Elevated lead levels found in cinnamon products, report finds
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(NEW YORK) — Elevated levels of lead have been found in 12 of 36 ground cinnamon products and spice blends, according to a Consumer Reports article published Thursday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not set lead-level thresholds for spices, but three of the products exceeded a proposed cutoff set by the American Spice Trade Association, and 12 exceeded a more stringent cutoff level set by New York State.
The level of lead identified in these products is not likely to pose an immediate health risk. There are trace levels of lead and other heavy metals in many of the foods we eat.
The problem, experts say, can come from repeat exposure or exposure to higher levels, especially for children or pregnant women.
Because of these health concerns, the FDA is actively monitoring ground cinnamon supplies and has recently alerted the public about certain products.
Last year, a major recall of apple cinnamon pouches with high lead levels led to health problems in at least 90 confirmed cases. This year, the FDA has released multiple health alerts for ground cinnamon products with elevated lead levels.
In July, several New York distributors recalled ground cinnamon products that were potentially contaminated with increased levels of lead.
The cinnamon tested in the Consumer Reports investigation included store-bought cinnamon and other cinnamon-containing spice mixtures. Again, three of these products had levels exceeding a proposed cutoff set by the American Spice Trace Association. When contacted by Consumer Reports, two of the three companies (Paras and EGN) said they would withdraw those products from the market.
Cinnamon may have a higher lead level risk because cinnamon trees grow for years before their bark is harvested, giving them more time to absorb lead in the soil.
In small amounts, lead exposure may not lead to any symptoms, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that significant or chronic lead exposure can cause various health issues including hypertension, kidney dysfunction, or cognitive issues in adults, and central nervous system damage like seizures and developmental defects such as learning disorders or other long-term health problems in children.
Doctors say there is no known safe level of lead for children.
(SILVER SPRING, Md.) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday approved the first new drug to treat people with schizophrenia in more than 30 years.
Cobenfy, manufactured by Bristol Myers Squibb, combines two drugs, xanomeline and trospium chloride, and is taken as a twice-daily pill. In clinical trials, this combination helped manage symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking, which are common in schizophrenia.
“Schizophrenia is a leading cause of disability worldwide. It is a severe, chronic mental illness that is often damaging to a person’s quality of life,” Tiffany Farchione, M.D., director of the Division of Psychiatry, Office of Neuroscience in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in the approval announcement.
“This drug takes the first new approach to schizophrenia treatment in decades,” Farchione continued. “This approval offers a new alternative to the antipsychotic medications people with schizophrenia have previously been prescribed.”
Cobenfy offers new hope for people with schizophrenia, providing an innovative treatment option that could change how this condition is managed, according to Jelena Kunovac, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the Department of Psychiatry.
“We are overdue for a medication that targets schizophrenia with a different mechanism of action,” Kunovac told ABC News.
The first drugs for schizophrenia, including chlorpromazine and haloperidol – also known by the brand names Thorazine and Haldol, respectively – were introduced in the 1950s and revolutionized treatment of the disease. However, there have been very few new medications since then, with most subsequent FDA approvals being for variations of these older drugs.
Most schizophrenia medications, broadly known as antipsychotics, work by changing dopamine levels, a brain chemical that affects mood, motivation, and thinking, Kunovac explained. Cobenfy takes a different approach by adjusting acetylcholine, another brain chemical that aids memory, learning and attention, she said.
By focusing on acetylcholine instead of dopamine, Cobenfy may reduce schizophrenia symptoms while avoiding common side effects like weight gain, drowsiness and movement disorders, clinical trials suggest. These side effects often become so severe and unpleasant that, in some studies mirroring real-world challenges, many patients stopped treatment within 18 months of starting it.
In clinical trials, only 6% of patients stopped taking Cobenfy due to side effects, noted Dr. Samit Hirawat, chief medical officer at Bristol Myers Squibb. “That’s a significant improvement over the 20-30% seen with older antipsychotic drugs,” he added.
The most common side effects of Cobenfy are nausea, indigestion, constipation, vomiting, hypertension, abdominal pain, diarrhea, increased heart rate, dizziness and gastroesophageal reflux disease, according to the FDA announcement.
“It may prove advantageous to those who don’t tolerate what has been available,” Dr. Leslie Citrome, a clinical professor of psychiatry and expert in psychopharmacology at New York Medical College, told ABC News regarding Cobenfy. “This will provide a new approach that may work out quite nicely.”
Citrome emphasized that patients who have trouble tolerating the side effects of traditional schizophrenia medications may benefit most from Cobenfy, and that a different mechanism of action holds hope for those who have not responded adequately to existing treatments.
Schizophrenia is a mental health disorder that affects about 24 million people worldwide, or roughly one in 300 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It often leads to significant challenges in daily functioning, work, and relationships, impacting both patients and their families.
The disorder typically begins in late adolescence or early adulthood and can lead to lifelong disability if not properly managed, according to the WHO, further highlighting the need for effective treatment options.
Following approval, doctors could start prescribing Cobenfy by the end of October, according to Adam Lenkowsky, executive vice president and chief commercialization officer at Bristol Myers Squibb.
Experts hope that the drug’s unique mechanism and reduced side effects will help set a new standard of care for schizophrenia patients. Studies for additional therapeutic uses, including the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and bipolar disorder, are also underway.
Jake Goodman, MD, MBA is a psychiatry resident physician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Massages, acupuncture and herbal supplements — self-care measures often considered a luxury for even humans — are being increasingly given to dogs to help them live longer, according to pet experts.
Dog owners are now using holistic treatments to treat their pups, holistic veterinarians and canine researchers told ABC News. Whether used as preventative care, in tandem with Western medicine or as a replacement for major surgery, these treatments have the potential to increase the lifespan of dogs by years, the experts said.
There has been a shift in recent decades in the dogs’ role in a family, evident in the way cartoon dogs are portrayed. In the 1960s, Snoopy, the most popular animated canine, slept in a dog house outside. But by the 2000s, Brian, the talking dog on Family Guy, sits on the couch and drinks out of a glass, Daniel Promislow, a senior scientist at Tufts University and co-founder of the Dog Aging Project, told ABC News.
“One of the things that that is very, very apparent to anybody in the veterinary profession is the degree of the human-animal bond with people regarding their pets and family,” Gary Richter, an Oakland-based holistic veterinarian, told ABC News.
As a result, people are becoming more and more invested in trying to keep their furry best friends alive longer, Richter said.
With recent advances in the science of longevity for humans, veterinarians are able to apply some of that research into canine health care, experts said.
Conventional Western medicine typically involves treating a symptom or disease with pharmaceuticals, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, Richter said. But holistic medicine involves treating the patient as a whole, using remedies such as herbal therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, or more technologically advanced treatments like ozone therapy and regenerative medicine, like stem cell therapies, he added.
“All of these therapies are really about, how do I make my patient more healthy so that their own body can manage whatever their particular disease process or whatever their particular illness may be?” he said. “What we’re looking to do is encourage the body to heal and manage itself.”
Homeopathy, an energy medicine similar to acupuncture, is often used for alternative pet health care, Marcie Fallek, a homeopathic veterinarian with offices in Fairfield, Connecticut, and New York City, told ABC News.
“You put needles in the body, and you’re moving energy around to heal, heal the body,” she said.”Basically, the body, whether it’s human or animal, is a self-healing system.”
Fallek got into homeopathy in the 1990s after her own dog, an 85-pound Rottweiler mix named Annie, ruptured her cruciate, a knee ligament, and required eight surgeries, she said. She later discovered that 80% of cruciate tears can be treated by homeopathy only.
“Using holistic modalities is always better than drugs,” she said. “Drugs always have side effects.”
About 15% of the nearly 50,000 participants enrolled in the Dog Aging Project, a nationwide study of healthy aging in companion dogs and pet dogs, have participated in some sort of alternative health care practice in their dogs’ lifespan, the most common being massages, Promislow said. Most of those participants who engaged in alternative treatments had previously been treated in the hospital for something else, Promislow said.
High-end med spas are also becoming more popular in large cities, Richter said.
Some of the treatments that Richter include red light laser therapy, sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and therapy on a water treadmill. Richter was named “Holistic Practitioner of the Year” by the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association in 2019.
