Small Changes For A Healthier Life

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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small

I am interested in what I can substitute for ham in bean soup?

Well, that depends on what the ham was like! You can certainly buy ready-made vegan lardons (i.e. small bacon/ham bits, often in tiny cubes or similar) in any reasonably-sized supermarket. Being processed, they’re not amazing for the health, but are still an improvement on pork.

Alternatively, you can make your own seitan! Again, seitan is really not a health food, but again, it’s still relatively less bad than pork (unless you are allergic to gluten, in which case, definitely skip this one).

Alternatively alternatively, in a soup that already contains beans (so the protein element is already covered), you could just skip the ham as an added ingredient, and instead bring the extra flavor by means of a little salt, a little yeast extract (if you don’t like yeast extract, don’t worry, it won’t taste like it if you just use a teaspoon in a big pot, or half a teaspoon in a smaller pot), and a little smoked paprika. If you want to go healthier, you can swap out the salt for MSG, which enhances flavor in a similar fashion while containing less sodium.

Wondering about the health aspects of MSG? Check out our main feature on this, from last month:

What’s the deal with MSG?

I thoroughly enjoy your daily delivery. I’d love to see one for teens too!

That’s great to hear! The average age of our subscribers is generally rather older, but it’s good to know there’s an interest in topics for younger people. We’ll bear that in mind, and see what we can do to cater to that without alienating our older readers!

That said: it’s never too soon to be learning about stuff that affects us when we’re older—there are lifestyle factors at 20 that affect Alzheimer’s risk at 60, for example (e.g. drinking—excessive drinking at 20* is correlated to higher Alzheimer’s risk at 60).

*This one may be less of an issue for our US readers, since the US doesn’t have nearly as much of a culture of drinking under 21 as some places. Compare for example with general European practices of drinking moderately from the mid-teens, or the (happily, diminishing—but historically notable) British practice of drinking heavily from the mid-teens.

How much turmeric should I take each day?

Dr. Michael Greger’s research (of “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” and “How Not To Die” fame) recommends getting at least ¼ tsp turmeric per day

Remember to take it with black pepper though, for a 2000% absorption bonus!

A great way to get it, if you don’t want to take capsules and don’t want to eat spicy food every day, is to throw a teaspoon of turmeric in when making a pot of (we recommend wholegrain!) rice. Turmeric is very water-soluble, so it’ll be transferred into the rice easily during cooking. It’ll make the rice a nice golden yellow color, and/but won’t noticeably change the taste.

Again remember to throw in some black pepper, and if you really want to boost the nutritional content,some chia seeds are a great addition too (they’ll get cooked with the rice and so it won’t be like eating seeds later, but the nutrients will be there in the rice dish).

You can do the same with par-boiled potatoes or other root vegetables, but because cooking those has water to be thrown away at the end (unlike rice), you’ll lose some turmeric in the water.

Request: more people need to be aware of suicidal tendencies and what they can do to ward them off

That’s certainly a very important topic! We’ll cover that properly in one of our Psychology Sunday editions. In the meantime, we’ll mention a previous special that we did, that was mostly about handling depression (in oneself or a loved one), and obviously there’s a degree of crossover:

The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need

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  • Is Sugar The New Smoking?

    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 Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝Could you do a this or that of which. Is worse, smoking cigarettes or having a sweet tooth? Also, perhaps have us evaluate one part of newsletter at a time, rather than overall. I especially appreciate your book reviews and often find them through my library system.❞

    We’re glad you enjoy the book reviews! We certainly enjoy reading many books to write about them for you.

    As for the idea having readers evaluate one part of the newsletter at a time, rather than overall, there is a technical limitation that embedded polls are very large, data-wise, so if we were to do a poll for each section, the email would then get clipped by gmail and other email providers. However, you are always more than welcome to do as you’ve done, and include comments about what section(s) you took the most value from.

    Now, onto your main question/request: as it doesn’t quite fit the usual format for our This vs That section, we’ve opted to do it as a main feature here 🙂

    So, let’s get into it…

    Not a zero-sum game

    First, let’s be clear that for most people there is no pressing reason that this should be an either/or decision. There is nothing inherent to quitting either one that makes the other loom larger.

    However, that said, if you’re (speaking generally here, and not making any presumptions about the asker) currently smoking regularly and partaking of a lot of added sugar, then you may be wondering which you should prioritize quitting first—as it is indeed generally recommended to only try to quit one thing at a time.

