A recent study presented at the American Society for Microbiology's annual meeting (ASM Microbe 2025) in Los Angeles has uncovered a surprising link between airborne fungal spores and short-term spikes in flu and COVID-19 cases. The research, conducted by scientists from Lynn University in Florida, suggests that monitoring outdoor levels of fungal spores could provide an early warning system for potential outbreaks.

Not Just Human Contact: Could Fungi Be the Missing Link in Outbreak Prediction?

Traditionally, respiratory illnesses like flu and COVID-19 have been associated mainly with human-to-human transmission. But this new research introduces an environmental twist: airborne fungal spores — microscopic particles released by fungi into the air — may play a significant role in triggering infection surges.

Researchers found that when levels of fungal spores in the outdoor air increased, there was a corresponding rise in COVID-19 and flu infections in the days that followed. What’s more, the relationship was strong enough that statistical and machine learning models could predict these spikes with a high degree of accuracy.

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Interestingly, the same predictive relationship did not hold true for pollen, another common airborne particle. This indicates that fungal spores may have a more specific and direct impact on respiratory health than previously assumed.

What Did Puerto Rico's Tropical Data Reveal About Outbreaks?

The research team focused their study on two major health regions in Puerto Rico — San Juan and Caguas — collecting data from 2022 to 2024. They tracked the daily incidence of flu and COVID-19 diagnoses alongside environmental measurements of fungal spores and pollen.

Using both traditional statistical analysis and machine learning models, they examined whether spikes in fungal spore concentrations could predict increases in infections within the same week or the following week — a concept known as a lag effect. The results were striking: in many instances, elevated levels of fungal spores were followed by noticeable jumps in flu and COVID-19 cases.

Public Health Planning Just Got Smarter With This Predictive Tool

“This research gives us a new lens through which to view respiratory virus outbreaks,” said Felix E. Rivera-Mariani, Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lynn University and lead researcher on the study. “By monitoring environmental data like fungal spores, we can potentially issue earlier warnings and protect high-risk communities.”

Rivera-Mariani emphasized that this approach could be especially useful in the fall — a season that already sees increased viral transmission — when fungal spore levels are often high due to decaying plant matter and damp conditions.

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He added that this discovery highlights a broader message: “Environmental triggers, not just interpersonal contact, may influence how and when people get sick. That insight could help shape future public health responses and inform protective guidelines, particularly in regions with high fungal activity.”

Could This Fungal Research Benefit You?

The findings may be especially valuable for protecting vulnerable populations such as the elderly, individuals with asthma, or people with allergic rhinitis. These groups are not only more prone to respiratory infections but may also be more sensitive to environmental irritants like fungal spores.

By incorporating airborne fungal spore monitoring into existing public health surveillance systems, authorities could issue timely alerts and recommendations — including when to wear masks, avoid outdoor exposure, or ramp up testing.

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While more research is needed to fully understand the biological mechanism behind this connection, the evidence presented marks a promising step toward using environmental data to predict — and possibly prevent — future outbreaks.

How many times have you read the 'when' and ' how' to apply sunscreen the "correct" way because most people don't seem to use nearly enough. Experts have now shown exactly how much sunscreen you need to stay safe. This is crucial because sun exposure is the main cause of skin cancer worldwide. In the UK, melanoma skin cancer rates have jumped by almost a third in the last decade, making it the fifth most common cancer with about 18,000 diagnoses each year. A simple way to help prevent this disease is to always wear sunscreen when you're outdoors.

What is the "Seven Teaspoon" Rule Of Sunscreen?

It's likely you "need more than you think" when it comes to sunscreen. Which UK recently shared a video on Instagram, asking: "Are you putting on enough sun cream?" They highlighted some key points: you need seven teaspoons to safely cover your whole body. You should apply it 15 minutes before you go into the sun, and reapply every two hours (or more often if you're swimming or sweating a lot).

• Breaking down those seven teaspoons:
• One teaspoon for your face and neck.
• Two teaspoons for your arms.
• Two teaspoons for your legs.
• One teaspoon for your stomach and chest.
• One teaspoon for your back.

The NHS supports this advice, warning that most people don't use enough sunscreen. They suggest aiming for six to eight teaspoons if you're covering your entire body. If you apply it too thinly, you won't get the protection it promises. If you expect to be in the sun long enough to risk burning, apply sunscreen twice: once 30 minutes before going out and again just before going out. Even if a product says "water resistant," you should reapply it after swimming or towel-drying, as the sun can dry it off your skin every two hours.

