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Tag: Stroke

  • Keto Diets and Diabetes  | NutritionFacts.org

    Keto Diets and Diabetes  | NutritionFacts.org

    Ketogenic diets are put to the test for diabetes reversal. 
     
    As you can see at the start of my video Does a Ketogenic Diet Help Diabetes or Make It Worse?, ketogenic diets can lower blood sugars better than conventional diets. So much so, in fact, that there is a keto product company that claims ketogenic diets can “reverse” diabetes. However, they are confusing the symptom (high blood sugars) with the disease (carbohydrate intolerance). People with diabetes can’t properly handle carbohydrates, and this manifests as high blood sugars. Clearly, if you stick to eating mostly fat, your blood sugars will stay low, but you may be actually making the underlying disease worse at the same time. 
     
    We’ve known for nearly a century that if you put people on a ketogenic diet, their carbohydrate intolerance can skyrocket within just two days. Below and at 0:46 in my video, you can see a graph from the study showing the blood sugar response two days after eating sugar. On a high-carb diet, blood sugar response is about 90 mg/dL. But, the blood sugar response to the same amount of sugar after a high-fat diet is about 190 mg/dL, nearly double. The intolerance to carbohydrates skyrocketed on a high-fat diet. 

    After one week on an 80 percent fat diet, you can quintuple your blood sugar spike in reaction to the same carb load compared to a week on a low-fat diet, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:12 in my video. 

    Even a single day of excessive dietary fat intake can do it, as you can see in the graph below and at 1:26 in my video. If you’re going in for a diabetes test, having a fatty dinner the night before can adversely affect your results. Just one meal high in saturated fat can make carbohydrate intolerance, the cause of diabetes, worse within four hours. 


    Given enough weight loss by any means, whether from cholera or bariatric surgery, type 2 diabetes can be reversed, but a keto diet for diabetes may not just be papering over the cracks, but actively throwing fuel on the fire. 
     
    I’ve been trying to think of a good metaphor. It’s easy to come up with things that just treat the symptoms without helping the underlying disease, like giving someone with pneumonia aspirin for their fever instead of antibiotics. However, a keto diet for diabetes is worse than that because it may treat the symptoms while actively worsening the disease. It may be more like curing the fever by throwing that pneumonia patient out into a snow bank or “curing” your amputated finger by amputating your hand. One of the co-founders of masteringdiabetes.org suggested it’s like a CEO who makes their bad bottom line look better by borrowing tons of cash. The outward numbers look better, but on the inside, the company is just digging itself into a bigger hole. 
     
    Do you remember The Club, that popular car anti-theft device that attaches to the steering wheel and locks it in place so the steering column can only turn a few inches? Imagine you’re in a car at the top of a hill with the steering wheel locked. Then, the car starts rolling down the hill. What do you do? Imagine there’s also something stuck under your brake pedal. The keto-diet equivalent response to this situation is who cares if you’re barreling down into traffic with a locked steering wheel and no brakes—just stick to really straight deserted roads without any stop signs or traffic lights. If you do that, problem solved! The longer you go, the more speed you’ll pick up. If you should hit a dietary bump in the road or start to veer off the path, the consequences could get more and more disastrous over time. However, if you stick to the keto straight and narrow, you’ll be a-okay! In contrast, the non-keto response would be to just unlock the steering wheel and dislodge whatever’s under your brake. In other words, fix the underlying problem instead of just whistling past—and then into—the graveyard. 
     
    The reason keto proponents claim they can “reverse” diabetes is they can successfully wean type 2 diabetics off their insulin. That’s like faith-healing someone out of the need for a wheelchair by making them stay in bed the rest of their life. No need for a wheelchair if you never move. Their carbohydrate intolerance isn’t gone. Their diabetes isn’t gone. In fact, it could be just as bad or even worse. Type 2 diabetes is reversed when you are weaned off insulin while eating a normal diet like everyone else. Then and only then do you not have diabetes anymore. A true diabetes reversal diet, as you can see below and at 4:58 in my video, is practically the opposite of a ketogenic diet: getting diabetics off their insulin within a matter of weeks by eating more than 300 grams of carbs a day! 
    The irony doesn’t stop there. One of the reasons people with diabetes suffer such nerve and artery damage is due to an inflammatory metabolic toxin known as methylglyoxal, which forms at high blood sugar levels. Methylglyoxal is the most potent creator of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which are implicated in degenerative diseases—from Alzheimer’s and cataracts to kidney disease and strokes, as you can see below and at 5:31 in my video. 

    You get AGEs in your body from two sources: You can eat them preformed in your diet or make them internally from methylglyoxal if you have high blood sugar levels. On a keto diet, one would expect high exposure to preformed AGEs, since they’re found concentrated in animal-derived foods high in fat and protein, but we would expect less internal, new formation due to presumably low levels of methylglyoxal, given lower blood sugars from not eating carbs. Dartmouth researchers were surprised to find more methylglyoxal! As shown in the graph below and at 6:11 in my video, a few weeks on the Atkins diet led to a significant increase in methylglyoxal levels. Those in active ketosis did even worse, doubling the level of this glycotoxin in their bloodstream. 

    It turns out that high sugars may not be the only way to create this toxin, as you can see below and at 6:24 in my video. One of the ketones you make on a ketogenic diet is acetone (known for its starring role in nail polish remover). Acetone does more than just make keto dieters fail breathalyzer tests, “feel queasy and light-headed, and develop what’s been described as ‘rotten apple breath.’” Acetone can oxidize in the blood to form acetol, which may be a precursor for methylglyoxal.

    That may be why keto dieters can end up with levels of this glycotoxin as high as those with out-of-control diabetes, which can cause the nerve damage and blood vessel damage you see in diabetics. That’s another way keto dieters can end up with a heart attack. The irony of treating diabetes with a ketogenic diet may extend beyond just making the underlying diabetes worse, but by mimicking some of the disease’s dire consequences. 

    This is part of a seven-video series on keto, which you can find in related videos below.

    I also recently tackled diabetes.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • The Safety of Keto Diets  | NutritionFacts.org

    The Safety of Keto Diets  | NutritionFacts.org

    What are the effects of ketogenic diets on nutrient sufficiency, gut flora, and heart disease risk? 

    Given the decades of experience using ketogenic diets to treat certain cases of pediatric epilepsy, a body of safety data has accumulated. Nutrient deficiencies would seem to be the obvious issue. Inadequate intake of 17 micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals has been documented in those on strict ketogenic diets, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:14 in my video Are Keto Diets Safe?. 

    Dieting is a particularly important time to make sure you’re meeting all of your essential nutrient requirements, since you may be taking in less food. Ketogenic diets tend to be so nutritionally vacuous that one assessment estimated that you’d have to eat more than 37,000 calories a day to get a sufficient daily intake of all essential vitamins and minerals, as you can see in the graph below and at 0:39 in my video. 


    That is one of the advantages of more plant-based approaches. As the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association put it, “What could be more nutrient-dense than a vegetarian diet?” Choosing a healthy diet may be easier than eating more than 37,000 daily calories, which is like putting 50 sticks of butter in your morning coffee. 
     
    We aren’t just talking about not reaching your daily allowances either. Children have gotten scurvy on ketogenic diets, and some have even died from selenium deficiency, which can cause sudden cardiac death. The vitamin and mineral deficiencies can be solved with supplements, but what about the paucity of prebiotics, the dozens of types of fiber, and resistant starches found concentrated in whole grains and beans that you’d miss out on? 
     
    Not surprisingly, constipation is very common on keto diets. As I’ve reviewed before, starving our microbial self of prebiotics can have a whole array of negative consequences. Ketogenic diets have been shown to “reduce the species richness and diversity of intestinal microbiota,” our gut flora. Microbiome changes can be detected within 24 hours of switching to a high-fat, low-fiber diet. A lack of fiber starves our good gut bacteria. We used to think that dietary fat itself was nearly all absorbed in the small intestine, but based on studies using radioactive tracers, we now know that about 7 percent of the saturated fat in a fat-rich meal can make it down to the colon. This may result in “detrimental changes” in our gut microbiome, as well as weight gain, increased leaky gut, and pro-inflammatory changes. For example, there may be a drop in beneficial Bifidobacteria and a decrease in overall short-chain fatty acid production, both of which would be expected to increase the risk of gastrointestinal disorders. 
     
    Striking at the heart of the matter, what might all of that saturated fat be doing to our heart? If you look at low-carbohydrate diets and all-cause mortality, those who eat lower-carb diets suffer “a significantly higher risk of all-cause mortality,” meaning they live, on average, significantly shorter lives. However, from a heart-disease perspective, it matters if it’s animal fat or plant fat. Based on the famous Harvard cohorts, eating more of an animal-based, low-carb diet was associated with higher death rates from cardiovascular disease and a 50 percent higher risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke, but no such association was found for lower-carb diets based on plant sources.  
     
