UF Health Podcasts

Ticks are truly annoying pests, but the real danger lies in the diseases they spread. One is anaplasmosis [anna-plaz-MOH-sis], a potentially fatal bacterial disease that can affect both dogs and people. And because of expanding tick populations, anaplasmosis is spreading to more areas, too.

Depending on the specific organism that infects a dog, symptoms may range from fever, joint pain and loss of appetite to uncontrollable bleeding. It’s important to contact your veterinarian if your dog is showing suspicious signs or has come in contact with ticks. Fortunately, treatment with doxycycline is usually effective — particularly early on in the illness.

That said, prevention is better than a cure. That includes using a year-round tick preventative and checking your pooch for ticks after they’ve been outside.

The country recently marked 20 years since the heartbreak of Hurricane Katrina.

Back then, people were told to evacuate and leave their pets behind. It’s tough to say just how many pets were abandoned but estimates range from thousands to hundreds of thousands. Rescue vehicles and shelters often refused pets, so nearly half of the 200,000 people who stayed behind did it for an animal. There’s no telling how many of them perished.

Since then, Congress passed the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Safety Act, which authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide rescue, care, shelter and essential needs for household pets and service animals following major disasters.

Since Katrina, the dynamic has changed: if you evacuate, take your pet with you.

It’s a routine we’re all familiar with: Spring forward, fall back. Daylight saving time. Most people enjoy it a little more in the fall when they gain an extra hour. In the spring, it makes us all sleepier.

A new study, however, suggests toying with time in this way might worsen our health.

The basic idea of advancing the clocks an hour in the spring is that it makes better use of the longer periods of sunlight we enjoy in the summer.

Germany was the first nation to adopt the measure in 1916 to conserve fuel during World War I. The United States followed two years later to save energy and to extend the workday. Daylight saving time was suspended after the war, but reemerged during the Second World War.

It became a permanent fixture in American life.

Now, a Stanford University study shows that ditching these biannual clock changes could result in fewer cases of stroke and obesity. That’s because the time shifts upset our internal circadian clocks.

Every cell has a circadian clock that tunes our bodies to the Earth’s rotation. Depending on the time of day, this cellular timepiece affects blood pressure, body temperature and hormones, and influences a range of daily functions. Jet lag is an example of a malfunctioning circadian clock.

The Stanford researchers used mathematical models that analyzed light exposure, circadian rhythms and health outcomes to estimate how getting rid of the time changes would impact the nation.

They found it would lead to a reduction of 2.6 million cases of obesity in the U.S. annually. Strokes would fall by an estimated 307,000. It might also lessen other ills.

When you put it that way, it’s tempting to wish time would just stand still.

As the days shorten and our yearning for caffeine increases, you might find yourself hoping some study or other will give you a hearty congratulations on your ability to cut your coffee consumption off at about three cups.

Today, you’re in luck — researchers from the Endocrine Society have good news for coffee lovers.

Their team found that moderate intake of coffee or caffeine was linked to a lower risk of new-onset cardiometabolic multimorbidity, or the simultaneous existence of at least two preventable, often chronic types of disease.

Known for short as CM, the condition is becoming more prevalent around the world as populations age, and can include diseases like Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Think of them as the illnesses that can be circumvented through lifestyle, diet and exercise.

Using data from a detailed, longitudinal dietary study with over 500,000 participants ages 37 to 73, researchers found that folks who drank a moderate amount of coffee — defined as three drinks per day — had a 48.1% lower risk for new-onset CM compared with those who didn’t drink coffee. They found similar results when they examined caffeine.

In fact, moderate intake of caffeine or coffee was inversely associated with any developmental stage of the condition.

Researchers said more study is warranted to better understand the path from coffee, tea and caffeine intake to the metabolites connected to them and then to disease.

No one is suggesting you blow your budget — or your nerves — on too much joe. But for those of you who look forward to second and third coffee refills, your habit’s not likely to hurt your health.

What would you do if you could make yourself taller? Height has its perks. You might become a more formidable defender in your weekly pickup game. Or look a smidge more like a model. You could finally reach that last, elusive item on the top shelf at the grocery store.

As it happens, some people will go to great lengths to gain a few inches.

Limb-lengthening surgery, or cosmetic stature lengthening as some surgeons call it, is growing in popularity. That’s despite the procedure being excruciating, requiring heavy medication, a long recovery and intense physical therapy.

Even when the surgery succeeds, patients can end up with an altered gait, stiffness or chronic nerve damage. Muscles and nerves can stretch farther than they should. Infection is a risk.

Here’s how the surgery works, according to an anatomy professor from the University of Bristol: Surgeons cut through either the femur (that’s the thigh bone), or the tibia (your shin bone). Telescopic rods are placed inside the bone, where they are ever-so-slowly pulled apart over time by external magnetic controls.

The surgery can help a patient “grow” about 3 inches in stature. Some organizations tout bigger gains, but each fraction of an inch brings more risk.

While more are having the surgery, which was devised in the 1950s and is more often used to correct badly healed fractures and congenital deformities, it is not yet common. Some clinics in the U.S. and South Korea perform 200 surgeries a year.

Surgeons report mostly younger men seeking out the surgery.

For now, there remains little consensus among doctors about the procedure. And little data to show whether patients are truly happier, when all is said and done.

October 31 is Halloween and Dr. Jim Wellehan is embracing spooky season for Animal Airwaves Live. An expert on the evolution and ecology of nondomestic animal pathogens, with an emphasis on molecular diagnostics and pathogen discovery, Wellehan will talk about bat pathogens, the evolution of infectious diseases and the overall clinical impacts of those diseases on wildlife animals, populations and ecosystems. Despite the bad rap that bats get for their association with disease outbreaks, he’ll explain the important role bats play in supporting agriculture, their history of co-existing with viruses and how flight patterns and adapting to new pathogens have been factors in their evolution.

