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Mexican-American singer Lila Downs is the product of two distinct cultures. Born in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, she is the daughter of Anita Sánchez, an Indigenous cabaret singer of Mixtec heritage, and Allen Downs, a Scottish-American professor of art and cinematography from Minnesota.

With six Latin Grammys and a Grammy to her credit, Downs is widely regarded as one of the first major artists to bring the music of the Mixtec, a prominent Indigenous group in Mexico, to a global stage. Her versatile repertoire blends folk, jazz, blues, ranchera and hip-hop, reflecting her broad musical range.

“It’s part of my activist side to comment on what is happening,” says Mexican-American singer Lila Downs. (Johnny Castellanos)

From Oaxaca to the Oscars stage

Raised between the Sierra Madre mountains of Oaxaca and the Midwest of the United States, Downs grew up with one foot in each world.

“I was fortunate to grow up in two different places, both socially organized and responsive,” she said during a recent interview from Mexico City.

Today, she divides her time between Oaxaca and Mexico City. This year, Downs, who sings in both English and Spanish, will perform across Mexico, the U.S., Canada and Spain, continuing her mission to amplify Indigenous voices worldwide.

Throughout her career, Downs has used her platform to serve as a global ambassador for Mexican Indigenous culture, advocating for social justice and the preservation of native languages and traditions.

In 1994, she released her first album, “Ofrenda,” a collection of traditional songs from Oaxaca and Mexico, as well as original compositions in Spanish, Mixtec and Zapotec, Indigenous languages of Oaxaca.

By 1999, Downs had signed with Narada Productions, achieving commercial success and international recognition with her album “La Sandunga.” Since then, she has released at least 15 studio albums, though she confesses, “I’ve lost count.”

One of the defining moments of her career came in 2003, when she performed the Oscar-nominated song “Burn It Blue” from the film “Frida” at the 75th Academy Awards, bringing her voice to a global audience.

Her latest album, “Cambias mi Mundo (You Change My World),” marks a return to original material, focusing on her growing interest in the poetic side of music.

“Music has taught me to be more spiritual,” she said. “We can find relief through the soulfulness of music.”

Singer Lila Downs has created a role for herself as a global ambassador for Mexican indigenous culture. (Enrique Levya)

Songs of belonging — and dissent

Given her bicultural roots, Downs is closely attuned to the political climate, particularly the ongoing immigration debate in the United States. She has been vocal in her support of the widespread public protests that have followed immigration crackdowns across the country.

“That makes me very proud,” Downs said about the protests. “But I am very sad as well. We are separating people – it’s something I’ve been singing about for a long time. We’re going back, in a way; I guess it’s something in us as human beings. We are what we know.”

Downs’ activism is also evident in her music. In 2016, she released “The Demagogue,” a bilingual protest song aimed at Donald Trump during his presidential campaign.

“When I take political stances, they heat up on Facebook,” she said.

Her song “Dark Eyes” (2021) comments on race and the invisibility of Indigenous laborers in Mexico, offering a poignant reflection on the experiences of marginalized communities.

“We are all children of immigrants, really,” she added. “No matter how people try to erase it, that’s the truth.”

By J.M. HIRSCH

Online influencers claim the secret to low-calorie rice, pasta and potatoes may be as simple as chilling out.

Are they right? Not quite. But a small yet solid body of science does suggest that chilling these carbohydrate-rich foods after cooking them still could help people slim down.

For several years, wellness and nutrition influencers have promoted a process called retrogradation, urging people to cook, chill, then reheat carbohydrate-rich foods. They say doing so can cut the calories.

Retrogradation is real, but it isn’t quite that simple.

Two kinds of starch

Most of the carbohydrates in these foods — as well as most of the calories — come from starch, of which there are two types: hard-to-digest amylose and easily digested amylopectin. The latter is processed quickly and spikes blood sugar. The former is processed slowly and moderates blood sugar.

Most raw carbohydrates (think uncooked potatoes) are made mostly of the hard-to-digest starch (also called resistant starch), but cooking converts it into the easily digested one. This is why diabetics need to be mindful when eating starchy foods.

Here’s where the influencers get excited. Chilling those cooked foods triggers “retrogradation,” a process that converts easily digested starch back into resistant starch, making it harder to digest even if the food is then reheated.

