‘Sober curious’ lifestyle rises in popularity with younger generations: Where to begin the booze-free landscape
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(NEW YORK) — The catalyst for drinking less, or not at all, is unique for each individual but can range from physical health reasons to mental clarity. But whatever the motivation, the ‘sober curious’ movement is becoming more mainstream, especially among young adults.
The topic and trend was recently highlighted on the newest season of Emily in Paris, in which the title character explains that mostly Gen Z and millennials who adopt a wellness approach to their relationship with alcohol, though perhaps not fully sober, have started to explore not drinking.
“You might not be 100% sober, but you are interested in drinking less,” Hilary Sheinbaum, author of the Going Dry workbook and guide to drinking less, told Good Morning America.
A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2020 found that alcohol abstinence is becoming increasingly common among Gen Z, with 28% of college students reporting in 2018 that they did not drink alcohol, compared to 20% of respondents in 2002.
Alcohol-free alternatives have become even more accessible in recent years, as GMA first reported in 2022 as we emerged from the pandemic and the market was booming with new options, from nonalcoholic spiritless retail shops to more accommodating high-quality booze-free options outside of the traditional sugary mocktails.
“There are nonalcoholic beers, wines, and [non-alcoholic] spirits on restaurant and bar menus, even at hotels and resorts, and now in airplanes and even airline lounges. They are everywhere,” Sheinbaum said.
One Dallas-based content creator, Avon Nguyen, told GMA that cutting back on alcohol has also helped her financially.
“If I’m going to choose between drinking a $22 drink or paying rent, I’m probably gonna pay rent,” she explained.
Fitness influencer Kendall Toole, a former Peloton instructor turned podcast host, told GMA she’s seen positive improvements in her physical and mental health since she departed from drinking.
“The most notable shifts that I’ve seen on my health were one, the ability to get deep, restful sleep – [and two], my anxiety was not as profound and as adamant as it was previous.”
Unlike celebrities or athletes bottling tequilas, whiskey or other booze, Toole – who’s been open about her passion for wellness and mental health – opted to plant her flag in a clean energy and protein beverage, Don’t Quit, that better reflects her own journey and values.
For others looking to switch up what they sip and start dipping their toe into the sober curious journey, Sheinbaum emphasized how easy it is to do at home.
“One household item that is easy to mix with for a mocktail is orange juice,” she said. “You can make non-alcoholic mimosas with orange juice and non-alcoholic sparkling wine. It’s as easy as that.”
Check out these bartender-approved recipes to make more delicious, spirit-free sips for your next night in or sober soiree.
(WASHINGTON) When Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, there was a key provision that the Biden administration fought hard for. For years, private insurance companies negotiated with drug makers over prescription prices.
However, Medicare, representing 50 million seniors, did not have the same right to negotiate prices for its Part D coverage. This meant that Medicare basically had to accept the prices offered to them.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra joined “Start Here,” ABC News’ flagship daily news podcast, earlier this year to announce that negotiations were starting. They had selected 10 medications to prioritize and attempt to bargain down prices.
On Thursday, during the first public event held by President Biden and Vice President Harris since the Biden dropped out of the presidential race, they revealed that they had agreed on all issues. This is being described as a significant development for anyone on Medicare, and for anyone who pays taxes to fund the expenses of Medicare.
Secretary Becerra joined “Start Here” on Friday to discuss this further.
START HERE: Mr. Secretary, last time we spoke you had just identified the drugs…they included some diabetes drugs, some arthritis medications, treatments for blood clots and blood cancer. Where are we now?
BECERRA: We are done with the negotiation, Brad. We have completed 10 drugs. Every company joined in the negotiations. We had offers, counter offers, and we hit a sweet spot with all ten. And that sweet spot will save Americans on Medicare who need these drugs lots of money. And it will save taxpayers who help fund the Medicare program lots of money, in the billions.
START HERE: Yeah. How much of a discount are we talking about here?
BECERRA: So in some cases, the discount from the list price is up to 79%. I think the lowest discount is about 38%. And I do want to caveat that a bit. Very rarely does anybody pay list price for anything. And if you do, take it back and bargain a bit. Whether it’s that car at the dealership where you look at list price, you don’t pay that. When you go to the department store, you try to find everything you can on sale or, you know at some point it’s going to go on sale.
