Latest news with #healthguidelines
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Dog quarantined after dangerous encounter in its own backyard — here's how it points to a larger issue
A Cherry Hill family is facing four months of worry after their dog killed a skunk in the backyard — and the skunk tested positive for rabies, reported NBC Philadelphia. The case isn't just a one-off scare. It's a growing problem, and experts say our changing environment may be part of what's driving it. According to Camden County officials, the skunk was killed by a dog on May 16. It was collected by Animal Control and tested positive for rabies on May 21. The dog is now under strict quarantine for the next four months, per state health guidelines. While rabid skunks aren't a new issue, encounters like this are happening more often and closer to home. As human development stretches deeper into wild spaces and rising global temperatures reshape natural ecosystems, wildlife is getting pushed into closer contact with our neighborhoods. Food becomes harder to find. Shelter disappears. And animals like skunks end up wandering into places they wouldn't have a generation ago. That increased overlap brings disease risks with it. Rabies in skunks has been documented in growing numbers, especially in places where drought and habitat loss force infected animals into new territories. Protecting natural spaces reduces the likelihood of diseased wildlife entering backyards and also promotes biodiversity and thriving ecosystems. On a broad level, better habitat protection can keep animals out of human spaces — and prevent disease spread at the source. Do you worry about getting diseases from bug bites? Absolutely Only when I'm camping or hiking Not really Never Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Natural space preservation, wildlife crossings, and smarter city planning can all help reduce risky encounters like this one. On an individual level, it still comes back to vigilance, like keeping pets vaccinated, securing trash bins so they don't attract scavengers, teaching kids to give wild animals space, and reporting any suspicious behavior — in animals or people — to the appropriate authorities. It's easy to think of environmental problems as distant or abstract. But this one came through the fence and into the yard. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Nutritionists Are Sharing Alcohol 'Rules' You Should Really Be Following, Including Women Having No More Than One Drink Per Day
Alcohol is known to be a health risk. Research shows that it's linked to certain cancers, can damage your liver, is tied to dementia risk and can just make you feel lousy. So, with all of these findings, it's only natural to think more about your relationship with alcohol. As the sobriety awareness of Dry January comes to a close, you may feel a pull to go back to your old drinking habits. But it could be worth thinking about your use of alcohol and making a change that lasts beyond January. (And, no, this does not have to mean cutting it out altogether.) Terms like 'mindful drinking' and 'sober curious' are showing up in the news and on social media, indicating that folks are taking these research findings seriously. What mindful drinking means for one person might not be the same as for another, but in essence it's bringing awareness to your alcohol consumption and choosing to drink when you actually want to, not just as a reflex while watching the game or as a crutch to deal with stress. Although some people who follow this lifestyle do still drink, others don't, making the definition fluid and customizable to what's right for you. In the end, your decision to drink or not to drink is up to you. But for those who decide to imbibe, nutritionists say there are some things to keep in mind. Below, they share the alcohol guidelines you should follow if you do choose to drink. 1. The CDC guidelines say women should have no more than one drink per day and men should have no more than two. Related: People Are Sharing The Telltale Signs In Someone's Kitchen That Make Them Scared To Eat There The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines define moderate drinking as no more than one drink for women and two drinks for men each day, said Christine Byrne, a registered dietitian and the owner of Ruby Oak Nutrition in Raleigh, North Carolina. 'I think that is a pretty good guideline,' she added. 'Those specific guidelines also point out that it doesn't mean seven drinks in a week for women, it means one drink a day — so not drinking for five days and then drinking six drinks on the sixth day is not the same thing.' 'Alcohol is a lot for your body to process,' which is why you can't just bank all of those drinks for day six, Byrne said. 'Overloading [your body] with alcohol on one day and not drinking for seven days or more can be more harmful than just drinking one drink for women or two drinks for men on a single day ... our bodies are able to process that amount of alcohol.' Not be a buzzkill, but one alcoholic drink does not mean a Long Island iced tea (a cocktail that combines gin, vodka, rum, tequila and triple sec). Instead, the CDC says one drink is equivalent to a 12-ounce beer that is 5% alcohol by volume (ABV), 5 ounces of wine that's 12% ABV, 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor or 8 ounces of malt liquor that is 7% ABV. But know that alcohol is not beneficial to your health. ″[It's] really important to know that recently, I think as of last year, the World Health Organization actually came out and said that no amount of alcohol is safe,' said Sumner Brooks, a registered dietitian and author of 'How to Raise an Intuitive Eater.' 