Shedding Some Obesity Myths

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Let’s shed some obesity myths!

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding obesity… And then there are also reactive opposite myths and misconceptions, which can sometimes be just as harmful!

To tackle them all would take a book, but in classic 10almonds style, we’re going to put a spotlight on some of the ones that might make the biggest difference:

True or False: Obesity is genetically pre-determined

False… With caveats.

Some interesting results have been found from twin studies and adoption studies, showing that genes definitely play some role, but lifestyle is—for most people—the biggest factor:

In short: genes predispose; they don’t predetermine. But that predisposition alone can make quite a big difference, if it in turn leads to different lifestyle factors.

But upon seeing those papers centering BMI, let’s consider…

True or False: BMI is a good, accurate measure of health in the context of bodyweight

False… Unless you’re a very large group of thin white men of moderate height, which was the demographic the system was built around.

Bonus information: it was never intended to be used to measure the weight-related health of any individual (not even an individual thin white man of moderate height), but rather, as a tool to look at large-scale demographic trends.

Basically, as a system, it’s being used in a way it was never made for, and the results of that misappropriation of an epidemiological tool for individual health are predictably unhelpful.

To do a deep-dive into all the flaws of the BMI system, which are many, we’d need to devote a whole main feature just to that.

Update: we have now done so!

Here it is: When BMI Doesn’t Measure Up

True or False: Obesity does not meaningfully impact more general health

False… In more ways than one (but there are caveats)

Obesity is highly correlated with increased risk of all-cause mortality, and weight loss, correspondingly, correlates with a reduced risk. See for example:

Effects of weight loss interventions for adults who are obese on mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis

So what are the caveats?

Let’s put it this way: owning a horse is highly correlated with increased healthy longevity. And while owning a horse may come with some exercise and relaxation (both of which are good for the health), it’s probably mostly not the horse itself that conveys the health benefits… it’s that someone who has the resources to look after a horse, probably has the resources to look after their own health too.

So sometimes there can be a reason for a correlation (it’s not a coincidence!) but the causative factor is partially (or in some cases, entirely) something else.

So how could this play out with obesity?

There’s a lot of discrimination in healthcare settings, unfortunately! In this case, it often happens that a thin person goes in with a medical problem and gets treated for that, while a fat person can go in with the same medical problem and be told “you should try losing some weight”.

Top tip if this happens to you… Ask: “what would you advise/prescribe to a thin person with my same symptoms?”

Other things may be more systemic, for example:

When a thin person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and that goes smoothly, while a fat person goes to get their blood pressure taken, and there’s not a blood pressure cuff to fit them, is the problem the size of the person or the size of the cuff? It all depends on perspective, in a world built around thin people.

That’s a trivial-seeming example, but the same principle has far-reaching (and harmful) implications in healthcare in general, e.g:

  • Surgeons being untrained (and/or unwilling) to operate on fat people
  • Getting a one-size-fits-all dose that was calculated using average weight, and now doesn’t work
  • MRI machines are famously claustrophobia-inducing for thin people; now try not fitting in it in the first place

…and so forth. So oftentimes, obesity will be correlated with a poor healthcare outcome, where the problem is not actually the obesity itself, but rather the system having been set up with thin people in mind.

It would be like saying “Having O- blood type results in higher risks when receiving blood transfusions”, while omitting to add “…because we didn’t stock O- blood”.

True or False: to reduce obesity, just eat less and move more!

False… Mostly.

Moving more is almost always good for most people. When it comes to diet, quality is much more important than quantity. But these factors alone are only part of the picture!

But beyond diet and exercise, there are many other implicated factors in weight gain, weight maintenance, and weight loss, including but not limited to:

  • Disrupted sleep
  • Chronic stress
  • Chronic pain
  • Hormonal imbalances
  • Physical disabilities that preclude a lot of exercise
  • Mental health issues that add (and compound) extra levels of challenge
  • Medications that throw all kinds of spanners into the works with their side effects

…and even just those first two things, diet and exercise, are not always so correlated to weight as one might think—studies have found that the difference for exercise especially is often marginal:

Read: Widespread misconceptions about obesity ← academic article in the Journal of the College of Family Physicians of Canada

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  • Galveston Diet Cookbook for Beginners – by Martha McGrew

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We recently reviewed “The Galveston Diet”, and here’s a cookbook (by a nutritionist) to support that.

