Eating enough protein is important for good health, Denver-area dieticians said, but people who want to increase their intake need to make sure they choose quality foods and don’t crowd out healthy carbohydrates and fats.

Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that, as of 2020, the average American already ate enough protein to meet the new recommendations.

The most recent edition of the federal nutrition guidelines, released in early January, raised the recommended floor for protein consumption, setting a range from 50% higher to double the previous recommendation.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also unveiled a flipped food pyramid, with beef and full-fat dairy among the foods to emphasize at the top. Federal recommendations had ditched the pyramid about 15 years ago for a model plate divided between produce, protein and whole grains.

The previous protein guideline was a bare minimum to avoid malnutrition, so raising that was probably the right call, said Jessica Crandall, a registered dietitian nutritionist who works at HCA HealthOne Rose.

Generally, Crandall recommends 60 to 80 grams of protein each day for women and 80 to 100 grams for men. For comparison, a three-ounce serving of ground beef has 22 grams, a skinless chicken breast has 18 grams and 6 ounces of Greek yogurt has 15 to 17 grams, according to Washington University in St. Louis.

But the right amount for any individual will depend on their body weight, age, level of physical activity and health, with some conditions requiring more protein and others demanding restrictions, Crandall said.

The International Food Information Council’s 2024 Food and Health survey found about 71% of Americans were specifically trying to eat protein, up from 59% in 2022. About one in five said they specifically follow a “high protein” diet, making it more popular than calorie counting, low-carb or Mediterranean food plans.

People who work in nutrition have known about protein’s importance to the muscles and immune system for quite some time, but public perception of it has changed significantly in recent years, said Kelly Elliot, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Saint Joseph Hospital.

“It’s interesting how marketing sways the public and how the public sways marketing,” she said.

While protein shakes and bars have been staples among the gym-going set for some time, other food brands are getting in on the game.

Snickers and Pop Tarts unveiled higher-protein options, and Thomas’ bagels added a line about protein content to the front of the packaging for their existing products. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts recently debuted drinks enhanced with whey protein, and Chipotle’s menu now promotes a “protein cup” of chicken and a chicken taco, designed to offer a similar mix of protein, fat and carbs to a protein bar, said Stephanie Perdue, Chipotle’s interim chief marketing officer.

“We’ve seen growing demand for protein-forward choices across more occasions, especially snack-sized portions at accessible prices,” she said in a statement. “We’ll carry this focus throughout 2026, with our culinary team driving protein-led innovation informed by customer behavior and emerging trends across our restaurants and digital channels.”

As more people get the message that they need to increase their protein intake — despite the fact that most Americans already eat enough — food companies have responded by adding protein in unexpected places, including pretzels, chips and even bottled water, said William Hallman, a psychologist at Rutgers University who studies how people think about food.

Emphasizing protein creates a “health halo” around products that makes people think they’re a better option, even if the manufacturer had to increase sugar and fat to mask the taste of protein powder, he said.

“Consumers think it’s healthier for them, and that’s the problem,” he said.

Brands highlight the positive aspects of their food, but that doesn’t mean that every high-protein product is a good choice, Elliot said. Consumers need to consider other factors such as sugar and saturated fat content, and whether the ingredients list includes a string of additives, she said.

The new nutrition guidelines also warned the public to avoid added sugars and ultra-processed foods, while maintaining the existing advice to limit saturated fat for heart disease prevention.

“Some of these protein bars, many of them are glorified candy bars,” she said.

The new nutrition guidelines may encourage products to continue jumping on the protein bandwagon, but in the long run, food companies will have to consider whether the costs of fortifying their products are worthwhile in an increasingly crowded marketplace, Hallman said.

“At some point, people are going to figure out they’re getting plenty of protein,” he said.

Most people will be able to meet their needs as long as they have a good source of protein at each meal, alongside fruits, vegetables and whole grains, Crandall said. While most people think of meat when discussing protein, other options with less saturated fat include eggs, dairy foods, seafood, nuts, seeds and beans, she said.

“Protein is one piece of the puzzle,” she said.

For most people, eating more protein than they need isn’t likely to cause a problem, though it can exacerbate kidney or liver disease. The concern is that they’ll forgo foods that are low in protein but high in fiber or vitamins and minerals that also contribute to good health, Crandall said.

“Sometimes when we hyper-focus on one area… we miss out on those other nutrients,” she said.

Then, when she turned 2, the seizures started. She suddenly began to lose skills. Three months later, Everly needed a feeding tube. Now, at 8, she can only move her eyes, allowing her to communicate via a screen.

Everly, whose family lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, has a rare mutation in a gene called FRRS1L, pronounced “frizzle,” which affects how cells in her brain communicate. Her parents, and other members of the tiny community of children with the condition, have worked with researchers and small-scale manufacturers to develop a treatment that could restore some of her ability to move — but only if they can raise $4 million to develop and test it.

Everly clearly understands what happens around her and loves school, where she learns in a mainstream classroom with support and has several best friends, said Chrissy Green, Everly’s mother. Still, she wants to do things she can’t, such as holding toys on her own or going on the occasional family trip with her brothers, Green said.

