his four children to pursue medical professions.

“My dad always made us believe it was an honor and a privilege to be in a medical profession,” said Alice Rhoton-Vlasak, M.D., an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at UF. “Living around someone who takes inspiration from what he does daily, it’s hard not to want to follow his steps.”

Or is it? The results of a new study may make you rethink what you pack in your child’s lunch … or send you straight to the school’s front office to have a long chat about the powers of refrigeration.

A group of Texas researchers made the rounds at daycare centers and found something rather unsavory … nearly all the items in the lunches kids brought to school were stored at unsafe temperatures. Even lunches with icepacks did not stay cool.

In all, less than a quarter of the perishable foods found in children’s lunch boxes were maintained at safe temperatures. In fact, the average temperature foods were stored at was 63 degrees, smack in the middle of what experts consider the food safety danger zone. Basically, any foods stored between 40 and 140 degrees are more at risk for breeding dangerous bacteria, like Salmonella and E. coli.

Exposure to these bacteria is bad for anybody but particularly for small children, whose young immune systems aren’t geared to fight them as well yet.

So what should a parent do, short of buying a portable refrigerator to strap on your child’s back? Talk to your daycare provider about refrigerating your child’s lunch. Also, avoid ingredients that spoil quickly. For example, try ketchup or mustard on sandwiches instead of mayonnaise, which is made with eggs. Another tip, freeze your child’s juice or water to help keep things cool. And though it seems counterintuitive, experts advise against packing lunches in insulated bags if they are being placed in a refrigerator. Insulated bags can actually prevent the fridge from doing its job and keeping your little one’s food cool.

One last tip? Don’t forget the fruits and veggies. A good lunch is a healthy lunch.

A new gene therapy method developed by University of Florida researchers, William W. Hauswirth, Ph.D. and Alfred S. Lewin, Ph.D., has the potential to reverse a common form of blindness that strikes young children.

A new gene therapy method developed by University of Florida researchers has the potential to treat a common form of blindness that strikes both youngsters and adults. The technique works by replacing a malfunctioning gene in the eye with a normal working copy that supplies a protein necessary for light-sensitive cells in the eye to function. The findings are published today (Monday, Jan. 23) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.

Several complex and costly steps remain before the gene therapy technique can be used in humans, but once at that stage, it has great potential to change lives.

“Imagine that you can’t see or can just barely see, and that could be changed to function at some levels so that you could read, navigate, maybe even drive — it would change your life considerably,” said study co-author William W. Hauswirth, Ph.D., the Rybaczki-Bullard professor of ophthalmology in the UF College of Medicine and a professor and eminent scholar in department of molecular genetics and microbiology and the UF Genetics Institute. “Providing the gene that’s missing is one of the ultimate ways of treating disease and restoring significant visual function.”

The researchers tackled a condition called X-linked retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic defect that is passed from mothers to sons. Girls carry the trait, but do not have the kind of vision loss seen among boys. About 100,000 people in the U.S. have a form of retinitis pigmentosa, which is characterized by initial loss of peripheral vision and night vision, which eventually progresses to tunnel vision, then blindness. In some cases, loss of sight coincides with the appearance of dark-colored areas on the usually orange-colored retina.

The UF researchers previously had success pioneering the use of gene therapy in clinical trials to reverse a form of blindness known as Leber’s congenital amaurosis. About 5 percent of people who have retinitis pigmentosa have this form, which affects the eye’s inner lining.

“That was a great advance, which showed that gene therapy is safe and lasts for years in humans, but this new study has the potential for a bigger impact, because it is treating a form of the disease that affects many more people,” said John G. Flannery, Ph.D., a professor of neurobiology at the University of California, Berkeley who is an expert in the design of viruses for delivering replacement genes. Flannery was not involved in the current study.

The X-linked form of retinitis pigmentosa addressed in the new study is the most common, and is caused by degeneration of light-sensitive cells in the eyes known as photoreceptor cells. It starts early in life, so though affected children are often born seeing, they gradually lose their vision.

“These children often go blind in the second decade of life, which is a very crucial period,” said co-author Alfred S. Lewin, Ph.D., a professor in the UF College of Medicine department of molecular genetics and microbiology and a member of the UF Genetics Institute. “This is a compelling reason to try to develop a therapy, because this disease hinders people’s ability to fully experience their world.”

Both Lewin and Hauswirth are members of UF’s Powell Gene Therapy Center.

The UF researchers and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania performed the technically challenging task of cloning a working copy of the affected gene into a virus that served as a delivery vehicle to transport it to the appropriate part of the eye. They also cloned a genetic “switch” that would turn on the gene once it was in place, so it could start producing a protein needed for the damaged eye cells to function.

After laboratory tests proved successful, the researchers expanded their NIH-funded studies and were able to cure animals in which X-linked retinitis pigmentosa occurs naturally. The injected genes made their way only to the spot where they were needed, and not to any other places in the body. The study gave a good approximation of how the gene therapy might work in humans.

“The results are encouraging and the rescue of the damaged photoreceptor cells is quite convincing,” said Flannery, who is on the scientific advisory board of the Foundation Fighting Blindness, which provided some funding for the study. “Since this type of study is often the step before applying a treatment to human patients, showing that it works is critical.”

The researchers plan to repeat their studies on a larger scale over a longer term, and make a version of the virus that proves to be safe in humans. Once that is achieved, a pharmaceutical grade of the virus would have to be produced and tested before moving into clinical trials in humans. The researchers will be able to use much of the technology they have already developed and used successfully to restore vision.

Now, a new study shows that there is also a direct connection between HPV and oral cancer, with cases rising at such an alarming rate that the incidences of HPV-caused oral cancers will far surpass cervical cancers in the near future.

Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the study reviewed data from three states that contribute information to an oral cancer incidence database. Researchers indentified reports of 271 tumors and found that the rate of HPV-related cancers increased from 16 percent during the mid 1980s, to almost 72 percent about 10 years ago. That translates to a 225 percent increase in this type of cancer.

Researchers could not be sure why the upsurge has been so dramatic, but they did note that sexual behaviors have changed, with sexual encounters happening earlier in life. Another troublesome trend is that people now seem to have many more sex partners in general, too. As morays continue to change, this number may even increase, thereby intensifying the likelihood that HPV-related cancers will multiply further.

Since the study did not investigate the effectiveness of the current HPV vaccine in regard to oral cancer, it is not known if the product now on the market to help prevent HPV-related cervical cancer will work for oral cancer as well. While additional studies are needed to address this, the researchers do have one tip for people who want to avoid getting an HPV infection and upping their risk for oral cancer … Practice safe sex.

When winter’s at its harshest, even snow-loving kids and hard-core sportsmen duck indoors. But some people don’t have that option: their jobs require lots of time outside, no matter the weather. Think of the men and women who deliver your mail, read your utility meters and direct traffic during an emergency.

