The flu is continuing to cause widespread illness across the United States, with all but four states reporting high or very high levels of activity as a new strain, known as subclade K, spreads rapidly.

“This is absolutely a standout year,” said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, as per CNN. “It’s the worst flu activity we’ve seen in at least two decades. Most of the country is experiencing extremely high levels, and we are still very much in the middle of it.”

She added that it is unusual to see such a severe flu season follow another difficult year, as intense seasons do not typically happen back to back.

U.S. Sees Worst Flu-Like Illness Levels In 25 Years

Across the country, about 8.2 percent of all doctor visits during the final week of the year were for flu-like symptoms. At the same time last season, which was also considered severe, that figure stood at 6.7 percent.

In Massachusetts, where flu activity is rated as very high, health officials urged residents to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

Experts stressed that vaccines remain the most effective tool available. “They prevent severe illness and hospitalization, and they save lives. If you have not yet received a flu or COVID-19 vaccine this season, now is the time. It is not too late. Getting vaccinated protects not just you, but also your family, friends, colleagues, and the wider community.”

Nearly All States Report High Flu Activity

The latest CDC data shows that almost every state is experiencing high or very high flu activity. Montana and Vermont reported low levels, while South Dakota and West Virginia were at moderate levels. Nevada did not submit flu data this week, but last week’s report showed high activity there as well.

When it comes to severity, measured by hospitalizations, this flu season has not yet reached record levels. However, the cumulative hospitalization rate is already the third highest for this point in the season since 2010–11, and experts warn that could rise as infections continue.

Experts Urge Immediate Vaccination

Dr. Michael Osterholm, who leads the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, urged people to act quickly.

“If you haven’t been vaccinated, do it within the next 48 hours. Don’t put it off,” he said. “You may still be able to protect yourself from the later stages of the season, but it takes about seven to 10 days for the body to build immunity after vaccination. There’s very little time to waste.”

The CDC estimates that at least 11 million people have been infected with the flu so far this season. Around 120,000 have been hospitalized, and 5,000 people have died.

Child Deaths and Falling Vaccination Rates

The agency also confirmed another child death linked to influenza, bringing the total number of pediatric flu deaths this season to nine.

At the same time, flu vaccination rates among children have dropped sharply. Coverage has fallen from 53 percent during the 2019–20 season to 42 percent at the same point this year.

The new flu data was released on the same day the US Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to revise the childhood vaccine schedule. The proposed changes would recommend flu shots for children only after consultation with a healthcare provider, a process known as shared clinical decision-making. Critics worry this could make vaccines harder to access.

“To pull back on flu recommendations during a season this severe feels deeply out of touch,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases. “That comes after a year in which we saw the highest number of childhood flu deaths in many years.”

Adult Vaccination Also Declines

Vaccination rates have also dropped among adults. CDC data shows that nearly 61 million adults received a flu shot during the 2019–20 season. This year, that number has fallen to about 48 million.

Rivers said she does not believe lower vaccination rates are the main reason for the surge in cases.

“The flu vaccine is not primarily meant to stop infection or transmission,” she explained. “Its main role is to prevent severe illness.”

New Flu Strain Drives the Surge

Instead, experts point to the emergence of the new subclade K strain, which now accounts for most flu samples analyzed in laboratories.

Rivers said the strain appears different enough from past flu viruses to bypass existing immune protection in many people. Subclade K began spreading after scientists had already selected the strains used for this year’s flu vaccines. As a result, the shots likely provide only partial protection against it.

“I think this virus has real staying power,” Osterholm said, as per CNN, noting similar patterns in Australia, Japan, and parts of the United Kingdom. “We’re likely to see significant community spread for at least another three to four weeks.”

In a recent episode of Soha Ali Khan’s YouTube podcast 'All About Her', actor Genelia D'Souza told viewers that she does not feed her children ghee over fears of blocking their arteries and causing heart damage.

