Read The Daily Sun August healthcare report to see how TVH is working with community partners to keep our hometown healthy.
8/5/2025
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8/12/2025
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8/19/2025
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8/26/2025
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Although we don’t think of them often, we rely on our lungs for every inhale and exhale. But these essential organs are not just vital to breathing; they also enable other body systems to function. Your lungs support physical activity, speech, cognition, laughter, and energy production. They help your immune system by filtering out harmful substances and removing carbon dioxide. When lung health is compromised, it impacts your lifestyle and wellbeing.
World Lung Cancer Day, observed annually on August 1st, brings awareness of the disease that affects individuals worldwide. It’s a call to educate ourselves and take action to protect and preserve our respiratory system.
The leading risk factor for lung cancer is smoking, which accounts for 80 % of lung cancer deaths. Quitting smoking and avoiding second-hand smoke are big moves you can make to support lung health. Of course, the more important step is avoiding damage to your lungs in the first place by not smoking, and that includes vaping. With either habit, you inhale toxic agents directly into the lung tissue, which damages the respiratory system and increases cancer risk over time. Diseases like chronic bronchitis and emphysema are also more common among smokers, and when these have advanced enough, they become irreversible.
As for good habits, we can add exercise to our repertoire for respiratory health. Exercise can increase your lung capacity and strengthen the muscles that help you breathe. In addition, vaccinations for flu, pneumonia, RSV, COVID-19, and the common cold can protect against infectious lung diseases.
According to the American Cancer Society, around 226,650 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year (2025). The disease kills three times as many men as prostate cancer and three times as many women as breast cancer. However, mortality rates are declining due to advanced lung imaging and early detection and treatment. Catching the disease early requires ongoing screening for people who meet the criteria for imaging. People who smoke actively or have smoked within the past several years are likely eligible candidates for low-resolution chest cat scans, the primary modality used in screening for lung cancer. If you fall into this category, be sure you ask your doctor about your eligibility for screening.
Healthy lungs make a great game of pickle ball possible, but they also make everyday life easier. So, take good care of your them—you’ll need them for the long haul!
Robert Reilly, MD, FACP is Medical Director of Clinical Operations for The Villages Health
Read The Daily Sun July healthcare report to see how TVH is working with community partners to keep our hometown healthy.
7/1/2025
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7/8/2025
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7/15/2025
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7/22/2025
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7/28/2025
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Comfort is a characteristic of quality care. It’s also the word Sue Schreifels used to describe her experience with The Villages Health. A retired health educator, Sue and her husband Don had been living in Minnesota when they began hunting for their retirement home.
“We looked at other places, in Arizona and that kind of thing,” she said. The couple had also vacationed in The Villages several times.
“We heard lots of good things about it,” Don said. While here, they met Villagers and talked about retirement life in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown. “We asked everyone we saw how they liked it here and they said, ‘I wish I’d have moved here sooner.’”
After sampling the community offerings and soaking up the Florida sun, Don and Sue decided to make a permanent move from Minnesota.
“We saw that everyone was here to meet people and have fun, and so were we,” Don said.
As for Sue, the features that sealed the deal were lifestyle, weather, and medical care. Initially, the couple had been seeing another local provider, but they found it difficult to communicate with the office, had trouble getting appointments, and disliked the long wait times.
Now patients of The Villages Health, Sue and Don are thrilled they made the switch.
“Service was a big deal for us, and the coordination of care,” Don said. “It’s very nice to know they’re keeping on top of things for us, and it just feels so much more convenient because everything is in one location. That’s the beauty of it. Having all the records in one place is very important.”
Sue wholeheartedly agrees: “Here, we can get in, people care, and it’s a tremendous comfort to know that you’re not just floundering out there.”
Trading Minnesota snow and ice for sunshine all year long, the Schreifels have found their ideal home, and a healthcare team that feels like family.
Aside from skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men. As a urologist for The Villages Health, Dr. Michael Daugherty deals with the disease every day.
“It’s one of the main conditions we see,” he said. “In general, urologists are the ones that wind up taking care of prostate cancer, and we also work with oncologists and radiation oncologists.”
While cancer is an ominous word, prostate cancer is a highly treatable type.
