San Diego, CA
Opinion: As a cardiologist, I know the dietary guidelines are failing our hearts
Heart disease — affecting almost half of American adults — is the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming 700,000 lives each year.
As a practicing cardiologist for more than 20 years, I’ve watched patients do everything “by the book.” They eat according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans — the federal government’s blueprint for nutrition policy — and still see their weight climb, blood pressure rise, and heart health deteriorate.
The problem isn’t their effort. It’s the guidance itself, which promotes high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets that can actually worsen metabolic health, which can in turn worsen heart disease. Many assume that by following the government’s recommendations they can improve their health — but, too often, the opposite is true.
With the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines scheduled for release this month, we have a critical opportunity to move beyond outdated orthodoxy and align federal nutrition policy with modern science and clinical experience. Done right, this update can turn back the tide of chronic illness and save lives.
Since 1980, the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services have issued the Dietary Guidelines every five years. These recommendations shape not only personal choices but also the food in school cafeterias, military mess halls, hospitals and nursing homes. They inform SNAP and WIC benefits, nutrition education, and even the labels on grocery store shelves.
From the start, however, the guidelines steered Americans in the wrong direction. They marked a sharp departure from prior eating patterns by encouraging Americans to cut back on natural dietary fats and rely more heavily on refined high-carbohydrate foods. Saturated fat — and cholesterol by extension — were unjustly stigmatized, while bread, pasta and cereal became staples of the American diet.
The recommendations were not made with a metabolically vulnerable population in mind. For people already struggling with insulin resistance, obesity or diabetes, a high-carbohydrate diet frequently only compounds the problem by driving up insulin, promoting visceral fat storage around vital organs, and fueling a cycle of weight gain and chronic disease.
Four decades later, the guidelines remain out of step with science and with the health needs of the majority of Americans. They impose arbitrary caps on saturated fat, despite evidence showing no consistent link to higher rates of heart disease or mortality. They recommend dietary protein well below optimal levels for most populations. And they direct Americans to get 45-65% of their calories from carbohydrates — sidelining low-carb or ketogenic diet options proven to support weight loss, stabilize blood sugar, and reduce the risk factors that drive heart disease.
Americans are being pushed toward metabolically damaging eating patterns.
Today, 93% of Americans live with metabolic dysfunction — meaning their bodies struggle to convert food into energy efficiently. This breakdown in basic metabolic processes fuels the country’s epidemic of chronic disease. More than 75% of Americans are now overweight or obese. Heart disease mortality rates have increased from the 2010s to the 2020s, even as cholesterol levels have steadily fallen.
Put plainly: Federal nutrition policy has fallen far short of making Americans healthier. I know this to be true not only from statistics but from my own patients’ journeys. Many of them ate exactly as federal guidance prescribed and still found themselves gaining weight and developing hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. For years, I resisted the idea that fault could lie with the guidelines.
Like most physicians, I was trained to be wary of fat and to consider carbohydrates as the foundation of a healthy diet. I dismissed suggestions that a low-carb or ketogenic diet could improve cardiovascular outcomes.
But then I tried it myself — and my own weight, cardiovascular markers, and energy improved. When I cautiously introduced the approach to my patients, I saw transformations I couldn’t ignore: their insulin sensitivity, blood sugar levels and blood pressure began to improve. These changes struck at the true drivers of coronary heart disease — metabolic dysfunction, obesity and type 2 diabetes — all stronger predictors than cholesterol levels.
Their lives changed without a scalpel or a prescription. And their experiences mirrored what the science was increasingly showing: that the old low-fat, high-starch model had it backwards.
A review of randomized trials found that low-carbohydrate diets significantly improved weight, blood sugar and blood pressure — the very risk factors that drive heart disease.
Another analysis comparing different levels of carbohydrate restriction showed consistent benefits across degrees of reduction. And, in patients with type 2 diabetes, ketogenic approaches have dramatically lowered average blood sugar as measured by HbA1c — a long-term measure of glucose control — while delivering substantial weight loss, all changes known to reduce cardiovascular complications.
Yet our national guidelines remain stuck in an outdated paradigm.
The upcoming 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines offers a chance to finally get it right — to align federal recommendations with the latest, most rigorous evidence. That means prioritizing whole foods, removing limits on saturated fats, optimizing protein intake, and including low-carbohydrate and ketogenic options for the metabolically vulnerable.
The nation’s leading killer isn’t inevitable. If the Dietary Guidelines are updated to reflect modern science, millions of Americans could soon be on the path to reclaiming their heart health.
Bret Scher, MD, is a board-certified cardiologist and lipidologist, and the founding medical director of the Coalition for Metabolic Health.
San Diego, CA
San Diego health officials monitor hantavirus situation as cruise ship passengers return to U.S.
SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — American passengers from a cruise ship hit with a hantavirus outbreak are back in the United States.
San Diego County health officials say they are monitoring the situation and there is no need for panic.
“The risk to Californians is really low and especially here in San Diego. Since the year 2000, we’ve only had 4 cases of hantavirus and the majority of those were in travel related cases so not even acquired here locally,” Ankita Kadakia, deputy public health officer for the County of San Diego, said.
According to the CDC, hantavirus is spread through contact with infected rodents.
“The virus can be in their saliva, feces or droppings,” Kadakia said.
San Diego County does see cases of rodents infected with hantavirus, but the strain seen locally is not the same strain connected to the cruise ship outbreak.
“The vast majority of strains of hantavirus are mouse or animal to human transmission. Not human to human transmission. So the Andes strain, which is found in Argentina, there is evidence that there is human to human transmission,” Dr. Ahmed Salem, a pulmonologist at Sharp Memorial Hospital, said.
