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Health

On a Scale of 1 to 10, Here’s How Worried You Should Be About The COVID Variant BA.5

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There’s a new coronavirus variant traveling around this summer at a record clip.

It’s a variant of Omicron called BA.5, and it’s causing a stir largely because it has evolved even further away than other Omicron variants did from the coronavirus we already knew. 

 

Previously, getting infected with Omicron meant you probably had some protection against reinfection for a few months.

But BA.5 is strategically evading our built-up defenses against prior versions of the virus. This all means that reinfections – even in vaccinated and recently infected people – are up, way up.

So, yes, BA.5 is easier to catch than other variants have been, and it may feel like it’s lurking everywhere right now, infecting anyone, whether or not you’ve already had a vaccine, a booster shot, and/or a recent bout of COVID-19.

“If you were infected with BA.1, you really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4/5,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US’s top infectious-disease expert, said Tuesday.

We asked four top public-health experts to help us figure out how worried we should be about this new, extra-stealthy Omicron subvariant. 

Telling us how concerned to be about new infectious-disease threats is typically what these people do for a living. But rating BA.5 gave them some pause.

“I can’t answer that,” Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious-disease expert and the editor at large for public health at Kaiser Health News, said. “Because it depends on your vaccination status, your age, your health, your occupation, your living situation, etc., etc.”

Others did give hard numbers, but there was variation in their answers based on where you may live or who you are. 

 

If you’re up to date on vaccines, one expert says your worry scale should register at ‘3 out of 10’

Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Michigan, was willing to give a hard and fast number. “I’d say 3 out of 10,” she said, expressing mild concern about the new variant. 

“BA.5 is everywhere, and if you haven’t gotten it yet, the odds are pretty” good you will,” Malani said, adding: “But if you are up to date on vaccines, the illness should be mild and without major medical consequences.”

While there’s a “high risk of exposure” to this variant, she said there were also “lots of reasons to be hopeful.” Early treatment with Paxlovid is now free for all Americans who may need it.

“With home testing and rapid connection to treatment (for those at risk of complicated infection), COVID is manageable,” Malani said.

Older adults without booster shots should be more worried 

In the UK, which is at least a few weeks ahead of the US in terms of variant spread, national health-security experts have assessed that the protection offered by vaccines against BA.5 “likely remains comparable to that observed previously,” which means vaccinated and boosted people, while certainly at risk of getting sick with BA.5, likely won’t end up in the hospital or dead. 

For those who aren’t up to date on shots, and who don’t have a COVID-19 action plan, outcomes could be bad.

 

The European Union earlier this week released new recommendations for a second booster for all adults 60 and older, in line with what the US already recommends. 

“We are currently seeing increasing COVID-19-case notification rates and an increasing trend in hospital and ICU admissions and occupancy in several countries, mainly driven by the BA.5 sublineage of Omicron,” Dr. Andrea Ammon, the director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said. 

“There are still too many individuals at risk of severe COVID-19 infection whom we need to protect as soon as possible,” she added. 

Regional differences in vaccination rates and heat waves may complicate the calculation

Katelyn Jetelina, a public-health expert who runs the popular Your Local Epidemiologist blog wasn’t willing to give a single number for the entire US. She said the risk was too variable right now, based on where you live.

“I’m quite worried about the South,” she said, ranking it a 7 out of 10 because of low rates of booster shots, low Paxlovid usage, low testing, and “everyone going inside for the heat.”

 

The South also had a relatively low number of infections in the recent BA.2.12.1 wave, unlike the Northeast, where Jetelina said people should be at about a 4 out of 10 level of concern.

Bottom line: If you’re boosted, wearing masks when appropriate, and have a test and treatment action plan for if you do get sick, most experts agree this wave should turn out OK for you.

But like all risk calculations, “the number is different based on who it is being applied to,” as Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said. 

“If it is a fresh lung-transplant patient, the number would be 10. For a healthy 18-year-old, it would be 0,” he said. “Risk is not one-size-fits-all.”

