Tag Archives: Health

Home & Kitchen

The Science-Backed Reason Why Drinking Diet Soda Makes You Hungrier

In theory, the solution to satisfying hunger is straightforward: You eat something and your hunger goes away. In reality, it’s not that simple. You’ve probably experienced firsthand how some meals fill you up more than others, even if it’s the same amount of food. (Exhibit A: Finding yourself reaching back into the fridge an hour after you had a heaping plate of lo mein.)

Sometimes, it’s not the nutrient density (or lack thereof) of your meal that can get in the way of satisfying your hunger pangs; it could be the drink you’re pairing your meal with.

According to a new scientific study published in the journal Nature Metabolism, non-caloric sweeteners (often found in diet sodas and other drinks) mess with the brain’s response to hunger and satiety. That means they can make it harder to know when you’re actually full. In fact, they could even make you feel hungrier.

To learn more about how these common types of sweeteners interrupt hunger cues, we talked to the lead study author as well as doctors who specialize in understating hunger and satiety. Especially if you find yourself feeling hungry all the time, their insight can help you understand the key to truly feeling satiated.

How Non-Caloric Sweeteners Interrupt Hunger Cues

The main reason sugar substitutes like aspartame, sucralose, stevia and erythritol are popular is simple: Unlike sugar, they don’t have any calories. This is why you’ll find them in a lot of diet soda drinks, as well as many other processed foods and drinks labeled as low-calorie or zero-calorie. The problem is that consuming these types of sweeteners confuses the brain.

“The brain is perceiving that there should be calories coming in, but there isn’t. Since there are no calories coming in, the brain increases appetite for consumption of other calories,” explained Dr. Nicholas Pennings, a family medicine and obesity medicine doctor and the Director of Campbell University Health Center.

Dr. Hector Perez, a bariatric surgeon at Renew Bariatrics, put it this way: “Simply put, it seems like non-caloric sweeteners confuse your brain. You’re programmed to expect some extra calories when you eat something sweet, and non-caloric sweeteners don’t fulfill that expectation. This mismatch stimulates your brain’s hunger signals and you end up eating more than you normally would,” he said.

Dr. Kathleen Page, the Director of the USC Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute and the lead author of the Nature Metabolism study, told HuffPost that while artificial sweeteners can confuse hunger cues for everyone, certain people experience it to a greater effect. Her study found that both women and people with obesity had a heightened response to the non-caloric sweetener. She said that the difference between people with obesity and people without obesity was especially pronounced. “People with obesity had a really strong response in the hypothalamus, which is the part of the brain that regulates hunger,” Page said. This means that people with obesity who drink diet soda are more likely to overeat than people without obesity who drink diet soda because their brain is doing a worse job of regulating their hunger pangs.

Why people with obesity are more greatly impacted is a mystery. “It’s like a chicken or egg situation,” Page said. “It could be a cause or consequence of obesity. We really don’t know.” Perez added to this, saying, “As a bariatric surgeon dealing with chronically obese people, I always stress the fact that being overweight is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to obesity. A lot of bodily functions are affected, and you’re not the same as a person with a healthy weight. This includes your brain and how it responds to food.”

How To Better Understand Your Hunger Cues

Whether you are trying to avoid overeating or just want to be able to better understand if you’re truly hungry or not, all three experts recommend avoiding diet sodas and other products with non-caloric sweeteners. If you are trying to lose weight, Pennings told HuffPost he recommends avoiding both sugar and non-caloric sweeteners. This is because sugar consumption is linked to weight gain and non-caloric sweeteners can cause you to eat more than you would otherwise.

There are other factors that can mess up your hunger cues, too. Scientific research shows that hunger and thirst can be easily confused. “Our bodies sometimes send the same signals for hunger and thirst because the mechanisms overlap and recognizing that can prevent unnecessary snacking,” Perez said. With that in mind, staying well-hydrated can help you figure out if you’re truly hungry or if you just need to drink some water.

Krit of Studio OMG via Getty Images

People with obesity who drink diet soda are more likely to overeat than people without obesity who drink diet soda, because their brain is doing a worse job of regulating their hunger pangs.