    And it wasn’t just Harvard. Other researchers have also found that “low-carbohydrate dietary patterns favoring animal-derived protein and fat sources, from sources such as lamb, beef, pork, and chicken, were associated with higher mortality, whereas those that favored plant-derived protein and fat intake, from sources such as vegetables, nuts, peanut butter, and whole-grain bread, were associated with lower mortality…” 
     
    Cholesterol production in the body is directly correlated to body weight, as you can see in the graph below and at 3:50 in my video. 

    Every pound of weight loss by nearly any means is associated with about a one-point drop in cholesterol levels in the blood. But if we put people on very-low-carb ketogenic diets, the beneficial effect on LDL bad cholesterol is blunted or even completely neutralized. Counterbalancing changes in LDL or HDL (what we used to think of as good cholesterol) are not considered sufficient to offset this risk. You don’t have to wait until cholesterol builds up in your arteries to have adverse effects either; within three hours of eating a meal high in saturated fat, you can see a significant impairment of artery function. Even with a dozen pounds of weight loss, artery function worsens on a ketogenic diet instead of getting better, which appears to be the case with low-carb diets in general.  

    For more on keto diets, check out my video series here. 

    And, to learn more about your microbiome, see the related videos below.

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Is It Safe to Take Weight-Loss Pills?  | NutritionFacts.org

    Is It Safe to Take Weight-Loss Pills?  | NutritionFacts.org

    Why don’t more people take the weight-loss medications currently on the market? 

    Despite the myriad menus of FDA-approved medications for weight loss, they’ve only been prescribed for about 1 in 50 patients with obesity. We tend to worship medical magic bullets in the United States, so what gives? As I discuss in my video Friday Favorites: Are Weight-Loss Supplements Safe and Effective?, one of the reasons anti-obesity drugs are so “highly stigmatized” is that, historically, they’ve been anything but magical and the bullets have been blanks—or worse. 

    To date, most weight-loss drugs that were initially approved as safe have since been pulled from the market for unforeseen side effects that turned them into a “threat to public health.” As you may remember from my video Brown Fat: Losing Weight Through Thermogenesis, it all started with DNP, a pesticide with a promise to safely melt away fat that melted away people’s eyesight instead. (That actually helped lead to the passage of the landmark Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938.) Thanks to the internet, DNP has made a comeback with “predictably lethal results.” 

    Then came the amphetamines. Currently, more than half a million Americans may be addicted to amphetamines like crystal meth, but the “original amphetamine epidemic was generated by the pharmaceutical industry and medical profession.” By the 1960s, drug companies were churning out about 80,000 kilos of amphetamines a year, which is nearly enough for a weekly dose for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Billions of doses a year were prescribed for weight loss, and weight-loss clinics were raking in huge profits. A dispensing diet doctor could buy 100,000 amphetamine tablets for less than $100, then turn around and sell them to patients for $12,000.  

    At a 1970 Senate Hearing, Senator Thomas Dodd (father of “Dodd-Frank” Senator Chris Dodd) suggested that America’s speed freak problem “was no by means an ‘accidental development’: ‘Multihundred million dollar advertising budgets, frequently the most costly ingredient in the price of a pill, have, pill by pill, led, coaxed and seduced post-World War II generations into the ‘freaked-out’ drug culture…’” I’ll leave drawing the Big Pharma parallels to the current opioid crisis as an exercise for the viewer.  

    Aminorex was a widely-prescribed appetite suppressant before it was pulled for causing lung damage. Eighteen million Americans were on fen-phen before it was pulled from the market for causing severe damage to heart valves. Meridia was pulled for heart attacks and strokes, Acomplia was pulled for psychiatric side effects, including suicide, and the list goes on, as you can see below and at 2:51 in my video. 

    The fen-phen debacle resulted in “some of the largest litigation pay-outs ever seen in the pharmaceutical industry, with individual amounts of up to US$200,000 and a total value of ~US$14 billion,” but that’s all baked into the formula. If you read the journal PharmacoEconomics (and who doesn’t!), you may be aware that a new weight-loss drug may injure and kill so many that “expected litigation cost” could exceed $80 million, but Big Pharma consultants estimate that if it’s successful, the drug could bring in more than $100 million, so do the math. 

    What does work for weight loss? I dive deep into that and more in How Not to Diet.  For more of my videos on weight loss, check out the related videos below. 

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s back home after having a minor stroke in Mexico

    Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s back home after having a minor stroke in Mexico

    Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has told ABC News that he suffered a minor stroke while attending a business conference in Mexico City

    ByThe Associated Press

    November 9, 2023, 12:34 PM

    File – Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak speaks at the Novathon Conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Oct. 30, 2019. Wozniak remains hospitalized in Mexico City on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2023, following a “health problem” while he was in the city to speak at a business conference. (Marton Monus/MTI via AP, File)

    The Associated Press

    MEXICO CITY — Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he suffered a minor stroke while attending a business conference in Mexico City.

    Wozniak told ABC News in a text Thursday that he felt dizzy Wednesday morning, then experienced vertigo before going to the hospital where a MRI revealed he had had a “minor but real stroke.”

    Wozniak, 73, had been scheduled to speak at the World Business Forum in Mexico City, a two-day gathering billed as the world’s most important management event. Other advertised speakers were Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and Muhammad Yunus, a pioneer in microfinance who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

    The convivial Wozniak, who teamed up with the late Steve Jobs to found Apple in 1976, had been scheduled as the conference’s closing speaker Wednesday afternoon.

    Wozniak told the New York Times that he was released from the hospital Thursday, flew back to California and was waiting for dinner at home in Los Gatos. “I’m back home and feeling good,” Wozniak said.

    Wozniak left Apple in 1985 to pursue a wide range of other interest, but has remained a fervent supporter of the company and a technology evangelist. More recently he has pursued a range of other interests including competing on “Dancing With The Stars” in 2009 and participating as a judge in an online video show called “Unicorn Hunters” that assesses ideas from entrepreneurs vying to build startups potentially worth $1 billion or more.

    While dabbling in other startups, Wozniak also has helped keep alive the memory of his longtime friend, Jobs, who died of cancer in 2011.

    ——-

    Associated Press writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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  • Diabetes Associations Recognize Plant-Based Diets  | NutritionFacts.org

    Diabetes Associations Recognize Plant-Based Diets  | NutritionFacts.org

    Plant-based diets are the single most important—yet underutilized—opportunity to reverse the pending obesity and diabetes-induced epidemic of disease and death. 

    Dr. Kim Williams, immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, started out an editorial on plant-based diets with the classic Schopenhauer quote: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” In 2013, plant-based diets for diabetes were in the “ridiculed” stage in the official endocrinology practice guidelines and placed in the “Fad Diets” section. The guidelines acknowledged that strictly plant-based diets “have been shown to reduce the risk for T2DM [type 2 diabetes] and improve management of T2DM” better than the American Diabetes Association recommendations, then inexplicably went on to say that it “does not support the use of one type of diet over another” with respect to diabetes or in general. “The best approach for a healthy lifestyle is simply the ‘amelioration of unhealthy choices’”—whatever that means. 

    But, by 2015, the clinical practice guidelines from the same professional associations explicitly endorsed a plant-based diet as its general recommendation for diabetic patients. The times they are a-changin’! 

    As I discuss in my video Plant-Based Diets Recognized by Diabetes Associations, the American Diabetes Association itself is also now on board, listing plant-based eating as one of the dietary patterns acceptable for the management of the condition. The Canadian Diabetes Association, however, has really taken the lead. “Type 2 diabetes mellitus is considered one of the fastest growing diseases in Canada, representing a serious public health concern,” so it isn’t messing around and recommends plant-based diets for disease management “because of their potential to improve body weight and A1C [blood sugar control], LDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol and non-HDL-cholesterol levels, in addition to reducing the need for diabetes medications.” The Canadian Diabetes Association uses the Kaiser Permanente definition for that eating pattern: “a regimen that encourages whole, plant-based foods and discourages meats, dairy products and eggs, as well as all refined and processed foods,” that is, junk. 

    It recommends that diabetes education centers in Canada “improve patients’ perceptions of PBDs [plant-based diets] by developing PBD-focused educational and support as well as providing individualized counseling sessions addressing barriers to change.” The biggest obstacle identified to eating plant-based was ignorance. Nearly nine out of ten patients interviewed “had not heard of using a plant-based diet to treat or manage T2DM.” Why is that? “Patient awareness of (and interest in) the benefits of a plant-based diet for the management of diabetes…may be “influenced by the perception of diabetes educators and clinicians.” Indeed, most of the staff were aware of the benefits of plant-based eating for treating diabetes, yet only about one in three were recommending it to their patients.  