'We know that alcohol is associated with cancer, it's a Group 1 carcinogen, which puts it in the same group level as tobacco,' Brooks said. Beyond being a carcinogen, alcohol is a toxin, according to Byrne, who added that 'our body prioritizes metabolizing the alcohol because it's a toxin, so it wants to get rid of it.' The WHO guidelines say that even one drink per day for women and two per day for men is still associated with these health risks, Brooks noted. So for people who do choose to drink, 'it's just important [to know] that we've moved past the point of that general consensus that drinking offers health benefits,' she added. Suffice to say that just because the guidelines say you can have a certain amount of alcohol each day doesn't mean you should. 2. If you do imbibe, drink water after each alcoholic beverage. Related: 19 Very, Very Unfortunate Food Fails That Belong In A Museum Of Culinary Crimes It's not an official guideline, but the notion of following up an alcoholic drink with a glass of water is a good practice to follow, Byrne said. 'Not only does it hydrate you, it also slows you down, and that can be helpful,' she added. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you pee more often and can dehydrate you. If you decide to drink more than what the CDC guidelines consider 'moderate drinking,' following each drink with water is helpful, noted Byrne. 3. Don't drink on an empty stomach. You probably have at least one memory (albeit, a fuzzy one) of drinking on an empty stomach. For more reasons than one, Byrne said, drinking on an empty stomach is not a good idea. 'I do not recommend drinking on an empty stomach. The alcohol can hit you faster that way, and that can be a problem,' she said. Specifically, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, your body absorbs alcohol faster when you don't have food in your stomach. 'Drinking while eating can help you not get so drunk, which is a good thing,' Byrne said. 'It also could help you drink less because you're not just drinking, you're also eating — there's something else to do. And drinking less is a good thing.' So if you end up at a happy hour with friends, order a few bites to eat, too. 4. Don't replace meals with alcohol. According to Brooks, while alcohol does provide your body with calories, it does not provide it with necessary nutrition, like protein, fiber or fat. 'People tend to equate dietary quality with calories, which is really harmful, especially when it comes to alcohol. Because if they're just thinking about how many calories they're taking in, then they will replace food calories with alcohol calories and think that's enough or that's a healthy replacement,' Brooks said. 'But really, nutrition is about getting what we need: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals and water, and when we're cutting those things out to maintain calorie balance, then there's a nutrition risk,' she said. Your body isn't getting the nutrients it needs if you're replacing a meal with a filling beer. 5. Be aware of what constitutes binge drinking. Byrne said it's important to know the official definition of binge drinking. The CDC says having five drinks or more on an occasion for men and four drinks or more for women is considered binge drinking. 'I think it's less than a lot of people think,' Byrne noted. Think about it: If you've ever been to a wedding where there's cocktail hour, dinner, dancing and often an after-party, you know how easy it is to have four or five drinks during the celebration. 'What you do with alcohol is completely up to you, and just because you drink more than what's considered binge drinking on a single occasion doesn't necessarily mean you have an alcohol addiction or an alcohol problem,' Byrne said. 'I want to make that clear, too, but technically speaking, that is the definition of binge drinking.' 6. Pay close attention to you're drinking. For those who do choose to drink, Brooks said it's important to pay attention to three things: The frequency and quantity of your drinking: Use the CDC's guidelines to assess how much and how often you're drinking. Why you're drinking: 'Ask yourself, what is it that I think this drink will do for me?' Brooks said, adding that if you're using alcohol to de-stress, let loose or be more social, know that you can do this without drinking. Is there something else you can do or drink instead of alcohol? 'Because there are actually so many ways that we can achieve those benefits that people think they're getting from drinking, we can get all of those things without drinking,' Brooks said. 'If you are saying, 'Well, I just need this drink because I just need to relax' ... that alcohol itself isn't actually what helps you relax. [What can give you that effect can] be the sitting, taking a break from what you're doing or going to happy hour and talking to people, connecting to people, getting a change of scenery,' Brooks explained. You can still relax without a glass of wine. You could take up coloring or take a bath with a seltzer by your side instead of a glass of wine, or you could go out for a walk for an after-work change of scenery, she added. 