(NEW YORK) — Pediatric water bead-related emergency room visits increased over 130% in one year, a new study published in The American Journal of Emergency Medicine shows.
Water beads are small balls of polymer that can expand up to 100 to 1,500 times in size when they come in contact with water, according to the National Capital Poison Center.
From 2021 to 2022, an estimated 8,159 ER visits involving patients under 20 years old involved water beads, the study found. Forty-six percent of the cases involved water bead ingestion.
Researchers from Ohio and Missouri analyzed data collected between Jan. 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2022, and found that children under the age of 5 were the most commonly seen patients in emergency departments.
The data showed that all water bead-related ER visits involving kids under 5 involved the ingestion of a water bead, while ER visits for patients in other age groups involved a water bead-related eye injury or a water bead inserted into other areas of the body, including the ear canal or nose.
“The number of pediatric water bead-related emergency department visits is increasing rapidly,” Dr. Gary Smith, a senior author of the study and the director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said in a news release.
“Although swallowing objects and putting them into an ear or the nose are common among children, water beads pose a unique increased risk of harm because of their expanding properties, and they’re hard to detect with X-rays,” Smith said.
Smith and the study’s co-authors called for stronger federal regulation of water beads and a revision of toy safety standards.
In May, three U.S. senators introduced Esther’s Law, legislation that would ban the sale of water beads marketed as toys, require warning labels on water bead packages and direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to consider further water bead regulation. The legislation, which was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and has not yet been voted on, is named after the late Esther Jo Bethard, who died in July 2023 at 10 months old after swallowing a loose water bead.
Major retailers like Amazon, Target and Walmart announced at the end of 2023 that they would stop selling water beads due to the risk of injuries and death among children.
The CPSC also warned in March that water beads, along with narcotics, are two growing risks, especially for young children. The federal agency recommends water beads be removed from any environment where young kids are present, that children shouldn’t be allowed to play with them unsupervised, and that water beads be secured in containers and in areas were children can’t easily access them.
(NEW YORK) — Deaths from dementia have tripled in just 21 years, according to a new study published in The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders.
In 1999, about 150,000 Americans died from dementia, according to the study. By 2020, that number had tripled to over 450,000.
The chances of dying from dementia increased among every demographic group studied, according to study author Mohsan Ali, a physician with the King Edward Medical University in Pakistan.
Tripling of dementia deaths
Dementia is defined by the National Institute on Aging as “the loss of cognitive functioning — thinking, remembering, and reasoning — and behavioral abilities to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities.” The reason it is increasingly the cause of death could be because people are living longer or getting diagnosed earlier, according to Ali.
“Age is the most significant risk factor for dementia,” Ali said. However, the increased prevalence of chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity may also be contributing factors, he added.
Women, Black adults, and people living in rural communities showed the greatest increase in dementia deaths, the study found.
“While the increased rates in women may be because women live longer than men, there may be biological and genetic factors that make women more susceptible to dementia,” Ali noted. “Rural areas face a higher burden of dementia-related mortality due to several factors. These include limited access to healthcare services, fewer specialists in dementia care, and reduced availability of support services.”
Black adults had the highest death rate, followed by non-Hispanic white adults, and then Hispanic adults.
Fresh insights on dementia prevention
By 2050, the number of people with dementia will double in the U.S. to over 10.5 million and triple globally to over 150 million, the British medical journal The Lancet forecast in 2022. Yet despite these alarming statistics, experts say the average person has some control over their cognitive health.
“I am most excited about advances in dementia prevention, because we are learning about a number of lifestyle modifications that are both accessible to most of us and effective,” Leah Croll, MD, neurologist at Maimonides Health in New York, told ABC News.
Up to 45% of dementia cases may be preventable by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors, according to the Lancet Commission on Dementia.
Lifestyle factors that increased the chances of a dementia diagnosis include less education, head injury, physical inactivity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, hearing loss, depression, social isolation, vision loss, and exposure to air pollution in older life.
