Health
Study suggests Mediterranean diet could boost male fertility: 'Crucial role'
A new study from Italy found that the Mediterranean diet could have a beneficial effect on male fertility.
The study, published in the journal Food Science, explored the different causes of male infertility, pinpointing how diet plays a “crucial role in improving a man’s reproductive capacity.”
The researchers suggested that an appropriate diet for men should include a diverse range of essential ingredients, similar to those found in the Mediterranean diet.
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The Mediterranean diet involves high amounts of vegetables and fruits that are “rich in detoxifying and antioxidant substances,” the researchers noted in a discussion of the findings.
The study included 50 “sub-fertile” men who were provided with specific nutrition plans that consisted of 80% organic foods.
The plan also introduced whole grains and low glycemic load options (which have minimal impact on blood sugar levels), grass-fed meat and wild-caught seafood, and a daily intake of leafy greens and red fruits.
It also eliminated refined carbs and saturated fats in exchange for healthy fats like olive oil, avocado and nuts.
Dairy products were reduced or eliminated.
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The men, who were ages 35 to 45, followed this diet for three months and were evaluated between Nov. 2020 and Oct. 2021.
Before the study, the pool of men exhibited “limited concern for food quality, rarely reading food labels and rarely purchasing organic products.”
The men who stuck with the Mediterranean-inspired food plan saw a significant increase in testosterone levels, the study found.
In a subgroup of individuals who reduced their carb intake by 35%, sperm DNA fragmentation (damaged DNA) decreased with consumption of the modified diet.
“Diets rich in vitamins, minerals, polyphenols and antioxidants are critical for protecting sperm from oxidative stress and damage.”
“The male contribution to a couple’s fertility is important and the findings of this study underscore the importance of dietary variation and the inclusion of organic foods in achieving this goal,” the researchers wrote.
“Specifically, adhering to a pre-conception Mediterranean diet that is low in carbohydrates and high in legumes, whole grains and green leafy vegetables, along with consuming 80% organic foods, was associated with improved testosterone levels and reduced sperm DNA fragmentation.”
Although the study size was limited, the researchers said the findings “emphasize the significance of consuming quality food for physical and psychological well-being and suggest that it may serve as an achievable measure of human resilience against environmental insults.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the study authors for additional comment.
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Registered dietitian and nutritionist Ilana Muhlstein, who is based in Los Angeles, told Fox News Digital she’s seen firsthand the beneficial impact nutrition can have on both male and female fertility.
“It’s amazing how even a moderate weight loss can make significant changes to a person’s hormone levels and ability to conceive,” she said.
Other studies have shown how diets high in refined carbs and sugar can have negative effects on sperm health, Muhlstein mentioned.
“Additionally, following a Mediterranean-style diet rich in vegetables, lean proteins, high-fiber carbohydrates and healthy fats may help reduce inflammation, which can benefit fertility,” she added.
The study took the diet “one step further” by focusing on specifics like mostly organic food, frequent nuts and seafood, limited dairy, daily red fruit, three servings of green vegetables, and refined sugar and packaged food avoidance, Muhlstein pointed out.
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The “noteworthy” increase in testosterone levels could be due to the focus on organic foods, which contain fewer pesticides and pollutants and higher levels of bioactive compounds, she said.
“Diets rich in vitamins, minerals, polyphenols and antioxidants are critical for protecting sperm from oxidative stress and damage,” the dietitian said.
“Additionally, grass-fed meat, fish and organic eggs can contain higher levels of omega 3 DHA, which is found in the sperm tail and is associated with sperm motility,” Muhlstein added.
The study also surveyed the benefits of lowering carb intake, which proved beneficial for weight and blood sugar control.
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The study was limited by including only men with a BMI range of 20 to 24, Muhlstein pointed out.
“I wish in the future that they would conduct this study with overweight and obese men, because I am sure the findings would have been even more significant,” she said.
Dr. Reem Sabouni, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Houston Fertility Institute, called the study findings “interesting” in a response sent to Fox News Digital.
The Mediterranean diet “appears to positively influence male fertility,” the doctor said.
“This aligns with our understanding of nutrition’s role in overall health,” she said. “For men with male factor infertility (MFI), adopting a Mediterranean-based diet could be a beneficial, non-invasive strategy to improve fertility health.”
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These findings are “promising, potentially contributing to addressing the global decline in sperm counts,” Sabouni told Fox News Digital.
Based on the study’s evidence, the doctor recommended that men with MFI should switch to a Mediterranean-based diet.
“The diet’s rich antioxidants and balanced nutrients likely play a key role in enhancing reproductive health,” she added.
“[The study] underscores the importance of lifestyle and dietary factors in reproductive health, which [are] in our control.”
