The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing infection in most cancer patients, according to a nationwide study of veterans diagnosed with cancer in the past decade.

But the researchers found that some vaccinated patients, including those who had received therapies that suppressed their immune systems within the six months before vaccination, were less protected than their peers from COVID-19 infection for the duration of the study.

We know that, in general, cancer patients with COVID-19 have poor outcomes, said postdoctoral scholar Julie Tsu-Yu Wu, MD, PhD. Our goal was to identify those patients who might benefit from additional interventions like a vaccine booster shot or who should be candidates after exposure for prophylactic interventions like oral antivirals or monoclonal antibody treatments. But the main finding of our study is that COVID-19 vaccination is an effective way to prevent infection in most cancer patients.

Wu shares lead authorship of the study, which will be published Dec. 2 in JAMA Oncology, with Jennifer La, PhD, a principal data scientist at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System. Senior authors of the study are Albert Lin, MD, staff physician at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System; Nikhil Munshi, MD, staff physician at VA Boston and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School; and Nathanael Fillmore, PhD, associate director of the Cooperative Studies Program Informatics Center at VA Boston and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

This study highlights the strengths of the national VA health care system, Fillmore said. Access to high-quality data from veterans across the country was crucial for enabling the studys rigorous trial emulation approach.

Many cancer patients infected with COVID-19 have poor outcomes, with an estimated mortality rate of 13% to 33%. But because cancer patients were excluded from early vaccine trials, it hasnt been clear whether or to what extent the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines protect people with cancer.

The researchers studied the medical records of more than 180,000 VA patients who received systemic, or whole-body, treatments, including chemotherapy or hormone therapy, between August 2010 and May 2021. The patients median age was 73.7, and 94% were men. Of these, about 113,000 were vaccinated with one of the two mRNA-based vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna between Dec. 15, 2020, and May 4, 2021. (People who had been previously diagnosed with COVID-19 were excluded from the study, as were those who received the adenovirus-based vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson.)

For each day of the study period, the researchers matched a patient who had been vaccinated with a peer of similar medical history and demographic background who had not been vaccinated, comparing the rates of COVID-19 infection in each pair.

To calculate vaccine effectiveness, the researchers compared the number of COVID-19 diagnoses in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. If 10 of 100 unvaccinated people became infected versus 1 of 100 vaccinated people, the vaccine prevented 9 of 10 possible infections, and the vaccine effectiveness would be 90%.

The researchers found that, overall, the vaccines were about 58% effective at preventing infection starting at two weeks after the second dose. But the vaccines were about 85% effective in people whose last cancer treatment had concluded six or more months before their first dose. The vaccines were about 63% effective among people whose cancer treatments concluded three to six months before their first dose, and 54% among people whose treatments concluded within three months of their first dose. (The two vaccines were similarly effective.)

Systemic cancer treatments include chemotherapy, which can suppress the immune system, and hormone therapy, which is less likely to do so. Among people whose cancer treatments concluded less than three months before their first dose, the vaccine was about 57% effective in those who had received chemotherapy; it was about 76% effective in people who had received hormone treatment. (The vaccines were found to be substantially less effective in a small subset of patients with certain kinds of blood cancers, which can suppress the immune system.)

This is the first study in people with cancer that looked at a clinically significant outcome documented infection rather than surrogate markers like the levels of antibody production, Wu said. We found that, although the vaccines tended to be less effective in some subgroups of people, there is no reason to avoid vaccination.

Summer Han, PhD, an assistant professor of neurosurgery and of biomedical informatics at Stanford, is a co-author of the study.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants P01-155258-07 and P50-100707), the Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, the Department of Defense and a Stanford Cancer Institute Innovation Award.

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COVID-19 vaccine effective in people with cancer, study finds - Stanford Medical Center Report

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The benefits of fasting

Has a friend turned down a dinner invitation because they are fasting? Or maybe you have turned down invitations once or twice as well? Fasting has become mainstream because of its reported health benefits, and it is true. There are, however, still some beliefs about fasting that needs to be corrected. Is fasting for everyone? Is it really the solution to better health? Will I feel tired if I fast? Lets find out.

