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Australian alcohol guidelines: Experts reveal drinking in moderation could harm your health

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Drinking what most might consider to be a moderate amount of alcohol could be harming your health and mental wellbeing, experts have found.

New guidelines released by the Australian Drug and Alcohol Foundation advise both men and women to have no more than 10 standard drinks per week and no more than four standard drinks on any one day.

Consuming more than the recommended amount has been linked to myriad health issues including cancer, heart and liver disease, Alzheimer’s, weight gain and premature ageing, as well as brain fog, anxiety, and depression.

But researchers have warned a standard drink might be less than you think, with bottles of beer and glasses of wine often coming in well over the threshold.

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Drinking what most might consider to be a moderate amount of alcohol could be seriously harming your health, experts have found (stock image)

What is a standard drink in Australia?

Spirits 40% alcohol, 30ml nip

Wine 13% alcohol, 100ml average serving

Sparkling wine 13% alcohol, 100ml

Full strength beer 4.9% alcohol, 285ml glass

Light beer 2.7% alcohol, 425ml glass

Cider 4.9% alcohol, 285ml glass

Source: Australian Drug and Alcohol Foundation

Australian standard drinks contain 10g of alcohol and include a 285ml full-strength beer, a 100ml glass of wine, or 30ml of spirits such as vodka, whisky, or gin. 

The recommendations, developed by the National Health and Medical Research Council, reiterate historic advice for under 18s and pregnant or breastfeeding women to abstain from alcohol to prevent damage to the brain and their babies.

Drinking alcohol has been shown to impact brain development up until the age of 25, affecting their attention span, memory, and decision-making.

But the damage doesn’t stop there.

Alcohol accelerates the ageing process, impacting your appearance, blood pressure and your memory, not to mention increasing your risk of cancer, liver and heart disease.  

Earlier this year, a study led by imperial College London revealed a startling connection between small volumes of alcohol and brain damage.

Increased alcohol intake was linked to less grey matter in the brain, more fat in the liver and a larger mass in the left ventricle of the heart, the research which looked at MRI scans of 10,000 drinkers in late middle age showed.

Brain shrinkage has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, while excess liver fat can lead to liver disease.

The study suggests those who ‘drink responsibly’, below 14 units a week – the equivalent of six medium glasses of wine  – still damage their bodies.

But the good news is that as little as four weeks of sobriety can dramatically improve your health and mental wellbeing –  provided the temporary abstinence leads to a more moderate and mindful approach to drinking in the long run.

Dietitians and fitness experts claim even short periods without alcohol improves memory, mental clarity and sleep, as well as promoting weight loss and reducing pressure on the liver which starts to cleanse itself just one hour after your last drink.

Going sober will also boost your bank balance, with the average Australian household estimated to save $1,778 a year simply by avoiding alcohol. 

The good news is that as little as four weeks of sobriety can dramatically improve health and mental wellbeing – provided the temporary abstinence leads to a more moderate and mindful approach to drinking in the long run

Five reminders that will help you stay sober

When you drink alcohol… 

1. You decrease the functionality of your executive brain and start listening to your primal brain. You become an animal searching for your next peak.

2. You don’t care what’s in the substances you get offered because you just want to reach that peak. 

3. Your body is hot and cold. Your eyes are fuzzy. Your mouth is dry and you can’t speak. You don’t care that your body isn’t functioning properly because you need to reach that peak.

4. You make inappropriate calls at all hours and have inappropriate conversations because you need connection to feed that peak even more.

5. You become powerless and lose control. You lose your true self and become this person who doesn’t care about anything but that peak.

Source: It’s Not Me, It’s Booze

Returns control of your life and enhances mental clarity  

Doctors say abstaining from alcohol for as little as one month enhances concentration and decision-making, while also reducing the risk of mental health issues including anxiety and depression.

Marketing manager turned sober life coach Melissa Lionnet, who gave up alcohol in 2020 after 10 years of daily drinking left her struggling to get out of bed, attests to this.

‘No question, 100 percent with both myself and my clients, I have seen clarity improve in a matter of weeks,’ Ms Lionnet told Daily Mail Australia.

‘People just back themselves, they make quicker, clearer decisions and trust their instincts much more so than when they were drinking.’

Sydney sobriety coach Melissa Lionnet (left, with a glass of alcohol-free wine in 2021 and right, in 2019) quit drinking after more than a decade of abusive consumption

Improves sleep and gives you more energy 

After a night of binge drinking, studies show the body is woken by a shot of adrenaline and cortisol – the stress hormone – which wreaks havoc with the natural sleep cycle.

Binge drinking is defined as drinking five or more drinks for men, and four or more drinks for women, within a two-hour period.

Of 800 Australian ‘Dry January’ – the UK equivalent of Dry July – participants in 2018, 71 per cent reported sleeping more deeply and feeling more refreshed in the morning throughout their month of abstinence.

This improvement is linked to the depressive effect alcohol has on the nervous system, which includes significantly reduced rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the restorative stage where the body repairs cells and dreams occur.

While Ms Lionnet agrees that giving up alcohol will improve your sleep in the long run, she warns it could take a few weeks for your body to adjust to going to bed sober.

Since quitting alcohol, Ms Lionnet (pictured in 2021) feels more motivated than she has in years and no longer struggles to get out of bed in the mornings

‘It really depends on how much you drink,’ she said. 

‘Alcohol reduces the quality of sleep, but if you have it in your head that you need to be drunk to sleep, you could be restless and distressed so you’ll need to start by unwiring that thinking.’

For this reason, Ms Lionnet advises heavy drinkers to enlist the help of a therapist or sobriety coach before embarking on a challenge like Dry July.

