Heart Healthy Diet Plan – by Stephen William
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We’ve covered heart-healthy cooking books before, but variety is good, and boredom is an enemy of health, so let’s shake it up with a fresh stack of recipes!
After a brief overview of the relevant science (which if you’re a regular 10almonds reader, probably won’t be new to you), the author takes the reader on a 28-day journey. Yes, we know the subtitle says 30 days, but unless they carefully hid the other two days somewhere we didn’t find, there are “only” 28 inside. Perhaps the publisher heard it was a month and took creative license. Or maybe there’s a different edition. Either way…
Rather than merely giving a diet plan (though yes, he also does that), he gives a wide range of “spotlight ingredients”, such that many of the recipes, while great in and of themselves, can also be jumping-off points for those of us who like to take recipes and immediately do our own things to them.
Each day gets a breakfast, lunch, dinner, and he also covers drinks, desserts, and such like.
Notwithstanding the cover art being a lot of plants, the recipes are not entirely plant-based; there are a selection of fish dishes (and other seafood, e.g. shrimp) and also some dairy products (e.g. Greek yoghurt). The recipes are certainly very “plant-forward” though and many are just plants. If you’re a strict vegan though, this probably isn’t the book for you.
Bottom line: if you’d like to cook heart-healthy but are often stuck wondering “aaah, what to cook again today?”, then this is the book to get you out of any culinary creative block!
Click here to check out the Heart Healthy Diet Plan, and widen your heart-healthy repertoire!
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A Hospital Kept a Brain-Damaged Patient on Life Support to Boost Statistics. His Sister Is Now Suing for Malpractice.
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ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
In 2018, Darryl Young was hoping for a new lease on life when he received a heart transplant at a New Jersey hospital after years of congestive heart failure. But he suffered brain damage during the procedure and never woke up.
The following year, a ProPublica investigation revealed that Young’s case was part of a pattern of heart transplants that had gone awry at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in 2018. The spate of bad outcomes had pushed the center’s percentage of patients still alive one year after surgery — a key benchmark — below the national average. Medical staff were under pressure to boost that metric. ProPublica published audio recordings from meetings in which staff discussed the need to keep Young alive for a year, because they feared another hit to the program’s survival rate would attract scrutiny from regulators. On the recordings, the transplant program’s director, Dr. Mark Zucker, cautioned his team against offering Young’s family the option of switching from aggressive care to comfort care, in which no lifesaving efforts would be made. He acknowledged these actions were “very unethical.”
ProPublica’s revelations horrified Young’s sister Andrea Young, who said she was never given the full picture of her brother’s condition, as did the findings of a subsequent federal regulator’s probe that determined that the hospital was putting patients in “immediate jeopardy.” Last month, she filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against the hospital and members of her brother’s medical team.
The lawsuit alleges that Newark Beth Israel staff were “negligent and deviated from accepted standards of practice,” leading to Young’s tragic medical outcome.
Defendants in the lawsuit haven’t yet filed responses to the complaint in court documents. But spokesperson Linda Kamateh said in an email that “Newark Beth Israel Medical Center is one of the top heart transplant programs in the nation and we are committed to serving our patients with the highest quality of care. As this case is in active litigation, we are unable to provide further detail.” Zucker, who is no longer on staff at Newark Beth Israel, didn’t respond to requests for comment. His attorney also didn’t respond to calls and emails requesting comment.
Zucker also didn’t respond to requests for comment from ProPublica in 2018; Newark Beth Israel at the time said in a statement, made on behalf of Zucker and other staff, that “disclosures of select portions of lengthy and highly complex medical discussions, when taken out of context, may distort the intent of conversations.”
The lawsuit alleges that Young suffered brain damage as a result of severely low blood pressure during the transplant surgery. In 2019, when the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services scrutinized the heart transplant program following ProPublica’s investigation, the regulators found that the hospital had failed to implement corrective measures even after patients suffered, leading to further harm. For example, one patient’s kidneys failed after a transplant procedure in August 2018, and medical staff made recommendations internally to increase the frequency of blood pressure measurement during the procedure, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital didn’t implement its own recommendations and that one month later, “these failures were repeated” in Young’s surgery, leading to brain damage.
The lawsuit also alleges that Young wasn’t asked whether he had an advance directive, such as a preference for a do-not-resuscitate order, despite a hospital policy stating that patients should be asked at the time of admission. The lawsuit also noted that CMS’ investigation found that Andrea Young was not informed of her brother’s condition.
Andrea Young said she understands that mistakes can happen during medical procedures, “however, it’s their duty and their responsibility to be honest and let the family know exactly what went wrong.” Young said she had to fight to find out what was going on with her brother, at one point going to the library and trying to study medical books so she could ask the right questions. “I remember as clear as if it were yesterday, being so desperate for answers,” she said.
