Testosterone, Abortion Restrictions, ChatGPT: Morning Rounds
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- Is this my east Coast ignorance showing, or is it really possible to buy a bag of avocados for less than $3?
- If you didn’t catch my colleagues’ great reporting on the new dietary guidelines last week, catch up here and here,to start.
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Good morning. Is this my east Coast ignorance showing, or is it really possible to buy a bag of avocados for less than $3? Kennedy adviser Calley Means seems to think so, at least according to a recent tweet on the new food pyramid and affordability.
If you didn’t catch my colleagues’ great reporting on the new dietary guidelines last week, catch up here and here,to start.
The opportunities — and risks — of AI health advice
Table of Contents
Last week, OpenAI announced ChatGPT Health, a corner of ChatGPT with enhanced data security where users can upload their medical records or hook up the data feeds from their wellness apps. Yesterday, Anthropic rolled out a similar feature for its chatbot, Claude, which includes the ability to import health records.
These companies are entering the health advice space while facing high-profile lawsuits accusing their chatbots of causing harm,or even death. and they’ve been criticized by lawmakers for not doing enough to prevent those alleged impacts. Still, for patients who can’t get to the doctor, it might be nice to have something rather than nothing when health questions come up. Read more from STAT’s Brittany Trang and Mario Aguilar on how experts are weighing the technology’s risks and potential benefits.
Analyzing the success of a CA anti-tobacco program
California students whose schools operate tobacco-use prevention education programs (TUPE, if you will) use tobacco at significantly lower rates than students at schools without such programming.A study published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that 6.5% of TUPE students used tobacco compared to 8.1% of other students. That gap persisted with vaping: 5.4% of TUPE students vaped while 7% of others did.
Researchers analyzed 2019-2020 state survey data from more than 160,000 students. At all schools, students had similar levels of exposure to tobacco-related advertising. But TUPE students got access to education on tobacco, intervention and cessation services, peer counseling, and more.
California pays for the program with a steep tax on packs of cigarettes, vapes, and other tobacco products. But similar programs in other states have been cut after losing CDC funding. Revisit Sarah Todd’s story on one West Virginia teen and how much her own state initiative meant to her.
Testosterone in the dietary guidelines?
Federal health officials have been talking about testosterone a lot lately. The FDA convened an expert panel on the drug late last year, and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes it himself as part of what he calls an anti-aging protocol. But last week, testosterone appeared in a place people may not have expected it: the new national dietary guidelines.
The guidelines didn’t suggest taking testosterone supplements. But for the first time, they gave tailored advice for cisgender men concerned about maintaining healthy levels of testosterone in their body. Healthy fats, fish oil, zinc, and vitamin D all make an appearance. STAT’s annalisa Merelli wrote about how experts reacted to the inclusion. Read more.
A confusing new entry to the pulse oximeter saga
Dedicated STAT readers know there’s long been a concern, backed by research, that pulse oximeters could be contributing to racial health disparities. The small devices, which clip onto a patient’s finger to measure oxygen levels, seem to be less accurate on people with darker skin.But manufacturers have been slow to get to the bottom of the problem.
A long-awaited study commissioned by the FDA was meant to generate prospective data to answer lingering questions.But as STAT’s Anil Oza reports,the initial findings only made things more confusing. While previous research found that the devices overestimated oxygen levels for darker skin tones, this study found the opposite.Read more from Anil on the details, why the difference matters, and what might come next.
Abortion restrictions and fertility treatment
In states that enact TRAP laws — the targeted regulation of abortion providers — people who use fertility treatments to get pregnant have higher maternal morbidity than those doing fertility treatments in states without such laws.
That’s according to a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum that analyzed more than 416,000 births between 2012 and 2021. The researchers found a statistically notable increase — 0.25% — in morbidity in TRAP law states. (All the babies were conceived through fertility treatment.)
Correlation isn’t causation, period. But this also isn’t the first study to find a link between restrictive abortion legislation and poor health outcomes. To keep up with whether or not federal abortion restrictions will be part of the bill on ACA enhanced subsidies moving through Congress right now, follow