“These kids are in there, they want to play like other kids, they just can’t move,” she said.

Green is co-president of the foundation Finding Hope for FRRS1L, which is collecting funds for the next stage of drug development. Children with FRRS1L gene disorder, the foundation’s website says, “are trapped in a body they can’t move, however still retain high cognitive function, understanding, communication and awareness.”

Worldwide, only a few dozen children currently have a diagnosis of the same mutation in FRRS1L, meaning there’s little interest from drug companies. Families are on their own to fund research and, if all goes well, convince the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the treatment is safe and effective enough to go on the market.

And, even if they succeed with the FDA, they’ll still face a battle with insurance companies that may not want to pay the steep price for a drug to correct a faulty gene. (Even though the families aren’t looking to make a profit, these types of treatments are expensive, and the company under contract to do the manufacturing isn’t doing it for free.)

Gene therapy involves replacing a faulty gene with a healthy one, usually via a harmless virus engineered to insert a specific snippet of genetic code. It has offered a new way to treat infants born without functioning immune systems, who previously relied on bone marrow transplants. Trials have also shown good results with a liver problem causing ammonia to build up in the body, and one form of inherited deafness.

The technology also carries risks. Patients have died after receiving gene therapies, with liver problems emerging as a potential risk.

Normally, drug companies take on the financial risk of turning basic research that’s often publicly funded into treatments, with the hope of eventually making a profit. For gene therapies, that model can break down because of the small number of patients. Green’s FRRS1L foundation knows of about three dozen patients worldwide, though other children with unexplained seizures could have the mutation.

A drug that treats so few patients will never be profitable, so parents are largely on their own in trying to fund research and development, said Neil Hackett, a researcher who has worked with families on gene therapies and advised the FRRS1L foundation. Usually, they can’t do it unless they happen to have one or more business-savvy parents with the time and resources to run a foundation while caring for a child with complex needs, he said.

“They need specific expertise, which is not easy to find, and they need massive amounts of money,” he said.

When they first received Everly’s diagnosis, her doctor told the family to make the most of the time they had left, because medicine couldn’t offer anything to extend her life or reduce her symptoms, Green said. She didn’t initially question that, but focused on loving her daughter and trading tips for daily life with other families via Facebook.

Green connected with a mother in London who had a child the same age as Everly. Viviana Rodriguez was exploring whether researchers had found any evidence to suggest they could repurpose existing drugs to reduce FRRS1L symptoms.

Through a “providential” series of events, one of Rodriguez’s contacts knew a doctor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who worked on gene therapies. That doctor had read a paper from a German researcher who bred mice with the FRSS1L mutation so he could study it. The German scientist had given the mice a gene therapy as part of his experiments, but his work wasn’t focused on the clinical applications, Green said.

Green and Rodriguez, along with a small group of other parents, formed the foundation to raise $400,000 for the UT Southwestern researchers to breed their own group of FRSS1L mice and give them a gene therapy in a study that was set up to show results. The mice that received the gene therapy had near-normal movement after it took effect, she said.

“We saw major recovery in the animals, so we’re really hopeful for our kids,” she said.

The next step was testing for toxic side effects, then finding a manufacturer who could do the complicated work of inserting the corrected gene into a harmless virus, Green said. If they can raise the necessary money and all goes as expected, children could receive their doses through a clinical trial starting in September, she said.

Many treatments that look promising in mice don’t pan out in humans. Even if they do, foundations must navigate the complex process of getting permission from the FDA to sell the treatment, Hackett said. Then they face the separate battle of convincing insurance companies, or national health systems serving patients in other countries, that they should pay for it, he said.

Theoretically, a foundation could keep a treatment in reserve for patients diagnosed with the FRSS1L mutation in the future, but that likely isn’t feasible, Hackett said.

“At the end, I think you have to turn it over to a commercial entity, and I don’t think anyone knows what that looks like,” he said.

Green is hopeful, however, that the treatment she’s trying to fund will not only help children like Everly, but also ease the path for future gene therapies.

“All the diseases can kind of help each other move forward,” she said.

Experiments in mice found that genetically modified animals were more likely to have signs of metastatic cancer in their lungs if infected with flu or COVID-19 than engineered mice that researchers didn’t give a virus, said James DeGregori, deputy director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora.

That finding launched an international partnership to determine whether the same thing happened in people, he said.

DeGregori was one of the lead investigators, alongside scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Imperial College London, University College London, University of Connecticut, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the COVID-19 International Research Team, based in Massachusetts.

Two datasets, from the United States and the United Kingdom, both showed a higher risk that cancer survivors with confirmed COVID-19 infections would die from metastatic cancer, compared to survivors who didn’t test positive for the virus.

The British data showed people who tested positive had about twice the risk of those who tested negative, and the American data showed about a 44% increased risk, DeGregori said. A significant number of the U.S. patients never got tested for COVID-19, however, so the risk was likely higher because of cancer deaths in people with missed infections, he said.