If you feel hungry all the time, it may be because you aren’t consuming nutrients that are satiating, like protein, complex carbohydrates, fiber and unsaturated fats. Scientific research also shows that not getting enough sleep, having high levels of stress and eating while you’re distracted (such as while you’re at your computer or watching TV) can all make it harder to know when you’re full and are linked to overeating too. “Practice mindful eating — chew slowly, savor each bite and check in with yourself periodically during meals. Over time, this helps you rebuild trust in your natural hunger signals and builds healthier habits,” Perez said.

Sure it’s none of the above? Book an appointment with your health care provider to make sure there isn’t an underlying health condition or side effect of a medication that could be causing your constant hunger. For example, Perez told HuffPost that antidepressants and blood pressure medications can both mess with hunger cues.

With all this in mind, figuring out whether you’re hungry or not is clearly a little more complicated than it seems on the surface. In a perfect world — where everyone eats nutrient-rich foods and nothing artificial, focuses on their meals, gets enough sleep, isn’t stressed out and stays well-hydrated — the brain is great at communicating to you whether you’re hungry or not. But since none of us live in this perfect world, it takes more work to decipher. Minimizing diet sodas is one step in the right direction.

Source link

Home & Kitchen

California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes pausing immigrant health care coverage expansion

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed a pause to the enrollment of more low-income immigrants without legal status for state-funded health care benefits in 2026 as the state faces economic uncertainty. 

Newsom outlined his nearly $332 billion state spending plan on Wednesday, revealing that California is facing a $12 billion budget deficit. 

“California is under assault,” Newsom said. “We have a president that’s been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines.”

The Democratic governor noted that the freeze does not mean California is backing away from its support for immigrants.

“No state has done more than the state of California, no state will continue to do more than the state of California by a long shot. And that’s a point of pride,” Newsom said.

The decision, the details for which were revealed before Wednesday’s budget revision presentation, is driven by a higher-than-expected price tag on the program and economic uncertainty from federal tariff policies, Newsom said. It also comes as Newsom faces his final years in the governor’s office, with speculation continuing to mount about his future political prospects. 

California’s push to offer free health care benefits to all low-income adults, regardless of their immigration status, was announced in late 2023. Newsom touted the planned expansion as “a transformative step towards strengthening the health care system for all Californians.”

However, the cost has exceeded the state’s initial $6.4 billion estimate by more than $2 billion.

Still, as late as March of this year, Newsom suggested to reporters he was not considering rolling back health benefits for low-income people living in the country illegally — even with California grappling with a $6.2 billion Medicaid shortfall. He also repeatedly defended the expansion, saying it saves the state money in the long run. The program is state-funded and does not use federal dollars.

Under Newsom’s plan, low-income adults without legal status will no longer be eligible to apply for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, starting in 2026. Those who are already enrolled won’t be kicked off their plans because of the enrollment freeze, and the changes won’t impact children. Newsom’s office didn’t say how long the freeze would last.

Starting in 2027, adults with “unsatisfactory immigration status” on Medi-Cal, including those without legal status and those who have legal status but aren’t eligible for federally funded Medicaid, will also have to pay a $100 monthly premium. The governor’s office said that is in line with the average cost paid by those who are on subsidized heath plans through California’s own marketplace. There’s no premium for most people currently on Medi-Cal.

“We believe that people should have some skin in the game as it relates to contributions,” Newsom said.

In total, Newsom’s office estimated the changes will save the state $5.4 billion by 2028-2029.

The Medi-Cal expansion, combined with other factors such as rising pharmacy costs and larger enrollment by older people, has forced California to borrow and authorize new funding to plug the multibillion-dollar hole earlier this year. California provides free health care to more than a third of its 39 million people.

The proposals come ahead of Newsom’s scheduled presentation on the updated budget. Recovery from the Los Angeles wildfires, changing federal tariff policies, and the expensive health care expansion are putting a strain on California’s massive state budget. Lawmakers are expecting a multibillion-dollar shortfall this year, and more deficits are projected for several years ahead.

Newsom blamed President Donald Trump’s tariff policies for the shortfalls, estimating that the polices have cost the state $16 billion in tax revenues. California is also bracing for major budget hits if Republicans in Congress follow through with a plan to slash billions of dollars in Medicaid and penalize states for providing health care to immigrants without legal status.

Newsom now opens budget negotiations with lawmakers and it’s unclear how Democrats who control the Legislature will react to his plan to freeze new Medi-Cal enrollment for some immigrants. A final budget proposal must be signed by June. California’s budget is by far the largest among states.

“This is going to be a very challenging budget,” Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who chairs the budget committee, said before Newsom’s proposals were announced. “We’re going to have to make some tough decisions.”

