UF Health Podcasts

Perhaps you’ve tried getting more sleep or less screentime. Maybe you’re making a concerted effort to cut down on sugar, salt and other pleasant pantry amenities. If you’re feeling exhausted — and nothing is making a dent — it might be time to check your vitamin levels. Specifically, B12. Folate too.

A new study from Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan suggests low levels of these essential nutrients could be contributing to people’s long-lasting fatigue.

Folate, its own type of B vitamin, and B12, regulate the levels of homocysteine [homo-siss-teen] in your blood. High levels of this amino acid can negatively impact your arteries, creating blockages that incite issues like strokes. The right amount, though, results in less inflammation and better communication between cells.

The study looked at 600 adults in Japan, measuring levels of folate, B12, and homocysteine. Then, they analyzed their feelings of fatigue and motivation.

Male participants who had higher homocysteine levels — and proportionately lower vitamin levels — reported more physical fatigue. Elevated levels of homocysteine in female participants were linked to lower motivation.

Researchers said this could be the first report of its kind.

For those seeking to beef up their B12 levels, foods high in the vitamin include salmon, eggs, clams, Swiss cheese and chicken breast. Folate can be found in beans, asparagus, beets and Brussels sprouts. As always, it never hurts to eat a little bit of everything — it just might contain something your body needs.

And remember: Although we’re all tired, persistent fatigue that resists lifestyle changes for remedying is usually worth a call to your doctor.

If you believe the myth, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León discovered Florida in 1513 during a failed search for the Fountain of Youth.

Scientists, however, might finally have found those mythical waters.

A recent study by British researchers found that people who participate in cultural and artistic activities show signs of slower biological aging. Those activities include dancing, going to concerts, strolling through a museum and making art.

A greater variety and more frequent involvement in these activities produced a greater benefit.

The study controlled for factors that might accelerate aging, such as smoking, higher body weight and various lifestyle factors. What is particularly surprising is that the impact is about the same as the benefit seen from exercise.

Scientists suggest we have two ages. One is our chronological age — the number derived from our date of birth. It’s immutable. This number only gets larger, no matter how much you buff those muscles or eat your broccoli.

Biological age is different. Think of a car. If you’re an aggressive driver, your vehicle will show more wear and tear. The odometer says 15,000 miles. The dents and bald tires make it look like it just passed 100,000.

The human body is the same. Researchers can estimate biological aging through blood tests that track chemical changes in DNA. In this case, study investigators used data from the United Kingdom’s large Household Longitudinal Study. They analyzed information from 3,557 adults.

Culture and the arts, the study notes, promote social connections, stimulate the brain and relieve stress, which are known to benefit health.

The Fountain of Youth isn’t a place. It’s a state of mind.

Voting makes for a healthy democracy. It also might lead to a longer life.

A recent study published in the Journals of Gerontology: Series B followed about 7,700 people who were in their mid-60s at the time of the 2008 election. They compared those who voted with those who did not, tracking who had died at five, 10- and 15-year intervals.

The study found that voters experienced a lower risk of dying at each of those three timeframes, compared with non-voters. Individuals who voted had a 45% lower risk of dying after five years.

They also had a 37% lower risk of death after 10 years, and a 29% lower risk at 15 years. Scientists adjusted for a number of factors, including a person’s socioeconomic status, civic engagement, health and demographics.

The longevity benefit persisted regardless of whether someone voted in person or by mail. A person’s political party also appeared to play no role in the association.

Researchers report that people struggling with their health boasted a particularly strong association with survival at the 15-year mark.

The study doesn’t say with certainty why voters might live longer. But researchers have a few ideas.

Studies have shown that civic engagement, social connections and a sense of purpose in life all play a role in healthy aging. Engaging in activities beyond one’s own self-interest keeps the heart beating. Voting checks that box.

The study is observational, which means that scientists can’t prove cause and effect. The association, however, is eye-opening.

So, on Election Day, you’re not just casting a ballot for a candidate. You’re also voting for your own good health.

Five, six, seven, eight.

A new type of Parkinson’s treatment is making strides in Argentina: the tango. Each week, one hospital in Buenos Aires welcomes 100-plus people to participate in a group dance workshop aimed at introducing movements patients can employ in their everyday lives.

