Health Sciences In The Media

The latest COVID-19 surge appears to be slowing — especially in the highly vaccinated portions of Apache and Navajo county. However, public health experts worry that the new, far-more infectious delta strain has spread rapidly among children — unlike the strains responsible for the last big peak in January. Dr. Joe Gerald, MD, PhD, associate professor of public health policy and management at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, has reported a “profound” change in the number of kids getting infected by the Delta variant.

A feature on a cancer survivor references the involvement of sarcoma specialist James Warneke, MD, a professor in the Department of Surgery at the College of Medicine – Tucson, in the patient's treatment.

Antibody levels—one of the easiest immune metrics to measure—slip downward over the course of several months, before roughly leveling off. That’s perfectly normal, Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, told me. “You have a big increase at the beginning, then a decline.” Consider the alternative: If humans never quieted any of the immunological furor that follows infections and simply kept accumulating antibodies for every pathogen we came across, we’d all have burst a long time ago.

Many in the U.S. are still swayed by misinformation, but the latest numbers suggest that over time, trust in science is growing. Even then, it’s important to remember that “vaccines are one of the best strategies we have, but it’s not a risk eliminator. It’s a risk reducer," said Saskia Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, an infectious disease epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Seeking to unravel the biological complexities of this increased risk, Roberta Diaz Brinton, director of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center for Innovation in Brain Science and Regents Professor of Pharmacology, has been awarded a $15.1 million grant from the National Institutes on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health. The grant will allow Brinton to continue research to reveal the transformations in the brain that occur during female midlife aging that lead to greater risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Racial disparities aside, researchers are working hard to unravel what might be driving increases in colorectal cancer among Gen Xers and millennials, looking at everything from heightened exposure to pesticides and hormone-mimicking chemicals in the environment, to early overuse of antibiotics, to lack of vitamin D-generating sunlight. “There are so many different candidates, and there is a lot of speculation in the field,” says Nathan Ellis, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Arizona Cancer Center who studies colon cancer risk.

High levels of community spread, a category that currently engulfs almost the entire state of Arizona, puts everyone at some risk, though unvaccinated people not wearing a mask face the most serious risks. "They have no protection against the virus," said Farshad Fani Marvasti, MD, an associate professor and director of the public health, prevention and health promotion curriculum at the College of Medicine – Phoenix.

In Arizona and around the United States, hospitals are noticing a shortage in the number of nurses available to work around the clock to care for both COVID-19 patients and those with other conditions. Betty Parisek , EdD, MSN, RN, a clinical assistant professor with the College of Nursing and the program director of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing Integrative Health (BSN-IH), hopes the holistic approach taught by the BSN-IH program will be a great start towards a greater number of qualified nurses in the time to come.

Michael Grandner, PhD, the director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the College of Medicine – Tucson, shares tips for getting a good night's sleep.

UArizona researchers Altaf Engineer, PhD, and Esther Sternberg, MD, a professor of medicine at the College of Medicine – Tucson and director of research at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, say the pandemic has forced employers to think about how office spaces can reduce employees' stress and enhance their well-being. The researchers are the lead authors of a new paper that aims to be the go-to guide for architects, planners and others in the building industry for designing spaces that help improve people's emotional well-being and physical health.