Fasting increases the human growth hormone that is responsible for the bodys metabolism and promotes insulin sensitivity that lessens the risk of diabetes, obesity, and more.

Fasting means holding back from eating or drinking for a period of time. It goes way back and began as part of religious practices to show faith and devotion, whether as penance or sacrifice. Early philosophers and healers used fasting for healing and therapy, as it was observed that the body has a way to heal itself in times of stress, illness, or pain. Later on, scientists studied fasting that yielded favorable results. Apparently, fasting increases the human growth hormone that is responsible for the bodys metabolism and promotes insulin sensitivity that lessens the risk of diabetes, obesity, and more.

According to the book The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-day, and Extended Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore, insulin levels rise whenever we eat and it functions in two ways: Either by turning food into energy or storing the excess energy. But when the body fasts, insulin levels drop and use stored energy. When insulin levels are kept low, it will help the body become more insulin sensitive, lowering the risk of serious diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, among others.

But what do other people think about fasting? Unlike what others may believe, fasting does not cause electrolyte imbalance, nor does it make you feel lethargic. In the book, Dr. Fung and Jimmy Moore mention that electrolytes, such as sodium, magnesium, chloride, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium, may decrease its levels, but not below normal limits. Taking a multivitamin may also help. Moreover, those who fast do not feel lethargicthey might even say otherwise. As also mentioned in the book, this is because adrenaline is used to release glycogen, which may explain the reason, instead of feeling tired, those who fast feel energized. But Dr. Fung and Moore also reiterate that fasting is not the only solution to better health. It should be supplemented with whole, unprocessed foodthis means no to junk food, no to sugar, and no to refined grains.

While fasting has its benefits, it is still not for everyone. This is why it is important to consult with your physician before even trying. (For those who have an eating disorder, pregnant, or who have a medical condition, fasting is not recommended.) Also, if you are on the clear to try fasting, start with small time intervals. Most important, take care of your body with nourishing, healthy food. It may be difficult to let go of your favorite sweets and snacks, so you must try harder to reduce your intake of them. Instead, eat more fruits, greens, and healthy fats. Lastly, supplement this with other healthy habits like getting quality sleep, exercising, and practicing a healthy lifestyle.

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Is fasting the way to better health? - Manila Bulletin

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Testosterone is the crucial hormone produced in men, critical for a mans performance in life. It influences gaining weight, sexual drive, muscle mass, capacity, and various other mechanisms.

As a man, you should know that testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone in the human body. The hormone is commonly synonymous with manhood, and it is nearly difficult to exaggerate its numerous effects on the body.

It affects everything from our physical image to our curiosity and interest in sex. Men with elevated testosterone levels also exhibit many of the traditional masculine characteristics emphasized by our society. Men with higher levels of testosterone benefit from regular exercise, and men with healthy testosterone levels can also have increased motivation and sociability.

A mans testosterone levels lower as they get older. The testosterone levels drop by more than half, particularly between the age of thirty and fifty. Few males have genetically low testosterone levels due to their diet, lifestyle, and workout routines.

There is some exciting news for men with reduced testosterone levels. You can increase testosterone output without ever using steroids. There are plenty more testosterone-enhancing supplements available now. All of these testosterone booster supplements include organic ingredients to help the body produce more testosterone.

The testosterone enhancing industry is anticipated to have one of the fastest-rising sectors of the testosterone supplement market by 2021. This checklist is a conclusive rating of a few of the finest testosterone supplements available on the market.

Besides that, testosterone-based supplements are considered legal all over the globe. Most of them include multi-vitamins, nutrients, medicinal plants, and shrubs that are FDA-approved as universally accepted as safe (GRAS). Several of them are validated by academic research and have evidence that shows they can naturally improve testosterone levels.

With the rising number of testosterone supplements, it can be pretty challenging to choose the right one for you. And to help you out with the same, we will give you a top 11 list of testosterone supplements you can purchase for yourself.

This issue describes the meteoric rise in demand for testosterone booster supplements. Well give you a detailed overview of the best testosterone boosters we have included in our list. We favor testosterone-boosting supplements that use clinically validated ingredients in adequate quantities. So, testosterone booster supplements with unknown or minimally beneficial ingredients were jumped over.

