Teen Dies of Rabies After Getting Bit by Vampire Bat in Mexico

David De Lossy/Thinkstock(ATLANTA) -- While enjoying a night boat ride on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee with friends, Adam Giroux suddenly felt something crawling up his leg. He jumped up, frantically trying to get whatever it was in his pants out of his pants.

"I finally got it out, and we saw that it was a bat," said Giroux, 27. "I wasn't sure if it had bitten me because there weren't really any bite marks. But to play it safe, I went to the emergency room."

Giroux explained his bat debacle to hospital staff. Moments later, doctors began administering rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.

"I got two shots in each arm and four shots directly into my stomach muscles, and then two months later, I was getting follow-up shots every other week," said Giroux. "It was pretty serious, but it was better than the alternative."

While cumbersome and certainly uncomfortable, the shots allowed Giroux to walk away from his bat encounter unscathed.

While most people think of dogs, raccoons or skunks as potential rabies carriers, bats are a major source of the disease in the United States, experts say. And on Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that a Mexican teenager had become the first person on U.S. soil to die from rabies after getting bit by a vampire bat.

According to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the 19-year-old man arrived to work on a Louisiana sugar cane plantation in July 2010. After one of day working in the field, he began to experience fatigue, pain in his left shoulder and numbness in his left hand. His condition gradually worsened, and on Aug. 21, he died of rabies. After public health officials interviewed friends and family, they figured out that he had been bitten by a vampire bat in Mexico, 10 days before arriving in the U.S.

"This ... highlights the importance of a global perspective for human rabies prevention and the changing epizootiology of rabies," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in the report. "Since 2000, eight of the 32 human rabies cases reported in the United States (including the case described in this report) were acquired from exposures abroad."

The rabies virus has an average incubation period of 85 days. In this case, symptoms showed within 15 days.

Once exposed, the rabies virus makes its way to broken nerve endings, then works its way back from the bite site toward the spinal cord.

"Once it's in the central nervous system, it attaches to the brain," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "Then there is inflammation of the central nervous system, and a person will get interference in the way they think and eventually lapse into a coma."

Experts say that as soon as exposure to a rabid animal is suspected, it's important to consult a doctor and receive a post-exposure prophylaxis vaccine. The vaccine will prevent them from getting rabies, which is almost always fatal.

But as this vampire bat continues to make headlines, it's important to understand that there are bats already carrying the deadly rabies virus in the United States.

In 2009, U.S. health officials tested 30,000 bats from several dozen different species for rabies. Dr. John Williams of the department of pediatric infectious disease medicine at Vanderbilt said that six percent, or about one out of 15 bats, tested positive for rabies.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Doctors Debate Controversial 'Hot Chemo' Treatment

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- Is it a dangerous method of treating cancer or a source of hope for colon cancer patients?

"Hot chemo" is a treatment that involves opening up the entire stomach cavity, removing the colon and removing tumors by hand.  Then, the diseased area is directly blasted with hot chemotherapy.

Critics of the practice compare it to being disemboweled and bathed in hot poison.

"It is toxic, it is expensive," says Dr. Robert Mayer of Harvard.

He adds that no tests have been done studying hot chemo's effectiveness.

But Dr. Steve  Libutti who has performed the treatment, says it can work.

"I have certainly seen patients carefully managed through the course of therapy and come out of it without major toxicities," he says.

As more patients become aware of the hot chemo treatment, more studies will likely be performed.

Copyright 2011 ABC News

Tasty Trumps Nutritious: Deep-Fried Butter

ABC News Radio's Steven Portnoy is at the Iowa State Fair. Yes, he ate that stick of butter. ABC News Radio(DES MOINES, Iowa) -- It's one thing to seek solace in comfort food, but Americans seem irresistibly drawn this summer to a new artery-clogging snack: deep-fried, batter-coated butter on a stick.

