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While dry January and damp lifestyles have taken off on TikTok, the United States has already experienced a spike in deaths related to excessive alcohol. In 2020-21, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were an average of about 488 deaths per day from excessive alcohol drinking, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Alcohol is a leading cause of preventable death. (Christensen, 2/29)

Effective, popular obesity medications won’t be enough to solve a worldwide problem that now affects more than 1 billion people, World Health Organization officials warned. Obesity has quadrupled among children and teens and more than doubled among adults since 1990, with about one in every eight people in the world living with the condition, the health agency said Thursday in the first global public analysis of the condition since 2017. (Kresge and Feliciano, 2/29)

A drug that has long been used to treat two common men’s health conditions could have some unexpected benefits. Finasteride — more commonly known as Propecia or Proscar — has treated male pattern baldness and enlarged prostate in millions of men. In a recent study, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have also linked the "miracle drug" to cholesterol-lowering effects and reduced heart disease risk. (Rudy, 2/29)

Health officials in Alaska recently reported the first known human death from a virus called Alaskapox. The man, who died in January, lived in a wooded area and cared for a stray cat that hunted small animals, according to health officials. He had a weakened immune system and is thought to have contracted Alaskapox through contact with animals. At around the same time, an individual living in Oregon was diagnosed with bubonic plague. Health officials suspect this person was infected by a cat. (Hetter, 2/29)

There’s nothing complicated about the latest tobacco product trending online: Zyn is a tiny pouch filled with nicotine and flavoring. But it has stoked a debate among politicians, parents and pundits that reflects an increasingly complex landscape in which Big Tobacco companies aggressively push alternative products while experts wrestle with their potential benefits and risks. (Perrone, 3/1)

A new study published in Nature Medicine looks directly at the human health impacts from severe weather like hurricanes, floods, and intense storms. The study examined Medicare records before and after weather disasters that incurred more than $1 billion of damages from 2011 to 2016. ... "Based off experience that we've seen unfold in the U.S. and elsewhere, we see that there's destruction and disruption to our ability to deliver the high-quality care we want to give patients in the weeks following the weather disasters," says Renee Salas, an emergency department physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. (Borunda, 2/29)

Rising seas due to climate change could exacerbate the threat of arsenic in drinking water, according to a study published in PLOS ONE in January. Researchers focused on arsenic in well water in Bangladesh, where up to 97% of the population relies on such water for drinking. Arsenic occurs naturally in the earth’s crust, but how much arsenic is present in groundwater depends on geology, fertilizer habits and land use patterns, among other factors. (Pierre-Louis, 2/29)

Kimberly-Clark has been hit with a proposed class action filed by Connecticut residents living near a facility where it makes Kleenex accusing the consumer goods company of contaminating their properties and drinking water with toxic “forever chemicals.” The lawsuit filed in Connecticut federal court on Wednesday alleges the company has used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to make tissues at its plant in New Milford. PFAS are released into the air via smokestacks, and may seep into the ground via paper sludge dumped at a nearby landfill, the lawsuit said. (Mindock, 2/29)