UTMB News Articles

The acidity of lemon juice can stimulate digestive enzymes, which can aid in digestion and nutrient absorption, indirectly supporting liver function, says UTMB’s Dr. Samuel Mathis in this report on liver health.

UTMB’s School of Nursing was listed among the 47 best nursing master’s programs in the U.S. by Money, a personal finance website. Programs were ranked on quality, affordability and value, writes Becker’s.

The UTMB One Health Laboratory is working on an ongoing epidemiological study of respiratory viruses on livestock farms across the United States and Mexico, reports Farms.com. The UTMB One Health team is trusted by ranchers and farms and is able to work with them “to provide real-time surveillance of pathogens circulating among livestock and farm workers,” the article states.

Even with vaccines, “we may not be able to put out this fire,” UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray tells Ars Technica for this in-depth article on H5N1. Gray says the virus is likely to “be endemic, or we say ‘enzootic,’ for a long time.”

With declining vaccination rates in some communities, public health experts worry that rubella could resurface, write Drs. Megan Berman and Richard Rupp in their Vaccine Smarts column. While rubella has been eliminated in the U.S., it could easily be reintroduced.

In the U.S. there are close to 3 million infections by bacterial antimicrobial resistance resulting in almost 50,000 annual deaths, write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their weekly Medical Discovery News column. The problem is that microbes are increasingly becoming resistant to current antibiotics and if things don’t change, AR microbial infections will become harder to treat.

The Galveston County Daily News society reporter was on hand for the UTMB Health President’s Cabinet Award Celebration & Member Appreciation Reception last month. During the rodeo themed event, the six newest programs supported by the President’s Cabinet were introduced.

Murine typhus, once largely eradicated in the U.S., is on the rise, warns the CDC. UTMB’s Dr. Lucas Blanton told Medpage he’s seen many cases of murine typhus and patients tell him the headaches associated can be "the worst of one's life." Blanton urged medical professionals to not delay treatment for patients suspected of having the disease.

“We know that weight loss generally has a positive effect on testosterone levels and sexual function, and as it turned out, the data showed the exact opposite,” Dr. Joseph Sonstein told Australian Men’s Health. Sonstein was an author on a study that found that men who took semaglutide for weight loss, but not diabetes, were more likely to develop erectile dysfunction.

Dr. Gregory Gray joined the Texas Standard to discuss the latest bird flu development – its jump to sheep in the UK. “Well, it’s odd in the sense that there’s been so many spillovers to new species, so the viruses have adapted characteristics that make that possible,” Gray said.

In his column, Dr. Samuel Mathis wrote about the health benefits of ginger. Along with calming the stomach, ginger also affects metabolism and glucose control, Mathis writes.

As part of its dedication to enhanced professionalism and law enforcement excellence in public safety and community relations, the University of Texas Medical Branch Police Department voluntarily became a Nationally Accredited Law Enforcement Agency through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) in 2012.

New research has overturned the scientific belief that the brain is a sterile place devoid of microbes, write Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in their weekly Medical Discovery News column. Scientists now estimate that more than 170 different bacteria and viruses could be present in the brain.