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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Health

Vitamin D deficiency may be linked to an increased risk of dementia, study says

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A recent study has found that vitamin D deficiency may be associated with an increased risk of dementia and stroke. (Photo via Getty Images)

This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Contact a qualified medical professional before engaging in any physical activity, or making any changes to your diet, medication or lifestyle.

A recent study has found that deficiency in vitamin D may be linked to some conditions and diseases.

Researchers at the University of South Australia performed what they call a “world-first” study in which they found a low level of vitamin D is associated with an increased risk of dementia and stroke.

“Vitamin D is a hormone precursor that is increasingly recognized for widespread effects, including on brain health, but until now it has been very difficult to examine what would happen if we were able to prevent vitamin D deficiency,” Elina Hyppönen, a professor and senior investigator and director of the university’s Australian Centre for Precision Health, says in a press release.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, analyzed data from just over 294,000 participants from the UK Biobank, a biomedical database. It did not include participants that had a family history of dementia.

Researchers found that participants with vitamin D levels lower than 25 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) were predicted to be 54 per cent more prone to dementia compared to participants with vitamin D levels of 50 nmol/L, which is considered a normal vitamin D level.

Hyppönen says in the population that was studied, up to 17 per cent of dementia cases might have been avoided had the vitamin D levels been within a normal range.

However, the authors also concluded that more research is needed to confirm the link between low levels of vitamin D and the risk of dementia.

According to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, there are over 500,000 Canadians currently living with dementia. (Photo via Getty Images)

What is dementia?

Dementia is a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that is significant enough to affect a person’s daily life.

There are many different types of dementia, with the most common form being Alzheimer’s disease.

According to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, there are more than 500,000 Canadians currently living with dementia — and experts say that number will likely only increase.

“We know that the number of older adults over the age of 85-years-old are expected to triple in the next 25 years, which means the number of people living with dementia will be increasing significantly,” says Dr. Roger Wong, who is a clinical professor of geriatric medicine at the University of British Columbia.

Why is vitamin D important for our health?

Vitamin D is both a nutrient we eat — found in salmon and cod liver oil — and a hormone our bodies produce. Few foods naturally contain vitamin D, so many people need to take supplements to up their intake.

Vitamin D helps our bodies absorb and retain calcium and phosphorus, both of which are crucial for bone health. On top of that, some studies have shown that vitamin D can help reduce cancer cell growth, help control infections and reduce inflammation.

Deficiency in the vitamin is common among older adults. As people get older, their skin’s ability to synthesize vitamin D from the sun goes down.

The amount of vitamin D people need depends on their age. For older patients, the Cleveland Clinic recommends between 800 to 2000 IUs per day.

When speaking about dementia prevention, a Canadian geriatric specialist advises seniors and their families to take care of their overall health, including exercising regularly. (Photo via Getty Images)

What Canadian researchers say

Wong says the study starts an important conversation about dementia, especially with Canada’s aging population.

The geriatric specialist adds that it also provides clues in terms of an association between lower levels of vitamin D in the blood with the occurrence of dementia and stroke.

However, there are limitations to the study.

“The association that you see with the low vitamin D level in this study, and the findings, are at best described as associations and not causation,” Wong explains during his interview with Yahoo Canada.

The study also focuses on a younger population, with the oldest participants being 70 years old when the study began. Wong says the risk of dementia goes up with age, with seniors over 85 years old being particularly vulnerable to the disease.

Moreover, the research also focused on a population in the United Kingdom, which has a predominantly white population compared to Canada.

“We need more studies actually in the Canadian setting, but with a diversity lens. I think that’s so important,” Wong adds.

Even with these limitations, Wong says every little bit helps when it comes to learning more about dementia, and one day finding a cure.

“I don’t think one can definitively say there is a causative effect of low vitamin D and dementia, because in individuals who are living with dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, the question becomes, if you give them vitamin D, are they going to improve?” he says. “Does it have a treatment or therapeutic effect? And the answer to that question is unknown.”

