Obesity afflicts at least 58 million Americans, according to the "Shape Up America" public health campaign for weight loss. Of that number, 318,000 will die prematurely. Others will suffer from chronic, but preventable disorders such as high blood pressure, which afflicts over 20 percent of Americans, killing many with heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure.
    High blood pressure has long been associated with obesity, but scientists are uncertain about how obesity causes hypertension. Public health officials strongly urge us to eat less and exercise more to lose weight and reduce the risk of chronic disease. However, the simple fact is that most diets fail to produce sustained weight loss. Complicating the matter is our poor understanding of how the body regulates the storage of energy in the form of fat.
    However, recent studies have greatly increased our understanding of how energy balance is regulated. One such study at Florida State, funded by the National Institutes of Health, tests a theory that the mechanisms used to control energy storage and appetite may also be involved in obesity-related hypertension.
    Dr. J. Michael Overton, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences, leads a group of undergraduate and graduate students who are researching the relationship between the bodily systems that regulate energy balance and those that regulate blood pressure. In particular, the team is examining the effects on blood pressure of two hormones, leptin and neuropeptide Y (NPY), that are thought to control appetite and the body's metabolic rate.
Leptin, a hormone discovered in 1994, is produced by fat cells. In general, leptin levels in the blood are proportional to an individual's level of body fat. At work in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls appetite and other basic functions, high levels of leptin generally suppress the appetite and stimulate fat-burning. This function of leptin may be less effective in people who gain weight easily. When caloric intake is reduced, leptin levels decrease and signal the hypothalamus to produce NPY which stimulates appetite and lowers the body's metabolism.
    High leptin levels may provide one mechanism to explain the link between obesity and hypertension. Overton theorizes that leptin may contribute to hypertension because of its role in stimulating the body to burn fat.
    "The way it does that," he says, "is by increasing the "fight or flight" nervous system-the sympathetic nervous system. The activation of the sympathetic nervous system may also increase blood pressure and lead to hypertension."
Overton and his graduate student, Mike Casto, have shown that when leptin is injected into the brain of a rat, the animal's blood pressure goes up. This is the first direct evidence that the hormone that influences how the brain manages the body's energy stores also can affect blood pressure, Overton said.
    Over the next few years, the research group plans to study the effects of NPY, the appetite-stimulating hormone. Because the chemical also lowers the body's calorie-burning rate, Overton speculates that it may also lower blood pressure. Another appetite stimulating hormone, orexin-just discovered in 1998-may also undergo testing in his lab.
Eventually, studies like Overton's could lead to the development of safer, more effective drugs for both weight loss and treatment of hypertension. Leptin has been talked about as a potential diet drug because of its appetite-suppressing qualities. There could be a down side to that, Overton points out.
    "One of the reasons that people lose weight for health reasons is hypertension, and it would be very unfortunate if the mechanism they used to lose weight actually elevated their blood pressure even more."
 

Medical Ed
Times Two

    What's FSU after-a med school? Twenty-seven years ago, some irate state leaders pointedly put the question to Florida state officials who trotted out plans for a one-year program in medical sciences.
    As designed, the program would allow no more than 30 students a year to complete their first year of medical training at FSU, with guaranteed admission to the second year of med school at the University of Florida. The idea, with UF's solid backing, survived a turf battle and PIMS (Program in Medical Science) sprang into life at Florida State in 1971.
Nearly 1,000 graduates later, lawmakers arrived in Tallahassee this spring to find a bill filed by Rep. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, that called for a two-year med school program at Florida State. Under the proposal, PIMS students would do some of their clinical teaching at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.
    Peaden's bill immediately met stiff resistance from the Florida Board of Regents, controller of the state's university system. Regents argued that the bill bypassed the board's review authority and didn't adequately address cost/benefit questions. When the smoke finally cleared, a modified bill surfaced that called for an expansion of PIMS to a two-year program by the year 2000. The bill passed, giving FSU $950,000 to get the job done.
    Backers hailed the measure as "laying the foundation" for a bona fide, four-year medical school at Florida State. Critics still say Florida already has too many doctors and that an expanded medical sciences program at FSU isn't needed.
Predictably, Dr. Myra M. Hurt, head of PIMS since 1992, disagrees.
    "Florida has never produced the numbers and kinds of doctors this state needs," she said. "Our medical needs are very different from those of other states."
    Florida's 14 million residents are under-served by certain types of doctors, particularly family practitioners and specialists in geriatrics, says Hurt. Moreover, what physicians there are in Florida are largely imports from other states because Florida's med schools don't produce nearly enough to meet the state's demand.
Hurt says the expansion money will be used to hire faculty and pay stipends to doctors who now teach PIMS courses. But $250,000 of the allocation is earmarked for doing a study of Florida's long-term healthcare needs, information that figures to be helpful to PIMS, suddenly brightened future.
    "Historically, two-year programs (such as PIMS will soon be) evolve into four-year programs," says Hurt. "If that pattern holds true, I suspect we'll someday see the first of a new breed of medical school (in the U.S.)-one that focuses on family and community healthcare with elder care an important component.
    "The guiding philosophy in medical education at PIMS has always focused on community needs."