    Indeed, we wrote previously, as a guideline for “what to do in one what order”:

    Not sure where to start? We suggest this order of priorities, unless you have a major health condition that makes something else a higher priority:

    1. If you smoke, stop
    2. If you drink, reduce, or ideally stop
    3. Improve your diet

    About that diet…

    Worry less about what to exclude, and instead focus on adding more variety of fruit/veg.

    See also: Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)

    That said, if you’re looking for things to cut, sugar is a top candidate (and red meat is in clear second place albeit some way below)

    That’s truncated from a larger list, but those were the top items.

    You can read the rest in full, here: The Best Few Interventions For The Best Health: These Top 5 Things Make The Biggest Difference

    The flipside of this “you can quit both” reality is that the inverse is also true: much like how having one disease makes it more likely we will get another, unhealthy habits tend to come in clusters too, as each will weaken our resolve with regard to the others. Thus, there is a sort of “comorbidity of habits” that occurs.

    The good news is: the same can be said for healthy habits, so they (just like unhealthy habits) can support each other, stack, and compound. This means that while it may seem harder to quit two bad habits than one, in actual fact, the more bad habits you quit, the more it’ll become easy to quit the others. And similarly, the more good habits you adopt, the more it’ll become easy to adopt others.

    See also: How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits

    So, let’s keep that in mind, while we then look at the cases against smoking, and sugar:

    The case against smoking

    This is perhaps one of the easiest cases to make in the entirety of the health science world, and the only difficult part is knowing where to start, when there’s so much.

    The World Health Organization leads with these key facts, on its tobacco fact sheet:

    • Tobacco kills up to half of its users who don’t quit.
    • Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year, including an estimated 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke.
    • Around 80% of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries.
    • In 2020, 22.3% of the world’s population used tobacco: 36.7% of men and 7.8% of women.
    • To address the tobacco epidemic, WHO Member States adopted the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in 2003. Currently 182 countries are Parties to this treaty.
    • The WHO MPOWER measures are in line with the WHO FCTC and have been shown to save lives and reduce costs from averted healthcare expenditure.

    Source: World Health Organization | Tobacco

    Now, some of those are just interesting sociological considerations (well, they are of practical use to the WHO whose job it is to offer global health policy guidelines, but for us at 10almonds, with the more modest goal of helping individual people lead their best healthy lives, there’s not so much that we can do with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, for example), but for the individual smoker, the first two are really very serious, so let’s take a closer look:

    ❝Tobacco kills up to half of its users who don’t quit.❞

    A bold claim, backed up by at least three very large, very compelling studies:

    ❝Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year, including an estimated 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke.

    The WHO’s cited source for this was gatekept in a way we couldn’t access (and so probably most of our readers can’t either), but take a look at what the CDC has to say for the US alone (bearing in mind the US’s population of a little over 300,000,000, which is just 3.75% of the global population of a little over 8,000,000,000):

    smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths [in the US] annually, with an estimated 41,000 deaths from secondhand smoke exposure, and it can reduce a person’s life expectancy by 10 years. Quitting smoking before the age of 40 reduces the risk of dying from smoking-related disease by about 90%❞

    If we now remember that third bullet point, that said “Around 80% of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users live in low- and middle-income countries.”, then we can imagine the numbers are worse for many other countries, including large-population countries that have a lower median income than the US, such as India and Brazil.

    Source for the CDC comment: Tobacco-Related Mortality

    See also: AAMC | Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.

    We only have so much room here, but if that’s not enough…

    More than 100 reasons to quit tobacco

    The case against sugar

    We reviewed an interesting book about this:

    The Case Against Sugar – by Gary Taubes

    But suffice it to say, added sugar is a big health problem; not in the same league as tobacco, but it’s big, because of how it messes with our metabolism (and when our metabolism goes wrong, everything else goes wrong):

    From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    The epidemiology of sugar consumption and related mortality is harder to give clear stats about than smoking, because there’s not a clear yes/no indicator, and cause and effect are harder to establish when the waters are so muddied by other factors. But for comparison, we’ll note that compared to the 480,000 deaths caused by tobacco in the US annually, the total death to diabetes (which is not necessarily “caused by sugar consumption”, but there’s at least an obvious link when it comes to type 2 diabetes and refined carbohydrates) was 101,209 deaths due to diabetes in 2022:

    National Center for Health Statistics | Diabetes

    Now, superficially, that looks like “ok, so smoking is just under 5x more deadly”, but it’s important to remember that almost everyone eats added sugar, whereas a minority of people smoke, and those are mortality per total US population figures, not mortality per user of the substance in question. So in fact, smoking is, proportionally to how many people smoke, many times more deadly than diabetes, which currently ranks 8th in the “top causes of death” list.

