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coke

Coke Adds Cane Sugar Option Amid Health Debate Over Corn Syrup, Trump Claims Influence

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Coca-Cola has announced it will launch a new soda made with U.S. cane sugar this fall, expanding its portfolio with an alternative sweetener amid renewed scrutiny of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The update was announced as part of the company’s quarterly earnings report on Tuesday and arrived just days after President Donald Trump took credit on social media for influencing the switch.

In a statement, the beverage giant described the new product as “an offering made with U.S. cane sugar” that aligns with its “ongoing innovation agenda.” While Coca-Cola already uses cane sugar in certain regional or specialty products, such as Mexican Coke, which is available in the U.S., and in beverages like its lemonade and coffee lines, this marks the first major U.S. release of a cane sugar cola in recent years.

“This addition is designed to complement the company’s strong core portfolio and offer more choices across occasions and preferences.”

In the U.S., Coca-Cola has been made with corn syrup since 1984, when the company announced its switch from cane sugar and sugar beets. Analysts suggest that the change occurred because the corn replacement was more cost-effective, and the sugar industry was weakening as more people began using artificial sweeteners.

CEO James Quincey emphasized that the new drink is about meeting consumer demand rather than replacing the classic formula. “We appreciate the President’s enthusiasm for our Coca-Cola brand,” Quincey said during a call with analysts, “We are definitely looking to use the whole toolkit of available sweetening options where there are consumer preferences.”

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Trump had claimed on Truth Social last week that he had “convinced” Coca-Cola to ditch HFCS in favor of cane sugar, a declaration that, while partially grounded in timing, doesn’t reflect the reality of the company’s plans.

“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”

The president allegedly has a button at his desk in the Oval Office that requests a Diet Coke. It resembles a small wooden box with a red trigger, which notifies a staff worker to deliver a drink.

Despite speculation stirred by Trump’s comments, the classic Coca-Cola recipe in the United States will not be altered; it will continue to contain high-fructose corn syrup. Instead, the cane sugar version will be a separate product aimed at diversifying choices on the shelf rather than changing the brand’s most iconic offering.

The conversation around sugar in American beverages has become increasingly charged in recent years, with health advocates raising concerns about the prevalence of HFCS. One of the loudest critics is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, who has railed against artificial and ultra-processed ingredients in the U.S. food system.

In a recent appearance on Dr. Jordan Peterson’s podcast, Kennedy described HFCS as “a formula for making you obese and diabetic,” advocating for its removal from widely consumed foods and beverages. HFCS, while cheap and shelf-stable, has long been associated with America’s rising rates of obesity and metabolic disease.

Kennedy praised the Steak ‘n Shake restaurant chain over the weekend for announcing that it would begin selling Coca-Cola with real cane sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup. Kennedy declared on X, “MAHA is winning,” in reference to the news and his “Make America Healthy Again” messaging.

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However, public health experts caution that swapping out sweeteners may be more cosmetic than meaningful in terms of health outcomes. “Excess consumption of sugar from any source harms health,” Eva Greenthal, senior policy scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, told CNN. “To make the U.S. food supply healthier, the Trump administration should focus on less sugar, not different sugar.”

Nutritionist and professor of food studies at New York University, Marion Nestle, told Associated Press last week that the switch was insignificant.

“For all practical purposes, they’re the same. I find the switch to be nutritionally hilarious. They taste the same. They have the same number of calories. They do exactly the same things in the body. Everybody would be healthier eating less of both of them.”

Coca-Cola’s move comes as the market sees a modest uptick in interest around more “natural” or “cleaner” sweeteners, particularly among younger consumers seeking transparency and simplicity in their food choices. Still, cane sugar is notably more expensive in the U.S. than HFCS, a fact that has kept many manufacturers from making the switch on a broad scale.

PepsiCo, Coca-Cola’s biggest rival, isn’t altering its flagship product but has dipped into the trend with new cane sugar-based offerings in its growing health-oriented lineup. Its prebiotic soda, as well as products from its recently acquired Poppi brand, use cane sugar as their primary sweetener.

PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta recently weighed in on the economics of sugar reform during an interview on CNBC.