We reached out to the respective companies, interviewed them, reviewed the supplement contents, spoke to experts, and then later made a small list of the best supplements you can lay your hands on.

To find the best testosterone-boosting supplements, we searched the internet for the best testosterone supplements, spoke to them, and gathered additional information to develop this list.

Here is the list of the best testosterone supplements that you buy in 2021

Testogen is among the few testosterone supplements on this list that are endorsed by a celebrity. Will Pounder, a professional MMA fighter, says that Testogen has significantly improved his life. To safely boost testosterone levels, this supplement employs healthy and natural ingredients.

This supplement is an excellent option to maximize the free testosterone levels in your body that helps you retain energy levels throughout the day and in bed. Boosting testosterone production is just a matter of time as you start consuming the Testogen testosterone booster.

Testogens creators also say that their solution boosts energy, productivity, muscle development, libido, and weight loss, among several other things. They claim that all these optimum benefits make the supplement one of the best testosterone booster supplements in the market.

Testogen Price: $59.99

The Prime Male asks you to use the red pill and use their naturally prepared supplement to improve your testosterone levels. The blend of ingredients in the Prime Male promises to help you gain muscle mass, lose extra fat/weight, improve your cardiovascular health, and even condition your mind and enhance your mindset, among several other things.

This testosterone booster supplement maintains the levels of luteinizing hormone in your body to increase testosterone production. Alongside, the Prime Male is an exceptional testosterone booster to keep your physical and mental energy high.

On top of that, visible muscle growth and impeccable athletic performance are other mentionable benefits offered by this outstanding testosterone booster.

As per their official site, Prime Male states that it can improve a mans testosterone levels within 12 days with the help of the natural ingredients in it, rendering it among the more effective testosterone supplements on our list. Additionally, Prime Male is also endorsed by none other than Dolph Lundgren.

Prime Male Price: $69

TestoPrime is a testosterone-boosting supplement that focuses on helping with protein synthesis, which we do not find with the rest of the testosterone boosters. This premium supplement comes in the list of the best testosterone booster supplements automatically due to its testosterone-boosting capabilities.

TestoPrime, like many other testosterone boosters, promises to improve physical and mental vitality, burn excess weight, develop lean muscle, and promote the bodys natural testosterone output.

If your sexual performance is impacted adversely due to low T levels and you want to increase testosterone production, TestoPrime is the best testosterone booster you can get within your budget.

Most importantly, the brand reputation of TestoPrime says it all about its efficiency in offering health benefits and promoting athletic performance. This supplement can be regarded as a one-shot solution for everyone, from general users to athletes.

TestoPrime Price: $59.99

Testo Lab Pro T Booster is a testosterone booster that appears to improve testosterone securely and naturally. The recipe maintains safeguards and enhances the testosterone levels in your blood. TestoLab Pro seems to be more potent than other natural testosterone boosters on this list because it targets free testosterone.

Apart from other things, the supplement promises to boost masculine vitality, vigor, and potency. It may help muscle-building, stamina, stress tolerance, trust, sexual desire, bone mass, and even sperm count.

If youre concerned about the side effects of T-supplements, this supplement is the perfect choice for you. The natural ingredients of this supplement wont let you face any side effects at all.

Testo Lab Pro T-Booster Price: $69.99

Hunter Test is a dietary supplement marketed as a high-quality testosterone booster. It has the most visually appealing branding on this list.

The stylish, canister-style kit includes a supplement that promises to improve your life by improving strength and fitness, offering unstoppable inspiration, and promoting emotional stability and trust, among other things.

Hunter Test has become one of the only supplements that appear to directly reverse testosterone decline. giving you the ability to reinvigorate your masculinity.

A Muscle Mass Amplifier matrix, an Energy Amplification framework, and a Performance Power mix are all essential elements in Hunter Test. Hunter Tests creators characterize their replacement as a complete testosterone booster.

Hunter Test Price: $75

TestoFuel is a testosterone booster sold to men who wish to lose body fat and gain lean body mass. The supplement promises to naturally boost testosterone levels by providing your body with the missing link in testosterone development. You will reap the rewards of an anabolic reinforcement complex by consuming the supplement regularly.

