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High Consumption of Ultra-Processed Foods Linked to Greater Mortality Risk
A study that analyzed the data of over 540,000 older adults found that those who relied on a diet with higher amounts of ultra-processed foods were around 10% more likely to die earlier than those who consumed a balanced diet.
Lead author Erikka Loftfield at Stadtman Investigator at the National Cancer Institute and colleagues observed the dietary behaviors and preferences of more than half a million older adults based in the United States aged between 50 and 71 years for close to 30 years.
“We observed that highly processed meat and soft drinks were a couple of the subgroups of ultra-processed food most strongly associated with mortality risk and eating a diet low in these foods is already recommended for disease prevention and health promotion,” Loftfield said in a press release. She presented the study findings at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting, Nutrition 2024, which was held in Chicago from June 29 to July 2, 2024.
Ultra-processed foods refer to industrial formulations that are manufactured from food-derived substances and contain additives and preservatives to increase their shelf life. This includes sweet or savory packaged snacks, mass-produced packaged bread, pastries, cakes, breakfast cereals, and packaged milk/fruit drinks. Ready-to-heat food items and reconstituted meat products also fall under the definition of ultra-processed products.
Senator Cory Booker Says FDA Proposal Could Worsen Antibiotic Resistance
A pending proposal from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could “worsen the catastrophic impacts of antimicrobial resistance” if finalized, according to Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey).
On Tuesday, Booker sent a letter to Commissioner Robert Califf expressing concerns about changes to “duration limits” in the FDA’s revised guidance on antibiotic use in animal agriculture. Continuously using drugs for long stretches is known to lead to antibiotic resistance. And just as antibiotics are now prescribed for humans for the least number of days possible, the FDA has long recognized the need to set limits in feeding them to groups of pigs, chickens, and cows.
However, in the proposal, Booker said, agency officials went in the other direction and eliminated a 21-day limit for the most critical drugs, replacing it with guidelines that allow courses to be determined on a case-by-case basis. “This will set a dangerous precedent by prioritizing the needs of the regulated industry over the FDA’s primary mission to protect public health,” Booker said. “I urge you to finalize Guidance for Industry that meaningfully protects medically important antibiotics from overuse.”
Antibiotic resistance is a looming public health threat that already directly causes the deaths of 1.27 million people (and contributes to the deaths of 5 million) globally each year. Overuse of important drugs (i.e., those that are also used to treat infections in humans, usually referred to as “medically important”) on industrial farms is a key contributor to the problem. As a result, a draft of a United Nations declaration expected to be finalized this September calls for completely ending the routine use of essential drugs in agriculture aside from the treatment of sick animals.
New Study Sparks Debate About Whether H5N1 Virus in Cows Is Adapted to Better Infect Humans
A study published Monday provides new evidence that the H5N1 virus currently causing an outbreak of bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle may be adapted to better infecting humans than other circulating strains of the virus, a result that is already courting controversy among the world’s leading flu researchers.
Across the globe, different influenza viruses are constantly circulating in many different kinds of animals. One of the things that determines what kind of animal a given flu virus can infect is the type of receptors present on the outside of tissues that the virus comes in contact with. Flu viruses that typically infect birds have an affinity for latching on to the particular shape of a receptor commonly found in the guts of avian species. Human influenza viruses, on the other hand, prefer the shape of a receptor that lines our upper respiratory tracts.
The new work, published in Nature, showed that the bovine H5N1 virus could bind to both receptors.
Bird Flu Response in Michigan Sparks COVID-Era Worry on Farms
Some dairy farmers are resisting Michigan’s nation-leading efforts to stop the spread of bird flu for fear their incomes will suffer from added costs and hurt rural America.
The government’s restrictions, which include tracking who comes and goes from farms, are rekindling unwanted memories of COVID-19 in Martin and other small towns in central Michigan.
The state has two of the four known cases in humans, all dairy workers, since federal authorities confirmed the world’s first case in U.S. cattle in late March. The state has tested more people than any of the 12 states with confirmed cases in cows, according to a Reuters survey of state health departments. Testing policies vary by state.
Public health experts fear the disease has the potential to turn into another pandemic just a few years after COVID-19. As those worries mount, the acceptance and success or failure of Michigan’s proactive response is being watched by other states looking for a roadmap that goes beyond federal containment recommendations.
