(LOS ANGELES) — The percentage of emergency department (ED) visits related to fire and smoke inhalation rose dramatically in the days immediately after the Los Angeles wildfires last month, new data published Thursday shows.
The wildfires broke out in the Pacific Palisades and in Eaton Canyon on Jan. 7. Although several destructive wildfires emerged, the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire caused the most damage.
Fueled by strong winds and dry weather, the fires burned more than 57,000 acres, destroyed about 16,000 structures, and killed at least 29 people, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
A team from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed data from the county’s Syndromic Surveillance program, which receives and analyzes real-time data from most county EDs.
By collecting this data, the program can detect early warning signals of a potential public health threat that requires a response and alert health care professionals, according to the department of health.
ED visits, referred to in the report as “encounters,” were classified as being wildfire-associated if fire or smoke inhalation–related terms were listed in the chief complaints or the diagnoses sections.
The team looked at three periods: a three-week period before the wildfires began, the first six days of the wildfires and the week after the wildfires began.
Data showed the average percentage of ED visits associated with the wildfires increased eightfold from 0.06% to 0.52% in the six days after the wildfires. The peak was seen on Jan. 8, with 1.01% of all ED visits related to the wildfires. During the week after the wildfires began, ED visits decreased but still remained elevated at 0.2% compared to baseline.
The average percentage of ED visits was found to be linked to an increase in the average daily Air Quality Index (AQI), which is put out by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Average daily AQI rose from 75, which is classified as “moderate level of concern” to an average of 110, classified as “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” in the six days after the wildfires began. In the week following the outbreak of the fires, average daily AQI returned to “moderate” at 58.
The report found a small increase in the average percentage of burn-related injuries and eye-related injuries but there were no increases seen in the percentage of visits related to asthma or cardiovascular reasons.
In contrast, the report found that immediately after the wildfires began, all-cause ED encounters — meaning visits to the department for any reason — decreased by 9%.
The authors stated that the decrease could for multiple reasons, with some including school closures, business closures, displacements, challenges accessing health care, residents seeking care in clinics or urgent care centers, or residents visiting EDs in neighboring counties.
“Near real-time surveillance of health outcomes during and after wildfires can estimate effects on health care use, serve as an early warning for acute health impacts, and identify opportunities for intervention,” the authors wrote. “Further analyses are planned to identify which illnesses have most affected specific populations.”
(NEW YORK) — More than 1 million children may have been affected by long COVID in 2023, new federal data published Monday suggests.
Long COVID, a condition that occurs when patients still have symptoms at least three months after clearing infection, has been well-documented in adults, but its impact on children has been less clear.
Researchers from two divisions within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at results from the 2023 National Health Interview Survey, a nationwide survey that monitors the health of the U.S. population.
One child aged 17 or under was randomly selected from each sample household within the survey, and parents responded to questions about whether their child had previous COVID-19 illness, if the child had symptoms lasting three months or longer and if the child still had those symptoms at the time of interview.
Results of the analysis, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, showed approximately 1.01 million children, or 1.4%, are believed to have ever experienced long COVID in 2023 and about 293,000, or 0.4%, were experiencing the condition when the survey was being conducted.
This is similar to the 1.3%, or about 1 million, of children ever estimated to have had long COVID in 2022, according to the authors.
Children between ages 12 and 17 were most likely to have ever experienced long COVID or to still have the condition. Long COVID prevalence was also higher among Hispanic and non-Hispanic white children compared to non-Hispanic Black and Asian children.
Long COVID was also most common among children with a family income of under $100,000 and of parents with an education level of an associate’s degree or less.
Among children currently experiencing long COVID at the time of interview, 80% reported to have some level of activity limitation compared with before they had COVID-19.
“The large proportion of children experiencing [long COVID] with any activity limitation highlights the need to examine the severity of activity limitation, functional outcomes, and days lost from school,” the authors wrote.
The authors said there may be an under-reporting of long COVID in younger children due to difficulty with the verbalization of their symptoms.
Long COVID most often occurs in people who had severe illness, but anyone can develop the condition, according to the CDC. People who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 are at higher risk of developing long COVID, the agency says.
Scientists are not sure what causes long COVID but have identified risk factors including having underlying conditions.
