Health
RFK Jr, EPA chief ‘declare war’ on microplastics amid growing evidence of health risks
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Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin are declaring a war on microplastics.
These tiny bits of plastic, which are less than 5 mm in size, can persist in our environment for hundreds or thousands of years. They may also build up in our bodies, our hearts and our brains, causing untold damage.
For the first time, the EPA is adding microplastics and pharmaceuticals to its Contaminant Candidate List for drinking water, which will help to prioritize funding and pave the way for potential future regulation involving Congress.
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HHS is also launching the Systematic Targeting of Microplastics — or STOMP — to study how microplastics accumulate in the body.
Kennedy spoke with Fox News in an exclusive interview accompanying the EPA/HHS announcement.
“Microplastics, which are less than 5 mm in size, can persist in the environment for hundreds or thousands of years,” said Dr. Marc Siegel. “They may also build up in our bodies, our hearts and our brains, causing untold damage. (iStock)
“We do not have the science that distinguishes between the impacts of these different types of plastics, and maybe if we identify those impacts, the damaging ones can be immediately eliminated, because you can replace them with something else,” he said.
“Our job — and we are really at the limit of our power right now — is to try to answer those questions before we take another action.”
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Kennedy pointed to emerging science suggesting microplastics’ direct impacts on public health.
“Some of them may be benign – others are very, very harmful,” he warned. “The science shows if they cause inflammation, they cause oxidative stress.”
“As a body, they are endocrine disruptors, so they interfere with fertility,” he added.
For the first time, the EPA is adding microplastics and pharmaceuticals to its Contaminant Candidate List for drinking water, which will help to prioritize funding and pave the way for potential future regulation involving Congress. (iStock)
As emerging research suggests a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and neurodegenerative disease when microplastics are present at the cellular level, “the time to act is now,” according to Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics and population health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
During a panel accompanying the announcement, Trasande compared the issue to efforts to reduce lead exposure in the 1970s, when the government took action as soon as the danger was identified, even before all research was complete.
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Kennedy, who has a long history of fighting chemicals in the environment, blames big businesses for causing the problem and wants them to clean it up. “That’s a lesson we are all supposed to have learned at kindergarten – that you clean up after yourself, you don’t force the public to do it.”
The same approach applies to pharmaceuticals that make their way into the environment, he noted.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin holds a microplastic sample during an announcement at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2026. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)
“Particularly for our children, it’s very alarming. They are swimming around now in a toxic soup. It’s coming from everywhere,” Kennedy warned. “It’s coming from their food. It’s coming from agriculture. It’s coming from the air and water, and it’s coming from pharmaceutical drugs.
“Lee has directed his agency under President Trump to do this study so we can start regulating the discharge of these chemicals,” he went on. “A lot of them you can remove through carbon technology and other technologies.”
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Administrator Zeldin said he believes the fight against microplastics is a bipartisan issue. He is calling for more education and transparency when it comes to microplastics and public health, cautioning against the federal government proposing a one-size-fits-all solution.
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“You want to be able to get the answers, you want to see the gold-standard science,” he said. “You demand radical transparency. You’re looking through the website, and it’s ignoring what you came to that web page to look for. I feel like there’s a communication gap – and when there’s a communication gap, there’s a trust gap.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin speaks alongside HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during the microplastics announcement at EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2026. (Ken Cedeno/Reuters)
Zeldin and Kennedy have been working closely under President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again agenda and say they enjoy working together.
“There’s no American in this country who can’t get heard somehow by Secretary Kennedy, and it’s just an honor to serve alongside him,” Zeldin said.
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Kennedy added, “I like everybody in that Cabinet, but Lee and I work with particular closeness, and I’ve really enjoyed the relationship.”
It is clear they would like this relationship to continue, even if their roles change. “You never know what’s going to happen,” Kennedy said.