The political buzz this week at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines was nearly overshadowed by the sight of hungry reporters and fair-goers biting into crunchy sticks of fried dough -- at $4 apiece -- as liquefied butter oozed down their chins and fingers. Deep Fried Butter contains frozen butter that's dipped into a sticky cinnamon-honey batter, submerged in bubbling oil until browned, then drizzled with a confectioner's sugar glaze. Ben Ginsburg, legal adviser for GOP presidential aspirant Mitt Romney, described the flavor to ABC News as "like a cinnamon roll, but buttery-er."

[WATCH ABC NEWS RADIO'S STEVEN PORTNOY TRY DEEP-FRIED BUTTER]

Texans may do things bigger than folks in other states, but Deep Fried Butter has been supersized since Abel Gonzales Jr. of Dallas rolled out his batter-dipped balls of frozen, whipped butter at the 2009 State Fair of Texas, an event nicknamed "Big Tex," and bagged the Most Creative food prize. This summer's Iowa variation, which debuted as the fair marked the 100th anniversary of the butter cow -- a life-size cow sculpted from 600 pounds of firm butter -- starts with halving a 4-ounce stick of butter lengthwise. Those 2 ounces come in at approximately 400 calories and 45 grams of fat, before factoring in the batter, oil absorbed during the frying process and the glaze.

The recipe plays into our unbridled love of fat, sugar and salt, said Barbara J. Rolls, a professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State University. "You combine them and you've got the perfect storm. We are not a species with much willpower. So, why not? It's there. You deserve it, right?"

Asked about the psychology behind our attraction to such off-the-caloric-chart snacks when we're struggling with the twin plagues of obesity and diabetes, she pointed to psyches battered by such events as a plummeting stock market and high unemployment. "We're stressed-out and want to reward ourselves and think of it as a treat," said Rolls, a specialist in eating behavior and obesity. "Trying to get people concerned about what's going to happen to them down the road when often they don't know where their next paycheck is going to come from is a really hard sell right now."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Spoiler Alert: People Like Knowing the Ending

Design Pics / SW Productions(SAN DIEGO) -- This story -- spoiler alert! -- has a happy ending. If it were a suspense novel, would knowing that make you enjoy it less? To their surprise, psychology researchers found that people actually rated stories higher if they knew how they came out.

So can ruining the surprise make a story more enjoyable? That's what Nicholas Christenfeld and Jonathan Leavitt found, and Christenfeld says he was at first stumped. Leavitt is getting his doctorate in psychology at the University of California at San Diego, and Christenfeld is a professor there.

"I was surprised by the finding," Christenfeld said. "I've spent my life not looking at the end of a book." He and Leavitt had 300 volunteers read 12 short stories, including mysteries or tales with surprise endings by the likes of Agatha Christie, John Updike and Anton Chekov, and rated them on a scale of 1 to 10. Almost without fail, and by sizeable margins, the readers rated them more highly if the researchers inserted copy near the beginning, giving away how the tales would come out.

"You get this significant reverse-spoiler effect," Christenfeld said in an interview with ABC News. "It's sort of as if knowing things puts you in a position that gives you certain advantages to understand the plot."

The researchers say their study did not give direct evidence to explain why people didn't mind having a surprise spoiled, but Christenfeld said he has some ideas. Perhaps, he said, people enjoy a good story as much as a good twist at the end. Even if they know how it comes out, they'll enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

"Writers use their artistry to make stories interesting, to engage readers, and to surprise them," Leavitt and Christenfeld said in their paper, to be published in the journal Psychological Science. "But giving away these surprises makes readers like stories better. This was true whether the spoiler revealed a twist at the end -- that the condemned man's daring escape was just a fantasy before the rope snapped taut around his neck -- or solved the crime -- that Poirot will discover that the apparent target of attempted murder is in fact the perpetrator."

The researchers say they're thinking about follow-up studies, though a controlled test of responses to films is more difficult than one involving short stories. But they've come away believing that surprise may be overrated.

"Other intuitions about suspense may be similarly wrong," they conclude, "and perhaps birthday presents are better wrapped in transparent cellophane."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Could Spicier Foods Contribute to Higher Metabolism?