“Staying up-to-date with your primary care visits, being diligent about your medications pays dividends over and over for your brain health,” Croll emphasized.
Dementia diagnosis and treatment today
Early detection and diagnosis is key to addressing dementia, according to experts.
Dementia is generally diagnosed with a combination of cognitive testing, brain imaging, and sampling the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that surrounds the brain and spinal cord and checking it for levels of dementia-related proteins.
Because some of these tests may not be readily available in some areas and can be expensive, researchers have been working on more accessible screening methods. For example, a recent study found that a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common type of dementia, may be as accurate at detecting Alzheimer disease as CSF sampling. However, the blood test is still in early phases of study.
In addition to ongoing research for diagnostics, there are new FDA-approved treatments for early Alzheimer’s dementia, when the symptoms are still relatively mild.
“Right now, it seems that these drugs modestly slow down the progression of disease, but they do not stop it, so it’s unclear how they will impact morbidity and mortality,” Croll cautions.
Overall, Croll believes that patients and families affected by dementia should feel hopeful about the future: “In many ways, dementia is one of the final frontiers in medicine, and we are finally starting to crack the code,” she said.
Noor Shaik, MD, PhD, is a neurology resident physician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The World Health Organization (WHO) declared mpox to be a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on Wednesday
“Today, the Emergency Committee met and advised me that in its view, the situation constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a media briefing on Wednesday.
In the U.S, there have been 1,634 cases of mpox reported so far this year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
That’s more than double the number of national cases seen at the same time last year but significantly lower than those seen during a U.S. mpox outbreak in 2022, CDC data shows.
PHEICs were most recently declared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the previous mpox outbreak of 2022.
Although mpox is endemic to parts of Central and Western Africa, cases have been rising dramatically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
This year, there have already been more than 14,000 mpox cases and 524 deaths reported in the DRC, according to the WHO.
There are two types of mpox: clade I and clade II, with clade roughly meaning they are descended from a common ancestor organism. While clade I has caused small, localized outbreaks in the DRC for years, researchers identified a clade I variant, known as clade Ib, that seems to spread mainly through sexual contact and appears to be behind the outbreak in the DRC.
Tedros said the detection of clade Ib in neighboring African countries that have never reported mpox cases before – including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda – led him to convene a meeting of the WHO’s emergency committee.
“The detection and rapid spread of a new clade of mpox in eastern DRC, its detection in neighboring countries that had not previously reported mpox, and the potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying,” Tedros said during the briefing.
On Monday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) – the continent’s top health agency – declared mpox a public health emergency of continental security (PHECS) – the first such declaration since the Africa CDC’s inception in 2017, according to the agency.
On the same day, the WHO published a report that found there were a total of 934 new laboratory confirmed cases of mpox and four deaths from 26 countries in the month of June, “illustrating continuing transmission of mpox across the world.”
There have been no cases of clade I mpox reported outside Central and Eastern Africa at this time, including in the U.S., according to the CDC. The risk of the type of mpox circulating in the DRC is low to the American public, according to the CDC.
Currently, the JYNNEOS vaccine, a two-dose vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and mpox, is the only vaccine being used in the U.S. to prevent mpox. Data from Africa has shown two doses of JYNNEOS are at least 85% effective in preventing mpox infection.
(NEW YORK) — A growing body of research suggests that age is more than just a number.
Regardless of how many birthdays you’ve celebrated, your overall health may depend on the resilience and vitality of your cells.
It’s a concept known as biological, or epigenetic, aging.
Biological aging explained
“Chronological age is what the calendar tells us,” Elissa Epel, PhD, a professor in the department of psychiatry & behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences, told ABC News.
Biological age looks beyond the calendar to provide clues for how well someone’s health stands the test of time.
Researchers commonly analyze a process called DNA methylation, which involves chemical alterations of gene expression, without any changes to the actual genetic sequence itself. As this pattern shifts, it is reflected in the age of the cells.