    Why? One of the common reasons given was they didn’t think their patients would eat plant-based, so they didn’t even bring it up, but “[t]his notion is contrary to the patient survey results that almost two-thirds of patients were willing” to at least give it a try. The researchers cite the PCRM Geico studies I’ve covered in other videos, in which strictly plant-based diets were “well accepted with over 95% adherence rate,” presumably because the study participants just felt so much better, reporting “increased energy level, better digestion, better sleep, and increased satisfaction when compared with the control group.” 

    A number of staff members also expressed they were unclear about the supportive scientific evidence as their second reason for not recommending this diet, but it’s been shown to be more effective than an American Diabetes Association–recommended diet at reducing the use of diabetes medications, long-term blood sugar control, and cholesterol. It’s therefore possible that the diabetes educators were simply behind the times, as there is “a lag-time” in the dissemination of new scientific findings from the literature to the clinician and finally to the patient. Speeding up this process is one of the reasons I started NutritionFacts.org. 

    As Dr. Williams put it, “the ‘truth’ (i.e., evidence) for the benefits of plant-based nutrition continues to mount. This now includes lower rates of stroke, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, myocardial infarction, and mortality [heart attacks and cardiac death], as well as many non-cardiac issues that affect our patients in cardiology, ranging from cancer to a variety of inflammatory conditions.” We’ve got the science. The bigger challenge is overcoming the “inertia, culture, habit, and widespread marketing of unhealthy foods.” He concludes, “Reading the existing literature and evaluating the impact of plant-based nutrition, it clearly represents the single most important yet underutilized opportunity to reverse the pending obesity and diabetes-induced epidemic of morbidity and mortality,” disease and death. 

    I highlighted the PCRM Geico studies in my videos Slimming the Gecko and Plant-Based Workplace Intervention. 

    Aren’t plant-based diets high in carbs? Get the “skinny” by checking out my video Flashback Friday: Benefits of a Macrobiotic Diet for Diabetes. 

    To learn more about diet’s effect on type 2 diabetes, see the related videos below. 

    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Goodbye my hound.

    Goodbye my hound.

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    Goodbye my hound.. This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times

    This morning I had to have my dog Skelum put down after he suffered a stroke. He had been with me 15 years, helped me through many hard times, saw me get married and has helped me play with and protect my four children.
    Goodbye my faithful hound, my best friend. I’ll always love you.
    I’ll see you in the next place.

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  • Lucinda Williams talks about writing and performing rock ‘n’ roll after her stroke

    Lucinda Williams talks about writing and performing rock ‘n’ roll after her stroke

    LOS ANGELES — A little too country for rock ‘n’ roll, and a little too rock ‘n’ roll for country, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams has always played by her own rules.

    That’s never changed — even after November 2020, when she suffered a stroke. Williams underwent grueling rehabilitation, eventually leading to her memoir, “Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You,” and her album, “Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart.” The latter, released earlier this summer, features contributions from Bruce Springsteen, his wife Patti Scialfa, Jesse Malin, Angel Olsen, Margo Price, Jeremy Ivey, Buddy Miller, and more.

    “The recovery part is really hard because you get impatient,” Williams told the Associated Press. “You want it to happen all at once.”

    On Saturday, Williams reaches another recovery milestone: Her 2023 tour kicked off at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

    In a phone interview earlier this year, Williams spoke to the AP about her recovery, collaborating in new ways, and what’s in store for the future.

    This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

    WILLIAMS: I wasn’t able to write how I usually write, which is with my guitar, because I haven’t been able to play. But I was able to make enough of a chord to make a note, and I’d figure out something in my head. And, you know, my friends jumped in and helped by playing the chords. It turned into a collaboration, a collaborative effort. So, in a way, it was a mixed blessing. We ended up with songs we might not have otherwise.

    It ended up being kind of liberating to work with other people because I hadn’t really done it before, to that extent.

    WILLIAMS: Margo, we’ve started to (become) really good friends. She’s in the same neighborhood we’re in Nashville. We were in the studio and I think (my husband) Tom (Overby) suggested seeing if she wanted to come in and sing some background stuff and she was excited about it. She’s just so fun to work with because she’s real enthusiastic, and, you know, she’s fun to be with. And then, Angel Olsen was in town already. She didn’t live here. She’s living in Asheville. But she was in Nashville when we were recording, so she came in and an added amazingly beautiful, really small little part vocal to “Jukebox,” which I think just makes the whole song.

    WILLIAMS: People are just amazed. They can’t believe I’ve been going out and playing shows and I’m in the studio. I mean, I’m still doing the same stuff. I can manage things well enough. I’ve got a lot of great help. I’ve got a great band, two fantastic guitar players … they play, and I sing.

    WILLIAMS: Yeah. The physical therapist gave me hand exercises that I do. I kind of stretch my fingers out. I do about 50 of those a day with my left hand. And I do some with my right hand, too, just in case. It’s mainly the left side of my body that was affected. But, you know, I just try to think positive. I keep thinking, ‘Well, I didn’t know if I was going to be able to walk across the room without falling down at one point.’ But I was able to, you know, I overcame that.

    WILLIAMS: I think the world’s caught up, with Americana, you know, that’s exactly what that is. I wish they would bring back “folk rock.”

    WILLIAMS: Another album. We’re already talking about that.

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  • A former New York bishop has died at 84. He promoted social justice, but covered up rape allegations

    A former New York bishop has died at 84. He promoted social justice, but covered up rape allegations

    Howard Hubbard, a retired Catholic bishop who acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse in his upstate New York diocese and recently married a woman in a civil ceremony, has died after suffering from a massive stroke

    FILE — Bishop Howard Hubbard swings incense during an Ash Wednesday communion service, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Feb. 25, 2004, in Albany, N.Y. Hubbard, a retired Catholic bishop who acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse in his upstate New York diocese and recently married a woman in a civil ceremony, has died after suffering from a massive stroke, Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. He was 84. (AP Photo/Jim McKnight, File)

    The Associated Press

    ALBANY, N.Y. — Howard Hubbard, a retired Catholic bishop who acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse in his upstate New York diocese and recently married a woman in a civil ceremony, has died after suffering from a massive stroke. He was 84.

    Hubbard passed away at Albany Medical Center on Saturday after being hospitalized for the stroke days prior, bishop spokesman Mark Behan confirmed.

    Hubbard was known as a champion of social justice causes during his long tenure leading the Albany, New York-based diocese from 1977 to 2014. But his reputation suffered as the church became engulfed in sexual abuse scandals.

    Hubbard had adamantly denied accusations that he abused minors. But he acknowledged in a 2021 deposition that he and the diocese covered up allegations of sexual abuse against children by priests in part to avoid scandal.

    Last fall, Hubbard said he wanted to be returned to the lay state — leave the clergy — since he could no longer function as a priest due to a U.S. church policy that bars accused priests from ministry. He said his request to the Vatican was rejected in March and he was encouraged to wait while the seven civil lawsuits against him proceeded.

    Instead, he announced earlier this month that he had recently married an unidentified woman.

    “I could be 91 or 92 before these legal matters are concluded,” Hubbard said in a prepared release at the time. “In the meantime, I have fallen in love with a wonderful woman who has helped and cared for me and who believes in me.”

    The current bishop of the upstate New York diocese, Edward Scharfenberger, said the church did not consider Hubbard’s marriage to be valid.

    Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against the Albany diocese under a state law that allowed people to sue over sexual abuse they say they endured as children, sometimes decades ago.

    The diocese filed for bankruptcy this year amid the flood of lawsuits.

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  • Tatum O’Neal Reveals She ‘Almost Died’ After Having A Stroke In 2020

    Tatum O’Neal Reveals She ‘Almost Died’ After Having A Stroke In 2020

    Tatum O’Neal and her family are opening up about the health crisis she experienced more than three years ago.

    In a new interview with People, the actor revealed she had a drug overdose as well as a stroke that left her in a coma for six weeks in 2020.

    “I almost died,” O’Neal said. “I’ve been through a lot.”

    According to the report, a friend found O’Neal ― who had overdosed on a combination of pain medication, opiates and morphine ― in her Century City, California, apartment in May 2020.

    “It was the phone call we’d always been waiting for,” O’Neal’s son, Kevin McEnroe, added. “She also had a cardiac arrest and a number of seizures. There were times we didn’t think she was going to survive.”

