Latest news with #Levels
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sport
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘It's not weak, it's smart': Maroons defend decision not to kick off to Spencer Leniu
Queensland Origin officials have defended the decision to avoid kicking off to Blues wrecking ball Spencer Leniu on Wednesday night, insisting it was 'smart business' rather than 'weak'. TV cameras captured Leniu mouthing profanities and throwing his arms in the air in frustration after Val Holmes spotted him come on to the field at the half-hour mark, then aimed his kick-off towards the opposite side away from the Roosters prop. It denied a fired-up Leniu – one of the game's most destructive front-rowers – the chance to run the ball hard back at the Queensland defence and deprived viewers of a contest that had been eagerly anticipated due to the simmering tensions between Leniu and Queensland fans. The 24-year-old was painted as NSW's biggest villain because of his sideline run-in with Maroons legend Johnathan Thurston at Suncorp Stadium six weeks earlier. Local newspaper The Courier Mail ran a photo of Leniu on their back page the day before the game with the headline, 'Smash This Blues Grub'. Former NSW firebrand Willie Mason claimed Queensland had been 'shit scared' after watching Leniu run over the top of NSW teammate Max King in the Roosters' match against Canterbury a week earlier. In that same game, Leniu took another kick-off carry and knocked out Daniel Suluka-Fifita. 'To him [Leniu], it's like, 'You don't even have the balls to kick it to me', Mason said on his Levels podcast. 'You called him out, a call to arms if you will, and then you kicked it the other way. Yuck.' However, Maroons assistant coach Josh Hannay said it made sense to avoid Leniu because he was so damaging when coming off the back fence. He said Queensland also tried to avoid kicking to where Payne Haas was standing. 'It's not weak to do that, it's smart – it's smart business to try and take away someone's strength,' Hannay said.
The Age
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Age
‘It's not weak, it's smart': Maroons defend decision not to kick off to Spencer Leniu
Queensland Origin officials have defended the decision to avoid kicking off to Blues wrecking ball Spencer Leniu on Wednesday night, insisting it was 'smart business' rather than 'weak'. TV cameras captured Leniu mouthing profanities and throwing his arms in the air in frustration after Val Holmes spotted him come on to the field at the half-hour mark, then aimed his kick-off towards the opposite side away from the Roosters prop. It denied a fired-up Leniu – one of the game's most destructive front-rowers – the chance to run the ball hard back at the Queensland defence and deprived viewers of a contest that had been eagerly anticipated due to the simmering tensions between Leniu and Queensland fans. The 24-year-old was painted as NSW's biggest villain because of his sideline run-in with Maroons legend Johnathan Thurston at Suncorp Stadium six weeks earlier. Local newspaper The Courier Mail ran a photo of Leniu on their back page the day before the game with the headline, 'Smash This Blues Grub'. Former NSW firebrand Willie Mason claimed Queensland had been 'shit scared' after watching Leniu run over the top of NSW teammate Max King in the Roosters' match against Canterbury a week earlier. In that same game, Leniu took another kick-off carry and knocked out Daniel Suluka-Fifita. 'To him [Leniu], it's like, 'You don't even have the balls to kick it to me', Mason said on his Levels podcast. 'You called him out, a call to arms if you will, and then you kicked it the other way. Yuck.' However, Maroons assistant coach Josh Hannay said it made sense to avoid Leniu because he was so damaging when coming off the back fence. He said Queensland also tried to avoid kicking to where Payne Haas was standing. 'It's not weak to do that, it's smart – it's smart business to try and take away someone's strength,' Hannay said.
