By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

Six years ago this month, we were becoming aware of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, later described as the COVID-19 pandemic. It is usually remembered as a sudden viral catastrophe that demanded unprecedented emergency responses. 

With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is equally accurate to describe COVID-19 as a metabolic stress test, one that revealed how profoundly baseline health shaped vulnerability to an acute infectious threat. The virus did not strike populations randomly. It exploited long-standing physiological weaknesses that had accumulated quietly for decades.

Few developments illuminate this reality more clearly than the later emergence of GLP-1 receptor agonists as powerful therapies for obesity, insulin resistance, and related cardiometabolic conditions. These medications were not widely available during the pandemic’s early years, but their rise helps clarify what kind of resilience was missing in 2020, and why emergency medicine alone could not fully compensate for it.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

At the end of 1976, I was deeply unhappy with what I saw when I looked in the mirror in my Evanston, Illinois apartment. I was about 25 pounds overweight. My skin looked pale. I had low energy and poor stamina. 

For someone who had once been a long-distance runner in high school and routinely played long singles tennis matches, it was humbling that I could barely jog a block without getting winded. My clothes were very tight around the waist and starting to look worn, which made me appear heavier than I actually was. For the first and only time in my life, I decided to make a New Years resolution to lose weight and be more fit.  

I also had an external motivation. Two months earlier, I had met the woman I would eventually marry, Joyce McNagny, in court. But I felt that if I asked her out then, I would be rejected because of how I looked and felt. I still would have made the resolution, but looking better for her was certainly a powerful additional impetus to succeed.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

I was recently at a book launch celebrating the life and work of Kevin Speier, a man whose battle with cancer was as much about dignity and resilience as it was about medicine. Kevin passed away in 2017 after a horrific battle with oral cancer. Our son Michael A. Critelli and daughter-in-law Jill Mamey Critelli created two books, Lemons and Ladybugs and Lemons and Ladybugs II. The latter book was the subject of the book launch.

Objective observers have rated both books exceptional. They touch on a number of subjects: how a man who died at age 33 and battled not only the cancer at the end of his life but also various kinds of addiction as an adult still managed to have profound and different effects on those whom he touched in his life (more thoroughly covered in the first book), the challenges and surprising joys of caregiving (his widow Angelina’s Facebook posts are included in both books), and the way he inspired everyone, including the co-authors, to think more positively about the transition from life to death.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

For decades, U.S. food safety assessments have relied on a deceptively simple principle: if the concentration of a food additive is low enough in each product, it must be safe.

This is the logic behind the FDA’s Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) and the industry’s formulation strategies. It assumes that consumers will encounter these ingredients only in modest amounts, spread thinly across a varied diet.

But real life doesn't follow regulatory assumptions.  People don’t consume additives in theoretical units—they consume foods, in real households, in real patterns, driven by marketing, convenience, cost, culture, and habit.

California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recognized this gap and did something paradigm-shifting. Instead of relying on ingredient concentrations, it relied on publicly available real-world consumption data to measure actual exposure. And the results showed that children, the most vulnerable population, were routinely consuming far more synthetic dyes than the FDA’s outdated models ever anticipated.

The lesson is clear: real-world exposure, not theoretical ingredient limits, is the only reliable measure of food safety.

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By Michael J. Critelli | MakeUsWell Newsletter, 

Every holiday season, many of us receive boxes of smoked salmon, artisan bacon, honey-glazed hams, or “old-world” cured meats. We buy them for guests, enjoy them at restaurants, or eat them at someone else’s home. Because they feel traditional, hand-crafted, or premium, we rarely stop to ask: Are these foods healthy? And when labels show “0g sugar” or “no carbs,” the instinct is to assume these foods are relatively harmless.

Science tells a different story.

The real risks of cured, smoked, or marinated meats have nothing to do with whether the sugar, salt, or seasonings remain in the final product. The danger comes from chemical reactions that occur during the curing or smoking process, reactions that permanently change the structure of the meat and create compounds that remain long after the marinade is washed off. Understanding these risks empowers consumers to make better choices without giving up every food they enjoy.

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