Genetic factors intertwine with environmental factors, such as pollutants and toxins, and lifestyle habits, like diet and exercise, to alter DNA methylation and influence cell function.
The idea is that everything can have an impact at the cellular level, which could potentially have implications for predicting disease risk and longevity.
Watching the clock
To test for biological age, scientists use advanced tools known as epigenetic clocks.
Developed a little over a decade ago by UCLA researcher Steve Horvath, PhD, epigenetic clocks use blood, skin, or saliva samples to analyze specific patterns in the DNA, called methylation marks, and then compare them against chronological age, as well as to a database containing information from other individuals.
Evaluating various body systems, Horvath found that even healthy tissue next to a breast cancer tumor, for example, was about 12 years older than the rest of the body.
“We can’t change our genes, but we can change how much they are activated or silenced,” said Epel, also the director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center in San Francisco, adding that, “the patterns of methylation, like doors being open or closed, change dramatically with age.”
Until recently, epigenetic clocks have primarily been used in the lab, but a few are now available to consumers. Some have price tags upwards of $500.
Consumer tests can offer insights into lifestyle changes that might help slow biological aging, though experts are still evaluating their accuracy and utility.
If you could turn back time
Epel and her team recently found that women who followed a diet with healthy nutrients such as folate and magnesium, showed signs of younger biological age, while women who consumed diets higher in added sugar were found to have older biological ages.
These findings were independent, in that more sugar meant more accelerated biological age, even if a woman’s overall diet was healthier, but sticking to a healthier overall diet was associated with slower cellular aging, even in those who consumed more added sugar.
Another team of researchers similarly looked at diet, with an eight-week twin study, where one twin followed a vegan diet while the other continued eating meat.
The “vegan” twins had lower age markers in different body systems compared to their meat-eating identical twin, and even more compelling, they had a decrease in their biological ages among multiple epigenetic clocks.
“Our health is not necessarily set in stone, it’s changing all the time, and so within the realm of our own individual spaces, we have some power, in terms of, the health behaviors that we choose to engage in, and those can have an impact on our epigenetic health,” Dorothy Chiu, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Osher Center for Integrative Health at UCSF, told ABC News.
Looking to the future
Understanding biological aging can be empowering. But it’s just as important to remember that it is not the end all, be all, Epel cautions.
“We don’t suggest individuals go out and get tested and think they’ve determined how long they are going to live,” she said. “It’s one source of information, and it’s not definitive in any way, especially since it changes.”
The main takeaway is that day-to-day habits can potentially influence health right down to the cellular level. Any steps, even small steps, towards staying healthy may have benefits.
While we can test biological age for some insights into how well someone is aging, for now, the best way to stay healthy is to keep up to date with screenings and follow the evidence-based recommendations from your healthcare provider.
(NEW YORK) — Current routine blood tests are not a reliable way of diagnosing long COVID, according to a new study.
The researchers, who published their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal on Monday, examined if a COVID-19 infection led to changes in routine blood biomarkers, such as platelet counts or protein in the urine, that may be predictive of long COVID.
The study is part of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) RECOVER Initiative, which seeks to better understand, diagnose, prevent and treat the condition.
“Our challenge is to discover biomarkers that can help us quickly and accurately diagnose long COVID to ensure people struggling with this disease receive the most appropriate care as soon as possible,” said Dr. David Goff, director for the division of cardiovascular sciences at the NIH’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in a statement.
“Long COVID symptoms can prevent someone from returning to work or school, and may even make everyday tasks a burden, so the ability for rapid diagnosis is key,” the statement continued.
Long COVID occurs when patients still have symptoms at least four weeks after they have cleared the infection. In some cases, symptoms can be experienced for months or years.
Symptoms vary and can include fatigue, difficulty breathing, headaches, brain fog, joint and muscle pain and continued loss of taste and smell, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Long COVID most often occurs in people who had severe illness, but anyone can develop the condition. People who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 may be at higher risk of developing long COVID, according to the CDC.