These all-weather workers have more than just uncomfortable chilliness or a case of the sniffles to avoid. Winter’s fury can seriously damage your health. Hypothermia, frostbite, chilblains [chill-blanes] and trench foot are some of the ailments caused by prolonged exposure to colder-than-normal temperatures, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They can incite a variety of nasty health effects, ranging from disorientation to permanent skin damage, frozen body parts and, ultimately, death.

So how can you outdoor workers stay healthy despite hazardous winter weather? Follow these tips from the CDC and start your safety efforts before the workday begins. Dress in layers you can remove or add as needed. Remember, you don’t want to get too hot while you’re working, either. Sweat dampens your clothes, making you colder later.

Bring coffee or hot cocoa to work in an insulated travel mug to help keep you warm for hours. Prepare a cold weather kit with chemical heat packs and extra socks, hats and gloves for days when you just can’t stop the chill. Most importantly, take regular breaks and warm up in a toasty car, your office or even a coffee shop. Make an agreement with other workers to look out for one another and check in frequently to make sure everyone’s OK.

Hang in there, outdoor workers. Winter won’t last forever.

Dominick Angiolillo, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine and medical director of the UF Cardiovascular Research Program at the UF College of Medicine-Jacksonville

Heart patients who have stents that prop open blocked arteries often face a dilemma when they need open heart surgery: Continue taking life-saving blood thinners but risk severe bleeding during surgery, or stop taking the medicines and risk a heart attack.

Now, researchers from the University of Florida and elsewhere have identified a new drug that can serve as a “bridge” during that time when patients have to stop taking blood thinners, minimizing both the risk of a heart attack and the risk of excessive bleeding during surgery. The findings appeared Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“This could be a way to satisfy an unmet need and solve a huge clinical problem for millions of patients,” said the study’s lead author, Dominick Angiolillo, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine and medical director of the UF Cardiovascular Research Program at the UF College of Medicine-Jacksonville.

Patients who have stents — small mesh tubes that help open up the arteries — must take aspirin or other blood-thinning medication for at least one year after implantation of the devices. But a problem arises if a patient requires open heart surgery during that year.

The patient must stop taking blood thinners five to seven days before surgery to avoid severe bleeding during surgery. But stopping the medication increases heart attack risk. The need for a short-term “bridge” between traditional medication and heart surgery came to national attention when former President Bill Clinton had a mild heart attack in 2004 and needed bypass surgery. Clinton had to wait six days for surgery because he had been taking aspirin and clopidogrel, commercially sold as Plavix.

Angiolillo and colleagues conducted a two-year international clinical trial to determine whether an experimental intravenous blood-thinning drug called cangrelor can keep patients in good health during the

presurgery period in which they stop taking traditional oral medication. The trial was funded by The Medicines Company, which manufactures cangrelor.

The researchers determined the appropriate dosage of the drug then administered it to half of the 210 patients in the study. The other half were given a placebo, which did not contain the drug. Neither patients nor physicians knew to which group a patient was assigned until surgery was needed.

The researchers found that cangrelor can effectively thin the blood to keep heart attack risk low without increasing the risk of major bleeding during surgery. Some cases of minor, non-life threatening bleeding occurred among patients on cangrelor. Since changed to BECAUSE the blood-thinning effects of cangrelor are not as long lasting as for traditional medications such as aspirin and clopidogrel, the risk of heavy bleeding is reduced.

“This is a very important scientific first step that really helps us understand what to do with people who are awaiting surgical procedures and are on medications that raise their bleeding risk,” said Deepak L. Bhatt, M.D., M.P.H, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who is not affiliated with the current study but has also conducted research on cangrelor.

Further studies are needed before cangrelor can be used in widespread clinical practice.

But did you know that the effects of sipping coffee may help women maintain peace of mind well after the cup is empty?

A recent study found women who drink caffeinated coffee are 20 percent less likely to be depressed than non-coffee drinkers. During the course of the 10-year study, researchers surveyed about 51,000 women and found depression became less common with each extra cup per day someone drank.

Women who drank tea, soda or other caffeinated beverages didn’t get the same benefits as women who drank coffee — possibly because the other drinks don’t pack as much of a caffeine punch as a cup of coffee.

Other studies have found that coffee could reduce the risk of suicidal depression, type 2 diabetes and several cancers.

This doesn’t mean you should rush out and load up on extra-large quadruple-shot lattes, though. The researchers say more research is needed to determine how caffeine relates to these conditions, and doctors warn that too much caffeine can lead to anxiety and insomnia. And, of course, that’s not taking into account the amount of sugar some people add to their morning cup of Joe.

But you may not actually need all that caffeine to get a boost. One study found that just thinking you’re drinking caffeinated coffee can make you happier. Volunteers were blindfolded and given cups of coffee, some caffeinated, some not. Those who were told they were drinking caffeinated coffee, whether they actually were, said they felt happier than those who were told they were drinking decaf.

So the next time you need a pick-me-up, it might be OK to go on over to that coffee shop on the corner. If there’s only decaf in sight, grab a cup and pretend it’s caffeinated. It may put a smile on your face after all.

Laura Moon, the owner of horse, Mariah's Moon, and University of Florida veterinarians Chris Sanchez and Ali Morton pose for a picture at the UF's Large Animal Hospital. (Photo by Maria Farias/University of Florida)

An American Drum Horse stallion named Mariah’s Boon was a model patient at the University of Florida’s Large Animal Hospital between 2008 and 2009, when he received two surgeries and numerous checkups for an abdominal abscess caused by a small wire that had penetrated his stomach.

Now, quite literally, and at only 6 years of age, he’s in the process of becoming a true model horse.

Mariah’s Boon — known affectionately to his owner, Laura Moon, as Boon — has been chosen as the 2012 Celebration Breyer Horse. The Breyer Animal Creations Company, a subsidiary of Reeves International, manufactures plastic, porcelain and resin model horses. As many children who love horses know, these models are carried in toy stores and tack shops and begin as artist’s sculptures. Each year, the company holds BreyerFest, the largest model horse show in the country.

The event draws model horse collectors and enthusiasts to Lexington, Ky. In July 2012, BreyerFest will showcase British breeds, including Dales Ponies, Hackneys, Cleveland Bays, Shires, Gypsy Vanners and the Drum Horse, which is a heavy riding horse that includes Clydesdale, Gypsy Horse and Shire bloodlines.

Moon learned last summer that Breyer was looking for a Drum Horse with show experience and its own Drum outfit. Boon met the criteria. After his health problems resolved, he’s been busy in the show ring, winning such accolades as Grand Champion Stallion at the Florida State Fair for two years in a row and just receiving Grand Champion Drum, Grand Champion Performance Drum and Grand Champion High Point Drum from the Feathered Horse Classic in Georgia.

“I am so proud of him and so pleased with everyone at UF,” Moon said.

Although many a horse owner might covet being selected as the Celebration Breyer Horse, for Moon — although she says she is honored by the designation — the real prize is Boon’s life, which she credits UF’s large animal veterinarians and other staff for saving.

