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Sales of sugary drinks fell dramatically across five U.S. cities, after they implemented taxes targeting those drinks – and those changes were sustained over time. That's according to a study published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers say the findings provide more evidence that these controversial taxes really do work. A claim the beverage industry disputes. ... Kaplan and his colleagues found that, on average, prices for sugar-sweetened drinks went up by 33.1% and purchases went down by basically the same amount – 33%. (Godoy, 1/6)

Reducing people's sugar consumption is a boon to American health care, said Dr. Dean Schillinger, who directs the Health Communications Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco and led the research, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum. "When you think about the fact that one in four dollars of our health care spending goes to diabetes alone, any kind of incremental improvement we can get will have massive effects," Schillinger said. (Weintraub, 1/5)

Federal investigators have discovered a second contaminant in recalled applesauce pouches — the naturally-occurring metal chromium, which in a certain form can cause a number of adverse health effects. The finding is the latest development in the Food and Drug Administration’s international investigation of high levels of lead found in cinnamon applesauce pouches marketed to children. The pouches of fruit puree that have been recalled were manufactured in Ecuador and sold under the brand names WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking at least 287 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of lead exposure in 37 states linked to the applesauce recall. (Amenabar, 1/5)

A Navy investigation of a suicide aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier last year has revealed deadly shortcomings in the service's peer-based method of addressing mental health, which depends on fellow sailors and deckplate leadership to provide support. The command-directed probe of the death aboard the Roosevelt as it was undergoing a long maintenance period in Washington state details failures by friends on the ship to report warning signs and poor leadership by enlisted supervisors that may have contributed to the death. It also suggests a separate recent suicide cluster aboard another carrier, the USS George Washington, was not an isolated issue. (Toropin, 1/5)

Mounting evidence shows the devastating toll online racism takes on Black youth. According to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, Black children and teens who experience racial discrimination online may develop symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Those PTSD symptoms, the researchers found, were also potentially linked to suicidal thoughts. (Bellamy 1/5)

When Andrew Alirez felt a pop in his left knee, it sounded as if someone had snapped their fingers, like a wizard finishing a spell. It made sense. It was as if he’d been transformed. (England, 1/5)

A student capstone research project at the University of West Florida is literally shining a light to help detect Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders. The light comes from a set of pulsed medical LED goggles that were developed, researched and designed by faculty and undergraduate students in different departments on the Pensacola campus. (Barrett, 1/5)

Miami-Dade has the nation's highest prevalence of Alzheimer's. But with monthly memory care costs in Florida averaging at more than $8,000 per month, one family talks about the difficult choices to come. (Zaragovia, 1/5)