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HEALTHY COFFEE
Good news for coffee lovers, a new study shows that drinking it daily could help protect heart health. . Researchers at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute found that drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day has been associated with a 10 to 15 percent decrease in risk of getting heart disease. Meanwhile, researchers from Sweden and the UK found that more caffeine in your blood can help reduce your risk for type 2 diabetes. In a study published in BMJ Medicine, researchers used genetic markers to link caffeine levels and body mass index, and then looked at how quickly people broke down caffeine in the blood. It's well known that the higher your BMI is the higher your risk of developing type 2 diabetes is. The study found that those with more caffeine in their blood had lower body fat mass, meaning their risk for developing diabetes is lower.
UTI INFECTIONS LINKED TO MEAT
More than 500,000 urinary tract infections (UTIs) are caused by E. coli linked to meat products, according to a study in the journal One Health. Researchers isolated E. coli strains from meat products in Flagstaff, Arizona and then compared those strains to blood samples from patients who have UTIs at a nearby hospital. They determined that about 8 percent of the infections could be linked to meat. Since the U.S. food supply chain is connected throughout the country, scientists believe that E. coli could be causing hundreds of thousands of UTIs.
The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day, it was estimated to stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. Wisconsin-La Crosse fired Gow on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023, after learning Gow and his wife have been producing and appearing in pornographic videos. Gow maintains the firing violated his free speech rights.
The U.S. military is now putting independent lawyers in charge of its investigations of sexual assault and other major crimes, what Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has called the "most important reform" to the military justice system in recent history.
A decades-old law bans Medicare from paying for weight loss drugs. Now, drugmakers and a wide-ranging bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up to push for that to change next year.
Barring a court order, in March Texas police will start being able to arrest people they suspect have entered the U.S. illegally, but increases in border crossings since a 2021 law authorizing some arrests shows the limits of that approach in the face of desperation that causes people to risk everything and travel thousands of miles to the U.S.
Mexico began clearing tents, both occupied and unoccupied, from the encampment in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, starting Tuesday.