The budget proposals presented this week will build on some of the impacts of federal policies, but many unknowns remain.

The governor already said he’s planning to scale back on baseline spending this year. Analysts and economists also warn that California will face bigger deficits in the tens of billions of dollars in the coming years due to economic sluggishness and stock market volatility brought on by the tariff war.

The budget Newsom first proposed in January included little new spending. But it allows the state to fully implement the country’s first universal transitional kindergarten program and increase the state’s film and TV tax credit to $750 million annually to bring back Hollywood jobs that have gone to New York and Georgia. He recently called on Trump to pass a $7.5 billion film tax credit at the federal level.

Last year, Newsom and the Legislature agreed to dip into the state’s rainy day fund, slash spending — including a nearly 10% cut for nearly all state departments — and temporarily raise taxes on some businesses to close an estimated $46.8 billion budget deficit.

Source link

Home & Kitchen

What the EPA’s partial rollback of the ‘forever chemical’ drinking water rule means

By MICHAEL PHILLIS, Associated Press

On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to weaken limits on some harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking water roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards.

The Biden administration said last year the rules could reduce PFAS exposure for millions of people. It was part of a broader push by officials then to address drinking water quality by writing rules to require the removal of toxic lead pipes and, after years of activist concern, address the threat of forever chemicals.

President Donald Trump has sought fewer environmental rules and more oil and gas development. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has carried out that agenda by announcing massive regulatory rollbacks.

Now, we know the EPA plans to rescind limits for certain PFAS and lengthen deadlines for two of the most common types. Here are some of the essential things to know about PFAS chemicals and what the EPA decided to do:

Please explain what PFAS are to me

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the nation’s air, water and soil.

They were manufactured by companies such as 3M, Chemours and others because they were incredibly useful. They helped eggs slide across nonstick frying pans, ensured that firefighting foam suffocates flames and helped clothes withstand the rain and keep people dry.

The chemicals resist breaking down, however, which means they stay around in the environment.

And why are they bad for humans?

Environmental activists say that PFAS manufacturers knew about the health harms of PFAS long before they were made public. The same attributes that make the chemicals so valuable – resistance to breakdown – make them hazardous to people.

PFAS accumulates in the body, which is why the Biden administration set limits for two common types, often called PFOA and PFOS, at 4 parts per trillion that are phased out of manufacturing but still present in the environment.

There is a wide range of health harms now associated with exposure to certain PFAS. Cases of kidney disease, low-birth weight and high cholesterol in addition to certain cancers can be prevented by removing PFAS from water, according to the EPA.

The guidance on PFOA and PFOS has changed dramatically in recent years as scientific understanding has advanced. The EPA in 2016, for example, said the combined amount of the two substances should not exceed 70 parts per trillion. The Biden administration later said no amount is safe.

There is nuance in what the EPA did

The EPA plans to scrap limits on three types of PFAS, some of which are less well known. They include GenX substances commonly found in North Carolina as well as substances called PFHxS and PFNA. There is also a limit on a mixture of PFAS, which the agency is also planning to rescind.

It appears few utilities will be impacted by the withdrawal of limits for these types of PFAS. So far, sampling has found nearly 12% of U.S. water utilities are above the Biden administration’s limits. But most utilities face problems with PFOA or PFOS.

For the two commonly found types, PFOA and PFOS, the EPA will keep the current limits in place but give utilities two more years — until 2031 — to meet them.

Announcement is met with mixed reaction

Some environmental groups argue that the EPA can’t legally weaken the regulations. The Safe Water Drinking Act gives the EPA authority to limit water contaminants, and it includes a provision meant to prevent new rules from being looser than previous ones.

“The law is very clear that the EPA can’t repeal or weaken the drinking water standard,” said Erik Olson, a senior strategist at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

Environmental activists have generally slammed the EPA for not keeping the Biden-era rules in place, saying it will worsen public health.

Industry had mixed reactions. The American Chemistry Council questioned the Biden administration’s underlying science that supported the tight rules and said the Trump administration had considered the concerns about cost and the underlying science.

“However, EPA’s actions only partially address this issue, and more is needed to prevent significant impacts on local communities and other unintended consequences,” the industry group said.

Leaders of two major utility industry groups, the American Water Works Association and Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, said they supported the EPA’s decision to rescind a novel approach to limit a mix of chemicals. But they also said the changes do not substantially reduce the cost of the PFAS rule.