What if your kid’s Halloween candy was healthier and better for the environment? Swiss researchers may have made that fantasy more viable with their creation of “whole-fruit chocolate.”

We all know chocolate is a guilty pleasure. The chocolate that fills trick-or-treaters buckets is high in sugar and saturated fat and contributes to obesity and heart disease. Cocoa production also poses a threat to the environment as deforestation leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions.

But researchers found a way to address these concerns, repurposing parts of the cocoa pod that are typically thrown away. Instead of just using cocoa beans, they also used the cocoa pod husk and pulp to form a gel they mixed with the cocoa mass to create chocolate.

They call their technique “whole-fruit chocolate.”

The researchers found that using the discarded ingredients provided significant nutritional benefits. The gel, which makes up 20% of the researchers’ proposed chocolate formula, provides comparable sweetness while allowing them do away with sugar beets used in conventional chocolate.

The formula also boasts higher dietary fiber and less saturated fat.

Taste-testers found little difference between the taste of whole-fruit chocolate and conventional chocolate.

Researchers also found that large-scale production of this healthier chocolate could reduce global warming by decreasing land use.

It may take time for whole-fruit chocolate to become an Oct. 31 staple.

But if it does, perhaps you won’t need to be as concerned for your kids’ health — or their teeth — when they bring home a bucket of this new candy.

We all know sleep is important. But for bodybuilders and teens alike, it’s something akin to a secret weapon for growth — literally. Deep, restful sleep triggers a surge of growth hormone, fueling muscle and bone development, fat burning, and can even help bodies grow tall. But why does missing out on sleep disrupt this process?

A new study from UC Berkeley maps out the brain circuits that control growth hormone release during sleep, helping the team understand the findings’ broad implications for metabolic, cognitive and neurological health.

After studying brain circuitry in mice, researchers determined that growth hormone doesn’t just help build bodies — it also helps regulate blood sugar and burn fat, and it even plays a role in keeping your brain alert and focused.

But the system runs on a dime. Two hormones – growth hormone releasing hormone, or GHRH, and somatostatin [so·​mato·​stat·​in] – influence growth hormone during an individual’s REM and non-REM phases of sleep. During deep non-REM sleep, only GHRH’s level rises, nudging growth hormone into action. In REM sleep, by contrast, both hormones surge, further amplifying the effect of growth hormone.

Notably, growth hormone feeds back into a brain region called the locus coeruleus (se-Roo-lee-iss), which governs attention, arousal and cognition. Too little sleep lowers growth hormone. But too much growth hormone can actually nudge your brain toward wakefulness.

The takeaway? Sleep and growth hormone are in a delicate yin-yang dance, driving not just physical growth and repair, but also metabolic and cognitive function. So next time you’re tempted to sacrifice sleep, remember: The payoff extends far beyond your pillow.

Humans have had their hands in the proverbial honey jar for millennia.

There’s just something about the sticky sweetness, wonderful golden color and rich flavor that keeps us coming back for more. Honey’s health benefits have long been explored, with evidence of honey being used for therapeutic purposes in ancient Greece and ancient Egypt.

Even after thousands of years, we are still discovering ways honey can benefit humans. Scientists also continue to better understand how important a healthy gut microbiome is in preventing chronic diseases, promoting mental health and aiding in a healthy immune system.

These two topics coalesced recently as a pair of new studies offered evidence that clover honey, when added to yogurt, can help promote gut health.

So, how does it work?

When we eat yogurt, live probiotic cultures contained in the food undertake a treacherous journey as they weather the harsh environments of the mouth, stomach and intestines. Many of these microscopic organisms will never reach their destination.

But researchers discovered that one to two teaspoons of clover honey, when added to a serving of yogurt, seemed to create a more hospitable environment for the probiotics, allowing more of them to make it safely to the gut.

The levels of enzymes, sugars and antioxidants in clover honey seem to offer an added layer of protection for the probiotics. Researchers did point out that honey is an added sugar, so we should be mindful of how much of it we consume.

But all things considered, adding honey to a yogurt treat seems like a pretty sweet deal.

In recent years, science has inked a dotted line from the smoggy phenomenon of air pollution to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Now, new findings suggest the less-than-savory air may do more than that — it might actually speed up the course of the disease.

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania examined brain tissue from over 600 people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

What they found was striking.

People who had lived just one year in areas with high concentrations of fine particulate matter in the air showed significantly more buildup of amyloid plaques and tau (pronounced TOW) proteins, two biological signatures of Alzheimer’s. Those same individuals also experienced steeper declines in memory, judgment and everyday functioning, including speech difficulty and impaired ability to care for themselves.

The study linked even an increase smaller than what is visible to the naked eye in particulate matter 2.5 to a 19% higher risk of worsened disease. For reference, PM 2.5 is about half as thick as one strand of spider’s web. Common sources of these ultrafine particulates are difficult to avoid, as they include common byproducts of modern life like car exhaust and industrial emissions, as well as natural disasters like wildfires (and their commensurate smoke). They are tiny enough to bypass the lungs and enter the bloodstream, creating a cascade of health concerns.

While earlier research has tied PM 2.5 to dementia and cognitive decline, this study is the first to link it directly to the brain damage seen in Alzheimer’s. It’s a sobering reminder that where we live matters — not just for our lungs, but for our minds.