    She was rushed to a local hospital, where she fell into a coma and was diagnosed with aphasia. According to the National Institutes of Health, aphasia is a disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that are responsible for language.

    Tatum O’Neal in 2017.

    Paul Archuleta via Getty Images

    McEnroe believes the isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic had taken an emotional toll on O’Neal prior to her hospitalization. At times, he and his siblings Emily and Sean feared their mother would not live, or be unable to recover.

    “At times, it was touch and go,” McEnroe said. “I had to call my brother and sister and say she was thought to be blind, deaf and potentially might never speak again.”

    Since her hospitalization, O’Neal has worked to regain her strength and her memory in various rehabilitation facilities. She’s also in recovery for her drug addiction, and has been regularly attending 12-step meetings.

    “I’ve been trying to get sober my whole life,” she told People. “Every day, I am trying.”

    Now 59, O’Neal catapulted to fame when she starred opposite her father, Ryan O’Neal, in the 1973 film “Paper Moon.” Her portrayal of Addie Loggins won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress the following year when she was just 10 years old. She remains the youngest Oscar winner in history.

    O'Neal at the 1974 Academy Awards, where she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
    O’Neal at the 1974 Academy Awards, where she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

    Ron Galella via Getty Images

    From 1986 to 1994, O’Neal was married to tennis legend John McEnroe. The couple’s marriage was the source of intense tabloid scrutiny and marked by accusations of drug abuse and violence. Four years after the divorce, she lost custody of her children due to a heroin addiction.

    Acknowledging that she’s been “an addict my whole life, pretty much on and off, for the past 30 to 40 years,” O’Neal said her 2020 health scare has given her a renewed sense of purpose.

    “Every day I am trying,” she said. “I want to be with my beautiful three kids.”

    Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.

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  • Keegan Bradley and Denny McCarthy share the Travelers lead at tournament-record 15 under

    Keegan Bradley and Denny McCarthy share the Travelers lead at tournament-record 15 under

    CROMWELL, Conn. — Keegan Bradley and Denny McCarthy shared the Travelers Championship lead Friday at a tournament-record 15-under 125.

    McCarthy followed his first-round 60 with a 65 in the morning at TPC River Highlands. A few hours later, Bradley shot a 63 to go with his opening 62.

    Chez Reavie, the 2019 winner, was two strokes back after a 63. Eric Cole had a 65 to get to 11 under.

    McCarthy and Bradley broke the 36-hole mark of 14 under set by Justin Rose in 2010 and matched last year by Xander Schauffele in his run to the title.

    “It’s nice, but golf tournaments aren’t 36 holes unfortunately,” McCarthy said. “I know there’s still a lot of golf left and I’m playing some really nice golf, so I’m looking forward to having fun this weekend.”

    The 30-year-old from Maryland started slowly, bogeying the second hole. But that was the only blemish on a round that included six birdies, five on the back nine.

    McCarthy, who lost in a playoff at the Memorial this month, is trying to become the 18th player to pick up his first PGA Tour victory in Connecticut. Ken Duke was the last in 2013.

    Bradley also had a blistering back nine, making five birdies in a row between the 12th and 16th holes. He had just under 174 feet of made putts and after every big make, he held his putter in front of him with two fingers and bowed before handing it to his caddie.

    “We just pay our respects,” said the Vermont player, who holed about a 60-footer on No. 3 for his first birdie. “If the putter is working, we’ll do whatever just to keep it going. We just bow and say, ‘Thank you.’”

    Cole is the son of former tour players Laura Baugh and Bobby Cole. His father played River Highlands just once professionally, finishing 50th in 1987, but his son didn’t get to see that.

    “I was born in ’88, so it would’ve been before me,” the younger Cole said.

    Rory McIlroy was tied for 10th at 8 under after a 64. He had a double bogey on the par-3 eighth, the hole he aced Thursday for his first hole-in-one on the PGA Tour. This time, McIlroy put his tee shot in the water.

    “I hit a pretty good shot, I just misjudged the wind a little bit and it came up short in the one place you couldn’t miss today,” he said. “But, other than that, it was a really good round of golf.”

    McIlroy got a break on his last hole when his tee shot landed on a cable trench behind a tree on the ninth hole. He was given relief by a tournament official, but hit a limb on his approach shot, which still landed just short of the green, where he managed to get up and down for par.

    Schauffele also was 8 under after a 64. Top-ranked Scottie Scheffler reached 7 under with a 70.

    Wyndham Clark, the U.S. Open champion Sunday in Los Angeles who arrived here Wednesday, had a 67 to get to 5 under. He spent the first part of the week in New York, appearing on numerous talk shows.

    A light rain left the greens soft, helping keep the scores low. The cut line was at 4 under, with Masters champion Jon Rahm dropping out with round of 67 and 71.

    On Saturday, with heavy rain expected in the morning, the players will start at 10:45 a.m. in threesomes off both Nos. 1 and 10.

    ____

    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Your Sleep Can Affect Your Stroke Risk

    Your Sleep Can Affect Your Stroke Risk

    By Cara Murez 

    HealthDay Reporter

    THURSDAY, April 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Sleep problems — from snoring to sleeping too much or too little — may be associated with elevated stroke risk, researchers say.

    Snorting during sleep, having poor quality of sleep and sleep apnea may also be linked with greater risk of stroke, according to study findings published online April 5 in the journal Neurology.

    “Not only do our results suggest that individual sleep problems may increase a person’s risk of stroke, but having more than five of these symptoms may lead to five times the risk of stroke compared to those who do not have any sleep problems,” said study author Dr. Christine McCarthy, of University of Galway in Ireland.

    “Our results suggest that sleep problems should be an area of focus for stroke prevention,” McCarthy said in a journal news release.

    For the study, the researchers looked at nearly 4,500 people, including more than 2,200 stroke survivors. They were matched with more than 2,200 people who did not have a stroke.

    Participants were an average age of 62. They were asked about their sleep behaviors, including napping and breathing problems during sleep.

    A total of 162 of those who had a stroke got less than five hours of nightly sleep, compared to 43 of those who did not have a stroke. Those with less than five hours of sleep were three times more likely to have a stroke than those who got an average seven hours of sleep, the investigators found.

    Another 151 stroke survivors got more than nine hours of sleep a night, compared to 84 of those who did not have a stroke. The long sleepers were twice as likely to have a stroke as those who got seven hours of sleep.

    In addition, people who took naps longer than one hour were 88% more likely to have a stroke than those who did not, the study found.

    The researchers also reported that people who snore during sleep are 91% more likely to have a stroke than those who do not. Those who snort are nearly three times more likely to have a stroke than those who do not. Participants with sleep apnea are nearly three times more likely to have a stroke than those without breathing disruptions during sleep.

    The study adjusted for other factors that affect stroke risk — including smoking, physical activity, depression and alcohol consumption — but got similar results. However, it cannot prove a cause and effect relationship, only an association.

    Still, “with these results, doctors could have earlier conversations with people who are having sleep problems,” McCarthy said. “Interventions to improve sleep may also reduce the risk of stroke and should be the subject of future research.”

    Limitations of the study include that people reported their own symptoms of sleep problems.

    More information
     

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on stroke risk.

     

    SOURCE: Neurology, news release, April 5, 2023

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  • Hailey Bieber Reflects On Her Mini-Stroke 1 Year Later

    Hailey Bieber Reflects On Her Mini-Stroke 1 Year Later

    Hailey Bieber recently reflected on suffering a mini-stroke last year.

    On Friday, the model posted on her Instagram story a video she created in April 2022 where she discussed having experienced a transient ischemic attack, often called a mini-stroke, the previous month. The incident led to her diagnosis of patent foramen ovale, which is when “a hole in the heart didn’t close the way it should after birth,” as the Mayo Clinic describes it.

    “Can’t believe it’s been 1 year since I suffered a mini stroke that led to my PFO diagnosis,” Bieber wrote in a text overlay on her post Friday. “Given that it’s the 1 year mark from such a life changing event, I wanted to share all the information I’ve learned about PFO and share resources to donate.”

    In the 2022 video describing her health condition, Bieber said that doctors told her she had a small blood clot that traveled into her heart, then through the hole in her heart, and eventually to her brain.

    Bieber said she underwent a procedure to address the PFO, and that it went “very smoothly.”

    In January, Bieber said the health scare had since caused her “a lot of anxiety.”

    “I struggled with a little bit of PTSD of just, like, the fear of maybe it was gonna happen again,” she said during an appearance on the “Run-Through with Vogue” podcast.

    Justin and Hailey Bieber at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards on April 3, 2022, in Las Vegas.

    Kevin Mazur via Getty Images

    The model first shared the news that she had suffered a blood clot on Instagram, just days after it happened.

