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Sara Busse needed to make a hot meal for 40 needy seniors. She had promised a main dish, a starch, a vegetable, a fruit and a dessert. In the past, she had gotten many of those ingredients for free from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This time, she had dried cranberries, crackers and vegetable soup. “What am I supposed to do?” she said. “What am I supposed to cook?” (Fahrenthold, 4/28)

As you add more ultraprocessed foods to your diet, your risk of a premature death from any cause rises, according to a new meta-analysis of research involving more than 240,000 people. (LaMotte, 4/28)

As pressure grows to get artificial colors out of the U.S. food supply, the shift may well start at Abby Tampow’s laboratory desk. On an April afternoon, the scientist hovered over tiny dishes of red dye, each a slightly different ruby hue. Her task? To match the synthetic shade used for years in a commercial bottled raspberry vinaigrette — but by using only natural ingredients. ... Tampow is part of the team at Sensient Technologies Corp., one of the world’s largest dyemakers, that is rushing to help the salad dressing manufacturer — along with thousands of other American businesses — meet demands to overhaul colors used to brighten products from cereals to sports drinks. (Aleccia, 4/28)

Social media can be a great source of fitness, nutrition and wellness tips — but it also has some potentially harmful content. Enter "SkinnyTok," a popular weight-loss trend making the rounds on TikTok. Creators are pairing the hashtag with videos that share various ways to lose weight, many of them based on the goal of getting as thin as possible in a short amount of time. (Rudy, 4/27)

A Maryland man who took Ozempic and then became legally blind is suing the drug’s manufacturer, arguing it had an obligation to warn patients that loss of sight could be a possible side effect. Todd Engel, 62, was prescribed Ozempic in 2023 to manage his Type 2 diabetes. The lawsuit said about four months later, Engel was diagnosed with nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, a condition in which a loss of blood flow to the optic nerve causes sudden and irreversible vision loss. (Chuck, 4/26)

As a social worker for older adults, Robyn Golden, 67, preached the importance of staying active as you age. In her early career, Golden was often inspired by the way her clients tackled new challenges. “I found it very enriching,” she said, to see that “they can change, and they can grow.” As she has gotten older, she has tried to embrace that openness to new experiences. But she didn’t realize how hard it could be for an older person. Last year, for example, she took up pickleball. She wasn’t expecting to play professionally, but she assumed she would improve alongside the younger students in the class she joined. (Erickson, 4/26)

A new “smart insole” system that transmits data based on a person’s gait could one day provide earlier warnings of dementia, orthopedic issues and lumbar disc problems, a recent study says. Writing in Science Advances, researchers called the system “a practical solution for improving clinical assessments, personalized treatments, and biomechanics research.” (Blakemore, 4/27)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: When They Don’t Recognize You Anymore

It happened more than a decade ago, but the moment remains with her. Sara Stewart was talking at the dining room table with her mother, Barbara Cole, 86 at the time, in Bar Harbor, Maine. Stewart, then 59, a lawyer, was making one of her extended visits from out of state. Two or three years earlier, Cole had begun showing troubling signs of dementia, probably from a series of small strokes. “I didn’t want to yank her out of her home,” Stewart said. (Span, 4/28)