
Tomato vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing tomato to cucumber, we picked the tomato.
Why?
Both are certainly great, but there are some nutritional factors between them:
In terms of macros, everything is approximately equal except that tomato has more than 2x the fiber, so that’s a win for tomato.
When it comes to vitamins, tomatoes have more of vitamins A, B1, B3, B6, B9, C, E, and choline, while cucumber has more of vitamins B2, B5, and K. In short, an 8:3 victory for tomatoes.
In the category of minerals, tomatoes have more copper, potassium, and manganese, while cucumber has more calcium, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. So, a win for cucumber this time.
Both have useful phytochemical properties, too; tomatoes are rich in lycopene which has many benefits, and cucumbers have powerful anti-inflammatory powers whose mechanism of action is not yet fully understood—see the links below for more details!
All in all, enjoy either or both (they make a great salad chopped roughly together with some olives, a little garlic, and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar with a twist or three of black pepper), but if you have to pick just one (what a cruel world), we say the tomato has the most benefits, on balance.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More
- Cucumber Extract Beats Glucosamine & Chondroitin… At 1/135th Of The Dose?!
Take care!
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The first pig kidney has been transplanted into a living person. But we’re still a long way from solving organ shortages
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In a world first, we heard last week that US surgeons had transplanted a kidney from a gene-edited pig into a living human. News reports said the procedure was a breakthrough in xenotransplantation – when an organ, cells or tissues are transplanted from one species to another. https://www.youtube.com/embed/cisOFfBPZk0?wmode=transparent&start=0 The world’s first transplant of a gene-edited pig kidney into a live human was announced last week.
Champions of xenotransplantation regard it as the solution to organ shortages across the world. In December 2023, 1,445 people in Australia were on the waiting list for donor kidneys. In the United States, more than 89,000 are waiting for kidneys.
One biotech CEO says gene-edited pigs promise “an unlimited supply of transplantable organs”.
Not, everyone, though, is convinced transplanting animal organs into humans is really the answer to organ shortages, or even if it’s right to use organs from other animals this way.
There are two critical barriers to the procedure’s success: organ rejection and the transmission of animal viruses to recipients.
But in the past decade, a new platform and technique known as CRISPR/Cas9 – often shortened to CRISPR – has promised to mitigate these issues.
What is CRISPR?
CRISPR gene editing takes advantage of a system already found in nature. CRISPR’s “genetic scissors” evolved in bacteria and other microbes to help them fend off viruses. Their cellular machinery allows them to integrate and ultimately destroy viral DNA by cutting it.
In 2012, two teams of scientists discovered how to harness this bacterial immune system. This is made up of repeating arrays of DNA and associated proteins, known as “Cas” (CRISPR-associated) proteins.
When they used a particular Cas protein (Cas9) with a “guide RNA” made up of a singular molecule, they found they could program the CRISPR/Cas9 complex to break and repair DNA at precise locations as they desired. The system could even “knock in” new genes at the repair site.
In 2020, the two scientists leading these teams were awarded a Nobel prize for their work.
In the case of the latest xenotransplantation, CRISPR technology was used to edit 69 genes in the donor pig to inactivate viral genes, “humanise” the pig with human genes, and knock out harmful pig genes. https://www.youtube.com/embed/UKbrwPL3wXE?wmode=transparent&start=0 How does CRISPR work?
A busy time for gene-edited xenotransplantation
While CRISPR editing has brought new hope to the possibility of xenotransplantation, even recent trials show great caution is still warranted.
In 2022 and 2023, two patients with terminal heart diseases, who were ineligible for traditional heart transplants, were granted regulatory permission to receive a gene-edited pig heart. These pig hearts had ten genome edits to make them more suitable for transplanting into humans. However, both patients died within several weeks of the procedures.
Earlier this month, we heard a team of surgeons in China transplanted a gene-edited pig liver into a clinically dead man (with family consent). The liver functioned well up until the ten-day limit of the trial.
