Health

Having disappointed in March (just +0.1% MoM), expectations for April's personal spending were sky high at +0.7% MoM, despite expectations of a 0.4% rise in incomes. Analysts were not disappointed as the headline spending print was a 7-year high +1.0% MoM spike driven by a 3.8% MoM surge in Energy spending. With income rising as expected at 0.4% MoM, and thanks to revisions, the savings rate tumbled to its lowest since 2015.

Sustainable? The 2nd biggest spike in spending since 2005...

A new study by York University in Toronto warns that artificial sweeteners can cause type 2 diabetes. The sugar alternatives, noticeably aspartame, causes changes in gut bacteria, which  in turn can lead to glucose intolerance. Sweeteners like saccharin, aspartame and sucralose, are used widely in western diets and are found in a multitude of foods and drinks.

The FDA have approved an ‘ADHD candy’ for kids that comes in the form of sweet, chewy amphetamine-based ‘treats’. The drug has been dubbed ‘kiddie cocaine’ due to its addictive and overly appealing design.  Adzenys will replace traditional Ritalin and Adderrall, and have been deliberately designed to appeal to children suffering from Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by making them chewable and fruit-flavoured. Thefix.com reports: Adzenys is an extended-release dissolvable amphetamine, the active ingredient in drugs like Adderall.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been forced to admit that a widely used vaccine preservative does in fact cause autism. The CDC had long insisted that the vaccine preservative thimerosal was not linked to autism.

A deadly superbug resistant to all forms of antibiotics has arrived in the U.S. which researchers say may signal the “end of the road” for all antibiotics in the future.  Researchers detected the superbug in a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman who tested positive for carrying the deadly bacteria. Washingtonpost.com reports: Defense Department researchers determined that she carried a strain of E. coli resistant to the antibiotic colistin, according to a study published Thursday in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.