After learning about the American Drum breed, Moon brought Boon home from the farm where he was bred when he was just a year old and began showing him at halter and in showmanship classes at her local equestrian center. After one show, Moon noticed Boon had a fever. Despite a course of antibiotics, the horse’s fever persisted, and her veterinarian recommended a trip to the UF Large Animal Hospital.

UF veterinarians Chris Sanchez and Laura Javsicas found a basketball-sized abscess in Boon’s abdomen. He also had pericarditis, an infection of the sac surrounding his heart. Because of the location of the abscess and involvement of the heart, veterinarians suspected that Boon ate something that penetrated the wall of his stomach and into his chest — they just couldn’t find the culprit.

Boon improved initially, but the abscess returned after antibiotics were discontinued. Boon received a second surgery at UF, during which Dr. Ali Morton created a portal from the abscess to Boon’s skin, a technique called marsupialization. This allowed improved drainage of the abscess after surgery. Even after Boon went home from the hospital, Moon had to clean and flush the abscess twice a day, using a plastic catheter.

Eventually, the hole shrank to the size of a straw. Then one day during a cleaning, Moon saw something dark in the catheter. She pulled out a piece of metal.

“I thought it must have come from the ground, but it didn’t,” she said. “It was in the tube itself.”

A few days later, more metal came out. The culprits were found and the abscess continued to shrink in size. Within five months, the basketball-sized abscess was the size of a golf ball; after a year, it was the size of a grape and Boon looked like he had never been sick.

The syndrome, called “hardware disease,” is common in cattle but quite rare in horses.

The size of Boon’s abscess was monitored with repeated ultrasound exams at the UF Large Animal Hospital.

“I still carry those pieces of metal around in my truck,” she said. “It was a miracle. I am so thankful the UF veterinarians never gave up. They came across an obstacle, put their heads together and came up with a new plan. There was nothing in the books they could follow for what Boon had.”

A new study by two enterprising young elementary school pupils found that teachers were almost as likely as their young students to mistake medicine for candy. For their research, the young scientists stocked a special medicine cabinet with both candy and medication. Thirty students and thirty teachers from an elementary school in Cincinnati were asked to distinguish between the two.

The students could tell the difference between candy and medicine about 71 percent of the time. Among children who could not read, that number dropped to 67 percent. The teachers actually didn’t score much higher: They were only able to distinguish the candy from the medicine about 78 percent of the time.

There were several challenging look-alikes. For example, Sweet Tarts were mistaken for antacids such as Tums or Mylanta about half the time. The group also frequently mixed up Reese’s Pieces and a popular decongestant. Another common mistake: M&Ms and another decongestant.

These findings were troubling in light of another recent study, which found that about 22 percent of medications were not stored safely in 24 homes with children between the ages of 2 and 6. This included medicine that contained acetaminophen, which is toxic to children if taken in higher-than-recommended doses.

This could result in a dangerous situation if kids stumble across medication that isn’t properly stored. So be sure to keep medicine bottles in a secure place where they won’t be found by hungry youngsters on the look-out for candy.

Maybe not, but a recent study in the journal Pediatrics suggests exposure to a common chemical may play a role. The researchers found a link between exposure to bisphenol A in the womb and behavioral problems in preschoolers.

Bisphenol A, or B-P-A, is a chemical found in many plastic products and even the heat-activated paper used in cash registers.

Researchers recorded B-P-A levels in urine samples taken from 244 pregnant women and three samples from their kids at yearly study visits. After their third birthdays, the kids were given psychological tests and the parents rated their little ones’ behavior before learning their B-P-A levels.

The results showed that moms with higher levels of B-P-A during pregnancy had toddlers with more anxiety, depression and hyperactivity. Girls whose moms had higher B-P-A levels had twice as many counts of anxiety and depression as boys and were even more hyperactive.

While the study showed only association, not cause and effect, it is not the first to suggest that B-P-A could have biological effects on the body. The chemical structure of B-P-A is similar to estrogen, and exposure can cause problems in developing brains and bodies. A past study in mice found that it lowered fertility among males.

But the researchers say there’s no need to go overboard and toss all things plastic from your household. Simply limiting exposure is a start.

One reason for the resurgence may be the federal ban on D-D-T, a pesticide that went off the market in 1972.

Since then, pest control technicians have used more environmentally friendly treatments, including pyrethroids [pie-REETH-roids]. These are synthetic compounds similar to chemicals found in chrysanthemum flowers. They block nerve impulses and cause paralysis.

Unfortunately, many bed bugs now shrug them off.

A study recently published in the journal P-L-O-S One helps explain why.

The researchers studied two bed bug populations. One was resistant to pyrethroids. The other was not.

The scientists took samples from both groups and exposed them to two pyrethroid insecticides. Killing the resistant bed bugs took up to 5,000 times the amount of pesticide needed to wipe out the vulnerable group.

When the researchers compared gene sequences from both populations they found four genes that were overexpressed in the resistant bed bugs. These genes produced enzymes that counteracted the paralyzing effect of pyrethroids.

What does this mean? Well, it appears that our efforts to control bed bugs caused a quick evolutionary response. Bugs that produced greater-than-average amounts of the protective enzymes survived pyrethroid treatments. The survivors multiplied, and further treatments selected the offspring with the highest enzyme production.

The good news is, these findings may lead scientists to develop new treatments the enzymes can’t stop.

Of course, the bed bugs may be able to keep up this chemical cat-and-mouse game indefinitely.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to win it. After all, who wants to crawl into a warm cozy bed infested with bed bugs?

The education series includes four free classes: “Coping with Hearing Loss,” “A Thousand Ways to Say ‘Huh,’” “Handling Difficult Listening Situations,” and “What Other Help is There?” Classes are held on Mondays from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the United Way of North Central Florida office, 6031 NW 1st Place, Gainesville. Session 1 of the four-part class series is Jan. 30, Feb. 6, Feb. 13 and Feb. 20. Session 2 will be held on April 2, April 9, April 16 and April 23. Participants are encouraged to bring family and friends to the classes, but space is limited.

The UF clinic will also offer a free series of lip-reading classes designed to help people with hearing loss develop confidence communicating with others in difficult listening situations. The classes will be held on Mondays beginning Jan. 30 from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the United Way of North Central Florida office, 6031 NW 1st Place. Please call 352-294-5151 or email mmccaghren@phhp.ufl.edu to register for the “Living with Hearing Loss” classes or the lip-reading course.

Stephen Anton, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Medicine department of aging and geriatric research and a member of the UF Institute on Aging (Photo by Jesse Jones/University of Florida)

Losing weight sometimes seems like a losing battle; most people who drop pounds by restricting the number of calories they eat eventually regain the lost weight. That’s because hormonal changes associated with weight loss prod people to eat more as the body tries to defend itself against the perceived “hardship.”