She also recommends joining a sober support group on social media to meet like-minded friends who will help you to stay on track.

Accelerates weight loss and reduces cravings for junk food

Drinking contributes to weight gain by reducing the body’s ability to burn fat, accelerating appetite and inhibiting our ability to make healthy food choices.

Alcohol ‘physiologically makes you crave certain foods’, Australian personal trainer and nutrition coach Sarah Hopkins warns, which opens the flood gates to overeating even when you weren’t hungry to begin with.

‘If there is a bowl of chips in front of you and you don’t feel like them, you won’t eat them,’ Ms Hopkins said in an episode of the Elevate podcast in December 2019.

‘If you have a glass of wine you will eat that whole bowl because it increases your appetite. It makes you eat more.’ 

James Swanwick, 45, founder of Alcohol Free Lifestyle, said he lost five kilos in the space of one month when he quit alcohol in 2010, while Melissa Lionnet reported losing four kilos in the same time frame.

She said her hair also thickened and her skin became ‘so much brighter’.

Australian personal trainer and nutrition coach Sarah Hopkins (left) says alcohol psychologically causes us to crave food, even when we’re not hungry

Benefits to gut health is the primary reason Australian yoga and Ayurveda teacher Amanda Nog supports the concept of a month on the dry.

Ms Nog said part of the reason we feel anxious and depressed after drinking is because of the effect alcohol has on the neurotransmitters – particularly serotonin – produced in the gut. 

Serotonin is one of the most important hormones in the human body, responsible for stabilising mood and promoting happiness as well as supporting communication between brain cells and other cells in the nervous system.

It also plays a vital role in digestion, sleep and blood sugar regulation – meaning any sort of deficiency is guaranteed to harm overall well-being in a major way.

Benefits to gut health is the primary reason Australian yoga and Ayurveda teacher Amanda Nog (pictured) supports the concept of a month on the dry

Detoxifies the blood and liver

While knocking back red wine may be marketed as an attractive way to increase your antioxidant intake, Sydney dietitian Lee Holmes says any nutritional value of alcohol is cancelled out by the damage is does to your health.

‘At its core, alcohol is a depressant, which means that when it reaches the brain, it slows down the body’s systems,’ Ms Holmes told Daily Mail Australia.

‘Because alcohol is difficult for the body to process and is absorbed quickly, even in the short term it places extra pressure on the liver, as the liver can only process one drink per hour.’  

Blood samples taken from drinkers who abstained from alcohol for 31 days showed a reduction in blood cancer proteins, lower blood pressure and a reduction in fatty tissue around the liver, a 2018 study from the British Medical Journal found.  

Mr Swanwick – the creator of Project 90, a sobriety programme which helps people quit drinking for at least 90 days – said his doctor found a drop in his blood pressure, cholesterol and resting heart rate just 30 days after he stopped drinking.

Sydney dietitian Lee Holmes (pictured) says any nutritional value of alcohol is cancelled out by the damage is does to your mental and physical health

Australia’s growing sober scene

While many are rapt to return to the pub after gruelling lockdowns in NSW and Victoria, almost two million Australians are now living an alcohol-free lifestyle.

Recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal more than a quarter of Australians (28.9 per cent) are mostly abstaining from alcohol, while a further 9.5 per cent are drinking less than they were this time last year. 

The number of ex-drinkers in Australia is estimated to have risen from 1.5million to 1.9million over the past four years.

This growing sober scene is largely fuelled by hordes of Instagram influencers including fitness mogul Kayla Itsines, 30, who says she hasn’t touched a drop since the age of 19.

Kayla Itsines (pictured) has been famously teetotal since the age of 19 after having nothing but negative experiences with hangovers and sickness

Also riding the sober train is Olympic beach volleyball star, Mariafe Artacho del Solar, who rarely drinks alcohol because she feels ‘comfortable’ in her own skin and has ‘just as much fun without it’.

The right-side defender, 27, who won a silver medal with partner, Taliqua Clancy, 29, at the Tokyo games in August, says she has never been a big drinker and can count on one hand the number she has in a year.

‘Personally I’ve just never really found the enjoyment. I don’t mind having one or two every now and then, but I don’t need it for confidence,’ she told Daily Mail Australia in October.

And it seems the hospitality industry is taking note.

Australian Olympic volleyball star Mariafe Artacho del Solar (pictured) rarely drinks alcohol because she feels ‘comfortable’ in her own skin and has ‘just as much fun without it’

Australia’s first-ever non-alcoholic bar Brunswick Aces opened its doors in Melbourne on May 1, pouring a menu of more than 100 alcohol-free beers, wines and cocktails to teetotal punters.

But while many coped with lockdown by turning away from the bottle, more than 18 months of restrictions has sent a worrying number of Australians into a spiral of heavy drinking.

Household alcohol spending skyrocketed across Australia after coronavirus turned normality on its head, with Aussies dropping a staggering $2billion more than usual on booze last year.

Drinkers spent an average of $1,891 per household on alcohol in 2020 – an increase of $270 on the 2019 total, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show.

The alarming trend worsened in the winter of 2020 when Melbourne’s five million residents were forced into a type of protective custody during the world’s harshest lockdown which lasted more than four months.

Victoria’s alcohol services experienced a surge in demand as locked-down residents turned to the bottle, with a survey from the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association revealing alcohol featured either ‘a lot more’ or ‘a bit more’ as a drug of concern.

A former drinker’s top three tips for giving up alcohol 

1. Connect with the sober community

‘This can be done in whatever way works for you, but whether it’s AA, a local support group or an online forum, you need to be reaching out and talking to people,’ Ms Lionnet said.