The American data only included breast cancer survivors, while the British data included people who were in remission from any type of cancer. The risk of death was highest in the months immediately after an infection.

COVID-19 didn’t directly cause the cancer to spread, but created an environment where dormant cells elsewhere in patients’ bodies can wake up, DeGregori said. The body responds to an infection with inflammation to kill the virus, which helps the cancer cells, he said.

“It’s kind of like collateral damage,” he said.

Drugs exist that could block one specific molecule that ramps up inflammation, but they also suppress the immune system, which is a problem when the patient has a serious infection, DeGregori said.

“You have to balance the good it does with the bad it does,” he said.

The researchers didn’t have enough data to know whether people with more-severe cases of COVID-19 were more likely to die from their cancer, DeGregori said. They also couldn’t tell if flu infections had a similar effect, because most people who have the flu don’t seek medical care, he said.

Other questions for future studies include whether the risk is the same for infections with more recent COVID-19 variants and in vaccinated people, and whether other types of infections also can help cancer spread, DeGregori said.

Not all cancer survivors have dormant cells in their bodies, and of those who do, not everyone sees those cells wake up after an infection, DeGregori said. Still, survivors who are worried about their cancer spreading might want to get vaccinated against respiratory diseases and take steps like avoiding sick people, he said.

“We don’t want to scare people, but knowledge is power,” he said. “Anything that could limit the odds of infection should limit the odds of (cancer) awakening.”

Experiments in mice found that genetically modified animals were more likely to have signs of metastatic cancer in their lungs if infected with flu or COVID-19 than engineered mice that researchers didn’t give a virus, said James DeGregori, deputy director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora.

That finding launched an international partnership to determine whether the same thing happened in people, he said.

DeGregori was one of the lead investigators, alongside scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Imperial College London, University College London, University of Connecticut, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the COVID-19 International Research Team, based in Massachusetts.

Two datasets, from the United States and the United Kingdom, both showed a higher risk that cancer survivors with confirmed COVID-19 infections would die from metastatic cancer, compared to survivors who didn’t test positive for the virus.

The British data showed people who tested positive had about twice the risk of those who tested negative, and the American data showed about a 44% increased risk, DeGregori said. A significant number of the U.S. patients never got tested for COVID-19, however, so the risk was likely higher because of cancer deaths in people with missed infections, he said.

The American data only included breast cancer survivors, while the British data included people who were in remission from any type of cancer. The risk of death was highest in the months immediately after an infection.

COVID-19 didn’t directly cause the cancer to spread, but created an environment where dormant cells elsewhere in patients’ bodies can wake up, DeGregori said. The body responds to an infection with inflammation to kill the virus, which helps the cancer cells, he said.

“It’s kind of like collateral damage,” he said.

Drugs exist that could block one specific molecule that ramps up inflammation, but they also suppress the immune system, which is a problem when the patient has a serious infection, DeGregori said.

“You have to balance the good it does with the bad it does,” he said.

The researchers didn’t have enough data to know whether people with more-severe cases of COVID-19 were more likely to die from their cancer, DeGregori said. They also couldn’t tell if flu infections had a similar effect, because most people who have the flu don’t seek medical care, he said.

Other questions for future studies include whether the risk is the same for infections with more recent COVID-19 variants and in vaccinated people, and whether other types of infections also can help cancer spread, DeGregori said.

Not all cancer survivors have dormant cells in their bodies, and of those who do, not everyone sees those cells wake up after an infection, DeGregori said. Still, survivors who are worried about their cancer spreading might want to get vaccinated against respiratory diseases and take steps like avoiding sick people, he said.

“We don’t want to scare people, but knowledge is power,” he said. “Anything that could limit the odds of infection should limit the odds of (cancer) awakening.”

A report issued last month by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services on care for transgender and nonbinary people analyzed 17 studies out of more than 3,400 looking into gender-affirming care — an umbrella term that can include talk therapy, puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries.

They included only analyses of other studies that didn’t include any patients older than 26. Those that examined mental health generally found improvements from gender-affirming care, though with low certainty, because they didn’t include a large enough group, the effects were small, or other factors.

The report had more sweeping conclusions, however, stating that people under 19 with gender dysphoria should receive only psychological therapy, rather than being able to choose puberty blockers or hormone therapy. Gender dysphoria refers to distress when someone’s gender identity and their sex, or the way others see them, don’t match.

Major medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, have endorsed offering the full range of affirming care to appropriate patients, and experts interviewed by The Denver Post agreed that while some patients only need therapy, others benefit from gender-affirming medical care.

The new report comes as the administration ordered providers to stop offering puberty blockers and hormone therapy to anyone under 19, threatening to take away federal funding from hospitals that didn’t comply. A federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order while a legal challenge plays out from four states, including Colorado.

The Trump administration also forbade transgender people from serving in the military, threatened federal funding for schools if they promote “gender ideology,” removed references to LGBTQ health disparities from health websites, ordered the Justice Department to take action to stop trans girls from playing on sports teams with cisgender girls, forbade the issuing of passports displaying the gender trans people identify with, and moved inmates who are trans women into men’s prisons.

