Healthy diet could save $50 billion in health care costs

Eating right is good for the economy

Brigham and Women's Hospital

An unhealthy diet is one of the leading risk factors for poor health, accounting for up to 45 percent of all deaths from cardiometabolic diseases (CMD), such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. 

But the national economic burden of unhealthy diet habits remains unknown. A new study by investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital, in collaboration with investigators at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, analyzed the impact of 10 dietary factors -- including consumption of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, processed meats and more -- and estimated the annual CMD costs of suboptimal diet habits. 

The team concludes that suboptimal diet costs approximately $300 per person, or $50 billion nationally, accounting for 18 percent of all heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes costs in the country. The team's findings are published in PLOS Medicine.

Several South County groups benefit from xmas eve grants

Rhode Island Foundation awards $180,000 in grants to feed RI’ers in need

By Chris Barnett

Sparked by a recent study reporting that thousands of Rhode Islanders are going hungry every day, the Rhode Island Foundation today announced $180,000 in emergency grants to seven social service agencies that provide food to low-income households.

"While we continue to pursue long-term solutions to poverty, we also support these organizations in providing immediate and critical assistance to struggling Rhode Islanders," said Neil D. Steinberg, the Foundation’s president and CEO.

The announcement comes as proposed cuts to federal safety net programs threaten to overwhelm the state’s food pantries, which are already near capacity. According to the R.I. Community Food Bank’s 2019 Report on Hunger, Rhode Islanders in need missed over 11 million meals last year.

“The economy is strong, with low unemployment, but there are still thousands of Rhode Islanders who cannot afford three healthy meals a day. Demand for food assistance remains high at our member agencies as families struggle to afford basic household expenses,” said Andrew Schiff, CEO of the Food Bank, which received $50,000.

The money will help the Food Bank acquire 150,000 pounds of food-- enough to provide 185,000 additional meals. The organization will buy staples such as baked beans, rice, tomato soup, fresh produce and canned carrots, corn and peas for member agencies like the East Bay Food Pantry in Bristol, Progreso Latino in Central Falls, the R.I. Center Assisting those in Need in Charlestown and the West Warwick Senior Center Pantry.

2019, The Year Trump Made A Hash Of U.S. Foreign Policy

Just one of those things that happen when you have a crazy person in charge

By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor

Trump actually curtesied to the King of Saudi Arabia, despite 11 of the 12
9/11 suicide bombers who were Saudis (and likely supported by some
Saudi leaders) and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

End of year proves a good platform for looking back to sum up administration achievements or missteps over the year, as well as how certain we are about the directions in which our nation is moving.

Americans looking at foreign policy and our relationships overseas will find this year deepened U.S. isolationism, widened support for authoritarian governments, made American primacy in trade the weather vane for our thinking, as opposed to, say, human rights,  and continued Donald Trump’s role as a worldwide disrupter.

A foreign policy built on tariffs and the threat of tariffs creates and maintains an underlying sense of uncertainty among investors.

The only person Trump has NEVER criticized is Vladimir Putin (BBC)

The year will start and end with Trump’s confusing meld of domestic political gain toward his reelection with the formation of the people and policies of America’s standing with the rest of the world. 

The impeachment proceedings that hang over the end of the year are a textbook on using the levels of official policies and rogue personal political desire for dirt on political enemies with interference in domestic elections by foreign governments.

Overall, our foreign policy year is a mixed record at best, even if you somehow subscribe to American boorishness in the china shop of diplomacy.

Who loves ya, baby?

Very presidential

'A Stark Loss for American Journalism'

Reporter and Author William Greider Dies at Age 83

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams

I spoke to Bill often as he was preparing to
write this book (published in 1992) on grass
roots movements. In particular, we talked about
the evolution of grassroots environmentalism.
He was one of the best journalists I ever met.
-Will Collette

William "Bill" Greider, a veteran journalist and author who spent decades reporting on politics and economics for national media outlets, died Wednesday at his home in Washington, D.C. at the age of 83.

Born on Aug. 6, 1936 to Harold and Gladys, Greider was raised in Wyoming, Ohio and graduated from Princeton in 1958. He died from complications of congestive heart failure, according to his son Cameron. 

In addition to Cameron, Greider is survived by his wife Linda, his daughter Katharine, his sister Nancy, and four grandchildren.

A longtime national affairs correspondent for The Nation, Greider also spent 17 years at Rolling Stone and 15 years at The Washington Post. He was a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS and authored several books. During his tenure at The Nation, Greider was a frequently featured writer on Common Dreams.