2. Learn about alcohol

One of the things Ms Lionnet believes has kept her from relapsing is educating herself about what alcohol consumption really does to the human body.

Books she recommends include Holly Whitaker’s ‘Quit Like A Woman’ and ‘Annie’s Naked Mind’ by Annie Grace.

3. Simultaneous self-discovery

Ms Lionnet believes you need to understand why you are drinking if you want to stop.

‘You need to find out what experiences have caused you to drink and resolve them at the root,’ she said.

This can be done through therapy, participating in alcohol-free challenges or anything that works on transforming your beliefs to align with your true moral values, Ms Lionnet says. 

Source: It’s Not Me It’s Booze

Bingeing is already taking a toll on the nation’s health.

A revolutionary health calculator developed by AIA Vitality recently claimed Australians are ageing a staggering nine years faster than they should be.

The free five-minute test gives an alarming insight into the true ‘health age’ of Australians by analysing the answers to a range of behavioural questions about diet, exercise and most importantly, alcohol consumption. 

A 2019 study funded by St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne found excess alcohol consumption causes more harm to Australians’ physical and mental wellbeing than any drug, surpassing both crystal methamphetamine (ice) and heroin.

For support for alcohol-related problems and addiction you can contact Turning Point Services, or one of the many other services available, speak to your GP, local health service or call a helpline. 

There are trained telephone counsellors available in all Australian states and territories.



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Life expectancy fell sharply in the U.S. last year among high-income countries

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The United States had the second-steepest decline in life expectancy among high-income countries last year during the pandemic, according to a study of death data spanning several continents. 

The only country studied that saw a starker overall trend was Russia.

The study, published Wednesday in The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), assessed premature death in 37 countries, comparing observed life expectancy in 2020 with what would have been expected for the year based on historical trends from 2005-2019. Life expectancy dropped in 31 of these countries during the pandemic. 

The U.S. trend was among the worst. 

U.S. men saw life expectancy fall by nearly 2.3 years. Women lost more than 1.6 years of life expectancy.

The measurements provide one of the most comprehensive views of the human cost of the pandemic and illuminates its effects on different age groups and genders. One surprise: The drop in life expectancy in the U.S. was driven by the deaths of young people, said Dr. Nazrul Islam, a researcher at the University of Oxford and the study’s lead author. 

In the U.S., “we have lost a huge amount of people at a young age. That’s really, really sobering,” Islam said.

The paper’s findings suggest that the U.S. did a relatively poor job protecting young people during the pandemic, that the country’s life expectancies have dropped at a faster pace than any time since at least World War II and that the U.S. is falling further behind many other rich countries when it comes to a key measure of health. 

Disease was not the only factor. Homicides and drug overdose deaths rose last year, too, said Bryan Tysinger, a research assistant professor in health policy at the University of Southern California, who was not part of the BMJ study, suggesting that the pandemic’s effects on social structures were a large part of the trend. 

“It continues to be striking how poorly the U.S. has handled the Covid pandemic,” Tysinger said. “The U.S. should not be leading or nearly leading excess deaths in a pandemic like this.”

Early in 2020, Covid primarily killed older U.S. adults in densely populated Covid hot spots. But since the delta variant took hold, the disease has shifted it burden toward those who have not gotten the shot, NBC News analysis shows. Data says younger, Southern, rural and white populations are now at more risk. 

The study evaluated 15 years of death data from 37 countries. 

In every country studied, life expectancy trended upward between 2005 and 2019. Then Covid struck. 

Thirty-one countries saw declines in life expectancy. Altogether, the researchers believe these country’s populations lost about 28 million years of life. 

The largest losses in life expectancy were observed in Russia, the U.S., Bulgaria and Lithuania.  

Denmark, Iceland and South Korea saw no significant change in life expectancy. Despite the pandemic, New Zealand, Taiwan and Norway achieved gains.

Countries with stricter Covid restrictions, higher trust in government and recent experience managing epidemics seemed to fare better in 2020, Tysinger said. 

In the U.S., young people’s deaths sent life expectancies plummeting. That makes the country an outlier.

“It reveals the U.S. did a poor job protecting younger individuals or they were more susceptible compared to other countries,” said Theresa Andrasfay, a postdoctoral researcher of gerontology at USC, who was not involved in the study.  

Andrasfay said it could mean that the country was worse at protecting essential workers or that working-age people had more conditions that put them at greater danger from Covid, she added. 

Prior research, including some by Andrasfay, suggests that life expectancy reductions have been larger in Black and Latino populations than in white populations. 

Andrasfay said that could be due to factors like higher exposure rates for Covid among essential workers, inequitable access to health care and differing rates of health conditions that heighten risk for Covid. 

In recent years, life expectancies in the U.S. have stagnated. During the past five years, the country saw reductions as significant as about one-tenth of a year. 

“At the time, that was considered a really big loss,” Andrasfay said.

Until 2020, the U.S. had not seen life expectancies drop so significantly since World War II, Andrasfay said, though that data then was less reliable than it is today. The 1918 pandemic, which killed young people at outsize rates, sent life expectancy figures tumbling from 7 to 10 years, she added. 

“The fact that the U.S. did so much worse in 2020 means we’re even further behind our peer countries,” Andrasfay said. 

Islam said the pandemic set life expectancy for U.S. men back nearly two decades. 

“Life expectancy in 2020 was comparable to life expectancy, in men, back to 2002,” Islam said. “Everything we have achieved over the last 19 years was sort of lost.”

Last year’s life expectancy data reflected how well countries managed the initial bout of Covid with tools like lockdowns, social distancing and public health messaging. 

“In 2021 and going forward, it might be vaccine uptake and distribution that distinguishes which countries are successful and which are not,” Andrasfy said.  