Dr. Rae Narr, a nonbinary psychologist in Denver, said the administration’s actions targeting transgender people suggest the government is going to push therapy that attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But, done right, therapy can also be affirming, they said.

“On their face, what they are suggesting is therapy and support for these youth,” Narr said. “When you really look at what they’re suggesting, it’s conversion therapy.”

Conversion therapy, as typically practiced today, looks for a pathological root for someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, Narr said. For example, the practitioner might argue that another condition, such as autism, caused someone to think that they were transgender, or that they wanted to change their gender because of shame about being gay or a history of sexual trauma, they said.

Mainstream medical groups condemn the practice and Colorado banned conversion therapy for minors, though the law faces a challenge at the Supreme Court.

Affirming therapy, in contrast, starts from the position that no identity is right or wrong, Narr said. The goal isn’t to encourage young people to transition, but to help them sort through what would make them comfortable in their bodies and lives, they said.

That can involve talking about how they imagine their adult lives and practical exercises, such as trying on different clothes, Narr said. They also discuss where the young person would feel physically and emotionally safe exploring. For example, someone might go to the next town over to try out going to a store dressed differently, they said.

“I talk to kids a lot about what does it mean to you when you imagine being a boy, or a girl, or something else,” they said.

‘We listen to them’

In 2024, 46% of transgender or nonbinary young people reported seriously considering suicide, and 14% attempted it, according to the LGBTQ nonprofit The Trevor Project.

Those who reported they’d experienced bullying or physical harm because of their gender identity were more likely to report thoughts of suicide, as were those who said their schools didn’t support them.

But the odds of suicide drop when youth report that people in their lives accept them, such as by calling them by their chosen name and pronouns, Narr said.

Dr. Casey Wolf, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at WellPower in Denver, said the field hasn’t agreed to a protocol for treating gender dysphoria, but does have evidence-based therapies for the depression, anxiety or trauma that typically push people to seek help.

Sometimes, those symptoms stem from gender dysphoria or from mistreatment based on someone’s gender identity, but not always, she said.

“We listen to them. We try to understand what their symptoms are,” Wolf said.

While the public is talking about gender identity more than in the past, Wolf said she hasn’t seen an increase in young people experiencing gender dysphoria. Despite the perception that being transgender is trendy, people don’t take on marginalized identities like they change their hairstyles, she said.

Not all trans people experience gender dysphoria, and not everyone who has gender dysphoria decides to transition, said John Mikovits, an assistant professor of nursing who studies care for LGBTQ people at Moravian University in Pennsylvania. Some people may only need emotional support at some points in their life, but may decide to socially or medically transition later, he said.

What the therapist helps the patient work on may also change, Mikovits said. For example, a person who opts to transition may feel relief from gender dysphoria, but needs to learn skills to cope with increased discrimination, he said.

“The treatment is not about curing someone’s transgender or misaligned identity, it’s about affirming that identity and improving their quality of life,” he said.

‘The most basic and easiest thing to do’

Acting as a liaison between kids and parents can also be part of the job.

Young people often struggle to tell their parents what they’re feeling, so the news they’re questioning their gender can feel like it comes out of nowhere, Narr said. Parents also don’t always do the best job explaining their feelings, so confusion or fear for their child’s future can come off as rejection, they said.

“Even if the parents are supportive, it’s reasonable to have some fear and grief” for the life they imagined for their child, they said.

While discussion about affirming care focuses on puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries, just using the right pronouns for someone can be important affirmation, Mikovits said.

“It’s the most basic and easiest thing to do, to refer to people the way they want to be referred to,” he said.

Everyone wants others to see them the way they see themselves, and if that isn’t happening, it can bring shame and hopelessness, Wolf said. When someone says they aren’t wrong or sick because of how they see themselves, that can bring back some hope that the problem is their environment, and they may be able to change it, she said.

“That’s the beginning,” she said.

A report issued last month by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services on care for transgender and nonbinary people analyzed 17 studies out of more than 3,400 looking into gender-affirming care — an umbrella term that can include talk therapy, puberty blockers, hormone treatments and surgeries.

They included only analyses of other studies that didn’t include any patients older than 26. Those that examined mental health generally found improvements from gender-affirming care, though with low certainty, because they didn’t include a large enough group, the effects were small, or other factors.

The report had more sweeping conclusions, however, stating that people under 19 with gender dysphoria should receive only psychological therapy, rather than being able to choose puberty blockers or hormone therapy. Gender dysphoria refers to distress when someone’s gender identity and their sex, or the way others see them, don’t match.

Major medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, have endorsed offering the full range of affirming care to appropriate patients, and experts interviewed by The Denver Post agreed that while some patients only need therapy, others benefit from gender-affirming medical care.

The new report comes as the administration ordered providers to stop offering puberty blockers and hormone therapy to anyone under 19, threatening to take away federal funding from hospitals that didn’t comply. A federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order while a legal challenge plays out from four states, including Colorado.