Who Needs Extra Sun Protection?

Some people need to be extra careful in the sun, particularly those with pale, white, or light brown skin, freckles, or red/fair hair, as they tend to burn easily instead of tanning. Individuals with many moles or skin problems due to medical conditions are also at higher risk. Those who are exposed to intense sunlight only occasionally such as during holidays or who travel to hot countries with strong sun exposure should take extra precautions. A family history of skin cancer further increases the need for vigilant sun protection.

Sunscreen products are rated with SPF (Sun Protection Factor) from 2 to 50+. A higher SPF number, like 50+, means stronger protection against harmful UVB rays.

How Can You Protect Your Skin Without Using Sunscreen?

While sunscreen is important, one must follow some other steps to ensure complete protection. Here are some tips you should remember according to American Academy of Dermatology Association.

Find Your Shade

The sun's rays are most powerful between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. During these hours, it's best to seek shade. A good rule of thumb: if your shadow is shorter than you are, the sun is very strong, and you should definitely look for some cover.

Dress for Sun Protection

Whenever you can, wear sun-protective clothing. This means choosing things like a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt, long pants, a wide-brimmed hat, and sunglasses with UV protection. For even better defense, look for clothing labels that have an Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) number, which tells you how much UV radiation the fabric blocks.

Say No to Tanning Beds

Both the sun and tanning beds give off harmful ultraviolet (UV) light, which can cause skin cancer and wrinkles. It's best to avoid tanning beds completely. If you want to have a tanned look, consider using a self-tanning product instead, but remember to still use sunscreen along with it for actual sun protection.

Be Extra Careful Near Reflective Surfaces

You need to be especially cautious when you're near water, snow, or sand. These surfaces are highly reflective, meaning they bounce back the sun's damaging rays, which can significantly increase your chance of getting a sunburn.

Fitness influencer Maria Palen, a chemical engineer known for her athletic lifestyle and 20,000-plus Instagram followers, is facing the unimaginable, regaining the ability to walk after being left partially paralyzed by a rare tick-borne illness. Punctuated by debilitating pain, medical uncertainty, and moments of hope, highlights how health can be derailed with the slightest ignorance or disease—even for those at peak fitness.

In early 2024, Palen start getting minor pains and aches—easily dismissed by most people. But by March, her world had turned around. Palen tells us that her "body completely gave up on me", leaving her on the cusp of immobility. Weighing 20 pounds lighter, in bed, unable to undertake even simple tasks such as locking her phone or opening a can of tuna, she confronted a harsh health deterioration unlike anything she'd ever seen.

A fitness expert who had built her life around health and outdoor activity, Palen struggled to reconcile her condition. “Why was my body failing me? I’ve always lived a healthy lifestyle,” she told her social media audience—only to learn that this was no ordinary illness.

After having been consulted by a number of experts, a diagnosis was made: babesiosis, a tick-borne parasitic infection caused by Borrelia microti. The parasite infects red blood cells, causing symptoms that vary from fever and chills to anemia and, in extreme instances, life-threatening complications.

Palen shared that she was bitten unaware while out hiking perhaps years before only to have the infection lie dormant until it broke out violently. In October, agonizing pain in the tailbone kept her from sitting. Numbness crept soon afterward from her legs up toward the belly button, and spinal fluid tests detected aberrant inflammation and high white blood cell levels. Physicians grappled with whether Lyme disease, babesiosis, or a neurotoxin was responsible.

In spite of aggressive antibiotic, antiparasitic, and pain control therapies, Palen's condition worsened neurologically. As pain medication was becoming effective, sensation waned. She explained how "my legs started going numb…until it crept all the way up to my belly button". The severity of her condition became apparent: something was interfering with her spinal cord function, although no cause was identified.

Physicians could merely provide cautious estimates: Palen had a 33% possibility of recovery, another 33% for partial recovery, the rest permanent paralysis. The intricated nature of her symptoms—spinal inflammation, destruction of red blood cells, and potential co-infection with Lyme disease—made it a daunting task to diagnose and treat her.

In spite of setbacks, December provided a glimmer of hope when Palen regained minimal movement in one leg. Through mid-2025, she is still reporting progress: strengthening stride, side steps under control, and small but significant gains in leg strength—albeit still lacking in quad muscle function and knee flexion.