    For the most part, it’s essentially keto-leaning, with an emphasis on protein and fats, but without quite the carb-cut that keto tends to have. It’s also quite plant-centric, but it’s not by default vegan or even vegetarian; you will find meat and fish in here. As you might expect from an anti-inflammatory cookbook, it’s light on the dairy too, though fermented dairy products such as yogurt do feature as well.

    The recipes are quite simple and easy to follow, with suggestions of alternative ingredients along the way, making for extra variety as well as convenience.

    If you are going to buy this book, you might want to take a look at the buying options, to ensure you get a full-color version, as recent reprints have photos in black and white, whereas older runs have color throughout.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to cook the Galveston Diet way, this is as good a way to start as any.

    Click here to check out the Galveston Diet Cookbook for Beginners, and get cooking!

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  • What are house dust mites and how do I know if I’m allergic to them?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    People often believe they are allergic to house dust. But of the 20% of Australians suffereing with allergies, a number are are actually allergic to microscopic house dust mites.

    House dust mites belong to the same family as spiders and ticks. They measure just 0.2-0.3 mm, with 50 fitting on a single pinhead. They live for 65–100 days, and females lay 60–100 eggs in their life.

    House dust mite
    Some 50 house dust mites can fit on one pinhead. Choksawatdikorn/Shutterstock

    House dust mites love temperate climates and humidity. They feed off the skin cells we and animals shed, as well as mould, which they digest using special enzymes. These enzymes are excreted in their poo about 20 times a day. They also shed fragments of their exoskeletons.

    All these fragments trigger allergies in people with this type of allergic rhinitis (which is also known as hay fever)

    shuttertock. PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    What are the symptoms?

    When people with house dust mite allergy inhale the allergens, they penetrate the mucous membranes of the airways and eyes. Their body recognises the allergens as a threat, releasing chemicals including one called histamine.

    This causes symptoms including a runny nose, an itchy nose, eyes and throat, sneezing, coughing and a feeling of mucus at the back of your throat (known as a post-nasal drip).

    People with this type of allergy usually mouth breath, snore, rub their nose constantly (creating a nasal crease called the “dust mite salute”) and have dark shadows under their eyes.

    House dust mite allergy can also cause poor sleep, constant tiredness, reduced concentration at work or school and lower quality of life.

    For people with eczema, their damaged skin barrier can allow house dust mite proteins in. This prompts immune cells in the skin to release chemicals which make already flared skin become redder, sorer and itchier, especially in children.

    Symptoms of house dust mite allergy occur year round, and are often worse after going to bed and when waking in the morning. But people with house dust mite allergy and pollen allergies find their year-round symptoms worsen in spring.

    How is it diagnosed?

    House dust mite allergy symptoms often build up over months, or even years before people seek help. But an accurate diagnosis means you can not only access the right treatment – it’s also vital for minimising exposure.

    Doctor talks to patient
    Your clinician can talk you through treatment options and how to minimise exposure. Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

    Doctor and nurse practitioners can order a blood test to check for house dust mite allergy.

    Alternatively, health care providers with specialised allergy training can perform skin prick tests. This involves placing drops of the allergens on the arm, along with a positive and negative “control”. After 15 minutes, those who test positive will have developed a mosquito bite-like mark.

    How is it treated?

    Medication options include one or a combination of:

    • daily non-sedating antihistamines
    • a steroid nasal spray
    • allergy eye drops.

    Your health care professional will work with you to develop a rhinitis (hay fever) medical management plan to reduce your symptoms. If you’re using a nasal spray, your health provider will show you how to use it, as people often use it incorrectly.

    If you also have asthma or eczema which is worsened by dust mites, your health provider will adapt your asthma action plan or eczema care plan accordingly.

    If you experience severe symptoms, a longer-term option is immunotherapy. This aims to gradually turn off your immune system’s ability to recognise house dust mites as a harmful allergen.

    Immunotherapy involves taking either a daily sublingual tablet, under the tongue, or a series of injections. Injections require monthly attendances over three years, after the initial weekly build-up phase.

    These are effective, but are costly (as well as time-consuming). So it’s important to weigh up the potential benefits and downsides with your health-care provider.

    How can you minimise house dust mites?