“The five-year life expectancy across the board is around 99%,” said Daugherty. “Very few people die from it right away, if ever.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that from 2018 to 2022, 70% of cases were diagnosed at a localized stage, meaning the cancer had not spread outside of the prostate. Finding the cancer early can improve the outcome and affect a patient’s rate of survival. However, since the majority of men diagnosed don’t experience symptoms, the disease can go undetected without regular screenings.
“If a patient comes in and is already symptomatic, then usually it’s further down the road; it’s more advanced,” said Daugherty.
Prostate cancer can strike at any age, but the risks are greater among older men and those with a family history.
“If you have a brother or father with prostate cancer, it doubles your risk of having it, so family history is important,” Daugherty said. In addition, “If you’re African American, you typically get worse, more aggressive prostate cancer at the beginning. So those two groups of people—African Americans and family history members—are at much higher risk of getting the aggressive form of prostate cancer.”
“Typically, the way we find prostate cancer is through a blood test called the PSA, (prostate-specific antigen),” Daugherty said. The test is often done by a primary care physician, who measures the amount of a specific protein in the blood that could signal prostate cancer.
“If the PSA is elevated, (the patient) will get a referral to the urologist, and then we do an examination,” Daugherty said. “And if we feel that it’s warranted, we order an MRI of the prostate. If the MRI shows anything suspicious, the next step would be a biopsy.”
Elevated PSA is not always a result of cancer, however. Certain medications, procedures, conditions, or even vigorous activity can raise PSA levels. It’s important to discuss these factors with your health care provider to support a proper diagnosis.
The American Cancer Society says about 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed in their lifetime, and the average age is about 67. Daugherty recommends men 50 and older get screened annually. However, this advice wasn’t always universally accepted and may still be met with resistance.
“About 10 years ago, (the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force) recommended that men not be screened for prostate cancer, that they stop PSAs,” Daughety said. “The reason was that many men who had an elevated PSA and didn’t have prostate cancer were going through biopsies when they weren’t needed. So the biopsy was the problem, not the PSA test. (The committee) didn’t want people to have unnecessary invasive procedures.”
This fear of overdiagnosis and overtreatment then led to a surge of cancer deaths in the years that followed. A 2014 study published by experts at Hutchinson Cancer Research Center predicted a 13 to 20 percent increase in prostate cancer mortality from 2013 to 2025 due to discontinued screenings. That’s an additional 36,000 to 57,000 deaths among U.S. men.
Daugherty notes that once a man is diagnosed, doctors use various imaging tools to assess the cancer growth.
“We usually do a staging scan, which is like a PET scan for prostate cancer,” he said. “It shows if there’s any spread in the body, outside of the prostate.”
If the cancer is confined to the prostate, Daugherty says there are three ways it’s typically treated:
As for future treatments, cancer research has yielded some great developments. “One of the big things in the works is a vaccine,” says Daugherty. Researchers have found that the same genes involved in breast cancer (BRCA1 and BRCA2) also play a role in prostate cancer risk. Men with these gene mutations may benefit from advanced treatments and targeted therapies.
Overweight men are more likely to develop advanced prostate cancer, and to die from the disease.
“The better shape you’re in, the lower your risk,” Daugherty said. “And diet makes a huge difference too. Most of the prostate cancers in the world come from countries that have a Western diet that is high in fat.” Excessive alcohol consumption, as well as red and processed meats, are also shown to negatively impact cancer risks.
If age or family history aren’t on your side, let positive lifestyle habits put the odds in your favor. Talk to your doctor about additional, individualized steps as well as PSA screenings.
Read The Daily Sun June healthcare report to see how TVH is working with community partners to keep our hometown healthy.
6-3-2025
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6-10-2025
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6-17-2025
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6-24-2025
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Sarah Leahy says life is a bowl of cherries, but her husband Rob disagrees.
“It’s a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get,” he said.
When the Boston natives were shopping for new healthcare in Florida, Rob maintained this skepticism.
“When we first came down, I was kind of snickering when I heard about The Villages Health,” he said. “Sarah’s sister was raving about it and I just thought she was (exaggerating).”
It didn’t take long to convince Rob, however.
