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Iowa Farmers Are Restoring Tiny Prairies for Sustainability Boons

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Thursday, October 3, 2024

The little tracts of wilderness grow on Maple Edge Farm in southwest Iowa, where the Bakehouse family cultivates 700 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa. Set against uniform rows of cropland, the scraps of land look like tiny Edens, colorful and frowzy. Purple bergamot and yellow coneflowers sway alongside big bluestem and other grasses, alive with birdsong and bees.The Bakehouses planted the strips of wild land after floodwaters reduced many fields to moonscapes three years ago, prompting the family to embark on a once-unthinkable path.They took nearly 11 acres of their fields out of crop production, fragments of farmland that ran alongside fields and in gullies. Instead of crops, they sowed native flowering plants and grasses, all species that once filled the prairie.The restored swaths of land are called prairie strips, and they are part of a growing movement to reduce the environmental harms of farming and help draw down greenhouse gas emissions, while giving fauna a much-needed boost and helping to restore the land.As the little wildernesses grew, more and more meadowlarks, dickcissels, pheasants and quail showed up, along with beneficial insects. Underground, root networks formed to quietly perform heroic feats, filtering dangerous nutrient runoff from crops, keeping soil in place and bringing new health to the land.“We’re thinking about our farm as a small piece of the overall good puzzle,” said Jon Bakehouse, on a visit to the family’s fields one sunny morning earlier this summer. “On a larger scale, we’re all in this together.”Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

Farmers in the heartland are restoring swaths of the prairie with government help. The aim is to reduce nutrient runoff from cropland, and help birds and bees.

The little tracts of wilderness grow on Maple Edge Farm in southwest Iowa, where the Bakehouse family cultivates 700 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa. Set against uniform rows of cropland, the scraps of land look like tiny Edens, colorful and frowzy. Purple bergamot and yellow coneflowers sway alongside big bluestem and other grasses, alive with birdsong and bees.

The Bakehouses planted the strips of wild land after floodwaters reduced many fields to moonscapes three years ago, prompting the family to embark on a once-unthinkable path.

They took nearly 11 acres of their fields out of crop production, fragments of farmland that ran alongside fields and in gullies. Instead of crops, they sowed native flowering plants and grasses, all species that once filled the prairie.

The restored swaths of land are called prairie strips, and they are part of a growing movement to reduce the environmental harms of farming and help draw down greenhouse gas emissions, while giving fauna a much-needed boost and helping to restore the land.

As the little wildernesses grew, more and more meadowlarks, dickcissels, pheasants and quail showed up, along with beneficial insects. Underground, root networks formed to quietly perform heroic feats, filtering dangerous nutrient runoff from crops, keeping soil in place and bringing new health to the land.

“We’re thinking about our farm as a small piece of the overall good puzzle,” said Jon Bakehouse, on a visit to the family’s fields one sunny morning earlier this summer. “On a larger scale, we’re all in this together.”

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Genetic Discrimination Is Coming for Us All

Insurers are refusing to cover Americans whose DNA reveals health risks. It’s perfectly legal.