Now living with family in Texas, Palen's rigorous rehabilitation involves eight hours a week of physical therapy, focusing on nerve growth, muscle building, and restoring mobility. She remains hopeful: "If not, I feel like mentally I would spiral," she said to PEOPLE, stressing that hope is crucial to her rehabilitation.

Palen's sickness didn't just derail her physical well-being but also her finances. She lost her job, apartment, and savings, prompting friends to set up a GoFundMe in January. The campaign has since raised over $12,000 to cover rising medical costs while she receives rehabilitation.

In spite of the uncertainty of diagnosis and rollercoaster of emotion, Palen persists. Her daily posts on social media highlight tiny triumphs—every restored step or feeling is cause for celebration as a symbol of resistance and strength.

Worse, co-infections are common: nearly 66% of Lyme disease patients also carry Babesia, making clinical presentations more difficult and diagnosis even later. In extreme cases—most notably among the elderly or immunosuppressed—the case-fatality rate can reach as high as 20%, raising a serious public health issue.

What is Babesiosis?

Babesiosis, which is caused by Babesia parasites, most often parades under the disguise of malaria in its initial stages, with fever, headaches, and muscle aches occurring one to six weeks following a tick bite. In extreme instances, it can cause organ failure, anemia, or hepatosplenomegaly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates mortality to be around 0.5% for babesiosis, but this is increased to 20% in the elderly or immunocompromised population. Palen's infection was especially severe, as it "completely shattered" her immune system, she said.

Ticks, tiny spider-like parasites measuring between 1mm and 1cm, are blood-feeders of mammals, including humans. In the United States, babesiosis is caused by two microbes: Babesia microti, which is transmitted by summer ticks, and B. duncani, which is spread by winter ticks during the fall and early winter. Although only around 2,500 cases are diagnosed each year, experts caution that others go undetected because of misdiagnosis or a lack of health provider awareness.

How Do You Keep Tick-Borne Illnesses from Happening?

Prevention is still the best method of avoiding severe tick-borne disease, say health authorities. The CDC and others advise:

• Wearing long sleeves, pants, and light-colored clothing when in tick-infested areas
• Using permethrin-treated clothing
• Conducting daily tick inspections—particularly after wilderness use
• Quick and careful removal of ticks with fine-point tweezers

Symptom monitoring—such as for unexplained fever, weakness, rash, or neurological findings—1–6 weeks after possible exposure. As Palen's experience illustrates, prompt detection can be life-changing, but also rare neurological complications, like spinal cord inflammation or paralysis, should be better known.

Although Palen has an indeterminate prognosis, her mind is still geared to the future. She continues to attend therapy, postures about her recovery, and stresses the need to stay mentally tough and surrounded by support groups. Daily function improves incrementally—a hopeful indication that nerve regeneration, even in the case of severe destruction, is possible.

Her case also highlights the necessity for immediate need for medical training, diagnostic equipment, and public education about tick-borne illnesses—including babesiosis—while rare, they can explode exponentially without early treatment. With climate change and habitat invasion fueling an explosion of tick populations, Palen's experience is an appeal to individuals to be cautious and to the medical community prioritize early detection and treatment.

As the number of people reporting pancreatic issues after taking the weight loss and diabetic jabs increases, UK health officials have launched an investigative study to figure out the unexpected side-effects of the drug.

In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Genomics England are asking anyone who was using these shots and ended up in the hospital with a sudden pancreas problem called acute pancreatitis to get in touch. Hundreds of people have reported pancreas issues after taking drugs like Mounjaro, Ozempic, and Wegovy, but doctors haven't yet proven that the shots caused these problems.

The study is part of the MHRA's Yellow Card scheme, this system lets anyone report a problem with a medicine, vaccine, or medical device, which helps doctors find safety issues early. People aged 18 and older who had a serious reaction to these weight loss shots (which are also used for type 2 diabetes) should report it on the Yellow Card website.

They'll then be asked if they want to join the study. This study will check if some people's genes make them more likely to get acute pancreatitis when taking these medicines. Patients will give more information and a saliva sample, hoping to reduce these side effects in the future.

As of May 13 this year, 10 deaths from pancreatitis in people using weight loss drugs were reported to the Yellow Card website, though other health factors might have been involved. It's tough to track exact user numbers since many buy these drugs online without a prescription. While health officials suggest these shots can aid obesity efforts, they caution that they're not a "magic solution" and often cause side effects like nausea, constipation, or diarrhea. The MHRA also warned that Mounjaro could reduce the effectiveness of birth control pills for some users.