“Sugar is more expensive in the US than in many parts of the world, so I think there is a conversation with the government probably on how do we make sugar more affordable in the US, how do we have a farming strategy probably that reduces the cost of sugar and that will facilitate a lot of the transition for us and for the whole industry.”

scale

Obesity Rates In US Adults Declined For The First Time In Over A Decade

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Research found that obesity rates in US adults dipped last year for the first time in more than a decade. Health experts are seeing and predicting a continuous downward trend, according to NBC, and partly credit the decline to the rise in weight loss drug-use such as Ozempic. 

The research was published last week in the journal JAMA Health Forum. The publication showed that the most significant decreases occurred in the South among women and adults aged 66 to 75.

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The study specifically looked at body mass index (BMI) measurements from more than 16.7 million adults throughout various regions, ages, sexes, races, and ethnicities from 2013 through 2023. BMI measurements are a standard way in which healthcare providers estimate obesity in relation to weight and height. 

According to NBC News, adult obesity rates in the US decreased from 46% to 45.6% between 2022 and 2023. Benjamin Rader, author of the study and computational epidemiologist, said that the published results were “not uniform across demographics and geographic regions.” 

“In the U.S. overall, obesity was on the decline, led by the South, but in some regions that wasn’t the case. We also saw large drops among Black Americans, but we saw increases in obesity among Asian Americans,” he stated. 

Rader also explained that the decline in obesity in the South aligns with the increase in weight loss drugs. The South showed the “highest observed per-capita uptake of weight loss drugs based on the researchers’ analysis of insurance claims,” Denise Chow and Akshay Syal, M.D wrote for NBC.

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Dr. Michael Weintraub said the “results were in line with recent data from the CDC that showed a slight downtick in obesity prevalence among adults in the U.S. in the 2021-2023 period, as compared with the years from 2017 to 2020.”

“I find the data exciting, and with the prospect that we could be at the precipice of a shift in this obesity epidemic. But I hesitate to call this down-trending value in 2023 yet a trend,” he said. 

“We know these [weight loss] medications are extremely effective, but we need a couple more years to see if this is truly a trend or if it’s just a little blip and things will go back to where they were, or if it will get even worse,” said Dr. Tannaz Moin, an endocrinologist and associate professor of medicine.

Moin also explained that she was surprised to see such a drop in BMI among older people. 

“That isn’t the group that I would necessarily think to be the highest users of GLP-1 drugs because many would be in the Medicare age range,” she said.

kids

Children Who Are Considered Obese Are Twice As Likely To Develop Multiple Sclerosis, According To New Study

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Children who are considered obese could face more than double the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) as adults, according to a new study from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. 

MS can impact the brain and spinal cord. It causes a range of potential symptoms such as problems with arm or leg movement, sensation, balance, or vision. MS can also lead to serious disability throughout one’s life. 

The Karolinska Institute will be presenting the findings of their study at the European Congress on Obesity in May in Venice. 

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Previous research has speculated that there is a link between high body mass index (BMI) in adolescence and a larger risk of MS in adulthood, however, most of the studies that suggested this were using self-reported data, so it was difficult to arrive at an accurate conclusion. 

With this particular study, the researchers wanted to evaluate the risk of developing MS by utilizing a large population of obese children to compare with the general population.

According to reports from the Guardian, researchers analyzed data from the Swedish Childhood Obesity Treatment Register, which utilizes a database known as Boris. This institute is one of the world’s largest registries for treatment of childhood obesity.

The study looked at data from more than 21,600 children with obesity aged two to 19 who joined the registry between 1995 and 2020. The children, on average, started their treatment for obesity when they were around 11-years-old. They also compared that data to more than 100,000 children without obesity to get the greatest comparison possible. 

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The children monitored in the study were tracked for about six years, and during the follow-up period, 28 of those with obesity were diagnosed with MS (0.13% of the group) and 58 in the group without obesity (0.06% of the group). 

Within both groups, the average age of the MS diagnosis was 23-years-old. 

“Despite the limited follow-up time, our findings highlight that obesity in childhood increases the susceptibility of early-onset MS more than twofold,” the authors stated. 

“One of the effects of obesity in childhood is that it causes a low-grade but chronic inflammation, and most probably this inflammation increases the risk to develop several diseases such as MS,” study authors, Emilia Hagman, an associate professor, and Prof Claude Marcus, said.