How is this latest example different?
The gene-edited pig kidney was transplanted into a relatively young, living, legally competent and consenting adult.
The total number of gene edits edits made to the donor pig is very high. The researchers report making 69 edits to inactivate viral genes, “humanise” the pig with human genes, and to knockout harmful pig genes.
Clearly, the race to transform these organs into viable products for transplantation is ramping up.
From biotech dream to clinical reality
Only a few months ago, CRISPR gene editing made its debut in mainstream medicine.
In November, drug regulators in the United Kingdom and US approved the world’s first CRISPR-based genome-editing therapy for human use – a treatment for life-threatening forms of sickle-cell disease.
The treatment, known as Casgevy, uses CRISPR/Cas-9 to edit the patient’s own blood (bone-marrow) stem cells. By disrupting the unhealthy gene that gives red blood cells their “sickle” shape, the aim is to produce red blood cells with a healthy spherical shape.
Although the treatment uses the patient’s own cells, the same underlying principle applies to recent clinical xenotransplants: unsuitable cellular materials may be edited to make them therapeutically beneficial in the patient.
CRISPR technology is aiming to restore diseased red blood cells to their healthy round shape. Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock We’ll be talking more about gene-editing
Medicine and gene technology regulators are increasingly asked to approve new experimental trials using gene editing and CRISPR.
However, neither xenotransplantation nor the therapeutic applications of this technology lead to changes to the genome that can be inherited.
For this to occur, CRISPR edits would need to be applied to the cells at the earliest stages of their life, such as to early-stage embryonic cells in vitro (in the lab).
In Australia, intentionally creating heritable alterations to the human genome is a criminal offence carrying 15 years’ imprisonment.
No jurisdiction in the world has laws that expressly permits heritable human genome editing. However, some countries lack specific regulations about the procedure.
Is this the future?
Even without creating inheritable gene changes, however, xenotransplantation using CRISPR is in its infancy.
For all the promise of the headlines, there is not yet one example of a stable xenotransplantation in a living human lasting beyond seven months.
While authorisation for this recent US transplant has been granted under the so-called “compassionate use” exemption, conventional clinical trials of pig-human xenotransplantation have yet to commence.
But the prospect of such trials would likely require significant improvements in current outcomes to gain regulatory approval in the US or elsewhere.
By the same token, regulatory approval of any “off-the-shelf” xenotransplantation organs, including gene-edited kidneys, would seem some way off.
Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How much does your phone’s blue light really delay your sleep? Relax, it’s just 2.7 minutes
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It’s one of the most pervasive messages about technology and sleep. We’re told bright, blue light from screens prevents us falling asleep easily. We’re told to avoid scrolling on our phones before bedtime or while in bed. We’re sold glasses to help filter out blue light. We put our phones on “night mode” to minimise exposure to blue light.
But what does the science actually tell us about the impact of bright, blue light and sleep? When our group of sleep experts from Sweden, Australia and Israel compared scientific studies that directly tested this, we found the overall impact was close to meaningless. Sleep was disrupted, on average, by less than three minutes.
We showed the message that blue light from screens stops you from falling asleep is essentially a myth, albeit a very convincing one.
Instead, we found a more nuanced picture about technology and sleep.
Mangostar/Shutterstock What we did
We gathered evidence from 73 independent studies with a total of 113,370 participants of all ages examining various factors that connect technology use and sleep.
We did indeed find a link between technology use and sleep, but not necessarily what you’d think.
We found that sometimes technology use can lead to poor sleep and sometimes poor sleep can lead to more technology use. In other words, the relationship between technology and sleep is complex and can go both ways.
How is technology supposed to harm sleep?