(WASHINGTON) — Government agency webpages about HIV, LGBTQ+ people and multiple other public health topics were down as of Friday evening due to President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Some of the terms being flagged for removal include pregnant people, chestfeeding, diversity, DEI and references to vaccines, health and gender equity, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity.
Entire databases have also been temporarily removed.
Researchers confirmed to ABC News they were scrambling to collect and archive as much data as possible from the sites before they were taken down.
Some pages might be returned to public view after the language is reviewed and removed, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC said, though it’s not clear which pages.
Removed pages included key CDC information on the rate of HIV diagnoses, breakdowns of infections by race and gender and the probability of HIV transmission by various forms of sex.
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, a national survey system that collects various habits on teenagers as well as their gender identity, is also down.
The CDC’s “HIV Risk Reduction Tool,” an interactive tool that allowed users to gauge the risk of certain sexual behaviors, has also been erased.
For now, the agency appears to have consolidated all of its information about the virus that causes AIDS into a single, simplified page titled, “About HIV.”
Another website, reproductiverights.gov, which provided resources on reproductive care and abortion access, was also removed. The Food and Drug Administration’s webpage titled “Minority Health and Health Equity” was also down.
Asked Friday afternoon in the Oval Office if government websites would be shut down to be scrubbed, the president said it wouldn’t be a “bad idea.”
“I don’t know — it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Trump said.
“DEI … would have ruined our country, and now it’s dead. I think DEI is dead. So, if they want to scrub the website, that’s OK with me. But I can’t tell you,” Trump continued. Trump’s executive order on DEI called for an “end” to any related policies within the federal government.
The other executive order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” directed the federal government to recognize only two sexes: male and female.
A memo sent to HHS officials on Wednesday directed subagencies such as the CDC to remove “all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology” by 5 p.m. on Friday.
(NEW YORK) — Friday marks five years since the COVID-19 virus was declared a public health emergency by the United States. But five years later, the virus is still killing thousands, according to experts.
“One of the things we have learned is that COVID came to us new, and now is integrated into our way of life,” said Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “COVID is not going away, and it still causes a substantial amount of illness each year.”
While the world might not be in a global pandemic anymore, Sean Clarke, a professor of nursing leadership at New York University, said COVID is still a constant presence.
“The virus is still persistent and still moving. It’s still not a trivial thing,” Clarke told ABC News. “It hasn’t vanished, it’s just at a different point.”
Since 2020, over 7 million lives have been lost to the virus, according to the World Health Organization. Social distancing, wearing masks and introducing COVID-19 vaccines led the WHO to declare on May 5, 2023, that the virus was no longer a global health emergency. However, that didn’t mean COVID-19 could be immediately disregarded, said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“It is with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency,” Ghebreyesus said in 2023. “However, that does not mean COVID-19 is over as a global health threat.”
There have been 2,861 reported COVID-19 deaths in the world in the last 28 days, according to the WHO, with the U.S. making up 2,100 of those deaths. Hospitalizations and emergency department visits are also on the rise, and death rates for COVID-19 are at 1.8%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite five years of research developments, treatments and diagnostic tests, Schaffner told ABC News that COVID-19 will always be around, with two peaks each year — one in the summer and one in winter.
“We are going to have to keep living with this virus as we live with others,” Schaffner said.
The thousands of deaths and rise in hospitalizations will not decrease until more people take advantage of getting vaccinated, Schaffner told ABC News.
While COVID-19 vaccines are available for adults and children, vaccination rates are low. As of Jan. 4, less than 25% of adults were vaccinated with the updated 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.
“There are still people who are being admitted who’ve never been vaccinated at all and others who are not up to date in their vaccinations,” Schaffner said. “That’s unfortunate because the data continues to show that vaccination is the single most important preventive measure.”
Since COVID-19’s introduction, many patients have reported experiencing long COVID-19, where symptoms continue for years after the initial infection. According to the Mayo Clinic, some researchers have estimated that 10% to 35% of people who have had COVID-19 went on to have long COVID.
Schaffner said the way to diminish cases of long COVID is to keep up with vaccinations, which will reduce the chance of acquiring the virus and eliminate the possibility of developing long COVID.