What does that mean for calories and blood sugar? Here’s what we know:

Studies of how retrogradation influences diet mostly have been small and focused on how consumption of resistant starches influences blood sugar, particularly for diabetics.

Multiple studies since 2015 have found that people who ate rice that was cooked and then cooled had sometimes significantly lower blood glucose levels after eating compared to people who ate freshly cooked rice. Those findings are generally well-accepted.

Less studied is whether retrogradation also reduces the calories available from these foods.

Kind of, says Dr. David Ludwig, an endocrinologist and researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital. “It doesn’t appreciably change the calorie content of that food,” he explained. “(But) it may well affect your hormones and metabolism in a way that makes controlling calories a lot easier.”

Though retrogradation’s effects on calories is neither as direct nor as dramatic as some suggest, it nonetheless has promise as part of healthier eating, Ludwig said.

FILE – A variety of potatoes are displayed in Concord, N.H., on Sept. 29, 2014. (AP Photo/Matthew Mead, File)

Reducing blood sugar spikes and cravings

Eating foods high in resistant starch reduces the surge in blood sugar typically seen after consuming cooked carbohydrates, he explained. And that’s key not only for diabetics.

Studies have shown that those sugar spikes activate the brain’s reward mechanism and trigger cravings, making overeating at snacks and later meals more likely.

Also, those blood sugar surges increase the body’s production of insulin, which not only makes us feel hungry but also prompts the body’s metabolism to store more calories as fat, Ludwig said.

“When the food retrogrades, it digests more slowly,” he said. “It’s going to keep your blood sugar more stable. You’ll have less insulin to drive fat storage and likely have an easier time avoiding overeating.”

So is chilling your pasta, rice and potatoes worth it?

If you eat a diet high in refined starches, chilling can technically mitigate some of their negative impacts. But Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says that to be effective, it would have to be done consistently, and he questions whether that’s practical for most people.

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It also isn’t plug-and-play simple. Retrogradation works better with some grain varieties than others. Some food manufacturers favor varieties of rice, for example, that are naturally low in resistant starch because they cook more quickly. But this information rarely is available to the consumer, so it’s hard to know when chilling makes a difference.

Willett also noted that retrogradation only helps with blood-sugar effects.

“Chilling does not restore the losses of fiber, minerals and vitamins that have been removed in the refining process,” he said.

Better, he said, would be to keep it simple: Substitute minimally processed whole grains cooked as one normally would.

J.M. Hirsch is a food and travel journalist, and the former food editor for The Associated Press.

Amy Lindgren

Second Sunday Series — This is the seventh of 12 columns on career planning post-60, which will appear the second Sunday of each month from September through August.

We’ve been talking since September about different aspects of career planning for the post-60 years; now it’s time to start researching for the kinds of work you might want to do as you grow older.

The goal is to find information, of course, but also to support an element of strategy in your thinking. At a senior age (whatever that might mean), you want to avoid false starts and maximize the “return” on your career choices, which timely research can help you do.

We’ll start by looking at categories and levels of career research, before taking a closer look at one process that’s particularly effective for senior workers: Informational interviewing.

1. Categories of career research

While not definitive, I find the following categories helpful when organizing my own research on a particular line of work.

• Sector. Sectors are broad areas of our economy, such as health care or manufacturing. For individual workers (as opposed to economists), relevant questions might focus on the health of a chosen sector in a particular geographic area. For example, is health care healthy in Minnesota?

• Industry. Industries are slices of sectors. For example, dentistry and pharmaceuticals are part of the health care sector. Workers trying to choose an area of health care might compare different industries for overall growth and opportunity. Which is doing better in Minnesota: Dentistry or pharmaceuticals?

• Profession or role. Professions or roles are types of work in an industry. Dental assistants, front desk receptionists and dental equipment sales are professions or roles in the dentistry industry. Workers interested in dentistry might research the variety of jobs in the field, the education needed for different roles, or areas more likely to have part-time options.

• Company. Companies operate within industries and / or professions. Once a worker has selected a role, it’s time to identify the organizations that use that kind of worker. The top choices can then be researched more deeply for issues such as location or growth opportunities.

• Job. Except for the very smallest organization, companies consist of multiple jobs or roles. Having chosen a place of interest, the worker might delve into specifics: What jobs are available, what are the duties and pay?