    Note: we recognize that you did say “having a sweet tooth” rather than “consuming added sugar”, but it’s worth noting that artificial sweeteners are not a get-out-of-illness-free card either:

    The Problem With Sweeteners

    Let’s get back to sugar though, as while it’s a very different beast than tobacco, it is arguably addictive also, by multiple mechanisms of addiction:

    The Not-So-Sweet Science Of Sugar Addiction

    That said, those mechanisms of addiction are not necessarily as strong as some others, so in the category of what’s easy or hard to quit, this is on the easier end of things—not that that means it’s easy, just, quitting many drugs is harder. In any case, it can be done:

    When It’s More Than “Just” Cravings: Beat Food Addictions!

    In summary

    Neither are good for the health, but tobacco is orders of magnitude worse, and should be the priority to quit, unless your doctor(s) tell you otherwise because of your personal situation, and even then, try to get multiple opinions to be sure.

    Take care!

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  • What Size Breakfast Is Best, By Science?

    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.

    “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, the popular wisdom goes. But, what should it consist of, and how much should we be eating for breakfast?

    It has been previously established that it is good if breakfast is the largest meal of the day:

    Mythbusting Breaktime

    …with meals getting progressively smaller thereafter.

    Of course, very many people do the inverse: small (or skipped) breakfast, moderate lunch, larger dinner. This, however, is probably more a result of when eating fits around the modern industrialized workday (and thus gets normalized), rather than actual health considerations.

    So, what’s the latest science?

    A plucky band of researchers led by Dr. Karla-Alejandra Pérez-Vega investigated the importance of breakfast in the context of heart health. This research was done as part of a larger study into the effects of the Mediterranean Diet on cardiovascular health, so if anyone wants a quick recap before we carry on, then:

    The Mediterranean Diet: What Is It Good For? ← the answer, by the way, is “pretty much everything”

    …and there are also different versions that each use the Mediterranean Diet as the core, while focussing extra on a different area of health, including one to make it extra heart-healthy:

    Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean ← most anti-inflammatory / gut-healthiest / heart-healthiest / brain-healthiest

    What they found

    In their sample population (n=383) of Spanish adults aged 55–75 with pre-diagnosed metabolic syndrome who, as part of the intervention of this 36-month interventional study, had now for the past 36 months been on a Mediterranean diet but without specific guidance on portion sizes:

    • Participants with insufficient breakfast energy intake had the highest adiposity (which is a measure of body fat expressed as a percentage of total mass)
    • Participants with low or high (but not moderate) breakfast energy intake had the larger BMI and waist circumference over time
    • Participants with low or high (but not moderate) breakfast energy intake had higher triglyceride and lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels
    • Participants who consumed 20–30% of their daily calories at breakfast enjoyed the greatest improvements in lipid profiles, with lower triglycerides and higher HDL (good) cholesterol levels
    • Participants with lower breakfast quality (lower adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had higher blood pressure levels
    • Participants with lower breakfast quality (lower adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had higher blood sugar levels
    • Participants with lower breakfast quality (lower adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (which is an indicator of kidney function)
    • Participants with higher breakfast quality (higher adherence to Mediterranean Diet) had lower waist circumference, higher HDL cholesterol, and better kidney function

    You can see the paper itself here in the Journal of Nutrition, Health, and Aging:

    Breakfast energy intake and dietary quality and trajectories of cardiometabolic risk factors in older adults

    What this means

    According to this research, the heart-healthiest breakfast is:

    • not skipped
    • Mediterranean Diet adherent
    • within the range of of 20–30% of the total calories for the day

    Want to make it even better?

    Consider:

    Before You Eat Breakfast: 3 Surprising Facts About Intermittent Fasting

    Enjoy!

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  • The Circadian Diabetes Code – by Dr. Satchin Panda

    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 have previously reviewed Dr. Panda’s “The Circadian Code” which pertains to the circadian rhythms (yes, plural) in general; this one uses much of the same research, but with a strong focus on the implications for blood sugar management.

    It’s first a primer in diabetes (and prediabetes, and, in contrast, what things should look like if healthy). You’ll understand about glucose metabolism and glycogen and insulin and more; you’ll understand what blood sugar readings mean, and you’ll know what an Hb1AC count actually is and what it should look like too, things like that.

    After that, it’s indeed about what the subtitle promises: the right times to eat (and what to eat), when to exercise (and how, at which time), and how to optimize your sleep in the context of circadian rhythm and blood sugar management.