    She said at the time that the experience was one of the “scariest moments” she’d been through.

    Singer Justin Bieber addressed his wife’s health issues at a concert shortly after her mini-stroke, telling the crowd that Hailey was “strong.”

    “It’s been scary … It’s been really scary,” he said. “But I know for a fact that God has her in the palm of his hands.”

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  • Walking just 11 minutes per day could lower risk of stroke, heart disease and some cancers significantly, study says

    Walking just 11 minutes per day could lower risk of stroke, heart disease and some cancers significantly, study says

    London — Taking an 11-minute brisk walk every day, or walking 75 minutes per week, will lower your risk of stroke, heart disease and a number of cancers, a new study from Cambridge University says. Researchers looked at 196 peer-reviewed articles, which included more than 30 million study participants, to analyze the link between physical activity and cancer, heart disease and early death for the study, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

    They found that 75 minutes of moderate activity a week lowered the risk of early death overall by 23%.

    Mature couple walking down dirt road
    Just a short, brisk stroll every day could significantly lower your risk of several deadly diseases, Cambridge University researchers said in a study released March 1, 2023.

    Getty


    “We know that physical activity, such as walking or cycling, is good for you, especially if you feel it raises your heart rate. But what we’ve found is there are substantial benefits to heart health and reducing your risk of cancer even if you can only manage 10 minutes every day,” said Professor James Woodcock, from Cambridge’s Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit.

    Britain’s National Health Service recommends that people get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week. The study found that this level of exercise could prevent 1 in 6 early deaths, but getting more than that only delivered marginal benefits.

    75 minutes of moderate exercise a week, or an 11 minute brisk walk per day, was found to reduce the risk of developing cancer by 7% and heart disease by 17%.

    For head and neck cancer, myeloma, myeloid leukaemia, myeloma and gastric cardia cancers, the decrease in risk was between 14% and 26%. For other cancers, like breast or colon cancer, the reduction in risk with moderate exercise was lower, at 3-11%.

    “Moderate activity doesn’t have to involve what we normally think of exercise, such as sports or running. Sometimes, replacing some habits is all that is needed. For example, try to walk or cycle to your work or study place instead of using a car, or engage in active play with your kids or grandkids. Doing activities that you enjoy and that are easy to include in your weekly routine is an excellent way to become more active,” said Dr. Leandro Garcia from Queen’s University, Belfast, one of the study authors.

    Haley Ott

    Haley Ott is a digital reporter/producer for CBS News based in London.

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  • Popular sweetener linked to heart attacks, study finds

    Popular sweetener linked to heart attacks, study finds

    Popular sweetener linked to heart attacks, study finds – CBS News


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    A study has found that the popular sweetener erythritol was linked to increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

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  • Tennessee officers’ conduct probed in woman’s death

    Tennessee officers’ conduct probed in woman’s death

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Four Tennessee police officers are being investigated for their treatment of a woman whose pleas for help they repeatedly ignored as they accused her of faking illness after she was discharged from a hospital. The woman was pronounced dead a day later.

    The Knox County District Attorney’s office announced on Monday that it would not press criminal charges after an autopsy determined that 60-year-old Lisa Edwards died of a stroke and that “at no time did law enforcement interaction cause or contribute to Ms. Edwards’ death.”

    That has not stopped public outrage after the Knoxville Police Department released video showing officers accusing Edwards of faking mobility and breathing problems and ignoring her repeated pleas for help.

    In the video released last week, officers struggle for about 25 minutes to move Edwards into a police van and finally a cruiser after being called by Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center on Feb. 5.

    Edwards repeatedly asks for help but is rebuffed by officers and hospital security guards who become frustrated with her inability to step up into the van and tell her she is faking her incapacity.

    Edwards tells them she can’t breathe, she needs help sitting up, and that she’s going to have a stroke. At one point, she tells them, “I’m gonna die.”

    First to arrive at the hospital is Sgt. Brandon Wardlaw. It is 8 a.m. and Edwards is in a hospital wheelchair in the corner of a parking garage. Security guards tell Wardlaw that she has been discharged from the medical center but won’t leave the property and that they need the wheelchair back. Edwards appears somewhat disoriented, asking the officer, “Can you call the preacher for me?”

    When he can’t get Edwards to leave, Wardlaw decides to arrest her for trespassing and calls for a police van, but officers cannot get her inside it. They try several times to lift her but end up leaving her propped half-in, half-out of the van. Eventually she slumps to the ground, where they leave her lying for several minutes.

    Throughout her interaction with police, Edwards repeatedly tells the officers that she can’t breathe and needs help sitting up. Her breathing is heavy and her words are slurred.

    When a man walks into the parking garage, Edwards calls out to him, ”Doctor! Doctor!”

    She asks for her inhaler over and over again, but officers cannot locate it for several minutes. When they finally find it and give it to her, Wardlaw decides she isn’t using it correctly and takes it away again.

    Wardlaw, Officer Adam Barnett, and others repeatedly express their belief that Edwards is faking her mobility and breathing problems.

    “You’ve been medically cleared ma’am. This is not going to work,” Barnett tells her at one point. Later he complains that she is not using her legs “on purpose.”

    “Now you’re starting to piss me off! Get up!” he tells Edwards.

    “This is all an act,” Wardlaw says. “When you get out to jail, you’d better not pull this stunt, ’cause they don’t play around out there.”

    There is an indication in the video that officers may be aware Edwards could be in real distress. When they suggest putting her in the back of the van, the driver balks.

    “She’s saying she can’t breathe. If she falls … and dies, it’s on me,” says Transportation Officer Danny Dugan, who is not a sworn police officer.

    Eventually they call Officer Timothy Distasio, deciding that his cruiser has a lower profile that will make it easier to get her inside. The officers push her in, and leave her lying on her back. At this point she is wheezing heavily. She asks repeatedly for officers to sit her up but they tell her she can sit herself up.

    Video from inside the police car shows Edwards trying to pull herself upright repeatedly, but eventually she slumps out of sight. Several minutes later Distasio performs a traffic stop on another vehicle. When he opens the rear door, Edwards is unresponsive. He calls dispatch for an ambulance, telling them, “I don’t know if she’s faking it or what, but she’s not answering me.”

    Edwards was pronounced dead at the Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center the following day.

    Wardlaw, Barnett, Distasio and Dugan are on paid administrative leave, pending the outcome of the internal investigation into their conduct, according to Knoxville Police spokesman Scott Erland.

    “A lot of us see these terrible videos, and then there are no repercussions for the officers because we are told that it looks terrible but actually is technically lawful and according to policy,” said Alex Vitale, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College who studies policing. “They never ask the bigger question of why were the police involved in the first place? …. Why are we using police to cover up the failures of our basic health care system?”

    Edwards had flown to Tennessee from Rhode Island on Feb. 4, according to the autopsy report. On the flight, she started experiencing abdominal pain, and was taken to the Blount Memorial Hospital at about 7:45 p.m. There she was disruptive and uncooperative. Her behavior included throwing feces at a nurse.

    She was discharged in stable condition, but she showed up at the Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center at about 1 a.m. on February 5. She was was discharged about six hours later, according to the autopsy.

    Edwards’ daughter-in-law, August Boylan, told television station WATE-TV that Edwards had mobility problems stemming from a stroke in 2019. She also had multiple medical issues, according to the autopsy, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

    Boylan said that her mother-in-law had moved to Rhode Island from Tennessee in 2018, but decided to move back.

    “She was able to make her own decision as far as you know wanting to move back to Tennessee. She had a plan in place. She was discharged from a nursing home that had her helped arrange her flight to fly back to Tennessee. She was going to be living with a friend in Tennessee,” Boylan told the station.

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  • Hate your signature? Try plastic surgery for autographs

    Hate your signature? Try plastic surgery for autographs

    NEW YORK — Doctors, lawyers, celebrities: There’s a new cosmetic surgery, of sorts, that has snared them all.

    By that, we mean handing over money to hire a calligrapher for a fresh take on writing one’s own name in cursive. With a pen or another writing implement. On paper.

    A corner of TikTok, Instagram and other social media is dedicated to signature design, and it’s keeping practitioners busy.

    Priscilla Molina in Los Angeles does a minimum of 300 custom signatures a month, offering packages that include up to three ways to sign, limitless drafts or a new set of initials. She charges between $10 to $55, using the motto: “Where originality meets legacy.”

    Molina said her Planet of Names clients include professionals and famous people in search of new ways to sign autographs, though her lips are sealed on the identities of high-profile signature seekers.

    In general, Molina said, people come to her for signature makeovers for a simple reason: They’re tired of the way they sign their names.

