Tom Brady leading the New England Patriots to the playoffs is a physical wonder at age 42. Its clear to anyone watching him suit up week after week. But its especially impressive to the guy with the locker immediately to Bradys right: Ben Watson.

On Thursday, Watson marveled when presented with the fact that Brady would be playing in his 41st career playoff games Saturday

Thats longer than some peoples career," Watson said. Thats amazing. Im sure he would downplay it, but thats special.

When it comes to longevity in the NFL, there are few who can appreciate what Bradys accomplished like Watson, who turned 39 earlier this season.

Brady has been fortunate to stay in the NFL this long, but Watson wants to make it clear: that sort of longevity doesnt happen by accident. Professional football players are often blessed with great genetics, Watson says, but it doesnt mean much without the will to hone that talent into something great on the field.

When it comes to Brady, few have matched the amount of effort put forth to stay in the game.

Hes put in a tremendous amount of work, physically, mentally, emotionally, to be able to keep doing it over and over and over again, Watson said. One people dont understand sometimes is the stress mentally that playing at this level has on you. A lot of guys, sometimes tap out while their bodies can still probably play. But mentally having to turn it on over and over and over again, under pressure, over and over again, for years after years, burns you out. So to have that competitive stamina that he has is really amazing."

Different guys react differently when it comes to the mental aspect of football. Brady is still going strong. But other guys dont stick around quite as long. Rob Gronkowski is the perfect example. The retired tight end has said he could probably still play in the league. However, he admits that he longer has the competitive fire to go back out there.

Watson said its been special to go out and play with a great leader like Brady in a second go-around -- a decade after his first stint in New England.

Hes the leader on this team, the leader of this organization and its going to be a joy for me to go out on the field with him," Watson said.

As the team head to the postseason, we could be facing the final game in a Patriots uniform for both Brady and Watson. Will either player stick around in New England -- or in the NFL? Its hard to tell at this point.

Brady and Watson have bested the test of time so far. But soon enough, the time to hang it up will come.

They say age is a number and thats kind of true, Watson said. But obviously we all have an expiration date -- of our lives in its entirety and also on our careers. But it doesnt mean you cant do great things as you get older in age and as you get outside whatever the norm is for pro sports and I think hes proven that.

Originally posted here:
Tom Brady playing at 42 shows Patriots QBs amazing mental stamina on top of physical longevity, Ben Watson - MassLive.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The research, which comes from Japan, is based on a animal model. Here scientists pinpointed a gene in mice which appears to influence memory recall at varying times of day. Further examination showed how this gene influences mice to be more forgetful at a time just prior to when they normally wake up.There are various reasons for forgetting soothing. Perhaps we didn't learn a fact properly, or we might have been distracted. There is also a difference between not knowing something and simply not recalling it. Another reason, based on the University of Tokyo research, could be the time of day. In exploring the issue, the scientists examined the memories of young adult male and female mice. To begin with, they allowed the mice to 'learn' by letting the rodents explore a new object for a few minutes. The scientists then analyzed the mice's memory recall by reintroducing the same object at differing times of the day.The study was then repeated using mice with and without BMAL1, which is a protein that regulates the expression of many other genes. This showed how mice trained at a time prior to when they normally wake up did recognize the object, compared with mice examined at their normal waking time.The results also indicated that mice allowed to wake up at their normal time but without BMAL1 had the same pattern of results compared to mice with the protein; however, mice without BMAL1 were found to be far more forgetful just prior to when they normally awake. The scientists think that BMAL1 influences the circadian clock and, in turn, this affects memory recall. The circadian clock organizes the internal and external activities of an animal's body around the 24-hour day. The genetic connection adds further to the complications around the biology of memory recall and forgetting.The research has been reported to Nature Communications. The research paper is headed "Hippocampal clock regulates memory retrieval via Dopamine and PKA-induced GluA1 phosphorylation."

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Forgetfulness is connected to different times of the day - Digital Journal

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The examination room was earnestly retro, with laminated anatomy charts, a model skeleton, and a blood pressure sleeve hanging from a rack, a throwback to Early Times, when doctors treated illnesses.

The doctor smiled. How are we feeling today?

O.K. Roberta reclined into the exam chair. Actually, a little nervous.

Most people are, the doctor said, laying a hand on her arm. Especially with a first child. Behind him the nurse prepared a syringe. Even after all this time, he said, genetic mutation can still sound scary. But our mothers did it, our grandmothers did it. And its the law. Ready?

Roberta nodded. As the needle pierced the side of her abdomen she felt a tingling sensation wash over her, first cool, then increasingly warm. Was her baby experiencing the same thing, she wondered. Where would this rank among the upheavals hed already faced: the sprouting of limbs, the awareness of sound? Then it was over.

The nurse stamped the compliance form. May I have the childs name? she asked.

Roberta turned to her husband. They smiled and answered simultaneously.

Kwame. Landry.

Roberta lovingly patted Donalds arm. Its Landry, she said to the nurse.

Yo, this here is my show, the rapper said, turning up the volume on the 60-inch TV. The members of his entourage lifted their gazes from their iPhones. Airing live, from a Disney backlot ringed with bleachers, a young man in a helmet and jumpsuit was being lowered into a cannon. It was aimed directly at a brick wall, above which a giant clock was suspended, counting down from 12 minutes 7 seconds.

Some people spend their deathday watching the waves roll gently onto the shore, said the TV host. Boooring! Jason, an adrenaline junkie from Scottsdale, has always wanted to be shot out of a cannon. Well Jason, today is your day. Its time for

The Countdown, the audience screamed.

Landry packed up his audio recorder and notebook. Hed done enough celebrity interviews to know when one was over. The rappers publicist apologized.

Its fine. Ive got what I need, Landry said.

Ill see you out. I have another client in the building, the publicist said. They walked toward the foyer of the penthouse. I was happy to hear they were sending you. Its been a while.

The Beyonc profile, Landry said.

The publicist swiped her wrist against a wall panel which then glowed green. The elevator door opened.

I heard she hated it, Landry said, stepping inside.

Not her, the publicist said. But at that level theres opinions involved. You know. Landry nodded.

As the elevator door closed, a screen began playing an ad for destination funerals in Hawaii. Landry muted the sound.

Not a fan? she asked.

Just not for me.

Hey, after the album launches, I get to have a normal life again. You want to have dinner sometime? she asked.

Id love to, but I cant.

I havent said a day yet.

Right. Sorry. Its I mean I cant really

You have a girlfriend.

No.

Youre into guys?

No.

The elevator door opened. As she stepped out, she turned to Landry and smiled. My mistake. I thought you were interested. She walked away confidently as the doors closed.

I am, Landry said.

On the ground floor, the elevator opened once again, and Landry stepped out into a warm spring afternoon. It seemed as if the city had collectively shed its skin, emerging from a winter hibernation. The Citi Bike stalls were empty, a sidewalk cafe seemed to be filled exclusively with smiling couples, and a group of preschoolers exited Central Park unencumbered by down coats and clunky boots.

It was days like this that used to make Landry wonder. Wonder if that same feeling of revitalization and promise existed before the vaccine, when people got old, got sick. Did the uncertainty of death when and how it would arrive make days like this one easier or more difficult to appreciate?

As Landry turned to cross Sixth Avenue, an elderly man riding a unicycle and texting veered into his path. Looking up at the last moment, the old man, wearing a checkered flannel shirt and Dockers, avoided Landry, but not the mailbox. He fell in a heap. Landry and a passer-by rushed over to help.

Are you O.K.? the passer-by asked.

The old man popped up spryly. Im fine, he said.

Landry handed the old man his phone, which now had a spider crack along the length of the screen.

Dammit, the old man said. I mean, thank you.

My cousin fixes screens, said the passer-by. But with a skin-job like that, you can probably swing a new phone. He leaned in for a closer look. Its so realistic. Must have cost a fortune.

Not as much as you think, bro, said the old man. My fiance and I did a cosmetic vacation in Thailand. Half the price youd pay here.

Though he wouldnt have done it himself, even if hed had the means, Landry understood the impulse behind skin-jobs. Before the vaccine, people had obsessed over looking younger, according to historians. It only made sense, Landry thought, that today, with a population of the perpetually young, an equally hefty profit could be had making people look old.

Dude, thats like art, said the passer-by. Be more careful next time. Youre wearing a Picasso.

Landry entered his one-bedroom walk-up. He hung up his jacket on an otherwise empty coat rack, went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It contained an aluminum takeout container of Thai noodles and its plastic cylindrical counterpart with enough beef basil and curry, Landry figured, to make things interesting. He spooned out the remains of each onto a plate and set it in the microwave. From the freezer he pulled out three pints of ice cream, each a different flavor, and arranged them on a serving tray. When the microwave beeped, he added the plate to the tray, carried everything to the living room and turned on the television. The World Health Organizations latest population projections have the sustainability impact factor remaining at level two, the broadcaster said, with the human footprint at just 38 percent. High Commissioner Thabo Jacob called this continued good news for our planet.

Landry muted the sound. He opened his laptop and worked while eating dinner.

Several hours later, the ice cream pints empty, Landry clicked Send on an email to his editor and closed his laptop. He walked to his bedroom and opened the closet. Inside was a single suit, shirt and tie. He lingered a moment over the suit, then undressed, brushed his teeth and lay on his bed. He reached into his nightstand drawer and pulled out a letter, embossed with the seal of the U.S. government. It was the original, mailed to him on his 18th birthday.

Following a salutation and opening that every citizen could recite by heart, it read:

Wilson, Landry Kwame.

ID #325641685

Deathdate: April 16, 2020.

Landry set his bedside clock to countdown mode. It read 16 hours 30 minutes 43 seconds. He swiped his wrist to turn out the lights and went to sleep.

In the barbershop, the blades of the clippers gently buzzed as Landry got his shape-up. The regulars, tossing bon mots above the din of Judge Judy," outnumbered the paying customers by three to one. On this afternoon, Lenny, a shop veteran, was talking about Early Times, and catching flack. Laugh if you want, he said, but before they came up with the vaccine, we had elders to teach the young ones our history. Now, you got kids out here thinking white folks invented the blues.

O.K., conspiracy brother, the barber said. You saying we were better off with high blood pressure? Diabetes? And whats that thing with the toes gout?

You just concentrate on that shape-up, Lenny answered. Or youll have him walking outta here looking like that bucktooth boy from Fat Albert.

The barber sucked his teeth as he handed Landry a mirror. Hows that? he asked.

Thats tight, Landry said.

Whats the occasion? the barber asked, admiring Landrys suit.

Just wanted to change it up, Landry said. He swiped his wrist across the sensor in the armrest. A very generous tip flashed on the barbers screen.

Blessings, brother, the barber said. See you next month?

As always, Landry said.

Landry entered the Final Affairs Building, checked in at the intake counter and found a seat. When his number was called, he entered the interview room.

Sit, the agent said, without looking up from her computer.

Landry sat.

Swipe.

Landry swiped his wrist on the scanner. The agent scrolled through some pages on her screen, then looked Landry up and down.

Any cosmetic alterations? she asked.

No, said Landry.

Do stripes make me look fat? she asked.

Uhhh Landry stammered.

Im joking. Relax. Boy, you should have seen the look on your face. Your deathday and youre worried about a #MeToo demerit. Priceless. Now, just a couple of details to confirm. She looked back at her screen. Housing release is in order. Bank transfer is approved. Assets are all marked for donation, is that correct?

Yes, said Landry.

And your last date of employment was yesterday? she asked.

Landry nodded.

Wow. You must have really loved your job, she said.

Just wanted to tie up some loose ends.

Suit yourself. She smiled and waited.

Oh, right, Landry said, because Im wearing a

Exactly. Gotta keep it fun, I always say. The agent tapped her screen. Ive authenticated your certificate. You should have the upload any second. Just provide your passcode to the funeral director and youre all set.

Thank you, Landry said.

Landry sat in the front row, the funeral program creased in his hand. Where is everybody? he wondered, looking around the room one last time. He rarely attended funeral parties himself these days, but now he regretted each time hed offered his final thoughts to colleagues over Facebook and Twitter rather than in person. Today, he surmised, was karmic justice.

A clock was mounted on the wall, counting down to zero.

20 19.

Standing up, Landry straightened his tie and walked toward the open coffin. At the head of it stood a floral arrangement wrapped by a sash with his picture on it. That wasnt his taste, but hed let the salesman talk him into it just to move the process along. Using the stepladder, he climbed into the coffin, lay down, let out a long breath and closed his eyes. The wall clock counted down:

5 4 3 2 1 0.

A moment later, a single flower petal floated down and landed on Landrys chest.

A woman entered the room. Wearing costume pearls, a sequined dress and a Diana Ross and the Supremes-era beehive hairdo, she looked around, confused. She must have gotten the room number wrong. This certainly wasnt the Best of Motown funeral the modeling agency had booked her for. As she turned to leave, Landrys nose twitched.

Achoo!

The woman shrieked. Landry opened his eyes, sat up and saw the stranger staring at him, slack-jawed.

Umm, this is awkward, he said.

Yeah. It is.

My name is Landry.

O.K. Femi. Im Femi.

Look, I dont know how this happened, Landry said as he stepped out of the coffin.

No. Stop! Femi said. Is this one of those prank shows? She eyed the floral arrangement. Is there a camera hidden in there?

Its not a prank. I dont know what it is. But I do know that Im supposed to be. For the first time, he couldnt bring himself to say the word.

Femi looked at him suspiciously.

Honest. I would never maybe its a timing error, he said, pointing to the wall clock, which now read minus 90 seconds. They say its 100 percent accurate, but nothings 100 percent, right? Maybe its just a few minutes off.

Femi looked around the empty room. So where is everybody, then? she asked.

Landry slumped his shoulders and sighed. I dont know, he said.

Yeah, youre probably right, Femi said. The clock must be off. You should get back inside. You know, before. Her voice trailed off. Landry walked back toward the coffin. Ill stay here until then, she said.

View original post here:
Opinion | Unrequited Love Song for the Panopticon - The New York Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

JACKSON Federal wildlife scientists have put to rest the idea that the late-season elk hunt in Grand Teton National Park draws in and concentrates large numbers of grizzly bears.

Bears, especially residents, do learn to key in on the prehibernation food source of gut piles and gunshot-and-lost elk, and they can amass in numbers in the open hunt area. But the largest influx of grizzlies to the east side of the Tetons actually comes weeks earlier in the fall, when itinerant grizzlies are passing through. Few bears, relatively, remain out of their dens by the time hunters typically are actively killing elk within the park in mid-November, Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team researchers recently concluded.

By the time elk carcasses have accumulated in significant numbers, only a small number of bears may remain active in the areas open to hunting, Study Team Leader Frank van Manen wrote in a recent edition of the academic journal BioOne Complete. Given the lack of other food resources, these remaining bears specialize on elk carcasses, a notion that is supported by telemetry data and observations.

The rest of the Ursos arctos horibilis clans are likely already hibernating. Past research has found that 90% of female bears typically have entered their dens by the end of November, and that hibernating males hit the 90% threshold by the second week of December. (On the flip side, 88% of the bears marked in the study were still out of their dens on Nov. 1.) In recent years Grand Tetons elk hunt, dubbed a reduction program, has wrapped up about a week into December.

Van Manens study, titled Primarily resident grizzly bears respond to late-season elk harvest, was pursued because of the desire of park officials to keep hunters and grizzly bears safe.

Park managers are seeking new, science-based information to help reduce conflict potential, the study says. A key information need is whether the autumn elk harvest attracts grizzly bears into the areas open for hunting.

Co-authors included fellow study team members Mike Ebinger and Mark Haroldson and Grand Teton National Park biologists Dave Gustine and Kate Wilmot.

The biologists, who are also researching other aspects of hunter-grizzly interaction, initially had a hunch that the late-season cow and calf elk hunt would have a magnet effect for Jackson Hole grizzlies.

Contrary to our research hypothesis, temporary movements into the study area occurred between the July-August (no hunt) and September-October (no hunt) primary periods each year, the study says, rather than during the transition from September-October (no hunt) to November-December (hunt).

