Latest news with #KatherineKeyes
CNA
12 hours ago
- Health
- CNA
We all know the health risks of drinking – is there a 'least bad' alcohol choice?
If you've heard that red wine is better for you than beer or liquor, or that clear liquor like vodka or gin is less harmful than dark liquor like rum or whiskey, we have bad news. 'Alcohol is alcohol,' said Jurgen Rehm, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Drinking any type of alcohol, in any amount, is bad for health. Still, experts say, it's sometimes not reasonable or even practical for people to avoid alcohol entirely. So if you're going to drink, there are some strategies you can take to reduce your risk, and to avoid some of the other unpleasant effects of drinking, like hangovers. WHY ALCOHOL IS SO HARMFUL When you have a drink, your body turns the ethanol that's present in the alcoholic beverage into a 'really nasty substance' called acetaldehyde, which can damage your DNA, said Timothy Stockwell, an alcohol researcher at the University of Victoria in Canada. Many tissues in the body, including those in the mouth, throat, liver, colon and breasts, are susceptible to this harm. And when that DNA gets repaired, cancerous mutations may arise. This is why drinking increases the risk for developing at least seven types of cancer, said Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University. Excessive alcohol use – which includes having eight or more drinks per week for women or 15 or more per week for men; or four or more drinks per occasion for women or five or more for men – is also linked with many other health conditions. These include heart and liver disease, depression, anxiety and memory problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The more ethanol in your drink, the more harmful it is, Dr Keyes said. One way to assess this is to look at a drink's alcohol by volume, or ABV, which manufacturers must list on product labels. If you're choosing between two beers of the same size, for instance, and one is 4 per cent ABV and the other is 8 per cent, the 4 per cent beer will expose you to half as much ethanol. In general, beer has less ethanol than wine per ounce, and wine has less than liquors like vodka and tequila, Dr Keyes said. But there can be large variations within these categories, Dr Stockwell said. Some strong beers, for instance, have ABVs that are higher than those of some wines (or even some liquors, on the extreme end). HOW TO DRINK WISELY A good rule for reducing your exposure to ethanol is to generally choose drinks with lower ABVs, the experts said. But it's important to pay attention to how much you're drinking as well. A standard 12-ounce pour of a 5 per cent ABV beer typically has the same amount of ethanol as five ounces of a 12 per cent wine or 1.5 ounces (or a shot) of a 40 per cent liquor. It can be tricky to calculate the ABV of cocktails, said Dr Peng-Sheng (Brian) Ting, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine, since they are often made with sodas, juices and sometimes multiple types of alcohol. For this reason, he recommends sticking with wine or beer in situations where you want to know exactly how much ethanol you're consuming. Some types of alcohol are also quite high in calories, which when consumed in excess can increase the risk of weight gain and obesity. And some cocktail mixers, like juices and sodas, can contain added sugars, also raising the risk for obesity and other health conditions like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Dr Keyes also recommended against consuming alcoholic drinks that are mixed with caffeine (like espresso martinis or vodka Red Bulls). The energy boost you get from them may make you feel less inebriated than you really are, potentially prompting you to drink more and to become more drunk, Dr Keyes said. And while there's no evidence that darker liquors are more harmful to health than clear ones, there is limited research suggesting that some darker liquors can cause more severe hangovers, said Damaris Rohsenow, a professor at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University. Darker alcohols (like bourbon, rum and brandy) tend to have higher levels of congeners, substances that are created during the fermentation process and contribute to a drink's flavor, aroma and color. More congeners typically translates to worse hangovers, Dr Rohsenow said. There can be exceptions to the 'clear is better' rule, however, Dr Rohsenow added. Some tequilas, which can be clear or light-coloured, for instance, can be high in congeners and may lead to worse hangovers.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
RFK Jr. faces AI scandal after allegedly using ChatGPT for MAHA report
The stunning appearance of multiple citation errors in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' report could be due to the sloppy use of Artificial Intelligence, according to experts and telltale indicators. The White House and the Health and Human Services Department were forced to respond Thursday to a bombshell report that identified multiple citations to academic articles buried within the report that did not actually exist. Some of the errors appeared to carry hallmarks of generative AI which users have found is designed to provide an authoritative sounding answer when producing copy as it scrapes the internet for content and information. Some references contain 'oaicite', which is indicative of the use of OpenAI , in their URLs. The citation errors were confirmed by human beings who either said they didn't write some of the studies listed, or that their work relating to the health issues at hand came in other formats and publications. Some said interpretations of their data were also incorrect. 