Eats « Weekly Gravy

Federal regulators are warning consumers to stop using eyedrops and gels from several major brands after finding unsanitary conditions in a manufacturing plant. Twenty-six eye care products are part of the alert. Contaminated products have the potential to cause eye infection and blindness because drugs applied to the eye can bypass some of the body’s defenses. Those concerning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are branded CVS Health, Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), Rite Aid, Target Up & Up and Velocity Pharma. The FDA urged the manufacturer to recall all lots of these products. CVS, Rite Aid and Target are pulling products from shelves and websites. Although there were no reports of infection, bacterial tests were positive in critical drug product areas of the plant. The FDA’s list of eye products to avoid is here. Patients and providers should report any issues to the FDA. Consumers should discard products involved in the recall at a drug take-back site. They can also check the FDA’s flush list to see if they can be safely discarded at home, the New York Times reported. Certain products — those branded Leader, Rugby and Velocity — may still be available for purchase in stores and online. Don’t buy them, the FDA advised. Rite Aid is removing “applicable Rite Aid branded products” from store shelves, a spokeswoman said. CVS “immediately… read on > read on >

MONDAY, Oct. 30, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Patients with sickle cell disease may soon have two new treatments to try. On Tuesday, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will weigh the merits of a new gene therapy for the painful, inherited condition, which typically strikes Black people. The agency is expected to make a decision on that therapy in early December, and it also plans to decide on a second new treatment before year’s end, the Associated Press reported. The treatment being reviewed Tuesday is based on CRISPR technology, a gene-editing tool. The inventors of that tool won the Nobel Prize in 2020 for their work, the AP reported. A one-time treatment, “exa-cel” is made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, and it permanently changes DNA in a patient’s blood cells. How does it work? Stem cells are removed from a patient’s blood, and then CRISPR knocks out a gene that triggers the development of defective, crescent-shaped blood cells. Meanwhile, medicine kills off flawed blood-producing cells in patients, who are then given back their own altered stem cells. “Anything that can help relieve somebody with this condition of the pain and the multiple health complications is amazing,” Dr. Allison King, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, told the AP. “It’s horribly painful. Some people will say it’s like being stabbed… read on > read on >

Fighting climate change could come down to choosing chicken for your burrito or using soy milk for coffee creamer, a new study suggests. Making simple substitutions to an everyday diet can reduce the average American’s food-based carbon footprint by more than 35%, according to an article published online Oct. 26 in the journal Nature Food. “What we’re looking at here is a small changes approach. What happens if somebody just changes one thing in their diet?” said senior researcher Diego Rose, nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. “What we found was that if you just made one change — if everybody that was eating a high-carbon footprint food in those categories just made one change on a given day — that you could really lower the overall carbon footprint,” Rose continued. What’s more, these substitutions also tended to improve the quality of a person’s diet, the researchers noted. A person might scoff at the thought of their bacon cheeseburger contributing to global climate catastrophe, but they would be wrong, Rose said. “What a lot of people don’t realize is that human food systems globally account for a third of greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. To assess how small substitutions might help the climate, Rose’s team analyzed diet data from more than 7,700 adults and children… read on > read on >

High triglycerides, widely known as an enemy of the aging heart, may not be as threatening to older adults’ brains, new research suggests. The study, of over 80,000 older adults, found those with triglycerides in the “high-normal” or moderately high range were less likely to develop dementia, versus their peers with lower triglyceride levels. Over six years, 3% of older folks with the highest triglyceride levels developed dementia — half the rate seen in the study group with the lowest triglycerides, at 6%. Experts stressed some important caveats around the findings, published Oct. 25 in the journal Neurology. The main one is the study doesn’t prove that triglycerides somehow shield the aging brain. “This particular study is not enough to derive recommendations and claim with certainty that changing triglyceride levels will affect future dementia risk,” said Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas, a neurologist at Columbia University in New York City. The findings are still important, though, said Scarmeas, who cowrote an editorial published with the study. He noted that blood “lipids” — cholesterol and triglycerides — can be easily modified with diet or medication. So, if further studies show they directly affect dementia development, that would offer one way to lower the risk. Zhen Zhou, a research fellow at Monash University in Australia, led the study. She said there could be various explanations for why low triglycerides… read on > read on >

Mid-life isn’t too late to make a dietary change to preserve brain health. Women who started following the diet known as DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) to lower their blood pressure were about 17% less likely to report memory loss and other signs of mental decline decades later, a new study reveals. “Subjective complaints about daily cognitive performance are early predictors of more serious neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s,” senior author Yu Chen, a professor of population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City, said in a university news release. “With more than 30 years’ follow-up, we found that the stronger the adherence to a DASH diet in midlife, the less likely women are to report cognitive issues much later in life,” Chen added. About 6.5 million Americans over age 65 were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2022, a number that’s expected to double by 2060. Women comprise about two-thirds of those diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the most widespread form of dementia. Research has also shown that high blood pressure, particularly in midlife, is a risk factor for cognitive (mental) decline and dementia. The DASH diet emphasizes plant-based foods that are rich in potassium, calcium and magnesium. It limits saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium and sugar. To study the impact of eating this way, researchers analyzed data from more than 5,100 women enrolled… read on > read on >

Rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and lean proteins, a Mediterranean style of eating consistently earns accolades for its long list of health benefits, including the prevention of heart disease and diabetes. Now, new research from Spain shows this way of eating, when combined with regular exercise and fewer calories, can slash dangerous belly fat in older folks while helping to preserve their muscle mass. Fat that accumulates around the midsection is known to cause inflammation and has been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some forms of cancer. Muscle mass is known to decline with advancing age, and this can lead to weakness, less mobility and a greater chance of falls. The study, led by researcher Dora Romaguera, from the Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands, included just over 1,500 middle-aged and older people who were overweight or obese and had metabolic syndrome, a cluster of disorders that signal a person’s increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and stroke. One group of people followed a Mediterranean diet while cutting their calories by 30% and increasing their physical activity. They were also told to limit their consumption of processed foods, meats, butter, added sugar and to eat more whole grains. But the advice did not stop with food: They were also encouraged to increase their physical activity progressively, with a goal of walking 45 minutes per day or more on… read on > read on >

Nutrition is important for your whole body, including those two small organs through which you look at the world. The same diet that’s good for your heart and the rest of your body will also help your eyes, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). The academy offers advice on vision-healthy foods and how to create a diet rich in them. “Some nutrients keep the eye healthy overall, and some have been found to reduce the risk of eye diseases,” Dr. Rebecca Taylor, an ophthalmologist in Nashville, Tenn., said in an article on the AAO’s website. Your eyes rely on tiny arteries for oxygen and nutrients, similar to how your heart relies on much larger arteries, so a diet that’s low in fat and rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains is good for them. The AAO suggests including orange-colored vegetables and fruits with vitamin A in your diet. The nutrient gives your retina what it needs to help turn light rays into images and helps your eyes stay moist. Carrots are a well-known source of vitamin A, but sweet potatoes provide even more of the nutrient, Taylor noted in an AAO news release. “A sweet potato has more than 200% of the daily dose of vitamin A doctors recommend,” Taylor said. Cantaloupe and apricots are also good sources. The antioxidant vitamin C is… read on > read on >

Think twice about ordering that double cheeseburger, salami on rye or juicy T-bone. Just two servings of red meat a week — processed or unprocessed — can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes by 62%, according to a new study. “A modest but statistically significant increase in risk was seen with even two servings of red meat per week, and risk continued to increase with higher intakes,” said lead author Xiao Gu, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “Our findings suggest that replacing red meat with healthy plant-based protein sources, such as nuts and legumes, or modest intakes of dairy foods, would reduce the risk of diabetes.” The study can’t prove that eating red meat causes type 2 diabetes, but there appears to be a link. And a serving of meat is likely smaller than you might suspect. One serving of unprocessed red meat is about 3 ounces of pork, beef or lamb; a serving of processed red meat is about 1 ounce of bacon or 2 ounces of hot dog, sausage, salami, bologna or other processed red meats, Gu said.Red meat is usually high in saturated fat and low in polyunsaturated fat, Gu said. “Studies have shown that saturated fat can reduce beta cell function and insulin sensitivity, which results in type 2 diabetes,” he… read on > read on >

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed a ban on the use of formaldehyde in hair relaxers over concerns about its link to respiratory problems and certain cancers. Right now, the FDA only discourages using such hair-straightening products, which are typically used by Black women. Recent research has helped raise awareness about the potential dangers of using chemical hair relaxers. “We know that these products are very poorly regulated by the federal government in terms of what goes in there,” said Kimberly Bertrand, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and the lead author of a recently published study on the dangers of relaxers. “You can’t look at an ingredient label and know that it contains these endocrine disruptors. They don’t list phthalates and parabens on the box — they say fragrance and preservative. So, women don’t really know what they’re being exposed to.” In that study, data from Boston University’s Black Women’s Health Study, which began in 1995 and tracks the health of 59,000 Black women, showed that postmenopausal Black women who used chemical hair straighteners had a higher risk of developing uterine cancer, NBC News reported. Another study published recently by the American Journal of Epidemiology found lower fertility in current and former users of hair straighteners. Women who used hair-straightening chemicals more than four times in the… read on > read on >

Fluctuating blood pressure can be a harbinger for both dementia and heart disease, a new study finds. Ups and downs within 24 hours or even over several days or weeks were linked with impaired thinking, researchers from Australia reported. Higher variations in systolic blood pressure, the top number, were linked with stiffening of the arteries, which is associated with heart disease. “Clinical treatments focus on hypertension, while ignoring the variability of blood pressure,” said lead author Daria Gutteridge, a PhD candidate at the University of South Australia’s Cognitive Aging and Impairment Neuroscience Laboratory. “Blood pressure can fluctuate across different time frames — short and long — and this appears to heighten the risk of dementia and blood vessel health,” Gutteridge said in a university news release. Researchers studied this in 70 healthy older adults aged 60 to 80 who had no signs of dementia or thinking impairment. The team monitored participants’ blood pressure, gave them a cognitive test and measured arterial stiffness in their brains and arteries. “We found that higher blood pressure variability within a day, as well as across days, was linked with reduced cognitive performance. We also found that higher blood pressure variations within the systolic BP [blood pressure] were linked with higher blood vessel stiffness in the arteries,” Gutteridge said. “These results indicate that the different types of BP variability likely… read on > read on >