“It is also believed that chronic low-grade inflammation increases the risk for other such diseases as asthma, arthritis, type 1 diabetes, and some forms of cancers. However, we know that weight loss reduces the inflammation and most likely the risk to develop such diseases.”

New Study Reveals Severe Obesity Is On The Rise For US Children 

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An updated study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that although obesity rates in children were dropping last decade, it’s now on the rise. 

National data suggests that around 2.5% of preschool aged children were severely obese during 2020. Heidi Blanck of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one of the study’s authors, spoke on these discouraging findings:

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​​“We were doing well and now we see this upward trend. We are dismayed at seeing these findings.”

The study itself collected data from 2 to 4-year-old children that are enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children program through the US Food and Nutrition Service. This particular program helps provide healthy foods and other services to low-income families with preschool children. As a part of the program and study, the children were both weighed and measured, according to the AP. 

The researchers have collected data from the current and past decade from more than 1.6 million kids within the program. It found that in 2010, 2.1% of the children in the program were severely obese. In 2016 that percentage dropped to 1.8% but rose up to 2% by 2020; that’s roughly 33,000 out of the 1.6 million.

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20 states across the country saw the most significant increases, with California having the highest rate at 2.8%. Among different racial and ethnic groups, Hispanic kids saw the highest increase as well at 2.8%. 

Blanck stated that it’s not totally clear why these increases occurred. The initial drops in obesity rates were attributed to 2009 policy changes, including removing juice from infant food packages, reducing saturated fats in foods, and increasing accessibility to fruits and vegetables. 

“The daily hardships that families living in poverty are facing may be harder today than they were 10 years ago, and the slight increases in the WIC package just weren’t enough,” said Dr. Sarah Armstrong, a Duke University childhood obesity researcher.

Compared to last decade, the number of children in the WIC program has declined, and the data was also impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, as researchers were still analyzing obesity rates when fewer parents were taking their children to the doctors.

“Despite its limitations, it was a very well done study. It gives you a hint of what’s going on,” said Deanna Hoelscher, a childhood obesity researcher at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, concluding that the researchers are “thinking it’s going to get worse.”

Healthy Lifestyle

Study Finds That a Healthy Lifestyle can Add a Decade of Life Free From Disease

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Everyone knows that practicing healthy habits, such as dieting, exercising, and avoiding cigarettes, can extend one’s life span and improve one’s quality of life. However, it can be difficult to conceptualize exactly how much of a benefit these habits offer in one’s life, as it’s easy for these metrics to become somewhat abstract. As such, a study published in the British Medical Journal sought to quantify exactly how much a healthy lifestyle benefits one’s life, and found that practicing a healthy lifestyle can expand one’s disease-free lifespan by an average of ten years.

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The study looked at five factors associated with a healthy lifestyle, which included drinking alcohol in moderation, not smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, and eating well. The study, which looked at more than 100,000 people, found that people who practiced four of these five traits lived as much as ten years longer without diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, than people who practiced none of these habits. Not only does a healthy lifestyle allow people to live longer lives, but the quality of life increases when people practice healthy lifestyle habits, as the risk of developing diseases decreases dramatically.

Specifically, the study found that women who practiced any four of the five traits in question lived an average of 84 years without disease, whereas women who practiced none of the five habits only lived an average of 74 years without disease. Likewise, men with four out of the five healthy habits lived to 81 years old without disease, whereas men who practiced none of the healthy habits lived to 73 years old without disease. The most unhealthy characteristics a person can have, the study found, were smoking more than 15 cigarettes a day or having a BMI greater than 30, which is defined as obesity.

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While the study shows that moderate drinking is far healthier than heavy drinking, it’s important to note that other studies have shown that no amount of alcohol is good for you, despite persistent rumors that suggest that having a glass of wine with dinner can improve one’s health. In fact, using recreational drugs at all is widely considered to have either a neutral or a negative impact on one’s health, and definitely not a positive one. Instead of relying on drugs as a method of reducing stress, doctors recommend other methods that help to both relieve stress and improve health. Regular exercise, for instance, has been shown to improve one’s overall mood, and meditation, a practice whereby people focus on paying attention to their experiences in the present moment, can improve mental health as well. If, like most people, you’re concerned about extending the longevity and quality of your life, it’s not a bad idea to think about the various ways in which your current lifestyle habits might contribute to disease and develop strategies to improve your lifestyle habits.