Researchers at the University of Florida Institute on Aging are studying whether a plant-based supplement can aid long-term weight loss by controlling hunger levels and food intake. The study is now recruiting healthy nonsmokers ages 50 to 70, who are overweight or obese. The work is funded through a $600,000 grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

After diet-induced weight loss, hormonal changes and the release of certain proteins signal the brain to prompt an increase food intake. In addition, a slowing down of the metabolism reduces how much energy the body uses up, making it harder to keep lost weight at bay. Dietary supplements that allow people to feel satisfied after eating fewer calories have the potential to counteract those changes, researchers say.

“It’s a biological challenge that people are up against, that simply following a calorie-restricted diet and exercise regimen doesn’t seem to overcome,” said lead researcher Stephen Anton, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Medicine department of aging and geriatric research and a member of the UF Institute on Aging. “So many people struggle with increased hunger after weight loss.”

A large body of research shows that people can achieve good short-term weight loss results by eating fewer calories. But maintaining that weight loss requires a 20 percent to 40 percent reduction in calorie intake, and most people have difficulty sticking with such a regimen. As a result, about 95 percent of people regain lost weight within five years, studies show.

More than half of adult Americans are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention. Being overweight increases the risk of conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, and hastens the effects of aging on the body. Healthful eating and physical activity are cornerstones of good health and weight management. But when being overweight leads to restricted movement or a condition called insulin resistance that prevents the body from processing food properly, people might turn to medications and supplements for additional help.

“What we’re finding is that one size doesn’t fit all — we need more tools to help clinicians give more patients the help they need,” said Corby Martin, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center. “Compounds and products that help patients feel full or reduce intake is a viable way to help.”

Martin, who has studied the effect of weight loss on metabolism and appetite and developed web- and smartphone-based weight loss aids, is not involved in the UF study.

One FDA-approved medication prevents the intestines from absorbing some of the fat from food. But that drug can cause distress of the gastrointestinal tract, diarrhea and other side effects. Several plant-based compounds are on the market, but most have not been rigorously tested.

The product being studied at UF is called hydroxycitric acid, and is from a plant called Garcinia Cambogia. It is thought to affect how hormonal signals are sent to the brain. The researchers will study how safe the compound is, and how effective it is at reducing the amount of food people eat, increasing feelings of satisfaction after meals, boosting weight loss and reducing molecular level damage known as oxidative stress.

Previous tests on Garcinia Cambogia were on rodents, or were short-term human studies that did not adequately compare whether results after taking the supplement were much different from results obtained without the supplement. The UF study will compare two different doses of the plant extract against a “supplement” that does not contain the extract. The study will be the first to directly measure the amount of food participants eat after taking the supplement, rather than relying on people to report from memory what they have eaten.

During the 30-week study, participants will take capsules three times a day for six weeks at a time. Use of the supplement might lead to temporary stomach sensitivity. After each six-week test period, participants will spend a day at the test center where they will eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, complete questionnaires, give blood samples and be weighed. Analyses of the measurements will yield needed information on how these supplements might fit into a healthy weight loss regimen.

To learn more about the study or to enroll, call 352-273-5919 or, toll-free, 866-386-7730, and ask about the “ReBORN study.”

A study published in the journal Archives of Dermatology suggests that hair professionals are willing to take on the task. They just need education.

And statistics say the effort would be worthwhile.

Melanoma, the most serious skin cancer, is responsible for almost 50,000 deaths each year, worldwide. It’s an especially serious problem among Caucasians who live in sunny climates.

Melanomas of the scalp and neck account for about 6 percent of all melanoma cases in the U.S., and 10 percent of the melanoma deaths.

The disproportionately high death rate is probably due to the fact that self-examination doesn’t work well for the scalp or back of the neck. That’s where hair professionals could help.

For the study, about 200 stylists filled out surveys asking about their knowledge, attitudes and routine practices related to skin cancer detection.

About one-quarter of them had received formal skin cancer education. And half the participants said they were interested in learning more. As far as surveillance, more than one-third of stylists said they checked each client’s scalp for possible growths in at least half of their appointments. And almost one-third said they examined clients’ necks at least half the time.

So it seems logical to give hair professionals a greater chance to identify problems and communicate their findings. The study authors are developing a training module to help facilitate those goals.

Perhaps one day, the salon won’t just be a place hair is snipped — it’ll be somewhere skin cancers get nipped … in the bud.

The Libra™ deep brain stimulation (DBS) system is approved in Europe and Australia for treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and is being evaluated in U.S. clinical trials for Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. Image courtesy of St. Jude Medical Inc.

Researchers from the University of Florida and 14 additional medical centers reported results today in the online version of The Lancet Neurology journal indicating that deep brain stimulation — also known as DBS — is effective at improving motor symptoms and quality of life in patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease.

The study, sponsored by St. Jude Medical Inc., tested the safety and effectiveness of a constant current DBS device developed by St. Jude Medical to manage the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The device aimed to reduce tremors, improve the slowness of movement, decrease the motor disability of the disease and reduce involuntary movements called dyskinesia, which are a common side effect of Parkinson’s drugs.

After treatment, analysis of 136 patient diaries revealed longer periods of effective symptom control — known as “on time” — without involuntary movements. “On time” for patients who received stimulation increased by an average of 4.27 hours compared with an increase of 1.77 hours in the group without stimulation. Patients also noted overall improvements in the quality of their daily activities, mobility, emotional state, social support and physical comfort.

“I think it is safe to say since dopamine treatment emerged in the 1960s, DBS has been the single biggest symptomatic breakthrough for Parkinson patients who have experienced the fluctuations associated with levodopa therapy,” said Michael S. Okun, M.D., first author of the study, administrative director of the UF College of Medicine’s Center for Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration, and the National Medical Director for the National Parkinson Foundation. “This study validates the use of mild electrical currents delivered to specific brain structures in order to improve Parkinson’s disease in select patients with advanced symptoms, and additionally, it explored a new stimulation paradigm. Future improvements in devices and the delivery systems for DBS will hopefully provide exciting new opportunities for Parkinson’s sufferers.”

Only patients who have had Parkinson’s disease for five years or more were included in the study. They were randomly assigned to a control group that delayed the onset of stimulation for three months, or a group whose stimulation began shortly after surgery. All patients were followed for 12 months.

The deep brain stimulation procedure involves surgeons implanting small electrodes into an area of the patient’s brain that controls movement. The electrodes are connected to a device precisely programmed to use mild electrical current to modulate problematic brain signals that result in movement problems.

Today’s voltage-controlled DBS devices deliver pulses of current that vary slightly with surrounding tissue changes. The DBS devices tested in this study are intended to provide more accurate delivery and control of the electrical pulses.

“We are committed to driving research that will provide solutions for physicians and their patients whose needs are currently unmet,” said Rohan Hoare, president of St. Jude Medical Neuromodulation Division. “These results are significant as they offer evidence that stimulation with the Libra constant current system enabled patients to have better motor control and an improvement in their quality of life when compared to the control group.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of DBS for Parkinson’s disease in 2002. At least 500,000 people in the United States suffer from Parkinson’s with about 50,000 new cases reported annually, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. These numbers are expected to increase as the average age of the population rises.

