👋 Welcome to Healthy, Again. I'm Max, and this publication is all about taking your health back: real food, holistic thinking, and time-tested wisdom, for you and your family.

Your everyday Advil is hurting your gut

SOUND OFF

Your eyes clean house while you sleep

POP QUIZ

01 Ibuprofen damages your gut within a day

A recent study shows one normal dose of ibuprofen can materially impact the gut, ultimately leading to long-term damage. The pill blocks an enzyme that helps protect the gut lining. When researchers ran a pill-sized camera through people who take it often, 71% had visible sores in the small intestine, against almost none who did not.

An occasional dose is fine. The trouble is everyone treating it like a daily vitamin.

02 Your eyes clean house while you sleep

A recent study seems to have found a new path for clearing out the body's daily waste. Apparently, during REM sleep, the rapid eye movements act as a pump that flushes waste out of the eye.

When sleep runs short, that cleanup stalls and the waste backs up. Researchers have tied the buildup to glaucoma and macular degeneration, two leading causes of blindness. Another reason the eight hours are not optional.

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✿ QUICK HITS — ON OUR RADAR

The government blocked $1.6 billion in fraudulent Medicare lab payments. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) caught hundreds of labs billing for tests that were never done or never needed. That money stays in Medicare instead of a scammer's pocket.
Florida sued two of the middlemen that set your drug prices. Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics are pharmacy benefit managers, the companies that sit between insurers and pharmacies. The state says they colluded in 2019 to underpay pharmacies, cutting rates that had been about 20% higher and leaving some to fill prescriptions at a loss.
Whey protein is not the "toxic" milk protein going around online. A viral post claims casein is healthy and whey is junk, but both are complete proteins. The only real difference is timing: whey digests fast for after a workout, casein slow for before bed.
The FDA cleared a new Juul that stays locked until it verifies your age. The updated device unlocks only after the user confirms their age in an app, the first real Juul redesign in a decade. The clearance covers only tobacco and menthol, from the same company that paid roughly $3 billion settling lawsuits over teen use.

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✿ WILD STORY

A 60-year-old man wanted to cut all the salt from his diet. He asked ChatGPT for a substitute and came away using sodium bromide instead of table salt. He took it for three months.

He ended up in the ER with paranoia and hallucinations, convinced his neighbor was poisoning him. His bromide levels were many times above normal. Doctors diagnosed bromism, a poisoning that was common a century ago and is almost never seen today. He recovered after he stopped taking it.

The case was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. He got the idea from a chatbot.

The moral of the story: AI isn't worth its salt when it comes to your health.

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THE COMMUNITY SECTION

✿ SOUND OFF

Story one asked what your everyday painkiller might be doing to you. Your turn:

Do you trust the FDA to warn you when an everyday drug is quietly harming you?

Yes

Neither

✿ POP QUIZ

Scientists recently found the eye clears its own waste overnight. Where does that waste end up?

The lymph nodes in your neck

Your tears

Your bloodstream

Your sinuses

✿ POLL RESULTS — FROM LAST EDITION

Should the US protect American ranchers, even if imported beef is cheaper?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes (217)
🟩🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Neither (51)
🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No (42)

America first. — Roy

We should absolutely back American ranchers over any other country. — Carol

Beef cattle are more expensive to buy, raise, feed, and keep cool in hot weather. The butcher price per pound isn't what ranchers and farmers get; it's always lower, no matter how good the animal. — Marlene

Yes, until US ranchers can increase their herds and become more competitive. Short-term imports may be necessary for price stability. — Dale

310 votes

✿ ONE GOOD THING

For the first time, there is a way to give children born deaf the ability to hear. The FDA approved Otarmeni this year, a one-time gene therapy for kids missing the gene that helps the ear send sound to the brain. Doctors deliver it into the inner ear in a single procedure.

In the trials most of the children gained hearing within months, and many heard normally for the first time in their lives. Kids who spent their first years in silence are now turning toward their parents' voices.

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Thanks for reading. Take care of yourself, and forward this to someone who needs it. — Max