When speaking about dementia prevention, Wong advises seniors and their families to take care of their overall health. It’s important to be aware of other risk factors linked to dementia, including stroke.

Steps you can do to help prevent stroke include eating a well-balanced diet, maintaining a healthy weight, quitting smoking and limiting how much alcohol you drink.

“Something as straightforward as exercise is critically important,” Wong adds. “Physical activity or exercise has been shown time and time again to be very effective in maintaining brain health and preventing stroke and therefore indirectly preventing dementia.”

Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.



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Health

Adding salt to your food raises risk of death – study

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Adding extra salt to your food puts you at a higher risk of dying, regardless of the cause, a new academic study has found.

The study looked at any possible association between adding salt to one’s food and premature deaths, though it notably did not include salt used in cooking but rather extra salt added to food.

The findings of the study were published in the peer-reviewed academic periodical the European Heart Journal.

Don’t be so salty

Scientists have long debated the exact nature salt intake during eating has on one’s health. 

Recently, this debate was sparked again by studies indicating that sodium intake (itself linked with salt, also known as sodium chloride) is linked with a higher risk of death, but results have often been inconsistent on this in the past.

Part of the reason for this is due to low accuracy sodium measurements. This is because sodium intake tends to vary greatly on a day-to-day basis.

This, in turn, was because of how sodium intake was studied, either by dietary survey or a single day’s urine sample, neither of which are enough to properly measure it.

Not only that, but there is further confusion regarding the studying of sodium intake and potassium intake, based on existing methods. 

So how can we properly study sodium intake? Well, the answer seems to be salt added to food.

What scientists do know is that adding extra salt to food is very common, influences one’s preference for salty flavors and can contribute significantly to how much salt one consumes. 

Scientists have determined that adding extra salt to food accounts for 6%-20% of total salt intake in Western diets.

But table salt, which is the primary type of salt used, also has the benefit of being nearly entirely (97%-99%) sodium chloride. What this means is that it is far easier to determine sodium intake from this without getting confused with other dietary elements, like potassium.

But few studies have ever actually gone so far as to study adding salt to food and how it impacts mortality rates. Until now.

Salt 424 (521) (credit: Courtesy Ari Gortersman)

The study

To analyze this data, the scientists made use of data covering over 500,000 people via the UK biobank. 

These participants were given a touch-screen questionnaire and were asked if they add salt to food, not including salt for cooking, and could give one of five possible answers: Never/rarely, sometimes, usually, always and prefer not to answer, the latter of which were assigned to a missing value.

In addition, the participants also had to answer if they made any major diet changes in the past five years, with the possible answers being no, yes because of illness, yes because of other reasons and prefer not to answer.

The scientists also collected urine samples, from which sodium and potassium counts were measured.

Next, the question was how to tell if one’s risk of dying was increased. How can one tell life expectancy was impacted?

To do this, scientists had to review death certificates from the UK’s National Health Services. From here, it became a matter of determining at one point is a death considered premature.

By studying the dates of death as well as other related info, it was determined that dying before the age of 75 was considered premature.

But how does this relate to salt? 

Here to study the participants adding salt to their food, the scientists used a life table. This refers to a table used in statistics that shows the probability that someone of each age might die. 

These tables used in this study covered the ages of 45-100. 

To calculate survival odds, the researchers used three estimates: The UK Office for National Statistics data on sex- and age-specific mortality rates; the sex-specific hazard ratios of mortality in each group depending on how often they added salt to their food; and the sex-specific prevalence of each frequency of adding salt.

So a high frequency of adding salt would be estimated as the difference in life expectancy between each group and the reference data.

Results

When the data was all calculated, the scientists concluded that people who always added salt to their food had a 28% raised risk of death.

Take into account that currently, among those between the ages of 40 and 69 in the general population, around three in every 100 people will die prematurely. Now, adding data from people always adding salt to their food, that number will climb to four in every 100 people dying early in this age group.

At the age of 50, women who always added salt to their food essentially lost 1.5 years of life, while men who did so lost 2.28 years.

