A new federal report issued by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission portrays children’s health as in alarming decline due to poor diet, chemical exposures, over-medicalization, a lack of physical activity, and much more. Certain industry groups, the American health care system, and parental choices are largely blamed—while socioeconomic factors that research has shown affects many of these issues are barely mentioned.

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President Donald Trump requested the report in a February executive order establishing the MAHA Commission, whose primary mission is to address childhood chronic diseases. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chairs the commission.

The group’s report presents four main drivers of chronic childhood illness, laying particular blame on the food children eat and their daily habits. It takes aim at ultra-processed foods, citing a 2021 study that found that nearly 70% of an American’s child’s calories come from this category, ..

TC, HDL, LDL: There’s an alphabet soup of cholesterol types to know about. Relatively new on the scene is Lp(a), or lipoprotein(a). Though it was first described by a Norwegian physician in 1963, this unique form of “bad” cholesterol remained under the radar until fairly recently. Now, it’s being discussed and measured in people’s bloodwork on a more widespread basis.

“Over the past decade, new scientific knowledge improved our understanding of the Lp(a) role in heart disease risk,” explains Dr. Ahmet Afsin Oktay, a cardiologist with the Rush University System for Health in Chicago. “As a result, providers have become more aware of how measuring Lp(a) levels can help form a more personalized risk assessment for heart disease.”

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Here’s what you need to know about Lp(a) and the new medical advances bringing us closer to treating elevated levels.

What is Lp(a), and why is it important?

It’s similar in structure to low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholest..

Dr. Jeffrey Hurless still remembers the young patient who showed up for a podiatry appointment complaining about a large blister on the bottom of his big toe. The sore spot was red, swollen, and painful—and the boy and his mother had no idea what had caused it. As the patient reclined in an exam chair, Hurless began to deroof the blister, which means removing its top layer of skin. Then the surprise hit. Literally.

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“I’m working on this boy’s foot pretty close to my face, probably a foot away, and I’m gently going a little deeper, and then a little deeper,” recalls Hurless, a podiatrist and foot and ankle surgeon at Neuhaus Foot & Ankle in Nashville. “All of a sudden, a plastic toothpick literally shot out of his foot under such pressure that it went over my right shoulder and hit the wall behind me.”

Everyone in the exam room erupted into cheers: Good riddance to the interloper! At first, the boy was stumped by the toothpick’s presence. Then he remem..

The Pandemic Agreement, just adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a landmark for global public health. Had such an agreement been in place before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic would have looked very different. The agreement now means that when the next pandemic begins brewing, the world will be much better equipped to mitigate or even prevent it.

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What exactly will the agreement do?

In a nutshell, 124 countries have pledged to prevent, prepare for, and respond to future pandemics. The countries that formally ratify the agreement will be bound to uphold a number of commitments including investing in health infrastructures, sharing intellectual property, and engaging in technology transfer.

One of the biggest benefits promises to be the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System. This will require U.N. member states to share information and data about potential pandemic viruses, including sequencing of new viruses or variants, as well as sh..

On May 20, the federal government announced a major shift in how it plans to review and recommend COVID-19 vaccines for Americans. Among the changes: when manufacturers want to update the vaccine each year to target the latest variants, they will be required to conduct additional studies to show the effectiveness of the vaccine in people who are not at high risk of severe COVID-19.

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Since 2023, federal health officials have recommended an annual COVID-19 shot for most people, and vaccine makers have not needed to conduct additional tests on each year’s updated vaccine. It’s similar to the way the annual flu shot is updated to target the newest influenza strains, without new studies to re-confirm the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine.

Here’s how COVID-19 vaccine guidance is changing in the U.S.

For people at high risk of severe COVID-19

The process of reviewing and recommending yearly updates to the COVID-19 vaccine would remain essentially th..