UF professor discovers treatment plan for nut addiction
A UF professor discovered possible treatments for a nut addiction.
Roger Papke, a UF College of Medicine researcher and professor, said the betel nuts are dangerous and can cause oral cancer. He found that people who regularly chew them become addicted to them.
“This is an insidious and endemic problem affecting more people than a tsunami,” Papke said.
Natives of India, parts of China and Southeast Asia have been chewing betel nuts for thousands of years and suffer from damaged immune systems, according to Papke’s journal in the Public Library of Science.
He said the question people should be asking about the nut addiction isn’t what it is, but why people are addicted to it.
Papke and his research team discovered betel nuts affect the same nicotine receptors in people’s brains as cocaine and cigarettes, and they hijack the natural rewards system. It controls the release of the dopamine chemical, which makes people happy.
Medicines, like the nicotine-replacement drug Chantix, are already being developed for betel nut-addiction treatment. These drugs fill in the gap nicotine leaves in the brain and helps the withdrawals.
“For the first time ever, this suggests an approach for treating betel nut addiction,” Papke said.
Papke said he wants to educate people about the possibility of treating the addiction in the same way tobacco addictions are treated.
“We need to get our thoughts out of the clouds,” Papke said. “Just because it’s a third-world problem doesn’t mean we shouldn’t react.”
- Kendaline Watt
UF professor researches South Florida’s rare bat
UF researchers examine bats all year, not just around Halloween.
Holly Ober, a UF wildlife ecology and conservation associate professor, found the rarest bat species, the Florida Bonneted, in South Florida.
This Fall, she’s analyzing where they live.
Ober said she has always been interested in the Florida bonneted bat, but there wasn’t any money to do research until the bat was listed as an endangered species in 2013.
The bat lives only in South Florida. Ober said she and the other UF researchers are using technology to listen to the noise the bats make to track down their exact locations.
“Finding out where they live is important for conservation,” Ober said. “Bats are very important in controlling insects, and without them, we would have a very different world with so many more buys flying around.”
Robert McCleery, a UF wildlife ecology and conservation associate professor, works with Ober. He said his research entails trying to understand the bonneted bat’s distribution throughout South Florida.
McCleery said there is concern for these bats because there aren’t any natural roosts for them to hang on at night. Recently, they were found living under roofs and palm trees.
“They are a Florida endemic and part of Florida’s natural heritage,” he said. “And there is very little known about this bat.”
- Sara Perlman