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Humboldt-Del Norte Health Officials Outline Their Criteria For Lifting Indoor Masking Requirements | Lost Coast Outpost

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As decisions to vaccinate and wear face coverings in public indoor and outdoor crowded settings drive down COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations, health officers for two rural Northern California counties that require face coverings in public spaces today reached consensus on criteria to lift those health orders.

All the health officers across the rural Northern California counties continue to work together to protect public health with a consistent regional approach, and to plan for the next phase of response and recovery to COVID-19 as this current wave of the pandemic ebbs.

On Monday, Nov. 8, Del Norte and Humboldt counties will lift the outdoor masking requirements. Additionally, the two counties will lift the indoor masking requirement in public spaces not subject to state or federal masking rules when all the following occur:

  1. Consistently low and stable COVID-19 cases by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data tracker
  2. Consistently low and stable hospital impact of respiratory viruses including COVID-19
  3. Improved community protection with vaccination.

Both health departments issued the masking requirements for their respective jurisdictions in August following a summer surge in cases, hospitalizations and deaths that were the worst yet for the rural Northern California region.

But now with regional data showing the surge is receding, and with vaccination rates increasing across the region, health officials in these counties are offering guidelines to inform the public when they can expect local masking orders to be removed. 

Masks and vaccination continue to be the best protections against COVID-19, and these principles support the evidence and science used to make important public health policy decisions.

Del Norte County’s health officer Dr. Aaron Stutz said, “It is no accident that transmission has slowed in the rural north of our state. Public health interventions, including masking, are working. Our health orders, COVID-19 vaccination, as well as outreach and education are all added layers of protection and have resulted in saved lives. Our communities all worked together to lessen the impact of this deadly Delta surge and will continue to work together as we enter recovery.”

Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman agreed, “Vaccination is the best way to protect our communities,” he said. “We will continually evaluate our progress on vaccination as those numbers help us decide when it will be safe to lift the masking orders.”

California’s health guidance for the use of face coverings will remain in effect after local masking requirements are lifted, meaning that people who are not fully vaccinated for COVID-19 must continue to wear masks in businesses and indoor public spaces.

Read the Order of the Humboldt County Health Officer for the Wearing of Face Coverings in Workplaces and Indoor Public Settings.
The state also requires face coverings for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, in health care facilities, on public transit and in adult and senior care facilities. California’s masking guidelines in K-12 schools would also not be affected by changes to local health orders.

View the Data Dashboard online at humboldtgov.org/dashboard, or go to humboldtgov.org/DashboardArchives to download data from a previous time.

For the most recent COVID-19 information, visit cdc.gov or cdph.ca.gov. Local information is available at humboldtgov.org or by contacting covidinfo@co.humboldt.ca.us or calling 1-707-441-5000.

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Kids with a prior Covid infection should still get vaccinated

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A ten year old child receives the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 Vaccine for 5-11 year old kids at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on November 2, 2021.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

Young children with Covid antibodies due to a prior infection should still get fully vaccinated, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky recommended Wednesday.

As with many other infectious diseases, people previously sickened with Covid have some protection against being infected again, Walensky said, but scientists still don’t know how long that immunity lasts or how robust it is.

A CDC study published Friday, which looked at more than 7,000 people hospitalized with Covid-like illnesses, found Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines provided better protection against the coronavirus than a prior infection. Unvaccinated people who had recovered from Covid were about five times more likely to test positive for Covid than people who had received both shots of an mRNA vaccine and had no previous documented infection, according to the study.

“And so we absolutely recommend that children, even children who have had the disease before, get vaccinated,” Walensky said Wednesday during a White House press briefing on the pandemic.

Walensky’s comments came a day after she cleared the distribution of doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to children ages 5 to 11. As many as 28 million kids in the U.S. are now eligible to get vaccinated, according to the White House.

Children are generally less likely than adults to suffer from severe cases of Covid, but a small portion of them do, public health officials and pediatricians say.

There have been at least 1.9 million Covid cases in the age group, 8,300 hospitalizations and at least 94 deaths, according to data shared by the CDC on Tuesday. At least 2,316 of them have suffered from multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, a rare but serious Covid-related complication, according to the agency.

Federal scientists estimated that as many as 40% of children ages 5 to 11 have already been infected with Covid.

The Biden administration said it’s procured enough vaccine to inoculate all 28 million 5- to 11-year-olds in the U.S. and will distribute it in smaller dosing and with smaller needles to make it easier for pediatricians and pharmacists to administer to kids.

The administration last week began moving 15 million doses from Pfizer’s freezers and facilities to distribution centers, in anticipation of the CDC’s approval.

Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said Wednesday there will be “millions more doses” transported over the next 24 hours to cities and towns across the country. Packing and shipping will continue over the weekend and into next week, with doses arriving at thousands of vaccination sites in every state, tribe and territory, he said.

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Pfizer, Moderna Covid Vaccines Less Effective for Immunocompromised, Study Shows

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For months, the medical community has been abuzz about how the COVID-19 vaccine is less effective for the immunocompromised population (people with compromised or lowered immune systems). And now, there’s new research to support it.

A study published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report this week analyzed the effectiveness of the mRNA Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in 20,101 people across nine states with weakened immune systems, between January and September 2021. Of that number, 10,564 people were fully vaccinated. That data was compared with 69,116 adults with normal immune systems, 29,456 of which were fully vaccinated.

The researchers found that the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines against laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 was 77% in immunocompromised patients, compared to 90% efficacy for those with typical immune systems.