Note that I’ve presented these categories from biggest-to-smallest, starting with the broad sector and cascading down to actual jobs one might perform. While this approach implies you’re starting from scratch, it’s more likely you already have several ideas. If so, start your research with the most relevant category. As a guideline, research your initial questions, then extend to encompass a bit more, to guard against being too narrow.

2. Levels of career research

Now to describe three levels or stages of career research, which are different from the categories. When I break down the process this way, I’ll usually illustrate it with an upside-down triangle, divided into three horizontal “slices.”

In this visual, the biggest section of the triangle appears first, at the top. This represents broad-scale, general research. This big-picture information is relatively easy to find, usually with an internet search on government web sites such as ONetOnline.org or CareerOneStop.org.

The second horizontal swath, in the middle of the triangle, represents customized person-to-person inquiry. Having learned what you can from online sources, you now can talk with people in the fields you are considering — a process usually called informational interviewing.

The final section of the triangle, the tippy point it’s standing on, represents experiential discovery. While not everyone needs or uses this level of research, it’s often helpful to “try on” a career through volunteering, internships, apprenticeships and other hands-on experiences.

3. Informational interviewing

Informational interviewing is one of the most effective ways to gain localized, customized and personalized information about a career path you are considering. When you talk to people in the field you’re exploring, you can get the direct answers you need to make better-informed choices.

For example, you might ask general questions such as, “Can you describe a typical day?” but also personal questions such as, “I have caretaking duties that keep me at part-time; is that realistic for this work?”

There are scores of books and online articles on this process, so you won’t lack for guidance. But one thing you might not realize is just how tailor-made and effective informational interviewing is for senior workers. Not only do seniors know more people to talk with, but they’ve built long-term and intensive relationships with other folks who can be good referral points to informational interviews.

In the end, whatever research process you use, you’ll benefit. Research is the engine for career path planning, providing you with information, confidence in your decision, and important networking contacts. These are essential elements for career resilience, which will carry you through any challenges you encounter on your path.

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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.

By Paula Span, KFF Health News

Tamar Abrams had a lousy couple of years in 2022 and ’23. Both her parents died; a relationship ended; she retired from communications consulting. She moved from Arlington, Virginia, to Warren, Rhode Island, where she knew all of two people.

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“I was kind of a mess,” recalled Abrams, 69. Trying to cope, “I was eating myself into oblivion.” As her weight hit 270 pounds and her blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels climbed, “I knew I was in trouble health-wise.”

What came to mind? “Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic!” — the tuneful ditty from television commercials that promoted the GLP-1 medication for diabetes. The ads also pointed out that patients who took it lost weight.

Abrams remembered the commercials as “joyful” and sometimes found herself humming the jingle. They depicted Ozempic-takers cooking omelets, repairing bikes, playing pickleball — “doing everyday activities, but with verve,” she said. “These people were enjoying the hell out of life.”

So, just as such ads often urge, even though she had never been diagnosed with diabetes, she asked her doctor if Ozempic was right for her.

Small wonder Abrams recalled those ads. Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic, spent an estimated $180 million in direct-to-consumer advertising in 2022 and $189 million in 2023, according to MediaRadar, which monitors advertising.

By last year, the sum — including radio and TV commercials, billboards, and print and digital ads — had reached an estimated $201 million, and total spending on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs topped $9 billion, by MediaRadar’s calculations.

Novo Nordisk declined to address those numbers.

Should it be legal to market drugs directly to potential patients? This controversy, which has simmered for decades, has begun receiving renewed attention from both the Trump administration and legislators.

The question has particular relevance for older adults, who contend with more medical problems than younger people and are more apt to take prescription drugs. “Part of aging is developing health conditions and becoming a target of drug advertising,” said Steven Woloshin, who studies health communication and decision-making at the Dartmouth Institute.

The debate over direct-to-consumer ads dates to 1997, when the FDA loosened restrictions and allowed prescription drug ads on television as long as they included a rapid-fire summary of major risks and provided a source for further information.

“That really opened the door,” said Abby Alpert, a health economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The introduction of Medicare Part D, in 2006, brought “a huge expansion in prescription drug coverage and, as a result, a big increase in pharmaceutical advertising,” Alpert added. A study she co-wrote in 2023 found that pharmaceutical ads were much more prevalent in areas with a high proportion of residents 65 and older.