Health
The Epicenter of Drug Deaths in America Is Shifting West
For years, the opioid supply in Arizona was dominated by little blue pills pressed and stamped to look like 30 milligram oxycodone tablets, often called “blues.” But two years ago, that began to change. Now the market is mostly powdered fentanyl, and drug deaths are rising. In Phoenix, this shift in the illicit drug supply has combined with heat, meth and homelessness to create an emerging crisis of overdose deaths in America’s fifth-largest city.
Marck Martinez grew up outside Phoenix, and when he first encountered fentanyl, it was those blue pills. But when he relapsed this past February, he had trouble finding them. “I tried to look for blues again, and there were no blues at all,” he said. In their place, he found fentanyl powder, which was stronger and less predictable.
With the switch to powder, he began to overdose much more frequently, most recently in April in a public park next to his 5-year-old son. He survived only because his mother found him and called paramedics, who were able to revive him with naloxone. After being driven to a hospital, Mr. Martinez, 26, fled to a gas station bathroom to smoke fentanyl again.
Harm reduction workers, local researchers and people who use drugs all echoed the same idea: Blues with significant quantities of active ingredients have been disappearing. Blues didn’t vanish all at once, they said. Rather, over the past year or two, it became increasingly difficult to find pills with enough fentanyl in them to have any effect at all. For the most part, the pills remaining on Phoenix streets today are “fake,” Mr. Martinez said, no longer containing enough fentanyl to prevent withdrawal. For drug users in Phoenix, it’s mostly powdered fentanyl that remains.
Brian Clark, associate chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Pacific and Southwest region, said the suppliers of fentanyl haven’t changed, with the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels remaining the primary movers of fentanyl across the southern border. But he couldn’t say why these cartels shifted from counterfeit pills to powder in Arizona.
Neighboring New Mexico is seeing the same transition from pills to powder, said Dave Daniels, harm reduction manager for the New Mexico Department of Health. These two Southwestern states had the largest increases in the drug death rate in 2025, all while drug deaths in West Virginia, once the center of the opioid epidemic, have plummeted. According to a New York Times analysis of provisional mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the drug death rate in Arizona last year overtook West Virginia’s for the first time since the proliferation of prescription painkillers in the late 1990s. Arizona and New Mexico now have the highest rate of drug deaths in the contiguous United States.
The rising drug deaths in the Southwest are in sharp contrast to the large-scale decline that has returned the U.S. drug death rate to its pre-Covid level. The reasons for this decline are still a matter of debate. “Epidemic curves can only go up for so long,” said Caleb Banta-Green, a research professor at the University of Washington. And the shift to powdered fentanyl in the Southwest already happened in much of the country years ago.
The surge of powder in Arizona, however, has spread through a population that is not accustomed to using it. “People adapt to market changes,” said Raminta Daniulaityte, a professor at Arizona State University who researches illicit drug use. “But initially when things change, it can have devastating consequences because people haven’t developed strategies to adapt.”
Margarita Macías, Marck’s mother, remembers coming home one day to find him lying limp in the driveway, soon after he’d returned from four months in rehab, after powdered fentanyl had taken over. Foam was coming out of his mouth. She screamed for her husband. “I felt so helpless,” she said in Spanish, “seeing things spiraling out of control and being unable to do a thing.”
Powdered fentanyl sold on the streets is particularly dangerous because of its higher variability. One recent study of the fentanyl supply in Los Angeles, for example, found that one gram of what was sold as “fentanyl” contained anywhere from less than one milligram of fentanyl to almost 650 milligrams. The variability combined with the potential for extreme potency makes it difficult to dose properly. “With the powder, you would overdose instantly if you weren’t careful,” said Francisco Cabrera, who has used fentanyl for over a decade.
Among the people interviewed for this article who use opioids, most expressed a preference for blues over powdered fentanyl, all else being equal. But ultimately they would use whatever product was available to stave off withdrawal, which causes debilitating pain, vomiting and mental anguish. “It’s like your blood is itching,” said Mr. Martinez, who would scratch himself so severely that his mother would often find him bleeding through his shirt.
