Health

The latest update from the World Health Organization presents a mixed picture of the fight to contain the worst outbreak of Ebola on record

More than 5,000 people have died from the Ebola virus, marking a macabre waypost that coincides with the disease’s return to Mali and a pickup in its spread in Sierra Leone, according to a status update released Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Ebola has killed 5,160 out of 14,098 people infected across eight countries, according to the group’s most recent update, which presents an uncertain stage — dented with disappointments but also peaked with some bright points — in its effort to bring the Ebola outbreak under control.

In one hopeful sign, the rate of Ebola transmission is no longer increasing at a national level in Guinea and Liberia, though some areas of both countries are still seeing an escalation.

Yet Sierra Leone, where 1,169 people have died, continues to weather “steep increases” in the number of cases, says the WHO. Some 421 new cases were reported in the nation in just one week in November alone.

And in Mali, which was thought to be Ebola-free after an infected toddler died there in October, at least one person has recently died from the virus, while two deaths are suspected to have also been from Ebola, according to the update. One of the suspected cases, a grand imam, was buried after a “ritual washing” and a funeral assembly attended by “many mourners,” the WHO says.

Meanwhile, the WHO has received just 49% of the $260 million it deems necessary to handle the Ebola outbreak, according to the group’s latest figures. Though an additional 15% of the total amount has been pledged to the organization, it is still wanting for 36% of the required sum.

Out of 4,611 hospital beds planned for Ebola treatment centers in the three hardest-hit West African nations, just 24% are operational, and only 4% of the some 2,636 beds planned for community care centers have been set up. Just 38% of the 370 or so burial teams the WHO plans to train are good to go.

Still, all districts in the affected countries are within 24-hour access of a laboratory clinic, and some 95% of people the WHO is monitoring for possible exposure are receiving daily communications, the organization says.

Read next: Ebola Treatment Clinical Trials to Start in West Africa

Though the spread of the deadly virus hasn't been linked to animals

The American Veterinary Medical Association is urging pet owners to take an abundance of caution when dealing with Ebola, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is saying that animals have not contributed to the outbreak of the virus in West Africa.

Pets should be quarantined, according to vet group’s new guidelines issued this week, if they have been in close contact with someone infected with Ebola. If the pets test positive for the lethal virus, they should be put down.

While quarantined, the pets should be confined to a crate or kennel inside a secure facility and stripped of all clothing and collars that could have possibly been contaminated.

The recommendations reiterate that there have been no reports of dogs or cats stricken with the virus, not even in parts of Africa where the disease is rampant. In the U.S., the likelihood of pets getting the disease is very low, and the last known person in the U.S. to have been diagnosed with the virus was released from the hospital with an all clear on Tuesday.

The CDC and leading veterinarians began researching how to approach pets of people infected with Ebola after the dog of a nurse in Spain was put down when its owner contracted the virus.

The hospital will also help create a foundation in Thomas Eric Duncan's name

The family of the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States announced Wednesday that a settlement had been reached with the Dallas hospital that treated him before his death.

The deal with Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was “as good or better than we would have done in court,” Les Weisbrod, a lawyer for the family of Thomas Eric Duncan, said at a news conference.

Medical malpractice suits in Texas have an upper liability limit of $250,000 for a claimant. If the Duncan family had taken the hospital to court, it would have had to reach a very high legal bar, proving the hospital knew its staff was causing harm when they treated Duncan.

Staffers at Texas Health Presbyterian had originally sent Duncan home after he went to the emergency room, even though he had a fever and was recently in Liberia, among the three hardest-hit nations in an outbreak that has killed more than 5,000 people. He died Oct. 8; two nurses who were a part of Duncan’s medical team would later contract Ebola but, after treatment elsewhere, be declared virus-free.

The hospital has also agreed to create a foundation in Duncan’s name to fund the construction of a facility to combat Ebola in Liberia. The fund will be administered by one of the existing foundations of Texas Health Resources, and the family said it is seeking contributions.

“I can never replace Thomas Eric Duncan, but we can make sure that we make this better for everyone else,” said Josephus Weeks, Duncan’s nephew.

A slightly bitter taste can indicate the presence of antioxidants

Everyone knows olive oil is great for your health and a staple of the Mediterranean diet. But even though it’s now found in most kitchens, it’s still steeped in mystery and confusion. Read on for some of the biggest mistakes people make with olive oil, and how to use it correctly.