Technology is proposed to harm our sleep in a number of ways. But here’s what we found when we looked at the evidence:
- bright screen light – across 11 experimental studies, people who used a bright screen emitting blue light before bedtime fell asleep an average of only 2.7 minutes later. In some studies, people slept better after using a bright screen. When we were invited to write about this evidence further, we showed there is still no meaningful impact of bright screen light on other sleep characteristics including the total amount or quality of sleep
- arousal is a measure of whether people become more alert depending on what they’re doing on their device. Across seven studies, people who engaged in more alerting or “exciting” content (for example, video games) lost an average of only about 3.5 minutes of sleep compared to those who engaged in something less exciting (for example, TV). This tells us the content of technology alone doesn’t affect sleep as much as we think
- we found sleep disruption at night (for example, being awoken by text messages) and sleep displacement (using technology past the time that we could be sleeping) can lead to sleep loss. So while technology use was linked to less sleep in these instances, this was unrelated to being exposed to bright, blue light from screens before bedtime.
Which factors encourage more technology use?
Research we reviewed suggests people tend to use more technology at bedtime for two main reasons:
- to “fill the time” when they’re not yet sleepy. This is common for teenagers, who have a biological shift in their sleep patterns that leads to later sleep times, independent of technology use.
- to calm down negative emotions and thoughts at bedtime, for apparent stress reduction and to provide comfort.
There are also a few things that might make people more vulnerable to using technology late into the night and losing sleep.
We found people who are risk-takers or who lose track of time easily may turn off devices later and sacrifice sleep. Fear of missing out and social pressures can also encourage young people in particular to stay up later on technology.
What helps us use technology sensibly?
Last of all, we looked at protective factors, ones that can help people use technology more sensibly before bed.
The two main things we found that helped were self-control, which helps resist the short-term rewards of clicking and scrolling, and having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes.
We found having a parent or loved one to help set bedtimes encourages sensible use of technology. fast-stock/Shutterstock Why do we blame blue light?
The blue light theory involves melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. During the day, we are exposed to bright, natural light that contains a high amount of blue light. This bright, blue light activates certain cells at the back of our eyes, which send signals to our brain that it’s time to be alert. But as light decreases at night, our brain starts to produce melatonin, making us feel sleepy.
It’s logical to think that artificial light from devices could interfere with the production of melatonin and so affect our sleep. But studies show it would require light levels of about 1,000-2,000 lux (a measure of the intensity of light) to have a significant impact.
Device screens emit only about 80-100 lux. At the other end of the scale, natural sunlight on a sunny day provides about 100,000 lux.
What’s the take-home message?
We know that bright light does affect sleep and alertness. However our research indicates the light from devices such as smartphones and laptops is nowhere near bright or blue enough to disrupt sleep.
There are many factors that can affect sleep, and bright, blue screen light likely isn’t one of them.
The take-home message is to understand your own sleep needs and how technology affects you. Maybe reading an e-book or scrolling on socials is fine for you, or maybe you’re too often putting the phone down way too late. Listen to your body and when you feel sleepy, turn off your device.
Chelsea Reynolds, Casual Academic/Clinical Educator and Clinical Psychologist, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Dark Calories – by Dr. Catherine Shanahan
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You may be wondering: do we really need a 416-page book to say “don’t use vegetable oils”?
The author, who was a biochemist before becoming a family physician, takes a lot of care to explain in ways the non-chemists amongst us can understand (with molecular diagrams very well-labelled), exactly why certain seed/vegetable oils (both of those names being imprecise and unhelpful as umbrella terms) cause metabolic problems for us, when in contrast olive oil, avocado oil, and even peanut oil, do not.
Understanding is, for many, the root foundation of compliance. We are more likely to abide by rules we understand the logic behind, than seemingly arbitrary “thou shalt not…” proclamations.
So that’s an important strength of the book, demystifying various fats and how our body responds to them on a biochemical level, not just “is associated with such-and-such, based on observational population studies”. This kind of explanation clears up why, for example, seed oils correlate with obesity more than calories, sugar, wheat, or beef—having as it does to do with affecting our body’s ability to generate and use energy.