“Anything we can do to reduce the occurrence and the severity of that acute infection will result in a reduction in the risk of long COVID,” Schaffner said. “Vaccination helps prevent and reduce the severity of the initial infection, it also reduces the risk of you getting long COVID.”
Looking at the next five years, Schaffner said the virus will continue to evolve or mutate, which will lead to updated vaccines on an annual basis. But, COVID-19 might also become even more intense, Schaffner said.
“This virus could mutate again and become more severe,” Schaffner said. “We don’t know if that’s going to happen. But when it comes to viruses, it’s very hazardous to predict the future, because they’re so unpredictable.”
Henry Callander says his forehead blew up like “a giant bee sting” after a Botox treatment. Via ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — JGL Aesthetics’ Instagram profile promised its clients radiant skin, friendly service and a machine they said could give people toned abs. However, some clients allege that the New York medical spa’s owner injected them with fake Botox that caused negative side effects.
Aesthetician Joey Luther was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly buying counterfeit Botox from China and injecting it into patients, without the required New York medical license, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
The 54-year-old was charged with wire fraud, smuggling and other crimes related to the purchase and import of misbranded and counterfeit drugs at the Manhattan spa. None of the counterfeit Botox was approved by the Food and Drug Administration, prosecutors said.
According to the criminal complaint, an investigation began after one of Luther’s patients said they experienced double vision, heart palpitations, weakness from the waist up and other problems after receiving a Botox injection from JGL Aesthetics.
One alleged victim visited three hospitals to treat her symptoms and was diagnosed with Botulism — a potentially fatal illness — in March 2024, prosecutors said.
Almost 5 million people in the U.S. got Botox in 2023, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
“So I think I saw the biggest uptick in requests for Botox during the pandemic,” Dr. Evan Rieder, a dermatologist, told “Nightline.” “When we were sitting at home during the pandemic, people were really glued to their cellphones and they were really diving into social media.”
Prosecutors say that Luther didn’t have the required New York State medical license to administer Botox.
When one client in the criminal complaint allegedly texted Luther about her symptoms, the complaint claims that “Luther falsely responded that he injected Botox from Allergan,” the name brand.
“If you’re getting something that’s actually not Botox, no one knows what is actually going into that mixture,” Rieder said. “If you have Botox that’s counterfeit, but it’s too strong, you could get Botulism, and it can cause all sorts of side effects in your body where the nerves are being paralyzed.”
The complaint alleges that Luther responded to multiple clients’ concerns, reassuring them about alleged symptoms including worsening vision, difficulty swallowing, headaches and neck fatigue.
While Luther was messaging his clients, the complaint alleges that he was in contact with his supplier to inform them that the product he got from them was tainted.
According to the complaint, “he, in fact, tries to bargain with his supplier, suggesting that, if they want to keep him as a client, that they need to send better product and send it quickly,” trial attorney and ABC News contributor Brian Buckmire said.
Henry Callander was among Luther’s patients, but isn’t part of the criminal complaint. His friends recommended JGL Aesthetics, and he thought he was getting his forehead treated for a fraction of the price.
“It was probably like 20% cheaper than regular Botox,” Callander told ABC News. “Depending on the treatment I was doing, it was probably like $400 a treatment.”
An attorney representing Luther did not respond to a request for comment from “Nightline.”
Luther is out on bail, but could face decades in prison if the complaint leads to trial and he’s found guilty. His next court date is Feb. 12.
The alleged danger isn’t limited to New York — the CDC issued a notice about counterfeit Botox and injections from individuals who were not following state or local requirements in December after 17 people across nine states suffered negative reactions.
In California, Lori Reed said she got Botox and filler treatments from a woman who she thought was a nurse for a few years because the price was right. Eventually, she alleged she had a bad reaction.
“My eyes were swollen and they were beet red,” she told “Nightline.” “And it has not gone away to this day.”
Several years later, Reed said she is still dealing with the consequences, even after getting multiple procedures to reverse the damage.
“For a while, I was very self-conscious. I wouldn’t even date,” she told “Nightline.” “I felt like I looked like a monster.”
According to a civil complaint filed by 16 different women, the injector was never licensed to inject Botox. The suit has since been settled.