Depressed Man

“Deaths of Despair” Reach Unprecedented Levels in US, Experts Say

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Perhaps one of the most objective statistical indicators of the health of a society is the life expectancy of its citizens. In the United States, life expectancy has risen from 69.7 years in 1960 to 78.69 years in 2016, a gradual increase mirroring the success of medical advancements, public health campaigns, and general economic growth over the course of the modern era. However, American life expectancy has been on the decline in recent years, as a result of the epidemic of obesity as well as so-called “deaths of despair,” which include drug overdoses, alcohol abuse, and suicide. 

In a certain sense, this problem is unique to the United States, as other developed nations around the world have not seen a similar, concurrent decline in life expectancy. This worrying development persists despite the fact that the United States spends more on health care per capita than any other developed nation and that the quality of healthcare in the US, for those who are able to receive it, is comparable to that of most advanced countries. As such, experts believe that factors like “income inequality and mental distress” are the root cause of the increase in rates of death across the country, as the experience of despair leads people to make decisions that increase the chances of early death.

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When viewed as a public health issue, the specific factors that lead to early deaths among Americans become clear, as many Americans, even those who do not suffer from diseases of despair, can recognize the social factors that lead to the development of these illnesses either through their personal lived experiences or through the experiences of people they know. According to Anne Case, a contributing author of the book “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism,”  “the pillars that once helped give life meaning—a good job, a stable home life, a voice in the community—have all eroded.” 

In Case’s account, the nationwide rise in despair has its roots in economic and political factors, as workers without college degrees have been left out of the increasingly-harsh labor market, men’s wages have remained stagnant for half a century, and companies have been eliminating decent-paying jobs with good benefits, instead outsourcing low-skill work to cheaper economies. Despite the changes in the distribution of wealth in the American economy, the government has failed to adjust to changes wrought by the rapid and accelerating pace of technological innovation and globalization, generating an atmosphere of despair among much of the American public, Case argues.

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While the highly-complex relationship between societal factors, despair, unhealthy behaviors, and early death requires more study, experts view the rise of drug abuse, particularly opioid abuse, as symptomatic of larger social pressures that reduce in people a sense of their meaning in life, instilling in them an attitude of nihilism and apathy that drives them to make unhealthy choices in pursuit of relief from their suffering. According to one study, rates of overdoses and suicides have been on the rise since the 1990s, suggesting that the problem is not just related to the current political environment, but also to longstanding social trends as well as substantial increases in the availability of illicit drugs. 

That being said, there are signs of hope that society is beginning to tackle the public health crisis of despair, as the stigma surrounding mental illness has diminished in recent years and an increasing number of businesses are prioritizing the health of their employees, including when it comes to problems like drug addiction and mental illness. If you’re experiencing despair, keep in mind that there exist resources to help with mental health problems, including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255), which is available 24 hours a day.

Obesity

Half Of America Will Be Obese Within The Next Decade, Study Says

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America needs to collectively begin eating a lot healthier if it wants to avoid half of the country becoming obese within the next decade. According to a recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine, over half of the nation will be obese by 2030 if a major change in lifestyle isn’t universally adopted. 

The study analyzed data from over six million American adults and their standing BMI, or body mass index. Your BMI is your weight in relation to your age and height and how it relates to others in your same demographic. The study’s results reported that 25% of Americans will be deemed as “severely obese” within the next decade, meaning they’ll have a BMI of 35, which roughly translates to being over 100 pounds over the average weight of your age group. The studies head authors are mainly concerned with the “severely obese” data as opposed to the projections for standard obesity, which is a lot more manageable. 

“What’s even more concerning is the rise in severe obesity. Nationally, severe obesity — typically over 100 pounds of excess weight — will become the most common BMI category, prevalence will be higher than 25% in 25 states. Currently, only 18% of all Americans are severely obese. If the trend continues, severe obesity would become as prevalent as overall obesity was in the 1990s.” said lead author Zachary Ward, an analyst at Harvard Chan School’s Center for Health Decision Science.

