Researchers at Shepherd University are using light therapy to treat symptoms of substance use disorder and depression, and say they have found early signs of success.
Scientists have long recognized the impact of sunlight on vitamin intake, sleep patterns and mood.
But researchers at Shepherd University are taking things a step further with a form of light therapy known as photobiomodulation (PBM). Their goal is to use light to address symptoms of substance use disorder and depression.
The study involves placing a non-invasive helmet over a participant’s head and transmitting near-infrared light for three minutes. Participants regularly attended these sessions, receiving the treatment twice a week for eight consecutive weeks.
This helps stimulate energy production in cells, reduce inflammation and aid the healing of nerves, according to Jennifer Flora, director of the Shepherd University Wellness Center and a co-author on the study.
So far, Flora said the results have been promising. “I was like, ‘You need to run these numbers again,’ because it was so shocking,” she said.
“After eight weeks, those in the PBM treatment group reported significantly fewer cravings and less severe symptoms of depression compared to the control group,” Flora said. “The results were so compelling.”
Flora is working on the project alongside Kelly Watson Huffer, co-author and coordinator for Shepherd’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program.
The results of Flora and Watson Huffer’s study were discussed on Shepherd’s campus Monday, with a presentation on the second phase of the study.
West Virginia officials and Shepherd University staff gathered for a Monday morning presentation on photobiomodulation therapy and substance use disorder.
Photo Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
This will be conducted at the Berkeley Day Report Center in Martinsburg, which serves as an alternative to incarceration for individuals who have gone through legal troubles tied to substance use disorder.
The second phase of the program will continue its phase-one light therapy interventions and compare their results for a second group of participants.
Several state officials attended Monday’s event and expressed their hopes that the study could soon benefit West Virginians.
“The work that’s going on in Shepherd is a critical part of the future of how we tackle the drug epidemic,” said Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. “There [is] a need for additional approaches, creative approaches, to help really make a big difference at some of these cravings, [to] go after the science of addiction.”
“West Virginia has been sort of the most hard-hit place in the country with the opioid epidemic,” said West Virginia State Auditor J.B. McCuskey. “The work that our universities are doing locally to find non-pharmacological solutions to this [is] incredible.”
Flora said her team is currently developing a more portable version of the helmet, which could help people access PBM from the comfort of their homes.
In the meantime, she encouraged state and local officials to consider expanding access to PBM and emerging therapeutic treatments.
“As we continue our research we invite the community — health care professionals and policymakers — to consider the potential of innovative therapies like photobiomodulation to make a real difference,” Flora said.
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams has launched a petition calling for Gov. Jim Justice to include discussion of an abortion ballot measure during the special session in May.
Huntington Mayor Steve Williams has launched a petition calling for Gov. Jim Justice to include discussion of an abortion ballot measure during the special session in May.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, and West Virginia lawmakers convened a special session in September of that year in which they passed the state’s near-total abortion ban or the Unborn Child Protection Act.
The Unborn Child Protection Act, also known as House Bill 302, outlaws abortions in West Virginia except in cases when the mother’s life is in danger, or instances of rape and incest that are reported to law enforcement in a timely manner. Any abortion performed must be done so in a hospital within eight weeks for adults and 14 weeks for minors.
“Women’s reproductive health certainly isn’t a right and it’s at risk,” Williams said. “And particularly the physicians that care for these women placed their own medical license at risk in assisting with women and there’s a level of uncertainty.”
Now, Williams, a Democrat running to be governor, is calling on Justice to include reproductive freedom on the agenda for the upcoming legislative special session.
Williams said if lawmakers believe the will of the people is to uphold the abortion ban, then they should have no trouble putting it to a vote.
“This is not this is not a matter of being pro-life or pro-choice,” Williams said. “This is a matter of freedom, and we’re just simply suggesting let’s put freedom on the ballot.”
The ballot measure, if approved by a Republican governor and Republican majority House and Senate, would allow voters the chance to vote on abortion rights in the state.