Some utilities wanted a higher limit on PFOA and PFOS, according to Mark White, drinking water leader at the engineering firm CDM Smith.

They did, however, get an extension.

“This gives water pros more time to deal with the ones we know are bad, and we are going to need more time. Some utilities are just finding out now where they stand,” said Mike McGill, president of WaterPIO, a water industry communications firm.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Originally Published:

Source link

Home & Kitchen

Federal court rules against EPA in lawsuit over fluoride in water

A federal court in California ruled late Tuesday against the Environmental Protection Agency, ordering officials to take action over concerns about potential health risks from currently recommended levels of fluoride in the American drinking water supply.

The ruling by District Court Judge Edward Chen, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, deals a blow to public health groups in the growing debate about whether the benefits of continuing to add fluoride to the water supply outweighs its risks.

Environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch and a handful of anti-fluoride groups, like the Fluoride Action Network, have been in court for nearly a decade after the EPA denied their petition against local water utilities adding in the mineral.

While Chen was careful to say that his ruling “does not conclude with certainty that fluoridated water is injurious to public health,” he said that evidence of its potential risk was now enough to warrant forcing the EPA to take action.

“In all, there is substantial and scientifically credible evidence establishing that fluoride poses a risk to human health; it is associated with a reduction in the IQ of children and is hazardous at dosages that are far too close to fluoride levels in the drinking water of the United States,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

The judge’s ruling cites a review by the National Institutes of Health’s toxicology program finalized last month, which concluded that “higher levels” of fluoride is now linked to lowered IQ in children. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics has questioned the validity of the NIH’s report, saying other reviews have come to different conclusions about fluoride’s risks and benefits. The AAP is among the expert groups that continue to recommend using fluoride toothpaste, in combination with fluoridated water, to protect teeth from cavities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long hailed the addition of fluoride to drinking water as one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century, paving the way for modern use of toothpastes and other dental products that also use fluoride to cut the rate of dental cavities.

While the report said more research was needed into the lower levels of fluoride exposure typically found in U.S. drinking water, Chen ruled that “there is not enough of a margin” of safety at those levels. 

He pointed to previously published studies of pregnant moms finding that their fluoride exposure could be higher. EPA experts had told the court that those higher levels could be in part thanks to the other ways that people are now exposed to the chemical in their food and through toothpaste and other dental products.

“Not only is there an insufficient margin between the hazard level and these exposure levels, for many, the exposure levels exceed the hazard level,” the judge wrote.

Critics have cited near-universal adoption of fluoride toothpaste and other dental products as evidence that the chemical no longer needs to be added to drinking water. Other countries abroad have cut cavity rates without adding it to their water supplies, they argue.

The CDC has argued that continued water fluoridation is still the “most cost-effective method of delivering fluoride to all members of the community regardless of age, educational attainment, or income level.”

Chen said he left it up to the EPA which of a number of options the agency could take in response to his ruling. They range from a warning label about fluoride’s risks at current levels to taking steps towards tightening restrictions on its addition to drinking water.

“One thing the EPA cannot do, however, in the face of this Court’s finding, is to ignore that risk,” he wrote.

Michael Connett, a partner at the law firm Siri & Glimstad and the lead attorney for the groups who brought the lawsuit, said the law now requires EPA to take action to remove the risk of fluoride.

“From our vantage point, the obvious way of eliminating the risk from adding fluoride chemicals to drinking water is to stop adding them,” he told CBS News.

The judge’s ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the groups under a chemical safety law passed by Congress in 2016, which empowered them to challenge the EPA in court after the agency denied their petition.

Unlike the recent so-called “Chevron doctrine” that the Supreme Court overturned earlier this year, the 2016 law said judges did not need to defer to EPA’s expertise when petitioners challenge the agency’s rejection.

Instead, the law left it up to Chen to decide whether a preponderance of the evidence — if it was more likely than not — showed that fluoride could pose an “unreasonable risk.”

Connett said the ruling marks the first time that a group has been able to use the law to take a citizen petition to trial.

“Clearly, the length of time the judge took to decide this case shows that the court did not rush to make this decision. It took its time, it allowed extensive testimony and evidence. So it was certainly not a rush job, just the opposite of it,” he said.

Alexander Tin

Alexander Tin is a digital reporter for CBS News based in the Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers federal public health agencies.