“The study answered some very important questions concerning cognition and mood with lead implantation (alone) versus implantation with stimulation. It also refutes the hypothesis that DBS increases depressive symptoms,” said Gordon H. Baltuch, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of neurosurgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a study author. “The group’s results also showed a decrease in the infection rate to 4 percent from previously published 10 percent. It shows that American neurosurgeons and neurologists with their industry partners are improving the safety of this procedure and working in a collaborative fashion.”

Comparable with other large DBS studies, the most common serious adverse event revealed was infection, which occurred in five patients. Likewise, some participants also reported an increase in the occurrence of slurred speech, known as dysarthria.

“Technology is on the move, and we expect to see continued improvements to DBS approaches, equipment and materials,” said Okun, who is also affiliated with UF’s McKnight Brain Institute. “DBS has set the bar high for the development of new therapies for advanced Parkinson’s disease patients. DBS will be the standard of care gene therapy and other cell-based therapies that are now being conceived will be measured against, and this will hopefully translate into significant improvements in what we can offer our patients.”

In addition to UF and Penn, research was conducted at centers affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, Lahey Clinic, Loma Linda University Medical Center, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Oakwood Hospital and Health Systems, Texas Health Presbyterian, Rush University Medical Center, the University of Miami, the University of Rochester and the University of Virginia Health Systems.

A study from the University of Florida found that public places like bathrooms, libraries, hospitals and hotels are crawling with microbial critters. That’s hardly surprising, but this is the first study of its kind to unearth just what types of germs there are and how many of them contaminate public surfaces.

Researchers tested high-touch areas in 18 public places, including a mall, offices, a lecture hall, a conference center, restaurants and an airport. They found such dangerous bugs as staph, E. coli and Enterococcus, a bug found in feces that can cause urinary tract infections and wound infections.

Another study found fecal bacteria on more than seventy percent of grocery shopping carts. Other culprits include reusable shopping bags, airplane bathrooms and seat-back trays, keyboards, desktops, boards and playground equipment.

So what’s the best way to avoid picking up these nasty germs on your next outing? Short of avoiding public bathrooms and never leaving the house, or wearing gloves whenever you do, not much. Bacteria are everywhere, and some of them are even beneficial because they boost immunity. Our bodies house “friendly” bacteria that live in our guts and keep our digestive systems humming.

But to minimize the number of icky microorganisms you encounter, you can carry your own paper towels, tissues and a bottle of antibacterial hand sanitizer with you. Wash your hands often and avoid touching your face. Contracting a mild case of germophobia might just keep the bad bugs out.

In a study just published in the journal Lancet, those who suffered from untreated anemia, or a low red blood count, just prior to surgery were far more prone to experience postoperative medical problems … and even more likely to die.

Researchers analyzed the medical records of almost 230,000 adult patients who were undergoing major non-cardiac surgery, both elective and non-elective. In all, about 30 percent of the participants, about 70,000 people, had a diagnosis of either mild or moderate anemia just prior to surgery.

The study showed that just 30 days after surgery, those who had identified untreated anemia beforehand were 35 percent more likely to have postoperative issues such as respiratory, urinary and cardiac trouble, and even blood clotting problems. Even more compelling, the investigators found that the risk of death for these patients just one month after surgery was 42 percent higher than for those who were not diagnosed with anemia or those who were treated for the condition prior to their procedure.

The findings also showed that when nine risk factors such as cardiac, pulmonary or central nervous system diseases were also present, there was an even greater risk for sickness or death among the anemic patients who had received no treatments beforehand.

Clearly, the need for a very definitive assessment of a patient’s red blood count is indicated by the results of the study. Researchers say doctors should be encouraged to treat any anemia issues prior to surgery, especially in those instances where excessive blood loss is normally expected.

Worried about your own red blood cell count? Make sure to talk to your doctor or nurse and find out whether you need to be treated.

“Quality is Job 1 at UF&Shands, and convenient access is an important part of quality. In this spirit, free parking is an important step in our continued commitment to improve the patient experience at UF&Shands,” said David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “We want to make it as easy as possible for patients and their families to receive the care they need from our world-class physicians and facilities.”

UF and Shands employees and their dependents already receive free parking when they are patients at clinical practices on campus. This initiative extends that courtesy to all patients on campus, relatives and other guests who accompany or come to visit them, and to patients visiting Shands outpatient pharmacies.

Patients and their visitors will receive parking vouchers at their point of service, and on exiting the parking areas they simply need to hand the vouchers to the attendant on duty. Free valet parking continues to be available for patients at the Shands Critical Care Center at UF, Shands at UF Chest Pain E.R. and Shands Hospital for Children Pediatric E.R.

The more than $1.5 million annually needed for garage maintenance and related costs paid for by parking fees will be shouldered by UF faculty practices and the Shands at UF medical center. Approximately 2,000 people per average business day use the three garages and two lots designated for patient use on the UF&Shands Gainesville campus.

Non-emergency valet parking for patients and their visitors will be $3 plus a parking voucher.

Certain other visitors such as non-UF students doing clinical rotations and job applicants on official visits to the UF Health Science Center or Shands at UF qualify for parking at $4 per day in visitor garages or $6 per day for valet service.

More details, including a fact sheet, answers to frequently asked questions and other resources, are available at http://shands.org/freeparking.

“Our patients have been waiting to hear the words ‘free parking,’” Guzick said. “We are excited to be able to say those words and to keep exploring new ways of improving patient care at UF&Shands.”

Serbian and Spanish researchers found that strawberries’ antioxidants and their ability to activate enzymes in the body protect the stomach’s mucous membrane. Alcohol consumption, viral infections and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication, like aspirin, can all irritate stomach lining.

During the study, scientists gave ethanol to lab rats, treating some with a strawberry extract first. The rats that got the strawberries suffered less damage than the other rodents.

Though the study was performed on rats, the researchers believe a diet high in strawberries could similarly stall the formation of stomach ulcers in humans. Ulcers are sores that form when acid breaks down the protective lining of the stomach.

If left untreated, ulcers can get worse and potentially turn into cancer.

This isn’t the first time strawberries have been found to fight acid-related illnesses. A study from the Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Care Center found that freeze-dried strawberries slowed the growth of precancerous lesions in the throat, possibly preventing esophageal [es-sof-oh-JEE-uhl] cancer. In their freeze-dried form, strawberries have 10 times the cancer-fighting nutrients.

A diet high in a wide variety fruits and vegetables, though, is best for fighting cancer. Though most ulcers are caused by an infection, taking it easy on aspirin and ibuprofen could help keep them from forming. As for dealing with that hangover? Better to just sleep it off. No amount of strawberries can help you now.

