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Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and … diabetes. That’s right. The metabolic condition is about as American as you can get, according to a new national report card on diabetes released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Kaplan, 7/18)

Over the past decade, Americans have soured on artificial sweeteners. Once heralded as sweet substitutes for sugar without as many belt-busting calories, people once couldn't get enough sucralose and aspartame. But recently, people have started looking at the molecules with increasing suspicion, amid studies that linked them to increased belly fat — and bogus but widespread rumors that they led to things much worse. (Wootson, 7/18)

The wrong kind of exclusively plant-based diet, one that includes a lot of refined grains and sweetened beverages, can actually increase the risk of coronary heart disease, according to a new study from Harvard University. On the other hand, reducing your intake of animal products while boosting your consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and continuing to indulge modestly in animal foods, can do you nearly as much good as a healthy vegan diet—and even more good than one that includes a lot of French fries and pasta. (Shanker, 7/18)

Usually, the corpses are already underground, not because they’ve been buried, but because they are prairie dogs. In the throes of plague, they crawled down into their burrows to die at home. Wagner isn’t there for their bodies. He’s more interested in the fleas that transmitted plague in the first place. Sometimes, like their dead hosts, they too are beneath the earth, and he needs to coax them out. At other times — when he’s investigating what he’d call a “hot site”— the blood is gone from the corpses, the fleas have begun to starve, and they’ve jumped their way to the surface to wait for another mammal to pass by. (Boodman, 7/19)

As the prevalence of childhood conditions like asthma and diabetes have risen, nurses treat a wide range of problems. Still, only an estimated 40 percent of U.S. schools have a full-time nurse, according to the National Association of School Nurses. But now telemedicine — virtual doctor visits over video — is increasingly helping nurses do their jobs. Telemedicine programs are making inroads in schools, where a student referred to the nurse can be plopped in front of a screen and connected with a physician. Special computer-connected otoscopes and stethoscopes allow doctors to check ears, noses, throats, and heartbeats from afar. (Samuel, 7/19)

Too often, people return home from the hospital only to find themselves heading back soon after. Sometimes the need arises because, despite the best care, it is difficult to slow the progression of disease. But other times, it's because we in the health care system fail to communicate, coordinate and orchestrate the care that people need to successfully make the transition from hospital to home. (Dharmarajan and Krumholz, 7/18)

Two decades ago, Luis Antonio Cabrera received devastating news: He likely had only three months to live. The Puerto Rican truck driver, then 50, had attributed his growing leg pain to spending so many hours on the road. The real culprit was a malignant tumor in his left kidney that was pressing on nerves from his lower spine. (Andalo, 7/18)