The magnet effect of a hunting season has been documented by past research focused on the southern boundary of Yellowstone National Park, where grizzlies are drawn out of the park into the adjacent Bridger-Teton National Forests Teton Wilderness, where elk and deer hunting occurs earlier in the year.

To make their determinations, U.S. Geological Survey and National Park Service researchers strategically deployed barb-wired hair snares and culvert-style traps to collect genetic information and estimate numbers of grizzlies in 2014 and 2015. Sample sites were concentrated in a 190-square-mile area in and around the east side of Grand Teton, and specifically near the convergence of known elk migration paths headed toward the National Elk Refuge.

Overall, 31 unique grizzlies were identified: six females and 25 males. Eight of the bears were classified as residents, and almost all of these animals were documented keying in on elk carcasses within the park hunt zone before tucking in for the season. Well-recognized bears such as the grizzly sow known as 399 have been among the animals that have taken advantage of gut piles and carcasses along the southern reaches of her range.

But the majority of the grizzlies marked and 11 had never been identified were classified as transients. Those animals were the primary factor in the overall abundance of bears and were much less likely to stick around late into the year.

Our findings suggest that temporary movement into the study area did occur, van Manens study says, but primarily in the time period prior to the elk hunting season, rather than during the elk reduction program.

Wildlife managers and biologists seek to learn more about the relation of elk and deer hunters and grizzly bears because the clash of the two is often deadly. Preceding the study there were two high-profile incidents: a hunter who was mauled but survived in 2011, and a charging grizzly that was shot and killed in the Snake River bottoms in 2012. Across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 28% of all grizzlies killed by humans over a recent 15-year period were casualties of run-ins with hunters acting in self defense, according to the study.

The researchers did not make any specific recommendations about the park hunt, though they did end by saying that the late timing of the hunt probably reduces conflict. Moreover, the habituated nature of the resident bears may increase their tolerance to hunters, they wrote.

Although continuation of the elk reduction program with the current timing likely represents a scenario with a low relative risk, elk hunters should be aware that encounter risks remain real, as they are anywhere within occupied grizzly bear range, the study says.

Thus, maintaining the status quo regarding the timing of the elk hunt would not diminish the importance of current strategies that are in place to reduce the risk of hunter-bear encounters, such as the requirement to carry bear spray and closure of areas near the Snake River bottoms, the study continues. The timing and location of the elk reduction program are unique, so we caution that our study findings may not apply elsewhere in the ecosystem.

See the original post here:
Grand Teton elk hunt not grizzly lure, officials say - The Torrington Telegram

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

When a patient who would not normally be recommended for CDH1 genetic testing that is, someone without a family history of gastric cancer undergoes genetic testing with a multigene panel that includes detection of CDH1, the results can be difficult to interpret.

Patients may learn that they carry a pathogenic CDH1variant, which is associated with hereditary diffuse gastric cancer syndrome andalthough the gastric cancer risk is unclear in the absence of a family history,this information may lead to a clinician recommending risk-reducing totalgastrectomy.

Total gastrectomy can lead to long-term morbidity, includinghaving dumping syndrome, weight loss, and nutritional and metaboliccomplications.

Therefore, the discovery of an unexpected CDH1 variant on a multigene panel testin the absence of a family history of gastric cancer can create a difficultconundrum for clinicians and patients, the authors of a commentary publishedin the Journal of the National Cancer Institute explained.1

These challenging situations are being increasinglyencountered in practice, the authors revealed, noting that CDH1 isincluded on many commonly ordered cancer-focused multigene panels.

The concern with unexpected CDH1 variants is there areconsiderable uncertainties regarding CDH1variants and their management. Specifically, the degree of gastric cancer riskassociated with CDH1 variants in patients without a family history ofgastric cancer is uncertain. Furthermore, there is uncertainty about thecancer risk of specific CDH1 variants and limited understanding of thefactors that promote progression of small foci of signet ring cell carcinoma todiffuse gastric cancer in CDH1 carriers.

Despite these uncertainties, excluding CDH1 frommultigene panels may not be a long-term solution because of the increased timeand labor burdens imposed on genetic counselors, the authors of a correspondingeditorial wrote.2

Instead, as the commentary authors propose, patients should beinformed of the uncertainties surrounding CDH1 during pretest counseling,as well as told that if a CDH1 variant is discovered, risk-reducingtotal gastrectomy is the near-global recommendation.

References

Go here to read the rest:
Unexpected CDH1 Variants Lead to Uncertainty, Experts Warn - Cancer Therapy Advisor

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Los Angeles, United State,January 2020 :

The report attempts to offer high-quality and accurate analysis of the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market, keeping in view market forecasts, competitive intelligence, and technological risks and advancements, and other important subjects. Its carefully crafted market intelligence allows market participants to understand the most significant developments in the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market that are impacting their business. Readers can become aware of crucial opportunities available in the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market as well as key factors driving and arresting market growth. The research study also provides deep geographical analysis of the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market and sheds light on important applications and products that market players can focus on for achieving strong growth.

Major players profiled in the report

We follow industry-best practices and primary and secondary research methodologies to prepare our market research publications. Our analysts take references from company websites, government documents, press releases, and financial reports and conduct face-to-face or telephonic interviews with industry experts for collecting information and data. There is one complete section of the report dedicated for authors list, data sources, methodology/research approach, and publishers disclaimer. Then there is another section that includes research findings and conclusion.

Get PDF template of Direct-Access Genetic Testing market [emailprotected] https://www.qyresearch.com/sample-form/form/961479/global-Direct-Access-Genetic-Testing-market

This report focuses on the global top players, covered23andMeMyHeritageLabCorpMyriad GeneticsAncestry.comQuest DiagnosticsGene By GeneDNA Diagnostics CenterInvitaeIntelliGeneticsAmbry GeneticsLiving DNAEasyDNAPathway GenomicsCentrillion TechnologyXcodeColor GenomicsAnglia DNA ServicesAfrican AncestryCanadian DNA ServicesDNA Family CheckAlpha BiolaboratoriesTest Me DNA23 MofangGenetic HealthDNA Services of AmericaShuwen Health SciencesMapmygenomeFull Genomes

Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversNorth AmericaEuropeChinaRest of Asia PacificCentral & South AmericaMiddle East & Africa

Market segment by Type, the product can be split intoDiagnostic ScreeningPGDRelationship testing

Market segment by Application, the market can be split intoOnlineOffline

Market Forecasting

Besides short-term and long-term estimations related to the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market, we provide you with demand, consumption, growth, and various other forecasts. We take your specific requirements into consideration and provide you the most applicable forecasts for the market. You can simplify your critical decision-making process using our forecasts on the global market. Our unbiased insights into critical aspects of the market will assist you to strengthen your market position and ensure lasting success in the long run. They will also help you to address the challenges you face in the market when reaching your milestones.

Customized Research

Our analysts are not only experts in preparing accurate and detailed market research reports but also customizing them according to your business needs. We can customize this entire report on the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market and also specific sections such as financial analysis, competitive intelligence, insights and innovation, target market analysis, strategy and planning, and market analysis. Our report customization can cover merger and acquisition screening, IPO prospectus, economic impact analysis, industry benchmarking, competitive landscape, due diligence, and company analysis.

Apart from the sections mentioned above, our report on the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market can be customized keeping in view other aspects such as research and development landscape, patent analysis, product competition, mega trend analysis, marketing mix modeling, go-to-market strategy, technology, B2B survey, and strategic frameworks. Furthermore, you can ask for customization of market scenario analysis, strategic recommendations, market potential analysis, identification of opportunities, market forecasting, market entry, market sizing, market attractiveness, and market segmentation.

Table of Contents

Study Coverage: This is the first section of the report that includes highlights of market segmentation, years covered, study objectives, major manufactures of the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market, and product scope.

Executive Summary: Here, the report sheds light on production, revenue, consumption, and capacity of the market. It also brings to light macroscopic indicators, drivers, restraints, and trends of the market.

Manufacturer Profiles: This section gives broad analysis of key players of the global Direct-Access Genetic Testing market on the basis of different factors such as recent developments, market share, and gross margin. It also provides SWOT analysis.

Production by Region: All of the regions analyzed in the report are studied here based on key factors such as production, revenue, market share, and import and export.

Consumption by Region: Each regional market studied here is analyzed on the basis of consumption and consumption share of the global market.

Market Size by Product: It includes price, revenue, and market breakdown analysis by type of product.

Market Size by Application: It includes consumption, breakdown data, and consumption share analysis by application.

The report answers several questions about the Direct-Access Genetic Testing market includes:

What will be the market size of Direct-Access Genetic Testing market in 2025?What will be the Direct-Access Genetic Testing growth rate in 2025?Which key factors drive the market?Who are the key market players for Direct-Access Genetic Testing?Which strategies are used by top players in the market?What are the key market trends in Direct-Access Genetic Testing?Which trends and challenges will influence the growth of market?Which barriers do the Direct-Access Genetic Testing markets face?What are the market opportunities for vendors and what are the threats faced by them?What are the most important outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Direct-Access Genetic Testing market?

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Link:
Global Direct-Access Genetic Testing outlook by product overview application and regions 2025| 23andMe, MyHeritage, LabCorp - Instanews247

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

I'm the founder and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit launched in Charlottesville, Virginia, that publishes Environmental Health News and engages in scientific research and outreach to help the public and policy makers understand that we have many opportunities to prevent diseases and disabilities that are afflicting our families, friends and neighbors today.

We can accomplish this by acting upon today's scientific understanding that chemical exposures are contributing to those problems.

I'm going to let you in on a scientific reality that is going to transform the chemical enterprise and upend today's unscientific approach to figuring out what's safe and what is not. The safe dose of one of the biggest volume chemicals in the world bisphenol A (BPA)will have to be reduced by at least 20,000-fold.

This calculation is based upon data the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) obtained in an ambitious, roughly $30 million collaborative program called CLARITY-BPA. CLARITY was designed to reconcile differences between traditional regulatory science as practiced by the FDA and results obtained by independent academic scientists funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Many significant effects were observed at the lowest dose tested, including data obtained by the FDA.

That means: Take today's FDA reference dose and divide by at least 20,000.

That's the highest exposure that would be considered safe if regulated according to existing scientific understanding. The chemical would disappear from any uses that bring it into contact with food or drinking water, human skin, or result in it evaporating into the air or melting into water.

And the same would hold for many other chemicals that disrupt hormone signaling, that is, endocrine disrupting chemicals, which have been linked to multiple health impacts including prostate cancer, breast cancer, infertility, diabetes, ADHD and autism.

Maybe not all EDCs would require a 20,000-fold reduction. Perhaps only a 1000-fold. But there are at least several hundred endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in use today that could follow this pattern. All would see greatly heightened restrictions on their uses.

And that represents an existential threat to the chemical industry.

3M made headlines this year for their manufacture and use of PFAS chemicals, which are contaminating water supplies across the U.S. (Credit: Holger.Ellgaard/Wikimedia Commons)

I am not anti-chemical, nor anti-chemist. We need chemicals, including plastics, to make modern civilization work. What we need, however, is to do a much better job at designing the next generation of inherently safer materials, safer than the mix we have today, which has been deployed with far too little attention to its inherent toxicity.

I've spent a significant part of my work over the last decade helping chemists design safer chemicals. I want to help them grab market share in the booming demand for safer materials. I want to help them make money.

Some people claim that chemical regulations stifle innovation. Just the opposite is true. It will require tremendous innovation to move away from hazardous chemicals and toward materials that are safer. It can be done. The scientific knowledge we possess today about what causes chemical harm is deep and wide, so much better than what we knew when hazardous materials in widespread use today were designed. Let's use that knowledge to innovate.

What's the long-term landscape? A series of events and scientific discoveries over the last two decades are revealing that not only have long-standing chemical industry practices harmed people's health, investors taking positions in chemical companies may be exposing their wealth to unexpected and large financial risks.

These risks arise from a core reality of the business of establishing what is safe and what is not: Chemicals are not thoroughly testedif at allfor safety before being released into the market, resulting in widespread if not universal exposure, including to highly vulnerable populations like babies still in the womb. Serious harmful effects often are not detected until decades later.

All too often, as effects are discovered the responsible partywhich made the initial mistake to incorporate a poorly understood chemical in products and take them to global scaledoubles down in efforts to hide or dismiss concerns about safety, using toolkits to manufacture doubt developed by the tobacco and lead industries.

Internal memos obtained through legal discovery reveal that the companies, sometimes decades earlier, had ignored or hidden scientific evidence that raised safety concerns. Three prominent examples emerged in in the past few years alone: Monsanto/Bayer with the Roundup herbicide, Johnson & Johnson with asbestos in its talc baby powder, and 3M and DuPont with their manufacture and use of perfluorinated Teflon-related "forever" chemicals, PFAS.

Thousands of lawsuits are being heard against those companies now. Shareholder values plummet as juries reach decisions. Billions of dollars are at stake. And there will be more.

Monsanto had earned a bad rap for misbehavior with its chemicals for decades. But Johnson and Johnson, 3M and DuPont didn't. They had been widely regarded as good corporate citizens. If even they have laundry this dirty in their past, how many other companies have pursued similar practices? Unquestionably many.

But with the practices so widespread, perhaps the pertinent question is, can any company within this sector be presumed innocent? It's just too common a business practice. It's standard operating procedure.

Another example: Bill Moyers' 2001 documentary Trade Secrets unveiled an early 1970s conspiracy by several seemingly respected chemical companies to hide devastating scientific discoveries about the health risks of vinyl chloride, one of the most important chemicals for the plastics industry. The conspiracy involved Conoco, BF Goodrich, Dow, Shell, Ethyl and Union Carbide, some of the founding fathers of the chemical revolution.

A new weapon against these bad practices has emerged and matured since the tobacco settlements of the late 1980s: the creation of large, searchable databases of internal documents obtained through legal discovery in lawsuits, showing what the companies knew and when they knew it, and also how they conspired with federal agencies to derail needed safety regulations.

The two biggest databases are the Chemical Industry Documents Library at the University of California San Francisco, and ToxicDocs, a similar database of 20 million internal documents dating back as far as 1920, hosted by Columbia University and City University of New York. The UCSF library now includes a large set of documents released by the Attorney General of Minnesota upon settlement of an $850 million suit against 3M last February.

The lawsuits currently underway against Monsanto/Bayer, 3M and Johnson & Johnson will undoubtedly add additional documents that provide yet more evidence of cover-ups that commenced long ago. It already is a positive feedback loop, as new documents add to the body of evidence, which then stimulate more lawsuits.

Financial risks arise for chemical industry investments from a different direction as well: the advance of science demonstrating harm, and the evolution of science to determine what is safe.

The discovery of harm can be slow arrivingsometimes decades after a chemical is first put on the marketbut impacts of harm can nonetheless be devastating.

For example, 3M's and DuPont's forever chemicals (perfluorinated compounds, or PFAS, which degrade very slowly in the environment, if at all) were first used in products in the 1940s. Scientific concerns about them started to appear in the 1990s, although internal documents indicate the companies had known decades earlier. Most of the concerns have been about cancer, low birth weights, immune system function and birth defects.

Last year, a science team in Italy unveiled results revealing a new, different set of adverse impacts, this time on male reproduction. They include decreased penis size, reduced sperm count and structural changes in the reproductive tract, classic signs of endocrine disruption. And the team's research confirmed that the contaminants interfere with testosterone action.

Even without the penis effect, 3M settled that $850M suit with the State of Minnesota. DuPont settled a case in West Virginia for $671 million in 2017 and this month the film Dark Waters starring Mark Ruffalo tells the story of the company's decades-long treachery. New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York have ongoing lawsuits.

As of the end of 2019, research by the U.S. military, the Environmental Working Group and others have documented PFAS contamination in more than 400 sites around the U.S. According to one analysis, 110 million Americans have drinking water contaminated by unsafe levels of these chemicals. This estimate is likely to grow substantially with the discovery of PFAS in artificial turf and leaching therefrom into surface water, and the haphazard disposal of untold tons of artificial turf once it wears out and must be replaced.

