Health Sciences In The Media

Michael D.L. Johnson, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of immunobiolgy at the College of Medicine – Tucson, talks about his research and how certain metals can be used to kill bacteria.

Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, a professor and immunobiologist at the College of Medicine – Tucson, says a booster shot may offer a little extra protection against getting sick and having to stay to recover, but it's still unknown how long this extra protection will last. "The question sort of becomes, when do we need a booster versus when do we want one. I think that's the distinction we need to have right now," Bhattacharya says.

Health experts say there shouldn’t be any concern about getting both the COVID vaccine and a flu shot at the same time. “The immune system is pretty good at handling multiple things at once,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, a professor of immunobiology at the College of Medicine – Tucson. He noted how children often receive multiple vaccines at visits to their pediatrician.

Roberta Diaz Brinton, PhD, director of the Center for Innovation in Brain Science, discusses her research and the role of estrogen in preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

Since the flu and COVID-19 are both respiratory illnesses, there has been speculation that having one illness makes you more likely to develop the other — and that having both at once could increase the chance of serious outcomes. “There is not enough data to answer questions whether the effects of both diseases are cumulative, whether the risk of mortality is higher, or how” the development of either disease might be different than when someone is affected by only one," said Purnima Madhivanan, PhD, an associate professor in Health Promotion Sciences at the Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

There is widespread agreement about the importance of improving fitness levels for the management of obesity, as advocated by the fat-but-fit approach. However, there are concerns among the scientific and medical community about the degree of emphasis on weight loss and other factors associated with obesity. “It is important to recognize obesity is a multidimensional health issue with multifactorial contributors. Thus, being physically active is not a license to maintain a poor diet or to ignore other contributors to obesity. Other contributors to obesity may include issues with sleep, certain medications, the microbiome, and many more,” said Jennifer Bea, PhD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Health Sciences.

A new University of Arizona Health Sciences Workforce Education and Training Program has been designed to help people impacted by opioid and substance use disorders. In the state of Arizona, 31 out of every 1,000 children are affected by the opioid crisis that is ravaging the nation. A new training program, known as PeerWORKS, hopes to change that.

Health professionals say our indoor-dominant lives are costing us, and are prescribing time in contact with natural elements to offset this deficit. “The power of nature is being used widely in the integrative medicine community both through activity, diet, surroundings as well as herbal medicine,” said Ann Marie Chiasson, MD, MPH, CCFP, associate professor of clinical medicine at the College of Medicine – Tucson and fellowship director with the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.

“This winter might mark a different turning point,” said Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. Instead of the end of the pandemic and the start of an endemic, this winter might introduce us to a different, and unsettling, stage. One where we are no longer in lockdown but learning to treat a deadly virus as a normal part of our lives.

Over a dozen College of Medicine – Phoenix students are going to be taking a very close two-year look at community needs in Tonto Basin. Judith Hunt, MD, site director for the College of Medicine – Phoenix program in Rim Country, has been practicing medicine and training medical students and residents in the rural community of Payson, Arizona, for nearly 22 years. Her classroom is 100 miles north of the downtown Phoenix. “The best part of rural medicine is the care of the community. There is nothing that I would trade for being able to see a baby that I helped care for throughout the years, now married with their own children. It’s just amazing to be a part of that young person’s life all the way through.”