Tag: weight management

Ex-state adviser implicated in youth center abuse lawsuits

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MANCHESTER, N.H. — The girls at New Hampshire’s youth detention center called their dormitory leader “Peepin’ Dave” because they say he leered at them through a bathroom window. But David Ball, later promoted to chief of operations, also is accused of much worse.

Of nearly 1,000 people who say they suffered physical or sexual abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center, 20 have accused Ball, who retired in 2014 but continued advising the state on juvenile justice matters until 2021. The allegations against Ball, made in lawsuits against the state, point to a scandal that is not only widening, but also spiraling up the hierarchy.

One woman, who was 14 when she was incarcerated in 1993, said Ball raped her dozens of times — sometimes while she was in a straitjacket — and repeatedly choked her to the point of unconsciousness.

“I really thought at some point there, I was going to die,” she told The Associated Press in an interview.

Ball, now 76, is among roughly 150 former staffers who are implicated by former residents in more than 700 lawsuits naming the state as the defendant rather than individual workers.

Ball said he didn’t know until a reporter called him last week that 20 lawsuits filed between October 2021 and January of this year accuse him of physically or sexually assaulting 18 girls and two boys between 1981 and 1999.

“I don’t believe that’s true. I know it isn’t true,” Ball told the AP, saying he never hit or otherwise abused any of the children and that he has not been questioned by police.

The attorney general’s office declined to comment on whether Ball is part of the criminal investigation launched in 2019. Eleven former workers have been charged with either sexually assaulting or acting as accomplices to the assault of more than a dozen teenagers from 1994 to 2007.

Lawyers for the victims have argued Ball and other supervisors fostered a culture of violence and in some cases were abusers themselves.

“Mr. Ball, and employees like him, were allowed to sexually, physically and emotionally abuse kids for decades without fear of reprisal because child abuse by state employees was not only tolerated, it was condoned,” attorney Rus Rilee said after learning from the AP about Ball’s high-ranking job and post-retirement appointment to a state advisory group.

State employment records show Ball began working at the youth center in 1974 as a dormitory assistant and became a dorm leader in 1983. He was head of the girls dormitory in 2000 when he told a reporter for the New Hampshire Union Leader that most of the residents there came from abusive homes.

“A lot of the girls say this is the safest place they’ve been,” he told the newspaper at the time. “They don’t like it here. It’s very confining. But they don’t have to worry that someone is going to molest them at night.”

A resume obtained by the AP lists Ball’s title as chief of operations from 2001 to 2009 and describes him as responsible for overseeing all staff “including motivation and discipline” and “creating and maintaining a safe and secure environment for both staff and residents.” He then spent five years as a field administrator overseeing juvenile probation and parole offices before retiring in 2014.

Within months, Ball joined the federally mandated State Advisory Group for Juvenile Justice. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu abruptly disbanded the group in July 2021 and replaced it with a Juvenile Justice Reform Commission, with nearly all new members. At that point, Ball had not been identified in any lawsuits, but at least one of his accusers had given his name to state police investigators.

Sununu’s spokesperson, Ben Vihstadt, said the governor wasn’t aware of the allegations against Ball when he disbanded the group to bring in fresh perspectives and ensure compliance with rules for receiving federal grants.

“He finds the allegations surrounding David Ball, who was appointed by then-Gov. Maggie Hassan, incredibly concerning, and hopes these allegations are fully investigated,” Vihstadt said.

Hassan, a Democrat now in the U.S. Senate, appointed Ball on the recommendation of the state health commissioner. Her office declined to comment.

Four of the lawsuits accuse Ball of sexual assault, including a woman whose lawsuit says he came into her room at night to molest her and forced her and her roommate to sexually abuse each other. Three accusers said he choked them until they passed out; two said he punched them in the face.

One woman claimed Ball slammed her against a wall the night she arrived at the center and told her he was going to “break her” because she looked at him wrong. Another described him as a “particularly vicious supervisor who taught and directed others to emulate him.” Several said he often watched girls in the restrooms.

The woman whose lawsuit accuses him of putting her in a straitjacket said she once tried to escape during an off-campus medical appointment and told a police officer who found her hiding in a parking lot dumpster about the abuse. Ball dismissed her claims and took her back to the youth center, where she said Ball’s abuse intensified.

