THURSDAY, Dec. 19, 2024 (HeathDay News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants to redefine the meaning of healthy food, issuing a new rule Thursday that changes the way food companies can claim their products are indeed nutritious. What foods will qualify for the new designation? Under the final rule, pretty much everything in the produce section — whole fruits and vegetables — would be considered healthy, as would other nutrient-rich foods like whole grains, dairy, eggs, beans, lentils, seafood, lean meat, nuts and seeds. “It’s critical for the future of our country that food be a vehicle for wellness. Improving access to nutrition information is an important public health effort the FDA can undertake to help people build healthy eating patterns,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, said in an agency news release announcing the new rule. “It is vital that we focus on the key drivers to combat chronic disease, like healthy eating.” “Now, people will be able to look for the ‘healthy’ claim to help them find foundational, nutritious foods for themselves and their families,” he added. The idea is to simplify things for shoppers who are confused by nutrition fact labels that don’t give any real-world guidance on whether one product is better than another, the agency added. Nutrition experts welcomed the change. “It’s a terrific advance,” Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of…  read on >  read on >

Adding cereal to a baby’s bottle is a habit that’s been around for a long time to help introduce solid foods while also supplementing a mom’s breast milk. But this practice can cause babies to pack on some pounds early in life, however, a new study says. Infants were about 50% more likely to experience rapid weight gain if they were fed milk cereal drinks during their first year, according to results published Dec. 18 in the journal Acta Paediatrica. “Milk cereal drinks were associated with early rapid weight gain,” concluded the research team led by Annelie Lindholm, a lecturer with the Halmstad University School of Health and Welfare in Sweden. However, milk cereal drinks didn’t necessarily translate into childhood obesity. Milk cereal drinks on their own were not associated with higher BMI or waist-to-height ratio by the time a child was 6, results show. But overall early rapid weight gain was associated with childhood obesity, doubling a child’s risk of high BMI by age 6, results showed. More research is needed to tease out the risks of both milk cereal drinks and rapid infant weight gain, researchers said. “Despite the cross-sectional associations between early rapid weight gain and milk cereal drink consumption, this study could not demonstrate a long-term detrimental association between milk cereal drinks and adiposity later in childhood,” researchers concluded. ”Early rapid…  read on >  read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued its most serious warning — a black-box warning — for Veozah, a medication used to relieve hot flashes in menopausal women, due to rare but potentially severe liver risks. In new communication issued Dec. 17, the FDA advised that women taking Veozah should undergo regular blood testing to monitor liver health. Warning signs of liver injury can include fatigue, nausea, vomiting, dark urine, light-colored stool, or yellowing of the skin or eyes, a news release says. Patients experiencing these symptoms should immediately stop taking the medication and consult with their doctor. “It’s important to note that the overall benefit-risk of Veozah has not changed and remains positive, but we want to further ensure that patients and healthcare providers are aware of the potential side effects,” as well as recommended lab testing, Astellas Pharma, the manufacturer of the drug, said in a statement. Veozah was approved in 2023. At the time, it was the first non-hormonal prescription option for treating hot flashes. The medication works by blocking neurokinin B, a receptor involved in the brain’s regulation of body temperature. Since its approval, the drug’s popularity has grown steadily, with nearly 29,000 prescriptions filled in May 2024 alone, according to FDA data. The FDA’s heightened warning comes after reviewing a recent case where a patient developed elevated liver…  read on >  read on >

Folks who switch to artificial sweeteners in drinks and food may be drawn to other types of unhealthy fare — bringing down the quality of their overall diet, new research suggests. The study, published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, tracked the diets of almost 164,000 people averaging 53 years of age, about four-fifths of who were women. All were enrolled in an ongoing American Cancer Society (ACS) study aimed at cancer prevention. Levels of folks’ intake of artificial sweeteners — in packets, beverages and yogurt — was tracked along with a host of other foods. The qualty of people’s overall diet was assessed using the ACS Diet Score. The research showed that as levels of artificial sweeteners rose, the overall quality of folks’ diets declined. For example, increased artificial sweetener intake was linked to a lower consumption of fruits and vegetables, the study found, but more processed foods. Why might that be so? Although the sweeteners are “used to replace added sugar, our study demonstrates consumers of food and beverages with sugar substitutes are also consuming other foods and beverages that are high in nutrients of concern, such as saturated fats, sodium and added sugar,” said study lead author Allison Sylvetsky. She’s an associate professor of exercise and nutrition sciences at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In fact, at the highest…  read on >  read on >