In one case, Richter was able to help a dog with a neurological condition walk again without surgery, he said. With a combination of acupuncture, herbal therapy, and hyperbaric oxygen to try and force oxygen into the area where the spinal cord sits to facilitate healing, the 10-year-old beagle mix named Joey was up and walking within a few months, Richter said.
Cases that wouldn’t be a good candidate for holistic treatment would involve instances when life-saving surgery is needed or for acute problems, such as an injury, trauma, infection or some sort of disease, Richter said.
“Western medicine is fantastic for that sort of stuff,” he said. “If you get hit by a bus, you do not need an acupuncturist. However, if you’re alive a month later, you probably do,” Richter said.
The aspects of getting a dog to live the healthiest, longest life possible include keeping them at a healthy weight — or healthy body condition score, similar to body mass index in humans — as well as ensuring parasite prevention and good dental care, Promislow said.
Pet owners are also increasingly feeding their dogs fresh, whole and raw food, which is probably the best way to offer preventative care from the get-go to help them live longer, compared to the highly processed kibble that is highly available, said Fallek, a member of the British Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy.
Getting a dog to live to 25 is a lofty goal, but it’s not impossible, Fallek said, adding that she’s known dogs that have lived up to 30 years old.
“I can give them quality and quantity of life,” she said.
In this Jan. 25, 2024, file photo, a used Narcan brand Naloxone nasal spray rests on the street after paramedics and police responded to a suspected fentanyl drug overdose in Portland, Oregon. — Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images, FILE
(ATLANTA) — The estimated number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have been dropping for months and are now at their lowest levels in three years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Deaths from overdoses dropped for the first time in five years in 2023, following a steady rise during the pandemic. However, the current number of overdose deaths still remains higher than pre-pandemic levels.
In April 2024, the latest month with data, the estimated number of deaths in the past 12 months was 101,168, according to the CDC. The last month with figures that low was in May of 2021, with 100,997 deaths.
Data from other sources, such as emergency department visits and calls to EMS, support the downward trend, according to an analysis led by Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He tells ABC News that the data may point to 20,000 fewer deaths annually, or more.
While experts continue to explore possible reasons driving the decline, there are a few public health initiatives to curb drug overdoses that may be showing signs of success.
“Enhanced access to naloxone, expanded treatment programs for opioid use disorder, and increased public awareness about the dangers of synthetic opioids like fentanyl are likely playing significant roles in saving lives,” said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News medical contributor.
Another potential explanation for the downturn, Dasgupta says, may be related to changes in the drug supply, such as more people using xylazine, a dangerous, non-opioid animal sedative that’s often mixed with other illicit drugs, including fentanyl.
“Xylazine makes people use less fentanyl, is the bottom line,” Dasgupta told ABC News, while citing research that showed that those who overdosed and tested positive for xylazine had less severe health outcomes than those who did not have xylazine in their system. This could be due to the fact that those who used illicit substances, like fentanyl, mixed with xylazine may be using those substances less often, Dasgupta said.
“We’re seeing this pattern kind of happening that looks a lot like a change in the drug supply, more so than just explained by all the interventions in the public health space,” Dasgupta added. “It’s probably a mix of all these things at the end of the day, but something really changed in the third quarter of last year.”
Within each state, however, the decline in overdose deaths is not uniform among all people. Maryland, for example, experienced a decline in deaths among white populations, yet an increase among Black populations, Dasgupta points out.
Changes in drug overdose deaths also vary greatly by state, with some still experiencing increases in the past 12 months, CDC data shows. States with the greatest dips in overdose deaths over the past year, according to the same data, were Nebraska, North Carolina, Vermont, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, in that descending order.
While the national downward trend may continue, experts told ABC News it may not be permanent.
“We’ve seen dips that have been erased a year later. So, I’m cautious. I feel like things really haven’t cooled down yet,” Dasgupta said. “It feels like we’ve put the lid on the pot, but we’re still at a rolling boil. There’s still a lot of people dying of overdose.”
“It’s crucial that we continue to intensify our efforts to address the root causes of the opioid epidemic,” Brownstein said. “We need to continue investing in comprehensive strategies that address the complex factors driving the opioid crisis.”
Jake Goodman, MD, MBA is a psychiatry resident physician and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