The news came four years ago, at the end of a casual phone call. Bill’s family had always thought it was a freak coincidence that his father and grandfather both had ALS. But at the end of a catch-up, Bill’s brother revealed that he had a diagnosis too. The familial trend, it turned out, was linked to a genetic mutation. That meant Bill might also be at risk for the disease.An ALS specialist ordered Bill a DNA test. While he waited for results, he applied for long-term-care insurance. If he ever developed ALS, Bill told me, he wanted to ensure that the care he would need as his nerve cells died and muscles atrophied wouldn’t strain the family finances. When Bill found out he had the mutation, he shared the news with his insurance agent, who dealt him another blow: “I don’t expect you to be approved,” he remembers her saying.Bill doesn’t have ALS. He’s a healthy 60-year-old man who spends his weekends building his dream home by hand. A recent study of mutations like his suggests that his genetics increase his chances of developing ALS by about 25 percent, on average. Most ALS cases aren’t genetic at all. And yet, Bill felt like he was being treated as if he was already sick. (Bill asked to be identified by his first name only, because he hasn’t disclosed his situation to his employer and worried about facing blowback at work too.)What happened to Bill, and to dozens of other people whose experiences have been documented by disease advocates and on social media, is perfectly legal. Gaps in the United States’ genetic-nondiscrimination law mean that life, long-term-care, and disability insurers can obligate their customers to disclose genetic risk factors for disease and deny them coverage (or hike prices) based on the resulting information. It doesn’t matter whether those customers found out about their mutations from a doctor-ordered test or a 23andMe kit.  For decades, researchers have feared that people might be targeted over their DNA, but they weren’t sure how often it was happening. Now at least a handful of Americans are experiencing what they argue is a form of discrimination. And as more people get their genomes sequenced—and researchers learn to glean even more information from the results—a growing number of people may find themselves similarly targeted.When scientists were mapping the immense complexity of the human genome around the turn of the 21st century, many thought that most diseases would eventually be traced to individual genes. Consequently, researchers worried that people might, for example, get fired because of their genetics; around the same time, a federal research lab was sued by its employees for conducting genetic tests for sickle-cell disease on prospective hires without their explicit consent. In 2008, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) was signed into law, ensuring that employers couldn’t decide to hire or fire you, and health insurers couldn’t decide whether to issue a policy, based on DNA. But lawmakers carved out a host of exceptions. Insurers offering life, long-term-care, or disability insurance could take DNA into account. Too many high-risk people in an insurance pool, they argued, could raise prices for everyone. Those exceptions are why an insurer was able to deny Bill a long-term-care policy.[Read: The loopholes in the law prohibiting genetic discrimination]Cases like Bill’s are exactly what critics of the consumer-genetic-testing industry feared when millions of people began spitting into test tubes. These cases have never been tallied up or well documented. But I found plenty of examples by canvassing disease-advocacy organizations and social-media communities for ALS, breast cancer, and Huntington’s disease. Lisa Schlager, the vice president of public policy at the hereditary-cancer advocacy group FORCE, told me she is collecting accounts of discrimination in life, long-term-care, and disability insurance to assess the extent of the problem; so far, she has about 40. A man Schlager connected me with, whose genetic condition, Lynch syndrome, increases the risk for several cancers, had his life-insurance premium increased and coverage decreased; several other providers denied him a policy altogether. Kelly Kashmer, a 42-year-old South Carolina resident, told me she was denied life insurance in 2013 after learning that she had a harmful version of the BRCA2 gene. One woman I found via Reddit told me she had never tested her own DNA, but showed me documents that demonstrate she was still denied policies—because, she said, her mom had a concerning gene. (Some of the people I spoke with, like Bill, requested not to be identified in order to protect their medical privacy.)Studies have shown that people seek out additional insurance when they have increased genetic odds of becoming ill or dying. “Life insurers carefully evaluate each applicant’s health, determining premiums and coverage based on life expectancy,” Jan Graeber, a senior health actuary for the American Council of Life Insurers, said in a statement. “This process ensures fairness for both current and future policyholders while supporting the company’s long-term financial stability.” But it also means people might avoid seeking out potentially lifesaving health information. Research has consistently found that concerns about discrimination are one of the most cited reasons that people avoid taking DNA tests.For some genetically linked diseases, such as ALS and Huntington’s disease, knowing you have a harmful mutation does not enable you to prevent the potential onset of disease. Sometimes, though, knowing about a mutation can decrease odds of severe illness or death. BRCA mutations, for example, give someone as much as an 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer, but evidence shows that testing women for the mutations has helped reduce the rate of cancer deaths by encouraging screenings and prophylactic surgeries that could catch or prevent disease. Kashmer told me that her first screening after she discovered her BRCA2 mutation revealed that she already had breast cancer; had she not sought a genetic test, she may have gotten a policy, but would have been a much worse bet for the insurer. She’s now been cancer-free for 11 years, but she said she hasn’t bothered to apply for a policy again.