1. You buy the “light” version to save calories

All olive oils have roughly the same amount of calories and fat (about 120 calories and 14g fat per tablespoon). “Light” refers to the color and flavor of this oil, which is highly refined to make it more neutral than other types of olive oil.

HEALTH.COM: 9 Low-Fat Foods You Shouldn’t Eat

2. You’re afraid to cook with the extra-virgin stuff.

It’s true that extra virgin olive oil has a lower smoke point than other types of olive oil and some other fats—that is, the temperature where oil begins to smoke and impart an unpleasant odor and flavor (peanut oil is 450ºF and grapeseed is 445ºF, for example. For more, check out this chart on Serious Eats). Extra virgin olive oil has a smoke point around 410ºF, according to The Science of Good Food, so it’s perfectly safe for sautéing at medium temperatures. Extra virgin is the purest form of olive oil, and contains the most health supportive oleic acid so there’s no need to use it only for salad dressing.

3. You toss any that tastes slightly bitter.

Don’t toss that oil just yet: it may not have gone bad. A slightly bitter taste can indicate the presence of antioxidants, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, Olive Center. With a fresh extra virgin olive oil, you should taste, well, olives, and also some grassy or fruity notes.

HEALTH.COM: 10 Signs Your House Is Making You Fat

4. You keep it right next to the stove.

Nothing will make your olive oil go rancid quicker than heat and light. Look for olive oil in a dark-colored glass or tin container, and store it in a cool spot, away from sunlight.

5. You stock up when you see a great deal.

Unless you’ll use it all quickly, it’s better to buy olive oil in smaller quantities. Ideally you want to use it up within about 6 weeks.

6. You use the “fridge test” to see if yours is high quality.

Sorry, but no. After a 2013 episode of the Dr. Oz Show, in which he claimed you can test to see how pure your olive oil is by refrigerating it (if it solidifies in the fridge, it’s pure), UC Davis researchers put the fridge test to the test, and it flunked. That is, if an olive oil turns to a solid at lower temperatures, it doesn’t mean it’s of higher quality.

The best way to ensure your oil is good quality? Look for seals on the bottle from the USDA Quality Monitoring Program, the North American Olive Oil Association, the California Olive Oil Council, or the Extra Virgin Alliance.

HEALTH.COM: 14 Clever Cooking Hacks That Will Change Your Life

This article originally appeared on Health.com

Alternative diets could, if widely adopted, reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions

Good food advocates have long argued that what’s good for your health is also good for the planet, but new science now backs up the claim. A paper published in the journal Nature by scientists at the University of Minnesota, presents numbers that suggest eating less meat, less refined fat, and less sugar will also reduce the climate change impacts of food production.

Using about 50 years’ worth of data from the world’s 100 most populous countries, UM Professor of Ecology G. David Tilman and graduate student Michael Clark show how current diet trends are contributing, not only to diet-related illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease, but also to dangerously increasing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).

“This is the first time this data has been put together to show these links are real and strong and not just the mutterings of food lovers and environmental advocates,” explains Tilman.

“Alternative diets that offer substantial health benefits could, if widely adopted, reduce global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, reduce land clearing and resultant species extinctions, and help prevent such diet-related chronic non-communicable diseases,” write Tilman and Clark in the Nature article.

Agriculture currently contributes about 25 percent of the GHG emissions that are driving climate change. Grain-based livestock production–which involves clearing land and raising grain for animal feed, particularly in the world’s tropical regions–contribute more than 75 percent of those emissions.

As the rest of the world adopts American dietary habits, the rates of meat, sugar, and processed food consumption have been on to rise. (In China alone, the numbers have skyrocketed.) If the trend continues, all those burgers and pork chops are projected to be responsible for an 80 percent increase in agricultural GHG emissions by 2050.

At the same time, thanks to the exporting of American dietary habits, more than 2.1 billion of the world’s 7.2 billion people are now either overweight or obese. Tilman explains that “empty calories”—sugar, fat, oils and alcohol—now account for almost 40 percent of food purchased in the world’s 15 wealthiest countries, which helps explain the resulting health effects.

According to the data Tilman and Clark examined, which corrected for other lifestyle factors, a vegetarian diet reduced incidence of type II diabetes by 41 percent, followed by a vegetarian diet that includes seafood (25 percent), and a Mediterranean diet that combines moderate meat consumption and is rich in fruit, vegetables, and seafood (16 percent). All three diets appeared to reduce coronary heart disease deaths between 20 and 26 percent and cancer rates by between 7 and 13 percent compared to diets that included at least twice as much meat and processed foods.