“He told me that he had already warned us that nothing was to be said, that people were going to be punished if stuff got out and that I made it worse for the other girls by taking off,” she said.

The AP does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault unless they consent to being named.

Another woman suing the state told the AP she tried to speak about the abuse in 1992 after a girl complained during a group counseling session that Ball had groped her, but that she was quickly hushed by the female counselor.

“I started to say, ‘I don’t appreciate Mr. Ball …’ but she just told me to quiet down and that the best thing to do is just basically go with the flow,” she said. “All hope was shot down.”

The woman, who was 17 at the time, said Ball backed off when she started gaining weight.

“So then I just ate a lot, but that didn’t deter anything because then other things happened with other people,” she said.

Ball suggested his accusers are motivated by money they could get via the lawsuits or the state’s $100 million settlement fund for those who decide not to take their claims to court. He acknowledged being “strict” with youths and said that as a supervisor he had the final say regarding discipline or decisions about weekend furloughs and other privileges.

“So I often had to wear the hat as the guy who said no to them,” he said. “I thought, overall, I had a good relationship with most of the kids and their families.”

The youth center, which is expected to close next year, is named for Sununu’s father, former Gov. John H. Sununu. It once housed upward of 100 children but now typically serves about 10.

Cody Belanger, 28, said he didn’t cross paths with Ball when he was incarcerated in 2008, but he served with him for several years on the state advisory panel. Belanger, a former state lawmaker who now leads the new juvenile justice commission, called the allegations against Ball difficult to hear.

“As someone who has faced abuse at the center myself, it disheartens me to believe that somebody I have trusted would have done that, when these students are the most vulnerable youth of an already vulnerable population,” he said. “It just goes to show that the abuse that these kids went through, it just continues to grow.”

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February 10, 2023
Celebs tout ice baths, but science on benefits is lukewarm

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The coolest thing on social media these days may be celebrities and regular folks plunging into frigid water or taking ice baths.

The touted benefits include improved mood, more energy, weight loss and reduced inflammation, but the science supporting some of those claims is lukewarm.

Kim Kardashian posted her foray on Instagram. Harry Styles has tweeted about his dips. Kristen Bell says her plunges are “brutal” but mentally uplifting. And Lizzo claims ice plunges reduce inflammation and make her body feel better.

Here’s what medical evidence, experts and fans say about the practice, which dates back centuries.

THE MIND

You might call Dan O’Conor an amateur authority on cold water immersion. Since June 2020, the 55-year-old Chicago man has plunged into Lake Michigan almost daily, including on frigid winter mornings when he has to shovel through the ice.

“The endorphin rush … is an incredible way to wake up and just kind of shock the body and get the engine going,” O’Conor said on a recent morning when the air temperature was a frosty 23 degrees (minus-5 Celsius). Endorphins are “feel good” hormones released in response to pain, stress, exercise and other activities.

With the lake temperature 34 degrees (1 Celsius), the bare-chested O’Conor did a running jump from the snow-covered shore to launch a forward flip into the icy gray water.

His first plunge came early in the pandemic, when he went on a bourbon bender and his annoyed wife told him to “go jump in the lake.” The water felt good that June day. The world was in a coronavirus funk, O’Conor says, and that made him want to continue. As the water grew colder with the seasons, the psychological effect was even greater, he said.

“My mental health is a lot stronger, a lot brighter. I found some Zen down here coming down and jumping into the lake and shocking that body,” O’Conor said.

Dr. Will Cronenwett, chief of psychiatry at Northwestern University’s Feinberg medical school, tried cold-water immersion once, years ago while visiting Scandinavian friends on a Baltic island. After a sauna, he jumped into the ice-cold water for a few minutes and had what he called an intense and invigorating experience.

“It felt like I was being stabbed with hundreds of millions of really small electrical needles,” he said. “I felt like I was strong and powerful and could do anything.”

But Cronenwett says studying cold water immersion with a gold-standard randomized controlled trial is challenging because devising a placebo for cold plunges could be difficult.

There are a few theories on how it affects the psyche.

