Are seed oils really as bad for you as RFK Jr. claims?
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on a crusade against seed oils. The health and human services secretary has described them as 'poison' associated with 'all kinds of very, very serious illnesses, including body-wide inflammation.' Many wellness influencers agree with him, and restaurant chains including Steak 'n Shake and Sweetgreen have said they will transition away from such products.
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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Why men with broken heart syndrome are more likely to die, according to experts
Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN's Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being. Source: CNN A 59-year-old man arrived at the Peking University First Hospital in Beijing for a procedure when he started having severe chest pain and shortness of breath. Four months earlier, he had cancerous tumors removed from his bladder. Around his family, he tried his best to appear strong and avoided discussions of his health. Privately, his severe anxiety over the possibility of a cancer recurrence kept him awake at night. Doctors said the man was experiencing takotsubo cardiomyopathy — also known as broken heart syndrome, as documented in a 2021 case study. The rare stress-induced heart condition has been observed primarily in women, but a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in May found that the illness may be more deadly for the men who get it. Thought to be caused by extreme emotional or physical events — such as learning about the death of a loved one, winning the lottery or lifting a heavy sofa — takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or TC, occurs when the heart muscle is flooded with stress hormones, causing part of it to 'freeze' in place. As the heart struggles to properly pump blood, symptoms resemble those of a heart attack, including chest pain, heart palpitations and irregular heartbeat. The new study analyzed data from nearly 200,000 patients hospitalized for TC in the United States between 2016 and 2020. While women accounted for 83% of the cases, men were more than twice as likely to die from the condition — with a mortality rate of 11.2%. 'The differences between men and women are a very striking finding,' said study coauthor Dr. Mohammad Reza Movahed, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. 'It raises a new, interesting question that should really be studied.' Similar to differences between men's and women's cardiovascular health more generally, the discrepancies in TC death rates are not well understood, Movahed said, especially because they counter trends in other heart diseases. It's widely theorized, however, that differences in hormone levels play a role. Stressful situations trigger the adrenal glands to release our fight-or-flight hormones, called catecholamines. They are meant to increase our blood pressure and raise our heart rate, but extreme levels can temporarily 'stun' cells in the heart's tissue, leading to TC, Movahed explained. Men are thought to produce more catecholamines during stressful situations compared with women, possibly leading men to present with more severe cases of TC, he suggested. Estrogen, a sex hormone produced at higher levels in women, may also have a protective effect on the cardiovascular system, making it easier to manage an extreme influx of catecholamines and reducing the risk of severe complications from TC, said Dr. Louis Vincent, a noninvasive-cardiology research fellow at the University of Miami, who coauthored a similar, multiyear study investigating discrepancies in men and women who had TC. Vincent was not involved in the new study. Beyond biological differences, social factors may play a role as well. 'Most (physicians) know about takotsubo, but they may think of it as a disease just affecting women, so the diagnosis might be overlooked in men,' said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, a cardiologist and the director of Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital who was not involved in the study. 'With misdiagnosis, care is delayed, and that can sometimes lead to worse outcomes.' Men may also seek care at a later stage of illness, believing that their symptoms are manageable or may pass, said Dr. Alejandro Lemor, an assistant professor of interventional cardiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center who was also not involved in the study. Deadly complications from TC include blood clots, stroke, cardiac arrest and heart failure, Lemor said. If the condition is caught early, medications can reduce the risk of having these complications, restore proper heart function and allow for full recovery within weeks, he added. Movahed's team was able to factor for important variables like age, race, income, chronic lung disease, hypertension and diabetes in the findings. However, there was no patient data on other comorbid diseases, such as a history of stroke or the presence of a Covid-19 infection, Vincent said. Additionally, the new study included in-patient diagnostic data only for those hospitalized with TC, so those who received outpatient care or died later from complications outside the hospital were likely not counted in the analysis, Movahed noted. To establish a firmer explanation for the differences in mortality rates between men and women and further test treatment methods, a more detailed dataset would be needed, Vincent said. 'People should be aware in studies like this, we're presenting findings that are based on diagnostic codes, and we're not looking at patient procedures or lab results,' Vincent said. 