Manhunt continues for Texas shooting suspect, foods to help prevent diabetes: 5 Things podcast

 On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Manhunt continues for Texas shooting suspect

A manhunt is ongoing for this weekend's Texas shooting suspect. Plus, Ukraine warns of a spring offensive, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub advises what foods to avoid to help prevent diabetes, a California man is the fifth person in the world in remission of HIV, and USA TODAY Money and Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee gives some tips for preparing to age.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below.This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. 

Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Monday, the 1st of May 2023. Today, the latest after a rural Texas mass shooting. Plus, what food should you eat to avoid diabetes? And we look at some tips to plan financially for elder care later in life.

◆A manhunt expanded yesterday for the suspect in the weekend shooting rampage at a rural Texas home that left five people dead. More than 250 officers, including the FBI and a dozen surrounding law enforcement agencies are now involved in the search for 38 year old alleged suspect, Francisco Oropeza. The shooting took place Friday in the town of Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Houston. Authorities said yesterday they have zero leads on the suspect. They said Oropeza was firing a gun in his yard when neighbors asked him to stop shooting because a young child was trying to sleep. The confrontation then escalated and he allegedly opened fire. Victims range in age from eight to 31. Two victims were found draped over children who survived. All victims are believed to be from Honduras and the suspect is from Mexico, according to authorities. Honduras Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said the consulate in Houston was making contact with the victim's families.

◆A suspected Ukrainian drone over the weekend sparked a massive fire at an oil depot in Russian occupied Crimea. And Ukraine's military warns that yesterday was just the start to a spring offensive. The attack came a day after Russia hit Ukraine with some 20 cruise missiles and two drones killing at least 23 people. Ukraine's military intelligence spokesman said the Crimean strike was God's punishment. Russia has occupied Crimea for nine years. Since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pledged to drive Russian forces out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.

◆Half of the US is at risk for diabetes, so what foods should you avoid to prevent or control it? I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub for some nutritional advice. Hi, Karen.

Karen Weintraub: Hi, how are you?

Taylor Wilson: Good, thanks. Let's start by just talking about glucose. Can you explain what it is and what its role is in diabetes?

Karen Weintraub: So glucose is part of sugar. It's in a lot of foods. If you eat foods that are high in glucose, it spikes your blood sugar, spikes your insulin, and that is what is tied to diabetes. The more you spike your insulin, the less the body can produce insulin when it needs to. And glucose is found in things like white rice, white bread, potatoes, table sugar is about half glucose. And so people with diabetes have long been told to avoid things with glucose. It will spike their blood sugar, spike their insulin levels.

But what this researcher, Dariush Mozaffarian at Tufts, he's a cardiologist and world renowned nutrition expert, what he told me is we also need to think about fructose. Fructose is the other half of table sugar in addition to glucose, and it's found in fruit. And it's fine if you eat it in fruit because it's low doses and it's digested slowly. But in high doses like table sugar, like processed foods or sodas for instance, it triggers the liver to make more fat. And not all fat is created equal. The fat may look ugly in certain places, but it's the fat around the abdomen that really affects your health. And unfortunately, fructose leads to more fat in this dangerous area around the organs of the abdomen. So his point is don't just worry about glucose if you have diabetes or are worried about it, think about fructose also.

Taylor Wilson: And what do we know about protein and diabetes?

Karen Weintraub: Yeah, a lot of people spend too much time trying to get more protein when they don't need it. Most Americans get enough in their diet anyway. Unless you're a bodybuilder, you really don't need to focus on getting protein. You don't need the shakes and the smoothies. Too much protein in the bloodstream has the same effect as too much glucose. It raises insulin levels, turns into fat and is not helpful. I also found it interesting that protein in red meat, he said is harmful in another way. The iron that gives red meat its color can damage the pancreas. And the pancreas is where insulin is made so that can increase the risk for diabetes. So we've all heard about diets like paleo and keto, ketogenic diet. People swear by these things, but they're not necessarily great for people trying to avoid diabetes. They are good because they limit refined starches and sugars, but the unlimited bacon and steaks that some people advocate with those diets are not good for you.

Taylor Wilson: And so does that mean that veganism is a good strategy to help avoid diabetes?

Karen Weintraub: Some people say that, and if you eat sort of the whole food-healthy vegan diet, yes, it's probably good for you. The danger is that potato chips and pizza with fake cheese are also vegan. And so you can have a horrible vegan diet. So if you can replace starches with things like fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, healthy foods like that, that's a good thing. But there's really no need, he says, to cut out dairy and low fat meat.

Taylor Wilson: Karen, I think there are folks out there who think I exercise five times a week. I can just burn off any unhealthy foods that I eat. Is that true as it pertains to diabetes?