‘It is like a blast furnace’
Phoenix, the largest city in Maricopa County and the center of the broader metro area, sits low in the Salt River Valley, under a blanket of warm air at the northeastern edge of the Sonoran Desert. The relentless heat of the city has only compounded the dangers of the fentanyl supply shift. Drug deaths in Phoenix typically peak during the summer months, when temperatures routinely exceed 110 degrees, often remaining above 90 degrees even at night.
The hot nights make it harder for vulnerable populations to recover from hot days spent in a city with wide boulevards and relatively sparse tree cover. “There’s nowhere to hide,” said Scott Greenwood, C.E.O. of Sonoran Prevention Works, a local harm reduction agency. “It is like a blast furnace. It’s like taking a hair dryer and pointing it at your face. That’s what it feels like when there’s a breeze here in July.”
According to a Times analysis of data from the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office from 2024 through March 2026, when the daily high in Phoenix crossed 110 degrees, drug deaths in the county increased by 40 percent. On the 17 days in that period when the temperature reached 115 degrees, drug deaths nearly doubled.
Drug deaths begin to rise once temperatures in Phoenix cross 110 degrees. Above 115 degrees, they nearly double.
In Maricopa County, drug deaths rise along with the temperature
As part of the street medicine team for Circle the City, a nonprofit organization that provides medical care to homeless people in Maricopa County, Dr. Matt Evans has witnessed these dangers firsthand, describing patients who had passed out from fentanyl and suffered third degree burns from pavement superheated by the desert sun. “Substance use and extreme heat do not mix,” he said.
These dangers are aggravated by the widespread use of methamphetamine. Ms. Daniulaityte said 80 to 90 percent of fentanyl users in the region also use meth. The depressive effects of fentanyl are so strong that many drug users said they use meth just to function, smoking fentanyl to bring themselves down and then meth to bring themselves back up again. Several described using methamphetamine to ease the pain of withdrawal.
The combination of heat and meth can be deadly. Whereas a fentanyl overdose causes the brain to stop reminding the body to breathe, methamphetamine kills by pushing the body past its limits, effects that are heightened by heat exposure, lack of sleep and dehydration. “It raises your body temperature, it makes you tachycardic,” Dr. Evans said. “It puts you at risk for heat exhaustion, heat illness, heat stroke in a way that is very dangerous.” The body can quite simply overheat.
In 2025, over half of heat-related deaths in Maricopa County involved drugs. At least 19 people in Maricopa County have died from heat exposure already in 2026, with drug use implicated in 11 of those deaths. In all but one of those drug-related cases, methamphetamine intoxication was listed among the causes.
The interplay between heat and meth is one of the reasons the Maricopa County Department of Public Health broadened its internal definition of drug deaths in 2024 to include any death where drug toxicity was a contributing factor. “There really isn’t a bright line” between a heat death and a meth death, said Dr. Jeffrey Johnston, the chief medical examiner for Maricopa County.
The twin pressures of heat and meth are felt by the large homeless population in the area, who have few options to escape the heat and often use meth as a tool of survival, to stay vigilant. Annual surveys estimate that on any given night there are about 10,000 homeless people in Maricopa County; roughly half are unsheltered, living on the streets, in parks and river beds. Sustained meth use can easily trigger meth-induced psychosis, in which a person begins hearing voices. One man described starting using fentanyl merely to quiet the voices in his head so he could sleep.
According to Arlene Mahoney, the executive director of the Southwest Recovery Alliance, displacement from homeless encampments — like the 2023 dismantling of “the Zone,” the city’s largest encampment — has further heightened the risk. When people can no longer find the drug supply they’re used to, they’re forced to choose between the agony of withdrawal or new, untested sources. “It’s about destabilization,” Ms. Mahoney said. “People are losing the places and people they rely on.”
Advocates for the homeless are especially concerned about a new city parks ordinance that restricts the provision of medical care and food in city parks. City officials have defended the measure as a way to improve safety and sanitation. Outreach workers and medical providers say it will make it harder to reach people who already have little access to health care, at a time when city parks, with shade and grass, can provide a rare respite from the heat. “I think what’s coming here is terrifying,” Ms. Mahoney said. “That’s not public health, that’s not public safety.”