Does Weight-Loss Injection Affect Pancreas?

A January 2025 study published in the Nature Medicine had looked into this question before. The study observed how the weight loss drug GLP-1, affected 175 different diseases. The study found that while GLP-1 users saw some benefits, they also had a higher risk of 19 side effects or diseases compared to those on traditional medications.

The most significant finding was that people on GLP-1 agonists were nearly 2.5 times more likely to develop drug-induced acute pancreatitis, a serious condition where the pancreas becomes inflamed.

Other common side effects included a 30% higher risk of nausea or vomiting, an 11% higher risk of arthritis, and a 6% higher risk of low blood pressure. These findings highlight that while beneficial for some conditions, these drugs come with a range of potential risks.

In 2024 a case study published in the journal Cureus, also looked into this, however at the time, they did not have enough evidence to back it. The study explained that some reports had connected Semaglutide to a sudden swelling of the pancreas, called acute pancreatitis. This report talked about a 36-year-old woman who came to the emergency room with sudden, severe stomach pain. She was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. She had just started using Semaglutide shots for weight loss, which she got from a friend without talking to a doctor first.

After she stopped taking Semaglutide, her pancreas levels (lipase) went back to normal, and her symptoms got much better. This suggests that Semaglutide was likely what caused her acute pancreatitis.

What Is Pancreatitis?

Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas, and this can either be acute or chronic. Finding out whether one has pancreatitis as well as getting it under control is very important as if left unchecked, it can lead to long-term damage and other complications.

As you may know, our pancreas makes important digestive enzymes as well as insulin, which helps us break down glucose components and transform it into energy. Pancreatitis happens when the pancreas enzymes damage the pancreatic tissue itself.

The key difference between acute and chronic pancreatitis is that they are actually different conditions. According to a 2021 study published in the Cureus journal, acute pancreatitis is a sudden, short-term inflammation of the pancreas. When someone has acute pancreatitis, they usually feel severe pain in the upper part of their belly, either in the middle or on the right side. This type of pancreatitis often comes on quickly and, with proper treatment, can resolve. Here are the symptoms, causes and treatment options, according to National Health Services UK.

Chronic pancreatitis is a long-lasting inflammation of the pancreas that often gets worse over time. Unlike acute pancreatitis, the symptoms of chronic pancreatitis can be much broader. People might have ongoing belly pain, but they can also show signs that their pancreas isn't working properly. This can lead to problems with digestion and even diabetes.

Symptoms of Pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis is a sudden, short-term swelling of your pancreas. The most common signs are severe, sudden pain in the middle of your stomach. You might also feel or be sick, and have diarrhea.

Whereas, the main symptom of chronic pancreatitis is repeated, severe stomach pain, usually in the middle or left side, that can spread to your back. This pain is often described as burning or shooting and can last for hours or days, sometimes without a clear trigger.

As the condition worsens, these painful episodes might happen more often and be more severe. Eventually, you might feel a constant, dull pain in your belly even between bad episodes, especially if you keep drinking alcohol.

Causes of Pancreatitis

Acute pancreatitis happens when digestive chemicals inside your pancreas start to attack the organ itself. It's most often linked to two main things: gallstones, which cause about half of all cases, and drinking alcohol, which is behind about a quarter of cases. You can lower your risk by drinking less alcohol and making diet changes to prevent gallstones.

The most common reason for chronic pancreatitis is drinking too much alcohol for many years. This can cause repeated attacks of sudden pancreatitis, leading to more and more damage. In children, cystic fibrosis is the most common cause. Other less common causes include smoking, your immune system attacking the pancreas, genetic problems, injury, gallstones blocking ducts, or radiation. Sometimes, no cause is found.

Treatment Options for Pancreatitis

Treatment for acute pancreatitis focuses on supporting your body while the swelling goes down. You'll usually need to stay in the hospital for fluids through a vein, pain relief, food support, and oxygen. Most people get better within a week and can leave the hospital in 5 to 10 days, though severe cases might take longer due to complications.

The damage to your pancreas from chronic pancreatitis is permanent, but treatment can help manage the condition and symptoms. Doctors usually advise stopping alcohol and smoking. You'll also get medicine to relieve pain. In some cases of severe pain, surgery might be an option to help control the condition and improve your quality of life.

Researchers have explained that like many other medicines, weight loss jabs also have side-effects, some of which are very serious. The next steps they are taking is to make the medicine safer by gathering more information and helping more personalized prescriptions to prevent any such situation from arising in future.