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Health
State Department Permits Distribution of H.I.V. Medications to Resume — for Now
The Trump administration on Tuesday issued a waiver for lifesaving medicines and medical services, offering a reprieve for a worldwide H.I.V. treatment program that was halted last week.
The waiver, announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, seemed to allow for the distribution of H.I.V. medications, but whether the waiver extended to preventive drugs or other services offered by the program, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was not immediately clear.
Still, PEPFAR’s future remains in jeopardy, with potential consequences for more than 20 million people — including 500,000 children — who could lose access to lifesaving medications. Without treatment, millions of people with H.I.V. in low-income countries would be at risk of full-blown AIDS and of premature death.
“We can very rapidly return to where the pandemic is exploding, like it was back in the 1980s,” said Dr. Steve Deeks, an H.I.V. expert at the University of California, San Francisco.
“This really cannot happen,” he said.
On Monday, the Trump administration ordered health organizations in other countries to immediately stop distributing H.I.V. medications purchased with U.S. aid. The directive stemmed from a freeze — which may become permanent — in the activities of PEPFAR, a $7.5 billion program overseen by the State Department.
Since it started in 2003, PEPFAR is estimated to have saved more than 25 million lives; more than 5.5 million children have been born free of H.I.V. who otherwise would have been infected.
In South Africa alone, PEPFAR’s shutdown would add more than a half million new H.I.V. infections and more than 600,000 related deaths over the next decade, according to one estimate.
The organization employs 270,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health workers. They had been told not to report to work or to serve patients.
PEPFAR’s end would “create instability and potentially collapse several countries’s AIDS programs that will be difficult to repair, if and when PEPFAR funding becomes available again,” said Dr. Salim Abdool Karim, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.
Dr. Abdool Karim said countries should stop relying on PEPFAR and support their own citizens, a goal that the program’s staff and partners had been working toward. But ideally that shift would happen gradually, over years during which PEPFAR would train local health workers and prepare them for the transition, he said.
“This is not a bad opportunity for countries to take greater responsibility,” he said. “But I think they can’t do it if it’s done in this kind of haphazard and unplanned way.”
Here’s what he and others expect from PEPFAR’s unexpected pause.
Sudden stops to H.I.V. treatment can quickly turn dangerous.
Every day, more than 220,000 people pick up H.I.V. medications at clinics funded by PEPFAR; the number included more than 7,400 children under 15, according to data published on Tuesday by AMFAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.
The drugs work by suppressing H.I.V. in the body. When patients go off the drugs, the virus grabs the opportunity to rebound — and quickly. Within a week, H.I.V. levels will skyrocket from undetectable levels to more than 100,000 copies per milliliter of blood.
“That may be a time where you are very much at risk of passing the virus on to others,” Dr. Sallie Permar, a pediatrician and H.I.V. expert at Weill Cornell Medicine, said.
Then, the virus will start attacking a certain type of immune cell, crippling the body’s ability to fend off other infections, including tuberculosis, which frequently accompanies H.I.V. infection.
Spiking H.I.V. levels at first may cause flulike symptoms, including sore throat, swollen glands and fatigue. The immune system will likely marshal enough force to suppress the virus temporarily, but H.I.V. is adept at hiding until it finds the right opportunity to re-emerge.
When that occasion arises, “they can develop AIDS and progress,” Dr. Deeks said.
Children may be among the hardest hit.
PEPFAR is best known for financing H.I.V. treatment programs, but its funds also go to drugs for prevention, outreach and testing, and to support for orphans and women experiencing gender-based violence.
The loss of resources for each of these efforts will derail the fight against AIDS, said Dr. Glenda Gray, a pediatric H.I.V. expert at Wits University in South Africa.
“If H.I.V. testing falls by the wayside, it’s unlikely that we will be able to even diagnose people who need to go into treatment,” she said.
If a pregnant or breastfeeding woman has H.IV. but is not tested and not treated, she may pass the virus to her child. The higher her viral load, the more likely this is to occur.
Children with H.I.V. are less likely to be diagnosed than adults, and may not be treated till the virus makes them visibly very sick. This progression can be much more rapid in children than in adults, Dr. Gray said, “and obviously, children who are untreated are likely to die.”
Inconsistent treatment drives drug resistance.
As people lose access to medications, they may try to spread out their supplies by alternating days or to share their pills with others. If the virus replicates in people with only partial protection, it can learn to evade those defenses and become resistant to the medications.
People living with the virus may then pass the resistant virus on to others.
“That becomes a big problem, because now, suddenly, our cheap first-line drugs might not work when we have to restart them on treatment,” Dr. Abdool Karim said.
A virus that is resistant to treatments will also be better at evading vaccine candidates being tested.
“Not only are we looking at more drug resistance, but we’re looking at losing whatever ability we had to make an effective vaccine,” Dr. Permar said.
PEPFAR’s end may affect Americans, too.
