University of Florida News

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Starting to diet seems to double the odds a teenage girl will begin smoking, a University of Florida study has found.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida will house a newly organized international research center for the study of the human pancreas that will bank organs from thousands of patients with or at risk for type 1 diabetes in an effort to learn more about the disease.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Reduce, recycle and rebuild is as important to the most basic component of the human body, the cell, as it is to the environment. And a University of Florida study shows just how much the body benefits when it “goes green,” at least if you’re a rat: Cutting calories helps rodents live longer by boosting cells’ ability to recycle damaged parts so they can maintain efficient energy production.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When the first four-legged animals sprouted fingers and toes, they took an ancient genetic recipe and simply extended the cooking time, say University of Florida scientists writing in Wednesday’s issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A parent’s struggle with stress or depression can lower a child’s quality of life — and it could hinder an overweight youngster’s attempts to lose weight, too, University of Florida researchers say.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Gene doping has the potential to spawn athletes capable of out-running, out-jumping and out-cycling the strongest of champions. But research under way at the University of Florida could help level the playing field by detecting the first cases of gene doping in professional athletes before the practice enters the mainstream.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The age-old debate of nature versus nurture has a new twist: Scientists say the two N’s may be so entwined that their influence on our genes combines to shape our health and development in ways we never imagined.