Soda and stomach cancer? Plus, protecting your brain, babies and breakfast

Welcome back to Health(y) Discourse. 

Last week, we unpacked what Trump’s latest vaccine order actually means for families, who should worry about a spreading drug-resistant fungus, whether you should seek out the first mRNA flu vaccine and how scientists are turning an unlikely foe into a tool to fight cancer.

This week, we’re putting a scary sugary-drink headline into perspective, examining the growing link between heart and brain health, breaking down a major egg recall and looking at encouraging new studies about preventing babies from being hospitalized with RSV. 

Other stories that caught my eye this week: 

• Researchers found that a specially designed video game aimed at improving mental-health awareness and coping skills reduced depressive symptoms among high school students.
• Exemptions from routine childhood vaccines have reached an all-time high, according to new CDC data. Just over 4% of kindergartners had at least one vaccine exemption in the 2025-26 school year, nearly double the rate from five years ago.
• The IRS is investigating whether UnitedHealth Group — the largest healthcare company in the U.S. — funneled money through a foreign subsidiary and underpaid taxes for four years.

Peer Review

Rehashing the week’s health headlines

🚩 Reality Check 

Does one sugary drink a day really double your risk of stomach cancer? 

A new study from Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute found that people who drank at least one sugar-sweetened beverage — such as lemonade, soda or sports drinks — had more than twice the risk of developing stomach cancer compared with people who drank them less than once a month. 

That sounds enormous. But some context is important.

Researchers followed more than 112,000 people for decades, yet only 278 developed stomach cancer. The study was also observational, meaning it can identify an association but can’t prove that sugary drinks caused those cancers. Researchers tried to account for other differences between frequent and infrequent sugary-drink consumers, but they lacked complete information on some important stomach cancer risk factors, including H. pylori infection and family history.

“This is the first study to demonstrate an association between sugar-sweetened beverage intake and gastric cancer in a U.S. population,” said Andrew Chan, a gastroenterologist and epidemiologist at Mass General who led the study. “Gastric cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death worldwide, but we’ve known very little about how diet might contribute to this cancer.”

The finding doesn’t mean drinking a soda today makes you more than twice as likely to develop cancer tomorrow. Instead, the study raises another potential health concern about sugary drinks, which have already been linked more firmly to obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Bottom line: There’s already plenty of evidence to support limiting sugary drinks, but stomach cancer isn’t yet a proven reason to add to the list. This study identifies an intriguing association that needs to be replicated before anyone concludes that sugary sports drinks or sodas causes stomach cancer.

🧠 Worth Watching 

Could three midlife health risks cost you 13 dementia-free years? 

Keeping your heart healthy in middle age may also buy your brain more healthy years later in life.

A new study followed more than 12,000 Americans for 26 years and found that people who reached their mid-50s without high blood pressure or diabetes and who did not smoke lived an average of about 30 more years without dementia. Those with all three risk factors averaged about 17.5 dementia-free years — a difference of nearly 13 years.

That doesn’t mean quitting smoking or controlling your blood pressure will literally give you 13 additional dementia-free years. This was an observational study, and relatively few participants had all three risk factors. Genetics, exercise, diet, healthcare access and numerous other differences could also help explain the gap.

Still, this isn’t an isolated finding. Researchers have increasingly linked cardiovascular health in midlife with cognitive health decades later, adding to evidence that some of the best things you can do for your heart may also be good for your brain.

Bottom line: There’s no guaranteed way to prevent dementia, but controlling blood pressure and diabetes and avoiding smoking are proven to protect your cardiovascular health — and the evidence that they may help preserve brain health keeps getting stronger.

🥚 Public Health Watch

Check your eggs: A major Salmonella recall just got more serious 

The FDA upgraded a recall of roughly 19 million eggs to its highest-risk category after they were linked to a multistate Salmonella outbreak. At least 98 people across 17 states have become sick and 26 have been hospitalized, though no deaths have been reported.

The recalled eggs came from Midwest Poultry Services and were distributed primarily to stores in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Mexico, including some Kroger and Brookshire locations. Investigators found that 40 of 44 people interviewed about what they ate before becoming sick reported eating eggs.

The FDA’s new Class I designation doesn’t necessarily mean investigators suddenly discovered the eggs are more dangerous. It’s a regulatory classification indicating there is a reasonable probability that exposure to the recalled product could cause serious health consequences or death.

Bottom line: Check the carton in your refrigerator against the FDA recall list. If your eggs are included, throw them away or return them to the store for a refund. Salmonella can cause more serious illness in young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems.

🍼 News You Can Use 

Doctors now have two ways to protect newborns from RSV. How effective are they?

More than a million babies around the world are hospitalized each year with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and more than 40,000 die from the virus. In 2023, a new preventive option became available: a long-acting antibody called nirsevimab. 

New real-world studies suggest the treatment is effective. Babies who received the antibody were 72% to 90% less likely to be hospitalized with RSV during the first months of life than those who didn’t, reinforcing earlier clinical-trial findings. That’s particularly encouraging because vaccines and drugs sometimes perform differently once they’re used across much larger and more diverse populations. 

The protection is temporary, however. Nirsevimab is designed to protect babies for a single RSV season, which begins in the fall and typically peaks in December or January. 

There’s another option for parents looking to protect their newborns from RSV: Pregnant women can be vaccinated. A study published by British researchers in July found that babies born to mothers who received an RSV vaccine during pregnancy were 61% less likely to be hospitalized with RSV. Like the antibody treatment, protection from maternal vaccination is temporary. Antibodies passed from mother to baby gradually wane, but can protect infants for about their first six months of life.

Bottom line: The real-world results are reassuring. We now have two effective ways to protect babies from severe RSV during their most vulnerable first months of life. But both nirsevimab and antibodies passed through maternal vaccination wane over time, leaving longer-lasting RSV protection an important unmet need.

Have your say

To view this week’s poll, check out this newsletter on a web browser.

Last week, we asked who you trust most for guidance about which vaccines you or your children should receive. You could pick more than one answer, so these numbers add up to more than 100%. Sixty percent of respondents said they make their own decisions based on multiple sources, 40% said they trusted their doctors and pediatricians and 10% said they trusted federal health agencies such as the CDC.

What else I’m Covering

Get in Touch

That’s all for this week. If you have questions about a health-related story or study you saw in the wild, send me an email at jcraig@san.com or share them below.
— Jess