Vitamin D, oyster extract, and D-aspartic acid are key ingredients in TestoFuel. This supplement is endorsed by a celebrity, Robby The Black Prince Robinson (Mr. Olympia).

While D-aspartic acid is commonly found in natural testosterone boosters, a few supplements contain oyster extract, despite research indicating that oyster extract can aid in sex drive, vigor, and testosterone development.

TestoFuel Price: $65

Testo 911 is a testosterone supplement manufactured by PhytAge Labs that incorporates fenugreek seed and other validated testosterone enhancers to promote lean muscle mass, testosterone development, and other benefits at any age.

Testo 911 contains various additives, including magnesium, zinc, Rhodiola Rosea, DIM, and others. Testo 911 can promote testosterone production while promoting stress response and immune response, two aspects tied to testosterone in a roundabout way.

This supplement has magical benefits in improving your mental wellbeing and cognitive health. If youre dealing with ongoing and recurring anxiety and depression, Testo 911 is the best option for you to improve your mental state. The product manifests a sense of confidence and wellbeing that helps you reinforce your energy levels.

According to PhytAge Labs, these products work together to achieve weight loss targets. Testo 911 allows you to have plenty of time to put the approach to the test to see how it works for you.

Testo 911 Price: $69.95

TestRX seems to be among the best testosterone booster supplements you see next to the petrol pump. But dont be fooled by the labeling. TestRX uses ingredients that are similar to those used in many other testosterone boosters on the list. It is also promoted online with related advantages.

The creators of TestRX believe that their solution will improve mens strength, endurance, lean muscle, fat loss, and sexual desire, among other things. You will allegedly gain pounds of lean muscle at any given age by consuming this testosterone booster.

TestRX is distinguished using the ZMA formula, which combines magnesium aspartate, vitamin B6, and zinc. This mixture tested for its impact on testosterone indicate that ZMA can boost testosterone by up to 30%.

TestRX Price: $69.99

This natural testosterone booster was made by an actual doctor, Dr. Ryan Shelton, who also happens to be the chief medical officer at the manufacturing company Zenith Labs.

This formula promises to encourage better testosterone levels, aid in self-confidence and stamina, support appetite and sex drive, and offer other benefits valuable to men of all ages.

The most surprising fact about Barbarian XL is that it takes the levels of luteinizing hormone higher in your body in order to boost the essential hormone, testosterone. By the side, the testosterone-boosting supplement does a phenomenal job by helping you decrease body fat and promoting muscle growth.

Backed by only natural ingredients, this supplement enhances your sexual capabilities, helping you last longer in bed as well. You sense a refreshed and revitalized feeling all over your body as you start consuming this amazing supplement.

Barbarian XL Price: $49

CrazyBulk promises that their Testo-Max solution will help you recapture your prime by naturally increasing your testosterone levels. You will boost muscle development, stamina, and agility while restoring boundless vitality just by taking four pills of Testo-Max every day.

Testo-Max uses the same validated ingredients as the other supplements on this list to produce these results. If youre a bodybuilder and muscle growth is your primary concern, theres nothing better than Testo-Max for you.

Bodybuilders often tend to take anabolic steroids like Sustanon to get gigantic muscles with super endurance. Such steroids come with certain side effects that Testo-Max wont cause. Therefore, this is the supplement in the market at present to help you reach your bodybuilding goals while stimulating natural testosterone production and hormone production.

CrazyBulk Testo-Max Price: $59.99

JayLab Pro T20 is sold as a 30-second natural testosterone booster. By consuming the supplement regularly, you will allegedly set back the years on your sexual prowess by 20 years.

The supplement helps to increase libido (via ingredients such as Cordyceps Sinensis and Rhodiola Rosea), enhance blood flow (via components such as Avena sativa and L-norvaline), and boost testosterone (using Tribulus Terrestris and Tongkat Ali).

The natural ingredients of this product promote weight loss while increasing free testosterone levels in your body.