Many other suits will unquestionably be filed. And that's just in the U.S. These chemicals have already created furors about public health in Australia and Canada.

Lab materials from the lab of Cheryl Rosenfeld, a University of Missouri professor and researcher who studies BPA. (Credit: Cheryl Rosenfeld)

But if there is an existential threat on the horizon for the chemical enterprise, it's the compelling evidence that two of the most basic assumptions used by regulatory agencies to determine what is safe and what is not are flat out wrong. One assumption is that it's sufficient to examine chemicals one at a time. The second bedrock assumption is that high dose testing can be used to detect low dose effects. These assumptions have underpinned literally every single risk assessment (what's safe and what's not) of a chemical that has ever been done anywhere in the world.

"One at a time" fails because it doesn't acknowledge that no one is ever exposed to just one chemical at a time. We are exposed to hundreds if not thousands.

What does every physician ask a patient for whom the doc is about to prescribe a drug? What medicines are you already taking? That's because chemicals interact. One of the most ridiculous uses of this assumption is perhaps in testing pesticides. The EPA tests the "active" ingredient of a pesticide. Yet the pesticide that is available for purchase is a mixture of dozens of chemicals, many of which are added to the product sold explicitly to ENHANCE THE IMPACT OF THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT.

How can you assess pesticide safety without considering the whole product, not just the active ingredient? You can't.

"High dose testing" falls on the sword of what endocrinologists call "non-monotonicity." Many syllables, but a simple concept: Hormones, and chemicals that behave like or interfere with hormones, do different things at different doses. There are many examples of this in the scientific literature of endocrinology, the study of hormones. This is an anathema to traditional and regulatory toxicology, because that "science" maintains that "the dose makes the poison," which the regulatory agencies interpret to mean "higher doses have bigger effects."

EHN recruited a reporter, Lynne Peeples, to investigate the FDA's execution of the roughly $30 million project to reconcile their conclusions with the work of 14 independent academic labs showing harm at low levels for over a year. The investigation found that the FDA worked to ignore or discredit independent evidence of harm while favoring pro-industry science despite significant shortcomings. Key to their conclusions was rejecting statistically significant non-monotonic patterns in their own data, because, they asserted, the non-monotonic findings were not biologically meaningful. In other words, non-monotonic patterns aren't real.

"The dose makes the poison" seems like common sense, but common sense has failed us many times in the past. Think about quantum physics or plate tectonics. Our understanding of the modern world depends upon the practical implications of those discoveries. Non-monotonicity isn't nearly as revolutionary as those scientific fields, but it is profoundly important for human health. And it is a standard, widely accepted concept in endocrinology and pharmacology. In 2012, the then-Director of NIEHS, Linda Birnbaum, editorialized that non-monotonicity should be the default assumption in the study of EDCs.

While there are multiple molecular mechanisms leading to non-monotonicity, the easiest (but incomplete) way to think about it is this: Hormones and endocrine disrupting compounds turn on one set of genes at one dose, and another at higher. Sometimes the higher dose turns on genes that shut down the genes that were stimulated by the low dose. In this case, the effect of the low dose is not visible when using high doses. It's analogous to the way a thermostat works. If the room is cold, the furnace is on. But when the temperature hits the desired temperature, the thermostat turns the furnace off.

Sometimes the high dose is so high that instead of turning on genes it becomes overtly toxic. Here's an example: doses of one part per billion of a specific endocrine disrupting chemical delivered to an infant rat causes morbid obesity as the animal matures. This is research by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. In contrast, a dose of the same compound 1,000 times higher causes weight loss.

The vital piece of information needed to understand why this invalidates today's chemical safety testing requires understanding how the regulatory tests are performed. The lab doing the safety testing starts at high doses and then delivers lower and lower doses to different test groups. Once they find a dose that no longer causes a difference between the exposed and the control animals, testing stops. They use a series of safety factors, usually dividing that no effect dose by 1,000, to estimate the safe dose.

Seems logical. Seems common sense. If dose X doesn't cause an effect, dose X divided by 1,000 is surely safe. But endocrinology doesn't work that way. That might defy common sense, but it is scientific reality.

And unfortunately, because it seems so logical, the regulatory agencies in standard mode NEVER test at the estimated safe dose. 1,000-fold below? Why bother.

To save money and time, they assume that the dose 1,000-fold lower is safe.

Unfortunately, many published scientific papers now show that doses way below the "no effect" dose can cause serious adverse effects. It isn't that the high doses are safer. They, too, cause problems. It's that the effects are different. The low dose effects are serious toolike morbid obesity and reduced fertility.

Here's the one very practical implication I mentioned at the beginning: If the FDA were to acknowledge statistically significant non-monotonicity in their test of BPAwhich analysis by independent scientists has confirmedthe safe dose of would be reduced by a factor of more than 20,000-fold. BPA would become virtually unusable.

For a webinar from Carnegie Mellon University featuring four of the world's leading experts on BPA explaining this calculation, go here. This webinar contains four presentations all focused on the FDA-NIEHS collaboration called CLARITY-BPA. The presentations work through why CLARITY was launched, what was found by the FDA 'guideline' study (conducted like a standard regulatory test but including low doses), what was found by 14 independent academic laboratories who also were part of CLARITY, and analysis of what it means.

Bisphenol A is one of the plastics industry's most important molecules. Incredibly cheap to make, incredibly abundant in production, incredibly important to the bottom line. Alsoincredibly dangerous to human health.

Removing that one molecule alone would send tectonic signals throughout the chemical enterprise. And yet BPA is but one of at least a hundred or more molecules that have non-monotonic patterns. The replacement chemicals for BPA currently touted as 'BPA-free' are likely to be among them, although many have not been tested. 'BPA-free' does not mean 'safe.'

Non-monotonicity is truly an existential threat to today's chemical enterprise. If that enterprise is to become sustainable, it must embrace this basic endocrinological reality.

Embracing it is a path to reversing today's epidemics of chronic diseases that are driven, at least in part, by chemical hacking of the hormone messaging system by endocrine disrupting compounds.

Pete Myers, is board chair and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences. He is also the founder of EHN, though the publication is editorially independent.

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Looking ahead: Hormone-altering chemicals threaten our health, finances and future - Environmental Health News

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As we race from task to task and juggle lifes responsibilities, many of us strive to calm our minds and feel centered. Practicing meditation and mindfulness can help get us therein fact, the benefits of meditation are plentiful.

Meditation helps people hit the pause button, helping them become more present in a given moment, says Spring Washam, meditation educator and author of A Fierce Heart.

Its like the TV is blaring, and then we turn it off for a moment, and we just take a breath, she says. Meditation is a way that we gain that a sort of calmness and a centeredness and we connect with ourselves in that moment.

Whether its five minutes or 20 minutes, finding time to meditate throughout the day can help you feel happier and more at peace. And, your mind and body will thank you. Meditation offers a wealth of benefits to improve your physical health and well being.

Related: 10 Ways Meditation Can Fix Your Life

1. It lowers cortisol levels. Research shows that mindfulness meditation lowers levels of cortisol, the hormone that causes stress. Reducing cortisol can decrease general stress, anxiety and depression.

2. You can better deal with stress. Meditation brings a sense of calm to the mind and body that can reduce stress, Washam says.

When the mind relaxes and lets go, the body follows, she says. We want our adrenaline and our nervous system to take a break at times, to unplug, to recycle, to rejuvenate.

3. It eases anxiety. Meditation is literally the perfect, portable anti-anxiety treatment, says health coach Traci Shoblom. Taking just a few minutes to close your eyes and do breathing exercises can turn off the mechanisms in your brain that cause anxiety.

4. It reduces depression symptoms. Depression is a series mental health condition often triggered by stress and anxiety. Research suggests meditation can change areas of the brain, including the me center and fear center, that are linked to depression. People who meditate also show increased gray matter in the brains hippocampus, responsible for memory.

5. Youll get a mood boost. Meditation helps you deal with stress, anxiety and difficult situations, which makes you happier and feel better. Were just able to deal with difficult things without letting it affect your mood, Washam says.

6. You can retrain your brain. The brain tends to develop as its used. Meditation may retrain the brain to use the prefrontal cortex, known as the me center, to regulate the amygdala, or fear center, says researcher and author Bracha Goetz.

This means that when faced with a stressor, when we are not meditating, we will have gotten in the habit of using our prefrontal cortex to direct our minds back to think more calmly and clearly focus, rather than letting our impulsive reactions direct us, Goetz says.

7. Its good for your heart. Research shows meditation can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, says Chirag Shah, physician and founder of online healthcare platform Push Health. Meditation positively impacts blood pressure, heart muscle effectiveness and general cardiovascular mortality.

8. It lowers blood pressure. High blood pressure affects about 30% of U.S. adults and is considered a worldwide epidemic that heightens the risk of stroke and heart attack. Meditation may improve blood pressure naturally, without medication, research shows.

9. It enhances serotonin levels. Serotonin is a chemical produced in nerve cells that works as a natural mood stabilizer. When you meditate, youll increase serotonin levels, which Washam says acts like a natural anti-depressant.

10. Youll break bad habits. Whether its smoking or shopping too much, meditation brings awareness to your actions in that moment and help you break the cycle of a bad habit, Washam says.

Most habits form unconsciously, she says, and, Over time, (meditation) brings awareness to what were doing, so were not acting out unconsciously. Mindfulness interrupts the habit.

11. Youll strengthen relationships. Good communication, empathy and respect are the hallmarks of a strong relationship, and meditation helps improve all of those qualities. Creating a deeper connection with yourself makes relationships easier and more fulfilling, Washam says.

The moment I become present, Im available to my partner, to my friends, to myself, she says.

12. It boosts concentration. When so many things are racing through our minds at any given time, it can be tough to concentrate on tasks at work or even hobbies like reading a book. Meditation centers your mind so you can focus on what you need to get done.

13. It helps build inner strength. Weve all been stuck in traffic or in a long, boring meeting and couldnt wait to escape. Practicing meditation and mindfulness helps build inner strength and endurance to calmly get through these situations, Washam says.

It creates an ability to be in the moment no matter how it is, she says. Were just able to be with difficult things without unraveling or letting it affect you.

14. Youll learn to be present. Research shows meditation can decrease brain activity in the default mode network (DMN), the part of the brain that wonders, worries and overthinks, helping us stay in the present, says Adina Mahalli, relationship expert and mental health professional at Maple Holistics.

Meditation promotes being in the present moment and focusing our thoughts, Mahalli says, explaining that meditation works the brain like a muscle. The more you meditate the more easily youre able to snap out of DMN mode and into the present.

15. Youll become comfortable in stillness. These days, most of us are always on the go and rarely take the time to calm down. Meditation can make you feel comfortable with stillness, says Josee Perron, life coach and yoga and meditation teacher.

Weve become accustomed to needing to be on the go all the time, Perron says. But, so much running around doesnt leave any time for stillness, which is the gateway to connecting with your deeper inner self.

16. It helps with brain fog. If you struggle with concentration, forget things easily and have a hard time focusing, you might have brain fog. Its often caused by stress, and a meditation practice can calm your mind and let you focus on your breath so you feel more present.

Meditation cuts through the fog because were waking up in that moment in a way, literally, Washam says. Were stopping the habitual distraction, which has effects in the brain long term.

17. Youll better handle anger. Getting angry is a natural feeling when dealing with difficult people or situations. If you act impulsively, you could make things worse, however. When you meditate, you train your brain to focus on the present, and this can help you learn to control and process your emotions in the moment.

Maybe youre upset, but you slow down and just feel your emotions, Washam says. Just that simple act of turning toward your breath creates a kind of relief in the mind.

18. You can work through grudges. Holding onto anger and reliving past wrongs in your mind takes a toll on the mind and body. To calm these feelings, Washam suggests using STOP, a mindfulnessbased meditation technique, which stands for stopping in the moment, taking a breath, observing your internal feelings and proceeding with your day.

19. Youll live in the moment. Learning to focus and live in the moment is important benefit of meditation, but its easier said than done. Often, our thoughts turn to past events or things we need or want to do in the future, and we seem to forget about the here and now.

20. It helps you cope with pain. Meditation activates areas of the brain that are associated with processing pain, so mindful breathing can help people manage chronic pain, says Megan Junchaya, health coach and founder of Vibe N Thrive. Research shows that even a short amount of meditation can boost pain tolerance and reduce pain-related anxietyand, it could possibly alleviate the need for opioid pain medication.

21. Meditation helps you relax. Learning to simply relax and keep calm under pressure are huge mental and physical health benefits of meditation. Practicing mindfulness can reduce stress and lower blood pressure so youll feel more relaxed.

22. Youll sleep better. Most Americans dont get enough sleep, and its tough to get through the day when youre exhausted. Its also bad for your health. When you meditate, you may find yourself drifting off to sleep more easily and getting better quality sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

Related: 5 Mental Health Influencers Explain Why Meditation for Sleep Really Works

23. It helps with insomnia. If you have a sleep disorder, like insomnia, meditation can be especially helpful. It reduces anxiety and retrains the brain to slow down and respond differently to stressors.

24. But, you may not need as much sleep. Meditation is not a sleep replacement, and we all need our eight hours. But, when long-term meditation practitioners spent several hours meditating, they experienced a significant drop in sleep time compared to those who dont meditate, according to a 2010 study published in Behavioral and Brain Functions.

25. Meditation teaches you to self-soothe. You will learn to work through anxiety, anger and other problems so that you dont turn to unhealthy behaviors, like drugs or alcohol, to self-soothe.

26. Youll become your own cheerleader. Meditation acts as a support system to help you through a rough time. Youll realize the value of celebrating your strengths and successes and not worrying so much about any faults or mistakes.

27. It reduces inflammation. Meditations ability to help reduce stress is well known. But, chronic stress creates inflammation in the body, which is linked with heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity, says Paul Claybrook, a certified nutritionist.

28. It adds balance to your life. Finding balancewhether its juggling work and home life, dealing with stress and taking some down timeis vital for our mental health and well-being. Practicing mindfulness and learning to center your thoughts will get you there.

29. Youll be more productive. Bringing more awareness to your day-to-day focuses you on the task at hand, rather than jumping around from one project to anotherand, this increases productivity, says Cory Muscara, founder of Long Island Mindfulness Center.

When were going through our day on autopilot, we miss those quick transition moments from working on a project to scrolling through our friends cat pictures on Facebook, he says. The quicker we catch these transitions, the quicker we can come back to the task at hand, and the more we can get done.

30. It boosts the immune system. Among the many health benefits of meditation is an immune system boost, says Mick Cassell, clinical hypnotherapist and founder of wellness app ThinkWell-LiveWell. Research shows that mindfulness lowers blood pressure and enhances the immune system, making you feel better and maybe even live longer.

31. It improves mental functioning. Practice meditation regularly and youll see a chain reaction that leads to better mental functioning, Cassell says. That can include becoming more relaxed, sleeping better and improving concentration, reasoning, performance and productivity.

32. Youll feel more creative. Meditation helps you dial up your creativity, which you can extend to your daily life, Cassell says. Creativity offers benefits like problem-solving, adaptability and self-confidence.

33. It makes you kind. We all need a little more kindness in our lives, and meditation can do the trick. A type of meditation, called Metta, focuses on a feelings-related practice that promotes kindness, says Stella Samuel, wellness coach at Brandnic.com.

34. It improves memory. Meditation enhances cognitive function, which can be a mood-booster and help prevent memory loss, says Brittany Ferri, occupational therapist and founder of Simplicity of Health.

35. Meditation prevents burnout. As we work longer hours and continue to add to our load of responsibilities, its easy to burn out. Practicing mindfulness-based stress reduction could actually shrink the part of the brain that causes worry and fear, and strengthens the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for personality development, research suggests.

36. Youll have a spiritual awakening. Meditation takes us to a place deep inside ourselves, which can bring feelings of love and peace. For some, that could lead to a spiritual awakening.