A ‘wake-up call’
After Mr. Martinez overdosed in the park, he returned to living on the streets. Shortly after, a close friend who’d just left rehab, unable to find the blues he was used to, turned to fentanyl powder. The friend died. A few days later, Mr. Martinez checked into the HOPESS Residential Recovery Center.
“It was kind of like my wake-up call,” Mr. Martinez said. He guesses he’s entered inpatient treatment around a dozen times, but he’s determined to make this visit his last. “Every time I come across fentanyl now,” he overdoses, he said. “I’m not gonna make it, you know? It just gets worse and worse.”
The initial data from 2026 appears promising. Reports of nonfatal overdoses in Phoenix through June are 17 percent lower this year than last. Data pulled from the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office shows drug deaths through March tracking lower than last year. It’s possible the crisis has begun to ebb. But it takes months to classify many drug deaths; a complete picture won’t emerge until well after summer is over.
Mr. Martinez has entered a sober living house and has started taking classes at the local community college, where he hopes to pursue welding. Ms. Macías follows his progress closely, eager to see the return of the son she knew from before he started using: “People would say to me, ‘Listen, why do you keep chasing after him?’ But I’d say: I have to help him. If I don’t, who will?”
Methodology
The chart of drug death rates is a Times analysis of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Deaths before 1999 reflect the underlying cause of death, using ICD-9 codes E850-E858, E950.0-E950.5, E962.0 and E980.0-E980.5. Deaths from 1999 onward include all deaths in which acute drug toxicity was listed among the contributing causes, using ICD-10 codes X40-X44, X60-X64, X85 and Y10-Y14.
Drug death numbers for Arizona in 2008 are omitted due to a known data issue. Death numbers for 2025 are preliminary, with rates calculated using the Vintage 2025 state population estimates from the Census Bureau.
The chart of Maricopa County drug deaths classifies a death as drug-related if either the primary or contributory cause of death contains any of these words: acetaminophen, alprazolam, amphetamine, amlodipine, buprenorphine, buproprion, bupropion, caffeine, chlordiazepoxide, citalopram, cocaine, codeine, cyclobenzaprine, diphenhydramine, doxepin, fentanyl, fluoxetine, gabapentin, heroin, hydrocodone, ketamine, kratom, kratum, lorazepam, methadone, methamphetamine, mitragynine, morphine, oxycodone, phenobarbital, polydrug, polysubstance, sertraline, tramadol, venlafaxine or zolpidem; or the phrases acute drug, drug intoxication or drug toxicity. It excludes homicides, in which causes of death are redacted. Drug deaths classified as homicides are rare. Some case data is preliminary and subject to change.
Health
Popular diet trend could boost mental health among older adults, study finds
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Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish and olive oil may help keep the mind strong even into old age, according to new research.
Older adults in England who followed a Mediterranean diet — which is primarily composed of the above foods — during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic reported higher psychological well-being than peers who did not.
The researchers tracked more than 3,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 90 to determine how their daily food choices related to their long-term outlook on life, according to a press release.
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The participants filled out specialized surveys that measured positive psychological traits, including their sense of autonomy, life satisfaction, purpose and control over daily routines.
Each participant also received a score based on how closely their eating habits matched a traditional Mediterranean dietary pattern.
The boost in well-being was not driven by differences in caloric intake, meaning the specific types of food eaten played an important role, the researchers said. (iStock)
Adults who stuck closely to the Mediterranean diet reported a significantly stronger sense of overall well-being.
This finding held even after researchers accounted for factors like income, education, physical activity, smoking habits and general physical health.
The boost in well-being did not appear to be driven by differences in caloric intake, which suggests the specific types of food played an important role.
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As the researchers tracked the participants over several years, they were able to measure how their well-being shifted during the early months of the pandemic.