'If somebody believes that having that drink at the end of the day is their way to relax, then just by default they're not thinking about other ways that they actually could decompress,' Brooks said. Beyond thinking about your intention with alcohol, it's important to look at any red flags, too. 'If you think your drinking might be problematic, ask yourself why you're doing it,' Byrne said, 'and if you're doing it to avoid certain feelings or numb certain feelings, then that's something to question and probably a reason to reassess your relationship with alcohol.' In this case, it's also a good idea to reach out to a therapist who's trained in substance use treatment who can support you, Byrne added. The Psychology Today website can help you find a local mental health provider. Additionally, Brooks noted that changing your drinking habits is not an easy feat. If you are trying to do this, it's a good idea to lean on loved ones who have a similar article originally appeared on HuffPost. Also in Food: 25 Peculiar Family Food Traditions People Thought Were Totally Normal Growing Up That Range From "Weird" To "Disgusting" To Actually Really Cute Also in Food: "They Kept Looking At Us Like We Were Sugar-Addicted Americans": 22 Comfort Foods From All Around The US That Probably Seem A Little Weird If You Didn't Grow Up Here Also in Food: Only True Culinary Geniuses Can Identify These 15 Recipes From Emojis Alone
Gizmodo
07-06-2025
- Health
- Gizmodo
Million-Dollar Project Aims to Expose Bad Medical Research
Armed with funding, algorithms, and a tip line, this new effort aims to dig corrupt studies out of medical literature before they do real-world harm. A new initiative from the watchdogs behind Retraction Watch is taking aim at flawed or faked medical science research to the tune of nearly $1 million. The Center for Scientific Integrity just launched the Medical Evidence Project, a two-year effort to identify published medical research with a negative effect on health guidelines—and to make sure people actually hear about it. Equipped with a $900,000 grant from Open Philanthropy and a core team of up to five investigators, the project will use forensic metascience tools to identify issues in scientific articles, and report its findings via Retraction Watch, the foremost site for scientific watchdogging. 'We originally set up the Center for Scientific Integrity as a home for Retraction Watch, but we always hoped we would be able to do more in the research accountability space,' said Ivan Oransky, executive director of the Center and co-founder of Retraction Watch, in a post announcing the grant. 'The Medical Evidence Project allows us to support critical analysis and disseminate the findings.' According to Nature, these flawed and falsified documents are vexing because they skew meta-analyses—reviews that combine the findings from multiple studies to draw more statistically robust conclusions. If one or two bunk studies make it into a meta-analysis, they can tip the scales on health policy. In 2009, to name one case, a European guideline recommended the use of beta-blockers during non-cardiac surgery, based on turn-of-the-millennium research that was later called into question. Years later, an independent review suggested that the guidance may have contributed to 10,000 deaths per year in the UK. Led by James Heathers, a science integrity consultant, the team's plan is to build software tools, chase down leads from anonymous whistleblowers, and pay peer reviewers to check their work. They're aiming to identify at least 10 flawed meta-analyses a year. The team is picking its moment wisely. As Gizmodo previously reported, AI-generated junk science is flooding the academic digital ecosystem, showing up in everything from conference proceedings to peer-reviewed journals. A study published in Harvard Kennedy School's Misinformation Review found that two-thirds of sampled papers retrieved through Google Scholar contained signs of GPT-generated text—some even in mainstream scientific outlets. About 14.5% of those bogus studies focused on health. That's particularly alarming because Google Scholar doesn't distinguish between peer-reviewed studies and preprints, student papers, or other less-rigorous work. And once this kind of bycatch gets pulled into meta-analyses or cited by clinicians, it's hard to untangle the consequences. 'If we cannot trust that the research we read is genuine,' one researcher told Gizmodo, 'we risk making decisions based on incorrect information.' We've already seen how nonsense can slip through. In 2021, Springer Nature retracted over 40 papers from its Arabian Journal of Geosciences—studies so incoherent they read like AI-generated Mad Libs. Just last year, the publisher Frontiers had to pull a paper featuring anatomically impossible AI-generated images of rat genitals. We've entered the era of digital fossils, in which AI models trained on web-scraped data are beginning to preserve and propagate nonsense phrases as if they were real scientific terms. For example, earlier this year a group of researchers found a garbled set of words from a 1959 biology paper embedded in the outputs of large language models including OpenAI's GPT-4o. In that climate, the Medical Evidence Project's goal feels more like triage than cleanup. The team is dealing with a deluge of flawed information, hiding in plain sight, and plenty of which can have very real health consequences if taken at face value.
New York Times
31-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
She Built a Cult Baby Formula Business. Then R.F.K. Jr. Came Calling.