That being said, there may be ways to reduce risks, at least somewhat, by eating high amounts of fruits and vegetables, though the difference this could bring wasn’t deemed statistically significant.

“Even a modest reduction in sodium intake, by adding less or no salt to food at the table, is likely to result in substantial health benefits, especially when it is achieved in the general population.”

Prof. Lu Qi

The most significant outcome of this, according to lead researcher Prof. Lu Qi, of Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, New Orleans, is that it can help with changing dietary habits to improve health. Especially since even cutting back on salt intake just a bit can be beneficial.

“To my knowledge, our study is the first to assess the relation between adding salt to foods and premature death,” Qi said in a statement. 

“It provides novel evidence to support recommendations to modify eating behaviors for improving health. Even a modest reduction in sodium intake, by adding less or no salt to food at the table, is likely to result in substantial health benefits, especially when it is achieved in the general population.”

So next time you go eat dinner, maybe be sure to hold the salt.



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Health

Weekend warriors are lowering their risk of early death, study says

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Adults should get 150 minutes of physical activity and two days of muscle strengthening activity a week, according to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. If you are trying to spread that out over the week along with work, errands, cooking and cleaning, it can sound like a lot.

There wasn’t a big difference in all-cause or cause-specific mortality between those who exercise regularly and weekend warriors, as long as they were getting the same amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity in a week, said study author Leandro Rezende, adjunct professor of epidemiology in the department of preventive medicine at the Federal University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

“This is good news considering that the weekend warrior physical activity pattern may be a more convenient option for many people to achieve the recommended levels of physical activity,” Rezende said in an email.

As long as you are getting the 150 minutes of exercise that adults need each week — or more — working out whenever you can fit it in may help lower your mortality rate, according to the study.

The results could help public health officials promote physical activity even among busy people and support the idea that “every minute of physical activity counts,” said Eric Shiroma, staff scientist at the National Institute on Aging.

CNN fitness contributor Dana Santas often hears clients talk about their crazy weekday schedules as a reason for not exercising.

“Understandably, they don’t want to sacrifice much-needed sleep by getting up early or lose invaluable family dinner time by going to the gym right after work,” said Santas, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and mind-body coach in professional sports. “Those are valid concerns as we all need sleep to function.

“And family dinners not only represent quality time but also increase the odds of eating healthy as opposed to grabbing fast food.”

Other health impacts to look out for

The mortality benefits of weekend exercise are great news for people with busy weekdays, Santas said. But there are advantages to working out during the week.

The study didn’t account for sleep, injury or mental health impacts of regular daily exercise, so it is important to keep that in mind, she added.

“Bodies are designed for movement,” Santas said. “Being sedentary all week long could increase susceptibility to injury if you go too hard in your weekend workouts.”

With that in mind, it is even more important for weekend warriors to make sure they are properly warming up and paying attention to form, she said.

A study from 2018 also found that exercise plays a big role in mental health. Participants in the study who reported exercising at all had about 1.5 fewer days of “bad self-reported mental health” in the past month compared with those who did not exercise.

And a big part of many aspects of health is getting good sleep. Getting enough daily exercise can help our bodies crave rest naturally at the end of the day, Santas said.

That daily exercise to help with sleep doesn’t necessarily have to make you sweaty and out of breath, but you should strive for increased respiration and heart rate, she added.

That could mean devoting 20 to 25 minutes to a brisk walk, a bike ride or body weight exercises for better sleep, Santas said.

Shiroma recommended five ways to keep physical activity as part of your life: Find small ways like taking the stairs; exercise in ways you enjoy; make it social with friends; make and reward goals; and build back gradually when you fall off your routine.

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World

Russia warns humanity at risk if West seeks to punish it over Ukraine

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By Pavel Polityuk and Simon Lewis

KYIV/KRAMATORSK (Reuters) – Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said attempts by the West to punish a nuclear power such as Russia for the war in Ukraine risked endangering humanity, as the near five-month conflict leaves cities in ruins and thousands homeless.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.