She also offers practical tips/reminders throughout, such as how “organic” does not necessarily mean “healthy” (indeed, many poisonous plants can be grown “organically”), and nor does “organic” mean “unrefined”, it speaks only for the conditions in which the raw product was first made, before other things were done to it later.
We learn a lot, too, about the processes of oxidation, the biochemistry behind that (more diagrams!), and of course the inflammatory response to same (an important factor in most if not all chronic disease).
The style is mostly very easy-to-read pop-science, though if you’re not a chemist, you’ll probably need to slow down for the biochemistry explanations (this reviewer certainly did).
Bottom line: this is more than just a litany against vegetable oils; it’s a ground-upwards education in metabolic biochemistry for the layperson, and what that means for us in terms of chronic disease risks.
Click here to check out Dark Calories, and learn what’s going on with these oils!
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How worried should I be about cryptosporidiosis? Am I safe at the pool?
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You might have heard of something called “cryptosporidiosis” recently, closely followed by warnings to stay away from your local swimming pool if you’ve had diarrhoea.
More than 700 cases of this gastrointestinal disease were reported in Queensland in January, which is 13 times more than in January last year. Just under 500 cases have been recorded in New South Wales this year to-date, while other states have similarly reported an increase in the number of cryptosporidiosis infections in recent months.
Cryptosporidiosis has been listed as a national notifiable disease in Australia since 2001.
But what exactly is it, and should we be worried?What causes cryptosporidiosis, and who is affected?
Cryptosporidiosis is the disease caused by the parasite Cryptosporidium, of which there are two types that can make us sick. Cryptosporidum hominis only affects humans and is the major cause of recent outbreaks in Australia, while Cryptosporidium parvum can also affect animals.
The infection is spread by spores called oocysts in the stools of humans and animals. When ingested, these oocysts migrate and mature in the small bowel. They damage the small bowel lining and can lead to diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, fever and abdominal discomfort.
Most people develop symptoms anywhere from one to 12 days after becoming infected. Usually these symptoms resolve within two weeks, but the illness may last longer and can be severe in those with a weakened immune system.
Children and the elderly tend to be the most commonly affected. Cryptosporidiosis is more prevalent in young children, particularly those under five, but the disease can affect people of any age.
A number of public pools have been closed lately due to cryptosporidiosis outbreaks.
LBeddoe/ShutterstockSo how do we catch it?
Most major outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis have been due to people drinking contaminated water. The largest recorded outbreak occurred in Milwaukee in 1993 where 403,000 people were believed to have been infected.
Cryptosporidium oocysts are very small in size and in Milwaukee they passed through the filtration system of one of the water treatment plants undetected, infecting the city’s water supply. As few as ten oocysts can cause infection, making it possible for contaminated drinking water to affect a very large number of people.
Four days after infection a person with cryptosporidiosis can shed up to ten billion oocysts into their stool a day, with the shedding persisting for about two weeks. This is why one infected person in a swimming pool can infect the entire pool in a single visit.
Cryptosporidium oocysts excreted in the faeces of infected humans and animals can also reach natural bodies of water such as beaches, rivers and lakes directly through sewer pipes or indirectly such as in manure transported with surface runoff after heavy rain.
One study which modelled Cryptosporidium concentrations in rivers around the world estimated there are anywhere from 100 to one million oocysts in a litre of river water.
In Australia, cryptosporidiosis outbreaks tend to occur during the late spring and early summer periods when there’s an increase in recreational water activities such as swimming in natural water holes, water catchments and public pools. We don’t know exactly why cases have seen such a surge this summer compared to other years, but we know Cryptosporidium is very infectious.
Oocysts have been found in foods such as fresh vegetables and seafood but these are not common sources of infection in Australia.
What about chlorine?
Contrary to popular belief, chlorine doesn’t kill off all infectious microbes in a swimming pool. Cryptosporidium oocysts are hardy, thick-walled and resistant to chlorine and acid. They are not destroyed by chlorine at the normal concentrations found in swimming pools.