Andrea Young said that she was motivated to file the lawsuit because she wants accountability. “Especially with the doctors never, from the outset, being forthcoming and truthful about the circumstances of my brother’s condition, not only is that wrong and unethical, but it took a lot away from our entire family,” she said. “The most important thing to me is that those responsible be held accountable.”
ProPublica’s revelation of “a facility putting its existence over that of a patient is a scary concept,” said attorney Jonathan Lomurro, who’s representing Andrea Young in this case with co-counsel Christian LoPiano. Besides seeking damages for Darryl Young’s children, “we want to call attention to this so it doesn’t happen again,” Lomurro said.
The lawsuit further alleges that medical staff at Newark Beth Israel invaded Young’s privacy and violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, more commonly known as HIPAA, by sharing details of his case with the media without his permission. “We want people to be whistleblowers and want information out,” but that information should be told to patients and their family members directly, Lomurro said.
The 2019 CMS investigation determined that Newark Beth Israel’s program placed patients in “immediate jeopardy,” the most serious level of violation, and required the hospital to implement corrective plans. Newark Beth Israel did not agree with all of the regulator’s findings and in a statement at the time said that the CMS team lacked the “evidence, expertise and experience” to assess and diagnose patient outcomes.
The hospital did carry out the corrective plans and continues to operate a heart transplant program today. The most recent federal data, based on procedures from January 2021 through June 2023, shows that the one year probability of survival for a patient at Newark Beth is lower than the national average. It also shows that the number of graft failures, including deaths, in that time period was higher than the expected number of deaths for the program.
Andrea Young said she’s struggled with a feeling of emptiness in the years after her brother’s surgery. They were close and called each other daily. “There’s nothing in the world that can bring my brother back, so the only solace I will have is for the ones responsible to be held accountable,” she said. Darryl Young died on Sept 12, 2022, having never woken up after the transplant surgery.
A separate medical malpractice lawsuit filed in 2020 by the wife of another Newark Beth Israel heart transplant patient who died after receiving an organ infected with a parasitic disease is ongoing. The hospital has denied the allegations in court filing. The state of New Jersey, employer of the pathologists named in the case, settled for $1.7 million this month, according to the plaintiff’s attorney Christian LoPiano. The rest of the case is ongoing.
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28-Day FAST Start Day-by-Day – by Gin Stephens
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We have previously reviewed Gin Stephens’ other book, “Fast. Feast. Repeat.”, so what’s so special about this one that it deserves reviewing too?
This one is all about troubleshooting the pitfalls that many people find when taking up intermittent fasting.
To be clear: the goal here is not a “28 days and yay you did it, put that behind you now”, but rather “28 days and you are now intermittently fasting easily each day and can keep it up without difficulty”. As for the difficulties that may arise early in the 28 days…
Not just issues of willpower, but also the accidental breaks. For example, some artificial sweeteners, while zero-calorie, trigger an insulin response, which breaks the fast on the metabolic level (avoiding that is the whole point of IF). Lots of little tips like that peppered through the book help the reader to stop accidentally self-sabotaging their progress.
The author does talk about psychological issues too, and also how it will feel different at first while the liver is adapting, than later when it has already depleted its glycogen reserves and the body must burn body fat instead. Information like that makes it easier to understand that some initial problems (hunger, getting “hangry”, feeling twitchy, or feeling light-headed) will last only a few weeks and then disappear.
So, understanding things like that makes a big difference too.
The style of the book is simple and clear pop-science, with lots of charts and bullet points and callout-boxes and the like; it makes for very easy reading, and very quick learning of all the salient points, of which there are many.
Bottom line: if you’ve tried intermittent fasting but struggled to make it stick, this book can help you get to where you want to be.
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Fix Your Upper Back With These Three Steps
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When it comes to back pain, the lower back gets a lot of attention, but what about when it’s nearer the neck and shoulders?
Reaching for better health
In this short video, Liv describes and shows three exercises:
Exercise 1: Thoracic Pullover (Dumbbell Pullover)
Purpose: Improves overhead reach and shoulder mobility.
Equipment: light weight, yoga block, or foam roller.
Steps:- Lie on the floor with the foam roller/block beneath the upper back.
- Hold the weight in both hands, arms extended upward.
- Inhale deeply and reach the weight toward the ceiling.
- Exhale and arc your spine over the block, moving the weight backward.
- Keep core tension to maintain a neutral lower back position.
- Perform 10 repetitions.
Exercise 2: Rotational Mobility Stretch
Purpose: enhances torso rotation, core strength, and hip mobility.
Equipment: none (or a mat)
Steps:- Lie on your side with knees stacked at 90° and arms extended in front.
- Hold a weight in the top hand.
- Inhale and lift the top arm toward the ceiling, extending the shoulder blade.
- Exhale and twist your torso, allowing the arm to move toward the floor.