The Trump administration also forbade transgender people from serving in the military, threatened federal funding for schools if they promote “gender ideology,” removed references to LGBTQ health disparities from health websites, ordered the Justice Department to take action to stop trans girls from playing on sports teams with cisgender girls, forbade the issuing of passports displaying the gender trans people identify with, and moved inmates who are trans women into men’s prisons.

Dr. Rae Narr, a nonbinary psychologist in Denver, said the administration’s actions targeting transgender people suggest the government is going to push therapy that attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. But, done right, therapy can also be affirming, they said.

“On their face, what they are suggesting is therapy and support for these youth,” Narr said. “When you really look at what they’re suggesting, it’s conversion therapy.”

Conversion therapy, as typically practiced today, looks for a pathological root for someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, Narr said. For example, the practitioner might argue that another condition, such as autism, caused someone to think that they were transgender, or that they wanted to change their gender because of shame about being gay or a history of sexual trauma, they said.

Mainstream medical groups condemn the practice and Colorado banned conversion therapy for minors, though the law faces a challenge at the Supreme Court.

Affirming therapy, in contrast, starts from the position that no identity is right or wrong, Narr said. The goal isn’t to encourage young people to transition, but to help them sort through what would make them comfortable in their bodies and lives, they said.

That can involve talking about how they imagine their adult lives and practical exercises, such as trying on different clothes, Narr said. They also discuss where the young person would feel physically and emotionally safe exploring. For example, someone might go to the next town over to try out going to a store dressed differently, they said.

“I talk to kids a lot about what does it mean to you when you imagine being a boy, or a girl, or something else,” they said.

‘We listen to them’

In 2024, 46% of transgender or nonbinary young people reported seriously considering suicide, and 14% attempted it, according to the LGBTQ nonprofit The Trevor Project.

Those who reported they’d experienced bullying or physical harm because of their gender identity were more likely to report thoughts of suicide, as were those who said their schools didn’t support them.

But the odds of suicide drop when youth report that people in their lives accept them, such as by calling them by their chosen name and pronouns, Narr said.

Dr. Casey Wolf, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at WellPower in Denver, said the field hasn’t agreed to a protocol for treating gender dysphoria, but does have evidence-based therapies for the depression, anxiety or trauma that typically push people to seek help.

Sometimes, those symptoms stem from gender dysphoria or from mistreatment based on someone’s gender identity, but not always, she said.

“We listen to them. We try to understand what their symptoms are,” Wolf said.

While the public is talking about gender identity more than in the past, Wolf said she hasn’t seen an increase in young people experiencing gender dysphoria. Despite the perception that being transgender is trendy, people don’t take on marginalized identities like they change their hairstyles, she said.

Not all trans people experience gender dysphoria, and not everyone who has gender dysphoria decides to transition, said John Mikovits, an assistant professor of nursing who studies care for LGBTQ people at Moravian University in Pennsylvania. Some people may only need emotional support at some points in their life, but may decide to socially or medically transition later, he said.

What the therapist helps the patient work on may also change, Mikovits said. For example, a person who opts to transition may feel relief from gender dysphoria, but needs to learn skills to cope with increased discrimination, he said.

“The treatment is not about curing someone’s transgender or misaligned identity, it’s about affirming that identity and improving their quality of life,” he said.

‘The most basic and easiest thing to do’

Acting as a liaison between kids and parents can also be part of the job.

Young people often struggle to tell their parents what they’re feeling, so the news they’re questioning their gender can feel like it comes out of nowhere, Narr said. Parents also don’t always do the best job explaining their feelings, so confusion or fear for their child’s future can come off as rejection, they said.

“Even if the parents are supportive, it’s reasonable to have some fear and grief” for the life they imagined for their child, they said.

While discussion about affirming care focuses on puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries, just using the right pronouns for someone can be important affirmation, Mikovits said.

“It’s the most basic and easiest thing to do, to refer to people the way they want to be referred to,” he said.

Everyone wants others to see them the way they see themselves, and if that isn’t happening, it can bring shame and hopelessness, Wolf said. When someone says they aren’t wrong or sick because of how they see themselves, that can bring back some hope that the problem is their environment, and they may be able to change it, she said.

“That’s the beginning,” she said.

Christine and Joey Gibson are trying everything to get their infant son a new liver: traveling to three different states to list him with transplant centers, begging on social media and even offering a piece of Joey’s liver in a swap if a compatible donor has someone in their life who needs an organ.

The waitlist for a liver from a deceased donor near their home in Arizona is long enough that 10-month-old Stetson likely wouldn’t receive a transplant before his organ failed entirely, Christine Gibson said. His best shot at survival is to find a living donor, but not all hospitals perform that type of transplant for children.

With options running short, the Gibsons are pinning their hopes on Colorado. The state has a hospital that can help them; now they need to find someone willing to give a piece of their liver to a stranger before time runs out.

“It’s only the families that are these little guys’ voices,” Christine Gibson said.

The number of adults and children who need organs consistently exceeds the available supply. While most transplants require a deceased donor, healthy people can donate one kidney and a portion of their liver.

About 400 children and 10,000 adults are waiting for liver transplants nationwide, said Dr. Amy Feldman, medical director of the liver transplant program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

On average, about 10% of babies and 5% of older children die before receiving a liver, she said.

“For children, it’s especially difficult to find organs because they’re small,” Feldman said. “If we had enough organs, we could save all these kids.”

As of Thursday, nine children were waiting for livers in Colorado, though that number can change from day to day, Feldman said. For unknown reasons, the hospital hasn’t received as many offers of all types of organs from deceased donors in recent years, which has caused the list to back up, she said.

In September 2023, Children’s issued a public call for liver donors because of a patient backlog. More than 100 people volunteered, and while not all were healthy enough to donate or opted to go through with the surgery, the hospital matched all 10 waiting children with organs.

University of Colorado Hospital screens people willing to donate a kidney or part of their livers for any health conditions that would make the surgery unsafe. Donors must be adults, but no older than 55, and not have any major health conditions, including obesity.

In most cases, liver donors need to have the same blood type as the recipient, though that requirement doesn’t apply to infants, whose immune systems haven’t developed enough to attack other types.

When the University of Colorado Hospital hears from someone interested in donating a portion of their liver to a stranger, they offer it to pediatric patients first, assuming the donor isn’t too large, Feldman said. Since they can take a smaller piece, the recovery is easier for the donor than if they gave to a fellow adult, she said.

While some children have a donor in their families, that isn’t always an option, Feldman said. Children who are Black or Latino, or are covered by Medicaid, are less likely to have someone who can afford the downtime that comes with liver donation, and lower-income people are more likely to have health conditions that prevent them from donating. Studies of living kidney donation found the same disparities.

In Stetson’s case, multiple family members were willing to give, but had conditions that made them ineligible, Christine Gibson said. She unknowingly carried the same mutation that caused Stetson’s condition — though it hasn’t caused her any symptoms — and Joey’s liver sections were too large to transplant into an infant.

They had hoped Stetson could receive his surgery near their home in Arizona, but Phoenix Children’s Hospital only performed transplants from deceased donors, and their doctor candidly told them the odds he would get a liver before he became too sick for the surgery weren’t good, Gibson said.

So they tried Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which allowed living donors to give to a friend or relative.

When no one they knew proved eligible, they turned to Colorado, because Children’s in Aurora allows altruistic donors to give to patients they don’t know, Gibson said. While a proposed tax credit for donors didn’t make it through the legislative process last year, Colorado law does prevent employers from retaliating against someone who donates an organ, and the state’s paid family leave program could offset some of the financial burden of taking time off to recover.

“I would get on my knees and beg” if that would persuade a compatible donor, she said.

Each center that performs transplants can set its own rules, within the bounds of safety, and most haven’t opted to perform transplants involving donors who don’t know the recipient.

A 2023 study found that half of children’s hospitals with transplant programs used livers from any living donors, and only 46 children received one from someone who didn’t know them between 2014 and 2019.

Initially, hospitals were reluctant to accept organs from a living donor who wasn’t closely tied to someone, because they assumed that the only reasons someone would put themselves through significant surgery for a stranger were that they were mentally ill or had reached a side deal to essentially sell an organ, said Dr. Arthur Matas, a professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota.

Over time, though, the research bore out that people who volunteered to give a kidney or part of their liver were as mentally healthy as anyone and more altruistic than the average person, he said.

“The transplant community started realizing people would do that out of the goodness of their heart,” Matas said.

Last year, Children’s Hospital Colorado performed 22 liver transplants, with about 40% going to kids who live in other states.

The living donor program is one reason, Feldman said, along with a lack of transplant centers in some states and a generally shorter waiting time in Colorado. The hospital helps them to find free lodging and medical flights, but traveling still isn’t an option for everyone, she said.

“We are trying to partner with families to try to make it so it’s not a burden,” she said.

Stetson has a better shot than some kids, because the family’s insurance allowed them to get on multiple waiting lists and they can afford to travel for the surgery and recovery, Gibson said. But even with relative advantages, families are in a vulnerable spot when they have to try to find someone willing to give their child the organ they need to survive.

“I know that I’m not entitled to somebody’s organ, but if somebody would consider it… we could see him take his first steps, and graduate high school,” she said.

Christine and Joey Gibson are trying everything to get their infant son a new liver: traveling to three different states to list him with transplant centers, begging on social media and even offering a piece of Joey’s liver in a swap if a compatible donor has someone in their life who needs an organ.

The waitlist for a liver from a deceased donor near their home in Arizona is long enough that 10-month-old Stetson likely wouldn’t receive a transplant before his organ failed entirely, Christine Gibson said. His best shot at survival is to find a living donor, but not all hospitals perform that type of transplant for children.

With options running short, the Gibsons are pinning their hopes on Colorado. The state has a hospital that can help them; now they need to find someone willing to give a piece of their liver to a stranger before time runs out.

“It’s only the families that are these little guys’ voices,” Christine Gibson said.

The number of adults and children who need organs consistently exceeds the available supply. While most transplants require a deceased donor, healthy people can donate one kidney and a portion of their liver.