    “They’re not happy with their signatures. They don’t relate to who they are. They don’t give the message they want to convey to the world,” she said.

    Molina and other signature doctors promise a range of styles. For Molina, that includes but is not limited to elegant, subtle, dramatic, sharp, classic, artistic, condensed, curvy, legible — or even illegible.

    She and others offer templates and stencils, encouraging clients to practice their newfound John Hancocks, with results in a short couple of weeks if they put in the time.

    John Hancock, for those light on U.S. history, was president of the Continental Congress and affixed his large and flamboyant signature to the Declaration of Independence when it was signed in 1776.

    Fast forward to 2023, where — despite the rise of digital alternatives — signatures, to some, still matter.

    Sonia Palamand in St. Louis, Missouri, began noodling with calligraphy in middle school. She drums up business on TikTok, charging $35 for three signatures while promoting herself in videos that have her designing free of charge for select commenters.

    “It’s a way for people to reinvent themselves. The way that you present yourself on the outside can affect how you see yourself on the inside. I think with signatures, it’s adding some intentionality,” she said. “It’s also an artistic pursuit.”

    Artistic, for sure, but what happens when a client’s signature must be matched with a signature on file? Think voter rolls, passports, credit cards, health documents, wills, insurance or financial papers.

    There’s the option of reverting to an old signature, of course, though some happy customers choose to update their worlds of signatures on file to match the new.

    But are the new signatures somehow easier for fraudsters to replicate?

    James Green, a certified document examiner who has testified in more than 140 legal cases around the world, went through the customer experience at one of the signature design companies. He paid for a package that included three options.

    “At this time, I can’t throw the signature design services under the bus,” he said. “However, the verdict is still out. If clients request a simplistic signature style or limit it to their initials, obviously, the opportunity for fraud increases.”

    The company Green used, Signature Pro, provided a writing template to help him become more proficient in signing the new way. Green, in Eugene, Oregon, said the three samples “could not be easily simulated due to flourishes, spacing, height relationships” and other proportions.

    Asked about copyright, Signature Pro told him the company doesn’t retain rights. Signature Pro charges $170 to $600 for a range of services, the priciest of which offers unlimited options, a signature for everyday use and another for special occasions.

    In Miami, cargo pilot Juan Herrera decided to pursue a signature makeover after his wife gave him a $750 Montblanc pen and he realized “my signature looked like my daughter’s signature in fourth grade.”

    He saw a post on Facebook from VipArtni Calligraphy Studio, and decided to dive in, paying about $99 for 10 signatures from which to choose.

    “I always felt that my signature was the same from high school without any style, and it was easy to copy,” Herrera said.

    He received practice sheets and soon became proficient in the one he picked.

    “I use it every day,” he said. “I also use it for legal documents.”

    Yevgeniya Ruzanova, co-founder of VipArtni, said she and an old friend launched the company during the pandemic, providing fancy digital signatures at first before expanding their offerings. The company is a side gig for Ruzanova, who does social media for a sports academy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

    “It’s relaxing,” Ruzanova said of the calligraphy work. “I was looking for peace of mind.”

    Most of her customers are in the United States, though she and other companies do serve clients all over the world. Ruzanova, her business partner and a third set of hands create signatures for 30 to 70 clients a month, charging $99 to $129. Among their services is providing videos so clients can see their new signatures being drawn, stroke by stroke.

    So how long does it take to reinvent your identity in ink?

    “I would say some people get used to the new signature within three days if they practice 15 to 20 minutes a day,” Ruzanova said. “It all depends on how much effort they put into learning something new.”

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  • A Young Neurologist Mentors Black Women, Fights Disparities

    A Young Neurologist Mentors Black Women, Fights Disparities

    Eseosa Ighodaro, MD, PhD, is a neurologist busy tackling health disparities now. But she kept her first experiments on ice at home.

    “I used to hide experiments in the freezer so my mom couldn’t see them,” she says. “I’d mix orange juice, pepper, and salt to see if I could create a chemical reaction. Afterwards, my mom would go into the kitchen and say, ‘Where are my ingredients?’ She was calling me ‘Doctor’ even before I knew I wanted to be a physician-scientist.”

    In the family dining room, Ighodaro’s father set up a whiteboard with erasers and markers to teach his daughters math and science. He’d come to the U.S. from Nigeria in his 20s with $20 in his pocket. Having worked part-time jobs while getting his computer science degree, he had no patience for excuses.

    “On the weekend, when other kids were playing outside, he’d say, ‘Where’s your science book? Where’s your math book?’” Ighodaro says. “I went to college thinking I could take over the world!”

    The achievements kept coming. Ighodaro became the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine with a combined MD/PhD degree in 2019. A medical school neuroscience class made her fall in love with the brain. So after graduating, she headed to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for her residency in neurology and neuroscience research. Next comes a fellowship in vascular neurology at Emory University, where she plans to become a stroke specialist.

    But her goals go way beyond her degrees. 

    Combating Health Disparities in Neurology

    Ighodaro plans to take on the health disparities around stroke in the Black community. That includes studying how chronic racism may raise stroke risk – and helping to prevent Black people who’ve already had one stroke to not have another.

    She’s already gained national prominence as an advocate and teacher. The COVID-19 death of another doctor – Susan Moore, MD, an internal medicine doctor in Indiana – was a turning point.

    Ighodaro had seen Moore’s videos posted on Facebook while hospitalized and severely ill. Moore described how she had begged for a CT scan and to get the antiviral drug remdesivir, and how she was refused pain medication. “If I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that,” Moore said in one video. “This is how Black people get killed, when you send them home, and they don’t know how to fight for themselves.” Moore was discharged from one hospital on Dec. 7, 2020, and was readmitted to another hospital just 12 hours later. She died on Dec. 20, 2020. 

    “Watching this video, I was irate,” Ighodaro says. “It was unacceptable! A Black female physician begging to be seen, to be treated as human, only to be dismissed. She died of COVID-19 complications because a system in which she worked to take care of patients treated her like a drug-seeker.”

    Ighodaro put together a panel of eight Black women doctors and medical students. They released a video, “Tragedy: The Story of Dr. Susan Moore and Black Medical Disparities,” about what Moore’s death meant to them. Its success inspired Ighodaro to produce two more panel discussion videos: one on racial health disparities in fertility, labor, and delivery and another on racism in medical publishing. 

    The response to her videos prompted Ighodaro to create  Ziengbe (“zee-en-bay”), a nonprofit health advocacy organization. The word means “perseverance” in the Edo language of Nigeria, her father’s people. Ziengbe’s mission is to eliminate neurological and other health disparities facing the Black community through advocacy, education, and empowerment. 

    “I want us to treat this issue like a medical emergency,” like how a stroke is treated, Ighodaro says. “If we don’t, Black people will continue to die.” 

    Nurturing the Next Generation

    Ighodaro also has her eye on the doctors and scientists who’re coming after her. 

    One of her first projects with Ziengbe was to harness social media to support, educate, and mentor young people from communities of color and other underrepresented groups who are interested in pursuing neurology careers. 

    “I had such wonderful mentors who played a major role in my becoming a neurologist,” she says. But she sees “so many students” who don’t.

     

    Ighodaro has virtual neurology study groups. She uses email, WhatsApp, and social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and has grown it into a community of nearly 500 students and mentors. In more than a dozen online study sessions over the past year, she’s hosted sessions on topics including stroke management, seizures, and traumatic brain injury as well as preparing first-year interns for their first time practicing medicine on a hospital ward. The videos are archived online via the Ziengbe website. 

    She’s helped students publish their work, strengthening them as neurology residency candidates. “Some of them have never written a paper like this for a medical journal before,” Ighodaro says. She also speaks to medical professional societies, such as the American Academy of Neurology, about using social media to recruit the next generation of doctors, empower underserved populations, and combat racial disparities in health and health care.

    “One of my primary goals is to recruit more people of color to the field of neurology and neuroscience, especially Black women,” Ighodaro says. “I’m trying to be the mentor that I wanted when I was younger. During my education, it was rare for me to be taught by a Black female neurologist or neuroscientist, or even come across one.”

    Those too young to know their possibilities are some of her favorites. 

    “I want to show little Black girls that we are here,” Ighodaro says. “The road is difficult and can be lonely at times, but we can do it. We just have to dream big.”

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  • In test, zaps to spine help 2 stroke survivors move arms

    In test, zaps to spine help 2 stroke survivors move arms

    WASHINGTON — A stroke left Heather Rendulic with little use of her left hand and arm, putting certain everyday tasks like tying shoes or cutting foods out of reach.

    “I live one-handed in a two-handed world and you don’t realize how many things you need two hands for until you only have one good one,” the Pittsburgh woman told The Associated Press.