Source link

Home & Kitchen

Doctors Discover ‘Small Nodule’ in Biden’s Prostate During Physical Exam

Doctors discovered a “small nodule” in former President Joe Biden’s prostate during a recent physical, which required more examination, according to several reports.

A spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that “In a routine physical exam a small nodule was found in the prostate which necessitated further evaluation.”

Per the outlet:

A “small nodule” can mean a wide range of things and will require further testing to understand the underlying cause. It is too early to say if it is a benign lump caused by inflammation or something more serious.

A spokesman also confirmed to the New York Times that Biden had “spent last Friday at a hospital in Philadelphia” after doctors made the discovery during the physical exam.

Breitbart News reported in February 2023, that former White House physician Kevin O’Connor declared Biden “fit for duty,” while adding that “one small lesion” had been found on Biden’s chest:

“One small lesion on the president’s chest was excised today and sent for traditional biopsy,” O’Connor said, according to Reuters.

The summary also said that the president does not appear to be experiencing symptoms associated with “long COVID” and that his stiff gait has not worsened since his November 2021 exam.

The reports of a small nodule being discovered on Biden’s prostate comes as CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson have written in their upcoming book, Original Sin, that Biden’s “physical deterioration was so severe in 2023 and 2024” that there were reportedly discussions about the possibility of Biden needing to use a wheelchair, Axios reported.

“The discussions reflected the extent of the president’s declining health — particularly the significant degeneration of his spine — and his aides’ alarm over it as Biden sought a second term at age 81,” the outlet added.

In April, after taking a cognitive test during his physical examination, President Donald Trump took a jab at Biden, claiming he “got every answer right.” Trump’s jab came after the White House in February 2024, revealed that Biden had not received a cognitive test during his physical examination.



Source link

Home & Kitchen

Fresh & Ready Foods recalls products after listeria sickens 10 people in California, Nevada

Fresh & Ready Foods is voluntarily recalling numerous products, after at least 10 people in the U.S. have been sickened in a listeria outbreak linked to its ready-to-eat food products, federal officials said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Saturday that federal, state and local officials are investigating the outbreak linked to foods produced by the San Fernando, California-based food producer. 

The FDA says the 10 people who fell ill were in California and Nevada, and required hospitalization.

This voluntary recall is being initiated due to possible contamination with listeria monocytogenes, an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems, according to the FDA. 

Healthy individuals may experience short-term symptoms including high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, the recall notice states. Pregnant women infected by the organism can experience miscarriages and stillbirths.

Affected products

The voluntary recall is limited to products with “Use By” dates from 4/22/2025 to 05/19/2025. The FDA says the products were sold in Arizona, California, Nevada and Washington at locations including retailers and food service points of sale, including hospitals, hotels, convenience stores, airports and by airlines. 

You can see the full list of products, including size, item numbers, packaging and used-by dates here.

Packaging label of one of more than 60 products Fresh & Ready Foods is voluntarily recalling, after at least 10 people in the U.S. have been sickened in a listeria outbreak

FDA


Listeria symptoms usually start within two weeks of eating contaminated food. Mild cases can include muscle aches, tiredness and vomiting and diarrhea, while more severe symptoms may include stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions.

Federal officials said they started investigating the recent outbreak last year but didn’t have enough evidence to identify a source of the infections. They said the investigation was reopened in April when FDA investigators found listeria in samples collected from Fresh & Ready Foods that matched the strain from the outbreak.

Fresh & Ready Foods said in a news release that it took immediate corrective actions including removing equipment to address the issue.

The FDA found that six of the 10 people who got sick had been hospitalized before becoming ill with listeria. The FDA found that items made by Fresh & Ready Foods had been served in at least three of the health care facilities where the patients had been previously treated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the test samples from sick patients were collected from December 2023 to September 2024.

Fresh & Ready voluntarily recalled several products, which can be identified by “use by” dates ranging from April 22 to May 19 of this year under the brand names Fresh & Ready Foods, City Point Market Fresh Food to Go and Fresh Take Crave Away.

Source link

Home & Kitchen

“The Food Babe” helps lead the charge against some food dyes



“The Food Babe” helps lead the charge against some food dyes – CBS News










































Watch CBS News



This week, the FDA approved three new natural food color additives, a big step in the Trump administration’s push to phase out petroleum-based dyes. Adam Yamaguchi has the story.

