Zero-calorie sweetener linked to heart attack and stroke |
A sugar replacement called erythritol – used to add bulk to or sweeten stevia, monkfruit and keto reduced-sugar products – has been linked to blood clotting, stroke, heart attack and death, according to a new study. People with existing risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, were twice as likely to experience a heart attack or stroke if they had the highest levels of erythritol in their blood, according to the study, published this week in the journal Nature Medicine. The study analyzed various pools of blood samples: one composed of 1,100 samples from adults in the US at risk for heart disease between 2004 and 2011, and the other composed of more than 2,100 people in the US and another 800 people from Europe. Three-quarters of the participants in all three populations had coronary disease or high blood pressure; about a fifth had diabetes; and more than half were male and in their 60s and 70s. In all three populations, researchers found that higher levels of erythritol were connected to a greater risk of heart attack, stroke or death within three years. Additional lab and animal research presented in the paper showed that erythritol appeared to be causing blood platelets to clot more readily. Clots can break off and travel to the heart, triggering a heart attack, or to the brain, triggering a stroke. In response to the study, the Calorie Control Council, an industry association, said, "the results of this study are contrary to decades of scientific research showing reduced-calorie sweeteners like erythritol are safe, as evidenced by global regulatory permissions for their use in foods and beverages." |
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Insomnia may be linked to higher risk of heart attack |
It's no secret that sleep is important to your overall health, but a lack of it could have substantial effects on your heart. A new study finds that people with insomnia are more likely to have a heart attack. Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder in the country, and about 10% to 15% of people in the US struggle with it. In the study, insomnia was defined as trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and waking early and being unable to fall back asleep. The study analyzed 11 years' worth of data from nearly 1.2 million adults across the US, the UK, Norway, Germany, Taiwan and China. Of the participants, 153,881 had insomnia and 1,030,375 did not. The researchers found that heart attacks occurred in 1.6% of the group with insomnia and 1.2% among those without the sleeping disorder. The study also found an association between increased heart attack risk and how long a participant slept each night. Those who slept five hours or less had the highest association with heart attack risk; they were 1.56 times more likely to have a heart attack than people who slept seven or eight hours. |
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FDA authorizes first at-home test that can detect both flu and Covid-19 |
If you've got a fever and a cough, you don't necessarily have to go to the doctor anymore to find out if it's the flu or Covid-19. Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized what it says is the first at-home test that can tell users if they have the flu and/or Covid-19. The test uses a single self-collected nasal swab and can provide results in about half an hour. The test can be bought without a prescription. It's authorized for anyone 14 and older for self-collection, or an adult can give it to a child 2 and older. The test is able to identify a negative result for influenza A with more than 99% accuracy and a positive result with more than 90% accuracy. It's 100% accurate for negative Covid-19 samples and more than 88% accurate for positive results. Tests for Covid-19 and flu are helpful because both illnesses can be treated with different medications, and those drugs work best when taken as soon as possible after symptoms begin. Cost of the test has yet to be released by Lucira, the makers of the test. |
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Adderall users struggle with ongoing shortage while reason -- and resolution -- remain uncertain |
In October, the FDA made its first announcement of a shortage of Adderall – the drug commonly used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The agency noted that one of the main manufacturers of the drug, Teva, was "experiencing ongoing intermittent manufacturing delays." Although other manufacturers continued to produce the drug, the agency said, "there is not sufficient supply to continue to meet U.S. market demand through those producers." Jim McKinney, a spokesperson for the agency, told CNN that the manufacturing delay has been resolved and that the shortage is now "demand-driven." Data from the analytics and research company IQVIA shows that the demand for Adderall has risen nearly 27% in recent years, with prescriptions jumping from 35.5 million in 2019 to 45 million last year. On its website, the FDA lists eight manufacturers that have reported Adderall shortages to the agency. The website lists the shortage reason for some versions of the drug, such as "demand increase" or "shortage of active ingredient," but for other versions, it just says "other" or lists no reason at all. Dr. Yoram Unguru is a pediatric hematologist and oncologist with joint faculty appointments at the Herman & Walter Samuelson Children's Hospital at Sinai and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and studies drug shortages. He says a lack of transparency about details – how big the shortage is and how much drug each company is making – is hindering solutions. "Pharmaceutical manufacturers are not required to disclose the reason for disrupted supply. Knowing the exact reason for a given shortage is always challenging," Unguru said. "It's really difficult to be able to anticipate and let alone come up with meaningful solutions if you don't know what the problem is." As a result, the shortage is pushing patients to have to go without or use alternative medications to treat their ADHD. |
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| Eating disorders are life-threatening illnesses that can affect up to one-tenth of the population. But do you know how they are diagnosed? This is what experts say to look for. |
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According to the latest data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, only about 5.7% of physicians in the United States identify as Black or African American, despite an estimated 12% of the US population identifying as such, and that is having some direct effect on our health. We've known for some time about the racial disparities in our health outcomes. Black newborns die at three times the rate of White newborns; Black men and women are about six to 14.5 times as likely to die of HIV than their White counterparts. And studies have shown that when Black physicians treat Black patients, they have better outcomes. A study published in 2020 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that Black infants are more likely to survive if they are being treated by a Black physician. A 2019 paper said that having Black physicians treat Black patients could shrink the difference in cardiovascular deaths among White versus Black patients by 19%. Part of the reason, researchers found, was that when the patients and doctors had the opportunity to meet in person, the patients assigned to a Black doctor were more likely to demand preventive health care services – especially services that were invasive – such as flu shots or diabetes screenings that involve drawing blood. According to Michael Dill, the Association of American Medical Colleges' director of workforce studies, one reason why the percentage of US doctors who are Black remains so low can be traced to how Black people have been "historically excluded from medicine" and the "institutional and systemic racism in our society." And while the proportion of Black physicians in the US has risen over the past 120 years, some research shows, it's still extremely low. Consider that Black men represented 2.7% of the physician workforce in 1940 and only 2.6% in 2018. "We can improve our admissions to medical school, make them more holistic, try to remove bias from that, but that's still not going to solve the problem," Dill said. We can do more to create more Black physicians and in turn improve our overall health as a nation. "We need to look at which schools produce the most medical students and figure out how we improve the representation of Black students in those schools," he said. "That requires going back to pre-college – high school, middle school, elementary school, kindergarten, pre-K – we need to do better in all of those places in order to elevate the overall trajectory to becoming a physician and make it more likely that we will get more Black doctors in the long run." |
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| It's easy to be glued to your phone and have mixed feelings about it. If you spend too little time, you feel disconnected. But too much time can make you feel bad. Here's my advice on how to "break up" and "make up" with your phone. |
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