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Throughout the past fifty years, a major shift happened in America. Fast food products, processed and artificial foods and beverages grew in popularity, and cheapened in price. Class dynamics shifted, leaving the lower class to fend for themselves in regards to food. Why spend $50 on a day’s worth of groceries when you can buy all three meals for less than $20 at McDonalds? Additionally, sources for exercise and wellness, such as gym memberships or yoga classes, became more elitist and the price point matched, making it nearly impossible for someone making minimum wage to live a healthy and active life, even if they wanted to. So what’s the solution to a problem that has only gotten progressively worse?

“There’s no rosy picture here, but I don’t think we can throw in the towel. It will probably take lots of federal, state and local policy interventions and regulations to have a big impact. We can’t rely on individual behavior change in an environment that is so obesity promoting,” said Aviva Must, chair of Tufts University’s Public Health and Community Medicine, to CNN.

One solution, provided by the study, is to let public schools remain open on the weekends and during the summer to give the public access to their gyms and swimming pools. School grounds can act as a sort of community center, as a cheap way to keep the members of the community active and engaged without hurting their wallet.  

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Additionally, in regards to the school system, more schools should have access to healthier and more sustainable lunch options for the kids, and all vending machines should offer healthier options over processed chips and candy. These are obviously solutions that would require real systematic policies to be put in place, however, that change can start with you at the local level. Showing up to school budget meetings that are open for the parents and members of the community are important for raising your concerns and having your voice heard. 

According to a study done by researchers with Health Affairs, there are three major systematic interventions that have proven in the past to be successful at reducing the growing obesity rate in America. The first change is the elimination of the tax deduction that some businesses receive when they create advertisements for unhealthy food options. Basically, these businesses can write off their ads on their taxes, so it’s like they spend next to nothing on increased advertisements for these processed products.

Improving school snack nutritional standards is the next change, which again has also been slowly implemented in America’s school systems. After Michelle Obama’s policies regarding healthier food options in America’s schools, a real impact was made, and now it’s more a matter of keeping that momentum going. The final suggestion is imposing an excise tax on sugary drinks specifically. The study found that “the [sugary drink] tax saved $30 in health care costs for every dollar spent on the program.”

“If Americans could just keep their current weight instead of gaining, the trends could be reversed. It’s really hard to lose weight. It’s really hard to treat obesity. So prevention really has to be at the forefront of efforts to combat this growing epidemic,” Ward said.

Happy Woman

Life Expectancy in America Declining According to Latest Study

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A study published in the journal JAMA has highlighted some reasons behind the latest news that life expectancy in the United States has started decreasing, despite having been on the increase for several years.

The study discovered that Americans between the ages of 25 and 64, or “working age,” are dying younger due to a combination of suicide, hypertension, and drug abuse as well as over 30 more different causes.

It has also been discovered that other wealthy countries around the world have a longer life expectancy to those in the US, which appears to be declining at a dramatic rate. And with working age adults seeing the biggest increase in deaths Steven H. Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine believes it is a “distinctly American phenomenon.”

Woolf, who is co-author of the study alongside Heidi Schoomaker, explained that “death rates among working age adults are on the rise. We have known for years that the health of Americans is inferior to that of other wealthy nations, but our research shows that the decline in US health relative to other countries began as early as the 1980s.”

Both Woolf and Schoomaker looked at over 50 years worth of US life expectancy data with the results appearing to show that although life expectancy began to rise annually between 1959 and 2014, these figures stabilized around 2011 before declining again.

And America’s relationship with opioid abuse seems to be one of the main reasons, along with suicide and alcohol abuse, especially among young and middle aged adults. The figures increased amongst those who did not finish high school.

Strangely, the decline in life expectancy was higher in areas including Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont – all in New England, while those living in the “Ohio Valley” – Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana – were also affected.

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The rise of the opioid epidemic appears to be one of the main reasons in these areas, especially since the collapse of the manufacturing industries that were a strong source of income in the regions. In fact, since 2010 over one third of “excess deaths” were reported from the Ohio Valley states since.

However those living along the Pacific coast – Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington – saw their life expectancy increase during 2010 and 2017.