But not all immunocompromised people even reached a 77% effectiveness, the researchers pointed out, noting, “vaccine effectiveness varied considerably among immunocompromised patient subgroups.” Specifically, people who had organ or stem cell transplants were more likely to have a 59% efficacy, while those who had a rheumatic or inflammatory disorder like rheumatoid arthritis saw efficacy numbers up to 81%.

“These findings are important, but not surprising,” says William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious-disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Infectious disease expert Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agrees. “Immunocompromised people are used to the fact that vaccines, which stimulate the immune system, are not going to be as effective in them as in someone who has a more robust immune system,” he says.

As a result, “they just don’t have optimal protection from the vaccines,” says Thomas Russo, M.D., professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo in New York.

If you’re immunocompromised or have a loved one who is, you likely have questions. Here’s what you need to know.

What does it mean to be immunocompromised?

When someone is immunocompromised, it means that they have a weakened immune system, according to the CDC. That can include people with HIV/AIDS, cancer, those who have had organ transplants, people on immunosuppressive medications, and patients who have inherited diseases that impact their immune system.

There is a range with immunosuppression, though, and that’s why there is a broad range in how effective the COVID-19 vaccine is for this group, Dr. Russo says. People who are moderate to severely immunocompromised make up about 3% of the adult population, the CDC says.

What are the current vaccine recommendations for people who are immunocompromised?

The CDC currently recommends that people who have moderately to severely compromised immune systems get a third dose of an mRNA vaccine at least 28 days after their second dose.

The CDC cites research that has found that some immunocompromised people don’t always create the same level of immunity after getting vaccinated the way other people do and may benefit from an additional dose to ensure adequate protection against COVID-19. The CDC also refers to a study that found fully vaccinated immunocompromised people make up a large proportion of people hospitalized with breakthrough cases (where they get infected with COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated).

But getting a third dose isn’t a guarantee that immunocompromised people will have the same level of protection as others. “Even after the third dose, immunocompromised people should recognize that they are more vulnerable than their friends and relatives,” Dr. Schaffner says.

That’s why he recommends that people who are immunocompromised wear masks in public, do their best to social distance, and avoid large groups whenever possible.

There is a chance that the CDC will eventually recommend a fourth shot for people who are immunocompromised, Dr. Russo says, but that’s unlikely to happen before the new year.

In the meantime, AstraZeneca has requested that the Food and Drug Administration grant an emergency use authorization for its long-acting antibody treatment to prevent COVID-19 in people who are at high risk of the virus. “That may be useful in protecting people from COVID who don’t mount great responses to the vaccine,” Dr. Adalja says.

Should you take an antibody test if you’re immunocompromised?

Though antibody tests seem like a great indicator of someone’s immune response to the vaccine, that’s not always the case. It’s not currently recommended for immunocompromised people to get them. “Antibody tests are unreliable,” Dr. Schaffner says. “We hope they will improve in the future but at the moment, they’re not recommended.”

Dr. Adalja agrees. “Some individuals are getting antibodies measured, but it’s very hard to actually make that data actionable because we don’t know the correlation of protection,” he says. “Obviously if the value is zero, that’s one indication of lack of protection.” But, he points out, antibody tests “ignore” T-cell immunity, which is another element in your overall protection against the virus. “Antibody tests are really not something that is useful for this type of purpose in a general sense,” he says.

If you’re not sure if you qualify as being immunocompromised, Dr. Russo recommends talking to your doctor—they should be able to offer insight. Still, he says, it’s a good idea to get a third shot if you’re unsure. “There’s a low threshold here,” he says. “When in doubt, get that extra shot.”


Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Self, Glamour, and more.

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10 dietary tips to reduce heart disease and stroke risk, according to new research

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The American Heart Association (AHA) on Tuesday outlined 10 key features of a heart-healthy eating pattern. 

The organization’s new scientific statement, titled “2021 Dietary Guidance to Improve Cardiovascular Health” and published in the journal Circulation, emphasizes the importance of overall dietary pattern, rather than individual foods or nutrients, as well as underscores the critical role of nutrition.

HEART HEALTH KEY TO TYPE 2 DIABETES PREVENTION: RESEARCHERS

The features listed, the AHA said, can be adapted to accommodate certain factors including cultural traditions, food likes and dislikes and whether most meals are consumed at home or “on-the-go.”

According to the group, the statement reflects that a poor diet is strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death.

The importance of a total dietary pattern – rather than “good” or “bad” foods or nutrients – is emphasized, as well as the role of nutrition education. 

The AHA emphasizes the importance of a total dietary pattern
(iStock)

Eating healthy early in life and maintaining healthy habits are also underscored. 

“We can all benefit from a heart-healthy dietary pattern regardless of stage of life, and it is possible to design one that is consistent with personal preferences, lifestyles and cultural customs,” Alice Lichtenstein, chair of the scientific statement writing group, said in a statement. “It does not need to be complicated, time-consuming, expensive or unappealing.”

BEHAVIORS THAT COULD CAUSE A HEART ATTACK

The 10 features that can help reduce the risk of heart disease:

  1. Balancing food and calorie intake with physical activity
  2. Choosing a wide variety to eat with fruits and vegetables
  3. Choosing whole grains
  4. Including healthy sources of lean and/or high-fiber protein
  5. Using liquid non-tropical plant oils
  6. Choosing minimally-processed foods and avoiding ultra-processed foods
  7. Minimizing intake of added sugars
  8. Choosing or preparing foods with little or no salt
  9. Limiting alcohol consumption
  10. Applying the guidance no matter where food is prepared or consumed

In addition, for the first time, the AHA summarizes evidence that addresses sustainability and enumerates several challenges that make it more difficult to adopt and maintain a heart-healthy eating pattern. 