[Read: Remember that DNA you gave 23andMe?]Even employers, which must adhere to GINA, might soon be able to hire or fire based on certain genetic risk factors. Laura Hercher, a genetic counselor and director of research at the Sarah Lawrence College Human Genetics Program, told me that some researchers are now arguing that having two copies of the APOE4 mutation, which gives people about a 60 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s, is equivalent to a Stage Zero of the disease. If having a gene is considered equivalent to a diagnosis, do GINA’s protections still apply? The Affordable Care Act prevents health insurers from discriminating based on preexisting conditions, but not employers and other types of insurers. (The ACA may change dramatically under the coming Trump presidency anyway.) And the Americans With Disabilities Act might not apply to the gray area between what might be viewed as an early manifestation of a disease and the stage when it’s considered a disability. FORCE and other advocacy groups—including the ALS Association and the Michael J. Fox Foundation—as well as members of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, are working in a few states to pass laws that close gaps left by GINA, as Florida did in 2020, but so far they have been mostly unsuccessful.Genetic testing has only just become common enough in the U.S. that insurers might bother asking about it, Hercher said. Recently, groups like Schlager’s have been hearing more and more anecdotes. “People are so worried about genetic discrimination that they are failing to sign up for research studies or declining medically recommended care because of the concerns of what could happen to their insurance,” Anya Prince, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, told me. Carolyn Applegate, a genetic counselor in Maryland, told me that when patients come to her worried about a hereditary disease, she typically advises them to line up all the extra coverage they might need first—then hand over their DNA to a lab.So far, these unintended consequences of genetic testing seem to be manifesting for people with risk for rare diseases linked to single genes, which, combined, affect about 6 percent of the global population, according to one estimate. But the leading killers—heart disease, diabetes, and the like—are influenced by a yet unknown number of genes, along with lifestyle and environmental factors, such as diet, stress, and air quality. Researchers have tried to make sense of this complex interplay of genes through polygenic risk scores, which use statistical modeling to predict that someone has, say, a slightly elevated chance of developing Alzeheimer’s. Many experts think these scores have limited predictive power, but “in the future, genetic tests will be even more predictive and even more helpful and even more out there,” Prince said. Already, if you look deep enough, almost everyone’s genome registers some risk.[Read: What happens when you’re convinced you have bad genes]In aggregate, such information can be valuable to companies, Nicholas Papageorge, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, told me. Insurers want to sell policies at as high a price as possible while also reducing their exposure; knowing even a little bit more about someone’s odds of one day developing a debilitating or deadly disease might help one company win out over the competition. As long as the predictions embedded in polygenic risk scores come true at least a small percentage of the time, they could help insurers make more targeted decisions about who to cover and what to charge them. As we learn more about what genes mean for everyone’s health, insurance companies could use that information to dictate coverage for ever more people.Bill still doesn’t know whether he will ever develop ALS. The average age of onset is 40 to 60, but many people don’t show symptoms until well into their 70s. Without long-term-care insurance, Bill might not be able to afford full-time nursing care if he someday needs it. People who do develop ALS become unable to walk or talk or chew as the disease progresses. “Moving people to the bathroom, changing the sheets, changing the bedpans,” Bill said—“I dread the thought of burdening my wife with all of those things.”Cases like Bill’s could soon become more common. Because scientists’ understanding of the human genome is still evolving, no one can predict all of the potential consequences of decoding it. As more information is mined from the genome, interest in its secrets is sure to grow beyond risk-averse insurers. If consumer-facing DNA-testing companies such as 23andMe change their long-standing privacy policies, go bankrupt, or are sold to unscrupulous buyers, more companies could have access to individuals’ genetic risk profiles too. (23andMe told me that it does not share customer data with insurance companies and its CEO has said she is not currently open to third-party acquisition offers.) Papageorge told me he could imagine, say, scammers targeting people at risk for Alzheimer’s, just as they often target older people who may fall for a ploy out of confusion. All of us have glitches somewhere in our genome—the question is who will take advantage of that information.