Karen Weintraub: There's no question that exercise is a great thing to do and it will help prevent diabetes or keep it under control, but it's not enough. So I think Mozaffarian would say that you also need to eat a healthy diet. You can't just come back and have that big bowl of potato chips after the run.

Taylor Wilson: All right, Karen Weintraub, thanks as always.

Karen Weintraub: Thank you.

◆Taylor Wilson: For two years, he was anonymously known as the City of Hope patient, but Paul Edmonds is now sharing his story to the public. Edmonds navigated HIV for more than three decades and was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018, but a life-saving stem cell transplant at the City of Hope Transplant Center became available thanks to a donor with a rare genetic mutation that makes the body resistant to most strains of HIV. In 2021, Edmonds stopped taking his HIV medication and today the 67 year old is the fifth person in the world in remission of HIV. You can read his full story with a link in today's show notes.

◆Elderly Americans will soon outnumber the young, but too many are unprepared for the financial stresses that can come with eldercare and other costs in old age. USA TODAY Money and Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee explains. Welcome back to 5 Things, Medora.

Medora Lee: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson: Can you just start by telling us how many older people are in the US?

Medora Lee: There are a lot of older people in the US because the biggest generation, which is the baby boomer generation, they are all moving into that age where they're considered seniors, so slowly but surely. And as that group gets older, in about a decade, the older adults in this country will for the first time in US history surpass the number of kids we have, children under 18. And then by 2060, nearly one in four Americans will be 65 and older. The number of 85 and plus will triple, and we will have had half a million people who are in their hundreds because people are living longer too.

Taylor Wilson: Wow. So how expensive then is care for older Americans?

Medora Lee: It's extremely expensive. I mean, Genworth did a survey in 2021. The national media and cost for assisted living is $54,000 a year. A private nursing home room is over $108,000. A basic home health aid that comes five days a week, eight hours a day will cost you over $56,000. And this isn't in my story, but if you have something like Alzheimer's or dementia that is a special category and all of those prices rise even more.

Taylor Wilson: Does health insurance help with any of these costs?

Medora Lee: So, this is something that a lot of people think it would because it seems like it would, but it doesn't at all actually cover long-term care. So health insurance basically just covers short-term care. So if you injure yourself, you need to go to the hospital, maybe you need a little rehab, physical therapy, it will cover things like that. But if you actually need help with everyday living at home or wherever, just bathing and eating and cooking and cleaning and things like that, health insurance does not cover that. So these are pretty expensive things that people don't realize aren't covered by health insurance.

Taylor Wilson: Medora, a lot of older Americans want to stay at home as long as possible late in life. What's some advice experts give to make that a reality?

Medora Lee: You're right. Most older Americans just want to stay home where they're comfortable and there's studies that actually say that that's best place for them. They thrive there because they're comfortable there. They kind of know where everything is. To make it a little bit easier, you can always hire someone to help. Family and friends will just try to do what they can to try to keep people at home. But there are things you can do to make it safer. Putting bars in the showers and tubs, getting an elevated toilet to make it easier for them to sit and stand from the toilet, putting stair lifts on the staircases so they don't have to walk up and down the stairs. And those are things that will cost money, but they're not exorbitantly expensive, especially if you think ahead and you start to spread the costs and make these upgrades and modifications over several years before they're actually needed.

Taylor Wilson: Medora, what can listeners who are hearing all of this do to prepare financially for late in life costs?

Medora Lee: One of the things that you should know is you should, when you do all these things talk to a tax advisor, because some of these things might be deductible. Some of the modifications you make in your home, as well as what I'm about to tell you, that all financial advisors will tell you to look into, look into buying a long-term healthcare insurance plan to help you cover the costs of long-term care if you need to go to your nursing home or assisted living or something. But you have to do it early when you're still healthy in your fifties. Otherwise, the cost of these plans will be extremely expensive. And you just know that if you're a woman, you will probably end up paying more because they tend to live longer and require more years of care.

And some of the very important things to ask when you look at these plans is make sure that they have an inflation rider to protect against inflation, how much they're going to pay out and ask if there's a guaranteed renewal so that they don't just terminate you because you have a health issue. Also, ask them if they have a non-forfeiture benefit so that if something does happen, if the contract is terminated or expires, you might still be able to get some benefit from it. And then the other one to check out is maybe universal life insurance with a long-term care rider or chronic illness rider that will allow you to tap your life insurance early to pay for some of these things.

Taylor Wilson: Great advice, Medora Lee. Thanks as always.

Medora Lee: All right. Thank you so much. Goodbye.

Taylor Wilson: Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week right here, wherever you get your audio. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.