The specific components in JayLab Pro T20 can act in novel ways to help testosterone from various perspectives. Both orders also have free eBooks with additional details on testosterone boosters. And, at $37.95 (plus free delivery to the United States), JayLab Pro T20 is one of the most affordable products on our list of recommended natural testosterone boosters for 2021.

JayLab Pro T20 Price: $37.95

It is difficult to rate testosterone supplements since all the T-level boosters improve testosterone by utilizing organic ingredients. Most supplements contain related ingredients (for example, vitamin D, zinc, D-aspartic acid, Tribulus Terrestris, and Tongkat Ali).

We have used the following rating criteria to distinguish between excellent and poor testosterone enhancing supplements:

Numerous testosterone boosters provide the appropriate testosterone-enhancing ingredients but at the incorrect dosages. Dosage of ingredients is essential. Specific drug doses were reviewed to guarantee that each approved supplement included scientifically proven dosages of all active compounds.

There are both safe and risky methods for increasing testosterone. Top-quality, scientifically-backed ingredients that are beneficial in several trials are used in successful T-boosting supplements.

Some testosterone booster brands are shady. They hide stimulants like caffeine into their formulas, tricking you into thinking the supplement is working. Other companies are reputable, multimillion-dollar supplement companies with a medical advisory board. We considered transparency and reputation in our rankings.

Some testosterone-booster supplement manufacturers are untrustworthy. They conceal stimulants such as caffeine in their formulations, fooling you into believing the supplement is efficient. Other businesses are well-known, billion-dollar supplement businesses with a clinical advisory board. In our ratings, we took clarity and credibility into account.

Be cautious of testosterone boosters who promise to double or triple the testosterone levels, as even anabolic steroids have difficulty doing that. The majority of studies indicate that the components in testosterone boosters will raise testosterone by 10% to 40%. Numerous males would not benefit from using a natural testosterone booster.

If your testosterone levels are still high, a product is unlikely to boost them higher. We admired testosterone-boosting supplements that promoted truthful benefits.

Testosterone-boosting supplements are one of the priciest supplements on the market currently. Some vitamins are $80 for a months worth of supply. If you want to spend $30 or $100 for each months supply of a testosterone enhancement, the products mentioned above offer decent value for the money.

Testosterone-booster supplements are mainly sold to males who would like to regain their sexual desire, increase stamina, lose weight, or gain muscle mass.

Testosterone levels decline with age. Your testosterone levels decrease as you grow old. Some refer to it as male menopause. You may not always feel as strong, enthusiastic, or powerful as you once did.

Testosterone levels have often declined with age. Its a normal part of the aging process. However, the average man currently has reduced testosterone levels than at any other time in history. Testosterone levels have steadily declined over the years.

A few men take action as their testosterone levels fall. Such examples of men who use testosterone boosters are:

Testosterone boosters are accepted among many different types of men. If youre trying to lose weight, develop muscle mass, or just become more energetic, testosterone supplements offer to give you the vitality you havent felt since you were young.

Interestingly, several ingredients in the best testosterone boosters have scientific support for their claimed benefits. The best testosterone booster is nothing but a combination of science-backed ingredients.

If youre in search of the best testosterone booster for attaining effective testosterone-boosting benefits, you need to know about the ingredients first.

Zinc, D-aspartic acid, and other popular testosterone-boosting ingredients have been shown in studies to improve testosterone that is supposed to be present in the best testosterone booster. These ingredients are reported to take up testosterone levels naturally and enhance sperm quality in men.

Many herbal testosterone boosters, such as Tribulus Terrestris, Tongkat Ali, and others, are supported by empirical evidence and they have evident benefits in boosting testosterone levels. Indigenous peoples have used several of these extracts for decades until they were used in western testosterone enhancement supplements.

D-aspartic acid (DAA) is a typical component in male sexual wellbeing and testosterone products. DAA, as per research, can improve testosterone. DAA functions by increasing the bodys levels of luteinizing hormone, as discussed in this report. Luteinizing hormone instructs the testicles to generate more testosterone.

DAA may be able to kickstart your bodys capacity to generate testosterone due to this effect.