Commonly consumed animal products, like red meat, contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions that warm the Earth’s atmosphere and have the largest environmental impact in terms of water and land usage. However, the AHA highlights that not all sustainable diets are heart-healthy.

The association said that public health actions and policy changes are required to address societal challenges and barriers to adopting or maintaining a heart-healthy diet. 

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Some of those challenges include widespread dietary misinformation, a lack of nutrition education in schools, food and nutrition insecurity, structural racism and neighborhood segregation and targeted marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“Creating an environment that promotes and supports adherence to heart-healthy dietary patterns among all individuals is a public health imperative,” the statement said.

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N.J. reports 7 COVID deaths, 1,026 cases as vaccinations begin for 5 to 11 year olds

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New Jersey on Wednesday reported another 1,026 COVID-19 cases and seven deaths as kids between the ages of 5 and 11 began receiving the first pediatric vaccine doses.

The state’s seven-day average for confirmed positive tests is 1,098, down 4% from a week ago and 32% from a month ago. It’s the lowest seven-day average since Aug. 5.

The statewide rate of transmission rose to 1.01 from 0.99 on Tuesday and 0.96 on Monday. The rate is back above the key benchmark of 1, which suggests the spread of COVID-19 is expanding. Any transmission rate above 1 indicates that each infected person is passing the virus to at least one other person and the outbreak is expanding.

There were 680 people hospitalized with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases across New Jersey’s 71 hospitals as of Tuesday night. There were 97 patients discharged in the 24 hours leading up to Tuesday night. Of those hospitalized, 170 were in intensive care (eight more than the previous night), with 91 of them on ventilators (one fewer).

The statewide positivity rate for tests conducted Friday, the most recent day available, was 3.89%.

The delta variant of the virus, which is more contagious than previous variants, now represents 100% of all cases circulating, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli has said.

New Jersey’s numbers have been steadily improving in recent weeks. But officials have warned that weather keeps getting colder and the holiday season is approaching. That will likely force more people to gather indoors and could cause another bump in the numbers.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

More than 6 million people who live, work or study in New Jersey — a state of about 9.2 million residents — have now been fully vaccinated. Gov. Phil Murphy has said more than 75% of those eligible in the state have been fully vaccinated.

More than 7.16 million people in the state have received at least one dose, and about 616,000 people have received third doses or boosters.

Doctors, pharmacies and health facilities around the state began administering the Pfizer vaccine for children between the ages of 5 and 11 on Wednesday after receiving final federal approvals.

New Jersey has 760,000 children in that age group and the state has ordered 203,800 doses of the pediatric Pfizer vaccine, which is one-third the dose for those 12 and over. There will 230 sites representing all 21 counties scheduled to receive the pediatric doses.

Murphy on Monday also updated the state’s breakthrough numbers. There have been a total of 42,358 cases among fully vaccinated people leading to 911 hospitalizations and 241 deaths, though those represent a small percentage total cases.

From Oct. 11 to 17, the state had 11,450 positive tests. Of those, 2,199 were from fully vaccinated people and those cases led to 24 hospitalizations (out of 725 total) and two deaths (out of 123 total).

Thirteen of New Jersey’s 21 counties are listed as having “high” rates of coronavirus transmission, while eight are listed with “substantial” transmission, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is recommending that all people in the high and substantial transmission counties wear masks for indoor public settings regardless of vaccination status.

Through the first several weeks of the school year, districts in New Jersey have reported at least 137 in-school outbreaks, for a total of 715 cases as of last week. That’s an increase of 11 outbreaks from the previous week, though officials say the numbers have been within reason.

The state reported 30 new outbreaks the previous week. Every county except Burlington and Warren have reported at least one in-school outbreak. The total of 715 cases is cumulative and does not reflect active cases.

In-school outbreaks are defined as three or more cases that are determined through contact tracing to have been transmitted among staff or students while at school. They do not include total cases among staff and students.

New Jersey, an early epicenter of the pandemic, has now reported 28,011 total COVID-19 deaths in the nearly 20 months since the start of the outbreak — 25,195 confirmed and 2,816 considered probable, according to the state dashboard. The probable deaths, which are revised weekly, increased Monday by two fatalities.

The state has the third-most coronavirus deaths per capita in the U.S., behind Mississippi and Alabama.

New Jersey has reported 1,044,964 total confirmed cases out of the more than 15.9 million PCR tests conducted since it announced its first case March 4, 2020. The state has also reported 157,287 positive antigen or rapid tests, which are considered probable cases.

At least 8,639 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data. There are active outbreaks at 136 facilities, resulting in 704 current cases among residents and 612 among staffers.

As of Wednesday, there have been more than 247 million positive COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 5 million people having died due to the virus. The U.S. has reported the most cases (more than 46 million) and deaths (more than 748,900) of any nation.

There have been more than 7.1 billion vaccine doses administered globally.

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Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @johnsb01.



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Entire Bay Area backslides on CDC COVID map

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As of Wednesday morning, there are no Bay Area counties in the moderate tier. The seven Bay Area counties still enforcing an indoor mask mandate for all individuals regardless of vaccination status will not lift the mandates until they remain in the moderate tier for three weeks straight, have “low and stable” hospitalizations and over 80% of its total population is fully vaccinated.

Marin County, which is now back in the substantial tier, met all three requirements last week and dropped its mask mandate Monday. County Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis has said that a case increase alone will not bring back the mandate, and county officials will watch hospitalization numbers instead. 

In addition, two Bay Area counties — Sonoma and Solano — have now been placed in the “high” (red) tier. Solano County is the one county that did not re-impose an indoor mask mandate, with county Health Officer Dr. Bela Matyas stating at the time, “Our cases are very clearly not occurring in public places. They’re occurring in people’s homes, at parties, barbecues, picnics, camping events and so issuing a mask mandate in the indoor public space environment isn’t going to change that.”