'The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,' epidemiologist Katherine Keyes told NOTUS , which exposed many of the lapses. The feds have since purged seven citations from the report, which Kennedy released with much fanfare days ago. Another academic whose work got cited, Mariana G. Figueiro, told the publication: 'The conclusions in the report are not accurate and the journal reference is incorrect. It was not published in Pediatrics. Also, the study was not done in children, but in college students.' Thirty-seven of the report's citations occur multiple times, according to the Washington Post . 'Frankly, that's shoddy work,' Oren Etzioni, an AI expert at the University of Washington told the paper. 'We deserve better.' At the White House Thursday, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt directly if Kennedy and his team of cabinet members who compiled the report relied on AI. 'I can't speak to that. I would refer you to the Department of Health and Human Services. What I know is just what I told you,' she responded. 'We have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,' she said, when asked about the reports that unearthed the fake references. 'I understand there was some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated,' she said. 'But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government is and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government. RFK, Jr., who has already drawn controversy for sowing doubts about vaccines and other views, gushed about the report before its release, which came after his team had a single public meeting. 'The report is the product of a consensual process, and it represents a collaborative effort of all the agencies and the White House. And it represents a consensus that is probably the strongest and most radical consensus by a government agency in history about the state of America's health,' he said. 'MAHA's become hot,' President Trump said of RFK, Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' push. Before its release some farm state Republican lawmakers had raised concerns that the MAHA report would go after pesticides and farm practices they consider critical for farm efficiency. The report calls to examine the 'over-utilization of medication' such as steroids and questions the childhood vaccine schedule. But the author identified with a study showing a jump in use of corticosteroids 'denied writing it,' according to NOTUS, and called the conclusion an 'overgeneralization' of his other findings. The number of errors mushroomed this week as more outsiders picked at the purported data. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling didn't write the report attributed to him on 'Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern.' Teeing off on the revelations was Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington. 'What do you know? Secretary released areport with made-up sources,' she said, attaching emojis for a brain and a worm. 'This fully discredits the MAHA Commission report. RFK Jr. is a deranged conspiracy theorist, so no one should be surprised by his lies, but we should still call them out,' she wrote.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
RFK Jr. faces AI scandal after 'using ChatGPT' for his big MAHA report
The stunning appearance of multiple citation errors in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' report could be due to the sloppy use of Artificial Intelligence, according to experts and telltale indicators. The White House and the Health and Human Services Department were forced to respond Thursday to a bombshell report that identified multiple citations to academic articles buried within the report that did not actually exist. Some of the errors appeared to carry hallmarks of generative AI which users have found is designed to provide an authoritative sounding answer when producing copy as it scrapes the internet for content and information. Some references contain 'oaicite', which is indicative of the use of OpenAI, in their URLs. The citation errors were confirmed by human beings who either said they didn't write some of the studies listed, or that their work relating to the health issues at hand came in other formats and publications. Some said interpretations of their data were also incorrect. 'The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,' epidemiologist Katherine Keyes told NOTUS, which exposed many of the lapses. The feds have since purged seven citations from the report, which Kennedy released with much fanfare days ago. Another academic whose work got cited, Mariana G. Figueiro, told the publication: 'The conclusions in the report are not accurate and the journal reference is incorrect. It was not published in Pediatrics. Also, the study was not done in children, but in college students.' Thirty-seven of the report's citations occur multiple times, according to the Washington Post. 'Frankly, that's shoddy work,' Oren Etzioni, an AI expert at the University of Washington told the paper. 'We deserve better.' At the White House Thursday, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt directly if Kennedy and his team of cabinet members who compiled the report relied on AI. 'I can't speak to that. I would refer you to the Department of Health and Human Services. What I know is just what I told you,' she responded. 'We have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,' she said, when asked about the reports that unearthed the fake references. 'I understand there was some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated,' she said. 