Be the first to know

Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


Source link

Home & Kitchen

Scientists hope far-UVC light could help stop the next airborne pandemic before it starts

Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic first swept across the U.S., infecting millions and claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. Scientists are already concerned about the next airborne threat, but in the future, a powerful new weapon may be waiting in the wings.

Far-UVC light is a form of ultraviolet light that can kill viruses and bacteria in the air without harming humans. Researchers say it could be instrumental in stopping the spread of illnesses like the flu and possibly future pandemics.

Columbia University physicist David Brenner says the lights work by damaging the genes of disease-causing microbes. Brenner’s initial main target has been seasonal flu, but that could change.

“UV light really doesn’t care about the details of whether it’s a bacteria or a virus. It can kill all of them, essentially,” Brenner said.

Conventional UVC light is currently used to sanitize surfaces in places like hospitals, but it’s not shined directly at people, because it can harm the eyes and skin. In contrast, far-UVC has a shorter wavelength and is safer, because it can’t penetrate the tear layer of the eye or the top layers of the skin.

The CDC says far-UVC is promising, but more research is needed — one reason Brenner, an adviser to a manufacturer of UVC lamps, set up a UVC laboratory. In the lab, there’s an experimental room that simulates real life and controls for conditions like humidity and airflow. Researchers can also measure the amount of virus in the air before and after they turn on the far-UVC lamp.

“I’d say the development has been slow and steady,” Brenner said.

After more than a decade in development, far-UVC has been installed at the Club Cafe in Boston, where the hope is to share music — not COVID or flu — with the help of 17 small fixtures attached to the ceiling. It’s also in a dental clinic at Columbia. This past October, Professor David Putrino at Mount Sinai Hospital installed the devices in a rehabilitation center.

“We did a deep dive on the literature. So, after looking at all those studies, it really alleviated any concerns that we would have about safety,” Putrino said.

Scott Hensley, a bird flu researcher at University of Pennsylvania, is concerned about the virus that has already rocked the dairy industry and infected 70 people in the U.S. With more human infections comes more chances for a random mutation that could make it possible for human-to-human transmission, he said.

If bird flu does start to infect people through the air, far-UVC could combine with vaccines, masks and improved ventilation to help curb indoor spread.

“What we’re hoping is that we can take a bite out of that next pandemic, which you know is gonna come, whether it’s bird flu or whether it’s something we don’t know yet, it will come,” Brenner said.

Jon LaPook


Jon LaPook, M.D. is the award-winning chief medical correspondent for CBS News. Since joining CBS News in 2006, LaPook has delivered more than 1,200 reports on a wide variety of breaking news and trending stories in the health and medical fields, as well as feature stories on music, lifestyle and profiles of entertainment stars.

Source link

Home & Kitchen

Scientists map part of a mouse’s brain that’s so complex it looks like a galaxy

Thanks to a mouse watching clips from “The Matrix,” scientists have created the largest functional map of a brain to date – a diagram of the wiring connecting 84,000 neurons as they fire off messages.

Using a piece of that mouse’s brain about the size of a poppy seed, the researchers identified those neurons and traced how they communicated via branch-like fibers through a surprising 500 million junctions called synapses.

The massive dataset, published Wednesday by the journal Nature, marks a step toward unraveling the mystery of how our brains work. The data, assembled in a 3D reconstruction colored to delineate different brain circuitry, is open to scientists worldwide for additional research – and for the simply curious to take a peek.

“It definitely inspires a sense of awe, just like looking at pictures of the galaxies,” said Forrest Collman of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, one of the project’s leading researchers. “You get a sense of how complicated you are. We’re looking at one tiny part … of a mouse’s brain and the beauty and complexity that you can see in these actual neurons and the hundreds of millions of connections between them.”

This image provided by the Allen Institute shows a digital representation of neurons in a section of a mouse’s brain, part of a project to create the largest map to date of brain wiring and function.

Forrest Collman / Allen Institute / AP


How we think, feel, see, talk and move are due to neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain – how they’re activated and send messages to each other. Scientists have long known those signals move from one neuron along fibers called axons and dendrites, using synapses to jump to the next neuron. But there’s less known about the networks of neurons that perform certain tasks and how disruptions of that wiring could play a role in Alzheimer’s, autism or other disorders.