Researchers discovered that DAA could dramatically improve testosterone in animals and humans in less than 12 days in this 2009 report. Comparably, men who took DAA supplements had better testosterone production following 90 days, according to this report.

Men began the analysis with low sperm output. Men saw an improvement in their sperm count, from 8.2 million to a staggering 16.5 million after consuming a DAA supplementation for 90 days.

Not that all studies have indeed been favorable to DAA. In this analysis, DAA was shown to be no more potent than a placebo at increasing testosterone.

And while taking DAA at elevated doses of 3,000mg or 6,000mg over a prolonged period, certain men do not experience a rise in testosterone. DAA seems to be effective on some men, but not on all.

Vitamin D is essential for mens sexual health and testosterone development. According to research, D vitamin deficient men have low testosterone, which leads to insufficient sperm production and other problems. Researchers evaluated the theory in this sample by dividing men over the age of 65 into two categories.

One party received 3,300 IU of vitamin D each day, and the other got a placebo. The males who consumed vitamin D increased their testosterone levels by 20%. Few men augment their testosterone with the D vitamin, whereas others spend a lot of time outdoors.

Zinc is yet another crucial mineral for the production of testosterone. Zinc deficiency is related to reduced testosterone levels and male sexual health.

Multiple studies have found that males who do not get sufficient zinc every day have low testosterone levels than men who get adequate zinc. As a consequence, nearly every testosterone supplement on the market incorporates zinc.

Boron is not very well known, but its also necessary for testosterone production. In this research, men were given either a 6mg boron or a placebo.

After 60 days, researchers discovered that males in the boron group had 29.5% higher testosterone levels than the males present in the placebo group. Boron is essential for a variety of facets of male health, particularly testosterone development.

Tribulus Terrestris is a primary ingredient in testosterone enhancement supplements. Some research has related Tribulus Terrestris to significant testosterone benefits, although others were less convincing.

Researchers discovered that Tribulus Terrestris supplements raised testosterone by 16% after 90 days in this trial. Men have shown fewer erectile dysfunction symptoms.

Fenugreek is just as common as Tribulus Terrestris for increasing testosterone levels. In this report, researchers instructed men to take 500mg of fenugreek a day while engaging in resistance exercise.

After the study, subjects in the fenugreek community had slightly higher levels of testosterone. In addition, as compared to the other group, the subjects had more significant weight loss and intensity. The research was conducted on males in their twenties who have higher levels of testosterone than older men.

Ashwagandha is being used in an increasing number of testosterone supplements. For millennia, ashwagandha was used as an adaptogen that ensures it makes the body react to high-stress levels. However, a growing number of researchers have linked ashwagandha to testosterone.

Researchers found that after 90 days of taking 5,000mg of ashwagandha every day, males had 22% higher testosterone than others.

Subjects also had better sperm production, as demonstrated by 14 percent of the subjects spouses becoming pregnant during the 90-day study cycle. Ashwagandha can also give you peace of mind by bringing down the cortisol levels (that destroy testosterone) and making it easier to perform in bed.

On the whole, testosterone boosters improve testosterone in a variety of forms. Some people make use of minerals and vitamins. Others make use of medicinal extracts, fruit extracts, or unknown components.

More:
Best Testosterone Boosters: Top Pills to Boost Low T Levels Safely - Journal of the San Juan Islands

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

SAD is a type of mood disorder, and its symptoms often include feeling sluggish or tired, having trouble sleeping, and experiencing difficulty concentrating during certain seasons. Most commonly these symptoms appear in the winter, but SAD can also occur in the summer months.

Bindiya Gandhi, M.D., previously told mindbodygreen that these lights "work wonderfully by resetting and improving your overall circadian rhythm" during a time when your body may struggle to do so naturally due to lighting fluctuations."Light therapy is not new, and doctors have long been recommending this therapy for many different ailments," she adds.

Sun lamps are also used to help ease morning blues, depression, lethargy, insomnia, and confusion. According to Lizz Kinyua, M.D., a physician with a focus on mental health, these symptoms tend to occur during winter and autumn months because when it is dark for the majority of the day, our hormones can go a little haywire.

Sun lamps, Kinyua explains, "provide light just as bright as the sun to promote serotonin production and reduce melatonin production. When used continuously and in combination with other medications, they can be incredibly useful."