- Modify by extending the bottom leg for a deeper twist if needed.
- Perform 6 reps per side, switching legs and repeating on the other side.
Exercise 3: Doorway/Pole Side Stretch
Purpose: targets multiple areas for a deep, satisfying stretch.
Equipment: door frame, pole, or wall.
Steps:- Stand at arm’s length from the wall or frame.
- Cross the outer leg (furthest from the wall) behind the inner leg.
- Place the closest hand on the wall and reach the other arm overhead.
- Grip the wall or frame with the top hand, pressing away with the bottom hand.
- Lean into a banana-shaped curve and rotate your chest upward for a deeper stretch.
- Hold for 20–30 seconds per side and repeat 2–3 times.
For more on all of these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
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WHO Overturns Dogma on Airborne Disease Spread. The CDC Might Not Act on It.
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The World Health Organization has issued a report that transforms how the world understands respiratory infections like covid-19, influenza, and measles.
Motivated by grave missteps in the pandemic, the WHO convened about 50 experts in virology, epidemiology, aerosol science, and bioengineering, among other specialties, who spent two years poring through the evidence on how airborne viruses and bacteria spread.
However, the WHO report stops short of prescribing actions that governments, hospitals, and the public should take in response. It remains to be seen how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will act on this information in its own guidance for infection control in health care settings.
The WHO concluded that airborne transmission occurs as sick people exhale pathogens that remain suspended in the air, contained in tiny particles of saliva and mucus that are inhaled by others.
While it may seem obvious, and some researchers have pushed for this acknowledgment for more than a decade, an alternative dogma persisted — which kept health authorities from saying that covid was airborne for many months into the pandemic.
Specifically, they relied on a traditional notion that respiratory viruses spread mainly through droplets spewed out of an infected person’s nose or mouth. These droplets infect others by landing directly in their mouth, nose, or eyes — or they get carried into these orifices on droplet-contaminated fingers. Although these routes of transmission still happen, particularly among young children, experts have concluded that many respiratory infections spread as people simply breathe in virus-laden air.
“This is a complete U-turn,” said Julian Tang, a clinical virologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who advised the WHO on the report. He also helped the agency create an online tool to assess the risk of airborne transmission indoors.
Peg Seminario, an occupational health and safety specialist in Bethesda, Maryland, welcomed the shift after years of resistance from health authorities. “The dogma that droplets are a major mode of transmission is the ‘flat Earth’ position now,” she said. “Hurray! We are finally recognizing that the world is round.”
The change puts fresh emphasis on the need to improve ventilation indoors and stockpile quality face masks before the next airborne disease explodes. Far from a remote possibility, measles is on the rise this year and the H5N1 bird flu is spreading among cattle in several states. Scientists worry that as the H5N1 virus spends more time in mammals, it could evolve to more easily infect people and spread among them through the air.
Traditional beliefs on droplet transmission help explain why the WHO and the CDC focused so acutely on hand-washing and surface-cleaning at the beginning of the pandemic. Such advice overwhelmed recommendations for N95 masks that filter out most virus-laden particles suspended in the air. Employers denied many health care workers access to N95s, insisting that only those routinely working within feet of covid patients needed them. More than 3,600 health care workers died in the first year of the pandemic, many due to a lack of protection.
However, a committee advising the CDC appears poised to brush aside the updated science when it comes to its pending guidance on health care facilities.
Lisa Brosseau, an aerosol expert and a consultant at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minnesota, warns of a repeat of 2020 if that happens.
“The rubber hits the road when you make decisions on how to protect people,” Brosseau said. “Aerosol scientists may see this report as a big win because they think everything will now follow from the science. But that’s not how this works and there are still major barriers.”
Money is one. If a respiratory disease spreads through inhalation, it means that people can lower their risk of infection indoors through sometimes costly methods to clean the air, such as mechanical ventilation and using air purifiers, and wearing an N95 mask. The CDC has so far been reluctant to press for such measures, as it updates foundational guidelines on curbing airborne infections in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and other facilities that provide health care. This year, a committee advising the CDC released a draft guidance that differs significantly from the WHO report.
Whereas the WHO report doesn’t characterize airborne viruses and bacteria as traveling short distances or long, the CDC draft maintains those traditional categories. It prescribes looser-fitting surgical masks rather than N95s for pathogens that “spread predominantly over short distances.” Surgical masks block far fewer airborne virus particles than N95s, which cost roughly 10 times as much.
Researchers and health care workers have been outraged about the committee’s draft, filing letters and petitions to the CDC. They say it gets the science wrong and endangers health. “A separation between short- and long-range distance is totally artificial,” Tang said.
Airborne viruses travel much like cigarette smoke, he explained. The scent will be strongest beside a smoker, but those farther away will inhale more and more smoke if they remain in the room, especially when there’s no ventilation.
