Covid-19 Variant Nimbus Dominant in US as Vaccine Access in Flux
The CDC said it is 'aware of increasing detections' of Nimbus in the US, where it monitors spread of the virus through nasal and wastewater samples collected via its airport screening program. Nimbus makes up between 13% and 68% of circulating Covid strains, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services. Estimates from the two-week period ending June 21 show that Nimbus made up 43% of US cases.
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Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Morning Habit That Could Be Harming Your Heart, According to a Cardiologist
Reviewed by Dietitian Karen Ansel, M.S., RDNKey Points Breakfast foods like bacon, sausages, muffins and bagels can be loaded with sodium. Eaten regularly, their sodium could be hurting your heart health, says a cardiologist. Opt for foods high in fiber and lean protein, yet low in sodium and saturated all the social media messaging to move into your day in a calm, well-fed and happy way, mornings can be busy and chaotic. But there is one important reason to take the time to start the day on a strong, healthy note: Some of your go-to morning habits could be affecting your heart health. Like your breakfast. If it's high in hidden sodium, it could be slowly chipping away at your heart health, says cardiologist Robert Segel, M.D. And we're not just talking about salty bacon or sausages. Sodium is often hiding in many breakfast staples that don't even taste salty, like bread, bagels, muffins, pastries and more. Given that cardiovascular disease accounts for 1 in 3 deaths in the U.S., it's worth stepping back and reevaluating what's on your plate before you start your busy day. Read on to learn why a high-sodium breakfast can spell trouble for your heart, plus morning habits to keep your heart in top shape. How a High-Sodium Breakfast May Be Harming Your Heart Can Raise Blood Pressure 'High sodium intake causes fluid retention, raises blood pressure and increases the risk of heart failure,' says Segel. Sodium is so problematic that research has found that people who eat a high-sodium diet may be 19% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people who follow a low-sodium eating pattern. The reason? Excess sodium disrupts the function of the system that regulates your blood pressure (called the renin-angiotensin system) and makes your heart work harder to pump blood. Most of us typically consume more than 3,300 milligrams of sodium every day. The American Heart Association recommends slashing that number by more than half to 1,500 mg per day for optimal heart health. May Be High in Saturated Fat If processed breakfast meats, like bacon and sausage, are your go-to morning protein sources, you aren't just getting lots of gratuitous sodium. These meats are also high in cholesterol-raising saturated fat, delivering a double whammy when it comes to heart health. One study even found that eating slightly more than 5 ounces of processed meat weekly may increase the risk of major cardiovascular disease by as much as 46%. The good news is, there are plenty of less-processed breakfast staples that can give you the protein you need without all the sodium and saturated fat. Eggs, unsweetened yogurt and kefir, low-sodium cottage cheese and even tuna are all top choices. What about turkey bacon or chicken sausage? As healthy as these may sound, they still fall under the processed meat umbrella, so steer clear. Linked to Type 2 Diabetes People with diabetes have double the risk of heart disease thanks to chronically high blood sugar, which damages the blood vessels. So, maintaining healthy blood sugar levels can protect your heart. Sugary breakfast treats, like doughnuts and pastries, aren't the only foods to watch out for to reduce your diabetes risk. Research reveals that a high-sodium eating pattern can also be a culprit. For instance, one study found that people whose diets contained the most sodium were 80% more likely to develop diabetes than people who ate the least sodium. Frequently Low in Fiber Fiber is found in plant foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. While fiber is best known for keeping your digestive system regular, it also offers protection against heart disease and diabetes. Yet, most of us don't come close to getting the roughly 28 grams we need per day. Catch is, there's no fiber in bacon and sausage. And many breads, bagels and baked goods are also low in fiber, unless they're made with lots of whole grains. While all fiber is a win, soluble fiber is the one you want for better heart health. This type of fiber binds to cholesterol in your intestine, ferrying it out of your body through your stool. To work more cholesterol-lowering soluble fiber into your morning, think oatmeal and fruits, like apples, pears, bananas and oranges. Morning Habits That Support Heart Health Reducing the sodium in your breakfast is a great start for heart health. Now the question is: What do you eat (and do) instead? Here are a few totally doable habits to consider: Hydrate: Rather than having a coffee-first routine, Kiran Campbell, RDN, recommends starting your day with a glass of water. 