The authors of the report claims that data from previous years shows that Americans began to slip behind those in other countries as far back as the early 1980s.

“Historically this [period] was the beginning of the opioid epidemic, the shrinking of the middle class and the widening of income inequality,” Woolf said.

And although there were economic shifts around the world as a whole during this time, Woolf believes the lack of support experienced by struggling families contributed to the drop in America stating that “in other countries, families that fall on hard times have programs and services available to cushion the blow. In America, people often have to fend for themselves.”

With few social services to help families it may help us to understand why there was a larger increase in death among females as they “have even fewer support systems, and more childcare responsibilities.”

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Howard Koh commented on the study, saying that although the “most exhaustive and detailed analysis of this topic to date” has helped us find the main causes of death the citizens of America should start “embracing the leading causes of life.”

For instance, by looking at how social connections alongside strong communities are affecting our wellbeing.

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“Other countries spend relatively more in terms of social services. Health is much more than what happens in a doctor’s office. It starts where people live, learn, labor and pray.”

So what can we do to improve our life expectancy? Harvard Medical School has a few suggestions and while most of them are both obvious and easier to do, some may have you asking why!

For instance, we all know that smoking, excessive drinking and drug abuse will seriously damage our health but did you know that people who have quit smoking could repair some of the damage caused by cigarettes, cigars and even marijuana?

Once you stop smoking your risk of heart disease starts to reduce after only a few months, matching that of a non-smoker after around 5 years. Likewise with strokes. Giving up tobacco can see a reduction in the risk of having a stroke within two to four years while the mortality rate from colorectal cancer also reduces each year.

And while these statistics apply to most people, quitting smoking before you reach 50 will make the health benefits stronger, sooner.

There have also been discussions on the dangers of vaping, with many calling for the fruit flavored options to be banned.

A healthy diet, keeping fit and building a good network around you are also key to keeping you healthy and strong and therefore living longer.

By doing these things we can hopefully turn the trend on the average American’s life span before we are in “a future in which declining life expectancy may be the new norm.”

Hospital

Donald Trump Visits Hospital Under Unusual Circumstances

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It’s not uncommon for presidents to keep information about their health secret from the public. Famously, Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered a severe polio attack at the age of 39, leading to paralysis in both legs, which he hid with crutches and steel braces, and John F. Kennedy, despite projecting an image of youth and vitality, suffered from Addison’s disease, an incurable disorder of the adrenal glands. Though current president Donald Trump has made public the results of his yearly physicals, the veracity of these reports is dubious, as his administration is infamous for distorting or outright fabricating information. Concerns about the president’s health escalated on Saturday after President Trump made an unscheduled visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he stayed for roughly two hours.

According to White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, the President “[took] advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam at Walter Reed.” Additionally, the president tweeted about the visit, claiming that he took the opportunity to “[visit] a great family of a young man under major surgery at the amazing Walter Reed Medical Center,” and that he “began phase one of [his] yearly physical.” He added that “everything [was] very good.” Though the president does not smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, he weighs 243 pounds and has a BMI of 30.4, making him medically obese. Additionally, he suffers from high cholesterol, for which he takes rosuvastatin. He also has heart disease, likely caused by his unhealthy lifestyle habits. Despite these problems, White House physician Ronny Jackson characterized Trump as being in “excellent health.”

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There are a number of reasons to be skeptical of the official account of Trump’s health. At 73 years old, Trump is the oldest president ever to take office, and outside of golfing, he does not exercise. The president’s diet consists in large part of fast food, ice cream, and steak, which are his favorite foods, and he is undoubtedly under a tremendous amount of stress, resulting not only from the ordinary stressors of occupying the office of the presidency, but also from being the subject of an ongoing impeachment inquiry as well as the potential for being held accountable for crimes committed while in office. All of these factors increase one’s risk of heart attack or stroke, and some outlets report that the president was experiencing  chest pain in advance of his unscheduled hospital visit. Though these reports have not been verified by major media outlets, it’s not hard to believe that the president suffered a cardiovascular event of some sort, given the circumstances of his health.