The photo posted on X in March by the Department of Health and Human Services seemed innocuous. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands in the center, surrounded by Robert Ford, chief executive of Abbott Laboratories; Kris Licht, the chief executive of Reckitt; Patrick Lockwood-Taylor, chief executive of Perrigo; and Laura Modi, the founder and chief executive of Bobbie. The post was paired with an announcement that H.H.S. would work with these leaders to update the country's nutrition guidelines for infant formula, which have remained unchanged since 1998. But that photo set off an animated debate among fans of Bobbie, which has made its name over the last several years as an ingredient-conscious and science-based brand. Some cheered on Ms. Modi for being the only woman there and the only one representing a newcomer to an industry dominated by old gatekeepers. When Bobbie shared the photo on its Instagram page, many of its followers threw fire and heart emojis all over its comments. Others wondered if she should have been there at all, meeting with Mr. Kennedy, who they say is antithetical to everything they thought the Bobbie brand stood for. That the other chief executives in the photo didn't receive this kind of scrutiny illustrates the difficulty of being a business leader who has been vocal about their company's purpose during the current administration, when every decision about a company's values can become politically charged. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Arab News
30-05-2025
- Climate
- Arab News
Saudi Arabia reports five heat exhaustion cases among pilgrims, urges precautions amid soaring temperatures
MAKKAH: As temperatures soared at the holy sites, Saudi Arabia confirmed five cases of heat exhaustion among the more than one million pilgrims who have arrived to perform Hajj rituals. All those affected received immediate medical attention and are currently in a stable condition, according to the ministry of health, which added that health teams were on high alert to respond swiftly to similar cases as part of the Kingdom's commitment to safeguarding the health and safety of pilgrims. The country's National Center for Meteorology has forecast hot to extremely hot weather conditions at the holy sites during this year's Hajj season. According to the center, maximum temperatures are expected to range between 40°C and 47°C, while minimum temperatures will vary between 27°C and 32°C. Humidity levels are projected to fluctuate between 15 percent and 60 percent. In a post on its X account, the ministry urged pilgrims to stay hydrated, avoid prolonged exposure to direct sunlight, and follow official health guidelines, such as using shaded walkways, wearing appropriate protective gear, and seeking help at the first signs of fatigue. 'If not treated promptly, heat exhaustion can escalate to heat stroke within 10-15 minutes — a life-threatening medical emergency,' the post stated. The ministry also advised pilgrims who experience heat exhaustion symptoms to begin immediate cooling measures, such as washing their hands, faces and necks with cold water and moving to a cooler area, as well as drinking plenty of cold water to rehydrate. In its post, the ministry identified headache, excessive sweating, nausea, dizziness, and severe thirst as key clinical symptoms of heat exhaustion. Multilingual awareness campaigns have been launched, and field preparedness has been reinforced, particularly in response to seasonal heat risks. The ministry had announced the health sector's readiness to receive pilgrims, revealing a 60 percent increase in bed capacity compared with last year. Fahad Al-Jalajel, the minister of health, recently confirmed the deployment of over 50,000 medical and technical personnel to serve pilgrims and emphasized the stability of the health situation, with no reported outbreaks or epidemics, according to the Saudi Press Agency. 'Health efforts began early in pilgrims' homelands by analyzing international health risks and issuing clear health requirements, including vaccinations against yellow fever, meningitis, polio, COVID-19, and influenza,' SPA reported, citing Al-Jalajel. The minister underscored the role of the health certificate as the first line of defense during the Hajj season, noting that the Kingdom's health system launched its services with the arrival of the first Makkah Route Initiative flight. As part of the Kingdom's comprehensive preparations, 14 land, air, and sea ports have been fully equipped, delivering more than 50,000 health services so far, including 140 surgical procedures, 65 cardiac catheterizations, and six open-heart surgeries, the minister said. To combat heatstroke risks, Al-Jalajel announced a series of measures in coordination with the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites. These include planting more than 10,000 trees, installing 400 additional water coolers and misting fans, and expanding shaded pedestrian pathways to protect pilgrims from extreme heat. The ministry of health has also intensified awareness efforts through multilingual campaigns, stationing field teams, launching media programs, and organizing medical missions to ensure important health information reaches all pilgrims. Al-Jalajel further revealed the establishment of a new 200-bed emergency hospital in Mina, developed in collaboration with Kidana Development Co. In addition, three new field hospitals with more than 1,200 beds have been set up in partnership with the ministries of national guard, defense, and interior. These were inaugurated 'alongside 71 emergency points, 900 ambulances, 11 evacuation aircraft, and over 7,500 paramedics,' Al-Jalajel told SPA. The minister urged pilgrims to follow health guidelines and affirmed that the Kingdom's health system is operating at full capacity to ensure a safe and healthy Hajj season for all.