While emotional well-being and happiness dropped across the entire group during the lockdowns, the study – which was published in BMJ Open – showed the decline was less intense for people who stuck to the Mediterranean diet.
The Mediterranean diet is naturally packed with anti-inflammatory elements, such as antioxidants called polyphenols found in extra virgin olive oil. (iStock)
Previous research points to a few explanations for this.
“This study shows what we’ve been seeing in other research,” Kim Kulp, registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of the Gut Health Connection in the San Francisco Bay Area, told Fox News Digital.
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The Mediterranean diet is naturally rich in anti-inflammatory nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids from fish and antioxidants called polyphenols found in extra-virgin olive oil.
These nutrients help to lower inflammation in the brain and support a healthy gut microbiome, which is directly linked to the chemical production of mood-regulating hormones, experts say.
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“Since the Mediterranean diet is loaded with a variety of plant foods, it provides an increase in nutrients for the body and brain, special compounds that reduce inflammation, and prebiotics to feed the good gut microbes,” said Kulp, who was not involved in the study.
The participants shared how they felt about their sense of autonomy, life satisfaction, purpose and control over their daily routines. (iStock)
Researchers noted some limitations to the data, including the fact that the study relied on self-reported dietary surveys, which can sometimes be inaccurate.
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Additionally, the participants who completed the tracking tended to be healthier and wealthier than the general public, meaning the results might not fully apply to more diverse or vulnerable populations.
The Mediterranean diet can help reduce stress and depression and improve a sense of well-being, a nutritionist confirmed. (iStock)
“There were only two days of dietary data, and the psychological well-being test was only administered on two occasions, both early on during COVID,” Kulp noted. “Two days of data may not be enough to form conclusions.”
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Because the study was observational, it could not prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the diet and improved mental health, the researchers acknowledged.
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“Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds and legumes provides the ultimate combination of nutrients to improve overall health as we age,” said Kulp.
“Together, this diet can help reduce stress and depression and improve a sense of well-being, even during the toughest times.”
Health
‘Miracle on the Hudson’ hero Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger reveals Alzheimer’s diagnosis
America 250: Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger
Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger is a former U.S. Air Force officer and commercial airline pilot. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, he served as a fighter pilot, flight leader, and training officer. After leaving active duty in 1980, he became an airline pilot with Pacific Southwest Airlines, later part of US Airways. On January 15, 2009, Sullenberger safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after a bird strike caused both engines to lose thrust. All 155 people on board survived, in what became known as the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’ In 2021, he was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as U.S. ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a role he held until 2022.
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One of the nation’s most famous aviators and great heroes has announced a heartbreaking diagnosis.
Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III, the pilot who saved 155 people after making an emergency landing in New York’s Hudson River in what became known as “The Miracle on the Hudson,” shared in a public statement that he was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
“It is early stage,” he revealed. “For now, this means a name may not come easily to me, I forget a story I have recently told, or I don’t sleep as well, but I am in the beginning of this long journey.”
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Sullenberger, 75, shared with People magazine that he’s had trouble recalling details within the last year, despite having a photographic memory. He received his official diagnosis in August 2025.
U.S. Airways Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III prepares to testify before the House Judiciary Committee’s Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in December 2009. He was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. (Chip Somodevilla/Reuters)
The pilot became a celebrity when he carried out the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on Jan. 15, 2009, after colliding with a flock of geese that resulted in engine failure. Everyone onboard survived.
Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia, impacts more than seven million people in the U.S. over the age of 65, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“It is the unwanted visitor at the door.”
“My doctor, Dr. Gil Rabinovici with UCSF Medical Center, has opened my eyes to the prevalence of Alzheimer’s,” Sullenberger said in his statement. “This disease, he has told me, spares no age group and impacts millions of people around the world. It is the unwanted visitor at the door.”
Sullenberger’s wife, Lorrie, shared with People that the diagnosis has not dimmed his strong demeanor.