'Even mild dehydration can affect how hard your heart has to work,' she says. Getting H2O on board first helps support circulation, digestion and blood pressure regulation, she adds. Add in some fiber: 'Fiber helps lower total and LDL ('bad') cholesterol and supports digestive and heart health,' says Campbell. She suggests aiming for at least 5 grams of fiber at breakfast. You can hit this quota by prioritizing fruits, vegetables and whole grains, she says. Include high-quality protein: '[Protein] helps keep blood sugar stable, reduces cravings, supports muscle mass and improves satiety, making it easier to eat mindfully the rest of the day,' says Blair Persyn, M.S., RDN. She recommends starting your day with a breakfast that contains 20 to 30 grams of protein. Avoid added sugars: Excess intake of added sugars also increases the risk of stroke, heart failure and atrial fibrillation, says Campbell. Whole fruits can be a nice source of natural sweetness at breakfast. If you drink coffee and tea, skip the sugar. Move your body: If you have the time, spending 10 to 15 minutes moving your body in the morning can help improve blood pressure and cholesterol levels and promote a healthy weight, says Campbell. That might be some yoga sun salutations, stretching or a walk outside. Bonus points if that walk happens after a meal, as it can also help lower blood sugar and improve digestion. Build in some quiet time: Rushing to get ready is a given in many of our morning routines. But Persyn recommends slowing down, even if it's for just a moment. 'Stress management is often overlooked when it comes to heart health, but it matters,' she says. 'Even just 60 seconds of deep breathing or a moment of mindfulness before jumping into your day can make a meaningful difference.' Seek out the sun: Morning light exposure has been found to help reduce blood pressure at night and may be an additional way to support heart health, research suggests. Start your day with a leisurely walk outside, and you'll double up on exercise and quiet time, too. Our Expert Take Regularly eating a high-sodium breakfast could be harming your heart, according to a cardiologist. And many go-to breakfast foods like bacon, sausages, muffins, bagels and bread can be loaded with it. Not only can their sodium raise your blood pressure, it may also increase your risk of type 2 diabetes, which can double your risk of heart disease. If that weren't trouble enough, many high-sodium breakfast staples are heavy in artery-clogging saturated fat, yet low in heart-friendly fiber. So, reach for a breakfast that's rich in fiber and lean protein, yet low in added sugars and sodium. While you're at it, add a few heart-healthy habits to your a.m., like moving your body, scheduling a few moments of mindfulness or getting out in the sunlight. You'll start your day on a positive note and do good things for your heart in the process. Read the original article on EATINGWELL
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Doximity (DOCS) Soars 14% on Strong Earnings, Merger with AI-Powered Platform
We recently published . Doximity Inc. (NYSE:DOCS) is one of the best-performing stocks on Friday. Doximity Inc. extended its winning streak to a third consecutive day on Friday, jumping 13.71 percent to close at $66.58 apiece as investors continued to load up positions following a strong earnings performance and its increasing adoption of artificial intelligence. In its updated report, Doximity, Inc. (NYSE:DOCS) registered a net income of $53.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, marking a 28-percent growth from the $41.37 million in the same period last year. Revenues grew by 15 percent to $145.9 million from $126.68 million year-on-year. ESB Professional/ For the full fiscal year 2026 period, Doximity, Inc. (NYSE:DOCS) targets to book $628 million to $636 million in revenues, or a 10 to 11.5 percent growth from the $570.4 million registered in full fiscal year 2025. Adjusted EBITDA is also expected to grow between 8.7 and 11.2 percent to $341 million to $349 million, from the $313.8 million posted a year earlier. Earlier this week, Doximity, Inc. (NYSE:DOCS) announced the completion of its $63 million merger with AI-powered platform Pathway Medical Inc. According to Doximity, Inc. (NYSE:DOCS), Pathway's model outperforms others in clinical accuracy, recently scoring a record 96 percent on the US Medical Licensing Examination benchmark. 'There's a growing need for clinical tools that combine trusted evidence with the speed and adaptability of AI,' said Pathway CEO Jon Hershon. 'Hundreds of thousands of users have registered for Pathway, and thousands pay $300 per year for our premium product. With Doximity, one of the most trusted platforms in healthcare, we're now bringing that experience to millions for free, built directly into the tools they already use at the point of care.' While we acknowledge the potential of DOCS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the . Sign in to access your portfolio
The Verge
an hour ago
- The Verge
RFK Jr. wants a wearable on every American — that future's not as healthy as he thinks
I keep hearing the same sentence repeating in my head. 'My vision is that every American is wearing a wearable within four years.' RFK Jr., our current secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said this at a congressional hearing at the end of June. Wearables, he said, are key to the MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — agenda. Kennedy positioned wearables for Americans as a means of 'taking control' or 'taking responsibility' over their health by monitoring how their lifestyle impacts their metrics. In the hearing, he also cited that his friends had shed pounds and 'lost their diabetes diagnosis' thanks to devices like continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). I'm a wearables expert. I obviously don't hate these devices. My problem with Kennedy's 'wearable for every American' vision is that it lends credence to the idea that everyone benefits from wearable technology. It's not that simple. I started wearing a Fitbit in 2014 to lose weight. I'd mysteriously gained 40 pounds in six months. I started running. Dieting. Obsessively tracking my steps, hitting 10,000 to 15,000 a day, rain or shine. I ate as few as 800 calories while logging 15,000 steps daily — for me, roughly 7.5 miles of walking. The promise of all this data, and what Kennedy is touting, is that people will have actionable data to improve their health. I had a ton of data. I could see things weren't adding up. But the way these products and their apps are designed, I didn't know how to 'take control' of my health. Instead, I continued to gain weight. I cried a lot during that