A study of 6,000 women from the U.S., Poland, Turkey and Iran found that ladies who light up could forego fertility a year earlier than non-smokers. Smokers got menopause between the ages of 43 and 50, while women who had never smoked got menopause between 46 and 51, on average.

The study, which was published in the journal Menopause, also found that of 43,000 women, smoking increased the likelihood of early menopause by 43 percent.

Menopause marks the end of a woman’s ability to bear children, as the ovaries stop releasing eggs and produce less estrogen. Lower levels of estrogen can lead to higher risk for colon and ovarian cancer, gum disease, tooth loss and cataract formation … not to mention the not-so-pleasant side effects of hot flashes, mood swings and sleep trouble. Stopping the flow of estrogen too early puts women at risk for these conditions and others, like osteoporosis and heart disease.

So what do cigarettes have to do with it? Experts say smoking could affect how women’s bodies handle estrogen. Chemicals in cigarette smoke could also kill eggs in the ovaries, inviting menopause early.

Sounds like too much for a middle-aged woman to bear, in addition to the demands of work, family and womanhood in general. Hormone replacement therapy, or H-R-T, can alleviate many of the unpleasant symptoms of menopause. But if you’re looking to quit the stick, start the new year with nicotine therapy replacement. You just might put off hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings … at least for a few years.

Steven George, PT, Ph. D., associate professor and assistant chair of the department of physical therapy at the University of Florida.

A program of core strengthening exercises was no better than traditional sit-ups for preventing back pain in soldiers, according to a new University of Florida study. But combining both exercise programs with a brief educational session on back pain strategies did lower the incidence of treatment for back pain.

The results of the study appear online in BMC Medicine, an open-access journal of BioMed Central.

“It was our hypothesis that the core stabilization exercises would have some protective effect for back pain and maybe the combination of the core stabilization exercises and the education program would be the most effective, but as it turns out, adding the education to either of the exercise programs was the only place where we saw the benefit,” said lead investigator Steven George, Ph.D., P.T., an associate professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’ department of physical therapy.

Low back pain is among the most frequent causes of medical visits and lost-duty time in the Military Health System, said co-investigator Lt. Col. John Childs, Ph.D., P.T., director of musculoskeletal research at Keesler Air Force Base.

“Musculoskeletal pain, and especially low back pain, adversely affects military preparedness as common reasons for medical evacuation from ongoing conflicts, with return to duty being uncertain,” said Childs, also an associate professor at the U.S. Army-Baylor University doctoral program in physical therapy at the Army Medical Department Center and School in San Antonio.

Core exercises target several muscle groups that support the spine, including abdominal muscles, back muscles, side muscles and muscles that attach to the pelvis. The military typically uses traditional lumbar training, which exercises only the abdominal muscles through sit-ups and crunches, George said.

“Core stabilization exercises are considered to be a more balanced approach to lumbar training so that’s why we and others have thought that core exercises would be better at preventing back pain and that may be, but it just wasn’t the case in this study,” George said.

The Prevention of Low Back Pain in the Military, or POLM, study involved 4,325 U.S. Army soldiers stationed at Fort Sam Houston in Texas who were completing a program for combat medic training. Participants were randomized by company into one of four treatment groups of exercises alone, or exercises paired with educational sessions. The exercise programs were completed as a group under the supervision of a drill instructor once a day, five days a week for 12 weeks. The education program consisted of one 45-minute group session led by study personnel that provided information on low back pain and strategies for recovering from mild back injury.

“Part of the education is just to get people to understand the difference between when pain indicates true injury, which is usually only in the very early stages, and when pain is just a lingering signal, but you can still be active,” George said. “We need to get people moving even when they’re in pain because if we wait until they’re pain-free they can become out of shape.”

The researchers tracked participants’ incidence of low back pain for two years following the intervention using a military health care utilization database. There was no difference in health care visits for back pain in the treatment groups who received exercises only, but among the groups who also received the education program, there was a 3 percent decrease in seeking health care for low back pain. The decrease may seem small, researchers say, but because back pain is such a common health issue in the military, even a small decrease could lessen the burden on the health care system.

“Disease prevention is a fundamental tenet of modern health care but unfortunately efforts to prevent back pain have been largely unsuccessful because they were based upon anecdote and opinion rather than firm evidence,” said Christopher Maher, Ph.D., director of musculoskeletal research at the George Institute for Global Health in Australia and a professor at the University of Sydney, who reviewed the journal article on the UF research, but was not involved in the study. “What has limited progress in this field is a lack of prevention research; most trials in the back pain field evaluate treatment rather than prevention. The POLM trial is the back pain game changer. This trial will transform the approach to back pain prevention.”

Future studies should investigate cost savings through decreased health care visits for back pain, whether the educational program could benefit civilians and if the effect could be greater if a more intensive education program was provided, the researchers say.

Other study authors include UF faculty Samuel Wu, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of biostatistics, and Michael Robinson, Ph.D., a professor in the department of clinical and health psychology. Team members from the U.S. Army-Baylor University include Lt. Col. Deydre Teyhen, Ph.D., P.T., Alison Wright, P.T., and Jessica Dugan, P.T. The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program of the Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs.

The 11-year study of more than 50,000 Norwegian adults found that those who had trouble falling asleep most nights over the period of a month had a 45 percent higher risk of heart attacks. People who had trouble staying asleep had a 30 percent increase in heart attack risk. And waking up groggy in the A-M more than once a week was linked with a 27 percent greater chance of having a heart attack.

It’s not the first study to suggest a link between sleep and blood pressure. Researchers in Greece found that waiting an hour to snooze after eating decreased the risk of stroke by two-thirds. More studies are needed to pin down the connection between sufficient sleep and a healthy heart, but scientists think it may have something to do with sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a condition that causes sufferers to temporarily stop breathing during slumber, and it’s a risk factor for heart disease, too. The periodic interruption of sweet slumber can create a vicious cycle of extreme drowsiness.

So what can you do if Z’s seem to escape you at night? Make sure to establish a bedtime routine to wind down from the day. Drink some tea, turn off electronics and dim the lights. Ban blue lights from T-Vs, alarm clocks and cell phones in the bedroom. Limit naps to 20 minutes, finish exercising three hours before bed and avoid caffeine in the afternoon. If nothing eases your insomnia, talk to a doctor. It may be a sign of an underlying problem, like depression or asthma.

Getting a solid seven to eight hours of snooze time will keep you and your heart healthy.

New research shows even the most stalwart dieters could blame their weight regain on something other than their willpower, or lack thereof: hormones. A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that hormones involved in appetite regulation could be the culprit.

Scientists put 50 overweight or obese people on a low-calorie diet for ten weeks, then measured key hormone levels before the diet, right after it and a little more than a year later. The results showed that a year after losing weight, the hormone ghrelin, which regulates hunger, actually increases. Meanwhile, leptin, the hormone that tells us to stop eating, decreases.

