HEALTH

Drinking coffee only in the morning lowers risk of death from any cause

Time - Dr. Vivek Murthy served two terms as U.S. Surgeon General—first under former President Obama, then under President Biden. During his tenure, Murthy was a calm and reassuring voice during COVID-19, one of the biggest health challenges the country has faced in recent years.But most of the time, the "nation's doctor" highlighted public-health issues that usually fly under the radar: loneliness, gun violence, the dangers of social media, overwhelming parental stress...

What I have found over my two terms is that for many people, that sense of community has eroded. We have millions of Americans struggling with loneliness: a third of adults and half of young people. People’s participation in both formal and informal service remains low. And more than half of young adults in a recent survey said they felt either low or no sense of meaning and purpose in their lives.

To me, these are all red flags. They are warning signs telling us that the fundamental elements we need to live fulfilling lives are vanishing and getting weaker. If we don’t do something about them, it may not matter that we have the best policy proposals or are making big financial investments in communities. People won’t thrive the way they need to.

As community is deteriorating or diminishing in people’s lives, we are starting to see many different manifestations of that. Some involve mental health; others are physical-health related. We are also seeing that when people struggle with loneliness and isolation, it impacts their productivity and engagement at work, and also how kids do in school. When community is weak, we are more easily polarized, divided, and turned against each other.   MORE

 NPR -  It isn’t just the flu that's spiking, according to NPR’s Rob Stein. RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is spreading at high levels. COVID is also starting to creep up again. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says this winter will probably be like last year’s unless a new COVID variant arises. Stein says that still isn’t great as it means lots of kids missing school, parents absent from work and grandparents and other vulnerable people ending up in the hospital or possibly dying. The human metapneumovirus is gaining attention because of a surge of respiratory illnesses in China, but the World Health Organization says the increase is within the expected range for this time of year