37. Meditation builds resilience. Focusing on all emotionshappiness, failure and regretlets you observe these feelings and experience a seat of awareness, says Sherrell Moore-Tucker, author and wellness educator.

While sitting with those feelings and experiences, inner strength is cultivated and resilience emerges, she says.

38. Your sex life will heat up. Mindfulness lets you tap into a more authentic, compassionate and honest relationship to sex, says Shauna Shapiro, clinical psychologist and author of Good Morning, I Love You. Studies show practicing mindfulness increases sexual arousal and overall sexual satisfaction, because it enhances your connection with your body.

39. It promotes mindful eating. Our relationship with food can be a complex one, and dieting or overeating can be harmful to our physical and mental health. Mindfulness helps counter your consciousness and reactivity around food, adding to the enjoyment of eating while recognizing hunger cues, Shapiro says.

As we eat mindfully, we are able to listen to the messages of our body, recognizing what foods our body wants, as well as appreciating when we feel hungry and when we become full, she says.

40. Youll become more in tune with your body. Many of us go through the day with a constant dialogue running through our minds. Meditation facilitates a direct experience, or wordless experience of pure sensation, says Brooke Nicole Smith, mindful eating expert and integrative wellness and life coach. This lets you learn to check in with the body.

41. It helps you deal with uncomfortable situations. Getting out of your comfort zone builds strength and leads to personal growth. Meditation teaches you to experience discomfort without freaking out about it, opening the door to new possibilities, where youll feel more comfortable asking for a raise, having a tough conversation or tackling anything else youve been avoiding, Smith says.

42. It could alter gene expression. Research shows that mindfulness-based meditation can lead to molecular changes in the body, which may reduce levels of pro-inflammatory genes. That means you could recover more quickly from stressful situations.

43. Meditation could help fight addiction. Practicing mindfulness lets you better control emotions, thoughts and behaviors, giving you greater control over subconscious habits and addictions, Junchaya says. Research suggests mindfulness-based interventions could treat addictions, including alcohol, smoking, opioids and other drugs.

44. Meditation fosters accountability. Self-exploration leads to self-awareness. Meditation teaches you to own up to actions and behaviors, and stop living in denial or lying to yourself about issues in your life, says Fran Walfish, family and relationship psychotherapist and author of The Self-Aware Parent.

45. Youll make better decisions. Being constantly on the go means we often make impulsive decisions. Since meditation helps you slow down, you can make better decisions and fewer mistakes in your home and work life, says Sadi Khan, fitness research analyst at RunRepeat.

46. It boosts self-esteem. Meditation helps quell negative thoughts, calms the mind and reduces anxiety, helping you feel good about yourself and the decisions you make.

47. Meditation eases loneliness. A study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity showed older adults, who took part in an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program, saw a decrease in pro-inflammatory gene expressionand, this reduced feelings of loneliness.

48. It improves memory. Brief meditation training has been shown to improve visuo-spatial processing, working memory and executive functioning, according to a study published in Consciousness and Cognition. After just four days of meditation training, people showed a stronger ability to pay attention longer.

49. It can alleviate PMS. Headaches, cramps, hot flashes and water retentionmeditation has been shown to relieve symptoms of premenstrual syndrome and change how you perceive period pain, according to a study published in Mindfulness.

50. Meditation may improve arthritis symptoms. Several studies have shown that meditation and mindfulness-based stress reduction can help manage chronic pain, which is welcome news for people living with arthritis. Embracing meditation can help lessen the intensity of pain, enhance functionality and improve mood and quality of life.

51. It changes how the body responds to stress. Stressful situations happen, but meditation helps you manage your reactions to stress. Not only is this good for your health, it can also diffuses stressful moments so they dont escalate.

52. Meditation encourages movement. Meditation fosters a mind-body connection that will encourage you to get up and move. Combined with yoga, tai chi or a casual walk, meditation focuses on being present in your own body and expanding awareness during physical activity, says Lisa Ballehr, an osteopathic physician.

53. It helps you focus. Having trouble focusing on a specific task? Meditation can change that. It could be the simple act of sitting down to a good meal or pushing through a workout session, but the intent is to focus on simply that task at hand and not letting the mind wander, Ballehr says.

54. Youll become more self-confident. Once you learn that you are not your thoughts, you can finally let go of your fears, says Lucile Hernandez Rodriguez, a yoga teacher and holistic health coach. Focusing on your meditation practice helps you find stability, peace of mind and self-acceptance.

55. It promotes emotional stability. Meditation lets you focus on your mind and identify thought patterns, so that you can address them, Rodriguez says. Youll discover healthy ways to deal with your emotions and repressed feelings.

56. Youll perform better. So much focus is on productivity and getting as much done as you can in a day. Meditation can improve performance in all areas of your life. Meditation is commonly used by high-performers in every discipline, as it helps you find your state of flow and truly excel in a task, Rodriguez says.

57. Youll get in touch with your inner voice. When we calm the overactive mind through meditation, we open ourselves up to new feelings and experiences. We are able to tune into and listen to that voice within, our intuition, versus the confusing chitter chatter of our minds stories, says Tara Skubella, an earthing and meditation expert and founder of Earth Tantra.

58. Youll learn to focus your breathing. Breathing is a natural function of the body, of course, but how often do you truly focus on each breath? Meditation provides a space for us to slow and deepen our breath for more oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange, Skubella says.

59. Youll make a mind-body connection. How often do we actually give ourselves permission to feel even the most subtle sensations within the body? Skubella asks. If we listen, our body will let us know what needs to be healed.

Practicing meditation provides a chance to stop and build a relationship with the body.

60. Meditation keeps your brain younger. When you focus on your breath during meditation, youre also giving the brain a boost, says Tara Huber of Take Five Meditation. Research published in the Journal of Cognitive Enhancement shows that regular mindfulness meditation can even slow the aging process and reverse brain aging.

61. It helps you cope with trauma. The death of a loved one or recovering from past abuse can mean dealing with trauma and grief on a daily basis. Meditation can provide emotional safety and focus, so that you can process these feelings, says meditation teacher Colette Coleman.

62. It keeps distractions away. The need for constant multitasking can have our minds scattered. A mindfulness practice pushes away distractions so that you can tackle your to-do list in a calculated way.

63. Youll simplify your life. Living peacefully in the moment not only helps you feel more present, but it relieves the pressure of having to do so much. After we adjust to the challenges of quieting ourselves and letting go of restlessness, we can feel the relief of not having to constantly do, says Connie Habash, psychotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher, and author of Awakening from Anxiety. This realization lets you simplify your life and find joy.

64. Youll feel more alert. Fighting drowsiness and brain fog may be a daily occurrence. Mindfulness training can improve your ability to stay continually alert over a longer period of time, says Keiland Cooper, neuroscientist at the University of California. Research shows that meditation increases activation of the prefrontal cortex, which regulates emotion and attention, and decreases activity in the amygdala, which controls fear.

65. Youll become more patient. Patience is truly a virtue, especially dealing with difficult people. Meditation allows you to become more adept at dealing with mental distractions, maintaining calm in moments of chaos, improving patience levels, increasing your tolerance of others (and yourself), and responding thoughtfully instead of reacting emotionally throughout your day, says Amber Trueblood, a marriage and family therapist and author.

66. Youll be more tolerant of others. It may be tough to see eye-to-eye with difficult co-workers or relatives with differing political views. A regular meditation practice will keep you calm in these instances so you can embrace tolerance. Its an important part of building relationships.

67. Meditation enhances your metabolism. Practicing meditation will likely inspire you to move more or take up yoga or another fitness routine. Research has also shown a link between mindfulness and an enhanced metabolism.

68. It improves digestion. The mind-body balance and reduced stress that youll experience from meditation is great for your digestive system. It could relieve symptoms of indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation and other health issues.

69. Youll have more energy. Maintaining a mind-body connection and reducing stress will give you an energy boost. Meditation helps you feel less weighed down by your emotions and ready to move or take on new projects.

70. Youll have better impulse control. Through practicing mindfulness, youll learn to center your mind and focus on your breath, which helps you control your emotions and impulses.

71. Meditation releases endorphins. The practice of meditation releases endorphins and lowers cortisol levels, making you feel happier and more energetic.

72. Meditation helps curb food cravings. The self-control and stress management that you learn through practicing mindfulness could help curb food cravings and break unhealthy eating habits. It lets you tap into whats driving you to specific foods, Amber Stevens, integrative nutrition health coach and author of Food, Feelings and Freedom.

Meditation lets you master your own mind, so you can pause and ask yourself, Why is this ice cream important, and allow your mind to connect dots, she says, adding that youll be open to explore, not critique, your eating habits.

73. Meditation reduces instances of binge eating. Mindfulness meditation can decrease binge eating and emotional eating, according to a study published in Eating Behaviors.

74. Meditation could help you lose weight. Research has linked meditation to more mindful eating, a boost in metabolism and increased energy levels, which suggests that it could help with weight loss.

75. Youll better understand hunger cues. If you tend to feel peckish in the afternoons, mindfulness could help you get in touch with the real reason why. It may not be actual hunger, says Pamela Hernandez, personal trainer and health coach.

Mindfulness helps get sense how hungry they are and other emotions they are feeling that might lead them to overeat, she says. It creates a more mindful state, which gives you a better chance of pushing away from the table before you reach the stuffed feeling of overeating.

76. It helps you forget about past wrongs. Rather than letting the past define (you), fully surrender to the now and embrace your journey in its entirety without shame or guilt, says AnushaWijeyakumar, wellness coach and meditation and mindfulness educator.

Meditation helps you leave the past in the past and drown out the noise thats preventing you from experiencing inner peace, she says. Youll sever any attachment to past wrongs and move forward.

77. Youll quiet negative thoughts. Learn to let go of the past and crush negative thoughts, which may be holding you back. Replace those negative thoughts with something positive.

Change I am not good enough into I am more than enough, Wijeyakumar says.

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Benefits of Meditation100 Ways Meditation is Good for Your Health - Parade

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Always consult your doctor before undertaking a new diet or fasting routine.This is not medical advice, but it is information you can use as a conversation-starter with your physician or nutritionist.

Fasting has become extremely popular as a tool for weight loss, anti-aging, and longevity, and for its benefits to mental and physical health.

All this can take its toll on your energy levels, affect your mood, and of course, make it more likely youll gain weight.

You may not choose to try intermittent fasting during the holidaysI get it. But its worth a reminder, as we enter the season, that paying attention not only to theWHATof your diet, but also theWHEN, matters for sleep, as well as for your mood, cognitive performance, and overall health.

What is intermittent fasting?

When you practice intermittent fasting, you designate regular, specific times to eat nothing or to consume very few calories. When your body goes into a fasting mode, your digestive system quiets. Your bodyuses this timetorepair and restore itself at a cellular level. Fasting also triggers the body to use its stored fat for energy, making it a potentially effective strategy for weight loss.

The period of nightly sleep is a natural fast we undertake every night, most of us without even realizing thats what were doing. Indeed, a waking fasting state and a sleep state share several characteristics, including a body with cells engaged in repair, and a body that is taking a rest from the demanding work of digestion.

How does intermittent fasting work?

Creating a fasting routine isnt complicated. (But you should always talk with your doctor about making changes to your diet, and before you begin a fasting regimen.) There are a number of routines that are commonly used with intermittent fasting.

Its worth noting that despite all the attention its getting, fasting isnt a new practice. People have used fasting for thousands of years as a cultural, religious, spiritual and health practice.

The health benefits of fasting

A growing body of research shows the potentialbenefits for health and disease protection from intermittent fasting. Fasting can result in weight loss, according to research. Studies showfasting can improve insulin sensitivity, lower inflammation, and improve markers for heart disease including lowering levels of unhealthful LDL cholesterol. Intermittent fasting has been shown to have the potential totreat some cancers, as well asneurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimersand Parkinsons. Theres also evidence that fasting may help reduce the risk of developing cancer.

Time-restricted eating can improve immune function and enhancethe bodys ability to repair cellsand DNA. Fasting induces a cellular process known asautophagy, which is when the body clears itselfof damaged cells, spurring the growth of new, healthy cells. Autophagy is one way the body maintains more youthful, functional cells and protects against disease, by eliminating aged cells that behave dysfunctionally and clearing the body of toxins that build up in older cells.

Intermittent fasting increases the bodysnatural production of human growth hormone. Human growth hormone encourages fat burning and protects lean muscle mass, aids in cellular repair, and may help to slow aging. Fasting can reduce unhealthful inflammation and boost the bodys ability to protect itself against oxidative stress, which is one significant contributor to aging and disease.

The science of fasting and sleep

Eating and sleeping are two fundamental processes that are also deeply entwined. Both are essential for survival. Both are regulated by internal, homeostatic drives and also by circadian rhythms. Many people know circadian rhythms play a big role in regulating sleep. But eating, hunger, and digestion have their own circadian rhythmicity.

Eating and sleeping arent just influenced by circadian rhythms. They alsoexert influences back on those rhythms themselves. An irregular sleeping routine can de-synchronize a well-timed circadian clockand throw daily rhythms off course. Thetiming of meals also affects our circadian clocks and the function of circadian rhythms that exert a powerful influence over our sleep.

A growing body of research indicatesfasting has a strengthening effect on circadian rhythms, helping tokeep circadian clocks synchronized. Because circadian rhythms exert a strong influence over nearly all the bodys processes (as well as most of our behavior), a more robust, synchronized clock has profound effects on health. Well-synchronized clocks support healthy metabolic activity, stronger immunity, andbetter, more restful and restorative sleep-wake cycles. Disrupted circadian clocks are closely linked to aging and disease. Keeping the bodys master bio clock in sync is one criticalway to slow biological aging and potentially extend lifespan.

Other recent research has demonstrated theeffects thatfasting can have directly on sleep, and also on conditions that affect sleep. For example, one study in mice found that a24-hour fasting period, followed by a meal, led to deeper levels of non-REM sleep. Research has shown that fasting may help toreduce chronic pain,elevate mood and decrease inflammationall conditions to which improvements will also benefit sleep.

A lot of people turn to intermittent fasting and to calorie restriction as a means to lose weight. Studies indicate periodicfasting can help with weight loss,including helping to push beyond a weight loss plateau. Its important to note that researchincludingthis 2018 studyshow that even when fasting doesnt lead to weight loss, it canimprove underlying cardiometabolic health,increasing insulin sensitivity, reducing blood pressure and cholesterol, lowering inflammation, bringing appetite under control (including reducing cravings for sugar). Maintaining a healthy weight, protecting cardiometabolic health, and adhering to a healthful diet will all translate into more restful, plentiful, high-quality sleep.

Whether you explore fasting as a practice with the guidance of your doctor or begin to pay more mindful attention to your daily eating patterns, a greater awareness of thewhenof your eating will make you feel and sleep better, right through the holidays and beyond.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., DABSM

The Sleep Doctor

http://www.thesleepdoctor.com

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Should You Try Intermittent Fasting in 2020? - Psychology Today

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Its no surprise that intermittent fasting is one of the most popular types of eating plans. You dont need to measure out food or buy any prepackaged shakes. There are no required weigh-ins or calorie counting. All you really have to do is not eat during certain hours. Its pretty simple.

There are different ways to go about it, of course. Most people do the 16:8 diet, in which you fast for 16 hours and then eat within an eight-hour window. Theres also the 5:2 diet, where you drastically cut back on calories just two days a week, and there are 24-hour fasts, where you dont eat anything one day each month.

Regardless of the method, significantly restricting when you eat can throw your body for a loop and cause a handful of odd side effects. Intermittent fasting may not be suitable for everyone. (People with a history of disordered eating, for example, should definitely avoid it.)

Its important to know what to expect before you jump into any new eating habit. Heres what happens to you mentally, physically and emotionally when youre fasting intermittently.

You might lose weight.

Many health experts, including personal trainer Jillian Michaels, say that intermittent fasting actually isnt that great for weight loss. Thats because youre not necessarily eating less or cutting back on calories. There are just longer gaps in your day when youre not eating at all.