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8 Expert-Backed Sun Lights To Lift Your Mood This Winter & Beyond - mindbodygreen.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

As per the reports from World Health Organization, approximately 2 billion adults today are overweight, and out of those, nearly 650 million are obese with BMI greater than 30 kg/m. The worldwide prevalence of obesity is increasing day by day, and it is estimated that obesity and being overweight kill more individuals than being underweight.

We all know that the best ways of controlling weight are a balanced diet and exercise, but is it easy to lose weight? Most people struggle to lose pounds despite following a healthy diet and daily workouts.

Although diet and exercise are the two natural and effective ways to lose weight, one other solution is dietary supplements. These nutritional supplements tackle the root cause of obesity, increase metabolism and help burn stubborn fats.

With hundreds of dietary supplements available in the market, it is a challenge to select the best one. Resveratone is one effective supplement to lose weight.

Resveratone is a 100% safe, natural dietary supplement that targets the root cause of obesity and stress in the body. Resveratone is created to control the bodys primary stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol is natures in-built alarm system in our body; when the body is under stress, the cortisol is released in a more significant amount.

The hormone turns on flight and flight mode, slowing your metabolism and regular bodily functions. During stress, cortisol slows calorie burning, promotes fat storage, increases the loss of muscle mass, and affects appetite.

Resveratone, on the other hand, reduces hunger cravings, prevents overeating, improves sleep quality, burns unwanted belly fat, boosts metabolism, and increases energy levels, so you feel great while losing weight.

The background of Resveratone is surprising. You wont believe it, but the primary person responsible for Resveratone is a 57-year-old construction worker Bill Maddox. He was an overweight person, experienced joint problems, high blood pressure, fatigue, and type 2 diabetes mellitus due to the former situation.

He tried everything to lose weight, and the doctors lost hope for his life. At this time, he met Dr. Megumi Namikaze, and things started to improve for him. Bill discovered a plants healing property, which led him to lose weight and formulate an effective formula, Resveratone.

The duo realized that the leading cause of weight problems is not related to diet; instead, it is linked to stress. Under stressful conditions, the body releases cortisol which decreases metabolism and promotes fat storage.

Now, the function of Resveratone is clear-cut it acts on the stress hormone of our body.

Multiple ingredients inside this effective supplement work synergistically to achieve weight loss. Some of the primary elements are:

The main ingredient in the Resveratone supplement is Resveratrol. It is extracted from a plant known as Japanese Knotweed. It has antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. Some of the known effects of Resveratrol include:

Another main ingredient found in Resveratone is Alpha Lipoic Acid. It helps soothe inflammation, reduce blood pressure, improve liver function and increase energy by ATP production within cells. It is a vital component as it allows the breakdown of carbohydrates for fueling cells, tissues, and organs of the body.

In a study, participants consuming alpha-lipoic acid lost around 1.52 pounds weight within 14 weeks compared to the placebo group.

ALSO READ:Exipure: Only Buy Exipure After Reading This Honest Review!

Berberine found in Resveratone formula is extracted from a group of shrubs known as Berberis. It activates the metabolic master switch of the body named as AMP-activated protein kinase enzyme.

In addition to metabolic function regulation, it reduces blood sugar levels, sugar production in the liver, and insulin resistance, promoting weight loss.

In a study, researchers gave 500 mg of berberine to obese individuals thrice a day. After 12 weeks, they found an average weight loss of five pounds along with a 3.6% body fat reduction.

Some other essential ingredients added in Resveratone supplement are:

Resveratone is a safe formula manufactured in the USA. It is made with natural plant extracts in an FDA-registered facility, which means it follows good manufacturing practices and stringent regulations. Also, the company claims that its supplement is free from allergens.

However, if you suffer from any medical condition or taking any supplement, ask your physician before consuming Resveratone.

Each bottle of Resveratone contains 60 capsules that are sufficient for one month. The company recommends consuming two capsules of this supplement daily for at least three months to experience the benefits. So for long-term use, the company offers discounts on multiple bottle purchases.