Cronenwett says cold water immersion stimulates the part of the nervous system that controls the resting or relaxation state. That may enhance feelings of well-being.

It also stimulates the part of the nervous system that regulates fight-or-flight stress response. Doing it on a regular basis may dampen that response, which could in turn help people feel better able to handle other stresses in their lives, although that is not proven, he said.

“You have to conquer your own trepidation. You have to muster the courage to do it,” he said. “And when you finally do it, you feel like you’ve accomplished something meaningful. You’ve achieved a goal.”

Czech researchers found that cold water plunging can increase blood concentrations of dopamine — another so-called happy hormone made in the brain — by 250%. High amounts have been linked with paranoia and aggression, noted physiologist James Mercer, a professor emeritus at the Arctic University of Norway who co-authored a recent scientific review of cold water immersion studies.

THE HEART

Cold water immersion raises blood pressure and increases stress on the heart. Studies have shown this is safe for healthy people and the effects are only temporary.

But it can be dangerous for people with heart trouble, sometimes leading to life-threatening irregular heartbeats, Cronenwett said. People with heart conditions or a family history of early heart disease should consult a physician before plunging, he said.

METABOLISM

Repeated cold-water immersions during winter months have been shown to improve how the body responds to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar levels, Mercer noted. This might help reduce risks for diabetes or keep the disease under better control in people already affected, although more studies are needed to prove that.

Cold water immersion also activates brown fat — tissue that helps keep the body warm and helps it control blood sugar and insulin levels. It also helps the body burn calories, which has prompted research into whether cold water immersion is an effective way to lose weight. The evidence so far is inconclusive.

IMMUNE SYSTEM

Anecdotal research suggests that people who routinely swim in chilly water get fewer colds, and there’s evidence that it can increase levels of certain white blood cells and other infection-fighting substances. Whether an occasional dunk in ice water can produce the same effect is unclear.

Among the biggest unanswered questions: How cold does water have to be to achieve any health benefits? And will a quick dunk have the same effect as a long swim?

“There is no answer to ‘the colder the better,’” Mercer said. “Also, it depends on the type of response you are looking at. For example, some occur very quickly, like changes in blood pressure. … Others, such as the formation of brown fat, take much longer.”

O’Conor plunges year-round, but he says winter dunks are the best for “mental clarity,” even if they sometimes last only 30 seconds.

On those icy mornings, he is “blocking everything else out and knowing that I got to get in the water, and then more importantly, get out of the water.”

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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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February 9, 2023
Cheap? Maybe. But These Stocks Have Been Dead Money for Decades

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Cheesecake Factory appears to be “running the same play,” wrote J.P. Morgan analyst John Ivankoe in a recent restaurant industry outlook. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment—the stock, he noted, trades where it did in 2004, adjusted for splits.

Why the long stall-out? My first thought was that maybe hitting the mall for a hypercaloric sit-down meal off a menu the size of a Gutenberg Bible has fallen out of favor over the years. But no: Sales have bounced back and then some from the Covid pandemic, with plenty of takeout business and dessert orders. The average

Cheesecake Factory

(ticker: CAKE) restaurant does more than $10 million in yearly sales, or twice as much as an Olive Garden.

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December 23, 2022
What Are the Risks of HIV Treatment-Related Weight Gain?
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Most people with HIV gain weight after they start antiretroviral therapy (ART). In fact, it’s usually a good sign that your ART is working. You might hear your doctor call these early extra pounds a “return to health.” But too much treatment-related weight gain can sometimes lead to future health problems.

“Three decades ago, when the HIV epidemic was fresh and new, we worried about malnutrition and wasting,” says Onyema Ogbuagu, MBBCh, an infectious disease specialist who treats people with HIV at Yale Medicine. “Now that we’ve done a better job of catching people earlier in the disease and have more effective treatments, we have a different kind of metabolic problem, which is obesity.”

Tell your doctor if you’re worried about treatment-related weight gain. They’ll go over all the pros and cons of your ART. They’ll also help you find safe ways to lose weight.

Here are some other topics you might want to go over with your health care team.
What Are the Health Risks of Treatment-Related Weight Gain?