After the highly vaccinated region saw a backslide on the CDC map, UCSF’s Dr. Monica Gandhi, a leading expert on the pandemic, took to Twitter to deride the CDC framework, which she characterized as “outdated.”


“A highly vaccinated place will always be at risk of being in these ‘tiers’ due to the outdated definition of the CDC’s metrics of community spread,” she wrote.

She notes that the map is based on case rates and test positivity, but writes, “those metrics only made sense when mass asymptomatic testing was occurring prior to vaccination.” “After vaccination, per the CDC guidance, only those with exposures or symptoms should test so tests are likely to reveal positive cases, which is not a good measure of community transmission or spread,” Gandhi said.

“So, if CDC doesn’t change this definition of community spread after vax, highly vax’d places (most likely to follow CDC) will be masking forever with this artifactual metric,” she concluded.



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Covid vaccines for kids: Why these families are jumping at the chance to get their children vaccinated

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“I showed him the picture, and he read the box, and I think his eyes went straight to the 5- to 11-year-old (label),” his mom Brandy Wittenborn said.

“He said, ‘Wait — wait, that’s for us?’ We said ‘yes, it is.’ And he’s like, ‘You mean, we’re going to get the shot soon?’ I said ‘yes, you will.’ So he’s very excited.”

For Nate and his 11-year-old brother, the vaccine means sleepovers and a long-delayed vacation to Disneyland.

For a family in South Carolina, the shots mean a 10-year-old cancer survivor can finally go back to school after 17 months at home.

And to a family in California, the child vaccine is critical to help prevent new variants and end this pandemic for everyone.

Indiana parents want to protect their vulnerable patients

Brandy Wittenborn didn’t initially think she would ever need to vaccinate her three sons — Derek, now 11; Nate, now 8; and Will, now 4.

“When they were developing this vaccine, I honestly thought that we wouldn’t have to vaccinate our kids that are maybe under 10, if they weren’t affected as much, and weren’t a part of as much of the spread of the virus,” said the dental hygienist from Carmel, Indiana.

“But as we rolled out the vaccine for adults, and you saw so much vaccine hesitancy, it kind of occurred to me: If we are going to reach any kind of herd immunity, it’s going to have to involve the under-10 crowd … and that was really before we started seeing some of these variants that affected kids a little bit more,” Wittenborn said.

“So when they started studying the vaccine in the 12-and-up crowd, the mRNA science seems extremely safe when compared to some of the other vaccines that we’ve had developed in history. I couldn’t really see that the risks were going to be any more for that younger crowd than for adults.”

Wittenborn dug deep into the research and paid close attention to why advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration recommended the vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds.

“I listened to the whole FDA advisory meeting last week,” she said. “I myself am a dental hygienist. My husband is a nephrologist — a kidney specialist. We have a large handful of physician friends around the area that we’ve listened to. … When you see that over and over and over again, with trusted pediatricians, you think, well, this is what they’re doing with their own child. So this is what we should do with ours.”

She said it’s especially important to vaccinate her sons who are old enough because of the vulnerable people both parents work with.

“I work at a pediatric dental office. I have a lot of kids that have underlying medical conditions. A lot of special needs patients that can’t wear a mask. My husband, being a nephrologist, has patients with kidney disease, patients that require dialysis. And these patients that he sees are not healthy, have several underlying conditions,” Wittenborn said.

“So we’ve had to live with almost two years of: ‘What if one of the kids brings Covid home from school, passes it along to my husband and I, even though he and I’ve been vaccinated for a while, if we do have a mild breakthrough case that we don’t realize we’re sick with, and he takes it into the dialysis center, into the hospital, or into the ICU?”

“So for us, the benefit of getting those boys vaccinated kind of cuts down on the risk of us carrying that infection to somebody that would have more severe disease than one of us would.”

She did ask the family’s pediatrician about myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that has appeared occasionally in younger men after a second dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

She learned that post-vaccine myocarditis is rare, and those who do get it often have mild, treatable cases — unlike some who get severe myocarditis due to Covid-19.

“I have talked to our pediatrician … if you have a myocarditis incident after a viral infection, those can be fatal, lead to hospitalizations, more severe disease,” Wittenborn said, matching what other pediatricians have said.

She said her 8- and 11-year-old sons are excited to get vaccinated.

“To them, it means that they may not have to wear a mask indoors anymore. Neither of the boys have ever had sleepovers with their friends. This will make sleepovers easier to have. The boys will know that their grandparents will be a little safer being around them more frequently, or maybe they’ll go be able to go spend some time staying with their grandparents more.”

And soon, the family will finally get to go to Disneyland.

“We had a Disneyland vacation booked for April of 2020 that we had to cancel because of the pandemic,” Wittenborn said. “They are definitely excited.”

A young cancer survivor wants to go back to school

Jodie Srutek’s 10-year-old daughter hasn’t been inside a classroom in 1 1/2 years.

She’s a cancer survivor who’s at high risk for severe Covid-19 if she gets infected, Srutek said. But her school doesn’t require masks, and the risk of going to school unvaccinated is too high, said the mom from Bluffton, South Carolina.

“As soon as we can get the vaccine, we will get it,” Srutek said shortly before her daughter became eligible Tuesday. “Even if it means we have to drive two hours away to get it … we will do that if we have to.”

But she’s already discovered problems with access. Her pediatrician’s office said it didn’t have a freezer cold enough to store the Pfizer vaccine, which must be kept at a colder temperature than the Moderna vaccine used for adults in the area, Srutek said.