Scientists are not sure what causes long COVID but have identified risk factors including having underlying conditions or experiencing multi-system inflammatory syndrome due to COVID. There have also been studies concerning whether long COVID patients have blood biomarkers different from those who were infected with the virus but didn’t develop long COVID.
For the study, researchers looked at more than 10,000 adults enrolled in the RECOVER Adult Cohort at 83 sites across the U.S. between October 2021 and 2023. Of the group, more than 8,700 had previously been infected with COVID.
Participants completed a set of surveys, a physical examination and 25 standard laboratory blood and urine tests. The participants were then followed routinely over the next two years, taking follow-up surveys and follow-up lab tests.
Researchers detected “markedly few differences in biomarkers between those with prior infection and those without,” according to a press release.
One difference the team did find is that, compared to people without prior COVID infections, those with prior COVID infections were associated with small increases in HbA1c, which measures average blood sugar levels over two to three months to screen for diabetes. However, these increases disappeared after participants with pre-existing diabetes were excluded.
There were also slightly elevated levels of uACR, which measures the amount of albumin and creatinine in urine to help identify kidney damage, in long COVID patients. However, these differences were only seen in a small group and this damage may have occurred during their initial infection, the team said.
“Future work will use RECOVER’s biobank of cohort samples such as blood and spinal fluid, to develop more novel laboratory-based tests that help us better understand the pathophysiology of long COVID,” Dr. Kristine Erlandson, a professor of medicine and infectious disease at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Authorities warned residents of Lincoln, New Hampshire, to monitor themselves for symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease after five people fell ill in June and July.
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services on Monday linked the outbreak of the bacterial pneumonia — which is caused by inhaling water droplets contaminated with Legionella bacteria — to a cooling tower behind the RiverWalk Resort in downtown Lincoln.
“Anybody who has visited the area near the contaminated cooling tower should monitor themselves for symptoms,” Dr. Benjamin Chan, New Hampshire state epidemiologist, said in a DHHS statement.
“People who develop fever or other symptoms of pneumonia within 14 days after spending time in this area should talk to their healthcare provider about testing for Legionella infection,” he added.
The cooling tower has been sanitized and put back into operation after discussion with state officials, RiverWalk Vice President Renee Blood told ABC News affiliate WMUR-TV.
“Out of an abundance of caution, additional testing will be performed later this week,” Blood told WMUR.
The test results are expected next week.
DHHS said the cooling tower’s continued operation could mean further exposure risks, particularly for people within a half-mile of the facility.
“Anyone who is visiting the specified area should assess their health risk,” DHHS said. “Those who are older, are current or former smokers, have weakened immune systems, or have certain medical conditions like chronic lung disease and diabetes are at higher risk for developing Legionnaire’s disease.”
Symptoms usually begin between two and 14 days following exposure and can include fever, cough and shortness of breath. The bacteria can also cause serious pneumonia, the stage known as Legionnaires’ disease. The condition can be fatal if left untreated.
DHHS noted, however, that most healthy people exposed to Legionella bacteria do not fall ill.
(NEW YORK) — More than half of U.S. states are reporting “very high” levels of COVID activity as the virus continues to spread and increase in many parts of the country, according to the latest wastewater data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 27 states are reporting “very high” levels and 17 states are reporting “high” levels of wastewater viral activity.
The western region continues to see the highest levels followed by the South, Midwest and Northeast, respectively.
Current levels are nearing but remain lower than what they were in the winter months, when there tends to be increased spread of respiratory illnesses.
Wastewater data comes with limitations in how well it represents spread in a community, but it may be the best data available, experts say.
“While wastewater is not a perfect measure, it’s increasingly vital in filling the gaps left by the absence of comprehensive case reporting and hospitalization data,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
Many national surveillance systems have diminished in scope since the national public health emergency ended, leaving authorities with limited resources to monitor how the virus is spreading.