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Korea Herald
21-05-2025
- Health
- Korea Herald
[Lisa Jarvis] MAHA pushes unneeded glucose tracking
Casey Means, a Stanford-trained physician and wellness influencer nominated by US President Donald Trump for surgeon general, is convinced the US is experiencing an epidemic of metabolic dysfunction — a crisis silently unfolding inside the cells of millions of Americans. One solution, she says, is giving people a close-up view of that crisis. Coincidentally, Levels, a company she co-founded, sells a system that allows people to continuously track their blood glucose levels in real time. She claims this information can help people home in on food and lifestyle choices that will improve their metabolic health. It's a philosophy that other "Make America Healthy Again" movement members have pushed. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. extolled glucose monitoring devices as only costing '$80 a month, and they've been shown to be extraordinarily effective in helping people lose weight and avoid diabetes.' Meanwhile, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary told senators at his confirmation hearing that glucose monitors should not require a prescription. He similarly talked up their promise to address obesity and prevent diabetes. There's just one problem: These claims aren't backed by science. They promise to lead Americans down a path to wellness but, without more evidence, could amount to a waste of our health care dollars. 'What is the utility there? The answer is zero,' says David Nathan, a Harvard Medical School professor who has led some of the most important studies on diabetes prevention. 'This, to me, is a scam.' In an information-rich age where our smartwatches can tell us the quality of our sleep, the number of steps we've taken, oxygen levels in our blood, heart rate and more, you might ask: Why not track blood sugar? More data is not always better. It doesn't always tell us something meaningful and, worse, could even cause harm by creating unnecessary anxiety or leading us to draw the wrong conclusions about our health. Continuous glucose monitoring, or CGM, has allowed people with Type 1 diabetes to better manage their blood sugar, which, in turn, can lead to fewer serious health complications like blindness, kidney failure and even death. People with Type 2 diabetes have also used CGM to prevent dangerous fluctuations in blood sugar, but the data is mixed on the long-term benefits. And then there's CGM in people who don't have diabetes. Levels is one of several companies that charge anywhere from $199 to more than $400 per month for CGM, which is often paired with diet coaching. 'I believe CGM is the most powerful technology for generating the data and awareness to rectify our Bad Energy crisis in the Western world,' Means wrote in a blog post on her company's website. Tracking glucose can 'alert us to early dysfunction, coach us on how to eat and live in a way that promotes Good Energy in our unique bodies, and promote accountability.' In reality, the data supporting constantly monitoring blood sugar in people who don't have diabetes, and even in those with prediabetes, is virtually nonexistent, Nathan says. One 2024 review of the literature on CGM in healthy people found scant evidence of its utility. The authors found the research gaps so significant that they concluded any commercial products claiming to offer a benefit 'be labeled as misleading.' Means, meanwhile, has argued that CGM offers important information about our metabolic health. 'An extra-large spike after a meal is a clear sign that the meal had too much refined grain or refined sugar and is creating a big stress of food energy for your cells to deal with,' she wrote on the company's website. But blood glucose is influenced by so much more than the last thing you ate, says Nicola Guess, a dietician and diabetes researcher at the University of Oxford. That includes whether you just finished a vigorous workout, slept poorly the night before, your stress levels, what other foods you ate recently or alongside a particular fruit or vegetable — even a woman's menstrual cycle. Moreover, doctors don't even have enough data to tell patients what a 'healthy' glucose fluctuation looks like in people without diabetes. We don't know, for example, if a spike after a meal is harmless if it comes back down soon after, or even what 'soon' would mean, says Nicole Spartano, a diabetes researcher at Boston University. 'I do worry that people have this technology and are making changes to their diet that do not truly improve their health,' Spartano says. 'For example, you could eat hot dogs (with no bun) for every meal, and your glucose data would look perfect. Very few people would suggest that is a good diet.' Similarly, there's little evidence that blood sugar tracking can prompt people to make long-term changes in their habits, which is the foundational tenet of companies like Levels. Studies of evidence-backed lifestyle interventions show that many can elicit short-term benefits. It's the long haul that people struggle with. The influx of companies pushing CGM has prompted a more intense study of its value in healthy or prediabetic people. But we're still years away from definitive answers. The MAHA movement likes to say it's about following 'gold-standard science.' For people with diabetes, blood sugar tracking is part of gold-standard care. But for everyone else? So far, there's nothing to suggest this would be a wise way to spend our money.