She was ultimately found guilty in a criminal case and is serving probation after her six-year prison sentence was suspended.
“I wanted her to reap some sort of consequences for the damage that she had done — I expected her to do jail time,” Reed said. “It turned out that she did not. So I was a little disappointed in that.”
A “Nightline” episode that aired on ABC on Jan. 28, and is available now on Hulu, details the allegations about counterfeit Botox that led to criminal charges.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved a new type of prescription pain medication for adults to treat moderate to severe acute pain.
The drug, called Journavx (suzetrigine) and manufactured by biotech company Vertex Pharmaceuticals, is a non-opioid painkiller, which doesn’t have addictive properties, unlike opioids often used for this type of pain.
This is the first class of non-opioid pain medication approved to treat moderate to severe acute pain approved by the FDA in more than 20 years.
“Today’s approval is an important public health milestone in acute pain management,” said Dr. Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “A new non-opioid analgesic therapeutic class for acute pain offers an opportunity to mitigate certain risks associated with using an opioid for pain and provides patients with another treatment option.”
In two clinical trials, tested on adults between ages 18 and 80, Journavx was found to reduce moderate to severe acute pain for adults from baseline by about 50% in 48 hours.
The average time to meaningful pain relief ranged from two to four hours, compared to eight hours in the placebo group.
Journavx works by inhibiting the NaV1.8 pain signal in the peripheral nervous system. This channel is not expressed in the brain or anywhere else in the central nervous system, therefore the drug does not have addictive properties like opioids, according to Vertex.
Journavx was found to be as similarly effective as hydrocodone, an opioid pain medication, for reducing acute pain, with the added benefit of being a non-opioid and non-addictive drug.
In another clinical trial, the drug was tested in patients with a broader range of surgical and non-surgical acute pain conditions and was found to be safe and effective.
More than 80% of patients in this clinical trial rated Journavx as a good, very good or excellent pain medication when investigating multiple acute pain types.
The new drug “offers a safer option for managing moderate-to-severe acute pain, reducing reliance on opioids,” Dr. Jianguo Cheng, a professor of anesthesiology and medical director of the Cleveland Clinic Consortium for Pain at Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the clinical trials, told ABC News. “It offers rapid relief and can be integrated into postoperative pain protocols or acute pain scenarios where immediate relief is critical.”
“By managing acute pain effectively, [Journavx] may help prevent the transition to chronic pain, reducing the need for long-term pain management strategies,” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — When the White House budget office released a memo this week that instructed all federal agencies to cease spending on any financial assistance programs pending internal review, the fate of the nation’s largest public health insurance program was propelled into question.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that provides health care coverage to low-income individuals and families. There were over 79 million Americans enrolled in the program as of October 2024.
The online Medicaid reimbursement portal accessible by every state was reportedly down following Tuesday’s freeze announcement, despite the White House Office of Management and Budget saying in an updated memo that the program would not be affected.
On Wednesday, after being temporarily blocked by a federal judge and already facing a legal challenge from 22 state attorneys general, the freeze was rescinded.
While federal administrators and private individuals alike scramble to understand which programs could be affected by President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive orders, experts say Medicaid’s role in America cannot overstated.
“It’s really the backbone of many aspects of our health care system,” Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, told ABC News.
From birth to elder care, Medicaid covers newborns, children, low-income individuals and families, people with disabilities and substance abuse issues, and nursing home residents, among others, according to Alker.
“I think we all need to really pay attention to what’s going on here, both in the administration but, more importantly, in Congress, where they are contemplating these very large cuts,” Alker said.
What is Medicaid?
Medicaid, which turns 60 this year, was established in 1965 as amendments to Social Security by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The program was meant to provide health insurance to individuals and families who could not afford or were not provided private insurance through employment.
Now, it’s a nearly $900 billion program funded by both the federal government and individual states, with each state administering its own eligibility, benefits and payment rates based on federal guidelines, according to the program’s website.
The federal government reimburses states for a portion of Medicaid costs through the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage program, which covers hospitals, doctors, clinics, pharmacies and nursing homes with little to no copayments by the beneficiaries, according to Medicaid.
“Medicaid serves a key role in the health insurance market, and for many people, there is no alternative,” Eric Seiber, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Public Health and director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Evaluation Studies at Ohio State University, told ABC News.