While Press Secretary Grisham claimed that the visit was part of his physical, the president’s previous physicals were scheduled in advance and were conducted by medical staff working in the White House. The claim that Trump underwent “phase one” of his physical is also suspicious, as yearly physicals are not generally conducted in phases. The president has no public events scheduled for today, Monday November 18th, even though a public event would make for an opportunity to dispel rumors about the president’s poor health. While Grisham pointed to the president’s “repeated vigorous rally performances in front of thousands of Americans several times a week” as evidence of his good health, these rallies generally involve the president speaking while leaning against a podium, which is not a particularly physically-demanding task. Furthermore, a source told CNN that a hospital visit like the one Trump had on Saturday is “not protocol.”

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Donald Trump is not the only 2020 presidential hopeful to have suffered health issues. The three highest-polling Democratic presidential candidates, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, are all in their 70’s and experience a tremendous amount of stress from the demands of campaigning. Last month, Sanders was hospitalized as a result of a heart attack, for which he received surgery to install two stents in his heart. Additionally, Joe Biden appeared to bleed from his eye during a CNN town hall event in September, though this was attributed to a burst blood vessel caused by a poorly-fitting contact lens.

Keto Diet

The Keto Diet: Is it Safe?

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The field of nutrition, it seems, is constantly evolving as new studies refute the findings of previous ones and scientists learn more about how the human body processes food. This has led to the emergence of so-called “fad diets,” which prescribe unconventional limitations on eating and promise to help people lose weight and feel better.

One such diet which has exploded in popularity is the ketogenic diet, which emphasizes eliminating the intake of nearly all carbohydrates to put the body into ketosis, which is a different way of processing food. But some nutritionists argue that it’s unhealthy to put the body into this state for an extended period of time, even though ketosis helps with weight loss and can have other positive effects. As research into this form of dieting continues, nutritionists are learning more about how the body reacts to a carbohydrate-free diet and the various health implications of putting your body into ketosis.

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Ketosis is a state brought about by the elimination of carbohydrates from one’s diet, and is characterized by the presence of molecules called ketones in a person’s bloodstream. Without carbohydrates, the body is forced to instead rely on burning fat and protein for energy, leading in many cases to weight loss. Many people believe that ketosis lowers one’s risk of developing heart disease and diabetes, and people who are on the ketogenic diet report feeling more energized and motivated.

The ketogenic diet has been shown to offer advantages not present in many other popular diets, as obese people who started the ketogenic diet lost weight rapidly, with few side effects, and kept off the weight so long as they continued the diet. As such, the diet can be particularly useful for people with obesity, as the rapid onset of weight loss it causes, in addition to the ease of incorporating the keto diet into one’s life, can encourage dieters to stick to their weight-loss plan. That being said, the diet is very strict, as the body can be rapidly taken out of ketosis by the introduction of carbohydrates, leading to negative health consequences both in the form of weight gain and fatigue or other conditions.

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The keto diet, however, has more than its fair share of critics. Many argue that while the ketogenic diet can be useful to treat obesity or in the short term, it can actually damage the body in the long term. Lisa Cimperman, a clinical dietitian at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, argues that the keto diet causes people to lose muscle and experience fatigue, and actually puts the body into a starvation mode, making it even more difficult to lose weight as time goes on. While not every dietician believes that the ketogenic diet leads to muscle loss, most agree that anyone who is interested in building muscle should not use the keto diet, as ketosis is certainly not optimal for strength training.

Instead of so-called “fad diets” like the keto diet which offer impressive results in the short term but have questionable viability in the long term, most nutritionists advise their patients to consider dieting more as a set of lifestyle choices than as a regimented, temporary program. The most successful diets are the ones that people stick to for extended periods of time, as a lifetime of healthy eating provides the most positive impact. As such, food shouldn’t be thought of in terms of how it should be limited, but rather people should look forward to their meals, as this mindset is better for long-term success. Adopting a mediterranean diet, which emphasizes fruits, vegetables, fish, poultry, and eggs, is widely considered to be a safer and more effective option in the long term. Additionally, conversation about different forms of dieting often excludes discussion about exercise, which is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle, and should be considered in conjunction with choices about what you eat for best results. As such, while the ketogenic diet is tempting for its quick results, people who are serious about living a more healthy life are probably better off avoiding it.