When the Celtics need their Z’s, they call the Sleep Doctor

NBA fans try to consider the inhibitions a tough day-to-day schedule places on their favorite teams, but usually such sympathy goes out the window the moment the starting power forward fails to box out.

Sleep, or lack thereof, is a big problem in the NBA, where players spend half of their season on the road while being asked to perform at the absolute peak of their abilities sometime after 10 p.m. before shutting it off completely and hitting the sack in a foreign hotel room just a few hours later. Players have to go piecemeal with their rest, often sneaking snoozes in during hotel stays in the afternoon, shuffled in-between team shootarounds or public appearances scheduled by people who only obey the 9-to-5 call.

This is why the Boston Celtics, ever on the vanguard, have hired the services of Dr. Charles Czeisler, as they attempt to feed their wily veterans and skittish youngsters all the sleep they need over the course of what for Boston is often a 100-game season.  Dr. Czeisler is the chief of the division of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women's and director of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Paul Flannery of Boston Magazine recently detailed his influence on the defending Eastern Conference champs:

The Celtics soon eliminated morning practices and instituted the "2 a.m. rule," which holds that if the players can't get to their hotel rooms in the next city by that time, then they stay where they are for an extra night and get their eight hours. Sound rest is all the more important for a veteran team like the Celtics, who have struggled playing games on consecutive nights. "Trying to create a window of 8 to 10 hours of sleep — it's almost impossible during an NBA season," Rivers says. "The way we were doing it made it completely impossible."

It's hard enough for me to wind down after shoving my nose an inch away from the TV as I watch the heightened playoff action, but I don't have to answer questions about my performance and then board a plane to Oklahoma City immediately following. Just something to think about, the next time you see a player yawning during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner."

Eating armadillos blamed for leprosy in the South

LOS ANGELES — With some genetic sleuthing, scientists have fingered a likely culprit in the spread of leprosy in the southern United States: the nine-banded armadillo.

DNA tests show a match in the leprosy strain between some patients and these prehistoric-looking critters — a connection scientists had suspected but until now couldn't pin down.

"Now we have the link," said James Krahenbuhl, who heads a government leprosy program that led the new study.

Only about 150 leprosy cases occur each year in the U.S., mostly among travelers to places like India, Brazil and Angola where it's more common. The risk of getting leprosy from an armadillo is low because most people who get exposed don't get sick with the ancient scourge, known medically as Hansen's disease and now easily treatable.

Armadillos are one of the very few mammals that harbor the bacteria that cause the sometimes disfiguring disease, which first shows up as an unusual lumpy skin lesion.

Researchers at the National Hansen's Disease Programs in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, led an international team of scientists who published their findings in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. They think it requires frequent handling of armadillos or eating their meat for leprosy to spread.

DNA samples were taken from 33 wild armadillos in Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, where they're sometimes referred to as "hillbilly speed bumps" because they're often run over by cars.

Scientists also took skin biopsies from 50 leprosy patients being treated at a Baton Rouge clinic. Three-quarters had never had foreign exposure, but lived in Southern states where they could have been exposed to armadillos.

An analysis found that samples from the patients and armadillos were genetically similar to each other and were different from leprosy strains found elsewhere in the world. The unique strain was found in 28 armadillos and 25 patients.

Of the 15 patients for whom researchers had information, seven said they had no contact with armadillos; eight said they did, including one who routinely hunted and ate them.

While the work did not document direct transmission from animal to human, "the evidence is pretty convincing that it happens," said Dr. Brian Currie, an infectious disease expert at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, who had no role in the study.

Leprosy remains a problem in tropical hot spots of the world with some 250,000 new infections reported each year. Like tuberculosis, it can stay dormant for years before attacking the skin and nerves.

While leprosy is infectious, it's hard to catch. Those most at risk are family members who are in constant contact with an untreated person. Leprosy can't be spread through casual contact such as handshaking, or sexual intercourse.

The disease has long been misunderstood and those who contracted it were often shunned. Fear of its spread led some countries to quarantine people. False stories about fingers and toes falling off added to the stigma.

Leprosy is curable with fast treatment The disease is curable with prompt treatment of antibiotics before complications set in. The drugs typically kill the bacteria within days and make it non-contagious. It usually takes a year or two to fully clear the germ from the body.

If left untreated, leprosy can cause nerve damage so severe that people lose feeling in their fingers and toes, leading to deformity and disability.

While the germ attacks the skin, hands and feet of humans, it tends to infect the liver, spleen and lymph node of armadillos.

"Leave the animals alone," advised lead researcher Richard Truman of the National Hansen's Disease Programs.

"I would not cuddle armadillos," said Dr. Warwick Britton of the University of Sydney in Australia, who had no connection with the study.

For Ymelda Beauchamp, how she got infected decades ago remains a mystery.

When she was 15, she noticed lumps on her skin and felt numbness in her hands and feet. Her left hand began clawing inward.

After high school graduation, she decided to seek treatment at a former sugar plantation in Carville, Louisiana, that was turned into a clinic for leprosy patients. There were times when the pain was so excruciating she said she did not want to wake up.

Today, the 59-year-old Beauchamp is disease-free and works as an advocate with the American Leprosy Missions, a Christian group that helped fund the study along with other leprosy support groups and the National Institutes of Health.

She still does not have feeling in her hands and feet, and has to be careful not to burn or cut herself when cooking.

"It's not difficult, but it isn't easy either," she said. "You get quite used to it."

Circumcision ban in San Francisco considered

SAN FRANCISCO — A group opposed to male circumcision said on Tuesday they have collected more than enough signatures to qualify a proposal to ban the practice in San Francisco as a ballot measure for November elections.

But legal experts said that even if it were approved by a majority of the city's voters, such a measure would almost certainly face a legal challenge as an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of religion.

Circumcision is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys, and is also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide.

The leading proponent of a ban, Lloyd Schofield, 59, acknowledged circumcision is widely socially accepted but he said it should still be outlawed.

"It's excruciatingly painful and permanently damaging surgery that's forced on men when they're at their weakest and most vulnerable," he told Reuters.

His group submitted about 12,000 signatures supporting his proposed ban, said Rachel Gosiengfiao, campaign services manager for the city's Department of Elections. The agency has 30 days to verify the petitions. He needs 7,200 valid signatures to qualify.

Measure would make circumcision a misdemeanor The measure, which would only apply in San Francisco, would make it a misdemeanor crime to circumcise a boy before he is 18 years of age, regardless of the parents' religious beliefs. The maximum penalty would be a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Schofield, who would not discuss his current occupation but previously worked for hotels in the San Francisco Bay area, has found allies for his cause in the anti-circumcision groups Intact America and the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers, according to his group's website.

However, some experts said it was doubtful such a measure would withstand legal scrutiny if challenged.

"The practice of Judaism requires a boy to be circumcised. I suspect the California courts would ultimately require the city to demonstrate the practice is harmful," said Jennifer Rothman, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

"I don't think there's sufficient medical evidence that it is, which would place the law's constitutionality in question."

But Josh Davis, professor and associate dean for faculty scholarship at the University of San Francisco School of Law, said the U.S. Supreme Court has previously indicated in rulings that "religions don't get a free pass."

"So if circumcision is the harm that's being targeted — because circumcision is perceived as causing harm, and not because it is a religious practice — it might well be a constitutionally valid law," he said.

Schofield's proposal would make exceptions for boys who need a circumcision for health reasons.

Nevertheless, Davis and Rothman both said voters would be likely to reject the measure at the polls.

"I think that people are very likely to react to it as interfering with religious practices," Davis said.