While beloved for its social and cultural significance, the country’s national dance form is also celebrated in medical contexts for its unique ability to treat mobility, coordination and balance impairments commonly experienced by Parkinson’s patients.

In a recent article, a neurologist unpacked the specific strengths of tango, explaining how the dance uses the very movements Parkinson’s patients often struggle to execute. When patients tango, they simultaneously handle motor, visual and auditory stimuli, which translates to improved everyday functioning.

A sidestep movement might enable a patient to open a refrigerator door, for example, while a torso rotation could help them pivot while washing dishes. The act of shifting weight between feet could allow them to step onto curbs or through doorways with greater ease.

The dance could also improve gait issues through its inherent pausing and short step pattern. Walking backward is particularly difficult for Parkinson’s patients as they tend to fall backward upon losing their balance. Regularly practicing this motion in tango, however, can enhance their agility.

Initiatives like these reveal the importance of integrating the arts with healthcare. Engaging in creative acts like these might contribute to enhanced emotional, social and physical well-being … even for those of us who don’t like dancing.

Health scientists have understood the role T cells play in the body for more than 60 years.

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes [Sigh-toe-toxic T lymph-oh-sites] are part of the immune system. You can think of them as the body’s most specialized fighters, like the Army’s Delta Force.

Now, Swiss researchers have found a way to see the mechanisms in three dimensions and much better detail.

T cells are key to health. They kill cells infected with viruses and bacteria, and they can flat-out destroy a tumor cell. They also serve as the immune’s system memory, recalling pathogens long after exposure so the body can rapidly fight them off.

Pretty handy, right?

Swiss researchers knew that scientists often face trouble trying to examine T cells because traditional imaging methods can distort delicate cell components. They often had to choose between high resolution, a large field of view or keeping cell structures intact.

The Swiss team chose an advanced method called cryo-expansion microscopy: In short, they froze the samples so fast that no crystals formed. Then they used a hydrogel to expand the samples, making it possible to see cells’ internal structure.

Putting frozen T cells and tumor cells together, they discovered that a membrane quickly forms between the two, creating a dome where the hero cells take action. The team also examined cytotoxic granules — T cells’ ammo, if you will — with better clarity than ever before.

While it may mean little to a layman, for immunologists, understanding what makes immune attacks on cancer successful or not is big. And that could mean everything to future patients.

Picture a woman in her 80s. She tells you a story about the time her family adopted a dog from the local animal shelter. It was an unseasonably cold day; she wore a blue sweater. Though this was 30 years ago, she remembers it like it was yesterday.

And, according to a group of researchers at Northwestern University, she really might.

While not quite superheroes, “SuperAgers” are people 80 years and older who maintain a mental acuity on par with peers who are several decades their junior. A team from Northwestern has been studying this population for the past 25 years in hopes they might better understand how these cohort’s habits and genetics confer such acuity and mental lucidity.

Though SuperAgers tend to have some common personality traits, like being socially outgoing, their brains boast a “distinct” neurobiological profile. Their brains act younger, but also reflect it structurally — there is little-to-no thinning of the brain’s outer layer.

SuperAger brains also demonstrate a resistance and a resilience to the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s. This means that not only did some folks not develop the buildup of plaque to begin with, but those who did were not impacted by it. Researchers hope the findings from studying this group could help us learn more about what impacts cognitive aging and how to combat diseases like dementia.

Aside from it being just plain cool, the SuperAgers challenge an assumption that with age comes decline. Maintaining active relationships, and finding ways to keep your brain engaged, continue to be best practices. After all, while it’s possible many of us will age without a superlative, there are plenty of ways to do so gracefully.

For those of us with high cholesterol, there are two options: changing your diet, or opting for a statin. Some of us might need to do both. Though medications have come a long way, there are those among us who would prefer to be able to eat as much sharp cheddar as they can without suffering any cardiac consequences or dealing with some of the side effects of statins.

A new therapy might be able to help with the latter.

Researchers from the University of Barcelona and the University of Oregon are focusing on a specific protein responsible for regulating how your body processes “bad” cholesterol. When production of this protein is quelled, your cells can absorb more of the lipids bobbing along your bloodstream, which decreases the amount circulating in your arteries that typically leads to fatty plaque buildup.