And so everybody makes the effort to try to get the best price for whatever the product is. In this case, it’s a very important product, it’s your prescription medication. But you should still be able to get a good price, and that’s what we did. We negotiated and got a much better price than what Medicare was getting.
START HERE: But just so we can we can be clear about that caveat. You’re saying it’s 68%, say it’s like 79% less than the list price. But you guys weren’t paying the list price earlier. Can you tell us how much you were paying on these drugs beforehand, and how much the new discount you’ve gotten is?
BECERRA: Yeah. And that’s where it gets a little dicey because there are lots of nooks and crannies in the health care system. Some of them include what are, what is considered proprietary information of the companies, the drug companies, that they don’t want disclosed. And so the net price that Medicare pays is lower than the list price, but still high.
START HERE: So there’s some contract somewhere being like “You guys, no one can disclose what you guys had originally been paying.”
BECERRA: Yeah. We can’t, we can’t take you behind the curtain unless the drug companies tell us it’s okay to do so.
START HERE: Were you able to actually push back against these drug companies, or was it kind of like “We’ll ask once and then we’ll have to take what we get. We’re not going to risk not giving Americans these, these drugs.”
BECERRA: Well, let’s just say that when they came in with their offer or counteroffer, the final price was neither our initial offer nor their official offer. But here’s what I will tell you. The Congressional Budget Office, which is Congress’ budget estimator, they’re the ones that keep tabs of what legislation will cost — will it save money or will it cost taxpayers money? And they are very stingy when it comes to saying “Oh, taxpayers will save money.” Right?
Well, the Congressional Budget Office said with regard to the Inflation Reduction Act and prescription drug negotiation, they said, we believe in the first year of negotiation — which we just finished — in that first year, and they’re projecting because they didn’t know which drugs it would be, etc.. They said, we believe the Department of Health Human Services will save $3.7 billion. Well, we’ve saved $6 billion.
And on top of that, we’re saving people out of pocket another billion and a half. But here’s the kicker. They said over 10 years, they assume that this new law, over 10 years of negotiating, will save $100 billion. So if we’re already almost double their first estimate for their first year, I guarantee you we’re going to do better than the 100 billion, over 10 years.
START HERE: Okay. When do the new prices go into effect, then I guess?
BECERRA: Jan. 1, 2026.
START HERE: Okay, so when that kicks in, how much of a discount will average Medicare patients actually see? Because, like, if you guys scored a 68% discount on Farxiga, like the diabetes kidney medication, does that mean that the person using that drug is going to pay, it doesn’t mean they’re going to pay 68% less. I mean, how much less would it be?
BECERRA: Yeah. So remember, and that’s also a difficult question because seniors don’t typically pay very much for their prescription medication. Medicare the program, that’s the beauty of Medicare, it covers the lion’s share of the cost of those drugs. Some Americans still have to pay some out-of-pocket costs for their drugs, especially the higher cost drugs. So we’re going to save folks quite a bit of money.
Let’s put it this way: I can talk to you in total aggregate terms. We can now look at the price that we negotiated and say “Okay, if we had this price back in 2023, what would our cost have been?” And the result is we would have saved $6 billion to the health care program, and Americans will be able to save about a billion and a half dollars collectively in their out-of-pocket costs.
START HERE: The trade group that represents companies like Pfizer, Lilly, Merck, they’ve said we might not see as much innovation because we’re not getting as much money. That’s, that’s constantly been sort of a critique of this. They also say that your math makes assumptions about how many people truly save money on this. They say a very small amount of people actually get this Part D plan in the way that would actually save the money here. What is your response to to to these pharmaceutical groups?
BECERRA: Well, remember, they’re more than 50 million Americans who have prescription coverage under Medicare, the Part D program. There are about 9 million people in the Medicare program who use one of these 10 drugs. It’s not a small universe of people. And these are very expensive drugs. When you can bring the price down of a drug that’s listed for, say, $10,000, $12,000 to $3,000. That’s a pretty good deal. It’s still $3,000, but it sure saved you a ton of money. If you were paid $12,000 or 13,000 before that.