    There are also important allergy minimisation measures you can take to reduce allergens in your home.

    Each week, wash your bedding and pyjamas in hot water (over 60°C). This removes house dust mite eggs and debris.

    Opt for doonas, covers or quilts that can be washed in hot water above 60°C. Alternatively, low-cost waterproof or leak proof covers can keep house dust mites out.

    If you can, favour blinds and wood floors over curtains and carpet. Dust blinds and surfaces with a damp cloth each week and vacuum while wearing a mask, or have someone else do it, as house dust mites can become airborne during cleaning.

    But beware of costly products with big marketing budgets and little evidence to support their use. A new mattress, for example, will always be house dust mite-free. But once slept on, the house dust mite life cycle can start.

    Mattress protectors and toppers commonly claim to be “hypoallergenic”, “anti-allergy” or “allergy free”. But their pore sizes are not small enough to keep house dust mites and their poo out, or shed skin going through.

    Sprays claiming to kill mites require so much spray to penetrate the product that it’s likely to become wet, may smell like the spray and, unless dried properly, may grow mould.

    Finally, claims that expensive vacuum cleaners can extract all the house dust mites are unsubstantiated.

    For more information, visit healthdirect.gov.au or the Australian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy.

    Deryn Lee Thompson, Eczema and Allergy Nurse; Lecturer, University of South Australia

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • In Plain English…

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Time!

    This is the bit whereby each week, we respond to subscriber questions/requests/etc

    Have something you’d like to ask us, or ask us to look into? Hit reply to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom, and a Real Human™ will be glad to read it!

    Q: Love to have someone research all the additives in our medicines, (risk of birth control and breast cancer) and what goes in all of our food and beverages. So much info out there, but there are so many variations, you never know who to believe.

    That’s a great idea! There are a lot of medicines and food and beverages out there, so that’s quite a broad brief, but! We could well do a breakdown of very common additives, and demystify them, sorting them into good/bad/neutral, e.g:

    • Ascorbic acid—Good! This is Vitamin C
    • Acetic acid—Neutral! This is vinegar
    • Acetylsalicylic acid—Good or Bad! This is aspirin (a painkiller and blood-thinning agent, can be good for you or can cause more problems than it solves, depending on your personal medical situation. If in doubt, check with your doctor)
    • Acesulfame K—Generally Neutral! This is a sweetener that the body can’t metabolize, so it’s also not a source of potassium (despite containing potassium) and will generally do nothing. Unless you have an allergy to it, which is rare but is a thing.
    • Sucralose—Neutral! This is technically a sugar (as is anything ending in -ose), but the body can’t metabolize it and processes it as a dietary fiber instead. We’d list it as good for that reason, but honestly, we doubt you’re eating enough sucralose to make a noticeable difference to your daily fiber intake.
    • Sucrose—Bad! This is just plain sugar

    Sometimes words that sound the same can ring alarm bells when they need not, for example there’s a big difference between:

    • Potassium iodide (a good source of potassium and iodine)
    • Potassium cyanide (the famous poison; 300mg will kill you; half that dose will probably kill you)
    • Cyanocobalamine (Vitamin B12)

    Let us know if there are particular additives (or particular medications) you’d like us to look at!

    While for legal reasons we cannot give medical advice, talking about common contraindications (e.g., it’s generally advised to not take this with that, as one will stop the other from working, etc) is definitely something we could do.

    For example! St. John’s Wort, very popular as a herbal mood-brightener, is on the list of contraindications for so many medications, including:

    • Antidepressants
    • Birth control pills
    • Cyclosporine, which prevents the body from rejecting transplanted organs
    • Some heart medications, including digoxin and ivabradine
    • Some HIV drugs, including indinavir and nevirapine
    • Some cancer medications, including irinotecan and imatinib
    • Warfarin, an anticoagulant (blood thinner)
    • Certain statins, including simvastatin

    Q: As I am a retired nurse, I am always interested in new medical technology and new ways of diagnosing. I have recently heard of using the eyes to diagnose Alzheimer’s. When I did some research I didn’t find too much. I am thinking the information may be too new or I wasn’t on the right sites.