We also know oocysts can be significantly protected from the effects of chlorine in swimming pools by faecal material, so the presence of even small amounts of faecal matter contaminated with Cryptosporidium in a swimming pool would necessitate closure and a thorough decontamination.
Young children and in particular children in nappies are known to increase the potential for disease transmission in recreational water. Proper nappy changing, frequent bathroom breaks and showering before swimming to remove faecal residue are helpful ways to reduce the risk.
Cryptosporidium can spread in other bodies of water, not just swimming pools.
Yulia Simonova/ShutterstockSome sensible precautions
Other measures you can take to reduce yours and others’ risk of cryptosporidiosis include:
- avoid swimming in natural waters such as rivers and creeks during and for at least three days after heavy rain
- avoid swimming in beaches for at least one day after heavy rain
- avoid drinking untreated water such as water from rivers or springs. If you need to drink untreated water, boiling it first will kill the Cryptosporidium
- avoid swallowing water when swimming if you can
- if you’ve had diarrhoea, avoid swimming for at least two weeks after it has resolved
- avoid sharing towels or linen for at least two weeks after diarrhoea has resolved
- avoid sharing, touching or preparing food that other people may eat for at least 48 hours after diarrhoea has resolved
- wash your hands with soap and water after going to the bathroom or before preparing food (Cryptosporidium is not killed by alcohol gels and sanitisers).
Not all cases of diarrhoea are due to cryptosporidiosis. There are many other causes of infectious gastroenteritis and because the vast majority of the time recovery is uneventful you don’t need to see a doctor unless very unwell. If you do suspect you may have cryptosporidiosis you can ask your doctor to refer you for a stool test.
Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Clean Needles Save Lives. In Some States, They Might Not Be Legal.
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Kim Botteicher hardly thinks of herself as a criminal.
On the main floor of a former Catholic church in Bolivar, Pennsylvania, Botteicher runs a flower shop and cafe.
In the former church’s basement, she also operates a nonprofit organization focused on helping people caught up in the drug epidemic get back on their feet.
The nonprofit, FAVOR ~ Western PA, sits in a rural pocket of the Allegheny Mountains east of Pittsburgh. Her organization’s home county of Westmoreland has seen roughly 100 or more drug overdose deaths each year for the past several years, the majority involving fentanyl.
Thousands more residents in the region have been touched by the scourge of addiction, which is where Botteicher comes in.
She helps people find housing, jobs, and health care, and works with families by running support groups and explaining that substance use disorder is a disease, not a moral failing.
But she has also talked publicly about how she has made sterile syringes available to people who use drugs.
“When that person comes in the door,” she said, “if they are covered with abscesses because they have been using needles that are dirty, or they’ve been sharing needles — maybe they’ve got hep C — we see that as, ‘OK, this is our first step.’”
Studies have identified public health benefits associated with syringe exchange services. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says these programs reduce HIV and hepatitis C infections, and that new users of the programs are more likely to enter drug treatment and more likely to stop using drugs than nonparticipants.
This harm-reduction strategy is supported by leading health groups, such as the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and the International AIDS Society.
But providing clean syringes could put Botteicher in legal danger. Under Pennsylvania law, it’s a misdemeanor to distribute drug paraphernalia. The state’s definition includes hypodermic syringes, needles, and other objects used for injecting banned drugs. Pennsylvania is one of 12 states that do not implicitly or explicitly authorize syringe services programs through statute or regulation, according to a 2023 analysis. A few of those states, but not Pennsylvania, either don’t have a state drug paraphernalia law or don’t include syringes in it.
Those working on the front lines of the opioid epidemic, like Botteicher, say a reexamination of Pennsylvania’s law is long overdue.
There’s an urgency to the issue as well: Billions of dollars have begun flowing into Pennsylvania and other states from legal settlements with companies over their role in the opioid epidemic, and syringe services are among the eligible interventions that could be supported by that money.
The opioid settlements reached between drug companies and distributors and a coalition of state attorneys general included a list of recommendations for spending the money. Expanding syringe services is listed as one of the core strategies.