More than one million Americans are living with the virus, and more than 30,000 become infected each year. If H.I.V. becomes resistant to available medications, it isn’t likely to remain in low-income countries. Americans, too, will be at risk.
They may also face indirect harms from ending PEPFAR. Creating huge populations of immunocompromised people may mean that other pathogens have an opportunity to spread. For example, dangerous Covid variants, including Omicron, are thought to have evolved in immunocompromised people with H.I.V.
At the same time, people worldwide have benefited from trials conducted under PEPFAR’s auspices, showing the importance of treating H.I.V. early, demonstrating that pregnant women can safely breastfeed as long as they are treated and that H.I.V. infections can be prevented with long-acting drugs.
“America has gotten an amazing amount of love around the world because of what it’s done,” Dr. Deeks said.
“From a humanitarian perspective, I can’t imagine anyone really wants to go along this pathway,” he added. “This doesn’t make any sense on any level.”
Health
This disease kills more people than all cancers and accidents combined
Heart disease remains the top killer of Americans as risk factors continue to grow.
The latest statistics were revealed in the American Heart Association’s annual report, 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics.
The report, which was published on Jan. 27 in the AHA’s journal Circulation, revealed that cardiovascular disease kills more people than all types of cancer and accidental deaths combined.
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In 2022 — the most recent year for which mortality data is available — a total of 941,652 people died of heart disease-related conditions, according to the report. This was a little more than 10,000 more deaths than the prior year.
The age-adjusted death rate decreased slightly from last year, however.
“Overall, we are seeing cardiovascular-related deaths leveling out compared to 2022,” said Dr. Bradley Serwer, a Maryland-based cardiologist and chief medical officer at VitalSolution, an Ingenovis Health company that offers cardiovascular and anesthesiology services to hospitals.
“We are making some improvements in regard to improved prevalence of hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol) and lower incidence of smoking, but have lost ground in regard to diabetes, obesity and hypertension,” Serwer, who was not involved in the report, told Fox News Digital.
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Someone dies of heart disease every 34 seconds in the U.S., and a total of 2,500 die per day, according to Keith Churchwell, M.D., the volunteer president of the American Heart Association.
“It’s alarming to note that excess weight now costs us even more lives than smoking.”
“Those are alarming statistics to me – and they should be alarming for all of us,” Churchwell said in a press release.
“Too many people are dying from heart disease and from stroke, which remains the fifth leading cause of death.”
Risk factors
The report also detailed the prevalence of specific risk factors for heart disease.
More than 72% of U.S. adults have “unhealthy weight,” which is defined as a body mass index of at least 25, the report stated.
Nearly 42% of those adults meet the criteria for obesity (a body mass index of 30 or more).
The report also revealed that more than half of U.S. adults (57%) have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.
“Although we have made a lot of progress against cardiovascular disease in the past few decades, there is a lot more work that remains to be done,” American Heart Association volunteer Dhruv S. Kazi, M.D., wrote in an editorial that accompanied the report.
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“If recent trends continue, hypertension and obesity will each affect more than 180 million U.S. adults by 2050, whereas the prevalence of diabetes will climb to more than 80 million.”
Experts predict a 300% increase cardiovascular-related healthcare costs, added Kazi, who is also head of health economics and associate director of the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Center for Outcomes Research in Cardiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
The report also called out different rates of risk factors among different races and ethnic groups.
Black women were found to have the highest rate of obesity (57.9%) and Asian women had the lowest rate (14.5%).
Black women also had the highest rate of blood pressure (58.4%) and Hispanic women, at 35.3%, had the lowest rate.
“Just because we are seeing improvements in smoking and high cholesterol doesn’t mean we can back off.”
“We are also seeing a rise in obesity in our youth, with as many as 40% having unhealthy weight,” Serwer warned.
“This trend continues into adulthood, when we see nearly 60% of adults having unhealthy weight.”
Excess weight is a contributing factor in as many as 1,300 additional deaths per day in the U.S., or nearly 500,000 per year, according to the report.
“It lowers life expectancy by as much as 2.4 years compared to a healthy weight,” said American Heart Association volunteer Latha P. Palaniappan, M.D., a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
“It’s alarming to note that excess weight now costs us even more lives than smoking – as smoking rates have actually fallen in recent years. Being overweight is the new smoking when it comes to health threats.”
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One positive finding in the report is that rates of high cholesterol have dropped, which is attributed to improved dietary and lifestyle factors, availability of medications and “better clinical control.”
“Recent clinical research has identified a number of new medication therapies to address the growing burden of obesity, as well, and we look forward to learning more about those advances as the body of science builds,” Churchwell noted.
What needs to change?
The researchers called for interventions to help reduce heart disease risk factors.