“You can make a thousand hypotheses about how brain cells might do their job but you can’t test those hypotheses unless you know perhaps the most fundamental thing – how are those cells wired together,” said Allen Institute scientist Clay Reid, who helped pioneer electron microscopy to study neural connections.

With the new project, a global team of more than 150 researchers mapped neural connections that Collman compares to tangled pieces of spaghetti winding through part of the mouse brain responsible for vision.

The first step: Show a mouse video snippets of sci-fi movies, sports, animation and nature.

A team at Baylor College of Medicine did just that, using a mouse engineered with a gene that makes its neurons glow when they’re active. The researchers used a laser-powered microscope to record how individual cells in the animal’s visual cortex lit up as they processed the images flashing by.

Next, scientists at the Allen Institute analyzed that small piece of brain tissue, using a special tool to shave it into more than 25,000 layers, each far thinner than a human hair. With electron microscopes, they took nearly 100 million high-resolution images of those sections, illuminating those spaghetti-like fibers and painstakingly reassembling the data in 3D.

Finally, Princeton University scientists used artificial intelligence to trace all that wiring and “paint each of the individual wires a different color so that we can identify them individually,” Collman explained.

From left: Associate Director of Informatics Forrest Collman, Data Analyst Leila Elabbady and Senior Investigator Clay Reid review neuron reconstructions for the Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks project in Dec. 2024, in Seattle, Wash. (Jenny Burns/Allen Institute via AP)

Jenny Burns / Allen Institute / AP


They estimated that microscopic wiring, if laid out, would measure more than 3 miles (5 kilometers). Importantly, matching up all that anatomy with the activity in the mouse’s brain as it watched movies allowed researchers to trace how the circuitry worked.

The Princeton researchers also created digital 3D copies of the data that other scientists can use in developing new studies.

Could this kind of mapping help scientists eventually find treatments for brain diseases? The researchers call it a foundational step, like how the Human Genome Project that provided the first gene mapping eventually led to gene-based treatments. Mapping a full mouse brain is one next goal.

“The technologies developed by this project will give us our first chance to really identify some kind of abnormal pattern of connectivity that gives rise to a disorder,” another of the project’s leading researchers, Princeton neuroscientist and computer scientist Sebastian Seung, said in a statement.

The work “marks a major leap forwards and offers an invaluable community resource for future discoveries,” wrote Harvard neuroscientists Mariela Petkova and Gregor Schuhknecht, who weren’t involved in the project.

The huge and publicly shared data “will help to unravel the complex neural networks underlying cognition and behavior,” they added.

The Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks, or MICrONS, consortium was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative and IARPA, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

Source link

Home & Kitchen

US infant mortality dropped in 2024. Experts partly credit RSV shots

By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s infant mortality rate dropped last year after two years of hovering at a late-pandemic plateau.

Some experts think one reason for the drop could be a vaccination campaign against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be dangerous for infants.

The infant mortality national rate dropped to about 5.5 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2024, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted Thursday. That’s down from about 5.6 per 1,000 live births, where it had been the previous two years.

CDC officials believe the findings will not change much when the final numbers come out later this year.

Infant mortality is the measure of how many babies die before they reach their first birthday. Because the number of babies born in the U.S. varies from year to year, researchers instead calculate rates to better compare infant mortality over time.

U.S. infant deaths fell to about 19,900 last year, according to CDC data, compared with about 20,150 in 2023.

The U.S. infant mortality rate has been worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other things. Even so, the U.S. rate generally has improved over the decades because of medical advances and public health efforts.

The 2022 and 2023 levels were up from 5.44 per 1,000 in 2021 — the first statistically significant jump in the rate in about two decades. Experts attributed those years to a rebound in RSV and flu infections after two years of pandemic precautions.

In 2023, U.S. health officials began recommending two new measures to prevent the toll on infants — one was a lab-made antibody shot for infants that helps the immune system fight off the virus, and the other was giving an RSV vaccine to women between 32 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy.

That effort is probably one explanation for the improvement, said Dr. Amanda Williams, interim chief medical officer for the March of Dimes.

In a separate CDC report released Thursday, researchers noted infant hospitalizations in the 2024-25 respiratory virus season were more than 40% lower than past averages.

But more work needs to be done to tease out other reasons, Williams added, noting that much of the improvement in 2024 was in infants who were at least one month old when they died. That could be explained not only by fewer deaths from RSV but also from other causes, like accidents, homicides or SIDS.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Originally Published:

Source link