Sour on sugar, non-nutritive sweetener
Q: Every once in a while, I am going to drink a sugar-loaded soda or a sugar-free version — but which should I choose? Both have been blasted for what they do to everything from cognition to blood sugar levels. Any suggestions? — Florence
F., Boston
A: Short answer. Drink water, black coffee or tea. The lesser of two evils is still evil, and both sugar-added drinks and non-nutritive sweeteners come with well-researched health risks.
Sugar is highly inflammatory and disrupts your gut biome, which damages your immune system, affects your metabolic health, stresses your cardiovascular system, lessens brain power and causes protein dysfunction, which is associated with damage to your organ systems.
Non-nutritive and artificial sweeteners do damage, too. A 2014 study in mice found that two of the sweeteners, saccharin and sucralose, significantly altered glucose tolerance, causing metabolic changes they were meant to prevent and fueling insulin resistance, a precursor of diabetes. A follow-up to that in 2022 found that the damage happened in the gut biome – and we know once you disrupt the gut a whole cascade of problems may result.
Q: My elderly parents are experiencing hearing loss. I understand it’s associated with dementia — but I hope it’s something that can be corrected, somehow. What causes hearing loss and what can be done about it? — Greg H., Atlanta
A: Nearly 25 percent of adults ages 65 to 74 and 50 percent of folks 75 and older have disabling hearing loss. There are various types of hearing loss, each with a different cause and a different solution:
■ Conductive hearing loss is a problem with the outer or middle ear and can be caused by wax buildup, a perforated eardrum, a middle ear infection or fluid accumulation that keeps the eardrum from moving properly. Generally, these are not hard to treat and hearing can be restored.
■ Sensorineural hearing loss happens when there’s damage to the sensory hair cells in the inner ear or to the auditory nerve. It’s caused by loud noises, some meds, aging, certain diseases and genetic predispositions. Hearing aids often help enormously.
■ Central hearing loss happens when there’s damage to the brain or auditory processing centers caused by a stroke, brain trauma or a neurological disease.
■ Mixed hearing loss is often experienced as a result of having both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.
Scandal-embattled Japanese electronics and technology manufacturer Toshiba has accepted a $15 billion tender offer from Japan Industrial Partners, a buyout fund made up of banks and companies.
If the proposal succeeds, it will be a major step in Toshiba’s yearslong turnaround effort, allowing it to go private and delist from the Tokyo
Stock Exchange. But overseas activist investors own a significant part of Toshiba’s shares, and it’s unclear if they will be happy with the latest bid.
The troubles at Toshiba began with an accounting scandal in 2015, involving books being doctored for years. That added to its woes with its nuclear energy business.