time. So did my mom, who took my sudden aversion to carbohydrates as a personal offense. (How can you not eat bap? Bap is life!!) It didn't matter that I improved at running or that I measured everything with a food scale. Each time I went to my doctors, I'd show them my Fitbit data and beg to be taken seriously. My doctors didn't know what to do with what they were being shown. I also didn't know how to communicate what I was seeing effectively. Instead, they suggested everything from 'you must become a vegan' to 'people with slow metabolisms just have to try harder.' By 2016, I'd put on another 20 pounds and, after three years, was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome — a hormonal condition that often causes weight gain and insulin resistance. Wearables helped me realize something was off, but it was a bumpy ride getting to an answer. That's been true of my overall experience. Sure, this tech helped improve aspects of my health. I'm a much more active person. I went from being unable to run a mile to racing two half-marathons, a handful of 10Ks, and several 5Ks. My sleep is more regular. I went from being a night owl to an early riser. I've watched my resting heart rate decrease from around 75 beats per minute while sleeping to around 55 bpm. My cholesterol is lower. My weight has yo-yoed, but overall, I've been able to maintain a 25-pound weight loss from the 60 pounds I gained from PCOS. And, I've put on more muscle. What I haven't shared quite as publicly is that these improvements came at a heavy cost to my mental health. My first three years with wearables wrecked my relationship with food. Despite diligently tracking my data, I didn't get much by way of results. There also wasn't a ton of guidance on how to apply my data learnings in a healthy way. I ended up hyperfixating on trying anything that hinted at helping me reach my goal. I ended up with disordered eating habits. Food logging is also a prominent feature in these wearable apps, so I meticulously weighed and logged everything I ate for years. If I were even 15 calories over budget, I'd go for a five-minute run around the block to burn 50 calories and get myself back under. I avoided social outings because, when eating out, my calorie logs weren't guaranteed to be accurate. If I weren't making enough progress, I'd punish myself by skipping meals. According to my therapist, I had begun showing mild signs of both orthorexia nervosa and anorexia. I also started developing anxiety about my running performance. If I wasn't improving my VO2 Max or mile times, I was failing. It didn't matter that I'd gone from running 16-minute miles to recording a personal best of 8 minutes, 45 seconds. Any time I became injured, my numbers would go down, and I'd feel like a complete failure. When my father died, I was stuck in a funeral home in the Korean countryside, pacing around in circles so that I wouldn't lose my step streak. Ironically, in a bid to please my wearable overlords, I've ended up injuring myself several times through overexercise in the last decade. I'm okay now, thanks to a lot of work in therapy and the help of my loved ones. But healing isn't a one-and-done kind of thing. Ninety-five percent of the time, I use wearables in a much more reasonable way. I take intentional breaks the other five percent of the time, whenever old habits rear their ugly head. Mine isn't a unique experience. Several studies and reports have found that wearables can increase health anxiety. Anecdotally, when a friend or acquaintance gets a new wearable, I usually get one of two types of messages. The first is an obsessive recounting of their data and all the ways they monitor food intake. The other is a flurry of worried texts asking if their low HRV, heart rate, or some other metric is a sign that they're going to die. Most of these messages come from people who have had a recent health scare, and I usually spend the next hour teaching them how to interpret their baseline data in less absolute terms. And therein lies the rub. These devices overloaded the people in my life with too much information but not enough context. How can anyone effectively 'take control of their health' if they're struggling to understand it? There's never been, nor will there ever be, a one-size-fits-all solution. There's never been, nor will there ever be, a one-size-fits-all solution. That's why I'm skeptical that Kennedy's vision is even feasible. Doctors don't always know how to interpret wearable data. Not only that, it'd be a massive undertaking to give every American a wearable. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of products on the market, and everyone's health needs are unique. Would the government subsidize the cost? Where do health insurance companies, FSAs, and HSAs fit into this picture? So far, all we've heard from Kennedy is that the HHS plans to 'launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history' to promote wearable use. But even if Kennedy were to solve this logistical nightmare, I take issue with framing wearables as a necessary component in anyone's health journey. You risk creating scenarios where insurance companies use wearables as a means of lowering or raising premiums, similar to how certain car insurance providers use telematics devices to monitor their customers' driving in exchange for discounts. It sounds good in theory, but it also opens the door to discrimination. Some, but not all, illnesses can be treated or prevented through lifestyle changes. Not everyone will experience the darker side of this tech like I have. But I know that many have, and many more will. Some, like me, will eventually find a healthy balance. For others, the healthiest thing they could do is to avoid wearables. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Victoria Song Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Analysis Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. 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