    So Rendulic volunteered for a first-of-its-kind experiment: Researchers implanted a device that zaps her spinal cord in spots that control hand and arm motion. When they switched it on, she could grasp and manipulate objects — moving a soup can, opening a lock and by the end of the four-week study, cutting her own steak.

    It’s not a cure — the improvements ended after scientists removed the temporary implant — and the pilot study included only Rendulic and one other stroke survivor. But the preliminary results, published Monday, mark a step toward one day restoring mobility for this extremely common type of paralysis.

    “They’re not just getting flickers of movement. They’re getting something important,” said Dr. Jason Carmel, a Columbia University neurologist who wasn’t involved with the new experiment but also studies ways to recover upper-limb function. “It’s a very exciting proof of concept.”

    Nearly 800,000 people in the U.S. alone suffer a stroke each year. Even after months of rehabilitation, well over half are left with permanently impaired arm and hand function that can range from muscle weakness to paralysis.

    Experiments by multiple research groups have found that implanting electrodes to stimulate the lower spine shows promise for restoring leg and foot movement to people paralyzed after a spinal cord injury — some have even taken steps.

    But upper-limb paralysis has gotten little attention and is inherently more challenging. The brain must signal multiple nerves that control how the shoulder lifts, the wrist turns and the hand flexes. Stroke damage makes it harder for those messages to get through.

    “People still retain some of this connection, they’re just not enough to enable movement,” said University of Pittsburgh assistant professor Marco Capogrosso, who led the new research with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University. “These messages are weaker than normal.”

    His idea: Stimulate a pathway of related nerve cells so they’re better able to sense and pick up the brain’s weak signal.

    “We’re not bypassing their control. We’re enhancing their capabilities to move their own arm,” he said.

    Researchers turned to implants the size of spaghetti strands that already are used to stimulate the spine for chronic pain treatment. The implants carry electrodes that are placed on the surface of the spinal cord to deliver pulses of electricity to the targeted nerve cells — which for hand and arm control are in the spine’s neck region.

    Rendulic and a second, more severely impaired volunteer could move better as soon as the stimulator was switched on — and by the study’s end showed improved muscle strength, dexterity and range of motion, researchers reported Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. Surprisingly, both participants retained some improvement for about a month after the implants were removed.

    Rendulic, now 33, was performing some fine-motor tasks for the first time since suffering a stroke in her 20s. That unusually young stroke, caused by weak blood vessels that bled inside her brain, initially paralyzed her entire left side. She learned to walk again but — with the exception of those four weeks with spinal stimulation — cannot fully open her left hand or completely raise that arm.

    “You feel like there’s a barrier between your brain and your arm,” Rendulic said. But with the stimulation on, “I could immediately sense that, like, oh my arm and hand are still there.”

    Two other researchers who helped pioneer experiments stimulating the lower limbs of people with spinal cord injuries say it’s logical to now try the technology for stroke.

    While bigger and longer studies are needed, the new results “are really promising,” said Mayo Clinic assistant professor Peter Grahn.

    Scientists have learned from research with lower limbs that “it may not matter where that injury occurs, if it’s something in the brain or it’s a spinal cord injury,” added University of Louisville professor Susan Harkema. “Targeting the human spinal cord circuitry has a lot of potential.”

    With National Institutes of Health funding, Capogrosso is studying the approach in a few more stroke survivors. The researchers also have formed a company to further develop the technology.

    ___

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  • A Mystery Stroke, A Pipe Bomb, And A Subway: How A Stranger Did Something For Me I’ll Never Forget

    A Mystery Stroke, A Pipe Bomb, And A Subway: How A Stranger Did Something For Me I’ll Never Forget

    A little over five years ago my husband came home, grocery bags in hand, and found me lying motionless on the bedroom floor.

    “Are you meditating?” he asked as he walked to the kitchen.

    Twenty minutes earlier I had been dressing to meet a friend for dinner. As I pulled my jeans over my knees, I fell to the floor. I tried to reach for the edge of the bed to lift myself, but felt like I was lying underneath a 400-pound bag of sand.

    My husband came back to the bedroom and looked down at me.

    “What are you doing?” he asked. I couldn’t answer. My friend called. “Do you want to talk?” he asked. I shook my head no. He took the call, and they decided I needed to see a doctor.

    My husband moved like wildfire and got me to the hospital in 30 minutes. During intake, I was unable to tell the doctor my name or address. A CT scan revealed I was having a stroke. Doctors administered a drug called TPA ― which they described as “using a nuclear bomb instead of a hammer” ― to break up the blood clot in my brain.

    Though I couldn’t talk, I understood what everyone was saying. I wasn’t sure I wanted a nuclear bomb or a hammer in my head, but the drug worked. After four days and undergoing hundreds of tests, I was discharged from the hospital with most of my motor and cognitive capabilities intact.

    The hundreds of test results revealed nothing. According to all the specialists, I was a completely healthy person who should never have had a stroke. Doctors call my type of stroke “cryptogenic,” or a stroke of unknown origin. But I call it my mystery stroke. Did you know that about 30% of all ischemic strokes (the most common kind of stroke during which a blood clot or something else blocks the blood vessels to the brain) are mystery strokes?

    My neurologist suggested I slowly get back to normal life. She guessed it would take about two months, warned that I would be tired most of the time, and told me to call if anything changed for the worse. My only prescription was a baby aspirin I was supposed to take once daily.

    In my first week at home I tried to prove that I was not only still here, but that I was still me. In between daily naps I tried to write and exercise. But everything took 10 times longer than it used to.

    My husband, who was in the midst of rehearsals for a Broadway show, had to return to work one day after my stroke. He was working 12 hours a day, and most nights he crawled into bed after I was asleep.

    This left me to lean on my divorced parents for support. Though they don’t talk much in general, they had an unspoken agreement about not speaking about trauma, so they checked in on my eating and sleeping habits and generally avoided discussing the stroke.

    After three weeks of pretending to be my pre-stroke self between naps, my motor and cognitive capabilities returned to nearly 100%. I was having a mystery recovery, just like I had a mystery stroke.

    When I reached out to my neurologist she told me, “If you are okay with us not knowing why this happened, then we are okay with us not knowing why this happened.” My husband, my parents and my neurologist all thought it was time for me to return to work. Was it the seductive power of threes ― quick mystery stroke, quick mystery recovery, quick return to work ― that made everyone feel like this was a good idea? Because, let’s be clear, nobody knew why I had a stroke or why I recovered weeks ahead of schedule ― or what might happen in the future.

    Even if I now seemed perfectly “normal” to everyone else, I was still processing the fact that my body had betrayed me. When I walked, I wasn’t confident that one foot would land in front of the other. When I talked, I questioned my ability to form a complete thought. I wasn’t ready to return to normal life because internally I didn’t feel normal.

    I needed the support of my loved ones. I was afraid that if I disappointed them by not fully performing my recovery, I would lose it. No one said this to me. No one told me to “people please” my way through the aftermath of my stroke or my recovery, but I was scared and wasn’t thinking clearly. So, I decided to do what I thought would make everyone else happy: I went back to work.

    The author and her husband shortly before her stroke.

    Courtesy of K.Page Stuart Valdes

    Just a few days later, during my morning commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a subway car where passengers were packed like sardines, we screeched to a stop in a pitch black tunnel. After a few minutes, my mind started racing. Everyone wants me to go back to work, but no one knows why I had a stroke in the first place. What if it happens again right now? The voice in my head asked. What if no one notices? What if the doors open and everyone tramples me? What if the train moves on and all the new passengers do the same? What if I end up permanently paralyzed, and I’m never able to speak again?

    Tears began streaming from my eyes. My nose dripped like a running faucet. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop shaking. I wiped my face with my coat sleeve, folded my arms around my trembling body, and buried my head in my chest. I wanted to make myself small enough that I would not disturb the strangers on whom I was literally leaning.

    And that’s when I saw her. I had been breathing on her since Brooklyn. She was shorter than me and was now looking up into my tear-filled eyes. Then, she fearlessly broke the bubble of anonymity that we had co-created with the averted gazes that most New Yorkers have perfected.

    “Mami, are you ok?” she asked.

    I looked at her and before I even knew what I was saying or why I was saying it to a stranger, I told her, “I had a stroke, and nobody knows why, and I think it might happen again right now, and then I’ll die.”

    She nodded as if we had known one another for years. She reached into her purse and handed me a tissue. I was so moved by her generosity that I had to make an extra effort to stop myself from wailing at full volume. Instead, I smiled feebly as a gesture of thanks, and tried not to touch her with my filthy coat sleeve as I cleaned my face.