How Might Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Influence the White House?

Kennedy has said he wants to end the FDA’s ‘war on public health’ and has said Trump wants him to ‘reorganize’ entire agencies. Here’s a look at his stances on public health.

Key Takeaways:Kennedy’s potential role in the Trump administration isn’t solidified, but he said Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies, including the CDC and the FDA.  Kennedy has a long history of spreading discredited theories on vaccines. The controversial figure, who has a history of spreading discredited theories on vaccines, suspended his own independent and at times bizarre campaign for the White House in August and endorsed Trump.Trump thanked him for the endorsement and even gave Kennedy a shoutout in his victory speech on Nov. 6.“I just want to say that on behalf of this great group of people – these are hardworking people, these are fantastic people. And we can add a few names, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He came out, and he's going to help make America healthy again,” Trump said. “And now he's a great guy and he really means it. He wants to do some things, and we're going to let him go to it.”Photos: Trump’s Victory NightWhile his potential new role isn’t solidified, Kennedy said that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and more. Kennedy has said that “entire departments” within the FDA “have to go.” It’s unclear exactly what authority Trump would grant Kennedy and whether his plans will face any obstacles in Congress or during the rule-making process.Kennedy outlined his goals for the FDA in October: “FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Pharma. If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”The only thing that will be off limits to Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, according to Trump: oil and gas.“Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold,” Trump said during his victory speech. “Other than that, go have a good time, Bobby.”Here are some of Kennedy’s stances on certain health policies that he could have influence over during the Trump administration:VaccinesAside from his family’s name, Kennedy is perhaps best known for his stance on vaccines, a topic on which many health experts have criticized him for raising uncertainty over the public’s safety.In a recent interview with CNN after the election, Kennedy denied claims that he opposes vaccines, adding that he wanted to make sure people had the information they needed to make their own choices about whether to take them.“I’m not going to take away anyone’s vaccines. I’ve never been anti-vaccine,” Kennedy said. “I’m going to make sure the science and the safety studies and efficacies are out there and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.”But Kennedy’s past comments and record on vaccines offer a much different picture than the one he is now attempting to portray.In a July 2023 interview with Fox News, Kennedy said he believed vaccines were linked to autism in children, a long-disproven myth that was based on the findings of a 1998 Lancet study authored by disgraced former physician and anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield. The British doctor’s study claimed the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine caused autism, findings that subsequent reviews found to be fraudulent and led to Wakefield eventually losing his license to practice medicine in the U.K.Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director for the American Public Health Association, says Kennedy could try to undermine confidence in vaccines in any number of ways from within a Trump administration, such as attempting to appoint people that have anti-vaccine views to key vaccine advisory panels like the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.Whatever influence Kennedy has on health policy, Benjamin says it is his use of the bully pulpit to spread his views that could ultimately have the greatest impact on eroding public trust in taking vaccines – and the agencies tasked with their oversight.“He has historically given bad information around vaccines in terms of misinformation,” Benjamin says. “I think his credibility around vaccines is shot. So even if he’s out there championing a vaccine because he thinks it’s important, who’s going to believe him?”FluorideKennedy has called for the removal of fluoride from the nation’s water supply, alleging its consumption is associated with an array of health risks, including cognitive issues and cancer.