“It’s everything she said and more. The Villages Health has been truly fantastic so far. Everybody has been great,” he said.
Rob and Sarah were most impressed with the on-site labs, in-house specialty care, and overall ease and accessibility of The Villages Health’s services.
“You can’t beat the convenience,” Rob said. “If you have to go to a specialist back home, you’re fighting Boston traffic and it takes hours and hours out of your day. But here, everything has just been great.”
The couple are patients of the Mulberry Grove Care Center, which they say is just a 10-minute drive from their home. As avid golfers, they appreciate the quick appointments that allow them to spend more time swinging clubs on the course than sitting in waiting rooms at their doctor’s office.
“We’re not saying our Boston physicians were poor. It was just difficult,” Sarah said. She notes that patients were typically double booked so wait times were long and visits were less than relaxed. At The Villages Health, patients are free to chat with their care teams, ask questions and build relationships. Communication is the cornerstone of excellent care.
“I had bloodwork done on a Friday afternoon, and I got a call with the results on Monday morning,” Sarah said. “You feel so special.”
Now on their lanai, the couple enjoy wine at the rustic bar Sarah crafted from salvaged wood pallets. A sign reads: May your glass always be half full. From Massachusetts to the Sunshine State, they’ve traversed many paths in their 50-plus years together. They look forward to finding new ones.
“To be able to just get in the golf cart and go to dinner—it’s everything I had hoped for and more,” Rob said. “And top it off with The Villages Health is even better.”
In the world of weight loss and diet trends, GLP-1s are all the buzz. While the majority are only FDA approved for Type 2 diabetes, they’ve become the go-to drug for many frustrated calorie-counters and individuals battling the bulge. But are they safe and worth the high cost and potential risks? That depends…
There are lots of these drugs in the pipeline, and those available include tirzepatide and semaglutide. According to a 2024 poll, about 1 in 8 American adults have used them. As demand increases, so do the number of pop-up clinics and online suppliers peddling their compounded versions. But are they safe and worth the high cost and potential risks? That depends…
A lot of evidence suggests GLP-1s are good medications, but outside of the diabetic realm, there’s a big black box unknown. As for their long-term safety, we simply don’t have enough data to know the effects of using them for weight loss alone.
GLP-1s work by accelerating and enhancing the production of incretin, a hormone your body releases naturally. They help insulin work more effectively, increase metabolic activity, and activate areas in the brain that signal fullness. We call this early satiety. In some cases, I’ve seen patients achieve significant weight loss, but some people tolerate them better than others. Then there are those who lose weight and gain it all back once they come off the drug. However, the hope is that those who use the medicine appropriately will have the opportunity to kickstart some healthy habits. Because obesity is a chronic condition, short-term fixes aren’t long-term solutions. Therefore, to enjoy meaningful, sustained changes, patients must change their behavior.
If weight is a major morbidity, and it affects a person’s quality of life, movement, sleep, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, disease risks, and more, GLP-1s might be a good fit. But for patients whose body mass index puts them just overweight, these drugs probably aren’t the right approach.
For some patients, compounded GLP-1s are the only accessible option, as the cost of the brand name, doctor prescribed drugs can exceed $1,000 per month. In contrast, compounded versions are a fraction of the price, which is often the appeal for patients. Some compounding pharmacies dispense their drugs safely, but others are unlicensed, selling substandard products and offering little to no patient support—and that’s where the danger lies.
Clinical oversight is crucial when using GLP-1s, and some patients should absolutely avoid these drugs. For example, if they have a condition called multiple endocrine neoplasia, a family history of thyroid cancer, pancreatic problems, or severe gastrointestinal conditions. If a pharmacy does not properly vet their patients, they could be putting them at risk. I suggest patients first consult their health care providers before pursuing these medications. If the patient is a good candidate, their doctor can guide them to a reputable pharmacy that is monitored by a licensed practitioner.
When GLP-1 treatment begins, it can take some time to find a patient’s sweet spot, which is the dosage that yields the benefits with minimal side effects. It takes time for the body to adjust, so the dosages should escalate slowly, and they may vary from patient to patient. A health care professional should be managing this process, and monitoring the patient’s side effects, which often include gastrointestinal issues, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and changes in bowel habits. When a patient is ready to discontinue the drug, clinical oversight may also help ensure a smooth transition and reduce the risk of weight regain.