    She offered me another tissue and then she positioned her forearm across her body and said, “Hold me.” I grabbed her wrist. She took a deep breath and nodded, encouraging me to do the same. Then a thoughtful half-smile worked its way through her lips because we were sharing a private joke ― that two strangers were going to meditate together on a crowded New York City subway train stuck in a dark tunnel.

    Between breaths, I tried to further describe my situation in Spanish.

    “Tengo un problema en mi cabeza,” I told her, which translates to “I have a problem in my head” and made me sound like I thought I was crazy. “Muchas gracias por tu brazo y tus ojos,” I said, “Thank you very much for your arm and your eyes,” and that made me sound like I was thanking a butcher.

    “It’s ok, mami, I know a stroke,” she responded. “You just look at me and breathe.”

    Another passenger called out, “Open a window! I’m suffocating!” Someone adjusted their backpack, which sent a ripple of movement through the entire car. News that there was an investigation into a pipe bomb near Times Square followed that ripple until everyone in the car knew why we were stuck between stations.

    The two of us absorbed the update but continued to concentrate on our now-synchronized breathing. Sometimes we closed our eyes and listened to the inner resonance of our breath. Sometimes we locked eyes. Sometimes we nearly giggled like children playing a game of concentration.

    About ten minutes later the train started moving. When the doors opened we were swept into the crowd, our contact abruptly broken by the flood of humanity of which we were a part. In New York City, one minute you are in love with a stranger and the next you are shuffling along in a herd of humans searching for your own feet. I accepted that I had lost her. Then I felt someone take my hand.

    “I’m not leaving you,” she said.

    She reminded me of my Colombian mother-in-law, who loves me despite my terrible Spanish and whose bright eyes are always seeking to read the deeper story beneath my words. We held hands as we waited for my connecting train, and I imagined her riding with me everyday until someone found the cause and cure for mystery strokes like mine. She must have known because when the train arrived she patted my hand gently as she let it go.

    The author and her mother-in-law, who resembles her subway savior.
    The author and her mother-in-law, who resembles her subway savior.

    Courtesy of K.Page Stuart Valdes

    “Necesito trabajar,” she said.

    “Muchas gracias. Te amo,” I answered.

    “Igualmente, mami,” she told me as the train doors closed between us.

    I did love her. She was the first person who let me cry about my stroke without trying to talk me out of my anxiety. Who was content to just stand beside me while I felt it. Perhaps because she had no fear of losing me, she was able to comfort me as I was losing myself. Perhaps because I meant nothing to her, she was able to treat me as though I meant everything. Whatever the reason, she recognized my vulnerability and joined me in it.

    We, those who love me and myself, wanted to wish the stroke away and with it the vulnerable state that it left us in. I understand why we did this. We lost me for a moment, and it easily could have been a lifetime. We simply weren’t ready to feel the breadth and depth of that terror.

    Instead, we engaged in a collective suppression of it. We didn’t know that no one can heal from a mysterious illness without processing the terror of the mystery itself.

    A mystery illness will drop questions into your life that cannot be answered. “Is today the day I will die of a stroke?” I constantly asked myself. Because there was no comfort in learning that there was no cause for my stroke. It just meant that as healthy as I was and am, I still had one. Which means, I could have another one, right?

    And, because I had been trying so hard to perform my full recovery for those who loved me, I hadn’t allowed myself to express the terror of that persistent question. Therefore, the gap between my inner and outer lives had become a canyon ― and that canyon was full of panic.

    I didn’t know I would have to go into that canyon and get comfortable with the surreal echo of my own terror. I didn’t know how to live with the duality that another stroke was a possibility, if not a probability. I didn’t know that panic was not a functional coping mechanism. I didn’t know I would have to learn to breathe in acceptance and breathe out fear every single time that terrifying question arose.

    I spent the rest of that day wondering how I could love someone whose name I never learned. I hoped she wasn’t offended. I hoped we agreed that we had been part of one of those missed connections for which New York City is famous. One where strangers embrace and release one another with equal passion because the intimacy and anonymity of our city demands it. One where the people involved find themselves writing a public post in an effort to reconnect. One like this, that honors her and all all she taught me on that fateful day:

    Compañera de viaje el día de la bomba,

    Every now and then, my tears flow and my body shakes in the same way it did when you asked me, “Mami, are you ok?” but I’ve been working on accepting the mystery of my condition. This letter is part of that work.

    There is no test that will show when it is complete, because recovery is different from healing. Healing is about becoming whole. It happens on a moment to moment basis, it builds upon itself, and it can take years. No one heals by pleasing others ― only by listening to themself.

    Inside every life, there will be unsolved mysteries. As I fill my inner canyon with breath, like you taught me, I am getting more comfortable living with mine.

    Gracias, maestra. Te amo.

    K.Page Stuart Valdes is an award-winning, New York-based filmmaker, writer, musician and educator. Her films and screenplays have been recognized by New York Women in Film and Television and the Academy Award Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship, among others, and can be seen on Amazon Prime. Her music and music theater pieces have been presented by Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Obie award-winning Ice Factory Festival and HERE Arts Center. She is currently working on a feature film and a collection of essays entitled “Cryptogenic : Searching for Answers in America’s Broken Health Care System.” She holds a BFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and an MFA from their Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program where she wrote both words and music.

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  • Black Stroke Survivors Less Likely to Get Treated for Complications

    Black Stroke Survivors Less Likely to Get Treated for Complications

    By Steven Reinberg 

    HealthDay Reporter

    THURSDAY, Feb. 2, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Having a stroke is a life-altering experience, and complications can crop up afterwards, but a new study finds the color of your skin may determine whether you are treated for them.

    In the year following a stroke, Black and Hispanic patients were not treated for common complications as often as white patients were, researchers found.
     

    “Black patients were less likely to receive medical treatment for nearly every post-stroke complication, the largest differences were for the treatment of fatigue, depression and spasticity [muscle stiffness],” said lead researcher Dr. Kent Simmonds, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

    “The large magnitude of treatment gaps ensures the pressing need for health care systems and providers to do a better job of actively recognizing post-stroke complications within minority populations and provide patients with explanations towards how and why medical treatment may help,” Simmonds said.

    These disparities exist because of a complex set of “bio-psycho-social-environmental factors,” he added.

    This type of study is best at identifying the what rather than the why, but the results are consistent with earlier studies that found quality stroke care is not a given, Simmonds said.

    “Quality care requires cultural competence and trust between providers and their patients,” he explained. “Many of the complications, such as fatigue and depression, require health care providers to dig a little deeper to identify these issues prior to offering and discussing appropriate medical treatments.”

    For the study, Simmonds and his colleagues analyzed the health records from 65 large U.S. health care centers of patients hospitalized for stroke between August 2002 and July 2022.

    They found that Black patients were less likely to be treated for any complications except seizure, when compared with white patients. The biggest difference was in the treatment of central nervous system arousal, fatigue, muscle spasms and mood within two weeks of a stroke.

    Compared with white patients, Black patients adults were 30% less likely to be treated for central nervous system arousal, 27% less likely to be treated for muscle spasms and 17% less likely to be treated for mood irregularities, the researchers found.

    Hispanic patients were 20% less likely to get treatment for central nervous system arousal, 19% less likely to get treatment for muscle spasms and 16% less likely to get treatment for mood irregularities than white patients, Simmonds said.

    The findings are slated for presentation on Feb. 8 at the American Stroke Association’s annual meeting, in Dallas. Findings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

    “It’s not surprising that this study found disparities in the utilization of therapies to treat conditions like depression and seizures in Black and Hispanic adults,” said Dr. Karen Furie, a spokesperson for the American Stroke Association and chair of neurology at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School.

    It is not clear why these disparities exist, said Furie, who was not involved in the study.

    “For instance, perhaps it’s less likely for clinicians to screen for these conditions in certain subpopulations of patients. Perhaps there are groups of patients who are resistant to taking therapies, or there may be problems with either access to treatments, or issues concerning the expense of therapies that lead to non-compliance with recommendations,” she noted.

    “Fortunately, there’s a lot we know about how to help patients recover, but clinicians can’t treat unless patients and families make them aware of the issues of mood, level of function and potential complications,” Furie said. “This study, hopefully, is one of many that will help us identify communities that need more help and help health care providers do more to standardize the delivery of care for patients and families in the post-acute period.”

    More information

    For more on stroke, see the American Stroke Association.

     

    SOURCES: Kent Simmonds, DO, PhD, resident, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; Karen Furie, MD, MPH, spokesperson, American Stroke Association, professor and chair, neurology, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, R.I.; presentation, American Stroke Association annual meeting, Dallas, Feb. 8, 2023

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