“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S., water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote in a Nov. 2 social media post. “Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”Fluoride, a mineral experts say helps strengthen teeth, was first added to the water supply in some parts of the U.S. in the mid-1940s and has been recommended to be included in public water supplies since 1962.While drinking water that contain high levels of fluoride has been associated with pain and stiffness to joints, “no strong link” has been found in population studies or reviews by national and global health agencies, including the World Health Organization and the National Research Council linking fluoridated drinking water to increased risk of developing cancer.A 2023 report from the National Toxicology Program concluded “with moderate confidence” that lower IQ in children could be linked with consuming drinking water containing fluoride at levels of more than 1.5 milligrams per liter, which is twice the recommended level for drinking water in U.S. community water supplies.“One of the things some of these individuals like Mr. Kennedy believe is that there are other ways to deliver fluoride (like toothpaste) that are topical and more focused and, therefore, in his mind have a lower risk profile,” Benjamin says. “But communities that have fluoridated water have better dental outcomes than communities that don’t.”The federal government does not require public drinking water to contain fluoride, and the decision to do so is left up to state and local governments.Still, Kennedy could move to ban fluoride in public drinking water – a process Benjamin says could take years to complete.“He could come in on Day One and try to initiate such a process,” Benjamin says. “But it is a long, torturous process that’s not going to happen quickly.”Chronic DiseaseA key priority touted within Trump’s “Make American Healthy Again” campaign policy was a focus on reducing the rate of chronic illness in the U.S., a situation Kennedy has accused the U.S. medical system of turning into a money-making venture at the expense of health.“We have a medical cartel, which our regulatory agencies, the pharmaceutical companies, doctors and hospitals – which are all owned by hedge funds – are now making a killing on chronic disease,” said Kennedy in comments posted to his YouTube channel earlier this year. “And the sicker we get, the richer they get.”Big FoodPart of Trump’s plan would call for addressing the “root causes” of chronic disease by focusing on issues such as improving diet and “environment toxins,” conditions that Kennedy has suggested in the past were fueling chronic disease.Kennedy has embraced what he calls “clean” foods in his pursuit of holistic health. He has proposed stopping beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from using that assistance to buy sugar-sweetened beverages or processed foods in an effort to reduce obesity levels.Several cities have implemented excise taxes on sugary beverages to discourage consumption, which evidence has shown to be linked to lower body mass index rates among youth living in those communities.Kennedy has been critical of herbicides like Roundup and large commercial farms that dominate the agriculture industry. He asked Trump to “revisit” pesticide and other chemical-use standards and to reform crop subsidies because they “make corn, soybeans and wheat artificially cheap, so those crops end up in many processed forms.”Big PharmaDuring Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency, he promised to “end” the “corruption” of pharmaceutical companies and criticized the Biden administration for COVID-19 vaccine mandates that he said made money for Pfizer.“How much did your mandates give to all the vaccine companies? You may have capped a few prices, that’s great, but have you ended the corruption in pharma? I don't think so,” Kennedy posted of the Biden administration on social media. “But I will end it.”He said he wants to advance human health through strategies that “can't be patented by Pharma.” His list includes ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, two drugs that gained attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Neither has been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 and data doesn’t demonstrate that they are effective against the coronavirus.

