boys & men
Is sports betting a public health crisis?
Charles Krupa/AP
In a new First Opinion essay, Isaac Rose-Berman, a fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, says yes. He opens with this striking statistic: In 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on sports betting, Americans legally wagered less than $5 billion on sports annually. Last year, they bet $150 billion.
It's not that everyone's developing gambling addictions. "Between casual betting and full addiction, however, lies a massive gray area where millions of Americans, particularly young men, now live," Rose-Berman argues. Read more about the potential consequences of what the International Classification of Diseases calls "hazardous gambling."
heart health
Food as medicine: Delivery method matters for people with heart failure
When providing healthy food to heart failure patients coming home after hospital stays, how that food is provided matters. A trial based at two Texas hospitals, presented Monday at the American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans, divided 150 patients into three groups. All groups received dietary counseling, but one also got medically tailored meals. Another also got fresh produce boxes while the third received no food.
Prepared meals or fresh produce translated into higher quality of life than counseling alone, surveys showed. People who cooked their own meals with fresh produce were more satisfied than those who ate prepared meals.
"If we can identify the best strategy for providing access to healthy food, this could be transformative for people with heart failure who are particularly vulnerable after hospitalization," study leader Ambarish Pandey of UT Southwestern Medical Center said. "I think healthy food can be as powerful as medications for people with chronic conditions like heart failure."
Scott Hummel, a cardiologist at the University of Michigan, noted the diversity of study participants: 42% were Black, 33% were Hispanic, and 23% were white. "Heart failure is really the quintessential diet-sensitive condition, so that's a really important population to study here," he said at a media briefing.
For more on food as medicine from the AHA conference, here's Monday's story on more research. — Elizabeth Cooney
infectious disease
Goodbye, measles-elimination status (again)
As a region, the Americas first gained measles-free status in 2016, only to see that achievement lost two years later after a long-running outbreak in Venezuela. It regained measles-free status in 2024. But yesterday, that status slipped through our fingers again as Canada announced that it had formally lost its elimination status.
The decision, which STAT's Helen Branswell reports was widely expected, came after an expert committee concluded last week that a Canadian outbreak that began in October 2024, over a year ago, is ongoing. "This loss represents a setback of course. But it is also reversible," said Jarbas Barbosa, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, which organized the committee. Read more from Helen on what it means, and how long it might take to re-gain elimination status.
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