But in Pennsylvania, where 5,158 people died from a drug overdose in 2022, the state’s drug paraphernalia law stands in the way.
Concerns over Botteicher’s work with syringe services recently led Westmoreland County officials to cancel an allocation of $150,000 in opioid settlement funds they had previously approved for her organization. County Commissioner Douglas Chew defended the decision by saying the county “is very risk averse.”
Botteicher said her organization had planned to use the money to hire additional recovery specialists, not on syringes. Supporters of syringe services point to the cancellation of funding as evidence of the need to change state law, especially given the recommendations of settlement documents.
“It’s just a huge inconsistency,” said Zoe Soslow, who leads overdose prevention work in Pennsylvania for the public health organization Vital Strategies. “It’s causing a lot of confusion.”
Though sterile syringes can be purchased from pharmacies without a prescription, handing out free ones to make drug use safer is generally considered illegal — or at least in a legal gray area — in most of the state. In Pennsylvania’s two largest cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, officials have used local health powers to provide legal protection to people who operate syringe services programs.
Even so, in Philadelphia, Mayor Cherelle Parker, who took office in January, has made it clear she opposes using opioid settlement money, or any city funds, to pay for the distribution of clean needles, The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported. Parker’s position signals a major shift in that city’s approach to the opioid epidemic.
On the other side of the state, opioid settlement funds have had a big effect for Prevention Point Pittsburgh, a harm reduction organization. Allegheny County reported spending or committing $325,000 in settlement money as of the end of last year to support the organization’s work with sterile syringes and other supplies for safer drug use.
“It was absolutely incredible to not have to fundraise every single dollar for the supplies that go out,” said Prevention Point’s executive director, Aaron Arnold. “It takes a lot of energy. It pulls away from actual delivery of services when you’re constantly having to find out, ‘Do we have enough money to even purchase the supplies that we want to distribute?’”
In parts of Pennsylvania that lack these legal protections, people sometimes operate underground syringe programs.
The Pennsylvania law banning drug paraphernalia was never intended to apply to syringe services, according to Scott Burris, director of the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University. But there have not been court cases in Pennsylvania to clarify the issue, and the failure of the legislature to act creates a chilling effect, he said.
Carla Sofronski, executive director of the Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Network, said she was not aware of anyone having faced criminal charges for operating syringe services in the state, but she noted the threat hangs over people who do and that they are taking a “great risk.”
In 2016, the CDC flagged three Pennsylvania counties — Cambria, Crawford, and Luzerne — among 220 counties nationwide in an assessment of communities potentially vulnerable to the rapid spread of HIV and to new or continuing high rates of hepatitis C infections among people who inject drugs.
Kate Favata, a resident of Luzerne County, said she started using heroin in her late teens and wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for the support and community she found at a syringe services program in Philadelphia.
“It kind of just made me feel like I was in a safe space. And I don’t really know if there was like a come-to-God moment or come-to-Jesus moment,” she said. “I just wanted better.”
Favata is now in long-term recovery and works for a medication-assisted treatment program.
At clinics in Cambria and Somerset Counties, Highlands Health provides free or low-cost medical care. Despite the legal risk, the organization has operated a syringe program for several years, while also testing patients for infectious diseases, distributing overdose reversal medication, and offering recovery options.
Rosalie Danchanko, Highlands Health’s executive director, said she hopes opioid settlement money can eventually support her organization.
“Why shouldn’t that wealth be spread around for all organizations that are working with people affected by the opioid problem?” she asked.
In February, legislation to legalize syringe services in Pennsylvania was approved by a committee and has moved forward. The administration of Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, supports the legislation. But it faces an uncertain future in the full legislature, in which Democrats have a narrow majority in the House and Republicans control the Senate.
One of the bill’s lead sponsors, state Rep. Jim Struzzi, hasn’t always supported syringe services. But the Republican from western Pennsylvania said that since his brother died from a drug overdose in 2014, he has come to better understand the nature of addiction.