Obesity-Linked Heart Deaths Nearly Tripled in U.S. Over Past Two Decades

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Nov. 11, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Lives lost to obesity-related heart disease have nearly tripled over...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Nov. 11, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Lives lost to obesity-related heart disease have nearly tripled over the past twenty years, a new study reports.Heart disease deaths linked to obesity increased 2.8-fold between 1999 and 2020, according to findings presented today at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in Chicago.The increase occurred especially among middle-aged men, Black adults, Midwesterners and rural residents, researchers found.“Obesity is a serious risk factor for ischemic heart disease, and this risk is going up at an alarming rate along with the increasing prevalence of obesity,” lead researcher Dr. Aleenah Mohsin, a post-doctoral research fellow at Brown University in Providence, R.I., said in a news release.Ischemic heart disease is caused by clogged arteries, researchers said. Less blood and oxygen can reach the heart, increasing the risk of a heart attack.Obesity contributes to the risk of this form of heart disease by increasing cholesterol levels, promoting high blood pressure, raising the likelihood of type 2 diabetes and causing poor sleep.“It is important for everyone, particularly people in high-risk groups, to take steps to manage their weight and reduce their risk of heart disease,” Mohsin said. “Lifestyle changes are key, such as eating healthier, exercising regularly and working with health care professionals to monitor heart health.”For the study, researchers analyzed public health data to review heart disease trends in recent decades. More than 226,000 heart disease deaths related to obesity were documented over 21 years.The study identified a 5% annual increase in the overall rate of obesity-related heart disease deaths.The obesity-related heart disease death rate in men overall rose 243%, from 2.1 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 to 7.2 per 100,000 in 2020.Middle-aged men 55 to 64 experienced a 165% increase, from 5.5 deaths per 100,000 in 1999 to 14.6 deaths per 100,000 in 2020.Among women, the death rate rose 131%, from 1.6 deaths per 100,000 in 1999 to 3.7 per 100,000 in 2020, results show.To place the findings in context, the largest college football stadiums in the U.S. hold around 100,000 people, researchers noted.Comparing different racial and ethnic groups, the death rate was highest among Black adults at 3.9 deaths per 100,000.Rural residents had an obesity-related heart disease death rate of 4 deaths per 100,000 in 2020, compared with 2.9 deaths per 100,000 among urban dwellers, results show.The highest rates were observed among people in the Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin, with an age-adjusted death rate of 3.3 deaths per 100,000 people.The Northeast states had the lowest rate at 2.8 deaths per 100,000, results show.“We did expect an increase in deaths related to obesity since the prevalence of obesity has been rising steadily for years,” Mohsin said. “However, we did not anticipate this magnitude of increase in mortality, especially among middle-aged men.”“The racial disparities, particularly the higher rates of death among Black individuals, were also striking and suggest that social and perhaps environmental factors may also be playing a significant role,” Mohsin added.American Heart Association spokeswoman Dr. Sadiya Kahn said that the new study “highlights the importance of obesity as a key risk factor for ischemic heart disease.”“The relative change in ischemic heart disease deaths related to obesity that was observed in this study between 1999 and 2020 was greater than the overall increase in obesity prevalence that we’ve seen in the United States, from about 30% to about 40% over this same time frame,” Khan, a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology and an associate professor of cardiology, medical social sciences and preventive medicine at Northwestern School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a news release.“There are a few potential reasons that could be the case,” Khan added. “It may just be that people are more aware of obesity as a risk factor or are more likely to treat obesity, and, therefore, it is more likely to be included on death certificates, which were the basis of these data. The important thing is that we know we need to do more to identify, manage and treat obesity-related risk.”Because theses findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, Nov. 11, 2024Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Have an Implanted Defibrillator? Triple-Digit Heatwaves Could Pose Danger

By Ernie Mundell HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Nov. 11, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Thousands of Americans with heart trouble have small implanted...

By Ernie Mundell HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Nov. 11, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Thousands of Americans with heart trouble have small implanted defibrillators, to help regulate their heartbeat and keep cardiac events at bay. But new research finds that on extremely hot days, people with the devices face nearly triple the odds for a dangerous arrhythmia known as atrial fibrillation (A-fib), compared to days with cooler temperatures.The threat is likely to rise as climate change makes triple-digit days more common, experts noted.“Susceptible individuals living in areas at risk for markedly increased temperatures should take note of these findings and ensure that they take appropriate precautions to stay cool and hydrated,”  said Dr. Sanjay Rajagopalan, an expert working with the American Heart Association (AHA). He wasn't involved in the new study.“This may be the first study that has linked ICD detection of A-fib with temperature spikes,” Rajagopalan, a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said in an AHA news release.  “These findings reiterate other recent research about the link between outdoor temperature and cardiovascular health. Given the rising prevalence of A-fib in the general population due to increasing age and the prevalence of obesity, we now may also have to contend with rising temperatures."The new findings are scheduled be presented today at the AHA's annual meeting in Chicago.The new study was led by Dr. Barrak Alahmad, a research fellow in environmental health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. His team tracked data on more than 2,000 patients nationwide who got either an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) or cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) device between 2016 and 2023.Patients averaged about 70 years of age and most (78%) were men. Obesity was common, and most patients had cardiomyopathies, where the heart loses its pumping efficiency.Implanted defibrillators record episodes of A-fib, so the team correlated those episodes with the outside temperatures reported in the patient's locale on the day the A-fib occurred.The team noted that the "optimal" outside temperature -- most likely to reduce the odds of A-fib -- is relatively cool, at between 41 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit.However, extremely high temperature days pushed a defib user's odds for A-fib much higher. For example, compared to the ideal outside temperature, participants had nearly three times of developing A-fib on a days registering 102.2 degrees F or higher, Alahmad's team reported.  The odds for A-fib episodes on hot days were lowest in the morning but increased through working hours, and risks rose more on workdays compared to weekends.More research revealed that these trends were also true for long A-fib episodes -- those lasting 30 minutes or longer. “We need to understand the physiological processes underlying these findings and concentrate on preventing conditions that trigger A-fib to minimize the burden of arrhythmias,” study co-author Dr. Theofanie Mela, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a AHA news release. “In the meantime, we recommend patients avoid extreme temperatures and use air conditioners so that they do not expose their bodies to the severe stress of extremely high heat.”Because these findings were reported at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, Nov. 11, 2024Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

