Cyclosporiasis cases top 1,600 with source still unknown; ACP presses Congress to tighten supplement rules; could a finger-prick test track metabolic health? — Morning Medical Update

Cyclosporiasis cases top 1,600 with source still unknown

The CDC expects the count to keep climbing through August while the FDA traces multiple produce items.

Lab-confirmed U.S. cases of cyclosporiasis have surpassed 1,600 across 34 states, with 141 hospitalizations and no deaths, as federal officials work to pinpoint the source of the parasitic intestinal infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Tuesday it is running traceback investigations on multiple produce items, including lettuce.

The CDC, which is aware of more than 5,100 additional reports still awaiting confirmation, expects the count to keep rising, potentially through the end of August, because of a roughly six-week lag between illness onset and reporting. A separate confirmed cluster of more than 400 cases across Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky may share a single source, the agency said.

The CDC is urging physicians to report cases to local health departments and to consider cyclosporiasis in patients with prolonged diarrhea.

ACP presses Congress to tighten supplement rules

More than half of U.S. adults take supplements, but only about a quarter use ones a clinician recommended, ACP says.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is calling on Congress to modernize the 1994 law governing dietary supplements, arguing in a new position paper that the products reach consumers without the premarket safety review required of drugs and food additives. Published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the paper recommends that supplements undergo evidence-based review, registration and premarket approval by the FDA and meet U.S. Pharmacopeia quality standards.

ACP also urges stronger FDA post-market surveillance, authority to bypass voluntary recalls, and better Federal Trade Commission monitoring of supplement marketing by paid social media influencers. More than half of U.S. adults take dietary supplements, but only about a quarter use products recommended by a health care professional, according to ACP, which said low reporting of supplement use to physicians leaves patients exposed to drug interactions. The group also asked electronic health record vendors to integrate supplement databases so clinicians can better track patient use.

Could a finger-prick test track metabolic health?

Researchers propose the glucose ketone index to monitor diet and disease, but say it still needs clinical validation.

A group of researchers is proposing a finger-prick blood test, the glucose ketone index, as a low-cost way to monitor metabolic health in chronic diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Writing in Frontiers in Science, the authors argue that the index, the ratio of blood glucose to the ketone β-hydroxybutyrate, could show whether diet, fasting or exercise is shifting the body toward nutritional ketosis, a state they link to more efficient mitochondrial energy production.

The paper is a proposal rather than a clinical trial, and the authors caution that disease-specific target ranges still must be validated in larger studies and that ketogenic approaches should be used under clinical supervision as management strategies, not cures.

“When combined with evidence-based nutrition and exercise, the GKI could offer a framework for monitoring mitochondrial health across diverse patient groups and disease contexts,” said co-author Derek Lee of Boston College.