“As traditional surveillance systems have dwindled, wastewater analysis has emerged as one of the most reliable tools we have to monitor COVID-19 activity in communities,” Brownstein added.
Other limited COVID surveillance systems such as emergency department visits and test positivity are also on the rise, according to CDC data. Deaths from the virus remain relatively flat, especially compared to previous years.
Updated COVID vaccines are set to be available this fall, according to federal health authorities. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended that vaccine manufacturers formulate shots based on the KP.2 strain, an offshoot of the omicron variant that is currently estimated to make up about 6% of cases.
Genetically similar variants, known as KP.3.1.1 and KP.3, currently make up almost half of estimated cases, CDC data shows.
The CDC has already recommended that everyone over the age of 6 months get an updated COVID vaccine this season. The recommendation will take effect as soon as the vaccines are made available, pending FDA authorization.
An expected delivery date for the updated COVID vaccines has not been shared yet, but in previous years the shot was made available in late August or September. Vaccine manufacturers have told ABC News they are ready to ship doses as soon as they receive the green light from the FDA.
(NEW YORK) — A third death has been reported in connection to a multi-state outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections that has been linked to a Boar’s Head deli meat recall.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that since a previous update on July 31, nine more cases of listeria had been reported, including one new death in Virginia.
In total, there have been 43 illnesses leading to hospitalization.
The announcement also stated that the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets’ Division of Food Safety and Inspection “collected unopened Boar’s Head liverwurst products from retail stores and the New York State Food Laboratory identified Listeria monocytogenes” and that “[whole-genome sequencing] determined it to be the same strain as the strain making people sick in this outbreak.”
Boar’s Head previously expanded its original July 26 recall on several types of deli meats to include an additional 7 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products that may be contaminated with listeria.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service initially announced that Boar’s Head Provisions Co. had recalled 71 products produced between May 10, 2024, and July 29, 2024, under the Boar’s Head and Old Country brand names.
The announcement was an expansion on a previous recall announcement amid an ongoing investigation by the CDC into an outbreak of listeria infections linked to meats sliced at delis that had sickened 34 people across 13 states.
ABC News’ Good Morning America has reached out to Boar’s Head for comment on the recall.
Details of Boar’s Head deli meat recall
The Virginia-based meat producer initially recalled approximately 207,528 pounds of products that were distributed to retail deli locations nationwide, including all liverwurst products and “additional deli meat products that were produced on the same line and on the same day as the liverwurst” that could be “adulterated with L. monocytogenes.”
Boar’s Head deli meat recalled product information
“On July 30, Boar’s Head expanded their July 26 recall to include all deli products, including prepackaged deli products, in shelf life from this establishment,” the CDC stated previously. “Look for “EST. 12612” or “P-12612″ inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.”
The items “include meat intended for slicing at retail delis as well as some packaged meat and poultry products sold at retail locations,” FSIS stated Wednesday. “These products have ‘sell by’ dates ranging from 29-JUL-2024 through 17-OCT-24.”
Click here for the full list of product details with item numbers, brand names and sell by dates.
The ready-to-eat liverwurst products were produced between June 11, 2024, and July 17, 2024, and have a 44-day shelf life.
Recalled liverwurst products include 3.5-pound loaves in plastic casing, or “various weight packages sliced in retail delis,” according to the FSIS, and are labeled “Boar’s Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst MADE IN VIRGINIA.”
The products, which the FSIS said were shipped to retailers, bear sell by dates ranging from July 25 to Aug. 30, 2024. Sell by dates are printed on the side of the packaging.
Additional ready-to-eat deli meats subject to recall
9.5-pound and 4.5-pound full product, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head VIRGINIA HAM OLD FASHIONED HAM” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
4-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
6-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head EXTRA HOT ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
4-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head BOLOGNA” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
2.5-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head BEEF SALAMI” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
5.5-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head STEAKHOUSE ROASTED BACON HEAT & EAT” with sell by date “AUG 15” on the product packaging.