Medioimages/Photodisc(UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.) -- Eating spicy foods may be tied to a speedier metabolism.  A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition showed that the addition of spices such as rosemary, oregano, turmeric, cinnamon, garlic powder or paprika to one's meal reduced postprandial insulin by 21 percent and triglyceride levels by 31, researchers reported.

Study co-author Sheila West of Penn State University said, according to MedPage Today, "Antioxidants like spices may be important in reducing oxidative stress and  thus reducing the risk of chronic disease."

Though data is limited on the topic, researchers said there has been heightened interest in the possibilities for managing oxidative stress with dietary antioxidants.

After their research, investigators found that the significant reduction in insulin and triglycerides "were likely a result of the high concentration of phenolic antioxidants in spices."

It should be noted that the study's sample size is small, following only six men between the ages of 30 to 65.  Still, researchers conclude that adding various spices into one's diet "may help normalize postprandial disturbances in glucose and lipid homeostasis while enhancing antioxidant defense.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Dogs Have a New Trick: Helping Kids Read

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- Could reading out loud to dogs help boost a child's ability and desire to read?

That's what researchers from Tufts University in Boston say, based on the results of a pilot study.

"Dogs are such good listeners," said Lisa Freeman, a veterinarian at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.  "They really make reading a fun and pleasant experience for a child in what might otherwise be a challenging environment."

Small studies and personal anecdotes have touted the benefits of reading to dogs for more than a decade.  As a result, programs that match young readers with furry friends at local libraries, group homes and community centers are in high demand.

"We want to be able to expand these programs -- get more funding and get them into more communities," Freeman said.  Larger scientific studies, she hopes, will yield the hard evidence needed to convince naysayers and boost resources.

The psychological benefits of pet ownership are profound.  Dogs can comfort college students panicking over midterms and calm hospital patients waiting for intimidating tests.  They can even ease debilitating anxiety for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"We've always known that pets made us feel good, but we're increasingly realizing that pets are in fact good for us," said Marty Becker, an Idaho-based veterinarian and author of The Healing Power of Pets.  "Not everything has to be state of the art; we need things that are state of the heart."

Humans aren't the only ones who benefit from the relationship.  Freeman said dogs in Tufts' Paws for People program are thrilled to do their jobs.

"We want to make sure both ends of the leash are benefiting from this," she said.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Cancer Docs Abuzz about New Leukemia Treatment

MedicalRF.com/Getty Images(PHILADELPHIA) -- In preliminary research that's been dubbed "remarkable," "dramatic" and "sensational," doctors made the most common type of leukemia disappear in two patients, and reduced cancer cells by 70 percent in a third.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania transformed patients' own white blood cells into "serial killers" capable of annihilating cancer cells within the body.  The two patients who experienced full recovery are still in remission more than a year later.

Right now, the only way to cure leukemia is through a bone marrow transplant, which carries several risks.

"[The serial killers] can kill one tumor cell and then go and kill another, and we found in all three of our patients that the T-cells killed at least a thousand tumor cells, and that's the first time that has ever been shown anywhere near that kind of efficiency," said Dr. Carl June, the lead author of the study, in a video released with the research.

"Previous attempts to engage the immune system in destroying cancer cells have often relied on 'vaccination' with tumor cells or tumor proteins," Dr. Douglas Faller, director of Boston University School of Medicine Cancer Center, wrote in an email to ABC News.

But in this case, researchers genetically altered and reprogrammed the killer cells of the immune system to recognize the leukemia tumor cells, Faller noted.

And for the million dollar question: What does this mean for the future of cancer treatment?

"This is an evolving area of treatment that is pretty sophisticated," said Dr. Steven Rosenberg, chief of the surgery branch at the National Cancer Institute.  "Someone needs a fair amount of expertise in immunology and molecular biology, and there are very few groups that can do this around the world."

In 2006, Rosenberg published the first study in which T-cell receptors were used for gene therapy, combined with chemotherapy, in 17 people who had advanced melanoma.  Two patients from the trial remained disease-free several years after the study.

Since then, a tumor-specific approach to treatment has been used in clinical trials of patients who had breast, prostate, sarcoma and colon cancer.