Down to the Sea

    This spring, a team of underwater archaeologists from FSU got a rare professional thrill-diving on a recently discovered, 200-year-old Caribbean shipwreck.
    The find-remains of a 100-foot vessel in remarkably undisturbed condition-rests beneath 100 feet of crystal-clear water in the harbor of Kingstown, the capital of the tiny island of St. Vincent in the Lesser Antilles. Florida State is one of two universities (the other being Texas A&M) lending their resources in academic diving and underwater archaeology to the research project directed by The Institute of Maritime History.
    In March, FSU divers helped raise a cannon from the vessel, a project that only served to deepen the mystery of its identity. Initially, the ship was thought to be a British warship because it was sheathed in copper-an English development of the day-and pottery fragments found around the vessel appeared to be of British origin.
But after chiseling two centuries' worth of marine growth off the 3,500 cannon, researchers found three fleurs-de-lis on it, a signature of the French crown. Other marks on the gun showed that it had been cast in a royal foundry in France in 1776.
    Besides the ship's armament, other clues archaeologists are studying to find out who the ship belonged to include large copper kettles it was carrying, along with its copper plating. Analysis of trace elements in the copper can help researchers tell where the copper was mined, which could have been in either France or Sweden.
    Chuck Meide, a recent FSU graduate and co-director of the excavation project, said the vessel appears to be a French warship, although it could be an American privateer outfitted with French cannon. During the American Revolution, the French government supplied the American colonists with arms to fight its most hated enemy, England.
    Early on, divers had speculated the vessel was a slaver, a ship especially equipped for carrying slaves. But since no iron shackles have been found on it, researchers have all but ruled out that theory, says Meide.
    The cannon raised this spring also bears a serial number-No. 31. This may prove to be the most important clue in identifying the wreck, but that will require combing through archives in France. The Institute of Maritime History is working to raise funds to keep the research going.
    The IMH is a nonprofit organization based in Cape Neddick, Maine. Preservation and documentation of marine archaeological remains and sites is the institute's primary mission.
    -compiled from reports by Frank Adams, FSU Office of Media Relations
 

A Foul Emission Fix?