And so this will save not just the Medicare program money, but it will save Medicare beneficiaries money. And it certainly will pay taxpayers who today, when they work, have some of their money from their paycheck taken out so they could cover their Medicare investment into the future so that when they get turned 65, they can qualify. They will get to benefit from a strengthened Medicare program that will have those new resources available, because we didn’t have to spend it at, for overcharging us for the prescription medication.
START HERE: Well, so now, I mean, the idea is that you’ll negotiate more drug prices, right? So you got these 10 out of the way. What are the next 10 or the next 20, or do you guys have a sense of what types of drugs you’re looking to target?
BECERRA: Yeah. And here I have to be careful, because everything we say about a drug can move the price on the market. Right? And I don’t want to be accused of trying to influence the price up or down. And so what I can tell you is the statute, the new law, the Inflation Reduction Act, gave a pretty clear prescription of how to select these, set of drugs that will be negotiated. That’s a, it’s a good thing in the way, in a sense that it doesn’t let politics enter into this. It was pretty clear which drugs count. In this case, the first 10, they had to be the most expensive drugs in the Medicare system.
START HERE: All right. So then we’ll see what happens next. All right. Secretary Xavier Becerra, thank you so much.
(NEW YORK) — The first person in New York state to be diagnosed with eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) in nearly a decade has died, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced Monday.
The case was confirmed on Sept. 20 in Ulster County — located along the Hudson River — by the state Department of Health. It is currently being investigated by the county Department of Health.
State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald previously issued a Declaration of an Imminent Threat to Public Health after the EEE diagnosis, which allows the state to deploy resources including mosquito spraying efforts from Sept. 30 to Nov. 30, 2024.
“Eastern equine encephalitis is different this year. While we normally see these mosquitoes in two to three counties each year, this year they have been in 15 counties so far, and scattered all over New York State,” McDonald said in a statement. “This life-threatening mosquito-borne disease has no commercially available human vaccine and must be taken seriously. Mosquitoes, once a nuisance, are now a threat.”
“I urge all New Yorkers to prevent mosquito bites by using insect repellents, wearing long-sleeved clothing and removing free-standing water near their homes. Fall is officially here, but mosquitoes will be around until we see multiple nights of below freezing temperatures,” the statement continued.
The New York case is likely at least the eleventh case of EEE so far this year, according to an ABC News tally. This also includes the 10 known cases listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website.
Beyond New York, cases have been reported in Massachusetts, with four; New Hampshire, with two; and in New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin, with one each.
Between 2003 and 2023, there have been at least 196 EEE cases reported in the U.S., including 176 hospitalizations and 79 deaths, CDC data shows.
Most people who are infected with EEE show either mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, according to the CDC. However, severe cases usually present with fever, headache, chills and vomiting before progressing to the more serious encephalitis, which is inflammation of the brain, or meningitis, which is inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord.
About one-third of all people who develop severe EEE die from the illness, the CDC says, while survivors can experience ongoing physical and neurological problems, including seizures, paralysis, cranial nerve dysfunction, personality disorders, and intellectual disabilities that can range from mild to severe.
There are no vaccines for EEE and health officials say the best protection is to prevent mosquito bites.
Health officials recommend wearing long-sleeve shirts and long pants, and tucking shirts into pants and pants into socks, at dusk or dawn, which are times of day when mosquitoes are most active.
Additionally, it is recommended to use insect repellent with DEET, to use screens on windows and doors, and to eliminate all standing water around the home where mosquitoes can breed.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Children with long COVID-19 may show different symptoms depending on their age, a new study suggests.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA, is the first looking at how long COVID affects children and teens from the National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded RECOVER initiative, which seeks to better understand, diagnose, prevent and treat the condition.
Among younger children, between ages 6 and 11, headache was the primary symptom followed by trouble with memory, focus and sleep, as well as stomach pain.