"This study is probably the most clear-cut, well-studied and best-described of cases," said Dr. Renier J Brentjens, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who specializes in treating acute and chronic leukemia through immunology.  "It's very clear here that T-cells are responsible for this effect, and the effect is sustained."

While the excitement among oncologists and the general public is apparent, experts cautioned that it was too early to tell whether this will become a mainstream cancer treatment.   The final verdict is likely years away, experts said.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Cancer Survivor Creates Dating Site for Those Who Can't Have Sex

Courtesy Laura Brashier(RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Calif.) -- Laura Brashier beat stage 4 cervical cancer, but the grueling treatments killed her sex life.  The countless surgeries and radiation destroyed her vaginal tissue and made intercourse impossibly painful.

The Rancho Santa Margarita, California hair stylist was only 37 then, and she found it hard to broach the topic with boyfriends.  So, she just didn't get involved romantically.

"It was the only thing on my mind," said Brashier, who is twice divorced and has no children.  "I dated on and off, but I didn't tell anyone for years.  I figured if I am doing that, a lot of others are, too."

Now, more than a decade later at 50, she has created a website for others who cannot have sex because of disease, disability or even disinterest, but want love.  The site, 2date4love, launched on Aug. 1 and in the first three days it had 2,000 visitors.

"I didn't want to be alone.  This was the reason I went online," she said.  "My reason is to help a lot of people like me if I can."

Users can write details about themselves and look for others with similar interests without having to worry about the sexual part.  One testimonial from a cervical cancer survivor said the site had given her the "hope and courage I've needed to delve back into the dating scene."

Those who face physical hurdles in having sexual intercourse are part of a large, silent group, according to Brashier.

"Nobody talks about it," she said.

An estimated one-in-three Americans will have cancer in their lifetimes and aggressive treatments can have an impact on sexual function, according to Dr. Ilana Cass, a gynecological oncologist at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles.

"Add in depression and that number is huge," said Cass.  "It's a meaningful number of patients and studies are starting to look at the quality of life of cancer survivors, their cognitive function and sexual intimacy issues."

She applauds Brashier's mission and said the medical community is "very much turning a spotlight on these questions."

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Rise in Debt and Obesity Linked, Researchers Say

Digital Vision/Thinkstock(MAINZ, Germany) -- Are you struggling to shed those extra pounds? Or are you -- like our government -- getting deeper in debt?
   
Well, you're not alone -- and you could be dealing with both.
 
A new study featured in the Orlando Sentinel shows overeating and overspending go hand-in-hand.
 
In the last 30 years, both the number of Americans who are obese and those in debt has been soaring.

Just last year, Americans had 2.6 times more debt than they did 30 years ago,  according to data from the Federal Reserve Board. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they were twice as likely to be obese than in 1980.
 
What's the connection?
 
Researchers at the University of Mainz in Germany studied more than 9,000 participants and found a correlation between food and shopping. Those deep in debt were more likely to be obese than adults of normal weight. And those who were overweight were twice as likely to be in debt.
 
Food and shopping offer instant gratification while not having to pay consequences,  at least not immediately.
 
It seems access to fast, fattening foods and super-sizing fed obesity just as "buy now pay later" and zero interests encouraged overspending.
 
Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Study Links Wife's Interaction with Husband's Friends to Sex Drive

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) -- Middle-aged to older men whose wives are closer to their friends than they are themselves are more likely to experience sexual dysfunction, according to a new study by the University of Chicago and Cornell University.

Researchers polled 3,005 men between the ages of 57-85 and found the effect known as "partner betweenness" to be a significant contributor to erectile dysfunction and other sex-related complications. Partner betweenness refers to the dynamic of a relationship in which one partner is closer with their spouse's friends than they are. The study found the phenomenon to have a particularly acute effect on male sex drive, especially in men aged 57-65.

The cause for sexual dysfunction has less to do with jealousy than it does privacy and autonomy. Researchers say when men feel like they lose that connection with their friends to their spouse, it threatens their masculinity.

According to the study, men whose wives are closer confidants to their friends than they are have a 92-percent higher chance of developing sexual dysfunction.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio