Research tracking over 17,700 participants found those with highest xylitol levels faced up to 57% greater risk
People who consume greater amounts of a popular artificial sweetener could face a greater risk ofheart attackand stroke, a new study suggests.
The research, which was presented at the ESC Cardiology Congress in Germany this week, showed that higher levels of xylitol in the blood were associated with an increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE).
Xylitol is a sugar alcohol that is commonly used as a low-calorie sweetener and sugar substitute, according to the National Institutes of Health. It is often used in higher amounts to sweeten foods, drinks, chewing gum and dental care products.
The researchers followed two large study cohorts of more than 17,700 Canadian and British participants.
Over a six-year follow-up, people in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging with the highest xylitol levels had a 57% higher risk of death, myocardial infarction or stroke related to cardiovascular events compared to those with the lowest levels.
People who consume greater amounts of a popular artificial sweetener could face a greater risk of heart attack and stroke, a new study suggests.
Over 30 years, participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC)-Norfolk group with the highest xylitol levels had an 18% greater risk of MACE.
Both cohorts showed evidence of a dose-dependent association, in which higher blood xylitol concentrations corresponded to higher rates of cardiovascular events.
These higher risks persisted even after the researchers adjusted for other factors like age, gender, body mass index, hypertension, diabetes and lipid levels.
Xylitol is a sugar alcohol that is commonly used as a low-calorie sweetener and sugar substitute.
"Artificial sweeteners are consumed by people who think they are healthier than sugar, and they are generally regarded as safe by regulatory agencies," the doctor said in a statement.
"Our long-term findings in the general population highlight how little we know about the cardiovascular safety of xylitol and indicate that further studies are warranted, especially as the amount of xylitol in products continues to increase."
The study was observational and does not prove that xylitol causes cardiovascular events, as the researchers noted that more studies are needed to confirm the findings.
The report also does not establish whether high levels of xylitol in the blood necessarily reflect dietary consumption, as the sugar alcohol can also be produced naturally in the body as part of glucose metabolism.
People with the highest xylitol levels had a 57% higher risk of death, myocardial infarction or stroke related to cardiovascular events compared to those with the lowest levels.
"These disturbing findings with a plausible mechanism of xylitol increasing cardiovascular risk should be taken very seriously," Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist and public health campaigner based in London, told Fox News Digital.
"As a practicing cardiologist, I see many patients suffering from anxiety and palpitations that resolve as soon as they stop taking artificial sweeteners."
Malhotra, who was not involved in the study, noted that one of the most important dietary changes to reduce cardiovascular risk is to "unsweeten your sweet tooth."
"That’s why I advise all my patients to avoid all processed sugars and artificial sweeteners for six weeks to break the addiction," he added.
A Delta Airlines flight takes off from La Guardia Airport in New York City on June 3, 2026
Biden-era issues with air traffic controllers appear to be fading away thanks to President Donald Trump ditching DEI policies.
According to Just The News, President Trump has prioritized meritorious applicants in job hiring instead of DEI quotas, which has set air traffic control networks on a path to growth in recruitment and skill.
Following numerous DEI scandals in the air traffic management industry, President Trump took immediate steps by announcing the “best and brightest campaign” alongside Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy.
The campaign targets avid video game players and others predisposed to faster processing speeds. Secretary Duffy addressed these new applicants in an X post, saying “they problem-solve, they’re spatially aware, they do multiple things at the same time.”
Duffy also noted tremendous increases in recruitment numbers, announcing that over 2,000 applicants have been hired by the Department of Transportation following the rollout of the best and brightest program.
Duffy’s program was bolstered by President Trump’s Merit Hiring Plan (Executive Order 14170), which enforced hiring based on skill replacing the Biden-era metric of minority quotas in government jobs.
The Trump administration broke a barrier of hiring procedure by encouraging gamers to work in air control units.
Using targeted YouTube advertising and messaging to appeal to the video gaming community, the Department of Transportation recruited a crop of new younger applicants with improved skills thanks to their knowledge of technical gear.
Contrasting these efforts to streamline and strengthen the air traffic control systems, the Biden administration consistently pushed for further expansion of DEI measures in these critical areas of the government responsible for keeping Americans in the air safe.
Both the Obama and Biden administrations hired people with severe mental instabilities to take up these tasks in order to fulfill purely symbolic diversity quotas.
President Trump put an end to these policies, working closely with Secretary Duffy to ensure the air traffic workforce was staffed with experts selected solely for their adeptness.
Nearly half of all Afghans and Somalis in the U.S. are on SNAP food benefits, while 52.7% of immigrant-headed households use one or more major welfare programs. Photo courtesy of Congressman Brandon Gill (TX-26).
According to a chart published by Personal Finance Wizards, 45.6% of Afghan immigrant households in the United States receive SNAP benefits. The chart, which shows the percentage of U.S. households receiving SNAP benefits by ethnicity, uses data from U.S. Census Table S0201.
Other groups with high participation rates include Somali households at 42.4%, Iraqi households at 34.8%, Dominican households at 34.4%, and Caribbean households at 28.2%.
Democrats are fond of claiming that illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare and that illegal immigration, and immigration in general, represents a net gain for U.S. taxpayers. The term “welfare” is used specifically to narrow the scope.
The reality, however, is that legal and illegal immigrants receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal and state assistance each year through a variety of programs, including Medicaid, food assistance programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), housing assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), SNAP, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), school meal programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicare, and Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.
Furthermore, when it comes specifically to welfare, Democrats ignore the fact that families headed by illegal immigrant parents can receive benefits if they have U.S.-citizen children. Because the parents often work off the books, they can claim to have no income, making their children eligible for welfare benefits.
A separate analysis of 2024 Survey of Income and Program Participation data, published in February 2026 by the Center for Immigration Studies, found that 52.7% of immigrant-headed households used one or more major welfare programs, compared with 37.3% of U.S.-born-headed households. The largest gaps were in Medicaid use, at 39% versus 27%, and food assistance, at 35% versus 22%.
Among households headed specifically by illegal immigrants, the report found an overall welfare participation rate of 60.7%. One data point often cited to support the false claim that immigrants use benefits at a lower rate than native-born citizens is that SSI and housing assistance use among this group is lower than among U.S.-born households. However, the lower rate of SSI use is only because illegal aliens are largely barred from receiving SSI, although some still receive it through various means. As for housing benefits, U.S.-citizen children of immigrants, including illegal immigrants, qualify for housing assistance, so their parents do not need to apply for it themselves.
A follow-up Center for Immigration Studies report published in June 2026, using pooled 2021-2025 Current Population Survey data, narrowed the focus to non-citizen-headed households, roughly half of them illegal aliens. It found 47% of non-citizen households used one or more traditional welfare programs (TANF, SSI, SNAP, WIC, school meals, Medicaid, or housing assistance), compared with 28% for U.S.-born households, rising to 57% versus 34% once eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credit was included.
State-level gaps were widest in Maryland, Arizona, New York, and North Carolina, and non-citizen households in every one of the highest-immigration states, including New York, California, Texas, and Florida, used traditional welfare or qualified for the tax credits at rates 20 or more percentage points above U.S.-born households in the same state.
The elevated SNAP rates for Afghan, Iraqi, and Somali households line up with federal eligibility rules that predate 2025. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1641, defines “qualified immigrants” eligible for federal benefits as lawful permanent residents, refugees, asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, individuals granted withholding of removal, certain survivors of trafficking or domestic violence, and certain parolees present for at least one year. This is confirmed by a National Immigration Forum fact sheet and a National Immigration Law Center guide.
Refugees, asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, trafficking survivors, and Iraqi and Afghan nationals holding Special Immigrant Visas were exempt from the five-year waiting period that otherwise applies to lawful permanent residents seeking SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, and other federal benefits. For SSI specifically, that same “humanitarian” eligibility runs out after seven years from the date a person obtains the qualifying status, a limit Congress imposed in 1996 on the assumption recipients would naturalize before then. Illegal immigrants have never been eligible for SNAP, non-emergency Medicaid, TANF, CHIP, or SSI under federal law.
A July 2025 federal reconciliation act tightened these rules further. Effective November 1, 2025, SNAP eligibility narrowed to lawful permanent residents, Cuban and Haitian entrants, and people residing under a Compact of Free Association, removing refugees, asylees, and Special Immigrant Visa holders from the program going forward. Corresponding restrictions on Medicaid, CHIP, Medicare, and Affordable Care Act premium tax credits take effect on a staggered schedule through 2027. The Ellis Island Argument
The Ellis Island comparison does not excuse illegal immigration, nor does it justify the percentage of legal and illegal immigrants who receive public benefits.
Critics of immigration enforcement often point out that 33% to 40% of Americans have at least one ancestor among the 12 million immigrants who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954, largely during the Great Wave of immigration from 1880 to 1924. Americans with Italian family names, in particular, are called racists and hypocrites for opposing illegal immigration and the abuse of public benefits by immigrants.
However, critics are ignoring historical facts. During the Great Wave, entry depended on proving an immigrant would not need public support. Immigrants processed at Ellis Island were required to show they carried enough money to avoid being classified as likely to become a public charge. The required amount was typically $18 to $25. For a typical steerage-class immigrant, saving that sum, on top of the $25 to $30 cost of passage, took months or even years.
A major difference between today’s illegal immigration and legal immigration through Ellis Island was that steamship companies had a financial incentive to screen passengers before departure. Under the Immigration Act of 1891, carriers were legally required to return rejected immigrants to their home countries at their own expense, and could be fined $100 for every passenger denied entry for a preventable reason, such as a contagious disease. Agents for the major steamship lines were held personally accountable by their companies for the passengers they booked and risked losing their agencies if they transported someone who fell into an excluded category.
The system worked by weeding out those immigrants who would become a burden on the nation, unlike during the years of the Great Invasion caused by Joe Biden’s open-border policy. Steamship companies at the German port of Bremen refused to sell tickets to an estimated 8,000 prospective immigrants in 1905 alone, according to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
Historians generally credit this pre-screening with keeping Ellis Island’s ultimate exclusion rate to only about 2% of arrivals, since most people likely to be turned away were stopped before they ever boarded.
Illegal immigration has no such vetting system, and immigrants entering the country, legally or illegally, who then go on to receive public benefits do not benefit the country.
The Iranian regime’s massacre of its own people who want a freer and more democratic country has now climbed to 100,000, according to President Donald Trump.
If the genocidal Iranian regime falls, which we all pray will happen in the near future, Trump seems to be contemplating Nuremberg-style trials, which is something we haven’t done for mass murderers in far too long. The president posted on TruthSocial on August 31 about the runaway inflation in Iran and how many freedom protesters have died in government crackdowns since the initial January slaughter that left 50,000 dead.
“Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD!” Trump began in his usual exaggerative style. “They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of ‘BULLS**T.’ Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Over the weekend, the Trump administration ordered strikes on Larak Island, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had missile launchers. Unfortunately, the IRGC still seems to have enough missiles left to continue firing at American troops.
The people of Iran have shown their courage in the face of death all throughout this year in a way that history should immortalize. But tragically, until and unless the United States and Israel eliminate the rest of the top ayatollahs who indiscriminately kill Israelis, Americans, Persians, and Arabs alike, the slaughter will never end, and regime change will never happen. It is unfortunate that none of the weaponry the Biden administration abandoned to the Taliban in Afghanistan will be available for the Persians to take on their own terrorist government. I would much, much rather that the Persians who are pro-American have it and overthrow a regime that never stops screaming “death to America” than that Afghani terrorists who hate us should have and use it.
Unfortunately, for some reason, American weapons never do seem to end up in the hands of people who are willing to further our interests. Then again, perhaps there is an alternative to Americans and Israelis taking out the murderous mullahs directly.
Perhaps the U.S. government could stop sending so many weapons to Ukraine, where so many men have died in a stalemate war, and smuggle them to the Kurds or the Persians. Four more Americans died recently in Iranian strikes. It’s time to stop that Iranian terrorism once and for all. And there is a whole army of Persians and Kurds just waiting for the weapons and the opportunity to do the job for us.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has developed a reputation for delivering the Trump administration’s message with an unusually eloquent, and frequently sarcastic, edge, and Canada was the latest target.
In a CNBC interview Monday, Bessent laughed off the idea that Ottawa could meaningfully pressure the United States as the two countries escalate their trade war. The exchange came just a week after Washington and Ottawaimposed 50 percent tariffs on one another following failed negotiations to come to a trade agreement the Trump administration found satisfactory.
Bessent argued that Canada cannot realistically go “tit for tat” with an economy roughly 13 times larger, dismissing the idea that Ottawa could pose any serious threat to the United States. "What, are they going to take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sick them on us?" Bessent joked.
"Are you meeting with your Canadian counterpart here?" CNBC's Sara Eisen asked.
"I am."
"Because, I guess, markets are wondering if we're now in a tit-for-tat trade war with Canada," she said.
"Well, I don't think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone who's 13 times larger than you are," Bessent replied. "They say they're doing okay. What else are they going to say? Look, I think this is very unfortunate that Prime Minister Carney has turned this into a political shouting match."
"I mean, we're not at war with Canada. How are we going to be at war with Canada? What, are they going to take their two submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sick them on us?" Bessent asked. "He came to power on an anti-American, anti-Trump agenda. He was 20 points behind in the polls. And then he started this. And it's unfortunate that he's not doing what's best for the Canadian people. He's doing what is best for the Liberal Party, what's best for Mark Carney. And in the long run, the Canadian people are going to see through that."
The exchange came less than a week after Canada vowed to impose retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, matching the Trump administration’s new 50 percent tariffs on about the same value of Canadian imports after trade negotiations collapsed. Canada’s counter-tariffs, ranging from 15 to 50 percent, are scheduled to take effect on September 8.