U.S. President Joe Biden says Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and has led the West in arming Ukraine and imposing crippling sanctions on Russia.

“The idea of punishing a country that has one of the largestnuclear potentials is absurd. And potentially poses a threat tothe existence of humanity,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said on Telegram on Wednesday.

Russia and the United States control about 90% of theworld’s nuclear warheads, with around 4,000 warheads each intheir military stockpiles, according to the Federation ofAmerican Scientists.

Medvedev cast the United States as an empire which hadspilled blood across the world, citing the killing of NativeAmericans, U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan and a host of warsranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Attempts to use courts or tribunals to investigate Russia’sactions in Ukraine would, Medvedev said, be futile and riskglobal devastation. Ukraine and its Western allies say Russian forces have engaged in war crimes.

Putin launched his invasion, calling it a “special military operation”, to demilitarise Ukraine, root out what he said were dangerous nationalists and protect Russian speakers in that country.

Ukraine and its allies say Russia launched an imperial-style land grab, sparking the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

After failing to seize the capital Kyiv early, Russia is now waging a war of attrition for Ukraine’s Donbas region, parts of which are controlled by Russian separatist proxies.

On Sunday, Putin claimed his biggest victory when Ukrainian forces withdrew from Luhansk province. Russian forces then launched an offensive to take neighbouring Donetsk province. Donetsk and Luhansk comprise the Donbas.

Russia says it wants to wrest control of the eastern and heavily industrial region on behalf of Moscow-backed separatists in two self-proclaimed people’s republics.

HEAVY SHELLING

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said it had so far staved off any major Russian advance into the north of Donetsk, but pressure is intensifying with heavy shelling on the city of Sloviansk and nearby populated areas.

It said Russian forces were bombarding several Ukrainian towns with heavy weaponry to enable ground forces to advance southward into the region and close in on Sloviansk.

“The enemy is trying to improve its tactical position…(They) advanced … before being repulsed by our soldiers and retreating with losses,” the Ukrainian military said in its evening note.

Other Russian forces, it said, aimed to seize two towns en route to the city of Kramatorsk, south of Sloviansk, and were also trying to take control of the main highway linking Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.

“We are holding back the enemy on the (Luhansk/Donetsk) border,” Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian TV. Later, he said Luhansk was still not entirely occupied by Russian forces and that Russia had sustained “colossal losses.”

“They will continue to try to advance on Sloviansk and Bakhmut. There is no doubt about that,” he said.

Sloviansk Mayor Vadym Lyakh told a video briefing the city had been shelled for the last two weeks.

“The situation is tense,” he said, adding that 17 residents had been killed there since Feb. 24.

Russia’s defence ministry says it does not target civilians and on Wednesday said it was using high-precision weapons to take out military threats.

Ukraine has repeatedly pleaded with the West to send more weapons to repel the invasion that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and flattened cities.

“At last, Western artillery has started to work powerfully, the weapons we are getting from our partners. And their accuracy is exactly what is needed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said In his nightly video message.

‘NO SAFE AREAS’

In the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk, which Russian forces are expected to try to capture in coming weeks, Ukrainian soldiers and a handful of civilians ran errands in green-painted cars and vans on Wednesday. Much of the population has left.

“It’s almost deserted. It’s spooky,” said Oleksandr, a 64-year-old retired metal worker. He was unlikely to follow official advice to evacuate, he said, despite an increase in missile strikes.

“I’m not looking for death but if I encounter it it’s better to be at home,” he said.

Outside the Donbas, Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv was being subjected to “constant” longer-range Russian shelling, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Ukrainian TV.

“Russia is trying to demoralise Kharkiv but it won’t get anywhere,” he said. Ukrainian defenders pushed Russian armoured forces well back from Kharkiv early in the war, and Terekhov said around 1 million residents remained there.

South of Kharkiv, the governor of Dnipropetrovsk said the region had been battered by missiles and shelling, while on the southern coast the port of Mykolaiv was also being heavily shelled, Oleksandr Senkevych, its mayor, told a briefing.

