UTMB News Articles

Where a person lives can influence their recovery from a traumatic brain injury, according to a new study by UTMB’s Dr. Monique Pappadis and a team of researchers. “The intricate relationship between healthcare access and community socioeconomic factors necessitates sophisticated strategies to increase equity,” the research team concluded.

While Vitamin A has an important role in supporting the immune system, it is no substitute for a vaccine, write Drs. Megan Berman and Richard Rupp in their Vaccine Smarts column.

In recent years, the simple act of gardening has gained recognition not only for its aesthetic appeal but also for its remarkable health benefits, writes Dr. Hasan Yasin in his column for the Daily News.

UTMB’s Dr. Natacha Cough spoke to NPR about what astronauts go through when they return to earth after an extended stay in outer space. "Your inner ear kind of shuts off more or less in weightlessness," Chough told NPR. "So when you reintroduce that sense of gravity, it can be a little bit disorienting." Along with her role as an assistant professor in aerospace medicine at UTMB, Cough is also a NASA flight surgeon and part of the team that oversees astronaut health care.

“For me, it has been the relentless focus on our values and culture,” Dr. Jochen Reiser, UTMB President and CEO of the UTMB Health System, tells Becker’s. Reiser was among the 36 C-suite executives Becker’s spoke to about lessons learned in the past year.

Becker’s also spoke to UTMB’s Dr. Salim Hayek for a separate story on lessons learned over the past year. “The most profound lesson I’ve learned is that our traditional RVU-centric physician compensation models are fundamentally misaligned with academic medicine’s multi-faceted mission — they’re financially unsustainable and directly contribute to the high proportion of low-value care in our health systems,” Hayek told Becker’s.

Quickly and accurately identifying which microbe is causing a patient’s disease is key to developing the proper treatment, write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their weekly Medical Discovery News column.

Dr. Salim Hayek also spoke to Becker’s about physician compensation. “Transforming compensation systems requires both acknowledging this anxiety and demonstrating through clear data how the current approach undermines our core academic mission of patient care, education and research,” Hayek said.

“Some cardiologists, not all, have been reluctant to agree with testosterone replacement therapy because of that black box warning,” UTMB’s Dr. Thomas Blackwell told Medscape Medical News for a story on labeling changes. “With that being removed, you are going to see a big roadblock taken away so that more men can benefit from testosterone therapy.”

"We're really trying to come up with something that was more practical, easier to use, that could be used to help prevent, control, and contain outbreaks," says UTMB’s Dr. Thomas Geisbert. He and his team published research that shows the antiviral Obeldesivir could protect against an Ebola infection. This news was shared widely across the globe including in France 24, Gizmodo, Yahoo!news and others.

"Certainly, good nutrition can promote a healthy immune system, and it's a good idea for everyone to try to maintain good nutrition, but it's certainly not a substitute for vaccination," Dr. Scott Weaver tells ABC News. The U.S. measles outbreak continues to grow even as some tout unproven remedies such as vitamin A and cod liver oil.

Not only does Vitamin A not provide protection against measles, but getting measles in the hopes of strengthening your immune system does not work either, Dr. Scott Weaver tells ScienceNews. “It actually interferes with your immune system in the short run,” Weaver said. “If you’re infected by a [measles] virus without being vaccinated, the infection suppresses your immune response for typically a few months to a few years, and that can lead to you being more vulnerable to secondary infections.”

In his column, Dr. Samuel Mathis wrote about the health benefits of hiking.

"I'm concerned that people think that vitamin A or other nutrition is a substitute for vaccination to prevent infection and to prevent spread," UTMB’s Dr. Scott Weaver tells NPR. Two people have died in the West Texas/New Mexico measles outbreak and infectious disease doctors are worried about the spread of misinformation on online and from the federal government, NPR reports.

Dr. Scott Weaver also spoke the Dallas Morning News about the West Texas measles outbreak. “What’s particularly bad about the measles virus is that it damages or destroys a lot of our immune cells that maintain our immune memory,” Weaver said.