Likewise, people open windows when they burn toast so that smoke dissipates before filling the kitchen and setting off an alarm. “You think viruses stop after 3 feet and drop to the ground?” Tang said of the classical notion of distance. “That is absurd.”
The CDC’s advisory committee is comprised primarily of infection control researchers at large hospital systems, while the WHO consulted a diverse group of scientists looking at many different types of studies. For example, one analysis examined the puff clouds expelled by singers, and musicians playing clarinets, French horns, saxophones, and trumpets. Another reviewed 16 investigations into covid outbreaks at restaurants, a gym, a food processing factory, and other venues, finding that insufficient ventilation probably made them worse than they would otherwise be.
In response to the outcry, the CDC returned the draft to its committee for review, asking it to reconsider its advice. Meetings from an expanded working group have since been held privately. But the National Nurses United union obtained notes of the conversations through a public records request to the agency. The records suggest a push for more lax protection. “It may be difficult as far as compliance is concerned to not have surgical masks as an option,” said one unidentified member, according to notes from the committee’s March 14 discussion. Another warned that “supply and compliance would be difficult.”
The nurses’ union, far from echoing such concerns, wrote on its website, “The Work Group has prioritized employer costs and profits (often under the umbrella of ‘feasibility’ and ‘flexibility’) over robust protections.” Jane Thomason, the union’s lead industrial hygienist, said the meeting records suggest the CDC group is working backward, molding its definitions of airborne transmission to fit the outcome it prefers.
Tang expects resistance to the WHO report. “Infection control people who have built their careers on this will object,” he said. “It takes a long time to change people’s way of thinking.”
The CDC declined to comment on how the WHO’s shift might influence its final policies on infection control in health facilities, which might not be completed this year. Creating policies to protect people from inhaling airborne viruses is complicated by the number of factors that influence how they spread indoors, such as ventilation, temperature, and the size of the space.
Adding to the complexity, policymakers must weigh the toll of various ailments, ranging from covid to colds to tuberculosis, against the burden of protection. And tolls often depend on context, such as whether an outbreak happens in a school or a cancer ward.
“What is the level of mortality that people will accept without precautions?” Tang said. “That’s another question.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work – by Dr. John Gottman
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A lot of relationship advice can seem a little wishy-washy. Hardline clinical work, on the other hand, can seem removed from the complex reality of married life. Dr. Gottman, meanwhile, strikes a perfect balance.
He looks at huge datasets, and he listens to very many couples. He famously isolated four relational factors that predict divorce with 91% accuracy, his “Four Horsemen”:
- Criticism
- Contempt
- Defensiveness
- Stonewalling
He also, as the title of this book promises (and we get a chapter-by-chapter deep-dive on each of them) looks at “Seven principles for making marriage work”. They’re not one-word items, so including them here would take up the rest of our space, and this is a book review not a book summary. However…
Dr. Gottman’s seven principles are, much like his more famous “four horsemen”, deeply rooted in science, while also firmly grounded in the reality of individual couples. Essentially, by listening to very many couples talk about their relationships, and seeing how things panned out with each of them in the long-term, he was able to see what things kept on coming up each time in the couples that worked out. What did they do differently?
And, that’s the real meat of the book. Science yes, but lots of real-world case studies and examples, from couples that worked and couples that didn’t.
In so doing, he provides a roadmap for couples who are serious about making their marriage the best it can be.
Bottom line: this is a must-have book for couples in general, no matter how good or bad the relationship.
- For some it’ll be a matter of realising “You know what; this isn’t going to work”
- For others, it’ll be a matter of “Ah, relief, this is how we can resolve that!”
- For still yet others, it’ll be a matter of “We’re doing these things right; let’s keep them forefront in our minds and never get complacent!”
- And for everyone who is in a relationship or thinking of getting into one, it’s a top-tier manual.
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The How Not to Die Cookbook – by Dr. Michael Greger
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We’ve previously reviewed Dr. Greger’s “How Not To Die”, which is excellent and/but very science-dense.
This book is different, in that the science is referenced and explained throughout, but the focus is the recipes, and how to prepare delicious healthy food in accordance with the principles laid out in How Not To Die.
It also follows “Dr Greger’s Daily Dozen“, that is to say, the 12 specific things he advises we make sure to have every day, and thus helps us to include them in an easy, no-fuss fashion.
The recipes themselves are by Robin Robertson, and/but with plenty of notes by Dr Greger; they clearly collaborated closely in creating them.
The ingredients are all things one can find in any well-stocked supermarket, so unless you live in a food desert, you can make these things easily.
And yes, the foods are delicious too.
Bottom line: if you’re interested in cooking according to perhaps the most science-based dietary system out there, then this book is a top-tier choice.
Click here to check out The How Not To Die Cookbook, and live well!
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