About 400 children and 10,000 adults are waiting for liver transplants nationwide, said Dr. Amy Feldman, medical director of the liver transplant program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

On average, about 10% of babies and 5% of older children die before receiving a liver, she said.

“For children, it’s especially difficult to find organs because they’re small,” Feldman said. “If we had enough organs, we could save all these kids.”

As of Thursday, nine children were waiting for livers in Colorado, though that number can change from day to day, Feldman said. For unknown reasons, the hospital hasn’t received as many offers of all types of organs from deceased donors in recent years, which has caused the list to back up, she said.

In September 2023, Children’s issued a public call for liver donors because of a patient backlog. More than 100 people volunteered, and while not all were healthy enough to donate or opted to go through with the surgery, the hospital matched all 10 waiting children with organs.

University of Colorado Hospital screens people willing to donate a kidney or part of their livers for any health conditions that would make the surgery unsafe. Donors must be adults, but no older than 55, and not have any major health conditions, including obesity.

In most cases, liver donors need to have the same blood type as the recipient, though that requirement doesn’t apply to infants, whose immune systems haven’t developed enough to attack other types.

When the University of Colorado Hospital hears from someone interested in donating a portion of their liver to a stranger, they offer it to pediatric patients first, assuming the donor isn’t too large, Feldman said. Since they can take a smaller piece, the recovery is easier for the donor than if they gave to a fellow adult, she said.

While some children have a donor in their families, that isn’t always an option, Feldman said. Children who are Black or Latino, or are covered by Medicaid, are less likely to have someone who can afford the downtime that comes with liver donation, and lower-income people are more likely to have health conditions that prevent them from donating. Studies of living kidney donation found the same disparities.

In Stetson’s case, multiple family members were willing to give, but had conditions that made them ineligible, Christine Gibson said. She unknowingly carried the same mutation that caused Stetson’s condition — though it hasn’t caused her any symptoms — and Joey’s liver sections were too large to transplant into an infant.

They had hoped Stetson could receive his surgery near their home in Arizona, but Phoenix Children’s Hospital only performed transplants from deceased donors, and their doctor candidly told them the odds he would get a liver before he became too sick for the surgery weren’t good, Gibson said.

So they tried Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which allowed living donors to give to a friend or relative.

When no one they knew proved eligible, they turned to Colorado, because Children’s in Aurora allows altruistic donors to give to patients they don’t know, Gibson said. While a proposed tax credit for donors didn’t make it through the legislative process last year, Colorado law does prevent employers from retaliating against someone who donates an organ, and the state’s paid family leave program could offset some of the financial burden of taking time off to recover.

“I would get on my knees and beg” if that would persuade a compatible donor, she said.

Each center that performs transplants can set its own rules, within the bounds of safety, and most haven’t opted to perform transplants involving donors who don’t know the recipient.

A 2023 study found that half of children’s hospitals with transplant programs used livers from any living donors, and only 46 children received one from someone who didn’t know them between 2014 and 2019.

Initially, hospitals were reluctant to accept organs from a living donor who wasn’t closely tied to someone, because they assumed that the only reasons someone would put themselves through significant surgery for a stranger were that they were mentally ill or had reached a side deal to essentially sell an organ, said Dr. Arthur Matas, a professor of surgery at the University of Minnesota.

Over time, though, the research bore out that people who volunteered to give a kidney or part of their liver were as mentally healthy as anyone and more altruistic than the average person, he said.

“The transplant community started realizing people would do that out of the goodness of their heart,” Matas said.

Last year, Children’s Hospital Colorado performed 22 liver transplants, with about 40% going to kids who live in other states.

The living donor program is one reason, Feldman said, along with a lack of transplant centers in some states and a generally shorter waiting time in Colorado. The hospital helps them to find free lodging and medical flights, but traveling still isn’t an option for everyone, she said.

“We are trying to partner with families to try to make it so it’s not a burden,” she said.

Stetson has a better shot than some kids, because the family’s insurance allowed them to get on multiple waiting lists and they can afford to travel for the surgery and recovery, Gibson said. But even with relative advantages, families are in a vulnerable spot when they have to try to find someone willing to give their child the organ they need to survive.

“I know that I’m not entitled to somebody’s organ, but if somebody would consider it… we could see him take his first steps, and graduate high school,” she said.

The studies included in the report, which will help shape the 2025 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, defined moderate alcohol consumption as no more than one drink per day for women and two per day for men. (A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer containing 5% alcohol, 5 ounces of wine, or 1½ ounces of hard liquor.)

All the studies in the report come with some uncertainty: Scientists can’t randomize one group to drink alcohol and another to abstain for years or decades, and people don’t always keep track of how much they drink, said Dr. Ned Calonge, chair of the committee that compiled it and the associate dean for public health practice at the Colorado School of Public Health.

While the research did show lower death rates among moderate drinkers, the committee couldn’t rule out that they were healthier for some other reason, Calonge said.

“I do think that it would be wrong to recommend that someone start drinking for health reasons,” he said. “If a person chooses to drink, they should drink moderately.”