“Any medical or clinical therapies that can treat the risk factors that contribute to CVD are essential,” Churchwell wrote. “…We need to stop these risk factors in their tracks, keep people healthy throughout their lifespan.”
Serwer agreed that the best way to combat this top killer is to aggressively attack the risk factors.
“Just because we are seeing improvements in smoking and high cholesterol doesn’t mean we can back off,” he said.
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“We need to continue to aggressively attack tobacco use and treat hyperlipidemia while increasing efforts to treat obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.”
Health
Caroline Kennedy Calls RFK Jr. a ‘Predator’ in Letter to Senators
Caroline Kennedy wrote a scathing letter to key senators on Tuesday, calling her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a “predator” addicted to attention from airing dangerous views on vaccinations and someone who is unfit to be the nation’s health secretary.
She urged lawmakers, who will be questioning Mr. Kennedy at his confirmation hearings Wednesday and Thursday, to reject his nomination. She cited his lack of experience, misinformed views on vaccines and personal attributes. In the letter, she described how he led other family members “down the path of drug addiction.”
“His basement, his garage, and his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks,” Ms. Kennedy wrote. “It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”
Her letter was first reported in The Washington Post.
Ms. Kennedy expressed particular outrage over the new disclosures in his ethics agreement filed with the Senate, which she described as outlining how his “crusade against vaccination has benefited him in other ways.”
She cited Mr. Kennedy’s decision to keep a financial stake in litigation against Merck, which makes a key vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) that is administered to protect against cervical cancer.
“In other words, he is willing to enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and which has been safely administered to millions of boys and girls,” Ms. Kennedy wrote.
As President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s ambassador to Australia, Ms. Kennedy was actively involved in promoting the HPV vaccine, which has put Australia on a path to eliminate cervical cancer. She was instrumental in persuading Mr. Biden to expand his “cancer moonshot” initiative to the Indo-Pacific region.
In her role as ambassador, Ms. Kennedy said, she was reluctant to make public comments against Mr. Kennedy, who launched his presidential campaign in 2023 as a primary challenger to Mr. Biden before running as an independent candidate. When Mr. Kennedy dropped his presidential bid, he endorsed Mr. Trump, who, after winning the election, named Mr. Kennedy as his choice for health secretary.
After that, she broke with her cousin, saying his views about vaccination were dangerous.
Her letter painted Mr. Kennedy as a charismatic figure, “willing to take risks and break the rules,” and able to attract others through the strength of his magnetic personality. Then she traced a tragic history of Mr. Kennedy’s influence over other family members.
“But siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death,” she wrote, “while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.”
Mr. Kennedy’s younger brother David died in Palm Beach County in May of 1984 of “multiple ingestion” of three drugs found in his body fluids, authorities said at the time.
Other relatives have also spoken out against Mr. Kennedy, including his brother Joseph Kennedy II and his sister Kerry Kennedy, who described his comments on race and vaccines as “deplorable and untruthful.”
On Tuesday, Jack Schlossberg, Ms. Kennedy’s son, who has also been critical of Mr. Kennedy, posted a video on social media of his mother reading the letter she had written.
“I’m so proud of my courageous mother, who’s lived a life of dignity, integrity and service,” Mr. Schlossberg wrote.
Ms. Kennedy, in the letter sent Tuesday, gave her cousin credit for overcoming his drug addiction, which Mr. Kennedy has discussed extensively. By his own account, Mr. Kennedy became addicted to heroin when he was 14, in 1968, as he struggled to cope with the assassination of his father. In 1984, he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of possessing heroin, and entered treatment.
But Ms. Kennedy was harsh in criticism of her cousin’s advocacy against vaccines, describing it as part of an addiction to attention and power.
“Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs,” she wrote.
Ms. Kennedy also highlighted “the conspiratorial half-truths he has told about vaccines,” in connection with the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa, which she said “cost lives.”
The letter was addressed to senators who lead the committees that will be reviewing his nomination this week, including Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho; Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon; Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana and Bernie Sanders, an Independent of Vermont.
She noted that the family is close and that speaking out was difficult. Still, she faulted her cousin for using the family’s legacy of tragedy for political gain. Mr. Kennedy’s father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated during a campaign for president in 1968. Her father and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was fatally shot in Dallas in 1963.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “distorted President Kennedy’s legacy to advance his own failed presidential campaign — and then groveled to Donald Trump for a job,” the letter said. “Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination, and that of his own father.”
She suggested that her father John F. Kennedy, her uncle Robert F. Kennedy and another uncle, the long-serving lawmaker Ted Kennedy, “would be disgusted.”
She closed the letter with a plea for the senators to reject her cousin’s nomination on behalf of the doctors, nurses, scientists and caregivers who fuel the American health care system.
“They deserve a secretary committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not rejecting the advances we have already made,” Ms. Kennedy wrote. “They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy — and so do the rest of us.”
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