More than a dozen interviews with Michigan producers, state health officials, researchers and industry groups, along with preliminary data, so far show limited dairy farmer participation in efforts to stem and study the virus. In some cases, calls from local health officials go unanswered, money for dairy farm research is left unclaimed, and workers still milk cows without extra protective gear.
Live Poultry Markets May Be Source of Bird Flu Virus in San Francisco Wastewater
Federal officials suspect that live bird markets in San Francisco may be the source of bird flu virus in area wastewater samples. Days after health monitors reported the discovery of suspected avian flu viral particles in wastewater treatment plants, federal officials announced that they were looking at poultry markets near the treatment facilities.
Last month, San Francisco Public Health Department officials reported that state investigators had detected H5N1 — the avian flu subtype making its way through U.S. cattle, domestic poultry and wild birds — in two chickens at a live market in May. They also noted they had discovered the virus in city wastewater samples collected during that period.
Even if the state or city had missed a few infected birds, John Korslund, a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian epidemiologist, seemed incredulous that a few birds could cause a positive hit in the city’s wastewater.
“Unless you’ve got huge amounts of infected birds — in which case you ought to have some dead birds, too — it’d take a lot of bird poop” to become detectable in a city’s wastewater system, he said.
He said genetic sequencing would help health officials determine the origin of viral particles — whether they came from dairy milk, or from wild birds. Some epidemiologists have voiced concerns about the spread of H5N1 among dairy cows, because the animals could act as a vessel in which bird and human viruses could interact.
Are Companies Using Carbon Markets to Sell More Pesticides?
Carbon markets were first created decades ago as a means for companies to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by paying to reduce emissions somewhere else. Think: planting trees that hold carbon in South America to balance emissions from a factory in South Carolina.
And over the last several years, policymakers, environmental and farm groups, and private companies began hyping the idea that specific markets could be created to pay farmers for adopting practices that could reduce emissions and hold carbon in soil. Flashy startups including Nori and Indigo Ag jumped into the game, Democrats included the idea in their 2020 plan to address the climate crisis, and a bitterly divided Congress passed the Growing Climate Solutions Act on a bipartisan basis in an effort to jump-start the markets.
However, while the highest-profile carbon markets are run by public entities like the state of California or New England’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), many of the agricultural markets that have made more recent progress are run by powerful companies — including Bayer, Corteva Agriscience, and Land O’Lakes — that are in the business of selling those same pesticides and fertilizers.
Others are concerned about the influence pesticide companies are exerting within the growing landscape of paying farmers for carbon, especially as taxpayer money floods in to boost their efforts and farmer field data becomes more and more valuable.
EU’s Food Watchdog Dismisses Concerns Over Gene-Edited Crops Proposal Amid Council Deadlock
The EU’s food safety authority (EFSA) said that the Commission’s criteria to relax rules on certain gene-edited foods are ‘scientifically justified’, while the Hungarian Council Presidency is pulling the brakes on the file.
Following a request of the European Parliament, EFSA published on Wednesday (July 10) an assessment of a 2023 opinion by the French food safety agency (ANSES) that questioned the Commission’s criteria to split crops produced using New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) into two categories, one of the founding elements in the proposal.
Under the Commission’s proposal, plants falling under the NGT 1 category would be exempt from the EU’s strict requirements on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), including mandatory labeling and a lengthy authorization process. Those with more far-reaching DNA modifications, labeled as NGT 2, would continue to follow GMO regulations.
The French agency raised concerns on this point, saying that the criteria used to consider NGT 1 crops as equivalent to their conventional counterparts had “no scientific basis.”
Singapore Has Approved 16 Insects to Eat as Food: Here’s Everything You Need to Know
Singapore has taken the leap and approved 16 species of insect as safe for human consumption.
Creatures to make the grade in the view of the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) include crickets, grubs, moth larvae and one species of honeybee. The agency says it has taken this decision simply because the insect industry is “nascent and insects are a new food item here.”
It comes as the United Nations Food And Agricultural Organization (FAO) continues to promote insect consumption as an environmentally friendly way to get protein in your diet — for both humans and their livestock.