Thus far, researchers have tested this mechanism — introducing a kind of DNA molecule called a polypurine hairpin to shut down production of this protein — in lab-grown liver cells and in mice, finding it more cost-effective to synthesize. This might also avoid the muscle pain common to statins.

As of 2025, just under 94 million 20 years or older have what is considered borderline high cholesterol. While it might seem like something that can wait, prolonged high cholesterol severely increases your chance of heart attacks and strokes. Early testing, like getting a lipid panel, is key to knowing whether you might need to make some lifestyle changes such as tweaking your diet or pursuing medication.

In the meantime, we’ll keep hoping for a medication that lets us eat as much cheese as we like.

Some days, you wake up on the right side of the bed.

A new study from researchers in Canada indicates that simply feeling sharp can snowball into a day of efficiency, reaping a tidy extra 40 minutes of productivity.

In the study, researchers tracked participants for 12 weeks. Their goal? To better understand an evergreen tenant of humanity: trouble following through with plans.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, on days when people felt mentally alert, they were not only more likely to make a list of tasks to accomplish but also to complete them.

The study participants were college students who completed daily tests that measured how quickly and accurately they could think. Questions included their sleep, goals and general workload.

On days when students woke up feeling sharp, they completed more of their to-do list. When they felt hazier, it became harder to finish routine tasks, putting the productivity “gap” between their best and worst days to around 80 minutes of work.

Thankfully, researchers emphasized that how mentally sharp you feel varies from day-to-day, meaning that you’ll have the opportunity to get more sleep than usual — which was associated with better performance earlier in the day.

By contrast, putting your nose to the grindstone only works sparingly. Your productivity can increase for a single day of extra hours, then levels off if it’s extended. This, researchers believe, lowers mental acuity and makes it harder to keep working.

For those looking to improve their mental sharpness, the study offered a couple tips: Get enough sleep and avoid burnout as best as you can.

For farmers, gardeners and agricultural enterprises, pesticides present a solution to the problem of a centuries-old conflict between insects and crops. World populations continue to grow, and the climate in which we produce food is becoming increasingly tricky to navigate.

Now, new research from scientists in France and Peru suggests living in environments with a heavy use of pesticides might quietly wreak havoc on cells years before any signs of cancer appear.

Scientists chose to study populations in Peru due to the country’s heavy emphasis on agriculture across its different climates and ecosystems. Pesticide concentrations in certain rural communities run high, and cancer is a public health concern. They tracked 31 common pesticides, none of which are classified as known carcinogens by the World Health Organization.

After comparing distribution patterns to data from more than 150,000 cancer patients, scientists noticed a pattern: Areas with higher environmental pesticides use showed elevated rates of certain cancers, increasing an individual’s likelihood of developing the disease by 150%.

Historically, understanding how people are impacted by pesticides in everyday situations has been difficult due to a couple factors: the way these chemicals are “layered,” and the way in which we encounter them.

Although previous research has tested the individual safety of certain chemicals on people, the reality of how you might encounter them in the world is more difficult to approximate — challenging the established ways in which we evaluate what we consider to be chemically safe.

While we won’t trot out the tired adage detailing how women are from Venus and men are from Mars, there is no denying differences between the two sexes. And, beyond stereotypical quirks distinct to both populations, there are often very real variations in the way health conditions play out over time — like in the case of obesity.

According to new research from the European Association for the Study of Obesity, women display higher levels of inflammation and cholesterol, while men tend to develop risky abdominal fat and signs of liver stress.

In the case of women, widespread inflammation can increase their chances of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. For men, the belly fat is considered a kind of visceral fat — one known for enveloping organs and increasing the risk of metabolic conditions and heart problems. Researchers suggest these differences are impacted by hormones, fat distribution and immune system activity.

In short: Obesity’s impacts are good for neither. Understanding these differences, though, might pave the way for researchers to look toward therapies that are targeted and differentiated by sex, testing their findings in larger populations and how it all comes back to clinical risk.

It’s an evergreen issue, after all; in 2023, an estimated 1.5 billion adults across the world were contending with some kind of metabolic syndrome, which is a term for a family of conditions that raise the risk of a person experiencing a stroke, heart problems and diabetes.

In some ways, it’s reassuring to know that many of us are dealing with our weight, regardless of which planet we’re from … but good health is a universal boon.