“There are no safe areas in Mykolaiv,” he said. “I am telling the people… that they need to leave.”

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Health

7 Habits That Can Lower Your Risk of Dementia

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The seven habits include exercising, losing weight, having good nutrition, maintaining a healthy blood pressure, reducing blood sugar, not smoking, and regulating cholesterol.

Scientists identify have identified 7 healthy linked to lower rates of dementia in those with genetic risk

According to a study recently published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, seven healthy habits and lifestyle factors may help reduce the risk of dementia in people with the greatest genetic risk.

The seven cardiovascular and brain health factors are known as the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7: being active, eating healthier, losing weight, not smoking, keeping a healthy blood pressure, regulating cholesterol, and lowering blood sugar.

“These healthy habits in the Life’s Simple 7 have been linked to a lower risk of dementia overall, but it is uncertain whether the same applies to people with a high genetic risk,” said study author Adrienne Tin, Ph.D., of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. “The good news is that even for people who are at the highest genetic risk, living by this same healthier lifestyle are likely to have a lower risk of dementia.”

In the research, 2,738 people with African heritage and 8,823 individuals with European ancestry were tracked over the course of 30 years. At the start of the trial, participants’ average age was 54.

The levels of each of the seven health factors were reported by study participants. The range of total scores was 0 to 14, with 0 being the most unhealthy score and 14 denoting the most healthy score. People of European heritage scored on average 8.3, whereas people of African descent scored on average 6.6.

Researchers calculated genetic risk scores at the start of the study using genome-wide statistics of

Among people with African ancestry, researchers found a similar pattern of declining dementia risk across all three groups among those with higher scores on the lifestyle factors. But researchers said the smaller number of participants in this group limited the findings, so more research is needed.

“Larger sample sizes from diverse populations are needed to get more reliable estimates of the effects of these modifiable health factors on dementia risk within different genetic risk groups and ancestral backgrounds,” Tin said.

A limitation of the study was the smaller sample size among people of African ancestry and that many African American participants were recruited from one location.

The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Reference: “Genetic Risk, Midlife Life’s Simple 7, and Incident Dementia in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study” by Adrienne Tin, Jan Bressler, Jeannette Simino, Kevin J Sullivan, Hao Mei, B. Gwen Windham, Michael Griswold, Rebecca F. Gottesman, Eric Boerwinkle, Myriam Fornage and Tom H. Mosley, 25 May 2022, Neurology.
DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200520



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Health

The #1 Worst Drink Increasing Your Risk of Parkinson’s Disease, New Study Finds — Eat This Not That

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If you need to quench your thirst, then you might want to stick with a glass of water. You could also opt for clear tea or black coffee if you’re looking for a beverage that can offer your body a range of health benefits.

On the other hand, you may want to stop drinking milk on a regular basis due to the fact that it can increase your risk of Parkinson’s disease, according to new findings.

In an extensive review that was published in Nutritional Neuroscience, those behind the research took a look at 52 studies that were conducted between 2000 and now. The randomized clinical trials and observational case-control studies, as well as follow-up studies focused on the ways nutrition affected the chances of developing Parkinson’s disease and how they might affect the progression of the disease.

That included how coffee, alcohol, vitamins, polyphenols, and dairy products, as well as the Mediterranean diet, either increased or decreased the risk.

The resulting data showed that while polyphenols, polyunsaturated fatty acids, coffee, and the Mediterranean diet all helped to either reduce the development or progression of Parkinson’s disease, milk increased the risk.

“The article about the role of nutrition in Parkinson’s Disease is incredibly important discourse, but it does not come to a surprise to me,” Nora Minno, a registered dietitian who works with Soylent.com, tells Eat This, Not That!. “Scientists have known for a long time that diet and nutrition has a severe impact on a person’s health.”