She told Khan, "Ghee was never a very big part of my diet. I’ve always been more conscious because cholesterol issues run in my family. Whether it was non-vegetarian food or anything else, it was always on my mind, I didn’t want to go overboard.

"We start building habits early. You can't keep feeding children excessive amounts of certain foods and then expect them to suddenly not be overweight and head to the gym later in life. It has to make sense."

The 38-year-old mother-of-two soon clarified that she considers ghee to be a problem when consumed in excess. D'Souza, who follows a strict plant-based lifestyle, explained that ghee, a known superfood, stays far away from her diet and instead she prefers to consume sesame seeds (til) for similar benefits.

She also addressed questions about giving up ghee and butter, stating, "I enjoyed a little bit of ghee and butter, but only in tiny portions. So when I eventually gave it up, it wasn’t a big deal," while acknowledging the sensory appeal of ghee, "I know it’s very tasty and it smells amazing."

Is Ghee Indeed Bad For You?

Made from cow milk butter, ghee contains about 130 calories and 15 grams of fat on average. It is also known to be rich in Vitamin A, D, K and E as well antioxidants.

However due to its high saturated fat content, some experts claim ghee can raise bad cholesterol levels in some people. While saturated fats help control high cholesterol and promote good heart health only apply when it is consumed in moderation. Ghee consumed in excess is indeed unhealthy.

However, it also contains beneficial fats (like omega-3s & CLA) and fat-soluble vitamins, offering potential anti-inflammatory benefits in small amounts, making it a balanced choice for many when balanced with overall diet and lifestyle.

A 1999 Indian Journal of Dairy & Biosciences study also noted that when researchers studied Indian men in a rural population who ate high amounts of ghee, they showed a significantly lower prevalence of coronary heart disease.

High doses of medicated ghee decreased serum cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids, and cholesterol levels in those suffering from psoriasis, a chronic autoimmune skin condition causing rapid skin cell buildup, leading to red, scaly, itchy patches, often on scalp, elbows, knees and back.

Who Should Avoid Ghee?

Experts recommend those suffering from conditions such as heart, digestive and kidney issues as well as obesity to steer clear from the superfood. Cholesterol patients should also avoid ghee as it is rich in fatty acids that may increase blood pressure and increase the risk of heart disease.

Lastly, those suffering from jaundice should also avoid it as it can cause major problems for the liver. Doctors suggest consuming not more than two teaspoons of ghee every day as it may pose certain health risks.

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new AI model which can predict more than 100 health conditions including cancer, mental health, cardiovascular issues and death using sleep study data.

SleepFM uses polysomnography, a comprehensive sleep assessment that utilizes various sensors to record brain activity, heart activity, respiratory signals, leg movements, eye movements and more to provide an accurate prediction of future disease risk, according to the study published in Nature on January 6.

Emmanuel Mignot, Craig Reynolds Professor in Sleep Medicine and co-senior author of the study, said, "We record an amazing number of signals when we study sleep. It’s a kind of general physiology that we study for eight hours in a subject who’s completely captive. It’s very data rich."

It remains unclear when SleepFM will be commercially available to the public and whether it will be incorporated into wearable technology such as watches and phones.

How Does It Work?

The AI model has been trained on nearly 600,000 hours of sleep data collected from 65,000 participants which had been split into five-second increments to combine multiple body signals, such as brain activity, heart activity, muscle activity, pulse and breathing and understand how they relate to each other.

James Zou, PhD, associate professor of biomedical data science and co-senior author of the study commented, "One of the technical advances that we made in this work is to figure out how to harmonize all these different data modalities so they can come together to learn the same language."

After being trained to identify and link different body signals, SleepFM was taught how to understand standard sleep analysis tasks such as different stages of sleep and diagnosing the severity of sleep apnea, a serious sleep disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts often due to airway blockage or the brain failing to signal muscles.

Once the model was seen successfully identifying sleep-related issues, it was paired with the sleep recordings and health data of 35,000 patients collected over 25 years for it to learn how to identify chronic diseases through nighttime body signals.