Here are five takeaways from the report:

Heavy drinking is unhealthy

Men who have more than two drinks per day and women who have more than one have a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and “all-cause mortality” — essentially, all causes lumped together and adjusted for age. (While everyone will die of something, excessive drinking increases the odds it will happen prematurely.)

“Any potential decreased health risks (from moderate drinking) are wiped out if a person drinks heavily,” Calonge said.

Moderate drinking might have some benefits…

Both men and women who drank moderately had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who never drank. They also had a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Moderate drinking raises “good” cholesterol, which could explain why people who have one or two drinks a day might be less likely to develop heart disease, Calonge said.

…but not when it comes to cancer

Women who drank moderately had a higher risk of breast cancer than those who didn’t drink at all, and the risk was higher for those who averaged one drink a day than those who drank less frequently.

Alcohol breaks down into substances that can damage DNA when the body metabolizes it, which could explain an increased risk of cancer, Calonge said. The committee couldn’t determine if moderate drinking changes the odds of developing other cancers, he said.

Evidence is still lacking in some areas

One of the committee’s assignments was to determine whether someone’s decision to drink had any effect on their weight and body composition. It couldn’t reach any conclusions, because the underlying studies didn’t account for other differences between people who drink and those who don’t. (For example, maybe the drinkers were more likely to smoke, or a significant number of nondrinkers had a soda habit.)

Controversy isn’t over

A different report, compiled in 2020, came to the opposite conclusion on cardiovascular disease, finding no advantage to moderate drinking. It suggested that men also limit themselves to one drink per day, to minimize their risk of cancer.

Critics of the current report told The New York Times they believed the committee cherry-picked studies that would support benefits from moderate drinking.

The number of studies was small because the committee’s task was to look at evidence since 2010 that compared moderate drinkers to lifelong abstainers, Calonge said. (Comparing current drinkers to people who gave it up for health reasons can make the drinking group look better.)

They used those criteria to exclude studies without knowing which way their results would point, he said.

Ultimately, the field needs more and higher-quality research on moderate drinking, Calonge said.

“I totally reject that (cherry-picking) criticism,” he said. “What I can say is it’s a small snapshot.”

The studies included in the report, which will help shape the 2025 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, defined moderate alcohol consumption as no more than one drink per day for women and two per day for men. (A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer containing 5% alcohol, 5 ounces of wine, or 1½ ounces of hard liquor.)

All the studies in the report come with some uncertainty: Scientists can’t randomize one group to drink alcohol and another to abstain for years or decades, and people don’t always keep track of how much they drink, said Dr. Ned Calonge, chair of the committee that compiled it and the associate dean for public health practice at the Colorado School of Public Health.

While the research did show lower death rates among moderate drinkers, the committee couldn’t rule out that they were healthier for some other reason, Calonge said.

“I do think that it would be wrong to recommend that someone start drinking for health reasons,” he said. “If a person chooses to drink, they should drink moderately.”

Here are five takeaways from the report:

Heavy drinking is unhealthy

Men who have more than two drinks per day and women who have more than one have a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and “all-cause mortality” — essentially, all causes lumped together and adjusted for age. (While everyone will die of something, excessive drinking increases the odds it will happen prematurely.)

“Any potential decreased health risks (from moderate drinking) are wiped out if a person drinks heavily,” Calonge said.

Moderate drinking might have some benefits…

Both men and women who drank moderately had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who never drank. They also had a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Moderate drinking raises “good” cholesterol, which could explain why people who have one or two drinks a day might be less likely to develop heart disease, Calonge said.

…but not when it comes to cancer

Women who drank moderately had a higher risk of breast cancer than those who didn’t drink at all, and the risk was higher for those who averaged one drink a day than those who drank less frequently.

Alcohol breaks down into substances that can damage DNA when the body metabolizes it, which could explain an increased risk of cancer, Calonge said. The committee couldn’t determine if moderate drinking changes the odds of developing other cancers, he said.

Evidence is still lacking in some areas

One of the committee’s assignments was to determine whether someone’s decision to drink had any effect on their weight and body composition. It couldn’t reach any conclusions, because the underlying studies didn’t account for other differences between people who drink and those who don’t. (For example, maybe the drinkers were more likely to smoke, or a significant number of nondrinkers had a soda habit.)

Controversy isn’t over

A different report, compiled in 2020, came to the opposite conclusion on cardiovascular disease, finding no advantage to moderate drinking. It suggested that men also limit themselves to one drink per day, to minimize their risk of cancer.

Critics of the current report told The New York Times they believed the committee cherry-picked studies that would support benefits from moderate drinking.

The number of studies was small because the committee’s task was to look at evidence since 2010 that compared moderate drinkers to lifelong abstainers, Calonge said. (Comparing current drinkers to people who gave it up for health reasons can make the drinking group look better.)

They used those criteria to exclude studies without knowing which way their results would point, he said.

Ultimately, the field needs more and higher-quality research on moderate drinking, Calonge said.

“I totally reject that (cherry-picking) criticism,” he said. “What I can say is it’s a small snapshot.”