    You may be wondering: why does circadian rhythm matter for blood sugars? And the answer is explained at some length in the first part of the book, but to oversimplify greatly: your body needs energy all the time, no matter when it was that you last ate. Thus, it has to organize its energy reserves to that at all times you can 1) function, on a cellular level 2) maintain a steady balance of sugar in your blood despite using it at slightly higher or lower levels at different times of day. Because the basal metabolic rate accounts for most of our energy use, the body has to plan for a base rate of so much energy per day, and to do that, it needs to know what a day is. Dr. Panda explains this in detail (the marvels of PER proteins and all that), but basically, that’s the relevance of circadian rhythm.

    However, it’s not all theory and biochemistry; there is also a 12-week program to reverse prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (it will not, of course, reverse Type 1 Diabetes, sorry—but the program will still be beneficial even in that case, since more even blood sugars means fewer woes).

    They style is friendly and clear, explaining the science simply, yet without patronizing the reader. References are given, with claims sourced in an extensive bibliography.

    Bottom line: if you or a loved one have diabetes or prediabetes, or just have a strong desire to avoid getting such and generally keep your metabolic health in good order, this book will definitely help.

    Click here to check out The Diabetes Code, and enjoy better blood sugar health than ever!

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  • Celery vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing celery to cucumber, we picked the celery.

    Why?

    They are both great, of course! But celery came out on top:

    Their macros are very comparable; they’re both 95% water with just enough other things to hold them together, and those other things are in approximately the same proportions in both celery and cucumber.

    In the category of vitamins, however, celery has a lot more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, B9, E, and K, as well as slightly more vitamin C. Cucumber, meanwhile, only boasts slightly higher vitamin B1.

    An easy win for celery on the vitamin front!

    Minerals are closer, but celery still comes out on top with its notably higher calcium and potassium content. Cucumber has more iron and zinc, but the margin is smaller.

    As a point in cucumber’s favor, it has been noted for its anti-inflammatory effect in ways that celery hasn’t, but we don’t think this is enough to say it wins over celery sweeping the vitamins category and coming out top for minerals too.

    However! They are both great, so enjoy them both, of course.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Enjoy!

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  • Captivate – by Vanessa van Edwards

    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.

    This book isn’t just for one area of human interactions. It covers everything from the boardroom to the bedroom (not necessarily a progression with the same person!), business associates, friends, partners, kids, and more.

    She presents information in a layered manner, covering for example, chapter-by-chapter:

    • the first five minutes
    • the first five hours
    • the first five days

    She also covers such things as:

    • starting conversations in a way that makes you memorable (without making it weird!)
    • the importance of really listening (and how to do that)
    • collecting like-minded people appropriately
    • introducing other people! Because a) it’s not all about you, but also b) you’re the person who knows everybody now
    • where to stand at parties / networking events!
    • dating and early-days dating messages
    • reading the room, reading the people

    All in all, a great resource for anyone who wants to make (and maintain!) meaningful relationships with those around you.

    Grab Your Copy of “Captivate” on Amazon Now!

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  • What Would a Second Trump Presidency Look Like for Health Care?

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    On the presidential campaign trail, former President Donald Trump is, once again, promising to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — a nebulous goal that became one of his administration’s splashiest policy failures.

    “We’re going to fight for much better health care than Obamacare. Obamacare is a catastrophe,” Trump said at a campaign stop in Iowa on Jan. 6.

    The perplexing revival of one of Trump’s most politically damaging crusades comes at a time when the Obama-era health law is even more popular and widely used than it was in 2017, when Trump and congressional Republicans proved unable to pass their own plan to replace it. That failed effort was a big part of why Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms.

    Despite repeated promises, Trump never presented his own Obamacare replacement. And much of what Trump’s administration actually accomplished in health care has been reversed by the Biden administration.

    Still, Trump secured some significant policy changes that remain in place today, including efforts to bring more transparency to prices charged by hospitals and paid by health insurers.

    Trying to predict Trump’s priorities in a second term is even more difficult given that he frequently changes his positions on issues, sometimes multiple times.

    The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

    Perhaps Trump’s biggest achievement is something he rarely talks about on the campaign trail. His administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” managed to create, test, and bring to market a covid-19 vaccine in less than a year, far faster than even the most optimistic predictions.

    Many of Trump’s supporters, though, don’t support — and some even vehemently oppose — covid vaccines.

    Here is a recap of Trump’s health care record:

    Public Health

    Trump’s pandemic response dominates his overall record on health care.

    More than 400,000 Americans died from covid over Trump’s last year in office. His travel bans and other efforts to prevent the global spread of the virus were ineffective, his administration was slower than other countries’ governments to develop a diagnostic test, and he publicly clashed with his own government’s health officials over the response.

    Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump resumed large rallies and other public campaign events that many public health experts regarded as reckless in the face of a highly contagious, deadly virus. He personally flouted public health guidance after contracting covid himself and ending up hospitalized.

    At the same time, despite what many saw as a politicization of public health by the White House, Trump signed a massive covid relief bill (after first threatening to veto it). He also presided over some of the largest boosts for the National Institutes of Health’s budget since the turn of the century. And the mRNA-based vaccines Operation Warp Speed helped develop were an astounding scientific breakthrough credited with helping save millions of lives while laying the groundwork for future shots to fight other diseases including cancer.

    Abortion

    Trump’s biggest contribution to abortion policy was indirect: He appointed three Supreme Court justices, who were instrumental in overturning the constitutional right to an abortion.

    During his 2024 campaign, Trump has been all over the place on the red-hot issue. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Trump has bemoaned the issue as politically bad for Republicans; criticized one of his rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for signing a six-week abortion ban; and vowed to broker a compromise with “both sides” on abortion, promising that “for the first time in 52 years, you’ll have an issue that we can put behind us.”

    He has so far avoided spelling out how he’d do that, or whether he’d support a national abortion ban after any number of weeks.

    More recently, however, Trump appears to have mended fences over his criticism of Florida’s six-week ban and more with key abortion opponents, whose support helped him get elected in 2016 — and whom he repaid with a long list of policy changes during his presidency.

    Among the anti-abortion actions taken by the Trump administration were a reinstatement of the “Mexico City Policy” that bars giving federal funds to international organizations that support abortion rights; a regulation to bar Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide abortions from the federal family planning program, Title X; regulatory changes designed to make it easier for health care providers and employers to decline to participate in activities that violate their religious and moral beliefs; and other changes that made it harder for NIH scientists to conduct research using fetal tissue from elective abortions.

    All of those policies have since been overturned by the Biden administration.

    Health Insurance

    Unlike Trump’s policies on reproductive health, many of his administration’s moves related to health insurance still stand.

    For example, in 2020, Trump signed into law the No Surprises Act, a bipartisan measure aimed at protecting patients from unexpected medical bills stemming from payment disputes between health care providers and insurers. The bill was included in the $900 billion covid relief package he opposed before signing, though Trump had expressed support for ending surprise medical bills.

    His administration also pushed — over the vehement objections of health industry officials — price transparency regulations that require hospitals to post prices and insurers to provide estimated costs for procedures. Those requirements also remain in place, although hospitals in particular have been slow to comply.

    Medicaid

    While first-time candidate Trump vowed not to cut popular entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, his administration did not stick to that promise. The Affordable Care Act repeal legislation Trump supported in 2017 would have imposed major cuts to Medicaid, and his Department of Health and Human Services later encouraged states to require Medicaid recipients to prove they work in order to receive health insurance.

    Drug Prices

    One of the issues the Trump administration was most active on was reducing the price of prescription drugs for consumers — a top priority for both Democratic and Republican voters. But many of those proposals were blocked by the courts.

    One Trump-era plan that never took effect would have pegged the price of some expensive drugs covered by Medicare to prices in other countries. Another would have required drug companies to include prices in their television advertisements.

    A regulation allowing states to import cheaper drugs from Canada did take effect, in November 2020. However, it took until January 2024 for the FDA, under Trump’s successor, to approve the first importation plan, from Florida. Canada has said it won’t allow exports that risk causing drug shortages in that country, leaving unclear whether the policy is workable.

    Trump also signed into law measures allowing pharmacists to disclose to patients when the cash price of a drug is lower than the cost using their insurance. Previously pharmacists could be barred from doing so under their contracts with insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.

    Veterans’ Health

    Trump is credited by some advocates for overhauling Department of Veterans Affairs health care. However, while he did sign a major bill allowing veterans to obtain care outside VA facilities, White House officials also tried to scuttle passage of the spending needed to pay for the initiative.

    Medical Freedom

    Trump scored a big win for the libertarian wing of the Republican Party when he signed into law the “Right to Try Act,” intended to make it easier for patients with terminal diseases to access drugs or treatments not yet approved by the FDA.

    But it is not clear how many patients have managed to obtain treatment using the law because it is aimed at the FDA, which has traditionally granted requests for “compassionate use” of not-yet-approved drugs anyway. The stumbling block, which the law does not address, is getting drug companies to release doses of medicines that are still being tested and may be in short supply.

    Trump said in a Jan. 10 Fox News town hall that the law had “saved thousands and thousands” of lives. There’s no evidence for the claim.

    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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