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The FDA Will No Longer Allow This Potentially Harmful Additive Found in Some Sodas
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will no longer allow the use of brominated vegetable oil in food products, the agency said Tuesday.
Brominated vegetable oil (BVO) is vegetable oil modified with the chemical bromine and has been used in small amounts to keep citrus flavoring from floating to the top in beverages, according to an FDA statement.
Dozens of products — mostly sodas — use BVO as an ingredient, according to the Food Scores database run by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy group that focuses on consumer health, toxic chemicals and pollutants.
The rule that no longer allows BVO in food will go into effect on August 2, but companies will have one year after that date to reformulate and relabel their products as well as deplete their BVO inventory, according to the FDA statement.
Colorado Now Has the Worst Outbreak of Bird Flu Among Dairy Cattle in the Country
Colorado’s outbreak of bird flu among dairy cattle is now the worst in the country, with more cases in the past month than any other state, according to the latest state and federal data.
As of Monday evening, Colorado had identified 26 herds with cases of avian influenza. Of those, 22 were identified within the past month and the herds are still in quarantine. Four other cases were identified earlier and quarantines have since been lifted.
All affected herds are in the northeastern part of the state. The rapid and still largely mysterious spread in Colorado — hardly a leading dairy state — contributes to growing concerns that U.S. health authorities are not doing enough to contain the virus. While the threat currently to humans is generally very low, infectious disease experts worry that the longer the virus spreads unchecked through animals, the greater the chances become that it will mutate to become more dangerous to people.
Colorado’s case total since bird flu was first identified in dairy cattle this spring places the state second nationally, behind only Idaho and one ahead of Michigan. But Colorado ranks far lower in dairy production than those states — the state was 13th in the country for milk production in 2023, according to federal data.
Do Ultra-Processed Foods Increase Lupus Risk for Women? — Sobering Findings From Nurses’ Health Study
Among women followed for upwards of 25 years, those who ate relatively large amounts of “ultra-processed” foods — such as soft drinks, frozen pizzas, and mass-produced baked goods — developed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) at more than 50% greater rates than those with relatively low consumption, a new analysis of Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) data showed.
And just drinking soft drinks in large quantities raised the risk, the researchers reported in Arthritis Care & Research. With both artificially and sugar-sweetened products combined, the hazard ratio for the third versus the first tertile of intake was 1.45 (95% CI 1.01-2.09).
The investigators also pointed a finger specifically at emulsifiers, a common additive in mass-produced food products. These “are biologically and metabolically harmful, affecting the gut microbiota, and implicated in causing ‘leaky gut,’ with resulting systemic inflammation and metabolic syndrome,” the group wrote.
And there is also no doubt that such foods now dominate the typical American diet. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey showed that ultra-processed foods accounted for an astonishing 57% of average caloric intake for adults in 2017-2018.
Recent Studies Continue to Highlight Connection Between Depression and Suicide in Pesticide-Exposed Farmers
Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, which took place last month, evokes concern about the growing body of science linking pesticide exposure to neurological effects linked to depression. Recent studies reveal elevated rates of psychiatric disorders, including suicide, among farmers, with problems more common for males.
Through systematic reviews, meta-analyses, surveys and interviews, and blood sampling, these three studies add to the growing body of science linking pesticide exposure to neurological impacts. First, in the Journal of Agromedicine, researchers from Greece and the United Kingdom review eight studies and find a significant positive association between pesticide poisoning and depression in agricultural populations.
Second, a study in Toxicology shows a link between depression in Brazilian farmers and pesticide exposure, most notably with glyphosate usage. Third, the latest study in Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology focuses on work by researchers from Spain in identifying farmers exposed to chlorpyrifos, mancozeb, and malathion that have higher rates of depressive symptoms and suicide attempts.
Scientists Reveal Foods to Eat Now to Stave Off Cognitive Decline Later
What you eat when you’re young and middle-aged can affect how your brain functions as you age, new research shows. After the age of 65, our cognitive performance often begins to decline, with more severe conditions like dementia often aggravating these effects.
Previous research has shown that maintaining a healthy diet in your 60s and 70s can help stave off this age-related cognitive decline, but there have been fewer studies into how our eating habits throughout our life span impact cognitive aging.
In a new study, researchers from Tufts University analyzed data collected from over 3,000 individuals for nearly seven decades to determine how eating patterns throughout a person’s life span — from age 4 to 70 — can impact their cognitive abilities later in life.
Of course, the study is purely observational and involved Caucasian individuals living in the U.K., but it is the first of its kind to track diet and cognitive ability throughout the life span and may help inform early intervention strategies and diagnoses in the future.
Leading Lab-Grown Meat Company Cuts Dozens of Jobs
Cultivated meat firm Upside Foods has cut its workforce as the industry continues to struggle with bans from legislators and a significant downturn in venture capital funding. In an email sent to employees, Upside CEO Uma Valeti wrote that 26 people would leave the company and that executive and leadership teams would be restructured to “reduce top-heavy structures.”
Upside is among the best-funded startups in the cultivated meat industry, and one of only two firms that is cleared to sell its product in the U.S. In February, WIRED revealed that the startup had put on hold its plans to build a large cultivated meat plant in Illinois and made “selective role eliminations” and “other changes” that would impact 16 employees.
In the most recent email, Valeti wrote that the company was pausing its “large-scale tissue program.” The company started selling its whole-cut chicken in July 2023 at Bar Crenn restaurant in San Francisco, but since this initial launch Upside has indicated that instead of whole-textured tissue, it is focusing its scaling efforts on so-called “suspension” products, more suited to producing chicken nuggets, patés, and other ground-meat products.
Enfamil Formula Should Carry NEC Warnings for Premature Infants, Mother’s Lawsuit Alleges
An Arizona mother says feeding her prematurely born daughter Enfamil infant formula led to the development of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC); a risk she says the manufacturer was well aware of but has failed to adequately disclose to parents or the medical community for decades.
The complaint was filed by Case Stansell and her daughter, Kiara Sedwick, on June 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, pursuing damages from Mead Johnson & Company, LLC, and Mead Johnson Nutrition Company, the makers of Enfamil formula, as the defendants.
Due to a growing body of research that has found that cow’s milk-based products like Enfamil and Similac greatly increase the risk among premature infants, Stansell’s lawsuit calls for more stringent warnings to be provided to medical staff and new parents about the NEC risks from infant formula.