That said, many people do lose weight because they consume fewer calories during those restricted food hours.

Eating for only eight hours a day also makes it less likely that youre having a big meal right before bedtime. Our metabolism goes down when we sleep and we burn fewer calories. Nighttime eating has been linked to both obesity and diabetes.

Intermittent fasting really does keep you from doing some really bad things, which is to eat a big meal before you go to bed, said Dr. John Morton, a bariatric surgeon with Yale Medicine. Big meals before bed are probably the worst thing you can do when it comes to weight loss, he added.

You could get super hungry.

A lot of people who fast experience hunger pangs, mainly when they start the program. Thats because our bodies are accustomed to using glucose a sugar that comes from the food we eat for fuel throughout the day. When its deprived of food (and, therefore, glucose), the body will essentially send signals saying, Hello, arent you forgetting something here?

Once your body gets into the groove of fasting, it will start burning stored body fat for energy rather than glucose. And as you spend more time in a fasted state, your body will get increasingly efficient at burning fat for energy.

In short, those hunger pangs should dissipate and your appetite will level out, Morton said. He added that fasters will ultimately have fewer cravings and hunger pangs the more consistently they fast.

In the meantime, that hungry feeling may drive some people to overeat. The natural tendency is when you havent eaten breakfast, you go, Since I didnt eat breakfast, Im going to eat more [for lunch], Morton noted.

If the hunger pains are bad enough to interfere with your daily life, get something to eat. The idea is not to starve yourself.

jakubzak via Getty Images

Your energy levels and moods will fluctuate.

Research has shown that fasting can cause some people to feel fatigued, dizzy, irritable and depressed.

In the beginning, your energy levels might be low because youre not getting the proper nutrients that you need, said Sharon Zarabi, a registered dietitian and bariatric program director at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

As your body gets used to intermittent fasting, your energy levels will pick back up. Your body becomes more efficient at using energy and this helps improve mood, mental ability and long-term performance, Zarabi said.

Theres even some evidence that suggests intermittent fasting can ultimately help fight depression and anxiety. The body releases a hormone called ghrelin when youre hungry or fasting, which in high amounts has been associated with an elevated mood.

Your gut health may improve.

Many people who partake in intermittent fasting note improved gut health. Fasting gives your gut a chance to rest and reset as your digestive system doesnt have to deal with uncomfortable effects of eating like gas, diarrhea and bloating.

Anytime you fast, youre giving your body a break from trying to metabolize what you just ate, Zarabi said. By fasting, we let the gut microbiome refresh, which in turn improves our overall digestive pathway.

Maskot via Getty Images

You could cut your risk for chronic diseases.

Intermittent fasting has been linked to a lower risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

According to recent research from Mount Sinai, this is because fasting reduces inflammation and reducing inflammation helps our bodies battle various chronic inflammatory diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases. Researchers are still working to figure out how and why this happens, but the evidence so far suggests that the fasting body produces fewer of the subset of monocytes, a kind of blood cell, that are known to damage tissue and trigger inflammation.

This is a big reason why people who fast intermittently may live longer and stay healthier.

Your heart health could improve.

Intermittent fasting can help lower your blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides the type of fat in our blood thats associated with heart disease. That is, if you lose weight in the process.

As long as youre losing weight, youre going to improve all those things, Morton said.

Before you start an intermittent fasting program, health experts recommend meeting with a dietitian or physician. Theres a critical distinction between fasting and starving, and if you ignore that, you could wreck your organs and immune system.

The bottom line: pay attention to your body and eat in a way that works best for you.

Continued here:
This Is Your Body On Intermittent Fasting - HuffPost

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From fights over cannabis, groundwater, and wastewater to tackling homelessness, politics upped the ante on all sides of the debates that raged in San Luis Obispo County this year. The SLO Police Department, Chief Deanna Cantrell, and the city dealt with some scandals that will continue into 2020, and the long-ranging battle over dust at the Oceano Dunes isn't letting up anytime soon. Highway 101 south of Arroyo Grande's left turns were closed to most likely never open again, and the sale of vaping products is starting to get banned in cities along the coast. We don't have the space to touch on everything, but here's a look back at some of the year's highlights.

Camillia Lanham

Rural residents pushed back against cannabis farming in 2019, as San Luis Obispo County slowly began issuing more cultivation land-use permits throughout the year. Several county-approved grows were appealed and/or challenged in court by lawsuits, injecting bad blood and distrust into the process for both sides. Meanwhile, cannabis applicants continued their complaints about the county's slow, cumbersome, and expensive permitting process. By year's end, the conflict brought a new political leader to the fore: Paso Robles vineyard owner Stephanie Shakofsky, who's behind two lawsuits against cannabis projects and is now looking to unseat 1st District SLO County Supervisor John Peschong in the 2020 election.

The nearly decade-old debate over how to best manage the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin continued this year, culminating in the December adoption of a 20-year sustainability plan to satisfy the state's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The basin, a 684-square-mile aquifer, services much of SLO County's agricultural industryso the Estrella-El Pomar-Creston Water District's exclusion from the Cooperative Committee had many farmers upset. While North County supervisors placed an emphasis on pumping cutbacks in the plan, the ag industry complained about a lack of other solutions. The debate peaked in September when the California State Board of Food and Agriculture sent a letter to the county that echoed the concerns of some farmers. In 2020, the state Department of Water Resources will decide whether to approve the plan.

The city of Morro Bay went through more than 50 public meetings and 17 possible locations for its anticipated Water Reclamation Facility before it finally pinned down the site on South Bay Boulevard and Highway 1. Amid opposition from a group of city residents, the California Coastal Commission gave Morro Bay its stamp of approval in July. That didn't stop the Citizens for Affordable Living from petitioning against the city's decision to purchase the project site. The petition stopped the city from buying the land, but it's not stopping the project from moving forward with construction.

The dust still hasn't settled on the controversy over the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, and debates regarding the issue in 2019 were no less contentious than in years past. In July, the California Coastal Commission considered imposing regulations that would have limited off-highway vehicle riding in some portions of the Oceano Dunesactivities that are thought to increase potentially dangerous dust particles emitted by the park. The proposed conditions were reluctantly voted down by the commission after hours of impassioned public comment and State Parks Director Lisa Mangat's repeated promises to commit to dust reduction efforts. But months later in November, after State Parks' failure to complete an adequate work plan for dust mitigation, an Air Pollution Control District hearing board voted to hold State Parks to a slightly more stringent stipulated abatement order. In December, State Parks fenced off 48 acres of riding area in the park to adhere to the new order.

South County was host to uproarious debate for several months in 2019 when 5 Cities Homeless Coalition and Peoples' Self-Help Housing announced plans in March to purchase Hillside Church in Grover Beach and replace it with a homeless services facility. The projectit would have included a housing navigation center and offices, transitional housing for youth, and permanent housing unitsfaced vehement opposition from neighbors to the property, who voiced concerns over safety and transparency. "Right idea, wrong location" was the rallying cry among opponents of the project, and in May, one such rival filed legal documents calling into question the ownership of Hillside Church. Peoples' Self-Help Housing and 5 Cities quickly moved on, purchasing office space at another location in Grover in August and space for supportive housing facilities in Pismo in October.

For nearly seven months, James and Becky Grant, with the help of the community, fought to close the El Campo Intersection on Highway 101 after the death of their son Jordan Grant. The first-year computer science student was killed in a motorcycle crash at the intersection in October 2018. The Grants advocated for the elimination of left turns at four intersections along Highway 101 between Los Berros Road and Traffic Way. After a comprehensive study completed by the San Luis Obispo Council of Governmentsthat brought together the California Highway Patrol, the city of Arroyo Grande, and San Luis Obispo CountyCaltrans agreed to the closures.

In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt stopped in SLO during his famous presidential tour of the West and delivered a short speech in what today is Mitchell Park. While his visit was brief, some locals view it as the birth of the city's environmental movement, and so a group led by former City Councilmember John Ashbaugh hatched a plan to put a statue of Roosevelt in the park. But, by the start of 2019, backlash emerged against the statue. Native tribal groups and political leaders like Mayor Heidi Harmon came out against the idea, condemning Roosevelt's views and policies toward indigenous peoples. The clash spilled onto social media platforms and newspaper opinion pages, with the City Council finally voting in July to amend its public art policy to prohibit any statues of individuals on public property. The council has yet to finalize the policyso stay tuned for that in 2020.

Last year was when most of the Central Coast decided to join Monterey Bay Community Power, a multi-city and multi-county agency based in Monterey that procures power on behalf of residents as an alternative to PG&E. While the cities of SLO and Morro Bay started the wave in 2018, Paso Robles, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, Arroyo Grande, Santa Maria, and Santa Barbara County all jumped on board this year. The transition (which starts this month for the cities that joined in 2018 and won't occur until 2021 for those that joined in 2019) marks the region's first foray into community choice energy, a public electricity model that promises cheaper and cleaner power to consumers. Monterey Bay Community Power formed in 2018 to serve the residents and businesses of Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties and their cities.

San Luis Obispo set one of the most ambitious net-zero emissions targets for a city in the country this year, vowing to take dramatic steps to pursue carbon neutral status by 2035. City staff says the goal is only about 70 percent achievable, but that hasn't stopped elected leaders like Mayor Heidi Harmon from pushing for it. "People won't do small things for small goals," Harmon said recently. "But they will do big things for big goals." SLO's path to net-zero involves a variety of new policies and systemic changes, some of which had already generated controversy in 2019. A new proposed building code to promote all-electric development and disincentivize natural gas infrastructure drew protests from gas workers as well as some residents and policy skeptics. The code is currently on hold pending an investigation into a conflict-of-interest allegation against City Councilmember and local architect Andy Pease, stirred up by the SoCalGas workers' labor union.

Cities throughout San Luis Obispo County saw an increase in their recycling program rates due to an international policy change. China's National Sword policy, which took effect at the beginning of the year, imposes a strict limit on contaminated recyclables. The country's policy change affects what can be tossed in the blue bins across the United States, specifically mixed paper and some plastics that are now labeled as contaminates. The local increase in fees comes from a rise in the number of employees who sort through recycled material. The policy change and increased fees prompted cities to work with local garbage companies to educate residents about what can and can't be recycled.

At the beginning of 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) started looking at the potential of opening up federally-owned land to oil and gas drilling and fracking. By the end of the year, the BLM announced that fracking would cause minimal harm and opened up about 120,000 acres in the county to new oil and gas leases. Meanwhile, at the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on new oil wells that use certain enhanced drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing. The rule will not affect any future proposals for the Arroyo Grande Oil Field currently operated by Sentinel Peak Resources. In 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency finally granted Sentinel Peak the aquifer exemption it needed to potentially expand oil drilling operations in Price Canyon.

It was a rough second half of 2019 for the SLO Police Department, starting in July with Chief Deanna Cantrell leaving her gun behind in the bathroom of El Pollo Loco. A 30-year-old Los Osos man took it home, right before a 10-year-old went in. Cantrell apologized to the community, and the city issued her a two-day suspension and mandatory firearm safety training. A few weeks later, news emerged that on the day the gun went missing, police conducted a warrantless search of a home in pursuit of a lead on Cantrell's weapon, relying on a database that mistakenly showed that the house's owner was on probation. The search resulted in no gun, but in the arrests of the owners on unrelated charges, drawing further scrutiny for the department. In September, a SLO Police Department officer shot and killed a dog in the driveway of its owners' apartment. Police were responding to a false alarm burglary call at the unit when a patrol officer fatally shot 7-year-old Bubs. The incident sparked public outcry and activism that remains ongoing.

Regional water quality regulators finally closed the book on a 20-plus-year investigation into how a cancer-causing chemicaltrichloroethylene (TCE)ended up in the wells of more than a dozen properties near the SLO County Airport. The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board blamed a decades-old local machine shop. The shop denied it and pointed to other possible sources. Airport area residents, meanwhile, berated water board officials for failing to conduct a timely investigation. In 1998, the agency dropped the case for "unknown reasons," picking it up again in 2013. To end the year, residents in the same region got the news that two additional toxic chemicalsperfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)were detected in the groundwater at unsafe levels.

Shocking security camera footage unearthed in April showed an off-duty SLO city building inspector knocking out a Santa Maria woman and attacking her male friend in an Avila Beach bar. The employee, Chris Olcott, committed the seemingly unprovoked assault in 2016but he remained employed by the city through most of 2019. Public outrage in response to the video led to more facts coming to light: In 2018, a jury declined to convict Olcott of a felony, and one juror was reportedly overheard making a racist comment about the victim. The city didn't investigate or discipline Olcott until the video's release, and Olcott ultimately accepted a misdemeanor plea deal and served his two-month jail sentence at a pay-to-stay facility in Southern California. The city announced in September that Olcott was no longer a SLO employee.

In May, Velia Talamantes, Veronica Olivares, and Eulogio Espinoza filed a lawsuit on behalf of themselves and 200 current and former tenants of the Grand View Apartments against the owners, Ebrahim and Fahimeh Madadi, and property manager, Nicolle Davis. The suit accused the property of being insect- and vermin-infested for at least the past four years, having severe mold problems, and dangerous gas and electric lines that render the property uninhabitable. The SLO County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order protecting the tenants of Grand View by requiring the owners to make the complex habitable, refrain from retaliating, and refrain from collecting rent. After eight months of hearings, tenants get their security deposits back and a deadline to leave the premises, as the owners are taking the property off the rental market due to an estimated $2.5 million in repairs. Tenants are now forced to find housing in a city with a vacancy rate of less than 2 percent.

After major spikes in the popularity of vaping among teens, local politicians buckled down on the issue in 2019 despite inaction at the state level. In May, a bill that would have banned flavored tobacco products in California entirely stalled out, but local anti-tobacco programs in Santa Barbara and SLO counties continued pushing for flavor bans locally. Still not a whole lot was accomplished until after June, when the first vaping-related deaths and injuries were reported across the U.S. Both Morro Bay and Arroyo Grande passed ordinances banning the sale of e-cigarette and vaping products on Nov. 12, and Arroyo Grande's ban included a controversial law making it illegal for individuals under 21 to possess e-cigarette products. San Luis Obispo is still considering its own ban on vaping, as is SLO County as a whole.

For years SLO County had only one known physician providing gender-affirming carenoninvasive medical services that transgender and nonbinary individuals sometimes go through to align their bodies with gender identities. Nonbinary residents reportedly waited for months for their initial appointments. That all changed in June 2019, when Planned Parenthood offices on the Central Coast started offering hormone replacement therapy. Then in December, Cal Poly announced it too would offer gender-affirming care to students as a basic medical service covered by student health fees. Both moves were applauded by the local LGBTQ community, which surveys show have disproportionately high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, and unmet needs locally. "It literally saves lives," Cal Poly student Autumn Ford told New Times.

Since President Trump took office in 2016, with a campaign promise of enforcing immigration laws to protect American communities and jobs, the border discussion has loomed over the country. Locally, Latinos have felt the effects of being seen as immigrantsregardless of their citizenship statusbut advocacy groups such as Allies for Immigration Justice and other organizations have stood by the community. The nonprofit aided a woman and her son that fled their country and sought asylum in the United States. The community support continued when former Grover Beach resident Neofita Valerio-Silva was deported in 2018 and barred from returning to the U.S. for 10 years. Cambria resident Courtney Upthegrove's husband Juan Murguia was also barred from returning to his home and she is routinely traveling with their son to visit Murguia in Tijuana, Mexico.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a pair of bills into law in September that would create oversight of medical exemptions for vaccines required by schools and day care centers throughout the state. Senate bills 276 and 714 were written to crack down on doctors who write faulty medical exemptions for children. The statewide legislation met with local opposition from a group of San Luis Coastal Unified School District parents who describe themselves as ex-vaxxers. They asked the San Luis Coastal school board to speak out against the bill. The district must adhere to the law, district representatives told New Times.