Bloomberg
17-05-2025
- Health
- Bloomberg
MAHA Is Pushing Glucose Tracking That Most People Don't Need
Casey Means, a Stanford-trained physician and wellness influencer nominated by President Donald Trump for surgeon general, is convinced the US is experiencing an epidemic of metabolic dysfunction — a crisis silently unfolding inside the cells of millions of Americans. One solution, she says, is giving people a close-up view of that crisis. Coincidentally, Levels, a company she co-founded, sells a system that allows people to continuously track their blood glucose levels in real time. She claims this information can help people home in on food and lifestyle choices that will improve their metabolic health.
Axios
15-05-2025
- Health
- Axios
Influencer pick for surgeon general marks new era in health messaging
Casey Means was nominated to become the new face of American public health. She's not a career doctor — but she knows how to go viral. That's the point. And the risk. Why it matters: This is part of the Trump administration's broader strategy to prioritize messaging, allegiance and influence over expertise. Driving the news: Means' nomination has received backlash from the medical community for not being grounded enough in scientific consensus, while also getting slammed within the Make America Healthy Again movement for not questioning vaccines stridently enough. Means received her medical degree from Stanford University but ultimately dropped out of her surgical residency and went on to practice functional medicine. She does not have an active medical license. The nutrition influencer is co-founder of the tech-based health company Levels and sister to White House senior adviser Calley Means. Yes, but: The administration has defended Means' qualifications, claiming her critics are worried that her popularity among "MAHA moms" could create "an existential threat to the status quo interests, which profit from sickness." "Casey is the perfect choice for Surgeon General precisely because she left the traditional medical system — not in spite of it," Kennedy wrote on X. State of play: The surgeon general is considered the nation's top doctor and the leading spokesperson on public health matters. The role has changed dramatically since its inception when the position had significant regulatory powers to issue federal public health orders, says Lindsay Wiley, a professor of health law at UCLA. Now, they're generally a figurehead, but those who harness the role well can usher certain pet issues into the cultural zeitgeist. In the 1980s, C. Everett Koop distinguished himself by taking bold public stances on smoking and AIDS. The most recent surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, focused on loneliness and isolation, gun violence, the mental health impact of social media, and the crisis of parental stress. His predecessor, Jerome Adams, prioritized the opioid epidemic, untreated mental illness and the links between health, economic prosperity and national security. Between the lines: Means would be joining a federal health system that already has major communication gaps due to mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Her media savvy, plus newfound position of authority, could allow her to fill this information vacuum. The big picture: Means as surgeon general represents a continuation of the Trump administration's strategy of identifying and elevating public figures, influencers or creators who have clout within niche audiences of the MAGA-sphere. Trump has appointed several conservative media personalities for high-ranking government roles, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, deputy director of the FBI Dan Bongino, and, most recently, Jeanine Pirro as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — the 23rd Trump appointee to come from Fox News. Aside from appointees who appeal to the Fox News audience, the administration has tapped into community passion points through micro-influencers like "MAHA moms." Meanwhile, the White House is filling the press briefing room with Trump-friendly media outlets and creators, while also holding regular briefings for social media influencers who will help amplify MAGA-approved messaging. Trump "understands television, he understands the internet, and he understands what the importance of communicating in a way that lots of traditional, trusted institutions do not understand," Claire Wardle, an expert on health communication and misinformation at Cornell University. What they're saying: "Means has an audience. There is no doubt on her Instagram and TikTok, she's a New York Times best-selling author," Wardle said. Government agencies are too often doing a bad job at communicating in a modern ecosystem, relying on press releases or interviews with traditional media organizations to relay information, she said. "She is reaching people in new ways that I actually would like to see more 'trusted institutions' think about," Wardle said. But while she focuses on issues many people might find important, like nutrition and obesity, she also veers into areas in which there isn't scientific consensus. "When you are the nation's doctor, I would argue that you really should not be saying anything unless there's scientific consensus," Wardle said. The other side:"It would send the wrong signal to nominate a so-called social media influencer," Larry Gostin, a global health law expert at Georgetown University, told Axios. "Influencers often disseminate unreliable and even false health information to their audiences. We want to direct young people to authentic sources for health information, such as the CDC or credible medical organizations."