Minno explains that “Parkinson’s disease and other neurological diseases are absolutely impacted by what people put in their bodies,” and when it comes to milk, “excessive intake of dairy is not good for your body, as it consists of a lot of unhealthy saturated fats.”

Indeed, Minno adds, “I think people should consume dairy in moderation, due to its high saturated fat content.”

To find out about removing milk from your diet, be sure to read 22 Genius Tips To Cut Back on Dairy, According to Experts.

Desirée O

Desirée O is a freelance writer who covers lifestyle, food, and nutrition news among other topics. Read more

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Health

Advocates warn US at risk of losing control on monkeypox

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Infectious disease experts and public health advocates are warning that the Biden administration has been too slow to respond to the monkeypox outbreak and that the U.S. is at risk of losing control of the disease. 

The response to monkeypox is mirroring the worst parts of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, they say, with severely limited testing and a sluggish rollout of vaccines leading to a virus that’s spreading undetected.

“Where we have lagged is streamlining testing, making vaccines available, streamlining access to the best therapeutics. All three areas have been bureaucratic and slow, and that means we haven’t contained this outbreak,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors (NCSD).

Unlike COVID-19, monkeypox is not a novel virus, and the strategies to reduce the spread are well known. Biden administration officials said they are confident in their approach.

“We as a global community have known about it for decades. We know how it spreads. We have tests that help identify people who are infected. We have vaccines that are highly effective against it,” White House coronavirus response coordinator Ashish Jha said during a recent briefing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 460 cases in 30 states, Puerto Rico and D.C., though experts say that number is almost certainly an undercount, as many people who may be infected don’t yet have access to widespread testing.

The administration is ramping up its response by expanding testing capacity and broadening access to vaccinations, though critics say the efforts may be coming too late.

“We’ve been sort of screaming for a month about how bad the diagnostic situation is for monkeypox. And that really was a clear error, preventable, and it’s very clear that this administration has not learned lessons from early COVID,” said James Krellenstein, co-founder of the HIV treatment advocacy group Prep4All. 

Jon Andrus, an adjunct professor of global health at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, said the U.S. is lucky that monkeypox is not as contagious as COVID-19, or as deadly, because the public health system is underfunded and overly fractured.

“I think we’ll continue to repeat these mistakes because that’s been our track record. That’s been our track record. We’ve had, what, more than five or six waves of COVID, and we seem every time to be a little bit caught off guard,” Andrus said. “Stopping transmission requires that we’re all reading from the same page. We all have the same road map.”

The administration expanded testing to commercial labs in late June, so providers will soon be able to order tests directly from the labs where they have established relationships and can jump through fewer hoops.

But it took more than a month for that move to happen, which increased testing capacity from about 8,000 tests a week to 10,000 across the entire system. 

Demand is also not evenly spread across the public health laboratory networks; it is concentrated in urban areas such as New York City, leading to backlogs and frustrated patients who wait days for test results.  

Biden administration health officials this week touted efforts to expand testing.

“I strongly encourage all health care providers to have a high clinical suspicion for monkeypox among their patients,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a call with reporters. “Patients presenting with a suspicious rash should be tested.”

Testing for monkeypox is a relatively simple process that involves swabbing a skin lesion. Unlike with COVID-19, the CDC already had a previously developed test, but patients were limited to a narrow set of specific criteria in order to qualify for testing. 

“We already had testing available. We already had vaccines available. We should have really been much more aggressive with testing … and I think this speaks to some of the bureaucracy of both FDA [Food and Drug Administration] and CDC,” said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and editor-at-large for public health at Kaiser Health News.

“Getting the commercial labs on board they could have done sooner. Getting academic medical centers to do testing, hospital labs to develop their own PCR tests. I mean, that’s not a very difficult thing to do,” Gounder said.

The White House is also working to scale up its vaccination program and announced a plan to immediately send out tens of thousands of doses of Jynneos, the only FDA-approved vaccine specifically for monkeypox. 

More than a million doses will be made available throughout the year. The CDC is also broadening the eligibility criteria so individuals with confirmed monkeypox exposures and presumed exposures can be vaccinated, rather than only those who have a confirmed case.