'But it's powerful in the sense that it lets us look at large populations and look at trends. And I think that this trend of a higher mortality in men is worth taking a deeper look into.' Sudden, severe chest pain or shortness of breath should always be treated as a medical emergency, warned Bhatt, who is also a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. 'It's not a time to tough it out at home or get on the internet to figure it out. … Don't try to track down your primary care provider. Call emergency services,' Bhatt said. 'Time matters. By winning those few hours, you could save yourself irreparable damage to your heart.' Symptoms following physical stressors — a common cause of TC in men — should not be ignored, Movahed said, especially preceding medical events such as asthma attacks, seizures or complications from drug use. And while TC is caused by sudden stress, Bhatt said that managing chronic stress with daily meditation or exercise can lead to better cardiovascular health overall while giving you routines to fall back on in unexpected situations. See Full Web Article
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Michigan opioid overdose deaths expected to drop for third straight year
Opioid overdose deaths in Michigan are projected to drop in 2024, marking the third consecutive year of decline, according to the state's attorney general's office. Data from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services shows a 34% reduction in overdose deaths between 2023 and 2024, which is around 1,000 fewer deaths, state officials said. The death rate from 2022 to 2023 decreased by 5.7% from 2,998 to 2,826. The state credits the three-year decline to investments in prevention, treatment, recovery and harm-reduction efforts, funded in part by national opioid settlements. "Since 2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has helped secure more than $1.6 billion in settlements for Michigan governments from companies such as McKinsey & Co, Distributors Cardinal Health, McKesson, Inc., and AmerisourceBergen, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceutical, Allergan Pharmaceutical, CVS, Walmart and Walgreens," the attorney general's office said in a news release on Thursday. In August 2024, the state projected it would see more than $1 billion from opioid settlement payments over the next 20 years or so. The attorney's office says the majority of settlement funds are distributed equally between local governments and Michigan's Opioid Healing and Recovery Fund, which was created by lawmakers in 2022 to hold funds from opioid settlements. Michigan's Opioids Task Force has distributed more than 1.3 million naloxone kits as a result of the funding, with nearly 34,000 of those kits used to reverse overdoses, the state says. In April, local organizations in Livingston County were developing proposals on how to spend around $9 million in opioid settlement funds. Learn more about the organizations working on plans in the video player above. Note: The above video first aired on April 7, 2025.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr's ‘Maha' report found to contain citations to nonexistent studies
Robert F Kennedy Jr's flagship health commission report contains citations to studies that do not exist, according to an investigation by the US publication Notus. The report exposes glaring scientific failures from a health secretary who earlier this week threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals. The 73-page 'Make America healthy again' report – which was commissioned by the Trump administration to examine the causes of chronic illness, and which Kennedy promoted it as 'gold-standard' science backed by more than 500 citations – includes references to seven studies that appear to be entirely invented, and others that the researchers say have been mischaracterized. Related: Key takeaways: RFK Jr's 'Maha' report on chronic disease in children Two supposed studies on ADHD medication advertising simply do not exist in the journals where they are claimed to be published. Virginia Commonwealth University confirmed to Notus that researcher Robert L Findling, listed as an author of one paper, never wrote such an article, while another citation leads only to the Kennedy report itself when searched online. Harold J Farber, a pediatric specialist supposedly behind research on asthma overprescribing, told Notus he never wrote the cited paper and had never worked with the other listed authors. The US Department of Health and Human Services has not immediately responded to a Guardian request for comment. The citation failures come as Kennedy, a noted skeptic of vaccines, criticized medical publishing this week, branding top journals the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine and Jama as 'corrupt' and alleging they were controlled by pharmaceutical companies. He outlined plans for creating government-run journals instead. Beyond the phantom studies in Kennedy's report, Notus found it systematically misrepresented existing research. Related: RFK's health report omits key facts in painting dark vision for US children For example, one paper was claimed to show that talking therapy was as effective as psychiatric medication, but the statistician Joanne McKenzie said this was impossible, as 'we did not include psychotherapy' in the review. The sleep researcher Mariana G Figueiro also said her study was mischaracterized, with the report incorrectly stating it involved children rather than college students, and citing the wrong journal entirely. The Trump administration asked Kennedy for the report in order to look at chronic illness causes, from pesticides to mobile phone radiation. Kennedy called it a 'milestone' that provides 'evidence-based foundation' for sweeping policy changes. A follow-up 'Make our children healthy again strategy' report is due in August, raising concerns about the scientific credibility underpinning the administration's health agenda.