Stalking, physical and emotional abuse, outright threats to killJosiah Johnstone has developed quite the list of accusations. At least six separate individuals have been granted restraining orders against Johnstone in SLO County. Some have filed charges, and nearly 30 individuals claim to have been stalked, harassed, or worse by the Atascadero native. Johnstone, who was arrested in 2017, pleaded no contest to a count of stalking and a count of criminal threats in May 2019, caused when he no-showed a sentencing hearing and a warrant was issued for his arrest. A bounty hunter tracked Johnstone down and found him in Nevada, where he was apprehended by law enforcement and brought back to SLO County. During a hearing on Oct. 17, he was ordered to a 90-day mental health evaluation and his sentencing hearing was rescheduled for Jan. 28, 2020.

In November, Mountainbrook Church, a nondenominational community church that's part of the Association of Vineyard USA, sent an email to its congregation announcing that Lead Pastor Thom O'Leary and his wife Sherri O'Leary are on a leave of absence until February 2020. A week later, the church board informed the community that the pastor was on leave due to "credible allegations" of inappropriate behavior and they launched an investigation with a third-party. On Dec. 8, the all-male church board spoke to the congregation to ask for prayer and continued patience during the investigation. In an email to New Times, board member John Waddell stated that new allegations had been raised and the board couldn't disclose any new information.

Lyft is involved in a complaint that claims the ride-hailing company misrepresented the safety of its rides to women and the general public. The complaint filed on July 24, on behalf of three Jane Does (one of whom is a San Luis Obispo local) against Lyft. Inc. and Lompoc resident Jason Fenwick, alleges that the company falsely claimed that its rides were safe and its drivers properly screened. Fenwick (a Lyft driver) was arrested for sexual assault and battery charges after assaulting a female passenger. Alfonso Alarcon-Nunez, an Uber driver and Santa Maria resident, is facing 12 felony charges in multiple incidents where women across the Central Coast say they were sexually assaulted and stolen from while nearly or completely unconscious. A jury trial is scheduled for Jan. 7.

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Battles, scandals, and #MeToo: The riveting and riotous news that made headlines in 2019 - New Times SLO

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Treatment to reverse the effect of an abortion pill is bad news. Such a treatment may put patients at risk for life-threatening bleeding, according to a recent study that tried to evaluate its safety and efficacy. The findings come at a time when many US states have signed an abortion reversal legislation.

The research team had to pull the plug on the study, after seeing that the treatment was endangering women. "I feel really horrible that I could not finish the study. I feel really horrible that the women had to go through all this," the lead researcher Mitchell D. Creinin from the University of California, Davis, told Washington Post.

Abortion pill reversal, which claims to reverse abortion, is unproven. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, "claims regarding abortion 'reversal' treatment are not based on science and do not meet clinical standards".

All of the evidence that we have so far indicates that this treatment is not effective, Daniel Grossman, an OB-GYN and the director of Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research group at the University of California San Francisco, told Vox.

But this has not stopped many organizations around the country to offer the procedure. What is worse, governors in North Dakota, Idaho, Utah, South Dakota, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas, have signed the abortion reversal legislation. The laws are currently blocked or enjoined in Oklahoma and North Dakota, according to the Washington Post.

"These laws mandate that women who receive mifepristone be informed that it may be possible to reverse the effects of the first abortion pill if they change their minds," write the authors of the study in a commentary.

In 2012, Dr. George Delgado, a family medicine physician in San Diego, California, came up with a method to reverse abortion. His treatment is aimed at women who have had their first dose of medical abortion: a procedure that uses medications instead of surgery to end a pregnancy -- but have changed their minds.

Normally, women can terminate abortion by taking two pills. The first one called mifepristone is taken at the doctor's office. After a couple of hours or days, women are asked to take the second pill called misoprostol. This treatment is most effective during the first trimester of pregnancy, claim experts.

A total of 862,320 abortions were provided in clinical settings in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, about 39% of which were medication abortions.

Women who have had mifepristone alone can go back to being pregnant by taking the hormone progesterone, according to proponents of abortion reversal treatment. To prove that his treatment works, Dr. Delgado published a study that included six patients, who were given progesterone injections after taking mifepristone. According to him, four women were able to continue their pregnancies.

In response, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that Delgados 2012 paper, involving just a handful of patients, was not scientific evidence that progesterone resulted in the continuation of those pregnancies. They add that mifepristone is not a standalone treatment to end a pregnancy, as half of patients continue to remain pregnant after taking the drug.

However, say experts from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, when patients combine mifepristone with misoprostol, the procedure works to end a pregnancy about 95-99% of the time. They think that Delgados patients who remained pregnant may have been so, even if they did not receive progesterone injections.

Further, there is no data to prove that taking progesterone after mifepristone or throughout pregnancy is safe, as reversal patients are sometimes advised to do.

To paint a clear picture on the safety and efficacy of the abortion pill reversal treatment, Creinin and his collegaues carried out the study in 40 women who had voluntered to have surgical abortions.

All the women in the study received the first abortion pill, mifepristone. Following this, some women received progesterone, while others were given a placebo, or a control pill. Of the 12 women who enrolled in the study, three of them required ambulance transport to a hospital for treatment of severe vaginal bleeding. The team could not complete the study, as it was too dangerous to put these women through the trails.

Cremin points out that not completing the medical abortion regimen -- taking both pills -- can be dangerous. According to the authors, taking the first pill -- mifepristone -- alone, can lead to complications, including hemorrhage and transfusion.

Its not that medical abortion is dangerous, Creinin tells NPR. It is not completing the regimen, and encouraging women, leading them to believe that not finishing the regimen is safe. That is really dangerous.

The study raises safety concerns but could not prove whether the treatment was effective or not. Creinin tells NPR, "Does progesterone work? We do not know. We have no evidence that it works."

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'Abortion reversal' treatments are dangerous and can cause life-threatening bleeding: Study - MEAWW

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Compared to the low-fat craze in the '90s, the ketogenic diet seems to go against all diet logic. Because instead of cutting out fat, you eat large amounts of it for every meal.

And research shows that this diet can be effective and help fight diseases related to obesity. That said, the keto diet is not for everyone. Here's what you need to know.

The ketogenic diet was first introduced in the 1920s as a way to treat epilepsy, a seizure disorder. Medical professionals used the diet for two decades until modern epilepsy drugs were developed and it fell out of favor by the 1950s.

That was it for the keto diet for over half a century. Then, about 15 years ago, the diet reemerged. This time as a treatment for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

But even people who are not obese or have type 2 diabetes have adopted the ketogenic diet at some point, including celebrities like Halle Berry, Vaness Hudgens, and LeBron James.

The way it works is that you eat mostly fat and very few carbohydrates. A typical ketogenic diet consists of 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbs. Compared to the average American diet which is 33% fat, 16% protein, and 51% carbs. On keto, common foods include:

When you follow the keto diet, your body stops relying on carbs as the main source of energy, which sends your body into ketosis. Ketosis is when your metabolism changes to burn fat for energy instead. This can lead to a loss of body fat, which can help prevent or improve medical conditions related to obesity like type 2 diabetes.

That's because, on keto, your body may also become more sensitive to insulin, a hormone that helps balance your blood sugar. A 2017 review of nine studies found that people with type 2 diabetes on a low-carb diet generally could control their blood glucose levels better than diabetes patients on either a normal or high-carb diet.

When following the keto diet, weight loss can vary from person to person, says Jeff Volek, a registered dietitian and professor at Ohio State University. "When people with excess weight start a ketogenic diet, they typically lose about 6 to 8 pounds the first week, then about 1 to 2 pounds per week thereafter," Volek says.

However, some people who go on keto reportedly suffer from some initial side effects including:

The initial weight loss is partly due to losing water weight because you tend to retain less water on a low-carb diet. And some studies suggest that you may not continue to lose weight on keto long-term. Some call this the "keto plateau" which is when you stop losing weight altogether.

Volek says that the keto diet is safe for many people to try and that it may mimic the way early humans ate. However, Volek says that in some cases, you should proceed with caution. "If you have diabetes and are using diabetes medications to control blood sugar, you should work closely with your physician in order to adjust medications appropriately."

The keto diet can be very restrictive and may be difficult for people to stick to, says Little. "The average 'healthy' person probably does not need to follow a keto diet but they could probably benefit from reducing their intake of refined/processed carbohydrates."

Keto isn't necessarily for everyone. Take kids, for example. Nutritionists recently told Insider that putting children or teens on the keto diet or basically any restrictive diet can lead to nutritional deficiencies and eating disorders.

Moreover, keto isn't great long-term if you have, or are at risk of, heart rhythm problems. A large 2019 study, published by the American College of Cardiology, that involved medical records of nearly 14,000 people reported that people who don't consume many grains, fruits, and starchy vegetables for years at a time, are at a higher risk of developing a heart condition called AFib.

Even if you're otherwise healthy, long-term keto could lead to vitamin B and C deficiencies, since many foods rich in these vitamins like beans, legumes, and fruit are also high in carbs. And if you're not getting the right nutrients, keto may actually lead you to gain weight, not lose it.

Bottom line: The keto diet is not for everyone and you should speak with a certified nutritionist before starting it, especially if you have a medical condition that the diet may affect.

Originally posted here:
Everything you need to know about the keto diet - INSIDER

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The start of 2020 marks my ten-year anniversary at Xodus, and Im pleased to say that the future is the brightest and most promising that its been throughout my decade with the company. We have more projects than ever, an engaged positive workforce and a strong desire to help and support both clients and colleagues.

Over the last two years our Scottish team has grown from 140 to more than 200 people. In addition to investing in senior personnel in specialist positions, we have once again taken on a range of graduates as we look to the future.

The recruitment of experts is key when engaging with new and existing clients and of course new energy areas. This means that our capability is not only wider but is becoming much deeper too.

Our new development work increased in 2019 with further projects in the pipeline for 2020. We are now working with more operators than ever with the addition of several new players entering the North Sea market. Its fair to say that theres no such thing as an easy tieback these days but what we do best is guide clients to the most effective solution. Most of our recent work has consisted of highly complex or extremely marginal projects.

As we look longer-term, creating the right energy mix is growing momentum, especially off the back of Offshore Europe in September where it was a major talking point.

The key for the North Sea is keeping the major mature hubs running while new resources and technologies are developed. We have been involved in life extension studies and are looking at effective ways to introduce new power sources. Combining new into old is something we are doing well within the North Sea, purely down to the fact we understand all the components to answer the question fully.

Investment in innovation internally is changing our mindset. We have continued to develop digital solutions for clients as we aim to make their operations more efficient. Our integrity management system, XAMIN, is an example of the uptake of digitalisation by the basin and has now expanded to five UKCS operators, one Dutch sector operator and is branching out from its subsea origins to cover topsides pressure systems, structures, moorings and marine.

Our advisory team is also expecting an increase in activity in 2020 while longer-term, our focus on being a leading energy consultancy is influencing our plans for the next five years as we look at further investment in capability and geography.

Our company values are trust, responsibility and excellence and I think about these every day whether its through recruitment, working with a new client or talking with individuals within Xodus. Its something Ill continue to work to as I approach my second decade.

Andrew Wylie, Operations Director, Scotland and Norway at Xodus Group

View post:
Future looks bright as anniversary approaches - News for the Oil and Gas Sector - Energy Voice

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Wall Street analysts expect that Sealed Air Corp (NYSE:SEE) will report earnings of $0.74 per share for the current quarter, according to Zacks. Three analysts have provided estimates for Sealed Airs earnings. The lowest EPS estimate is $0.72 and the highest is $0.76. Sealed Air reported earnings of $0.75 per share in the same quarter last year, which indicates a negative year-over-year growth rate of 1.3%. The business is scheduled to announce its next quarterly earnings report on Thursday, February 6th.

On average, analysts expect that Sealed Air will report full-year earnings of $2.78 per share for the current financial year, with EPS estimates ranging from $2.75 to $2.80. For the next financial year, analysts expect that the firm will post earnings of $3.00 per share, with EPS estimates ranging from $2.82 to $3.20. Zacks Investment Researchs EPS calculations are an average based on a survey of sell-side analysts that follow Sealed Air.

Sealed Air (NYSE:SEE) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The industrial products company reported $0.64 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts consensus estimates of $0.62 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $1.22 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.23 billion. Sealed Air had a net margin of 7.55% and a negative return on equity of 135.60%. The businesss revenue was up 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.61 EPS.

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Sealed Air from $45.00 to $42.00 and set a neutral rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, October 17th. ValuEngine raised shares of Sealed Air from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research note on Friday. Robert W. Baird reissued a buy rating and issued a $50.00 price target on shares of Sealed Air in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Wells Fargo & Co reissued a hold rating on shares of Sealed Air in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Finally, KeyCorp raised shares of Sealed Air from an underweight rating to a sector weight rating in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. They noted that the move was a valuation call. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. Sealed Air presently has a consensus rating of Hold and a consensus price target of $44.33.

Sealed Air stock opened at $38.87 on Friday. The companys 50 day simple moving average is $38.61 and its 200-day simple moving average is $41.14. The company has a market capitalization of $6.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.43 and a beta of 1.00. Sealed Air has a 1 year low of $34.45 and a 1 year high of $47.13.

In other Sealed Air news, CFO James M. Sullivan acquired 5,000 shares of the companys stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was purchased at an average price of $38.75 per share, for a total transaction of $193,750.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief financial officer now owns 17,028 shares of the companys stock, valued at approximately $659,835. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.53% of the companys stock.

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Doyle Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Sealed Air in the second quarter valued at approximately $40,000. CSat Investment Advisory L.P. grew its holdings in shares of Sealed Air by 34.1% in the second quarter. CSat Investment Advisory L.P. now owns 1,234 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $53,000 after purchasing an additional 314 shares in the last quarter. Penserra Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Sealed Air by 556.0% in the third quarter. Penserra Capital Management LLC now owns 1,804 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $74,000 after purchasing an additional 1,529 shares in the last quarter. Massey Quick Simon & CO. LLC acquired a new position in shares of Sealed Air in the third quarter valued at approximately $96,000. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. grew its holdings in shares of Sealed Air by 51.4% in the second quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 2,894 shares of the industrial products companys stock valued at $124,000 after purchasing an additional 983 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 94.05% of the companys stock.

Sealed Air Company Profile

Sealed Air Corporation provides food safety and security, and product protection solutions worldwide. It operates in two segments, Food Care and Product Care. The Food Care segment offers integrated packaging materials and equipment solutions to provide food safety, shelf life extension, and total cost optimization for perishable food processors in the fresh red meat, smoked and processed meats, poultry, and dairy markets under the Cryovac, Cryovac Grip & Tear, Cryovac Darfresh, Cryovac Mirabella, Simple Steps, and Optidure brands.

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See the article here:
$0.74 EPS Expected for Sealed Air Corp (NYSE:SEE) This Quarter - Riverton Roll

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Fleetwood Macs Stevie Nicks: Did she help to inspire Daisy Jones and the Six?GETTY IMAGES

FICTION

Frankissstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson A trans woman doctor starts an affair with the scientist Victor Stein, who is planning to reanimate the head of a man frozen in a cryonics facility. The recently divorced Ron Lord is marketing talking sex dolls for lonely men. And in 1816 Mary Shelley is plotting a new novel . . . This fast-paced tale has fun with the Frankenstein story.Vintage, 8.99

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid A rocknroll soap opera. The rise and drug-addled fall of a fictional pop group definite shades of Fleetwood Mac told in glorious Seventies detail.Arrow, 8.99

Reasons to be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe Nina Stibbe won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic literature

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Originally posted here:
The best paperbacks coming out in January - The Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Abstract / Synopsis:

Google-Ascension deal ignites private data debate

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet

I was invited to participate in a recent panel about emerging trends in the future of healthcare. Artificial intelligence, telemedicine, gene therapy, and immuno-oncology are all fascinating scientific advances that people like to think about.

As we enter another election cycle, some politicians are calling for dramatic overhauls of the U.S. healthcare system. This includes price controls and European-style, mandatory single-payer governmental insurance (Medicare for All), which suggest the possibility of enormous change in how this huge industry works.