US lawmakers call on EPA to ban pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease

Politicians say use of common yet toxic paraquat can’t be justified due to apparent health and environment risksMore than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other nations in banning a widely used weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health dangers.In a 31 October letter to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weed killer commonly applied on US farms, was a “highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities”. The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October. Continue reading...

More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other nations in banning a widely used weed killer linked to Parkinson’s disease and other health dangers.In a 31 October letter to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weed killer commonly applied on US farms, was a “highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities”. The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October.The lawmakers cite scientific links between paraquat use and development of Parkinson’s and other “life threatening diseases” as well as “grave impacts on the environment”. “Health risks include a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease, with some studies finding a 64% increase in the likelihood of developing Parkinson’s, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, thyroid cancer, and other thyroid issues,” they wrote.New Jersey senator Cory Booker, organizer of the Senate letter, said the risks of paraquat exposure are “well documented” and that it is “irresponsible” for the EPA to continue to allow its use. “I hope the EPA will follow the science and ban paraquat,” Booker said.The EPA has long maintained that there is no “clear link” between paraquat exposure and Parkinson’s disease, though the agency does have a number of restrictions on use of the chemical due to its acute toxicity. The agency issued a draft report earlier this year affirming its position.Still, the agency said at that time that it would be reviewing more scientific studies and would issue a final report by 17 January 2025.When asked about the congressional call for a ban, an EPA spokesperson said only that the agency “will respond to the letter appropriately”.Several California lawmakers pushed for a ban in the most recent state legislative session, also citing the risks of Parkinson’s. A compromise measure signed by the governor last month requires an expedited regulatory review of paraquat.The push to ban paraquat in the US is “long overdue”, said Ray Dorsey, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester who studies the causes of Parkinson’s disease.“For 60 years, paraquat has been helping fuel the rise of Parkinson’s disease,” Dorsey said. “The evidence from human, laboratory and apparently even the company’s own research is overwhelming. When paraquat is banned, more lives will be spared the consequences of Parkinson’s.”Chinese-owned Syngenta, the longtime maker and marketer of paraquat products did not respond to a request for comment about the congressional letters, The company has denied there is any valid connection between Parkinson’s and paraquat. In response to previous reporting, it asserted that no “peer-reviewed scientific publication has established a causal connection between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease”.Internal Syngenta documents revealed by the Guardian show the company was aware many years ago of scientific evidence that paraquat could impact the brain in ways that cause Parkinson’s, and that it secretly sought to influence scientific research to counter the evidence of harm.Syngenta was allegedly aided in suppressing the risks of paraquat by a “reputation management” firm called v-Fluence, the Guardian reported in September.Thousands of US paraquat users who suffer from Parkison’s are currently suing Syngenta, alleging the company should have warned them of the risk of developing the incurable brain disease, but instead worked to hide the evidence of risk.This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group

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