She learned a local superstore was planning to give pediatric Covid-19 vaccines. But a crowded store would be unsafe for Srutek’s 10-year-old, who did not want to be named for this story.

Even though the girl’s kidney cancer is in remission, “she still has residual health effects from her treatment,” Srutek said.

While some parents have expressed concern about possible long-term side effects after vaccination, “we’re definitely more concerned about long-term effects of Covid,” Srutek said.

“I don’t know of any vaccines that have long-term effects for most folks — it’s usually pretty quick if there’s an adverse reaction,” Srutek said, echoing what doctors have said about the unlikelihood of long-term vaccine side effects.

To her daughter, the vaccine is “a ticket back to normal” — including birthday parties and a return to in-person learning for the first time since March 2020.

“I want to get it so much so I can go to school and see my friends!” the 10-year-old said.

“I’ll be able to go to the park even if there are a lot of other people there. And I’ll be able to go to Disney World and Universal again.”

Vaccinating kids will help prevent new variants, a scientist and mom says

Alicia Zhou didn’t just read reports about Covid-19 vaccines. She insisted on reviewing all the primary data before vaccinating her 6-year-old son, Davi.

“I didn’t just take anybody’s word for it,” said Zhou, the chief science officer at Color, a company specializing in public health infrastructure.

“I looked at the clinical trial evidence and I evaluated it. And honestly, it’s some of the most impressive data … that I’ve seen when it comes to vaccination,” the molecular biologist said.

“I could see how if you’re just reading it from a press release, or you’re just reading from a news article, you might feel like it’s exaggerated or might be a rosy version of the truth. But having gone to the primary data myself, it’s very, very compelling.”

So as a scientist and as a mother, “it feels like a no-brainer to have my child be vaccinated.”

While children are generally at lower risk of severe illness from Covid-19, pediatricians say they can still be at risk of long-term complications — regardless of how minor their initial symptoms may have been.
Covid-19 has also killed more than 790 children ages 0 to 17 and sent more than 65,000 to hospitals.

While the odds of severe Covid-19 among kids may seem low, Zhou said she doesn’t want to take the chance.

“If I give you a bag of 1,000 M&Ms, and said only one of them will kill you, would you let your kid eat one?”

But Davi’s vaccine won’t just benefit himself, his mom said.

“When we think about: Why is the pandemic dragging on? Where are these new variants coming from? And how is that causing us to have a prolongment of this pandemic? The reality is that the virus evolves and changes and adapts,” Zhou said.

“And as long as you continue to have pools of unvaccinated and susceptible individuals, it is giving more opportunity for the virus to continue to replicate and evolve and change. And so our best protection against more novel variants developing that could become even more advantageous than even Delta is to increase the amount of vaccination within the population or immunity within the population — either by getting Covid-19 or by by being vaccinated.”

CNN’s Justin Lear contributed to this report.

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A coronavirus outbreak in Iowa deer is prompting scientists to worry if the animals could be a reservoir for the virus in the long term

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Deer are seen in a field on October 10, 2019 in Winterset, Iowa. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

  • A study found a number of deer in Iowa carried the coronavirus, and most likely got it from humans.

  • More research is needed to find out if the deer could have passed the virus back to humans.

  • The risk of animal to human transmission is low, but it is possible, as evidenced in Danish mink in 2020.

A number of deer in the state of Iowa are carrying the coronavirus, according to a recent study, prompting scientists to worry the wild animals could potentially become a reservoir for the virus.

The study, which was published on the pre-print server Biorxiv on Monday, suggests that the deer caught the virus from humans. The study says there is no evidence at this time that they could pass it back.

Animal to human transmission of COVID-19 has occurred on a small scale before, however.

In late 2020, Denmark culled millions of farmed minks after a coronavirus strain found in the animals infected about a dozen people. The strain did not seem more dangerous than other strains circulating at the time.

Millions of minks were culled in Denmark over COVID fears. Joe McDonald/Getty Images

The Iowa deer study, which has not been peer-reviewed, looked at 283 samples from free and captive white-tailed deer in the state from April 2020 through January 2021.

A third of the deer samples overall showed traces of the coronavirus, suggesting they had an active infection when they died. The peak of infection among the deer coincided with a surge of cases among Iowa’s human residents in November and December 2020, the study found.

Further genetic analysis found that the animals carried strains of the coronavirus that were circulating in the human population at the time, which supports the hypothesis that the deer caught the virus from humans, then passed it from deer to deer.

It’s not clear how the deer might have caught the virus from humans.

“There is no reason to believe that the same thing isn’t happening in other states where deer are present,” Vivek Kapur, an author on the study and veterinary microbiologist at Penn State University, told The New York Times.

It is not clear if the deer have passed the virus back to humans, an event that would be “very rare and unlucky,” Tony Goldberg, a veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison told the Times.

But that would be a “game changer,” said Goldberg.

The concern when a disease-causing microbe is passed to humans from other animals – which is called zoonosis – is that it could circulate unchecked in animal populations.

In case of the COVID-19 coronavirus, this could eventually lead to a dangerous mutation.

Of course, in that case, a booster shot for humans could likely be developed, the Times reported.

Research shows that vaccination is the best protection against severe disease and death from COVID-19.

Vaccines tailored to animals have already been developed. Reuters

COVID-19 vaccines have also been tailored for zoo animals, so deer could get a shot if the risk of mutation became concerning, per the Times.

Deer hunters in several states have been advised to be careful when interacting with white-tailed deer, the Times reported, although there is no evidence that you can catch COVID-19 from preparing and eating wild game meat, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Based on the available information, there is no evidence that animals are playing a “significant role” in the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, and the risk of animals spreading COVID-19 to people is low, the United States Department of Agriculture has said.

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