    (this is in response to last week’s piece on lutein, eyes, and brain health)

    We’d readily bet that the diagnostic criteria has to do with recording low levels of lutein in the eye (discernible by a visual examination of macular pigment optical density), and relying on the correlation between this and incidence of Alzheimer’s, but we’ve not seen it as a hard diagnostic tool as yet either—we’ll do some digging and let you know what we find! In the meantime, we note that the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (which may be of interest to you, if you’re not already subscribed) is onto this:

    Read: Cognitive Function and Its Relationship with Macular Pigment Optical Density and Serum Concentrations of its Constituent Carotenoids

    See also:

    Q: As to specific health topics, I would love to see someone address all these Instagram ads targeted to women that claim “You only need to ‘balance your hormones’ to lose weight, get ripped, etc.” What does this mean? Which hormones are they all talking about? They all seem to be selling a workout program and/or supplements or something similar, as they are ads, after all. Is there any science behind this stuff or is it mostly hot air, as I suspect?

    Thank you for asking this, as your question prompted yesterday’s main feature, What Does “Balancing Your Hormones” Even Mean?

    That’s a great suggestion also about addressing ads (and goes for health-related things in general, not just hormonal stuff) and examining their claims, what they mean, how they work (if they work!), and what’s “technically true but may be misleading* cause confusion”

    *We don’t want companies to sue us, of course.

    Only, we’re going to need your help for this one, subscribers!

    See, here at 10almonds we practice what we preach. We limit screen time, we focus on our work when working, and simply put, we don’t see as many ads as our thousands of subscribers do. Also, ads tend to be targeted to the individual, and often vary from country to country, so chances are good that we’re not seeing the same ads that you’re seeing.

    So, how about we pull together as a bit of a 10almonds community project?

    • Step 1: add our email address to your contacts list, if you haven’t already
    • Step 2: When you see an ad you’re curious about, select “share” (there is usually an option to share ads, but if not, feel free to screenshot or such)
    • Step 3: Send the ad to us by email

    We’ll do the rest! Whenever we have enough ads to review, we’ll do a special on the topic.

    We will categorically not be able to do this without you, so please do join in—Many thanks in advance!

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  • Don’t Do *This* If You’re Over 50 (And Want Better Sleep)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dr. Michael Breus, sleep specialist, explains:

    Don’t make these mistakes

    Dr. Breus recommends avoiding…

    1. Misusing magnesium: magnesium is a helpful sleep aid but must be carefully monitored. Recommended doses are 250mg for women and 300–350 mg for men, with slight adjustments for hot climates or active lifestyles. Overdosing can cause stomach issues, diarrhea, and dehydration, disrupting sleep. He recommends starting with magnesium glycinate for fewer stomach issues, and later mix with magnesium citrate. Always check supplements to avoid excessive magnesium intake.
    2. Misusing melatonin: melatonin production declines after age 55–60, making low-dose supplementation (0.5–1 mg) beneficial. He recommends, however, avoiding high doses (3–10mg), and he recommends to take it 90 minutes before bedtime. Melatonin interacts with some medications (including some meds for blood pressure or depression), so consult a pharmacist before use to avoid risks like serotonin syndrome.
    3. Going to bed too early: going to bed too early disrupts circadian rhythms and reduces sleep drive, causing earlier waking. Now, being an “early bird” is a generally healthy thing, but if you’re already getting up at 5am, say, you probably want your schedule to not continue to creep further forwards until you become nocturnal. Set a consistent wake-up time and count 7.5 hours backward (plus a set time to fall asleep, e.g. 20 minutes, but you’ll know what it is for you) to determine bedtime.
    4. Excessive caffeine consumption: from the heading, it may seem like a no-brainer, but older adults metabolize caffeine 33% slower on average, prolonging its effects. Dr. Breus recommends to reduce intake with “caffeine fading,” switching to half-caffeinated coffee for a while and then considering transitioning to decaf. He also suggests enjoying increasingly lower-caffeine teas, like black tea in the morning, matcha in the afternoon, and herbal tea at night to reduce caffeine’s impact on sleep.
    5. Falling foul of serotonin: avoid taking 5-HTP supplements with SSRI antidepressants like Prozac or Zoloft due to the risk of serotonin syndrome.
    6. Consider checking for physical problems: if you regularly wake up tired and/or groggy (despite having ostensibly had enough sleep, and there not being a pharmaceutical explanation for your grogginess), consider screening for sleep apnea. Home sleep tests are a convenient way to identify and treat this common but often undiagnosed condition.

