Health & Nature Archives April 2005 - New Web site provides information on grapefruit-drug interactions - GatorSHADE program goes from Swamp to Cyberspace

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Health News Archives: GatorSHADE program goes from Swamp to Cyberspace - New Web site provides information on grapefruit-drug interactions

Health News

GatorSHADE program goes from
Swamp to Cyberspace

April 2005

By Tracy Brown Wright

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - No animal is better at shading itself from the sun than an alligator, and for more than 10 years, University of Florida faculty members have used the wisdom of their school's mascot to teach young children about the importance of sun protection.

The GatorSHADE program was developed in 1994 to educate Florida's children and their parents about skin cancer and encourage them to make appropriate lifestyle changes to prevent the disease. Now, GatorSHADE founders have decided to share their program with the world through an interactive Web site, designed to make the GatorSHADE curriculum available to both educators and consumers.

"Skin cancer has become the No. 1 cancer found in the United States today, and Florida has one of the nation's highest incidences of the disease," said primary founder Carol Reed Ash, Ed.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., UF College of Nursing Eminent Scholar and Kirbo Endowed Chair in oncology nursing and associate director at UF Shands Cancer Center. "Yet skin cancer is one of the most easily detected and curable forms of cancer if treated early."

The new Web site, www.gatorshade.ufl.edu , contains interactive games and learning tools designed to make skin cancer education fun and easy, and the curricular tools allow teachers and counselors to easily integrate GatorSHADE principles into their learning plans. It was designed by Big Media Studios, Inc. in Gainesville.

"After 10 years of developing, testing and implementing the GatorSHADE program, we felt it was time to share this with those who could most benefit from it," Ash said. "Education is no longer confined to books and lectures, and today's children utilize the Internet to learn about important issues. We felt a Web site would be the best way to communicate and share our program."

The GatorSHADE program is the brainchild of Ash, who, along with Jill W. Varnes, Ed.D., the interim dean of the UF College of Health and Human Performance, launched the program at a 1994 UF football game with the distribution of GatorSHADE hats to children and information cards and SPF 30 sunscreen to all in attendance. The hats were particularly important because they contained special neck flaps that gave extra protection in a vulnerable area.

That led to the development of a complete curriculum package designed to teach elementary students about sun-safe habits and the hazards of overexposure to ultraviolet radiation. The package includes a 16-minute video, two-player board game, exercises, experiment and a take-home information packet for parents.

Ash and colleagues have now made the entire curriculum package available online for children, parents and teachers. The new Web site gives kids a fun and high-tech way to learn about skin cancer prevention.

The "Reach the Beach" game allows kids to flip a virtual coin, take a turn answering a skin cancer question, and advance through colored footsteps in the sand. Whoever answers the most questions correctly will "reach the beach" first. Also included are a crossword puzzle, word search and even a science experiment involving the sun. The video, which features child newscasters reporting about sun safety, has been made available in Web format so that children may watch one segment at a time.

Educators will find the curricular materials easy to integrate into their lesson plans, Ash said. The curriculum has been proven to raise awareness through field tests at P.K. Yonge Elementary School in Gainesville and 12 Indian River County elementary schools. More than 1,100 elementary students participated in the field tests.

Among the organizations that have taken notice of the GatorSHADE program has been Florida's 4-H program, based at UF's Institute of Agricultural and Food Sciences (IFAS). The 4-H program hopes to begin using the curricular materials with children this summer at recreational camps. The organization also is exploring the production of more of the very popular GatorSHADE hats, which will feature both the trademarked GatorSHADE logo as well as the 4-H logo.

"The Florida 4-H program is working to create safe activities for youth in our outdoor programs," said Marilyn Norman, Ph.D., assistant dean for the 4-H Youth Development Program in the UF Institute of Agricultural Sciences. "Incorporating GatorSHADE into our learning activities, as well as modeling good practices in sun safety and skin protection is a part of that effort. 4-H utilizes the experimental learning process. The learning modules provided through GatorSHADE(tm) were both hands-on and age appropriate."

Ash and her colleagues hope that the new Web site will assist both parents and educators in teaching children about the importance of sun protection and making sure the practice lasts a lifetime.

"Overexposure to the suns rays is cumulative and begins to build in childhood. Like safe driving, safe sun practices have dramatic effects," Ash said. "For these reasons the best defense against skin cancer is prevention."

New Web site provides information on
grapefruit-drug interactions

April 2005

By Linda Homewood

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Consumers and health-care professionals seeking reliable information about food-drug interactions can turn to a new Web resource, according to a University of Florida pharmacy educator in natural products.

The Web site - www.DrugInteractionCenter.org - houses a comprehensive database of grapefruit-drug interactions along with supporting scientific literature designed to be an easy-to-use reference tool for health-care professionals and patients.

"Food and other nutrients can impact the effectiveness of prescription and over-the-counter drugs with clinically significant results," said Veronika Butterweck, an assistant professor and co-director of UF's Center for Food-Drug Interaction Research and Education. She announced the new Web tool in a talk on pharmacists' role in informing patients about food-drug interactions at the American Pharmacists Association annual meeting April 3 in Orlando.

In 2003, UF and Tufts University pharmacology experts established the center, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and assistance from the Florida Department of Citrus, to bring together researchers in pharmacy, medicine and food science to identify and analyze possible food-drug interactions and their effects. Initially, the center's research efforts focus on grapefruit juice interactions, Butterweck said.

A 2002 questionnaire by Harris Interactive indicated that four out of five physicians and more than half of pharmacists surveyed did not have enough information about how certain drugs can be affected by grapefruit juice, one of the most commonly known sources of food-drug interactions.

"Since there is a lot of inaccurate and out-of-date information on Web sites, we developed DrugInteractionCenter.org to provide health-care professionals with a credible resource on grapefruit-drug interactions, which they also can recommend to interested patients," said Hartmut Derendorf, co-director of the center and a distinguished professor at the University of Florida's College of Pharmacy. "Drug interactions with grapefruit are one of the most commonly misunderstood food-drug interactions. While certain prescription drugs interact with grapefruit juice, most do not."

The grapefruit juice effect was discovered in the 1980s when scientists learned that grapefruit juice inhibits the CYP3A4 enzyme, which metabolizes certain drugs. This interference may enhance the body's absorption of affected drugs, causing side effects.

The Web site features include:
* A listing of drugs that interact with grapefruit juice, as well as alternative, non-interacting drugs within the same drug classes that may also support a patient's therapeutic needs.
* Access to detailed scientific summaries of interactions, along with simplified summaries for patients.
* A list of more than 130 relevant research studies and links to the studies on PubMed.
* Distinguishable, color-coded levels of interactions using approved FDA guidelines.
* Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic details of documented grapefruit juice-drug interactions.
* The history of grapefruit juice-drug interactions, including a summary of all discovered facts.

"The grapefruit industry has been fielding inquiries about drug interactions with grapefruit juice for years from concerned consumers who are reluctant to give up the potential health benefits of grapefruit juice," said Dr. David J. Greenblatt, center co-director and a professor and department chairman of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at Tufts University. "DrugInteractionCenter.org provides some possible therapeutic options that a health-care professional may want to consider making available to a patient that has concerns about altering their diet."

While DrugInteractionCenter.org may help clarify information about drug interactions with grapefruit juice, Greenblatt said he strongly advises patients to discuss the prescription medications they are taking with their health-care providers.