The same technology behind COVID vaccines might be able to protect both the mother and child from a dangerous complication of pregnancy. A new mouse study published Dec. 11 in the journal Nature shows that injections based on that vaccine platform reduced the risk of preeclampsia in lab mice. Preeclampsia is persistent high blood pressure that occurs during pregnancy or after giving birth. It can threaten the life of both the mother and baby, or leave the mom with severe organ damage. The experimental injection “was able to deliver an mRNA therapeutic that reduced maternal blood pressure through the end of gestation and improved fetal health and blood circulation in the placenta,” said researcher Kelsey Swingle, a doctoral student in bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science. “Additionally, at birth we saw an increase in litter weight of the pups, which indicates a healthy mom and healthy babies.” Preeclampsia affects 3% to 5% of pregnancies, researchers said in background notes. There’s no cure for the condition; instead, women take blood pressure medication or stay on bed rest. Preeclampsia arises due to insufficient blood flow to the placenta, which causes a mom’s blood pressure to rise while restricting blood flow to the fetus. Researchers figured that a drug designed to get into the placenta despite the restricted blood flow might help…  read on >  read on >

Caregiving for children or sick loved ones can be very stressful. so much so it can affect your heart health, new research shows. High caregiving stress increases risk of high blood pressure by nearly 40% among Black women ages 21 to 44, according to results published recently in the journal Hypertension. “Our analysis suggests that caregiver strain as a source of chronic stress may significantly contribute to the development of hypertension, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, among reproductive-age Black women,” said lead researcher Milla Arabadjian, an assistant professor at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine. For the study, researchers analyzed data from the Jackson Heath Study, a long-term research project following the health of more than 5,300 Black adults in Mississippi. Participants had their blood pressure monitored, and were asked about caregiving stress as part of a health questionnaire. Nearly 44% of the young Black women in the study developed high blood pressure during a follow-up period of more than seven years, results showed. But caregiving stress made a difference: About 52% of the women who reported moderate or high caregiving stress developed high blood pressure, compared with about 41% of those with low caregiving stress or none, researchers found. “Given the high lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease, especially among reproductive-age Black women, we need to better identify the root causes contributing…  read on >  read on >

Robert Kennedy Jr. should not be confirmed to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, over 75 Nobel laureates urged Monday. In a letter published by the New York Times, the esteemed scientists took issue with Kennedy’s lack of experience and controversial stands. “In addition to his lack of credentials or relevant experience in medicine, science, public health or administration, Mr. Kennedy has been an opponent of many health-protecting and lifesaving vaccines, such as those that prevent measles and polio; a critic of the well-established positive effects of fluoridation of drinking water; a promoter of conspiracy theories about remarkably successful treatments for AIDS and other diseases; and a belligerent critic of respected agencies [especially the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health],” the letter stated. “The leader of DHHS [Department of Health and Human Services] should continue to nurture and improve — not threaten — these important and highly respected institutions and their employees,” the letter added. “In view of his record, placing Mr. Kennedy in charge of DHHS would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in the health sciences, in both the public and commercial sectors.” While the group of Nobel laureates avoids politics whenever possible, the potential confirmation of Kennedy was a threat they could not ignore, Dr.…  read on >  read on >

Some people develop epilepsy after surviving a stroke, as the injury they’ve sustained causes scarring and disorganized electrical activity in their brains. But one type of blood pressure medication seems to help stroke survivors avoid post-stroke epilepsy (PSE), according to a first-of-its-kind study presented Friday at the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society in Los Angeles. Patients taking angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) drugs appear to be much less likely to develop PSE than those on other blood pressure medications, results showed. ARB drugs work by decreasing the effects of angiotensin, a protein that causes blood vessels to narrow, researchers explained in background notes. Blocking this protein might decrease inflammation and improve blood flow in the brain, reducing the risk of seizures, researchers theorized. “Our study uniquely focused on how effective different blood pressure medications are at preventing PSE in the real world,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Giacomo Evangelista, a resident in neurology at the Epilepsy Center at G. d’Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara in Italy. “Understanding which antihypertensive medications help prevent complications such as PSE can lead to better patient outcomes,” Evangelista added in a meeting news release. For the study, researchers recruited 528 patients with high blood pressure who’d suffered a stroke. None of the patients had epilepsy at the time of their stroke. All of the participants had been taking some type of blood…  read on >  read on >