Plastics, as we learned in "The Graduate" 31 years ago, is the way of the future. But what Dustin Hoffman's character wasn't told was how bad making plastic can be for the environment.
    Dr. Chuck Zhang, assistant professor at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, and his colleagues Kerang Han and H.P. Ben Wang see a way to cut much of the toxic waste stream produced by the world's immense plastics manufacturing complex.
    They have developed what they believe may be a revolutionary, toxic-emission reducing technique for the manufacture of fiber reinforcement polymer composites, the basic ingredients in many plastic-based consumer items, including large ones made of fiberglass.
    Results of the research, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, show promise for significantly changing the way boats and other large fiberglass items are manufactured and could be applied to the aerospace and building construction industries as well, says Zhang.
    The oldest, simplest, and most commonly used manufacturing method for composite boats is "hand layup," a lengthy process using several workers who alternately layer resin and fiber in an open mold. Besides being labor intensive and time-consuming, hand layup generates a large amount of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. Workers wear masks and other protective clothing in what amounts to an unhealthy environment. Zhang's vacuum infusion process would change all that.
    Vacuum infusion uses a sealed bag mold. The fiber is already in the mold and a vacuum, controlled by one person at a computer, pumps in the resin. By using the closed mold, the self-layering process reduces 95 percent of the VOC emissions, says Zhang. Citing new, stricter federal emission regulations, Zhang sees this vacuum infusion process as a huge environmental plus.
    "Another advantage of the infusion process is the quality of the product," he said. "Some workers have more expertise and experience than others, therefore, the quality is difficult to control. The computer helps take a lot of the guesswork out of the process."
    Computer software, which graduate students in the engineering school's industrial engineering department helped develop, is a key component in the manufacturing process. Besides buying the rights to use the process, manufacturers may purchase the computer program to better design and run the process."
    With a patent pending on the process, Zhang is unsure about the ultimate cost to a manufacturer for converting to vacuum infusion. Savings could be realized in lower insurance rates, decreased labor costs, and the obviated need for protective clothing. This could be offset by initial outlays for a computer, computer software, vacuum pump, and patent rights.
    "It is difficult to determine the costs right now but obviously the larger the manufacturer, the higher the savings. A company manufacturing boats in significant numbers probably could save as much as 20 percent."
The process was developed under the department's Design for Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing Program. The program's vision is to develop strategies for designing materials, products, processes and systems with the environment in mind.
 

The War of Willies & Rosies

On a summer day in 1996, Kevin Dougherty stood quietly before a pile of papers, letters and boxes in his father's garage. Old photos lay scattered everywhere-photos Paul Dougherty had taken nearly half a century before as a photographer with Patton's Third Army.
    "Dad didn't think his collection was of any use to anyone," Kevin later explained. "But his photos had stimulated my study, and I thought they might do the same for others. He used to sit with my best friend and me for hours telling us the stories behind each one. My daughters weren't getting the slightest idea about WWII history in school, and I wanted to share what really happened with today's students."
    After calling FSU history professor Dr. William Oldson, Kevin donated his father's war memorabilia to the university. By coincidence, a few months later, alums Marian and George Langford, of Tallahassee, searched for a safe place for their family war mementos as well. George called Dr. Don Foss, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who in turn called Dr. Richard Greaves, chair of FSU's history department.
    "When Don called me, I suggested this material could form the nucleus of a World War II archive," Greaves recalls. "I passed this on to Bill (Oldson), who immediately saw the potential and brought to the project his great enthusiasm."
Greaves said the idea for an FSU World War II Institute was born when the concept was presented to the Langfords, who enthusiastically endorsed it and subsequently donated $15,000 to help get it started in 1996. Since then, Oldson, now institute director, Greaves, and a dedicated group of employees and volunteers have invested countless hours in the institute's development.
    Oldson says that the institute's focus is the everyday life of military and civilian men and women who experienced 1940s wartime. Its goal is to collect and preserve individuals' memoirs-primarily letters, papers and photographs-and to publish those materials for use in classrooms. Oldson says there's no other institute or center like the one at Florida State.
"While there are other World War II depositories, no one else is doing what we're doing, that is, collecting the memorabilia of all veterans and civilian defense workers," he said. "Most other institutions limit their collections by unit, service, rank, geographical area, and so forth. We're interested in the whole nation."
    The institute's location should be a plus: Florida is the second most veteran-populated state in the nation, after California.
    "Given the resources to tap it, we have a rich opportunity to gather personal remembrances from a historical period that can never be recalled except by those whose time for telling must be now," Oldson said.
Word about the new center is spreading. Family Circle Magazine featured an article on the project in April and NBC aired a segment on the institute in May. A website (www.fsu.edu/~ww2/) is helping the publicity effort as well.
"The vets and civilians I've talked to-to a man and woman-want their memorabilia used," says Oldson. "We've planned from the start to integrate this collection with the research and teaching functions of the university. When other places crate and store the material, it might as well be lost."
    Oldson admits that military history is out of favor with most academic historians, a phenomenon he describes as "an indication of the snobbery and parochialism, not to say "political correctness," (that is) rampant in academe."
    "The whole purpose of this institute is to get away from the "great general" and "great battle" approaches to history. We want to learn from the "Willies and Joes" and "Rosie the Riveters" about whom we are almost totally ignorant."