3-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head GARLIC BOLOGNA” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
3-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing “Boar’s Head BEEF BOLOGNA” with sell by date “AUG 10” on the product packaging.
The recalled products bear establishment number “EST. 12612” inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.
The above products were produced on June 27, 2024, according to Boar’s Head.
What prompted the Boar’s Head recall
According to the USDA, the problem was discovered when the FSIS “was notified that a sample collected by the Maryland Department of Health tested positive for L. monocytogenes.”
“The Maryland Department of Health, in collaboration with the Baltimore City Health Department, collected an unopened liverwurst product from a retail store for testing as part of an outbreak investigation of L. monocytogenes infections,” the agency stated previously. “Further testing is ongoing to determine if the product sample is related to the outbreak. Anyone concerned about illness should contact a healthcare provider.”
Details of listeria outbreak linked to deli meats
The FSIS is currently working with the CDC as well as state public health partners to investigate a multi-state outbreak of listeria infections linked to meats sliced at delis, USDA officials said.
According to the CDC, “All 43 people have been hospitalized and three deaths have now been reported, one from Illinois, one from New Jersey, and, as of this update, one from Virginia.”
As of Aug. 8, states involved in the outbreak included Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts.
“Samples were collected from sick people from May 29, 2024, to July 12, 2024,” the USDA stated, adding that “the investigation is ongoing.”
In a notice published July 19, the CDC stated that many of those sickened in the outbreak had reported eating meat that they had sliced at deli counters.
“Investigators are collecting information to determine the specific products that may be contaminated,” the CDC stated.
“Listeria spreads easily among deli equipment, surfaces, hands and food,” the agency added. “Refrigeration does not kill Listeria, but reheating to a high enough temperature before eating will kill any germs that may be on these meats.”
Symptoms, side effects of listeria
According to the CDC, listeria can cause severe illness “when the bacteria spread beyond the gut to other parts of the body” after a person consumes contaminated food. Those at higher risk include pregnant people, those aged 65 or older, or anyone who has a weakened immune system, the CDC says.
“If you are pregnant, it can cause pregnancy loss, premature birth, or a life-threatening infection in your newborn,” the CDC states on its website. “Other people can be infected with Listeria, but they rarely become seriously ill.”
According to the CDC, anyone infected with listeria may experience “mild food poisoning symptoms” such as diarrhea or fever, and many recover without antibiotic treatment.
An estimated 1,600 people get listeria food poisoning each year and about 260 die, according to the CDC.
An earlier version of this story was originally published July 26, 2024.
(NEW YORK) — A new study suggests a popular artificial sweetener found in everything from drinks and baked goods to gum and candy could be linked to a higher risk of blood clots, but the researchers themselves say their findings are preliminary and more research is needed to understand any potential health risks.
Erythritol, a zero-calorie sweetener widely used in sugar replacement or reduced-sugar products, was found to increase levels of proteins associated with blood clotting compared to regular sugar, according to a new study published Thursday in the medical journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
“This research raises some concerns that a standard serving of an erythritol-sweetened food or beverage may acutely stimulate a direct clot-forming effect,” the study’s co-author, Dr. W. H. Wilson Tang, research director for Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplantation Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement announcing the study’s findings. “Erythritol and other sugar alcohols that are commonly used as sugar substitutes should be evaluated for potential long-term health effects especially when such effects are not seen with glucose itself.”
For the study, 10 people were randomly assigned to drink water mixed with 30 grams of erythritol, while another 10 individuals were randomly assigned to drink water mixed with 30 grams of glucose.
The amount of 30 grams was chosen because it is the quantity commonly found in erythritol-containing foods, according to the Cleveland Clinic researchers who led the study.
The people who drank water mixed with erythritol were found 30 minutes later to have a higher level of proteins involved in platelet clumping in their bloodstream compared to those who drank glucose.