“This affects Medicaid beneficiaries, but also Medicaid providers. What is often overlooked is one person’s healthcare expense is another person’s healthcare income,” Seiber added.
How many Americans are on Medicaid?
As of October 2024, the program reported that 79.4 million people were enrolled in Medicaid across the U.S. That includes 41.7 million adults enrolled in Medicaid and 37.6 million Medicaid child and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees.
Medicaid enrollment is on the rise, with the program seeing a 20% increase in applications since October 2023 and a 66% increase since October 2022, according to the program.
Who is eligible for Medicaid?
Eligibility for Medicaid coverage is based on income, family size, disability status and age, and can vary from state to state.
The expansion of Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act made adults with incomes of up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or about $20,783 for an individual, eligible in 2024, according to the program.
Not everyone to enrolls in Medicaid remains on it indefinitely, according to Seiber.
“Medicaid often serves as a trampoline, not a safety net. People land on Medicaid and often bounce right back off,” Seiber told ABC News of Medicaid’s role in the American health care system.
“I would say that Medicaid protects people’s health, but also their future,” Seiber added.
Medicaid during Trump’s first administration
Trump’s first administration saw threats to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act that were ultimately rejected, perhaps most dramatically in 2017 when Sen. John McCain, who died of brain cancer the following year, returned to Washington, D.C., to vote against the so-called “skinny repeal” of the ACA and hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid.
Trump was attempting to replace the ACA with the American Health Care Act, which would have repealed the individual mandate and the employer mandate, amended Medicaid eligibility and weakened protections for patients with pre-existing conditions.
In December 2017, a Republican tax reform law was passed that eliminated individual mandates, which Gallup later said may have reduced participation in the insurance marketplace.
At the end of 2019, 13.7% of adults were without health insurance, the highest level seen since early 2014, according to Gallup data.
Fast-forward to the 2024 election cycle: Trump made little mention of Medicaid amid various campaign trail comments about possible changes to Medicare and Social Security.
In March, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he was “not running to terminate” the ACA but said he wanted to make it “better” and “less expensive.”
During the September presidential debate, he said he had “concepts of a plan” and said it would be “better health care than Obamacare,” but offered few details.
“Medicaid will be turning 60 this year, so we are very concerned that that proposal may arise again,” Alker said of possible cuts to federal Medicaid funding.
“So our future is really at stake here, and I think with an aging population, with a growing need for long-term care, there’s no way that states can manage this,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — Kansas is facing the largest recorded tuberculosis outbreak in U.S. history, according to local health officials.
As of Jan. 24, there have been 67 confirmed cases of active TB including 60 in Wyandotte County and seven in Johnson County, according to the Kanas Department of Health and Environment.
Additionally, there are 79 confirmed latent TB cases, including 77 in Wyandotte County and two in Johnson County. Wyandotte County contains part of Kansas City and Johnson County is just southwest of Kansas City.
Cases linked to the outbreak were first reported in January 2024, according to KDHE. So far, there have been two deaths related to the outbreak, both of which occurred last year.
“The current Kansas City, Kan. Metro tuberculosis (TB) outbreak is the largest documented outbreak in U.S. history, presently (since the 1950s, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started monitoring and reporting TB cases),” KDHE said in a statement. “This outbreak is still ongoing, which means that there could be more cases.”
Health officials say the risk to people living in surrounding counties and to the general public is “very low,” and that the department is following guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
TB is a disease caused by a type of bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, according to the CDC. It is one of the world’s leading infectious disease killers, the federal health agency says.
TB is spread in the air from one person to another. When a person with TB coughs, speaks or sings, germs are expelled into the air — where they can linger for several hours — before another person breathes in the air and becomes infected.
Signs and symptoms include a cough that lasts for three weeks or longer, coughing up blood or phlegm, chest pain, weakness, fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, chills and night sweats, according to the CDC.
Some people become infected with TB germs that live in the body for years without causing illness. This is known as inactive TB or latent TB.
People with inactive TB do not feel ill, do not have symptoms and cannot spread germs to other people, the CDC says. However, without receiving treatment, people with inactive TB can develop active TB.