Williams referred to former President Donald Trump’s stance on abortion: to let states decide
“I agree with what former President Trump said, is that let’s put it in the hands of the people and let the people speak,” Williams said.
Voters in seven states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont have approved abortion rights measures after they were put up for a vote. Several more states are expected to put the issue up for a vote this year as well.
West Virginia can apply for more than $45 million to address the overdose crisis in 2024.
The Department of Health and Human Services, through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), announced the 2024 State Opioid Response (SOR) and Tribal Opioid Response (TOR) notice of funding opportunities.
West Virginia can apply for $45,758,863 in federal dollars for prevention, harm reduction, treatment such as the use of medications for opioid use disorder, naloxone and other opioid overdose reversal medications, and recovery support.
Nationally, up to $1.48 billion is available for states, territories and the District of Columbia and $63 million to Tribes. This funding is an investment in President Joe Biden’s Unity Agenda for the nation.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Xavier Becerra said more than 100,000 Americans die of drug overdoses each year.
“Today’s crisis is different from what we’ve seen in the past,” Becerra said. “The illicit drug supply today is increasingly lethal and unpredictable. Nonetheless, we are making progress.”
Becerra said by focusing on evidence-based intervention, states can drive down overdose deaths.
“We saw historic yearly increases in overdose deaths in the U.S.,” Becerra said. “The latest CDC data show we have flat those increases. And while we still see Americans die, we are not seeing the types of growth in overdose deaths that we had seen prior to President Biden coming into office.”
According to a press release from the White House, from 2018 to 2023, SOR recipients reported over 550,000 overdose reversals, about 9.8 million naloxone kits and 7 million fentanyl test strips distributed. They also reported that over 1.2 million people received treatment services and over 600,000 people received medications for opioid use disorder, including buprenorphine, methadone, and injectable extended-release naltrexone.
At their six-month follow-up, 78 percent of people who received treatment through SOR reported they did not use illicit drugs.
More young people are seeking and following through with permanent contraception procedures.
A new study found that rates of young people seeking permanent contraception have risen since the overturn of Roe v Wade.
The study evaluated changes in rates of tubal ligation and vasectomy procedures among adults aged 18 to 30 following the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe in June of 2022, and West Virginia lawmakers convened a special session in September of that year in which they passed the state’s near-total abortion ban or the Unborn Child Protection Act.
The Unborn Child Protection Act, also known as House Bill 302, outlaws abortions in West Virginia except in cases when the mother’s life is in danger, or instances of rape and incest that are reported to law enforcement in a timely manner. Any abortion performed must be done so in a hospital within eight weeks for adults and 14 weeks for minors.
In a written statement, Kristin Sinning, Marshall Health obstetrician-gynecologist and professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, confirmed an increase in patients expressing interest in and proceeding with permanent sterilization within the past two years.
“Marshall Obstetrics and Gynecology offers patients a comprehensive range of contraception methods including permanent sterilization procedures,” Sinning wrote. “During the past two years, our clinics have experienced an increase in patients expressing interest in and proceeding with permanent sterilization. This is consistent with the findings outlined in the recent Journal of American Medicine Association article.”
Jacqueline Allison is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health Policy and Management and one of the authors of the study on rates of permanent contraception. She said the study was inspired by the conversations she had with friends and family following the overturning of Roe v Wade.
“I think a lot of people who with the capacity for pregnancy, including myself, felt a lot of fear and anxiety around the ruling,” Allison said. “And that fear and anxiety, as we saw in our study, translated to changes in contraceptive decision-making.”
Allison said the study found a substantial increase in both tubal ligation and vasectomy procedures among young people since the Dobbs decision.
“We also found that this increase in tubal ligation procedures was twice that of the vasectomies,” Allison said. “It was also the increase was also sustained in the post Dobbs period, whereas for vasectomies, there was sort of an initial uptick, and then the rate leveled off.”
