Updated: 9:22 AM Fried food, no exercise, smoking, are all precursors to heart disease. Those are the factors you can control, but as one local woman learned, you can't control genetics. She believed everything was fine, until she caught what she thought was the flu.
Updated: 9:45 PM Oral cancer is the sixth most common form of the disease in American men. If that's not frightening enough, dentists are now discovering more cases of oral cancer among young, healthy women. By the time oral cancer is visible, it's usually too late. But a local dentist is shining new light on the problem, that's saving lives.
Updated: 9:27 PM Heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Bay County. And, type 2 diabetes is also currently increasing in our community at a faster rate than the state average.
Updated: 10:37 PM Ebooks are the wave of the future in Florida education. The only question is when will the state make the switch from hardcover textbooks. The state Board of Education is trying to speed up the process. The board wants to get rid of textbooks and go all digital by 2015.
Posted: 9:21 AM Florida leads the nation in the number of lethal pills prescribed by unscrupulous doctors. So called pill mills, set up in store fronts, are overprescribing potent drugs such as oxycodone. Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi launched a crackdown on over prescribers.
Updated: 8:41 AM Arnold football fans have had the chance to see a brave young lady participate in the color guard this season, without fully understanding what she's had to do to be on the field. Her family believes it's nothing short of a miracle. This time last year, doctors weren't sure Avonlea Dunn would even be around to see another football season. But so far she's beaten the odds and has come back even stronger.
Updated: 8:42 AM She's managed to push her pain to the background and keep it a secret from everyone, while entertaining hundreds of people every Friday night on the Arnold Blue Thunder Marching Band Color Guard.
Updated: 2:45 PM Panama City-- Each year, about thirty people in Bay County commit suicide, leaving family and loved ones behind to grief.
Posted: 3:29 PM One in every three Florida kids ages 10 to 17 is overweight or obese. Blue Cross Blue Shield is looking for solutions, through its philanthropic affiliate The Blue Foundation.
Updated: 8:13 AM In October, Panama City Beach participated in Florida’s first ever in-clinic animal stem cell therapy. It’s been about three weeks and the two dogs are doing extremely well.
Updated: 9:30 PM Medicaid eats up 20 billion state dollars every year. That’s about a third of the state’s total budget. Lawmakers are looking for ways to lower the cost without drastically cutting services.
Updated: 9:32 AM Some doctors claim you'll see the results in as little as two weeks.
Posted: 4:38 PM Santa Rosa Beach- A licensed medical doctor says he is currently treating patients with symptoms of toxic exposure he believes originates from the BP oil spill. He's waiting on blood test results of pateints who work in the Vessels of Opportunity program, who were exposed to high levels of hazardous chemicals--but they may not be the only ones at risk.
Posted: 4:40 PM Santa Rosa Beach - Dr. Rodney Soto, a licensed medical doctor, says the effects of organic volatile compounds found in petroleum product and chemical dispersents contain toxic material. He's already treating patients with symptoms of exposure..
Updated: 8:30 AM According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. It is for that reason faculty and students from Florida State University's Panama City campus and Gulf Coast Community College worked together to host a lecture on suicide prevention.
Updated: 2:15 PM As many as several hundred local healthcare workers will be getting smaller pay checks by the end of this month. Bay Medical Center is cutting the hours of a large number of it's employees. Last year employees at Bay Medical launched a campaign to help raise money for the new patient tower project. Now one month after the tower opening, many of those employees are facing pay cuts.
Updated: 3:19 PM It's a tradition that gets better every year. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and Tuesday night dozens of survivors took to the stage for a very special fashion show.
Posted: 8:19 AM On Monday we told you about a Bonifay family who's daughter struggled with lyme disease for years, then found healing through hyperbaric oxygen treatments. Now that family is getting ready to open an outpatient hyperbaric oxygen center of their own. The center in Bonifay should be up and running by the first of the year, just in time for another local lyme disease patient to use it for follow up treatments.
Updated: 2:52 PM Bonifay - As more and more young people in Northwest Florida contract lyme disease, one family in Bonifay is fighting back by opening a hyperbaric oxygen center in Holmes County. They say the treatments helped heal their daughter.
Updated: 10:25 AM In Panama City, Life Management Center of Northwest Florida hosted the inaugural suicide prevention conference to educate mental health professionals and the public about the issue.
Posted: 9:26 PM Millions of eggs have been recalled after they were linked to a salmonella outbreak that's sickened hundreds of people. The recall is massive -- 228-- million eggs.
Updated: 8:19 AM People in Washington County, suffering from chronic wounds, won't have to travel for treatment. Northwest Florida Community Hospital opened a Wound Healing Institute this week, offering hyperbaric chamber treatments. The institute is ready to receive its first patient.
Posted: 9:24 PM Four Floridians have died from a rare mosquito borne illness in the past six weeks. Eastern Equine Encephalitis is passed from birds to humans through mosquitoes. One in three people who contract the disease die, and there’s no cure.
Posted: 9:46 PM Police are still looking for the thief who stole a 3-year-old girl's leg braces. However, the family did get some good news Friday with a local company offering to help the child and her family with replacement braces.
Updated: 9:31 PM Panama City-- A Panama City mother and Oncology Nurse speaks to NewsChannel 7 about battling Inflammatory Breast Cancer...at only 28-years old.
A woman whose son died of cystic fibrosis in 2009 successfully sued on Thursday to get his younger brother, now 11, on the adult waiting list for a lung transplant.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reiterated Tuesday that she won’t intervene in the “incredibly agonizing” case involving a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl who is waiting for a lung transplant, telling members of Congress that medical experts should make those decisions.
One of the first provisions of the 2010 health reform law has had its intended effect: shifting costs from hospitals, taxpayers and families to health insurance companies, researchers reported on Thursday. It’s one of the most popular aspects of the law.
Probiotics — those products that promise to replenish your gut’s 'healthy' microbes — do seem to help prevent dangerous diarrhea, researchers reported on Thursday.
People may realize that fast food isn’t health food, but they don’t realize just how fattening it really is, researchers report. They surveyed people eating at 10 burger, chicken, sandwich and doughnut chains and found they greatly underestimated just how much they were chowing down.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie revealed that he's had gastric-band weight-loss surgery, which experts say has the least amount of short-term risk but also yields the least amount of weight loss.
A new line of caffeinated chewing gum is causing jitters among health advocates and prompting federal officials to take a new look at the proliferation of jolt-infused foods, including those marketed to children and teens.
Forget the old high school clichés about athletes not doing as well academically as less sporty kids -- a new study shows that children who exercise more do better in math, reading tests.
The procrastinators, the super-busy, and the easily bored in pursuit of a manageable fitness routine may find what they seek in the 10-minute workout.
Exercise not only improves mood, it may help people maintain reduced anxiety in the face of stressful or emotional events, a new study says.