Capt. Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger is pictured with wife Lorrie Sullenberger in 2018. She said the diagnosis has not dimmed his strong demeanor. (Dave Kotinsky/FilmMagic)
“Just as he was the same steady person before and after Flight 1549, he is the same steady person now, before and after this diagnosis,” she said. “That strength and steadiness is guiding us as a family.”
“We’re supporting him on this journey that we now walk with so many other families. Though the future is uncertain, we continue to live our lives, have hope and find joy in the everyday.”
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Flight 1549 first officer Capt. Jeff Skiles also commented on the news of his friend’s diagnosis.
“Sully is larger than life, even to me,” Skiles told People. “He’s somebody I’ve always looked up to, and I think a lot of other people do, too. Hopefully, it’s going to progress slowly and he’s going to be able to create the kind of life going forward that he would be proud of.”
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger attends the “Sully” New York premiere at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, in New York City on Sept. 6, 2016. (Jim Spellman/WireImage)
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel noted that Sullenberger had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the Miracle on the Hudson, which could have increased his risk.
“Age 75 is relatively late-onset,” he told Fox News Digital. “PTSD doubles the risk of developing Alzheimer’s because of changing brain chemistry and structure and sleep disruption.”
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Sullenberger reflected on how he has been a staunch advocate for travel safety, often addressing roadblocks in the aviation industry, fighting for increased pilot training and care.
Now, Capt. Sully, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, plans to continue serving the public by focusing on raising Alzheimer’s awareness.
Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease, meaning the symptoms gradually worsen over time. (iStock)
“This new phase of my life has challenged what it means to be of service,” he said. “And the answer is to speak up. It is my hope that by sharing this, other families living in the shadows with this disease will feel they, too, can step forward.”
“So many people told us after Flight 1549, that the outcome gave them hope,” he went on. “Lorrie, my incredible partner of 37 years, says we can all use a little of that hope right now.”
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Though the soon-to-be National Aviation Hall of Fame inductee’s memory of the past may be impacted, Sullenberger said his diagnosis “will not prevent me from looking forward to and appreciating our future. I will navigate this chapter with my wonderful family by my side.”
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III testifies before the House Judiciary Committee’s Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. He represented the U.S. Airline Pilots Association and spoke about airline bankruptcy and employee vulnerability. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Over the years, when people would ask about the successful outcome of Flight 1549, I would say that ‘courage can be contagious,’ and on that day it helped everyone band together to get everyone off that airplane successfully,” he said.
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“Now we need that courage to battle this disease. I am now part of a larger community with many of you, and we will be courageous together.”
What to know about Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia affecting memory, thinking and behavior, as described by the Alzheimer’s Association. It accounts for 60% to 80% of all dementia cases.
It is a progressive disease, meaning the symptoms gradually worsen over time. The memory loss is usually mild in early stages, but late-stage Alzheimer’s can include loss of ability to carry a conversation and respond to environmental factors.
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While there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, there are treatments that can help slow symptoms. Newer, more effective therapies are on the horizon, experts say.
Certain lifestyle changes, including mental and physical activity, have been shown to help prevent the disease.
Dr. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist, brain imaging doctor and founder of Amen Clinics in California, previously spoke with Fox News Digital about Alzheimer’s risk and management.
“Alzheimer’s starts in your brain decades before you have any symptoms,” he said. “So, a 59-year-old woman I diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease likely had negative changes in her brain in her 20s.”
“It’s really never too early to think about protecting your brain and your mind.”
“I will navigate this chapter with my wonderful family by my side.”
Amen listed 11 major protective factors that can help ward off Alzheimer’s. These include promoting blood flow, reducing inflammation, and avoiding toxins like alcohol and drugs. Improving mental health, boosting immunity, getting adequate sleep and keeping diet and weight in check can also help reduce risk.
The doctor also recommends staying informed of hereditary diseases, maintaining a healthy hormonal balance and keeping the brain active in retirement.
Sullenberger’s 2009 bestselling autobiography, “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters,” co-written with Jeffrey Zaslow, was adapted into a 2016 film, “Sully,” directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Tom Hanks.
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