It all goes back to our ancient ancestors, say scientists. Changes in hormones are supposed to keep us from starving when food is scarce. But that’s hardly an issue in today’s society, where high-calorie food is just a microwave away and the most exercise many people get is the daily walk to and from their cars. Far gone are the days of hunting and gathering food by physical means, so it’s no wonder we gain — and regain — weight. Studies have shown that most people who lose weight gain it back within five years.

The key to keeping it off, though, say experts, is suppressing appetite safely. Drinking lots of water, eating fiber- and protein-rich foods like nuts and yogurt and filling up on nutrient-packed foods like eggs and avocados can keep the snack attacks at bay.

Experts also advise eating breakfast, stepping on the scale regularly, exercising at least one hour a day and following a low-fat diet. Remember what you worked for and keep the weight off!

January is National Cervical Health Awareness month. Cervical cancer affects nearly 10,000 women in the United States and most cases are caused by a sexually transmitted disease known as the human papilloma [pap-uh-LO-muh] virus, or H-P-V. And according to the American Social Health Society, about three quarters of sexually active people will be infected at some point in their lives. But a new study found that when women used an intrauterine device for birth control, they reduced their risk of getting cervical cancer by half.

Intrauterine devices, or I-U-Ds, are T-shaped devices that are placed in the uterus to prevent pregnancy. Experts at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Spain who conducted the study, believe the I-U-D doesn’t actually stop H-P-V. Rather, it prevents H-P-V from progressing to full-blown cervical cancer. The process of inserting and removing the device might destroy precancerous cells. It might also trigger a long-lasting immune response that thwarts the development of H-P-V.

What’s more, the benefits of this birth control device lasted up to 10 years.

But if an I-U-D isn’t an option, there are lots of other ways to keep your cervix strong. If you’re 25 or younger, getting the H-P-V vaccination, which has been approved by the F-D-A, is a great first start. Practicing safe sex, bolstering your immune system, taking birth control pills for more than five years and avoiding smoking also lower your risk. What better way to start 2012 then by making sure you’re taking steps to protect yourself from cervical cancer?

First things first about folate: It’s a B vitamin found naturally in foods like spinach, peas, asparagus, broccoli, strawberries, kidney beans and lentils. Folic acid is a manmade supplement found in pills, cereals or other processed foods. It’s not easy to get enough through food alone, and our bodies actually absorb the manmade form better.

Experts say women of childbearing age should take a daily supplement of 400 to 600 micrograms. Pregnant women should aim for 600 micrograms and breastfeeding moms should get about 500 micrograms a day.

But what if you’re not trying to get pregnant? Still, it’s better to err on the side of caution since many pregnancies are unplanned. And folic acid helps defend against birth defects that occur during the earliest weeks of pregnancy, often before a woman even knows she’s expecting.

The effects of not getting enough folic acid include neural tube defects, like spina bifida, which occurs when the spine does not form properly around the spinal cord. Symptoms can range from nothing at all to walking disabilities, seizures, scoliosis and fluid buildup in the brain. Babies who don’t get enough folate can also get a cleft lip or cleft palate.

Even if a baby isn’t part of your new year plan, getting enough folic acid should be. It could be the best resolution you make.

To avoid accidents, children and their parents need to learn canine body language, and how human body language can be misinterpreted. For example, your first impulse when pursued by a menacing mutt might be to run, but in canine speak this says “chase after the prey.” Rather than taking to your heels, it’s better to stand still and look at your feet. This helps you avoid eye contact, which dogs find threatening.

Appropriate training — without harming the animal — is essential, so the dog understands its place in the pack under human leadership. So although we can’t talk to dogs like we do other people, we can communicate with them. And that’s the best way to turn predator pups into good canine citizens.

Through World War II, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the brave fighters of the canine corps risked their lives protecting others. Sadly, often their reward after years of selfless service was euthanasia. Fortunately, the Department of Defense is correcting this injustice and more military dogs are being adopted.

Some enter a working retirement, with service as a training or police dog. But many are adopted as faithful companions by their former handlers, families who have lost loved ones in combat or the general public.

The pension isn’t much, just room, board and a comfy sofa. But the warm hugs make up for it. These senior soldiers have earned their spot in the sun.

Observing finches, researchers noted that the song of one male elicited a burst of calls from other males. When the same song was jumbled up in various ways, some combinations elicited a burst of calls and some did not, suggesting perhaps that some song patterns didn’t make sense.

This is similar to a human sentence in which some word sequences can be understood grammatically, while others can’t. The scientists were even able to identify the language center in the avian brain, raising the possibility of using birds as models for speech processing in people. So it looks like even bird brains can talk.

Small dogs and cats left outdoors are relatively easy prey for ravenous raptors or peckish pumas trying to meet daily caloric needs. Similarly, coyotes, foxes and alligators aren’t picky about the lunch menu.

To protect our littlest family members, never leave pets outdoors unsupervised. Wild animals are unlikely to attack when people are around. And never feed your pet outdoors. Food attracts scavengers, and pets are less vigilant while they’re eating.

So enjoy nature, but take precautions to keep you and your tiny friends safe.

These canine volunteers lift spirits, encourage interaction and reduce stress. The dogs love it too, and tails really get going when it’s visit time.

But these uncanny canines also need to be prepared. They have to learn specific behaviors, such as ignoring dangerous objects and treading gingerly around walkers and wheelchairs. A calm outgoing personality is a must.

Anecdotal reports suggest that therapy visits elevate patients’ moods and lower blood pressure and stress. Canine intuition also plays a part, with dogs instinctively seeming to know what each patient needs. Maybe M.D. should also stand for mutt doctor?

To make it worse, chemicals in plants like buckwheat, as well as certain antibiotics, can lead to a condition called photosensitization, in which any sun exposure leads to a burn, even on pigmented skin.

As in people, signs of sunburn in horses include redness and peeling. Sunburned horses are often head shy, caused by the muzzle pain. Healing can take months.

Prevention is always best. It’s a good idea to avoid sun exposure by allowing grazing between dusk and dawn. Human sunscreens can help but only when applied ahead of exposure and reapplied as needed. Covers such as fly masks also offer some protection.

So play it cool in the summer sun to keep your trotter from becoming a lobster.

Selection becomes simpler when you remember that marketing efforts are actually focused on you and not on your pet. After all, your dog doesn’t really care if meal time looks like stew or is shaped like chicken legs.

What matters is the dietary quality, which takes into account not only nutritional content, but the origin of the ingredients and how they are formulated. Other important factors in choosing a diet include your pet’s activity level and stage of life, with youngsters and seniors having special nutritional requirements.

So your best bet is to discuss various pet food choices with your vet. He or she will steer you toward what’s good for your furry friend, not the marketer’s bottom line.

But not all bats maneuver the same way. There are a thousand different species. Some fly like butterflies, while others fly more like helicopters.

Researchers have learned that the control of this aerial diversity is driven by rows of tiny hairs found along the wings. Airflow against these sensory hairs tells the bat how to fly to optimize hunting within a particular habitat. But if that hair is removed with depilatory cream, these winged mammals have more difficulty gauging speed and controlling turns.