In the committee vote, nearly all of Struzzi’s Republican colleagues opposed the bill. State Rep. Paul Schemel said authorizing the “very instrumentality of abuse” crossed a line for him and “would be enabling an evil.”
After the vote, Struzzi said he wanted to build more bipartisan support. He noted that some of his own skepticism about the programs eased only after he visited Prevention Point Pittsburgh and saw how workers do more than just hand out syringes. These types of programs connect people to resources — overdose reversal medication, wound care, substance use treatment — that can save lives and lead to recovery.
“A lot of these people are … desperate. They’re alone. They’re afraid. And these programs bring them into someone who cares,” Struzzi said. “And that, to me, is a step in the right direction.”
At her nonprofit in western Pennsylvania, Botteicher is hoping lawmakers take action.
“If it’s something that’s going to help someone, then why is it illegal?” she said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
This story was co-reported by WESA Public Radio and Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.
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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See what other 10almonds subscribers are asking!
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Q: I would be interested in learning more about collagen and especially collagen supplements/powders and of course if needed, what is the best collagen product to take. What is collagen? Why do we need to supplement the collagen in our body? Thank you PS love the information I am receiving in the news letters. Keep it up
We’re glad you’re enjoying them! Your request prompted us to do our recent Research Review Monday main feature on collagen supplementation—we hope it helped, and if you’ve any more specific (or other) question, go ahead and let us know! We love questions and requests
Q: Great article about the health risks of salt to organs other than the heart! Is pink Himalayan sea salt, the pink kind, healthier?
Thank you! And, no, sorry. Any salt that is sodium chloride has the exact same effect because it’s chemically the same substance, even if impurities (however pretty) make it look different.
If you want a lower-sodium salt, we recommend the kind that says “low sodium” or “reduced sodium” or similar. Check the ingredients, it’ll probably be sodium chloride cut with potassium chloride. Potassium chloride is not only not a source of sodium, but also, it’s a source of potassium, which (unlike sodium) most of us could stand to get a little more of.
For your convenience: here’s an example on Amazon!
Bonus: you can get a reduced sodium version of pink Himalayan salt too!
Q: Can you let us know about more studies that have been done on statins? Are they really worth taking?
That is a great question! We imagine it might have been our recent book recommendation that prompted it? It’s quite a broad question though, so we’ll do that as a main feature in the near future!
Q: Is MSG healthier than salt in terms of sodium content or is it the same or worse?
Great question, and for that matter, MSG itself is a great topic for another day. But your actual question, we can readily answer here and now:
- Firstly, by “salt” we’re assuming from context that you mean sodium chloride.
- Both salt and MSG do contain sodium. However…
- MSG contains only about a third of the sodium that salt does, gram-for-gram.
- It’s still wise to be mindful of it, though. Same with sodium in other ingredients!
- Baking soda contains about twice as much sodium, gram for gram, as MSG.
Wondering why this happens?
Salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) is equal parts sodium and chlorine, by atom count, but sodium’s atomic mass is lower than chlorine’s, so 100g of salt contains only 39.34g of sodium.
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO₃) is one part sodium for one part hydrogen, one part carbon, and three parts oxygen. Taking each of their diverse atomic masses into account, we see that 100g of baking soda contains 27.4g sodium.
MSG (monosodium glutamate, C₅H₈NO₄Na) is only one part sodium for 5 parts carbon, 8 parts hydrogen, 1 part nitrogen, and 4 parts oxygen… And all those other atoms put together weigh a lot (comparatively), so 100g of MSG contains only 12.28g sodium.
Q: Thanks for the info about dairy. As a vegan, I look forward to a future comment about milk alternatives
Thanks for bringing it up! What we research and write about is heavily driven by subscriber feedback, so notes like this really help us know there’s an audience for a given topic!
We’ll do a main feature on it, to do it justice. Watch out for Research Review Monday!
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