Ogbuagu says older kinds of ART might cause lipodystrophy. That’s when your body shifts how it stores fat. You can end up with the kind of belly fat that’s linked to insulin resistance, diabetes, and heart problems. But those kind of fat changes are a lot less likely to happen with newer drugs.

But there is evidence that short-term treatment-related weight gain from modern ART can still raise your odds of certain metabolic problems. More research is needed to know all of the long-term effects of treatment. But ART-related weight gain might lead to the following:

Type 2 diabetes

High cholesterol (also known as hyperlipidemia)

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

“The data for diabetes and liver fat is certainly present,” says John Koethe, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. But he says there’s conflicting evidence when it comes to cardiovascular disease. Obesity and overweight up the chances anyone will get cardiovascular disease. But he says it’s still not known whether ART-related weight gain raises those odds even higher. We need more research to find out.
“People with HIV are already at a markedly increased risk of cardiovascular disease,” Koethe says. “The issue there may be that any attributable risk from the weight gain hasn’t really turned up in studies yet.”

Keep in mind that excess body weight, regardless of which ART you’re on, can raise your odds of certain health conditions. That includes the following:

Sleep apnea

Cognitive decline

High blood pressure

Heart disease and stroke
When Should You Watch for Weight Gain?

After you start ART, your odds of weight gain are highest within the first 12 to 18 months, Koethe says. In that period of time, studies show about 37% of people will gain 5% of their body weight. Another 17% will add 10% of their body weight.

Your weight might keep going up for several years after the start of ART, Koethe says, “but at a much slower pace.”

Does All Treatment-Related Weight Gain Come With Risks?

If you’re underweight or normal weight, a few extra pounds can be OK and even healthy. “Weight gain is not always a bad thing,” Ogbuagu says. “For some people, it’s desirable.” He says it might even boost your sense of well-being.
But in general, Koethe says doctors usually start to worry about future health problems if you gain 5% of your body weight after starting ART. People store that weight in different ways, but he says your odds of certain medical problems go up if you hold fat in the area around your internal organs.

“Those folks are at a higher risk of also accumulating fat around the liver, around the heart, and within their skeletal muscles,” Koethe says. “It’s those individuals who are going to be at a higher risk for metabolic diseases like diabetes and other comorbidities down the road.”

It’s hard to tell where your fat is just by looking at your body. But there are some tests your doctor can do to get a more detailed look. Koethe says that might include the following:

Measure around your waist. Your odds of diabetes and heart disease are higher if your waist is greater than 35 inches for women or 40 inches for men.

DEXA (or DXA) scan. This is a type of bone density test. But it can also show where your body stores fat and muscle.

CT scan. This is a more advanced tool that’ll give your doctor info on the fat in and around your liver, skeletal muscles, heart, or other organs.
Who Is More Likely to Gain Weight on ART?

Koethe and his colleagues found that 3 years after the start of ART, about 22% of healthy-weight people became overweight. Among those who were already overweight, he says about one-fifth became obese. But those numbers don’t help experts predict much.

There’s ongoing research into how much of a role your genes play. Koethe says there’s emerging data that certain drug-metabolizing enzymes might affect weight gain. In the future, that might shine a light on who’s more likely put on extra pounds after the start of ART.

Should You Change Your ART?

Talk to your doctor about your treatment. They might want to switch you to a different drug if you’ve gained lots of excess weight. But there are a lot of things to think about it before you make a change.

If you haven’t started treatment, current pre-ART guidelines include a consideration for weight gain or metabolic problems. Bring it up with your doctor if those are health problems you or other family members have had.
But right now, Koethe says there’s not enough scientific data to support a change from the standard guidelines. He says that’s because integrase inhibitors, which are linked to weight gain, “are just so much better when it comes to preventing (drug) resistance.”

The best thing you can do, Koethe says, is to start or continue a healthy diet and exercise routine, especially at the start of ART. And keep your doctor in the loop about your weight gain. They can run routine checks on key health measures, such as:

Blood sugar

Blood pressure

Cholesterol levels

Your doctor might not choose or change your ART based solely on excess weight concerns. But Ogbuagu says you should still talk to your doctor if it happens. “I think we should take action early, in the first few months or year, so that people don’t continue to gain weight and develop new complications along the way.”
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December 8, 2022