These findings have implications not just for bats but also for the control of tiny, aerial drones that are used for surveillance.

Our furry friends love to chew rocks, sticks, bones and clothing, with many items being swallowed whole or in parts. These inedible objects often smell like food or have the owner’s scent.

Any dogs can decide on a bad chew, but bigger dogs are more prone to problems because they tend to swallow larger things. Sharp objects can puncture the intestines, and any item can block the gut. Both are true emergencies that can be fatal if not treated promptly.

So, if your chewer shows signs of intense belly pain such as gagging, vomiting or retching, or if your pet assumes a sawhorse stance, see a veterinarian immediately — emergency surgery may be needed.

The best defense against sudden surgery is to substitute safe toys and chews for riskier ones. Your veterinarian can recommend safer snacks.

Wearing special masks, researchers banded and released crows at several sites near Seattle. This ruffled a lot of feathers, leading to angry caws and dive bombing by released birds. Such scolding behavior attracted other crows to join the angry mob.

Later, when the birds saw people simply donning the masks, they mobbed the wearer from up to a mile away, even crows that had never been captured. So far, these brainy birds have remembered the insult for five years and counting.

Scientists suspect that this type of social learning may be common among long-lived species in close contact with people. So if you tick off a crow, coyote, pigeon or rat, don’t plan on getting a love letter anytime soon.

This summer, Florida fishermen hauled in a 25-foot giant squid. This is by no means a record, as these sea creatures have been recorded to reach 60 feet long and weigh more than half a ton.

The new specimen resides with the Florida Museum of Natural History, and scientists from the University of Florida have preserved it for display and study. They’re hoping to learn more about these behemoths, which live in such deep water that they are rarely seen.

Given the freshness of the sample, scientists will try and extract DNA that may tell if giant squid are all one species, or many. Laboratory study should also reveal details about the biology of these mysterious ocean dwellers. Captain Nemo would be envious.

Sounds backward, right? The workday is already jam-packed with meetings, deadlines and emails. But researchers in the Netherlands say carving out a bit of time to get your body moving can help you work better and keep you healthier, meaning fewer sick days. As part of a study, they asked one group of workers to spend two-and-a-half hours a week exercising during work hours. Another group decreased their workday by the same amount but did not exercise. A third control group worked a normal 40-hour week.

The study found that all three groups maintained their normal level of productivity, but the exercise group actually increased their output and felt better while doing it, too. Considering that nearly two-thirds of adults don’t work out enough and about one-fourth of adults are not physically active at all, every little bit of exercise counts, too.

But if you can’t squeeze in a sweat session at work and your employer doesn’t provide a space for you to work out, you can still take steps to prevent a sedentary lifestyle. Take advantage of every opportunity to get your behind out of your seat. If possible, prop your monitor or laptop on a box so you can stand while you type. If you enjoy the luxury of a private office — or aren’t bashful about bettering your health — drop and do some pushups or squats every hour. Use the stairs instead of the elevator and take a walk during your lunch break.

You’ll come back feeling refreshed and ready to take on the afternoon’s workload. And if your boss catches on, you might just get the whole office to work out with you!

Dutch researchers looked at self-reported dietary information from more than 20,000 people taken over a one-year period. In the decade following, a little more than 200 people had strokes. The results, which were published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association, showed that the risk of stroke was 52 percent lower for those who noshed on apples and pears and lots of other white-fleshed fruits and vegetables like bananas, cauliflower, chicory and cucumbers. In fact, each 25 gram daily increase of white fruits and vegetables was linked with a 9 percent lower risk.

To put that in perspective, an apple is 120 grams of stroke-slashing sweetness.

The key, say scientists, is in the color. Focusing on the four main color groups of foods can steer you toward a healthful diet. Green includes dark leafy vegetables, peppers and lettuces; citrus fruits make up orange-yellow; red-purple includes berries and red vegetables, like beets; and of course, white. Nutritionists often advise “eating the rainbow” because color in the edible parts of fruits and veggies indicates the presence of disease-fighting phytochemicals.

While more research is needed, it’s hard to argue that you shouldn’t nosh on more fiber- and phytochemical-rich apples and pears. These winter fruits are perfect as a snack, mixed into salads and of course, baked into a scrumptious pie or tart. Enjoy a slice at the next holiday party knowing that a lot of fruit never hurt anyone — in fact, it could help you.

Researchers in Wisconsin set out to learn more about the relationship between toys and kids’ eating habits. Through their experiments, they found the desire for a toy — especially one missing from a collectible set — could influence children to choose a healthy meal of soup, mixed vegetables and milk.

For the study, eight-five preschoolers, ages 2 to 5, were shown cards that depicted meal combinations. One of the meal combinations was a personal pizza with lots of toppings, french fries and a soda. Another was the soup, veggies and milk. These cards were paired with three different options: no toy, a toy truck that was not part of a collectible set or a collectible toy monster.

According to their findings, the kids rated the meals with toys as more likeable than those without toys. The meals with a collectible toy were rated highest of all, no matter whether it was soup or pizza. When toys were taken out of the equation, the fatty food trumped the healthier choice.

Parents were on board with the concept of using toys to entice kids to make better choices. Seventy-three percent said they would support using the toys in such a manner, while 92 percent were strongly against the use of collectible toys in less healthy meals.

Meanwhile, bans on the use of toys by fast food restaurants have sprung up in California and are under consideration in New York and other cities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 17 percent of children ages 2 to 19 are obese. Are toys the best way to entice them to choose carrots over French fries? It remains to be seen, but it makes veggies look tastier to tots.

Case in point — the B-vitamin called folic acid. When pregnant women get enough, their babies have a 70 percent lower risk of developing neural tube defects. These are malformations of the tissue that eventually becomes the brain and spinal cord.

The best-known example is spina bifida, a condition where part of the baby’s spinal cord is exposed.

Neural tube defects occur in about 3,000 U.S. pregnancies each year. To address the problem, U.S. law requires many fortified grain products to contain extra folic acid.

That’s a great idea. But Hispanic women may not be benefiting enough. Their babies have a higher incidence of neural tube defects than babies in other ethnic groups.

A commentary published in the American Journal of Public Health suggests a simple way to help — adding folic acid to the corn flour called masa harina [MAH-sah ah-REE-nah]. In Latin American cultures, masa harina is used in tortillas, tamales and many other foods.

Previous research shows that compared with Caucasian or African-American women, Mexican-American women are more likely to consume the flour. In Mexico and some Central American countries, masa harina is already fortified with folic acid.

There hasn’t been much research on the results of this practice. Nonetheless, the study’s authors say that fortifying masa harina in the U.S. would make a difference. So they call upon food industry leaders, health care professionals and consumer advocacy groups to push for progress.

Meanwhile, if you often cook with masa harina, it might be worth taking a folic acid supplement.

It may not be as delicious as a fresh tortilla. But it’s a simple solution to a serious problem.