    For more on each of these, enjoy:

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  • Toxic Gas That Sterilizes Medical Devices Prompts Safety Rule Update

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    Over the past two years, Madeline Beal has heard frustration and even bewilderment during public meetings about ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas that is used to sterilize half of the medical devices in the U.S.

    Beal, senior risk communication adviser for the Environmental Protection Agency, has fielded questions about why the agency took so long to alert people who live near facilities that emit the chemical about unusually high amounts of the carcinogenic gas in their neighborhoods. Residents asked why the EPA couldn’t close those facilities, and they wanted to know how many people had developed cancer from their exposure.

    “If you’re upset by the information you’re hearing tonight, if you’re angry, if it scares you to think about risk to your family, those are totally reasonable responses,” Beal told an audience in Laredo, Texas, in September 2022. “We think the risk levels near this facility are too high.”

    There are about 90 sterilizing plants in the U.S. that use ethylene oxide, and for decades companies used the chemical to sterilize medical products without drawing much attention. Many medical device-makers send their products to the plants to be sterilized before they are shipped, typically to medical distribution companies.

    But people living around these facilities have been jolted in recent years by a succession of warnings about cancer risk from the federal government and media reports, an awareness that has also spawned protests and lawsuits alleging medical harm.

    The EPA is expected to meet a March 1 court-ordered deadline to finalize tighter safety rules around how the toxic gas is used. The proposed changes come in the wake of a 2016 agency report that found that long-term exposure to ethylene oxide is more dangerous than was previously thought.

    But the anticipated final rules — the agency’s first regulatory update on ethylene oxide emissions in more than a decade — are expected to face pushback. Medical device-makers worry stricter regulation will increase costs and may put patients at higher risk of infection from devices, ranging from surgical kits to catheters, due to deficient sterilization. The new rules are also not likely to satisfy the concerns of environmentalists or members of the public, who already have expressed frustration about how long it took the federal government to sound the alarm.

    “We have been breathing this air for 40 years,” said Connie Waller, 70, who lives with her husband, David, 75, within two miles of such a sterilizing plant in Covington, Georgia, east of Atlanta. “The only way to stop these chemicals is to hit them in their pocketbook, to get their attention.”

    The EPA says data shows that long-term exposure to ethylene oxide can increase the risk of breast cancer and cancers of the white blood cells, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma, and lymphocytic leukemia. It can irritate the eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, and has been linked to damage to the brain and nervous and reproductive systems. Children are potentially more vulnerable, as are workers routinely exposed to the chemical, EPA officials say. The agency calculates the risk based on how much of the gas is in the air or near the sterilizing facility, the distance a person is from the plant, and how long the person is exposed.

    Waller said she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and that her husband was found to have non-Hodgkin lymphoma eight years later.

    A 2022 study of communities living near a sterilization facility in Laredo found the rates of acute lymphocytic leukemia and breast cancer were greater than expected based on statewide rates, a difference that was statistically significant.

    Beal, the EPA risk adviser, who regularly meets with community members, acknowledges the public’s concerns. “We don’t think it’s OK for you to be at increased risk from something that you have no control over, that’s near your house,” she said. “We are working as fast as we can to get that risk reduced with the powers that we have available to us.”

    In the meantime, local and state governments and industry groups have scrambled to defuse public outcry.

    Hundreds of personal injury cases have been filed in communities near sterilizing plants. In 2020, New Mexico’s then-attorney general filed a lawsuit against a plant in Santa Teresa, and that case is ongoing. In a case that settled last year in suburban Atlanta, a company agreed to pay $35 million to 79 people who alleged ethylene oxide used at the plant caused cancer and other injuries.

    In Cook County, Illinois, a jury in 2022 awarded $363 million to a woman who alleged exposure to ethylene oxide gas led to her breast cancer diagnosis. But, in another Illinois case, a jury ruled that the sterilizing company was not liable for a woman’s blood cancer claim.

    Greg Crist, chief advocacy officer for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a medical device trade group that says ethylene oxide is an effective and reliable sterilant, attributes the spate of lawsuits to the litigious nature of trial attorneys.

    “If they smell blood in the water, they’ll go after it,” Crist said.