Last year, the U.S. saw more than 8,700 cases of TB, according to CDC data. Although TB cases have been steadily declining since the mid 1990s, rates increased in 2021, 2022 and 2023, with 2023 matching pre-pandemic levels.
There are several treatment regimens for TB disease that may last anywhere from four months to nine months depending on the course of treatment. Health care providers may consider specific regimens for patients with co-existing medical conditions such as diabetes or HIV.
A vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is commonly given to children in countries where TB is common, although it is generally not recommended in the U.S. due to the low risk of infection with the bacteria, variable vaccine effectiveness among adults, and the vaccine’s potential interference with TB tests, the CDC notes. The BCG vaccine often leaves a scar where the recipient was given the shot.
(NEW YORK) — Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, according to a new report.
The American Heart Association (AHA) report, published Monday in the journal Circulation, found that 941,652 Americans died from cardiovascular disease in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s an increase of more than 10,000 from the just over 931,500 reported to have died from cardiovascular disease in 2021.
It also means that a person in the U.S. dies of cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds, or nearly 2,500 people every day, according to the AHA report.
“The stats are pretty sobering from this report,” Dr. Tara Narula, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified cardiologist, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday. “In fact, cardiovascular disease kills more Americans than all forms of cancer and accidents combined.”
Cancer and accidental deaths continue to remain the second and third leading causes of death, respectively, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The AHA report also found racial and ethnicity disparities, with Black Americans having the highest prevalence of cardiovascular disease. Between 2017 and 2020, 59% of non-Hispanic Black females and 58.9% of non-Hispanic Black males had some form of the disease, according to the report.
In addition, the report showed several heart disease risk factors continue to rise, with nearly 47% of American adults having high blood pressure and more than half, 57%, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
Additionally, 72% of U.S. adults have an unhealthy weight, with nearly 42% of adults having obesity, which also is a risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease, according to the AHA report.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Dhruv Kazi, associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center In Boston, said risk factors for cardiovascular disease are expected to rise over the next several years.
“Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done,” Kazi wrote. “If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million.”
Overall, cardiovascular-related deaths have begun plateauing after ticking upward during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the AHA. The report found death rates dropped during the survey period for all 10 leading causes of death except kidney disease, which increased by 1.5%.
The good news is that 80% of cardiovascular disease is preventable, according to Narula. Ways to lower the risk include eating a heart-healthy diet, getting regular exercise, quitting smoking, managing stress, and getting adequate sleep every night.
Beauty influencer Ashley Stobart discusses how she got a facelift after removing fillers from her face/ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Celebrities are increasingly opening up about reversing cosmetic procedures and swearing off dermal fillers, but some have discovered it can come with unexpected consequences.
“Friends” actress Courteney Cox spoke about removing her fillers on the “Gloss Angeles” podcast in 2023.
“I was just doing too many fillers and then having to have them removed which, thank God they are removable, but I think I’ve messed — I messed up a lot and now, luckily, I can, you know, I was able to reverse most of that,” the 60-year-old said.
“IMPACT x Nightline: Facelift: After Fillers?” streams on Hulu beginning Jan. 23.
Reality TV star Lala Kent known for “Vanderpump Rules” discussed her change of heart with BravoTV.com.
“I wanna stop with the lips, I wanna stop with the fillers, you know, it’s just enough is enough,” the 34-year-old said. “I’m starting to look at the comments and compare photos, I’m not about it anymore.”
In 2023, model Blac Chyna told “Impact x Nightline” about how losing weight prompted her to have cosmetic work reversed at age 34.
“As I started to slim down, my features started to really come out, like my cheekbones and everything. So with all the filler, that started to really protrude out now that my face has become slimmer,” she said. “It served its purpose, like I’m just, I’m cutting ties with it so I can move on to the next chapter in my life.”
UK beauty influencer and podcaster Ashley Stobart shares her reflections on cosmetic procedures with followers on her podcast “Nip, Tuck, Not Giving A…” She got nonsurgical injections of lip filler when she was 18 — the earliest age it’s legal to do so in her country.
“It was just that quick fix I needed for maybe loss of volume, wanting bigger lips, bigger cheeks, the jaw filler, the chin filler, the nose filler,” she told ABC News. “I was having all the filler.”