There could be multiple reasons for those rates, but Allison suspects people who can get pregnant are more likely to experience the consequences of not being able to terminate an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy.
“Women disproportionately experience the health, social and economic consequences of abortion bans, whereas men may not experience those consequences as directly,” Allison said.
Another factor could be that men might not have health insurance coverage for a vasectomy. Allison explained that under the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, all private payers are required to cover contraceptives, at no additional cost to patients.
“That mandate did not include the vasectomy,” Allison said. “So it’s also possible that men do not have insurance coverage for vasectomy, whereas women do have coverage for tubal ligation.”
Allison said she expected to see an increase in interest and follow through with permanent contraception procedures following the Dobbs decision, but did not expect the increase to be as pronounced as it was. She was also surprised to learn that younger people were already more interested in the procedures than their older counterparts were at their ages.
“Even before the Dobbs ruling, younger people were more likely to go out and get permanent contraception, or they were there, the rate was increasing, rather,” Allison said. “And that’s opposite, that’s not what we see when we look at like all adults or older adults. So it suggest to me that, you know, young people are increasingly choosing this option, even before Dobbs.”
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.
Being a parent is a 24-hour role, and a lifetime commitment that has historically fallen to women. As men have started to take on more domestic work, what it means to be a father has started to shift.
Being a parent is a 24-hour role, and a lifetime commitment that has historically fallen to women. As men have started to take on more domestic work, what it means to be a father has started to shift.
Adam Webster has a lot of fond memories from growing up.
“My mother was able to spend a lot of time with us and we had a farm that we could go play and visit and help with work on the farm,” he said. “In hindsight, as an adult now looking back, my dad was working around the clock so that we were able to do those things.”
For many years, Webster’s experience was considered the norm: a father who provided the sole income for a household and a mother who stayed at home with the children. That dynamic has started to change in recent years.
A study published last year by the Pew Research Center shows that fathers now make up 18 percent of all stay at home parents, up from 11 percent in 1989.
It’s a new reality that Webster experienced firsthand after moving back to West Virginia years ago, when his daughters were still young.
“My wife was the one who had full time work when we got back,” Webster said. “I did notice that playgroups and activities during the day were mainly mothers. But there are definitely fathers out in that mix, too. In fact, I met a few good friends when we first got back, because they were the only other dads in these play groups.”
As men take on a more active role in child-rearing, what it means to be a father is changing.
Jessica Troilo, an associate professor of child development and family studies at West Virginia University, said fatherhood changed once before when industrialization caused people to move away from the home for work.
“As fathers started moving to cities to work, that’s where this notion of the breadwinner really kind of started to take hold,” she said.
Troilo said fathers were seen as providers, but less responsible for day-to-day child rearing. In fact, she said studies of parenting have historically focused on mothers, and only in recent years have researchers started to focus on other caregivers, such as fathers.
“In my field, one of the main journals goes back to the 1930s,” Troilo said. “If you look at parenting, it’s not parenting, it’s mothering. I think what we think of as parenthood is really based on mother’s experiences. Father’s experiences really weren’t taken into consideration until the 1970s.”
Beyond their focus on mothering, Troilo also said many studies in the past generalized a middle-class experience of single-income households, something that has become harder to achieve with rising costs and stagnating wages. As economic realities changed, Troilo said men started to look to different sources for their model of what a father can and should be.
“That Gen X group was really the first group of fathers or men to say, ‘I’m not going to look at my father as much. I’m going to look at my friends to see what they are doing,’” she said. “They started looking at peers more and saying ‘Oh, okay, well, my friends are more involved in nurturing, they are changing diapers, they are getting up in the middle of the night. So maybe I should be doing that, too.’”
Women still represent a majority of caregivers in America. The Pew study shows that the rate of stay-at-home moms has only decreased slightly, from 28 percent to 26 percent.
Troilo said part of what has held men back in the past has been a positive feedback loop of skills passed down from generation to generation, even perceived by some to be innate in women.