Industry and academic research have shown that ads influence prescription rates. Patients are more apt to make appointments and request drugs, either by brand name or by category, and doctors often comply. Multiple follow-up visits may ensue.

But does that benefit consumers? Most developed countries take a hard pass. Only New Zealand and, despite the decadelong opposition of the American Medical Association, the United States allow direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.

Public health advocates argue that such ads encourage the use and overuse of expensive new medications, even when existing, cheaper drugs work as effectively. (Drug companies don’t bother advertising once patents expire and generic drugs become available.)

In a 2023 study in JAMA Network Open, for instance, researchers analyzed the “ therapeutic value” of the drugs most advertised on television, based on the assessments of independent European and Canadian organizations that negotiate prices for approved drugs.

Nearly three-quarters of the top-advertised medications didn’t perform markedly better than older ones, the analysis found.

“Often, really good drugs sell themselves,” said Aaron Kesselheim, senior author of the study and director of the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law at Harvard University.

“Drugs without added therapeutic value need to be pushed, and that’s what direct-to-consumer advertising does,” he said.

Opponents of a ban on such advertising say it benefits consumers. “It provides information and education to patients, makes them aware of available treatments and leads them to seek care,” Alpert said. That is “especially important for underdiagnosed conditions,” like depression.

Moreover, she wrote in a recent JAMA Health Forum commentary, direct-to-consumer ads lead to increased use not only of brand-name drugs but also of non-advertised substitutes, including generics.

The Trump administration entered this debate last September, with a presidential memorandum calling for a return to the pre-1997 policy severely restricting direct-to-consumer drug advertising.

That position has repeatedly been urged by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has charged that “pharmaceutical ads hooked this country on prescription drugs.”

At the same time, the FDA said it was issuing 100 cease-and-desist orders about deceptive drug ads and sending “thousands” of warnings to pharmaceutical companies to remove misleading ads. Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner, blasted drug ads in an essay in The New York Times.

“There’s a lot of chatter,” Woloshin said of those actions. “I don’t know that we’ll see anything concrete.”

This month, however, the FDA notified Novo Nordisk that the agency had found its TV spot for a new oral version of Wegovy false and misleading. Novo Nordisk said in an email that it was “in the process of responding to the FDA” to address the concerns.

Meanwhile, Democratic and independent senators who rarely align with the Trump administration also have introduced legislation to ban or limit direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads.

Last February, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and two other sponsors introduced a bill prohibiting direct-to-consumer ads for the first three years after a drug gains FDA approval.

King said in an email that the act would better inform consumers “by making sure newly approved drugs aren’t allowed to immediately flood the market with ads before we fully understand their impact on the general public.”

Then, in June, he and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont proposed legislation to ban such ads entirely. That might prove difficult, Woloshin said, given the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling protecting corporate speech.

Moreover, direct-to-consumer ads represent only part of the industry’s promotional efforts. Pharmaceutical firms actually spend more money advertising to doctors than to consumers.

Although television still accounts for most consumer spending, because it’s expensive, Kesselheim pointed to “the mostly unregulated expansion of direct-to-consumer ads onto the web” as a particular concern. Drug sales themselves are bypassing doctors’ practices by moving online.

Woloshin said that “disease awareness campaigns” — for everything from shingles to restless legs — don’t mention any particular drug but are “often marketing dressed up as education.”

He advocates more effective educational campaigns, he said, “to help consumers become more savvy and skeptical and able to recognize reliable versus unreliable information.”

For example, Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz, a late colleague, designed and tested a simple “ drug facts box,” similar to the nutritional labeling on packaged foods, that summarizes and quantifies the benefits and harms of medications.

For now, consumers have to try to educate themselves about the drugs they see ballyhooed on TV.

Abrams read a lot about Ozempic. Her doctor agreed that trying it made sense.

Abrams was referred to an endocrinologist, who decided that her blood glucose was high enough to warrant treatment. Three years later and 90 pounds lighter, she feels able to scramble after her 2-year-old grandson, enjoys Zumba classes, and no longer needs blood pressure or cholesterol drugs.

So Abrams is unsure, she said, how to feel about a possible ban on direct-to-consumer drug ads.

“If I hadn’t asked my new doctor about it, would she have suggested Ozempic?” Abrams wondered. “Or would I still weigh 270 pounds?”

The New Old Age is produced through a partnership with The New York Times.

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.