Salem treated hantavirus during the 2012 Yosemite National Park outbreak.
“One of the ways you die from hantavirus is you get a collapse of your cardiac system and your pulmonary system and you have to go on something called ECMO. It’s one of the most aggressive forms of life support that you can do. So I do remember that case, and unfortunately, that person passed away,” Salem said.
There is currently no cure or vaccine for hantavirus. Health officials stress that for those who were not on the cruise ship, the risk of contracting the virus remains low.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
Here’s some instant reaction from the Padres’ wild 3-2 victory
It seemed like the same tired story.
Instead, it was the same thriller.
The Padres pushed their offensive lethargy as long as possible without paying for it Sunday, tying the game with two outs in the ninth inning on Nick Castellanos’ two-run homer and then celebrating after Manny Machado’s sacrifice fly in the 10th inning gave them a 3-2 victory over the Cardinals.
“Getting it done,” Machado said.
That’s it. That is all they are doing.
And at what is essentially the quarter mark of the season, the Padres are 24-16 and tied with the Dodgers atop the National League West.
The shocking component of their having the major leagues’ fifth-best record is that the Padres rank in the bottom three among MLB’s 30 teams in batting average and OPS.
They split with the Cardinals despite having 14 hits, their fewest in a four-game series in franchise history. Their 61 hits over their past 10 games are the fewest in a stretch that long since 2019, and they are 5-5 in those games.
“It sucks; we need to hit; Machado said. “I mean, you know, look, it’s obvious. We’re not hitting. It’s obvious, but we’re getting things done, man.”
Sunday was the Padres’ 12th victory this season in which the decisive run was scored in the seventh inning or later. That is exactly half their victories.
It was their fourth walk-off victory, their second in extra innings. It was the seventh time that a run scored in their final offensive half-inning decided a victory.
So it is no small thing to proffer that Sunday was possibly their most dramatic triumph. Because it was possibly their most unlikely one.
Not only were they a strike away from defeat, but they began the ninth inning having gotten two hits all day.
The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning on their first two hits off Walker Buehler — a single by Alec Burleson and a home run by Jordan Walker with two outs. Buehler pitched six innings, allowing just one more hit before Ron Marinaccio worked two scoreless innings.
But the Padres were unable to make anything of their seven at-bats with runners in scoring position over the first eight innings. They had walked five times but had just Jackson Merrill’s third-inning single and Xander Bogaerts’ fourth-inning double to that point.
“Really good teams find ways to win games when they’re not doing their best,” Gavin Sheets said. “… We’re not clicking on all cylinders by any means. And I don’t think any of us would say that he’s on a roll right now, but we’re getting hits in a timely fashion and it’s someone different every night.”
Almost.
The Padres have game-winning RBIs from 10 different players. They have go-ahead RBIs from 13 of the 14 position players who have been on their roster this season. Sunday was Castellanos’s third game-tying RBI.
His home run, on the ninth pitch of his at-bat against Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien, was something of a clinic by a veteran hitter who is in his first season as a role player.
Castellenos, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning and remained in right field, came to the plate with Bogaerts at first base with two outs.
Bogaerts’ single leading off the inning had been followed by two strikeouts, and Castellanos fell behind 0-2 before working the count full and then sending a 99 mph sinker on the inner edge of the plate almost to the ribbon scoreboard fronting the second level of seats beyond left field.
“The first pitch started, and I was probably looking to do what I did,” he said. “And then I ended up getting 0-2 and chasing. After that, just took a deep breath and tried to shorten up as much as possible and just compete. Just find a way on base. And then found myself in a full account and was able to get the job done.”
It was the first home run allowed by O’Brien this season.
With closer Mason Miller not available after throwing 29 pitches over 1⅓ innings on Saturday, Jeremiah Estrada got the first two outs of the 10th. With runners on first and second, Adrian Morejón entered the game and got an inning-ending pop out on his first pitch.
Gordon Graceffo was on the mound for the Cardinals, and Ramón Laureano was the Padres’ automatic runner in the 10th. The Cardinals intentionally walked Merrill at the start before Fernando Tatis Jr. whittled a 1-2 count into a walk to load the bases.
The game was over one pitch later, when Machado sent a fastball to right-center field and Laureano slid across the plate well in front of right fielder Jordan Walker’s throw.
It was a somewhat subdued but still enthusiastic celebration along the first-base line, as teammates bounced around Machado.
“It’s hard to win a game like that,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “Their pitchers pitched great, and they’re bringing in one of the best closers in the game. And we just stuck with it. It just speaks to how those guys believe in themselves and how they believe in what we’ve got going on as a team.”
-
Politics38 seconds agoOversight chair seeks information from OpenAI’s Sam Altman about potential financial conflicts
-
Science7 minutes agoHantavirus fears heighten with 4 Californians exposed to the disease. Is the alarm warranted?
-
Sports13 minutes agoHigh school boys volleyball: City Section playoff scores and pairings
-
World25 minutes agoBolivia issues warrant for Evo Morales’s arrest after court no-show
-
News55 minutes agoWhy cruise ship passengers with possible hantavirus exposure went to Nebraska
-
New York2 hours agoAirbnb Turns to Black Leaders in Its Bid to Make a Comeback in New York
-
Detroit, MI3 hours agoMetro Detroit braces for Frost Advisory, Freeze Warning overnight before rain arrives
-
San Francisco, CA3 hours ago50 Beagles Rescued From Wisconsin Lab Arrive in Bay Area, SF Activist Faces Felony Charges