    Most states have at least one sterilizing plant. According to the EPA, a handful, like California and North Carolina, have gone further than the agency and the federal Clean Air Act to regulate ethylene oxide emissions. After a media and political firestorm raised awareness about the metro Atlanta facilities, Georgia started requiring sterilizing plants that use the gas to report all leaks.

    The proposed rules the EPA is set to finalize would set lower emissions limits for chemical plants and commercial sterilizers and increase some safety requirements for workers within these facilities. The agency is expected to set an 18-month deadline for commercial sterilizers to come into compliance with the emissions rules.

    That would help at facilities that “cut corners,” with lax pollution controls that allow emissions of the gas into nearby communities, said Richard Peltier, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Stronger regulation also prevents the plants from remaining under the radar. “One of the dirty secrets is that a lot of it is self-regulated or self-policed,” Peltier added.

    But the proposed rules did not include protections for workers at off-site warehouses that store sterilized products, which can continue to emit ethylene oxide. They also did not require air testing around the facilities, prompting debate about how effective they would be in protecting the health of nearby residents.

    Industry officials also don’t expect an alternative that is as broadly effective as ethylene oxide to be developed anytime soon, though they support researching other methods. Current alternatives include steam, radiation, and hydrogen peroxide vapor.

    Increasing the use of alternatives can reduce industry dependence on “the crutch of ethylene oxide,” said Darya Minovi, senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

    But meeting the new guidelines will be disruptive to the industry, Crist said. He estimates companies will spend upward of $500 million to comply with the new EPA rules and could struggle to meet the agency’s 18-month timetable. Sterilization companies will also have difficulty adjusting to new rules on how workers handle the gas without a dip in efficiency, Crist said.

    The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drugs and medical devices, is also watching the regulatory moves closely and worries the updated emissions rule could “present some unique challenges” if implemented as proposed, said Audra Harrison, an FDA spokesperson. “The FDA is concerned about the rule’s effects on the availability of medical devices,” she added.

    Other groups, like the American Chemistry Council and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, assert that ethylene oxide use isn’t as dangerous as the EPA says. The EPA’s toxicity assessment has “severe flaws” and is “overly conservative,” the council said in an emailed statement. Texas, which has several sterilizing plants, has said ethylene oxide isn’t as high a cancer risk as the agency claims, an assessment that the EPA has rejected.

    Tracey Woodruff, a researcher at the University of California-San Francisco who previously worked at the EPA, said it can be hard for the agency to keep up with regulating chemicals like ethylene oxide because of constrained resources, the technical complications of rulemaking, and industry lobbying.

    But she’s hopeful the EPA can strike a balance between its desire to reduce exposure and the desire of the FDA not to disrupt medical device sterilization. And scrutiny can also help the device sterilization industry think outside the box.

    “We continue to discover these chemicals that we’ve already been exposed to were toxic, and we have high exposures,” she said. “Regulation is an innovation forcer.”

    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.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • Beet “Kvass” With Ginger

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    Kvass is a popular drink throughout Eastern Europe, with several countries claiming it, but the truth is, kvass is older than nations (as in: nations, in general, any of them; nation states are a newer concept than is often realized), and its first recorded appearance was in the city state of Kyiv.

    This one is definitely not a traditional recipe, as kvass is usually made from rye, but keeping true to its Eastern European roots with (regionally popular) beetroot, it’s nevertheless a great fermented drink, full of probiotic benefits, and this time, with antioxidants too.

    It’s a little saltier than most things we give recipes for here, so enjoy it on hot sunny days as a great way to replenish electrolytes!

    You will need (for 1 quart / 1 liter)

    • 2¾ cups filtered or spring water
    • 2 beets, roughly chopped
    • 1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
    • 2 tsp salt (do not omit or substitute)

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Sterilize a 1-quart jar with boiling water (carefully please)

    2) Put all the ingredients in the jar and stir until the salt dissolves

    3) Close the lid tightly and store in a cool dark place to ferment for 2 weeks

    4) Strain the beets and ginger (they are now pickled and can be enjoyed in a salad or as a kimchi-like snack), pouring the liquid into a clean jar/bottle. This can be kept in the fridge for up to a month. Next time you make it, if you use ¼ cup of this as a “starter” to replace an equal volume of water in the original recipe, the fermentation will take days instead of weeks.

    5) Serve! Best served chilled, but without ice, on a hot sunny day.

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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