Hyaluronic acid, which is commonly used for fillers, is a gel-like substance that’s injected into spaces to give an appearance of plumpness, according to ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton.
He noted that the internet is flooded with ads for med spas offering seemingly cheap deals on fillers and Botox.
“When you scroll online, you see advertisements for things like fillers — that should be a red flag,” Sutton said. “When you see people looking for customers, aka patients, trying to do procedures that they may not be fully skilled in doing, selling it at a discount, you know, these should be red flags.”
These injectables are sometimes described as dissolving over time, but Sutton said this isn’t always the case.
“We’re learning more and more that many of these substances are persistent in people’s bodies for longer than they may think,” he said. “And that exposes people to risks that we are only beginning to understand.”
When Stobart got pregnant, it meant she took a break from topping up her filler. Then she realized it hadn’t worn off.
“There were just multiple layers of treatments that I had accumulated over the years,” she said. “I’m looking bigger and puffier than ever.”
She decided to get her fillers reversed, but dissolving more than a decade’s worth of substances she had in her face left her with sagging skin. So she opted to get a face-lift at age 34.
She’s not alone. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons said that while the overwhelming majority of facelifts are still among people over 50, their members have observed an increase among people in their 40s and younger.
Even though Stobart had some of her fillers removed already, she said the face-lift surgery was grueling.
“They found a lot of hyaluronic acid, or remnants of some injectable at some point that I had had. They were pushing it out for hours,” she told ABC News. “I was in surgery for 9.5 hours in total. That wasn’t anticipated because when he opened everything up, it turned out there was still a lot left in there.”
Dr. Darien Sutton warned that the face is among the most complicated areas in the body due to the composition of blood vessels, nerves. and muscles, so the surgery requires expertise.
“The risk of complication is so high, and the risk of disfigurement is so high, that you have to make sure you’re doing it with someone who knows exactly what they’re doing,” he said.
Some people in their 20s and 30s are also sharing their surgical lift stories on social media. Ryan Joers is 26 years old, and started his cosmetic journey almost a decade ago with fillers.
“I had always seen on social media, other influencers,” he told ABC News. “Kylie Jenner, at that time was, I think, 16 years old, getting her lips done, and just seeing that kind of noise everywhere, seeing the influencers apply products to their lips that were beautiful and full was a big motivator.”
In the years that followed, Joers enjoyed being able to address perceived imperfections with filler. However, that changed when he was around 22.
“That was when I would smile — I didn’t see anything other than my lips,” he said. “I would see photos and videos of myself and just see lips.”
He acknowledged that he didn’t fully understand how fillers work when he first started getting them.
“Our knowledge on fillers was not what it was today, it was ‘fillers aren’t permanent.’ So you need more, you need more, you need more,” he said. “So I never really got the opportunity at first to understand different types of filler, how they interact differently in the body.”
After that, Joers began to undo what he had spent thousands of dollars and years of his life doing. He had some of his fillers dissolved and got a rhinoplasty, which is a plastic surgery that reshapes the nose. Then, at 25, he got a brow and eye lift.
“It was an interesting landscape, being, you know, a younger man — it comes with a lot of judgment from plastic surgeons,” he said. “You have to admit to someone not only that you made mistakes, but that you’re not happy with the way you look. And that’s a very vulnerable thing with anyone, whether it’s a friend or a doctor.”
Joers believes surgical lifts were his best option due to the limitations of the nonsurgical options available at med spas.
“I’m happier now with the way my face looks, given that surgery was an intervention or an option of altering my chin, altering my nose, altering my face in a way that naturally would have not been possible or achievable through a med spa procedure,” he said.
He hasn’t been afraid to be open and vulnerable about his journey, posting about his recovery and before-and-after shots on TikTok. His videos have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and he hopes telling his story will help those who are just starting their cosmetic journeys.
“I’m grateful for my experience, even the bad of it, because that’s how I got here,” he said. “Through that, I was able to learn and make better decisions when it came to permanent solutions.”
Having followed a similar path, Ashley Stobart told ABC News she hopes others learn from her story.
“I would just say, don’t rush into anything unless you’re 100% sure and you understand all of the pros and cons,” she said.