Greider's editors, fellow reporters, and readers have turned to social media since his death on Christmas Day to recognize his contributions to journalism and highlight some of his most celebrated pieces of writing.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editorial director and publisher of The Nation, wrote on Twitter that Greider understood "something all too rare in this 24-7 media world. The process of reimagining democracy requires not only real respect for the people, deep reporting, historical insight, but also patience."

Losing weight and thinking straight

Changes in the immune system explain why belly fat is bad for thinking

Iowa State University

Iowa State researchers have found for the first time that less muscle and more body fat may affect how flexible our thinking gets as we become older, and changes in parts of the immune system could be responsible.

These findings could lead to new treatments that help maintain mental flexibility in aging adults with obesity, sedentary lifestyles, or muscle loss that naturally happens with aging.

The study, led by Auriel Willette, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition, and Brandon Klinedinst, a PhD student in neuroscience, looked at data from more than 4,000 middle-aged to older UK Biobank participants, both men and women. 

The researchers examined direct measurements of lean muscle mass, abdominal fat, and subcutaneous fat, and how they were related to changes in fluid intelligence over six years.

Trump has no business defining anti-Semitism

The man who called neo-Nazis “very fine people” has no business defining anti-Semitism for the rest of us.

By Sarah Gertler

The Trump administration says it’s anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. 

That’s the gist of a recent executive order that would treat campus calls to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians as anti-Semitic discrimination on the basis of “national origin.”

Days after the order, the synagogue I most often attend here in Washington, D.C. became another of the hundreds in the U.S. to be vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti. Swastikas and the word “Jew” were found gouged into its historic doors.

This graffiti isn’t the symbol of the nonviolent boycott movement. It’s the symbol of the neo-Nazis Trump called “very fine people.”

Every mainstream headline I saw about Trump’s recent order seemed to accept that it was designed to combat anti-Semitism. You could almost forget that Trump himself is one of the single biggest dangers facing the Jewish community in this country today.

During his presidency, he’s called rooms full of Jewish people “brutal killers” while making excuses for Nazis after Charlottesville. His former chief strategist was the head of an alt-right website.

Trump has backed white supremacist conspiracies that migrant caravans are secretly funded by Jews, said Jews who vote for Democrats show “great disloyalty,” and — at his Hanukkah party, no less — gave the floor to a pastor who says that Jews are going to hell. Subtle.

And never mind that categorizing Jewishness as a “national origin” hearkens back to anti-Semitic trope that, wherever we go, we’re an “alien people.”

Under Trump, anti-Semitic hate crimes have skyrocketed to historic levels, and it’s affecting us all.

Aside from Donald Trump, look at who else pays no federal income tax

Amazon, Chevron, and Starbucks Among 91 Fortune 500 Corporations That Paid $0 in Federal Income Taxes in 2018

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams

More than 90 large, profitable corporations on the Fortune 500 list effectively did not pay a penny in federal income taxes in 2018, according to a new report published by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

ITEP examined financial filings from 379 Fortune 500 companies that reported a profit in 2018, the first year Donald Trump's tax cuts took effect. The Republican tax law slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.

"The 379 profitable corporations identified in this study paid an effective federal income tax rate of 11.3 percent on their 2018 income, slightly more than half the statutory 21 percent tax," ITEP said. 

"The 11.3 percent effective tax rate found in this study is likely the lowest effective tax rate in the last 40 years."

ITEP found that 91 of the 379 companies analyzed took advantage of loopholes to effectively not pay federal income taxes in 2018 despite making a combined profit of $101 billion. 

That list of companies includes prominent corporate giants such as Amazon, Halliburton, Chevron, Starbucks, and Delta Air Lines.

How Republicans intend to run reproductive health care

For more cartoons by Jen Sorenson, CLICK HERE.

Then and now, continued

Get your kid a dog

Early-life exposure to dogs may lessen risk of developing schizophrenia

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Ever since humans domesticated the dog, the faithful, obedient and protective animal has provided its owner with companionship and emotional well-being. 

Now, a study from Johns Hopkins Medicine suggests that being around "man's best friend" from an early age may have a health benefit as well -- lessening the chance of developing schizophrenia as an adult.

And while Fido may help prevent that condition, the jury is still out on whether or not there's any link, positive or negative, between being raised with Fluffy the cat and later developing either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

"Serious psychiatric disorders have been associated with alterations in the immune system linked to environmental exposures in early life, and since household pets are often among the first things with which children have close contact, it was logical for us to explore the possibilities of a connection between the two," says Robert Yolken, M.D., chair of the Stanley Division of Pediatric Neurovirology and professor of neurovirology in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, and lead author of a research paper recently posted online in the journal PLOS One.