Teens and pre-teens between ages 12 and 17 tended to report more fatigue-related symptoms, such as daytime sleepiness or low energy, body aches and pains, and neurological symptoms, including headaches and difficulty with memory and focus. This age group was also more likely to experience changes in taste or smell.
“We really wanted to understand how does long COVID look different across the ages?” Dr. Rachel Gross, lead study author and a general pediatrician and clinical researcher at NYU Langone Health, told ABC News.
Study participants were recruited from more than 60 U.S. health care and community settings between March 2022 and December 2023, with children between ages 6 and 17 with and without previous COVID-19 infection.
“We know that children are changing over time, we know that they’re growing over time, that they’re developing, that their immune system may be changing, that their hormones may be changing. So, we weren’t surprised that we were seeing differences across these different age groups,” Gross said. “But next steps, we really need to understand why this is happening so we can understand the underlying mechanisms that may be related to these differences.”
Gross said most of what researchers know about long COVID comes from studies of adults, and this is one of the first studies to characterize what prolonged symptoms children may be experiencing. She said much more long COVID research needs to focus on children.
“There have been many misperceptions about COVID and children, even since the beginning of the pandemic,” she said. “There was a common misperception that children didn’t get COVID infections, and we know that’s not true. And now there’s a common misperception that children don’t develop long COVID, and we know from studies like this and others that that is not true, and that long COVID in children is not a rare condition.”
‘I can’t figure out what’s wrong’
Gabrielle “Gabby” Jospa, from Plainview, New York, is one of many children who knows all too well that children can, and do, develop long COVID.
The now 15-year-old contracted COVID-19 in December 2021. At first, she thought it was just a cold or a less severe virus. However, she developed severe symptoms including a high fever, fast heart rate, nausea, body aches, stomachache and falling oxygen levels that required a visit to the emergency room, Gabby told ABC News.
Once the initial symptoms were gone, there were many lingering after-effects. Gabby’s pulse and oxygen levels improved but not to where they were pre-COVID, according to her mother, Amy Jospa, and they knew something was wrong.
Gabby started experiencing fatigue and brain fog, and developed swollen joints, unexplained rashes and even postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that causes the heart to beat faster than normal when transitioning from sitting or lying down to standing, Amy Jospa told ABC News.
Gabby also has a history of migraines, experiencing them about once a year, but they worsened after COVID-19 to once per week and then once per day. They visited several doctors, none of whom could figure out what was wrong.
“The doctors will just tell you like — and it’s not the doctor’s fault — ‘Oh, it’s just a cold’ or ‘Oh, I’ll just give you headache medicine’ but it doesn’t go away, and you’re starting to feel after a while, after seeing a million doctors, like ‘I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. It’s hopeless,'” Gabby told ABC News.
In September 2023, with some help from Gabby’s cardiologist getting her the right series of tests, Gabby was diagnosed with long COVID. Gabby said she was “excited” more than upset to finally have a proper diagnosis.
Gabby and her mother tried to enroll in several long COVID studies at hospitals but she was rejected before she was accepted into the RECOVER study at NYU Langone, and had her first in-person visit in November 2023.
They say the RECOVER study has been helpful in terms of helping Gabby improve and better manage her long COVID symptoms.
“The RECOVER study also doesn’t include just medical testing,” Amy Jospa said. “They do cognitive testing on her, and it’s helped Gabby feel more normal and less stigmatized about the process, because she’s not the only one with brain fog. Like, ‘I have this; it stinks, but I’m not alone, and there are people who are working really hard to figure this out and get me to where I need to be.’ It’s like positive change, and I think that’s been the nicest part, seeing the shift mentally for her.”
Gabby and her mother say she’s still not 100% back to where she was before COVID. Before contracting COVID, Gabby, who swims competitively, used to be able to swim for 45 minutes straight. Now, she physically exhausts more easily so she needs breaks.
Amy Jospa said they made modifications to Gabby’s gym schedule at school and that Gabby has more time between classes because she can’t rush in the hallways between classes.
“I still manage, even though there are struggles,” Gabby said. “I managed to find a way to make it work so I can keep going mentally as well as physically.”
ABC News’ Dr. Kierstin Luber contributed to this report.