Previously by Dr. McDonnell: The problem with patient reviews

The panel discussion was moving along in a reasonable way and the audience of a few hundred seemed to be listening closely. Each panelist would address the question asked of him or her and the room was otherwise fairly quiet. If the moderator or a panelist inserted a little humor into the discussion, the audience would laugh politely, but that was about it.

Then a question was asked of one of my fellow panelists: There is tremendous interest in many sectors (insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, researchers, etc.) in obtaining and analyzing the healthcare data of large numbers of patients. My question to you is: Who owns that data?

The panelist, an executive of a medical device manufacturer, responded quickly. Patients own their data. After a one-second pause, the audience, previously quiet, burst into loud applause.

People clearly care a great deal about this issue, was my immediate thought.

Related: Hospital closures hurt

The recent revelation about the existence of Project Nightingale and the ensuing uproar were both interesting and predictable. The Wall Street Journal reported that Google began the project in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors offices and other facilities and the second largest health system in the United States.

The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth. Neither patients nor doctors have been notified. At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients.

As I understand it, based on news reports I have read, Ascensions position maintains that analyzing the data using artificial intelligence and machine learning will result in strategies to ultimately improve care of patients. The assertion is that the use of the data for this purpose is legal and ethical, and the companies did not need to secure permission from patients to start mining the data and did not need to inform its doctors that this huge data mining project was under way.

Not everyone else is so sure. According to Ellen Clayton, professor biomedical ethics at Vanderbilt University, the optics are bad.

The legal argument is tenuous, she said. Ethically, this is a bad strategy. They need to tell people what they are doing.

Related: How AI benefits patients and physicians

U.S. senatorsincluding Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who is a physicianare expressing concern about the program, calling for a moratorium or investigation or proposing legislation.

Again, according to The Wall Street Journal, Google wouldnt disclose the financial terms of the deal with Ascension. Nor would it say who at Google is allowed to access the data.

Lets presume the motives of all involved in Project Nightingale are pure. That does not change the fact that Americans do not want their data shared in secret deals. Having this program come to light this way was a mistake by both corporations.

Read more editorials here

References:

1.Googles Project Nightingale Gather Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans. WSJ. Nov 11, 2019

Original post:
Perils of Project Nightingale - Ophthalmology Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Besides telemedicine, other technologies like wearables, robotic surgery and cutting-edge genomic technology will continue to trend in 2020.

Fremont, CA: Telemedicine will be the root cause for the next level of development in the industry. It addresses the basic need of consumers who crave for convenience. The driving force behind ride services like Uber and online shopping from Amazon also come home for health care technology stocks in 2020.

Imagine a scenario where a patient suffers from a severe illness. Telemedicine allows the patient to interact with the doctor virtually from home without needing an appointment. Telemedicine is taking off in a big way with which medicine and care have become a service. They provide the technology to enable remote care. An example would be a remote doctor and patient visit over the phone or internet via videoconferencing. This technology can also lift other existing healthcare technology services like medicine delivery, videoconferencing therapy options and many more. No doubt that health care technology companies will benefit from the trend.

There is still room for other technologies like wearables, robotic surgery and cutting-edge genomic technology. Wearables include the health tracking watches that continuously monitor patients health parameters. Meanwhile, related health care technology devices like WiFi-enabled scales and food-tracking apps are feeding directly into certain wearables. It is evident when patients with diabetes see better glucose-monitoring devices and insulin pumps in the same vein.

Intuitive Surgical leads the robotic surgery space, but also it faces rivalries from other health care technology companies. Several companies are already getting into this space, and still, there is a huge opportunity for health care technology companies working in spine, orthopedics and cancer. A group of companies are experimenting with computer vision and tiny instruments to drive into the lungs and detect cancer cells.

Gone are the days when it would have cost $2.7 billion for scientists to set out to sequence the human genome. Today, consumers can have a gene of their DNA read at a reduced cost. This would open up a new powerful tool in cancer diagnosis and research. Frequent genomic analyses can easily detect mutations associated with cancer can be diagnosed at an early stage through gene mutation in specific cells.

Therefore, 2020 will be the year for different technologies like wearables, robotic surgery and cutting-edge genomic technology other than telemedicine.

See the rest here:
Will 2020 be the Year of Telemedicine? - Medical Tech Outlook

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Colleen LeCours lay in a hospital bed at the General campus of The Ottawa Hospital on August 12, 2016, waiting for the only thing that could save her life a stem cell transplant from a stranger.

The donor could be anywhere in the world if a related blood donor cant be found, the call to find a match goes out to registries all over the globe and the donated stem cells are rushed across international borders.

What LeCours didnt know is that her donor, an 18-year-old Carleton University student named Timothy White, was just one floor below. Similarly, White didnt know that his recipient was in the same hospital.

There are currently more than 450,000 people on the Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry formerly known as OneMatch and 36 million on affiliated international registries. Still, some people never find a match. There are more than 900 Canadians in need of a transplant who have not found a match anywhere in the world.

What were the odds that the match for LeCours, now 57, would be found in the same city?

Astronomical, she said.

The chances that White would even ever be asked to donate were also very low only about one in a thousand. After he agreed to donate, he was not told where the recipient might be. I was told the recipient could be anywhere. They could be in Africa, said White, now 22 and a recent graduate in computer science.

White had signed up for the registry through a cheek swab booth at ComiCon less than six months earlier. A smart place to recruit would-be stem cell donors, he notes. The optimal donor is a male between the age of 17 and 35 and thats the ComiCon demographic.

He decided to register as a potential donor because he grew up in the scouting movement. One of the main philosophies is to do a good turn every day, he said.

The donation was a non-surgical procedure in which Whites blood was removed though a needle, the stem cells were separated from his blood and the remaining blood components returned to his body through another needle. The procedure started at about 8 a.m. and was over by about 5 p.m.

I figured if I gave someone a day for a thousand more days (of life) then I felt it was a fair trade. I have many years of life. Why not spend one day? said White.

LeCourss medical journey started in 2009 with an emergency room visit for abdominal pain. She was eventually diagnosed with Stage 4 follicular lymphoma, a blood cancer that affects infection-fighting white blood cells. At the time, LeCours was working for Gov.-Gen. Michalle Jean and was able to stay on the job most of the time during her six months of treatment.

Four years later, the lymphoma returned. It was back again two years after that, in a more aggressive form. The only treatment was stem cell transplant.

There are two main kinds of stem cell transplants autologous and allogenic. In an autologous transplant, stem cells are collected from a patients own blood and reintroduced after being treated to remove cancer cells. In an allogenic stem cell transplant, the stem cells come from a donor.

At this point, LeCours was a candidate for an autologous transplant. Once again, she underwent aggressive chemotherapy. A year later, the cancer returned.

Doctors told LeCours there wasnt much else they could do and advised her to get her affairs in order. But the hospitals transplant team felt she could be a candidate for an allogenic transplant. Theres risk rejecting donated stem cells can be fatal to the patient.

LeCours learned that her brother was a match. But the medical work-up would last about three months and she couldnt wait that long.

I wasnt sure I wanted to do it but I didnt have much choice, she said. They said, We have someone waiting in the wings.

And I said, He probably has wings.

After the transplant, LeCours recovered as an outpatient in the home of her brother and sister-in-law. It took three months to rebuild her immune system. Her only rejection symptoms were a bit of skin irritation.

In January 2018, LeCours received an email asking if she would like to exchange contact information with her donor. She replied that she would.

A few months later, she got a message with Whites co-ordinates and was astonished to find that her donor was in Ottawa. It took her a few weeks to formulate an email.

I didnt want to scare him. I just wanted him to know how incredibly grateful I was. And I wanted to pay it forward, said LeCours.

After careful consideration, she sent White an email on Oct. 8, 2018.

Today, being Thanksgiving, I have so much to be thankful for, namely you giving your stem cells and saving my life and the success of the stem cells grafting to my bone marrow, LeCours wrote. I cant thank you enough for your wonderful selfless act.

Stem cell donor 18-year-old Carleton University student Timothy White at The Ottawa Hospital, General campus, donating stem cells for Colleen LeCours in August 2016. At the time he did not know that LeCours would be the recipient. Courtesy Timothy White.jpg

She added that she didnt know anything about him except for his name and email address, and asked if they could meet. They got together for the first time over lunch in a burger restaurant.

As soon as I saw him, I broke down, said LeCours.

It has been three and a half years since the transplant and LeCours remains in remission. She invited White to her familys Thanksgiving this year, and the two meet to catch up every few months. Its one of the quirks of stem cell donation that the recipient assumes the blood type of the donor. LeCours, once O-positive, now has blood type A-negative, like White.

Im a grandmother. The fact that my grandson has his moma is huge.

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Link:
What are the odds? Stem cell recipient learns her donor is also in Ottawa - Ottawa Citizen

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

HUNTINGTON Serucell Corporation, a cosmeceutical company based in Huntington, has developed the worlds only dual-cell technology to create and produce anti-aging skincare products, and they did it in Huntington.

Serucell KFS Cellular Protein Complex Serum is made start to finish at Serucells laboratory on the south side of Huntington.

This has been one of the best kept secrets in West Virginia, said Cortland Bohacek, executive chairman and a co-founder of Serucell Corporation.

The company soft launch was in September 2018 at The Greenbrier Spas. The Official online launch was April 2019 and is getting exposure with some well known sellers like Neiman Marcus, local dermatologist and plastic surgeons offices and several other retail locations from New York to California. It is also sold online at serucell.com.

One person that has tried the product is Jennifer Wheeler, who is also a Huntington City Council member.

As a consumer I have an appreciation of the quality of the product and the results Ive seen using it, she said. It has been transformative for my skin and seems like its success will be transformative for our city as well.

She said Serucell and the people behind it are impressive on every level.

In my role on council, Im especially grateful for the companys conscious effort to stay and grow in our city, Wheeler said.

A one-ounce bottle of the serum costs $225. The recommended usage is twice per day and it will last on average of about six weeks.

Serucells active ingredient is called KFS (Keratinocyte Fibroblast Serum), which is made up of more than 1,500 naturally derived super proteins, collagens, peptides and signaling factors that support optimal communication within the cellular makeup of your skin.

This is the first and only dual-cell technology that optimizes hydration and harnesses the power of both keratinocytes and fibroblasts, two essential contributors to maintaining healthy skin by supporting natural rejuvenation of aging skin from the inside out, said Jennifer Hessel, president and CEO of the company.

When applied to the skin, KFS helps boost the skins natural ability to support new collagen and elastin, strengthen the connection and layer of support between the upper and lower layers of your skin. The result, over time is firmer, plumper and smoother skin, according to Hessel.

Why it works so naturally with your skin is because it is natural, Hessel said. These proteins play an important role in strengthening the bond between the layers of your skin, and thats where the re-boot happens.

KFS is the creation of Dr. Walter Neto, Serucells chief science officer and co-founder of the company. Neto is both a physician and a research scientist, specializing in the field of regenerative medicine with an emphasis on skin healing and repair.

Neto said Serucells technology unlocks the key to how our cells communicate and harnesses the signaling power actions to produce the thousands of bioactive proteins necessary to support the skins natural rejuvenation.

Originally from Brazil, Neto studied at Saint Matthews University and completed his clinical training in England. His clinical research on stem-cell cancer therapies, bone and tissue engineering and wound and burn healing led to his discovery in cell-to-cell communication, and ultimately the creation of Serucells KFS Cellular Protein Complex Serum.

Neto received multiple patents for the production method of Serucell KFS Serum. He lives in Huntington with his wife and four golden retrievers and works alongside his longtime friend, Dr. Brett Jarrell.

I have known Brett since I was 18 years old, Neto said.

Jarrell practices emergency medicine in Ashland, Kentucky, and oversees all aspects of quality control for Serucell. He received his bachelors degree in biology from Wittenberg University, his masters degree in biology from Marshall University and his medical degree from the Marshall University School of Medicine. Jarrell completed his residency at West Virginia University and is board certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

Jarrell has served as a clinical instructor of emergency medicine at the Marshall School of Medicine, president of the West Virginia chapter of the American College of Emergency Medicine and he has published a number of peer-reviewed journal articles on stroke research.

Jarrell also lives in Huntington.

Another co-founder of the company is Dr. Tom McClellan.

McClellan is Serucells chief medical officer and director of research and is a well-respected plastic and reconstructive surgeon with a private practice, McClellan Plastic Surgery, in Morgantown.

McClellan completed his plastic and reconstructive surgery training at the world-renowned Lahey Clinic Foundation, a Harvard Medical School and Tufts Medical School affiliate in Boston, Massachusetts. While in Boston, he worked at Lahey Medical Center, Brigham and Womens Hospital, as well as at the Boston Childrens Hospital. McClellan is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

In addition to his practice and role at Serucell, McClellan utilizes his surgical skills through pro bono work with InterplastWV, a non-profit group that provides comprehensive reconstructive surgery to the developing world. He has participated in surgical missions to Haiti, Peru and the Bahamas.

McClellan lives in Morgantown with his family.

All three doctors here have strong connections to West Virginia, and we didnt want to leave, Neto said. We all want to give back to West Virginia, so that is the main reason we have our business here in Huntington.

We are building a company we believe can make a difference in the community, Hessel added. Our goal is to grow Serucell and build our brand right here in Huntington. There is a pool of untapped talent here in Huntington. When we expand our business here, we can provide another reason for young people to be able to stay and grow their careers, whether it is in science, operations or manufacturing. The team is a pretty excited to make an impact in the community where it all started.

Hessel decline to give sales numbers, but said the business has been growing each year since the product was introduced. She also declined to give the number of employees at the facility, but did say it has sales representatives across the country.

Link:
Firm adds a new wrinkle to anti-aging products - Williamson Daily News

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

3 January 2020

Victoria Beckham aims to "create a brand of the future" with Victoria Beckham Beauty.

Victoria Beckham

The former Spice Girl launched her eponymous beauty brand last year, later expanding her label to include skincare, and the 45-year-old fashion designer says her intention was to create products that are sustainable and not made from toxic formulas, whilst being "inclusive" for all skin tones.

The mother-of-four told the February issue of Harper's Bazaar UK: "I've been obsessed with make-up and skincare and wellness for longer than I can remember.

"But I couldn't find what I wanted - clean beauty.

"What is that, even? It's a real grey area.

"I wanted to create a brand of the future - focusing on what's in the formulas but then also sustainability.

"The other thing that was key was making sure it was very inclusive - whether it's make-up or skincare, this is for every skin type and tone, and for both women and men."

In November, Victoria - who has Brooklyn, 20, Romeo, 17, Cruz, 14 and Harper, eight, with retired soccer star husband David Beckham - released her Cell Rejuvenating Priming Moisturiser in collaboration with Professor Augustinus Bader, the German stem-cell scientist behind The Cream, which was named as one of 2019's most popular skincare products.

Bader's product features a patented Trigger Factor Complex that works to jumpstart your skin's repair and renewal functions to heal skin faster and in turn, improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, and as a fan of the cream herself, Victoria was thrilled to work with the scientist.

She said: "It's been a dream to develop, with Augustinus, a priming moisturiser that works to improve the health of my skin and gives me that fresh, natural glow that I love."

The priming moisturiser is a hybrid product that combines primer with moisturiser, and is inspired by Victoria's own skincare routine.

Victoria's product implements Bader's Trigger Factor Complex technology, as well as the lipids, vitamins, and amino acids found in his original cream, but with the added benefit of also smoothing skin so it's prepped for make-up application.

Bader explained: "It's the first priming moisturiser of its kind to care for your skin cells while also preparing your skin for makeup application."

The cream has a lightweight texture that can be work alone to give skin a radiant finish or under make-up, which according to Victoria, "will enhance your products."

Continued here:
Victoria Beckham wants her beauty line to be 'brand of the future' - FemaleFirst.co.uk

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Medical science is learning more and more about pregnancy and fetal development. And what they are finding is mind-blowing. We now know that there is a radical mutuality in the relationship between the mother and her child in the womb. Both work together to build the placenta. And just as cells from the mothers body become part of the baby, cells from the baby become permanent parts of the mother.