In the study, Yolken and colleagues at Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore investigated the relationship between exposure to a household pet cat or dog during the first 12 years of life and a later diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. 

For schizophrenia, the researchers were surprised to see a statistically significant decrease in the risk of a person developing the disorder if exposed to a dog early in life. Across the entire age range studied, there was no significant link between dogs and bipolar disorder, or between cats and either psychiatric disorder.

New Alzheimer's drug will get a try-out at Brown

New grant will fund clinical trial of a novel approach to treating Alzheimer’s

Image from the National Institutes of Health

With a new grant from the Alzheimer’s Association, a team of researchers from Brown University, Butler Hospital and the Miriam Hospital will conduct a phase-one clinical trial of a drug that could potentially provide a new avenue for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. 

The drug, called emtricitabine (Emtriva), is from a class of therapeutics typically used to treat HIV and AIDS. Research by John Sedivy, a professor of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Brown and director of the Brown Center on the Biology of Aging, has shown that the drug can potentially reduce a type of age-related cellular inflammation that has been associated with Alzheimer’s. This new clinical trial is an initial step toward determining if the drug may benefit people with the disease. 

“There’s been a tremendous push to start thinking about Alzheimer’s and other age-associated diseases in new ways,” said Sedivy, who is also affiliated with the Brown Institute for Translational Science (BITS). 

“That is exactly what we’re doing with this study by using a class of drugs that has never been used before in this context. We know that the Alzheimer’s brain is an inflamed brain, and we’re hopeful that by down-regulating that inflammation we can modify the course of the disease.”

Trump and DeVos insist on screwing student borrowers

Trump to students: don't go to college

By Jill Richardson 

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is back in the news on a topic close to my heart: student loans.

It’s close to my heart because I’m six years into a PhD program and six figures in debt right now. 

While my life has been immeasurably enriched by my education, I’m not taking on this amount of debt simply because I love learning.

Like anyone, I’m doing it because I need a job.

My student loans were a calculation of risk vs. reward: I took on this debt because I believed doing so would result in eventually finding a secure, well-paying job that would allow me to pay it back and then some. 

Just the learning, or even the degree alone, will not be worth it unless my degree leads me to a job.

That’s the calculation students make when they take out student loans. 

Education is a ticket to many salaried, middle class jobs, yet higher education is financially out of reach for many without loans.

Sociologist Sara Goldrick-Rab has documented many ways in which our existing financial aid system does not adequately serve the needs of low-income students — because it was created based on assumptions true of wealthier students only.

For example, typical aid calculations assume that parents will contribute to their children’s education, and children won’t be working to contribute to their parents’ household income.

Some students take out loans but don’t finish their degree — and they are left in debt with nothing to show for it. These are not lazy students. They are often working one or more jobs, sometimes raising children, and trying to go to college while living in poverty. Attempting to attend college leaves them worse off than if they had not tried at all.

Another 911 emergency?

Former North Prov firefighter with a criminal past now on state board overseeing EMS services
By Lynn Arditi for The Publics Radio and ProPublica

Albert F. Peterson III (Lynn Arditi/The Public's Radio)

When Rhode Island lawmakers ousted two state Health Department officials from the board that helps oversee its emergency medical services system, Gov. Gina Raimondo replaced them with a city mayor and this man: Albert F. Peterson III.

“His decades of experience as a first responder coupled with his recent experience operating a company that trains EMTs made him well qualified to serve on this board,” the governor’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Bogdan, said of Peterson in an email.

But left unsaid is that Peterson, a retired North Providence fire captain, also has a criminal history and has been disciplined by state health regulators. His company, meanwhile, has made misleading statements on its website about its professional accreditation and drew a warning last week from a national group following questions from The Public’s Radio.

Peterson’s appointment and the broader board restructuring comes amid a feud over state protocols around emergency medical services. 

The state firefighters unions and the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns pushed back against efforts by state health officials and some doctors to restrict which first responders could insert breathing tubes in cardiac arrest patients. 

The Public’s Radio and ProPublica reported this month that 12 patients died from 2015 to this year after their breathing tubes were misplaced, pumping air into patients’ stomachs instead of their lungs.

The firefighters and municipal leaders successfully pushed for legislation signed in July by Raimondo that ousted Health Department officials from the state Ambulance Service Coordinating Advisory Board.

Aside from Peterson, Raimondo also appointed Johnston Mayor Joseph M. Polisena, who was highly critical of efforts to restrict the use of intubations.