'But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government is and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government. RFK, Jr., who has already drawn controversy for sowing doubts about vaccines and other views, gushed about the report before its release, which came after his team had a single public meeting. 'The report is the product of a consensual process, and it represents a collaborative effort of all the agencies and the White House. And it represents a consensus that is probably the strongest and most radical consensus by a government agency in history about the state of America's health,' he said. 'MAHA's become hot,' President Trump said of RFK, Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' push. Before its release some farm state Republican lawmakers had raised concerns that the MAHA report would go after pesticides and farm practices they consider critical for farm efficiency. The report calls to examine the 'over-utilization of medication' such as steroids and questions the childhood vaccine schedule. But the author identified with a study showing a jump in use of corticosteroids 'denied writing it,' according to NOTUS, and called the conclusion an 'overgeneralization' of his other findings. The number of errors mushroomed this week as more outsiders picked at the purported data. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling didn't write the report attributed to him on 'Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern.'
Reuters
2 days ago
- General
- Reuters
Trump administration report on US child health cited nonexistent studies, media report says
May 29 (Reuters) - A U.S. government report on the health of American children cited scientific studies that did not exist to support its conclusions, according to a media report and some of the purported study authors on Thursday. The report produced by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, named after a movement aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, was released last week. It said processed food, chemicals, stress and overprescription of medications and vaccines may be factors behind chronic illness in American children, citing some 500 research studies as evidence. Digital news outlet NOTUS reported the citation errors, saying on Thursday it found seven studies listed in the report's footnotes that did not exist, along with broken links and misstated conclusions. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters that any citation errors were due to "formatting issues." The government said it posted a corrected version of the report later on Thursday. "The substance of the MAHA report remains the same - a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation's children," the Department of Health and Human Services said. Katherine Keyes, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, was cited in the report as the author of "Changes in mental health and substance use among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic," which the report said was published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics. She said that neither she nor the named co-authors of the paper had written it. "It does make me concerned given that citation practices are an important part of conducting and reporting rigorous science," she said. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling did not author the article cited in the report as "Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern" in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, according to a spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, where Findling is a professor. Kennedy has spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue as health secretary. Since taking the role, he has fired thousands of workers at federal health agencies and cut billions of dollars from U.S. biomedical research spending. The studies attributed to Findling and Keyes no longer appeared in the MAHA report on the White House website as of Thursday evening.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Source? I made it up: RFK Jr.'s MAHA report cites fabricated studies
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again commission released its first report last week, which it called a 'groundbreaking assessment' of the drivers of childhood chronic diseases. Close study of the publication found one little problem in MAHA's analysis, however: several of the studies it cited do not exist. A report from the political news site NOTUS found that MAHA misrepresented findings of existing reports and outright fabricated several others. NOTUS found multiple instances of named reports that contained links that did not work, were not findable through online searches, and were not published in the issues of the journals listed in the MAHA report. In some cases, the listed authors or the institutions for which they work said that they had never written the cited studies. Epidemiologist Katherine Keyes was cited by the MAHA Report to back up claims of widespread anxiety and depression among adolescents. When reached by the outlet, she said she'd never authored the study. 'The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,' Keyes shared.. One author named in the report called the commission's conclusions over-generalized and a 'tremendous leap of faith' from his research. Another said that the 'conclusions in the report are not accurate and the journal reference is incorrect.' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the reported inaccuracies on Thursday, attributing them to "formatting issues" and saying that the report would be updated.