“I think it became kind of this norm, when a baby would cry, it was ‘Well the moms can handle’ or ‘The women in the family can handle this because they know what to do,’” she said. “‘Don’t let the dad try to step in.’ So then you have men not learning how to soothe the child.”
Jonathan Beckmeyer, an assistant professor in the School of Counseling and Well Being at WVU, studies the connection between young people’s social relationships and their health and well being primarily at adolescence and as emerging adults.
“Parenting is a skill. It’s a skill that people build over time,” he said. “They build through experience, and they build by watching other people engage in these behaviors. It’s the same thing for fathers and fatherhood. If a man is interested, or wants to be a more involved father in this child’s life, there’s nothing to prevent them from going and doing that.”
For many, being a father is tied up in ideas of what it means to be a man. Beckmeyer said depictions of fathers in the media often relied on tropes of either incompetence around the house, or stoic disciplinarians. As time went on, that didn’t fit with people’s lived reality.
“The kind of the shift has been a lot of men recognizing ‘Well, that’s not my life. And that’s not really a productive way to view other men and that’s not how I view myself,’” Beckmeyer said. “That narrative slowly starts to change within how individual men go about their family life. I think that’s been something that’s been really powerful, recognizing that good men can be emotional, and they can be supportive, and they can ask for help, and all of these kinds of things that have broken down a lot of the stigma around what is and what isn’t, masculinity, is starting to transition that over into family life.”
For young fathers like Cody Cannon, a comedian based in Morgantown, helping his son connect with his emotions is one of his key goals.
“I just want to make sure I have the impact on him that above anything else, it’s important to be empathetic and caring, and a good person,” Cannon said.
Despite not living with his son and being separated from his child’s mother, Cannon also emphasizes the importance of supporting his co-parent to ensure the best outcome for his child.
“I think it’s important for me to nurture the best aspects of him and to help make sure his mom is doing okay,” he said. “In order for him to have a better life, I had to make sure she also had a better life.”
Beckmeyer said kids need supportive, positive adult caregivers in their lives, regardless of gender, and mutual support can be an important part of that balance.
“Any and all parents and caregivers can have a really important impact on young people’s lives,” he said. “Mothers aren’t more important than fathers, fathers aren’t more important than mothers. It’s about ensuring that people are providing the supports and resources that the kiddos need.”
What it means to be a parent of any gender is deeply personal and individual, and there is no one way to do it. But according to experts, allowing for a greater variety in those roles can help create not just good outcomes for kids, but parents and families as well.
Dignitaries broke ground Tuesday on a new consolidated state laboratory in South Charleston.
Alongside fellow state leaders, Gov. Jim Justice broke ground on a new state laboratory on Tuesday.
The West Virginia Regional Technology Park is expanding to include the new $250 million West Virginia consolidated state laboratories facility.
Funds for the 300,000-square-foot facility were appropriated by the West Virginia Legislature in 2023 through Senate Bill 1031.
“This is truly a great day for West Virginia as we start turning our dream of a brand new state laboratory into a reality,” Justice said. “When it’s finished, this facility will provide the space and resources many of our state agencies need to properly serve the people of West Virginia. This will make a huge difference and promote collaboration because so many great people from our state agencies will be working together under the same roof. This isn’t just an investment in a new building. This is an investment in the future of our state, and I’m very thankful to see it happen. Finally, I want to thank the West Virginia Regional Tech Park for their efforts in making sure our needs are met during this process.”
Design work is set to conclude by early 2025 and construction is anticipated to be completed by 2027.
When complete, the facility will house the Department of Health’s Office of Laboratory Services, the Division of Labor’s Office of Weights and Measures, the State Police and the Department of Homeland Security forensics lab and the State Medical Examiner.
According to a press release, the facility will also include labs from Marshall University and West Virginia University.
The Department of Administration will operate the facility in cooperation with all of these tenants and the tech park.
