Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

Stress

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Best Friend or Stress Test? What Pets Do to Our Bodies

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 68% of households in the United States have a pet. Pets are thought to help people by decreasing stress and improving cardiovascular health. The NIH and Mar’s Corporation WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition have teamed up to support research examining such questions, but the results have been mixed. According to Dr. Layla Esposito, who leads the NIH Human-Animal Interaction Research Program, people […]

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Why leadership stresses everyone out: From birds to bosses

From birds to people, research demonstrates that leadership roles can be really stressful. In this post, let’s explore the physiology of stress and how it affects such relationships. Stress as defined by the founder of Stress Theory, Dr. Hans Selye (1907-1982), is the “nonspecific response of the body to any demand” (Tan and Yip, 2018). Our bodies were designed to deal will short bouts of stress by releasing special stress […]

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The electrophysiology of sudden cardiac death in high-performance athletes

Humans and racehorses have something in common when it comes to risk of sudden cardiac death. In fact, sudden cardiac death is the 2nd most common cause of death during exercise among these athletes. Although rare, it typically affects young, seemingly healthy individuals. Research suggests that exercise itself is not to blame, but rather an underlying predisposition for irregular heart rates that exercise uncovers. The most common inherited causes of […]

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No air? No problem: Nature’s ultimate survivalists

Hypoxia and anoxia tolerance was a hot topic at the 2025 American Physiology Summit last month. Here are the highlights: Hafsa Yaseen and Natalie Anne Heath presented their research from Dr. Joseph Santin’s laboratory at the University of Missouri exploring how adult bullfrogs (Aquarana catesbeianus) protect their brain function following hibernation, a period when oxygen and glucose levels are often very low. The team discovered that bullfrogs could adjust their […]

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On the path to preventing white-nose syndrome

This Halloween, we are checking in with our “bat-ty” friends. North American populations of bats have been severely decreased by a deadly fungus, known as Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which results in a disease called ‘white-nose syndrome’. There are currently 13 species of hibernating bats known to have been impacted by the disease (Center for Biological Diversity). Having toured a cave recently, our guide ensured that everyone decontaminated their shoes before entering […]

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Time Machine: Homeostasis and ‘The Wisdom of the Body’

In this time machine post, we travel back to 1929 to discuss an article written by Dr. Walter B. Cannon, published in Physiological Reviews. Among other achievements, Dr. Cannon is perhaps best known for being the first to coin the term “homeostasis” and to describe “fight or flight responses” in organisms. As a review article, Dr. Cannon summarized observations made by others about how organisms appear to “maintain their own […]

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2024 “Ig Nobel” prize-winning research

The results are in (drumroll please). Here are some highlights from the 34th First Annual “Ig Nobel” Prize ceremony held on September 12th at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Ig Nobel prize is designed to recognize “achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think”. Physiology Following the Covid-19 pandemic, an international team of researchers published a study in 2021 eloquently titled, “Mammalian enteral ventilation ameliorates respiratory […]

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Stress is contagious, even for dogs

Stress can make people pretty stinky. Humans have two main kinds of sweat glands. The eccrine glands produce sweat that we associate with exercise or warm weather – thin, watery and mostly odorless. We can thank apocrine glands for responding to stress by producing a thick fluid containing fats and proteins that skin bacteria love to digest. The result: stinky compounds somewhat reminiscent of vinegar or leeks. While humans may […]

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Even shy animals find overcrowded conditions more stressful than bold animals

In a newly published study in the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, researchers examined the relationship between behavioral and physiological responses to stress in a model organism, zebrafish. Following a series of behavioral tests, the fish were classified as either shy or bold and were then exposed to either overcrowded (32 fish per liter) or control conditions (1.6 fish per liter). After 10 days, the […]

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2024 August Krogh Award Recipient: Dr. Martin Grosell

Congratulations to Dr. Martin Grosell, recipient of the 2024 August Krogh Distinguished Lectureship from the Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology section of the American Physiological Society! Dr. Grosell is professor and chair of the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science in Florida. The Krogh award is sponsored by Novo Nordisk Foundation and is awarded to a member of […]

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