Erythritol is a sugar alcohol that is naturally found in fruits such as watermelons, pears and grapes, but has since been processed as a food additive used to sweeten and enhance the flavor of foods, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
According to Cleveland Clinic researchers, erythritol is produced through fermenting corn.
Consuming high amounts of sugar carries its own risk.
Due to a growing obesity epidemic, artificial sweeteners are becoming increasingly common ingredients found in soft drinks, “diet” foods and other processed products. Although federal regulatory agencies like the FDA have deemed most artificial sweeteners as safe, studies are ongoing about the long-term health effects.
A previous study on erythritol from researchers at Cleveland Clinic found that higher levels of erythritol were found among patients who experienced a major adverse cardiovascular event — which includes stroke, heart attack, blood clots and cardiovascular death — over three years of observation.
Last year, the World Health Organization issued a new recommendation that people who are trying to lose weight should avoid using zero-calorie non-sugar sweeteners.
Zero-calorie non-sugar sweeteners have not been shown to help with weight loss long-term in children or adults, and their use may bring side effects like increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, Type 2 diabetes and death in adults, the WHO said at the time.
(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 has significantly fallen as a leading cause of death in the U.S. for the first time since the pandemic began, according to new provisional data published Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In 2023, the virus was the tenth-leading cause of death among Americans, down from the fourth-leading cause in 2022 and the third-leading cause of death between March 2020 and October 2021.
The report also found that overall deaths fell significantly from 2022 to 2023.
The report did not go into reasons for why deaths have fallen, but Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said likely reasons include the prevention of COVID fatalities through vaccines, treatments for early onset illness and a better overall understanding of the virus.
“Being on the other side of the pandemic played a big part in seeing this overall mortality rate go down,” he said. ‘This is, in large part, related to the public health effort, especially vaccines that, of course, saved so many lives.”
For the report, researchers looked at preliminary death certificate data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics’ (NCHS) National Vital Statistics System.
In 2023, there were about 3.09 million deaths in the U.S. with an age-adjusted rate of 750.4 deaths per 100,000 people. This is a decrease of 6.1% from the rate of 798.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2022.
Additionally, death rates were highest among males, older adults and Black Americans, according to the report.
The three leading causes of death in the U.S. were heart disease, cancer and unintentional injury, respectively, which is unchanged from 2022.
Last year marked the first time since the pandemic began that COVID-19 was not one of the top five leading causes of death. Provisional data showed COVID-19 was the underlying cause for 1.6% of all deaths in 2023, decreasing from 5.7% in 2022.
The COVID-19 death rate fell from 58.7 per 100,000 deaths in 2022 to 18.2 per 100,000 in 2023, the report found.
The number of COVID-19-associated deaths fell from 2023 across all age groups and racial/ethnic groups.
Death rates from COVID-19 were highest among those aged 75 and older — highlighting the impact the virus has had on the elderly population. However, the gap between death rates among racial/ethnic groups shrunk from 2022 to 2023.
In 2022, the COVID death rate for white Americans was 58.6 per 100,000 compared to 71.0 per 100,000 for Black Americans. In 2023, the rate was 19.6 per 100,000 for white Americans and 17 per 100,000 for Black Americans.
“Because of the wide disparities that exist in COVID-related deaths, and we know that COVID deaths were not equal across the population, especially hit…Black populations and other and African American people, it’s not surprising that when you overall reduce COVID deaths, that will overall contribute to potentially sort of a closing of the gap,” Brownstein said.
He added that there is more work to be done to close the gap even further, including providing access to health care and insurance for traditionally underserved populations.
Brownstein also said he hopes more efforts can be made to reduce deaths from traditional leading causes of death such as heart disease and cancer.
“We’ve made a big dent in COVID as a result of response efforts,” he said. “But now there’s still such an important effort to deal with some of these other leading causes of death. These data are important because they can help from an awareness perspective and an allocation of research resources.”