But activists and experts say the administration moved too slowly and that the updated vaccination strategy is not nearly sufficient.

“We believe this outbreak is already out of control. So, we have not contained it. Vaccines are not going to contain it at this point. Because we don’t have enough. Getting them into arms is an expensive and intense process,” said NCSD’s Harvey.

New York City and Washington, D.C., began offering the vaccines to men who have sex with other men or may have been exposed to the virus. But both cities ran through their supplies less than a day after launching their local immunization initiatives. D.C. Health had to shut access about 10 minutes after making shots available. 

There are about 56,000 Jynneos doses in the Strategic National Stockpile that will be allocated immediately, officials said, and the administration plans to allocate 296,000 doses over the coming weeks.

The U.S. has tens of millions of doses of the smallpox vaccine ACAM2000, but that shot has more dangerous and severe side effects.

According to a spokesman for Jynneos’s Denmark-based manufacturer Bavarian Nordic, 300,000 doses have already been delivered or will be arriving over the next few days.

An additional 1.1 million filled doses are still being inspected by the FDA, which should finish in the next couple weeks.  

The government also owns bulk materials totaling as many as 15 million doses, but they are still frozen, and the administration has not told the company how it wants those doses filled. 

“American taxpayers spent money buying and manufacturing these doses precisely so they can be used rapidly in the event of an outbreak,” said Krellenstein of Prep4All. 

“Here we have an outbreak, and my friends are literally being turned away from being vaccinated because the Biden administration can’t figure out how to get a million doses out of a freezer in Denmark into the United States,” Krellenstein added.

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Health

Researchers say flu shot connected to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

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Combing through a large nationwide sample of U.S. seniors (65 and older), including 935,887 flu-vaccinated patients and 935,887 non-vaccinated patients, researchers found that a single flu shot provided a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease “for several years.” That is not all. Avram S. Bukhbinder, MD, a recent alumnus of McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston explained in a statement that the “strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine—in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year.”

During four-year follow-up appointments, about 5.1% of flu-vaccinated patients were found to have developed Alzheimer’s disease. Meanwhile, 8.5% of non-vaccinated patients had developed Alzheimer’s disease during follow-up.

The fact of the matter is that it is unlikely the flu shot itself is the determining factor. What is known is that there is link between various vaccinations and the flu shot with reduced Alzheimer’s outcomes. Researcher Paul Schulz explained in a statement:

“Since there is evidence that several vaccines may protect from Alzheimer’s disease, we are thinking that it isn’t a specific effect of the flu vaccine. Instead, we believe that the immune system is complex, and some alterations, such as pneumonia, may activate it in a way that makes Alzheimer’s disease worse. But other things that activate the immune system may do so in a different way — one that protects from Alzheimer’s disease. Clearly, we have more to learn about how the immune system worsens or improves outcomes in this disease.”

Researchers say that testing whether or not immunizations like the flu shot may also help slow or lessen the progression of Alzheimer’s disease is one of the next steps that need to be undertaken. For many Americans, getting immunizations from contagions is an important community responsibility in helping protect those around you. As someone who believes in stopping the communal spread, I can also tell you, having caught the flu about 8 years ago, it is preferable not to get the flu at all.



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Health

LA County to offer monkeypox vaccines to residents who have been exposed or at high risk

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Los Angeles County health officials said Friday announced they will be offering monkeypox vaccines to people who have been in contact with an existing case or who attended an event where there was a high risk of exposure.

“As vaccine supply increases, Public Health will align with the federal strategy of administering the monkeypox vaccine to others in high-risk groups,” county officials said.

Limited doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine will be available to people who have been contacted by the county Department of Public Health.

County officials say 800 doses of the vaccine have already been administered locally.

As of Friday, there were 30 known cases of monkeypox in L.A. County. 

CBSLA Staff

The CBS LA Staff is a group of experienced journalists who bring you the content on CBSLA.com.

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