From an interview in the Catholic magazine Crux with Prof. Kristin Marguerite Collier of the University of Michigan Medical School:

The placenta is the organ through which the mother and prenatal child interface. The placenta is an organ that is attached to the inside of the uterus and connects to the prenatal child through the childs umbilical cord.

What is not as well known about this organ is that the placenta is the only organ in human biology that is made by two persons, together, in cooperation. The placenta is built from tissue that is part from mom, and part from the growing baby. Because of this, the placenta is referred to as a feto-maternal organ. It is the only organ made by two people, in cooperation with providence. It is the first time mom and her baby come together, albeit at the cellular level, to do something in cooperation. . . .

In the creation of the placenta, cells from the trophoblast, which are from the embryo, reach down towards the mothers uterine wall while at the same time, the spiral arteries from the mothers uterus are reaching up towards the embryo. This process leads to the creation of the placenta.

The placenta is the only purposely transient organ in humans and unlike the rest of our organs, acts as many organs in one. The placenta functions to eliminate waste, like the kidneys would do, facilitates transfer of oxygen and carbon dioxide, like the lungs would do, and provides nutrients, like a GI tract would do. It even has endocrine and immune function. What used to be discarded as just the afterbirth is now regarded as a magnificently complex shared organ that supports the formation of the prenatal child.

Even more amazing to me is the phenomenon of fetomaternal microchimerism, named after the chimera of Greek mythology, a creature comprised of three different species:

In science, microchimerism is the presence of a small population of genetically distinct and separately derived cells within an individual. During pregnancy, small numbers of cells traffic across the placenta. Some of the prenatal childs cells cross into the mother, and some cells from the mother cross into the prenatal child. The cells from the prenatal child are pluripotent and integrate into tissues in her mothers body and start functioning like the cells around them. This integration is known as feto-maternal microchimerism.

The presence of these cells is amazing for several reasons. One is that these cells have been found in various maternal organs and tissues such as the brain, the breast, the thyroid and the skin. These are all organs which in some way are important for the health of both the baby and her mother in relationship. The post-partum phase is when there is need, for example, for lactation. The fetomaternal microchimeric cells have been shown to be important in signaling lactation. These cells have been found in the skin, for example, in Cesarean section incisions where they are helping to produce collagen. Baby is helping mom heal after delivery by the presence of her cells! It would be one thing for these cells to come into the mother and be inert, but is a whole other thing entirely that these cells are active and aid mom for example in helping to produce milk for her baby and helping her heal. These cells may even affect how soon the mother can get pregnant again and therefore can affect spacing of future siblings.

To think that a physical presence of the baby in her mother is helping protect her from cancer at the level of the cell, speaks to a radical mutuality at the cellular level that we are just beginning to understand. . . .

The big takeaway is that the science of microchimerism supports the fact that some human beings carry remnants of other humans in their bodies. Thus, we arent the singular-autonomous individuals we think of ourselves as being.

I came across another article that said that if the mother suffers organ damage during pregnancy, the baby can send its stem cells to repair the damage! (The article included a link to this medical journal.)

The Crux interviewer, Charles C. Camosy, wanted to bring out the implications for Marys relationship with Jesus. Yes, said Prof. Collierwho is a Christian, but not a CatholicMary would always have a part of Jesus with her, indeed, as a part of her. But this intimate mutual union is also true, she said, for all mothers.All mothers carry their children with them, on a cellular level, for their whole lives. And just as she has contributed to the formation of the bodies of her children, they have contributed to the formation of hers.

Prof. Collier then makes a startlingly comforting application. Mothers whose children have died, she said, often feel that their children are still with them. We now know that they are.

Illustration via Good Free Photos, Public Domain

Originally posted here:
The Mutuality Between Mothers and Their Developing Babies - Patheos

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

A LITTLE girl who won the backing of thousands of strangers online died of leukaemia on New Year's Day.

Esme Handley was just three years old when she passed away.

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The adorable tot was diagnosed with blood cancer at just 22 months, after developing a bruise while she was on a family holiday in Greece.

Her parents Rebecca and Will broke the heartbreaking news on their daughter's Facebook Page, named Esme Lionheart after her love of lions.

They said: If you look to the sky tonight you will see a star shining brighter than any other.

Our darling girl went onwards with her journey at midday today.

"She was peaceful and in our arms and knew how ridiculously adored she was.

Esme Grace Angela Handley 13.08.2016 - 01.01.2020.

Rebecca, 38, and Will, 43, faced a battle to try and save their only daughter following her diagnosis.

They discovered she had the high risk acute myeloid leukaemia during a family trip to Greece before which Esme fell.

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When a bruise that developed shortly afterwards failed to disappear, the couple Googled Esme's symptoms and became concerned.

She was taken to hospital in Greece where the diagnosis was confirmed.

Esme was given a stem cell transplant in September 2018 alongside three rounds of chemotherapy but after six months the leukaemia returned in the tots bone marrow.

If you look to the sky tonight you will see a star shining brighter than any other. Our darling girl went onwards with her journey at midday today.

The family were not eligible for a second transplant on the NHS and were faced with raising 500,000 privately for the urgent treatment.

In November, her parents admitted that Esme could no longer expect to be cured and said their baby had simply had enough.

They said: Since diagnosis we have often spoken about a metaphorical 'sealed envelope' that contains Esme's fate.

"Yesterday we got to open that envelope and it was not what we had hoped.

The leukaemia is out of control and there is nothing more which can be done.

We have spoken with every single, leading paediatric consultant globally, tried all available drugs (some of which arent even licensed in kids), explored a ridiculous amount of supplements and complementary medicines, had healing circles far and wide sending prayers.....

But its not been enough. We dont get to keep our baby.

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And to be perfectly honest, even if there was something else they could come up with, right now, Im not sure we would be able to pursue it.

"Its very clear to see that Esme has simply had enough....and who could blame her?

Esme thrives when shes outdoors but all she has known for 18 months is hospitals. The treatment she has had wouldnt be tolerated by most adults.

She has been continually pumped full of drugs; had hundreds of blood transfusions; successfully come through one stem cell transplant; had surgery for three Hickman lines into her heart; had numerous tubes shoved up her nose and drops in her eyes, suffered countless horrendous infections including a type of pneumonia three times; lost her hair; lost her fingernails; vomited daily, had her skin break down, crack, be burnt from chemo; nearly died from sepsis; almost died from anaphylaxis; been blue-lighted to PICU after having a seizure which temporarily left her in a vegetative state thanks to a fungal brain infection....and it goes on.

Whilst we would do absolutely anything for her, ANYTHING, Im also not sure how much more we can tolerate either.

A month later, they described the heartbreaking cocktail of pain management Esme had to bear to soften her ever-increasing suffering".

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At the time, her parents posted: It's now three weeks to the day that we learnt that Esme's story will not have the happy ending we've all prayed for, three long weeks in which we've had to contemplate the unthinkable and bear witness to Esme's ever-increasing suffering.

In the first couple of weeks one of the biggest difficulties was accepting that the team's goal was no longer to cure but just to manage pain.

This sounds obvious but you suddenly find yourself inexplicably sad that the nurses are no longer asking you for Esme's heart rate or temperature every few hours.

At one point I even found myself crying when I bumped into another child being wheeled to theatre and realised Esme will never have another general anaesthetic.

Instead, getting ahead of Esme's pain has become a full-time occupation for us and the team, and Ezzie is now on an ever-escalating daily mix of paracetamol, topical morphine, oxycodone, ketamine and, most recently, methadone.

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The psychology team here warn against reading adult meanings into our children's innocent words but it's difficult not to tear up when Esme tells us repeatedly I don't think my bottom's ever gonna get better, it's the hurtiest bottom in the whole world ....or My arm/leg/back/headache is killing me.

They also described how Esme had been bedridden for three months and would never walk again.

But the tot had her own Christmas tree and was even taken out of the Royal Marsden Hospital over the festive period to see Christmas lights in Morden before a screening of Frozen 2 at Everyman Esher.

SIGNS OF LEUKAEMIA EVERY PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW

LEUKAEMIA is a type of blood cancer, some forms of which are more common in children.

There are no specific signs or symptoms which would allow for a doctor to make a diagnosis without lab tests.

In all types of leukaemia symptoms are more commonly caused by a lack of normal blood cells than by the presence of abnormal white cells.

As the bone marrow becomes full of leukaemia cells, it is unable to produce the large numbers of normal blood cells which the body needs.

Thiscan lead to:

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Now Will and Rebecca, of West Norwood, south London, hope to donate money in Esmes name.

They have already raised 425,000 on GoFundMe.

Rebecca said in November: When we began fundraising we were punchy with our target to ensure we had enough for a self-funded transplant and said that whatever remained would go to the CCLG, the UK's leading kids cancer charity.

Given how desperately poor the funding is into paediatric AML research, we feel even more strongly about this now.

So a large chunk of the cash we have remaining (after spending some on novel drugs and supportive care) will be donated to AML research to try and spare future families the pain and anguish we have experienced.

To donate in memory of Esme, visit her GoFundMe page here.

Continue reading here:
Girl, 3, dies in her parents arms on New Years Day after leukaemia battle - The Sun

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

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Newswise ROCHESTER, Minn. The most commonly used forms of insulin cost 10 times more in the U.S. than in any other developed country,according to a commentaryinMayo Clinic Proceedings. This prohibitive cost is causing some U.S. patients with Type 1 diabetes to ration the amount of insulin they use, with life-threatening implications.

The commentary byS. Vincent Rajkumar, M.D., a Mayo Clinic physician, describes the cost of insulin as an urgent public health issue. "There are 30 million patients with diabetes in the United States, and about 25%, or 7.4 million Americans, need insulin. For the 1.3 million patients with Type 1 diabetes, insulin is as vital as air and water. Some patients are rationing insulin or switching to cheaper forms without proper supervision. We cannot wait to act."

The commentary appears in the January issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, which focuses on diabetes and the discovery of insulin in 1921. The use of insulin to treat diabetes has transformed the lives of millions of people, but the sharp cost increase in recent years has threatened patient care.

Insulin is a naturally occurring hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels.Insulin therapyis vital for people withType 1 diabetesand for many patients withType 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic condition where the pancreas produces little or no insulin. With Type 2 diabetes, the body resists the effects of insulin or doesn't produce enough to maintain normal glucose levels. Long-term complications can be debilitating and life-threatening.

"There have been many recent reports of deaths in patients with Type 1 diabetes because of the lack of affordable insulin," Dr. Rajkumar says. "The high prevalence of diabetes, the chronic lifelong nature of the disease, and the fact that patients with Type 1 diabetes will die without access to insulin make this an urgent problem that must be solved expeditiously."

"The No. 1 reason for the high cost of insulin is the presence of a vulnerable population that needs insulin to survive," he says. "This population is willing to pay almost anything to have access to a lifesaving drug, and manufacturers know it."

Dr. Rajkumar, the Edward W. and Betty Knight Scripps Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, proposes several solutions that would help make insulin and other prescription drugs more affordable. They include:

"We cannot afford to lose a single additional life because of the high cost of insulin," says Dr. Rajkumar. "The price of insulin is a stark and troubling example of what's happening with other prescription drugs, and it highlights a systemic problem with how drugs are priced, compared with just about every other commodity."

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About Mayo Clinic ProceedingsMayo Clinic Proceedingsis a monthly peer-reviewed journal that publishes original articles and reviews dealing with clinical and laboratory medicine, clinical research, basic science research, and clinical epidemiology. Mayo Clinic Proceedings is sponsored by the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research as part of its commitment to physician education. It publishes submissions from authors worldwide. The journal has been published for more than 90 years and has a circulation of 127,000.

About Mayo ClinicMayo Clinicis a nonprofit organization committed to innovation in clinical practice, education and research, and providing compassion, expertise and answers to everyone who needs healing.Visit the Mayo Clinic News Networkfor additional Mayo Clinic news andAn Inside Look at Mayo Clinicfor more information about Mayo.

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High cost of insulin has life-or-death implications for diabetic patients - Newswise

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

ByLinell Smith

In 2018, nearly half of Americans said they were "somewhat likely" or "very likely" to make a New Year's resolution, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

While making a resolution is easy, fulfilling those commitments may depend on the way you frame them, says Johns Hopkins clinical psychologist Neda Gould, director of the mindfulness program at Johns Hopkins and associate director of the anxiety disorders clinic at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Neda Gould

Director, Johns Hopkins mindfulness program

"The problem with New Year's resolutions is that they often involve major behavior changes that we expect to make overnight," Gould says. "This method rarely works. Then, when we don't succeed, we feel terrible about ourselves."

Rather than thinking of a New Year's resolution as a complete transformation that commences on Jan. 1, Gould suggests envisioning it as a journey composed of small but meaningful changes that progress through the year.

"We are much better at attaining goals if we break them up into concrete, manageable steps," she says. "You might say, 'In January, I will begin to exercise one day weekly for 15 minutes.' In February, you may increase that goal a bit in frequency and duration and so on. Overall, I think there has to be some flexibility and room for error in order to have effective and lasting change."

To help you achieve your goals, Johns Hopkins Medicine experts who help patients and staff members find sustainable ways to improve their health offer the following approaches to some common resolutions.

Kimberly Gudzune, associate professor at the school of medicine and an obesity medicine physician at the Johns Hopkins Healthful Eating, Activity & Weight Program, says that she often hears patients set unreasonable goals such as "I will get back down to what I weighed in high school."

Instead, she suggests committing to achievable goals such as: "I will lose 5% of my current body weight over the next six months by making sustainable changes in my eating and activity habits." Or, "I want to improve my blood pressure/blood sugar/cholesterol, so I will make sustainable changes in eating and activity habits and work to lose 10% of my current body weight over the next six to 12 months."

Scientific studies suggest that the blue light emitted by screens on cellphones, computers, tablets, and television may disrupt the production of the hormone melatonin, which is essential for inducing restful sleep, says Charlene Gamaldo, medical director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep.

Instead of pledging to improve your sleep by reducing the amount of time you stare at computer screens every day, she suggests you pledge to "use technology to help create realistic and accountable goals for reducing screen time." For instance, make a commitment to set your phone to remind you to shorten your screen time by 30 minutes dailybefore bedtime is ideal.

Johns Hopkins pulmonary physician Panagis Galiatsatos runs the Tobacco Treatment Clinic, established in July 2018 in the Asthma and Allergy Building at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The physician says it is the only such clinic in the state, and one of only a handful nationwide that provide a personalized approach to smoking cessation.

He says smokers should resolve to quit only if they have identified a specific game plan for how to do it. To succeed, a resolution should include a commitment to visit a physician who may prescribe a smoking cessation medication such as Chantix, advise stocking up on nicotine gum and lozenges, and periodically check on patients' progress.

"I tell patients there's nothing wrong with coming up with a big goal, but come up with a plan for achieving it," he says. "What will you do if you get derailed? How will you plan for the situations when you're most likely to crave a cigarette? If people are conditioned to smoke after a certain activity, such as drinking coffee, that may be when they want to be prepared to have an item such as a nicotine lozenge or gum close by."

Want to eliminate sugar from your diet? Rita Kalyani, associate professor of medicine and editor-in-chief of the Johns Hopkins Patient Guide to Diabetes, suggests reframing goals that are rigid and unsustainable.

"Instead of pledging 'I'm going to stop drinking soda with every meal,' say 'I'm going to decrease the amount of sugar-sweetened beverages that I consume daily.'"

Lee Daugherty Biddison, chief wellness officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine, says it's important to make incremental changes when you resolve to keep work from taking over your life.

"Instead of saying 'I'm going to fix my work-life balance by making big changes all at once,' pledge to add one or two activities that bring joy to your lifesuch as building in a date night or time aloneand commit to putting them on your calendar."

This article originally appeared in Dome.

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How to make New Year's resolutions that stick - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

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