For certain patients seeking weight loss support, GLP-1s may be the way forward. As for shortcuts and quick fixes, false promises are all that exist.
Dr Reilly is the Medical Director for Risk-Based Care at The Villages Health’s Creekside Care Center.
A version of this article appeared in the Daily Sun.
When they relocated to the area 15 years ago, it was the lifestyle that drew them, the prospect of “staying young” and having fun. All it took was a ride around The Villages for Ray and Barbara Burhop to make the move. They chose a courtyard villa, lush with greenery, vibrant potted flowers, crape myrtle, and creeping vines. It was the ideal place for the two and their terrier, Dexter.
“I can’t think of a better place to live, Barbara said.
The Burhops stay active and enjoy cruising the golf cart paths. Their upgraded life includes an upgraded health plan that supports their goals and consistently exceeds their expectations.
“We had conventional Medicare but eventually found it was more advantageous to have a Medicare Advantage plan,” Ray said. “We get a lot of the services for a lot less than what we were paying. And not only are we getting substantial savings, but we’re getting a substantial increase in the quality of our health care.”
In addition to golf-cart accessibility, Ray takes advantage of on-site labs. “I’m on a blood thinner that requires me to have my blood checked every 30 days, and it’s just a simple thing for me to get in the golf cart, go down to Colony (Care Center) and get my blood taken. The whole process is just exactly the way you’d like it to be.”
For Ray and Barbara, retirement life is all about ease and autonomy, the ability to plan and manage their days on their terms. “Before we came to The Villages Health, we would go see a physician and routinely wait about 45 minutes. It really gets old when you have to wait so long,” Barbara said.
Ray adds, “If I have an appointment at 9:00, a few minutes before or a few minutes after, I’m being called. It’s a standard experience – how do they do it? I don’t know.”
Barbara felt visits with their previous providers were rushed. “They didn’t give us the time,” she said. “But now we’re spoiled. The whole concept is different, and before I had to coordinate, but now I have a team. When you’re our age, you’ve seen a lot of doctors in your lifetime. You’ve been to a lot of offices, but this is really top notch.”
Working together to achieve a common goal—to keep patients healthy and heal them quickly—The Villages Health’s comprehensive care offers the Burhops peace of mind.
Unfortunately, it’s not the right fit for every family member…
As Ray cuddles Dexter on his lap, he states his only grievance. “It’s too bad The Villages Health doesn’t have veterinary care.”
Click to see more testimonials from real patients!
The National Institute of Health says hearing loss is one of the most common medical concerns, affecting 37.5 million adults in America. It’s an important topic that impacts hosts of Villagers and their families. May marks National Speech-Language-Hearing Month, which aims to bring awareness to communication and hearing challenges.
For some people, hearing difficulty is caused by an ear full of wax. For others, the issue stems from noise exposure, head trauma, medications, the natural process of aging or other medical concerns. Hearing loss affects patients in many different ways. Sadly, it often results in increased risk of cognitive decline, depression, anxiety, and social isolation.
Treating hearing loss sooner rather than later can improve long-term outcomes for patients. Treatment can include the use of a traditional hearing aid, bone anchored hearing aid, or cochlear implant. What works for one person may not be appropriate for another. Therefore, it’s prudent to speak with an audiologist to discuss your options in detail.
At The Villages Health, we offer diagnostic hearing evaluations, tinnitus evaluations and counseling, vestibular (balance) evaluations, hearing aid treatment and maintenance, cochlear implant evaluations and follow-up cochlear implant programming. This makes us a full-service clinic with the resources and desire to provide you with individualized care specific to your needs.
We end National Speech-Language- Hearing Month by inviting individuals to our 2nd Cochlear Implant Meet and Greet, hosted by Advanced Bionics on Thursday, June 5th, 2025, from 2 to 3:30 pm at Pinellas Care Center.
Those who are interested may register with Karalee Kowar, Advanced Bionics CI Consumer Specialist by text or email.
Karalee.Kowar@AdvancedBionics.com
Call/ Text: 661.348.2185
We look forward to seeing you then!
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