Which Diseases Can It Accurately Predict?

Particularly, SleepFM excelled at predicting Parkinson’s disease, dementia, hypertensive heart disease, heart attack, prostate cancer, breast cancer and death.

“We were pleasantly surprised that for a pretty diverse set of conditions, the model is able to make informative predictions,” Zou said.

Even though heart signals were prominently used to predict heart disease and brain signals were predominant in mental health predictions, the researchers noted that it was the combination of all the data modalities that achieved the most accurate predictions.

“The most information we got for predicting disease was by contrasting the different channels. Body constituents that were out of sync. A brain that looks asleep but a heart that looks awake, for example, seemed to spell trouble,” Mignot said.

Zhou added, "From an AI perspective, sleep is relatively understudied. There’s a lot of other AI work that’s looking at pathology or cardiology, but relatively little looking at sleep, despite sleep being such an important part of life.

"SleepFM is essentially learning the language of sleep."

A 24-year-old man living with dementia who passed away shortly after Christmas has donated his brain to medical research. Andre Yarham, from Dereham in Norfolk, was only 22 when his family first became concerned. His mother, Samantha Fairbairn, noticed changes in his memory and behaviour, including moments that felt out of character.

After medical consultations, Andre was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a rare condition linked to an abnormal protein mutation. Speaking to the BBC, Ms Fairbairn said her son made the decision to donate his brain in the hope that future families might be spared the same pain. “If this helps even one family spend a little more time with someone they love, then it means something,” she said, describing dementia as a “cruel disease.”

UK’s Youngest Dementia Patient Dies At 24, Leaves Brain To Science

Brain scans later showed unusual shrinkage, prompting a referral to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where doctors confirmed the diagnosis. Ms Fairbairn told the BBC she experienced “so many emotions, anger, grief, and deep sadness for him.” She also stressed that dementia is not limited by age, saying it “doesn’t discriminate,” and adding that Andre was likely among the youngest patients diagnosed in the UK.

As his condition progressed, he moved into a care home in September last year when his needs became too complex for his family. Within weeks, he was using a wheelchair. Andre died on 27 December, and his brain has since been donated to Addenbrooke’s Hospital to support ongoing research.

In the final month of his life, Andre lost the ability to speak and could only make sounds. Even so, his mother said his core self remained. He held on to “his personality, his humour, his laughter, and his smile” until the end, according to The Independent.

Youngest Dementia Sufferer Dies: What Is Frontotemporal Dementia?

Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) refers to a group of uncommon, progressive brain disorders that cause nerve cell damage in the frontal and temporal lobes. This leads to changes in behaviour, personality, language, and sometimes movement. The condition often begins earlier than Alzheimer’s disease, typically between ages 45 and 65, and may present with symptoms such as impulsivity, emotional withdrawal, socially inappropriate actions, or speech difficulties. Memory loss is not always the earliest sign. There is currently no cure, although treatments can help manage symptoms, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

FTD is considered rare and most often affects middle-aged adults, but in exceptional cases, it can occur much earlier in life. Unlike Alzheimer’s disease, which usually begins with memory decline, FTD is more likely to start with noticeable changes in behaviour or personality.

Youngest Dementia Sufferer Dies: Symptoms of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD)

Symptoms of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) commonly include marked changes in personality and behaviour, such as apathy, impulsive actions, loss of empathy, reduced social awareness, repetitive behaviours, and neglect of personal care. Language problems are also common, including trouble finding words, understanding speech, or speaking clearly. Some people develop movement-related symptoms like stiffness, slowed movements, or tremors, as well as changes in eating habits or appetite. These symptoms gradually interfere with relationships and daily life as nerve cells in the frontal and temporal areas of the brain deteriorate, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“Dementia is an incredibly cruel disease, truly cruel,” Andre’s mother said. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. With cancer, people can have treatment, they can go into remission, and they can still live meaningful lives. With dementia, there’s nothing like that.”