Tilman and Clark caution that while the links between what makes healthy diet and what will help lower agricultural greenhouse gas emissions are clear, it’s also possible to eat “a pure junk food diet,”–think French fries, donuts, and tortilla chips–that has low GHG emissions.

So the solution to what the scientists call the “diet-environment-health trilemma” will require choosing menus high in plant-based, whole foods like those that fit in a Meditarrean, “pescetarian” or vegetarian diet. If these diets become the norm by 2050, Tilman and Clark say “there would be no net increase in food production emissions.”

But they also note that making such a change won’t necessarily be easy. “The dietary choices that individuals make are influenced by culture, nutritional knowledge, price, availability, taste and convenience, all of which must be considered if the dietary transition that is taking place is to be counteracted,” write Tilman and Clark.

So, how do we counter the trend toward eating more meat and fatty food? “There are lots of policy options,” says Doug Boucher, director of climate research at the Union of Concerned Scientists. These include carbon taxes that would include agriculture as New Zealand now does, shifting agricultural subsidies away from livestock and related feed production, and changing government dietary guidelines to include sustainability and climate change considerations, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 2015 guidelines are expected to.

The USDA’s climate change program director, William Hohenstein, explains that rather than addressing the “trilemma” by focusing on the menu, the agency’s preferred strategy is to work with growers and livestock producers on practices that will reduce GHGs. “Consumers always have a choice,” says Hohestein.

Tilman suggests “better education” is key to helping people of all income levels understand the impacts of their food choices. He also wonders if, given the clear trend toward convenience foods, it might be possible to develop new food that is healthy, low-carbon and he adds, “also tastes good.”

Meanwhile, the data strongly suggest that eating more like Bill Clinton post-heart surgery will not only improve personal and public health, but also help put the planet on a much needed version of a weight-reduction program for greenhouse gasses.

This story originally appeared on Civil Eats

Nope—but it can come pretty close with one small tweak

To dedicated runners, running outside gets all the glory. Some purists even eschew headphones (and shoes!). But when talking about whether treadmill running is “the same” as running outdoors, it helps to pinpoint what sort of sameness matters to you.

In terms of the mechanics of your stride, there’s not much difference between running on a treadmill and running on ground, says Dr. Irene Davis, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School who has studied the differences between treadmill and over-ground running. “While it feels much different to you, the leg motions and the forces experienced by your body are very similar between these conditions,” Davis says.

But when it comes to your risk for injuries, there may be an important difference. “Most running injuries are overloading injuries that involve muscle, cartilage, bone or tendons wearing down over time,” Davis explains. While there isn’t a lot of good research on this, Davis says those types of injuries probably occur more frequently when you repeat the exact same running motion thousands and thousands of times—as you would on a treadmill or a flat, consistent stretch of pavement.

“You strike the ground 1,000 times per foot, per mile,” she says. And if you’re running on a treadmill or a flat, hard surface, the redundancy of your motion increases your risk for these overuse injuries.

On the other hand, Davis suspects that changing up your stride has a beneficial effect on your injury risk. The more you move in response to curbs, corners, hills or leashed pets, the less likely you are to overburden the same muscle or tendon. Running courses that include lots of slopes, speed changes, and impediments—especially nature trails—are probably safest when it comes to your risk for wear and tear, she hypothesizes.

But what about the effort involved in running outdoors as opposed to on a treadmill? The big factor here is “air resistance,” which you’ll encounter more of outdoors than you will inside, finds a much-cited study from the University of Brighton in the UK. But there’s an easy fix for treadmill runners: By raising the grade of your belt very slightly—just 1% of added incline—you’ll mimic the effects of outdoor air resistance, the study authors conclude.

There may also be a psychological factor to the debate. Lots of research has found that time spent outside, especially in green spaces like woods or parks, offers benefits ranging from improved mood and energy levels to better sleep. And another UK study—this one from the universities of Exeter and Essex—found that runners who ran outdoors in natural environments reported greater feelings of revitalization and wellbeing, and decreases in tension, confusion, anger and depression. (Just don’t forget sun protection.)

All things considered, running outdoors and on trails makes the most sense for maximizing the benefits of running. But if the weather’s bad or a treadmill is your only option, don’t sweat it. It may be an inferior alternative, but only slightly so.

Dr. Ruth and others share their stories