Remember Resveratone is only available for purchase from the official website. It is not available to purchase from any retail store or other websites.

Also, the company offers a 60-day hassle-free money-back guarantee so, if you are dissatisfied with the results, return it for a full refund. Customer service is available for further information via:

Overall, Resveratone is an effective and safe supplement made from natural ingredients for weight loss. This supplement was created by a 57-year-old construction worker Bill Maddox with the help of Dr. Megumi Namikaze.

The main ingredient of this formula is Resveratrol, extracted from a plant named Japanese Knotweed.

Research also proves the efficiency of all the ingredients added in this formula to boost metabolism, reduce hunger, decrease blood sugar levels, affect cortisol levels, and burn stubborn fats. According to the company, 291,000 people have already experienced excellent results, but you can get a refund if the resveratone supplement does not work for you.

Order Resveratone now from the official website!

RELATED:Best Protein Powder: Ranking the Top Protein Supplements

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The links contained in this product review may result in a small commission if you opt to purchase the product recommended at no additional cost to you. This goes towards supporting our research and editorial team and please know we only recommend high quality products.

Disclaimer:

Please understand that any advice or guidelines revealed here are not even remotely a substitute for sound medical advice from a licensed healthcare provider. Make sure to consult with a professional physician before making any purchasing decision if you use medications or have concerns following the review details shared above. Individual results may vary as the statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA-approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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Resveratone: Effective Resveratrol Ingredients or Supplement Scam? - Federal Way Mirror

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Being severely overweight has never been so dangerous. During the COVID-19 epidemic, Americans who are obese, without any other risk factors, were hospitalized at three times the rate of those who weren't, by some estimates. When combined with other diet-related health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, obesity raises the risk of hospitalization sixfold and the risk of death twelvefold.

Those numbers have raised the stakes in the nation's epidemic of diet-related disease and added to the growing alarm of politicians and nutrition experts, some of whom are starting to call upon regulators to rein in food companies. They're pushing measures similar to those used to curb the influence of tobacco companies in the 1990s, such as limiting the marketing of certain kinds of food to children and actively discouraging the consumption of key ingredientschief among them, sugar.

At issue is the explosive growth in a broad class of food products that are not merely processed in the conventional sense to lengthen shelf life, but are also often modified to maximize flavor, visual appeal, texture, odor and the speed with which they are digested. These foods are made by deconstructing natural food into its chemical constituents, modifying them and recombining them into new forms that bear little resemblance to anything found in nature. So radically are they altered that nutrition scientists have given them a new name: ultra-processed.

Ultra-processed foods are often designed to directly target the vulnerabilities of the human brainin particular, to exploit the way the brain processes pleasurable sensations. They often deliver a signal to the brain's reward centers so quick and potent, some neuroscientists believe, that many people find it as addictive as opioids or nicotine.

Lab-made creations such as chips, hot dogs, enriched bagels and American cheese have been a staple of the American diet since the 1980s. In recent years, however, the varieties of these foods have multiplied on store shelves and in fast-food restaurants. In 2017 and 2018, they accounted for 57 percent of the calories consumed by the average Americanup from 54 percent in 2001 and 2002, according to one study.

"We've gotten really good at stripping out and refining and processing sugars and fats into these really potent vehicles, and they've gotten cheaper to make," says Ashley Gearhardt, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan who studies food and addiction. "Then we combine them into totally novel food products that are so much more rewarding than anything our brains ever evolved to handle. That's why so many of us can't stop eating them."

The implications are worrisome. Half of American adults now have diabetes or pre-diabetes, three quarters of adults are overweight and about 100 million, or 42 percent, are obese, by the standards of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among children between 2 and 5 years old, one in 10 are already obese. Among teens, that number is one in five.

Our food, in other words, is literally killing us. Food companies have tricked our brains into making us complicit, and our elected officials are complicit, too. What's needed is a better understanding of exactly how processed foods make us sick and a public reckoning with Big Food's role in the nation's health crisis. So far, policymakers have shown little appetite for scrutinizing the tactics of the powerful food lobby, but the pressure to curb consumption of ultra-processed foods is growing.

The nation's food crisis seems to be playing out in ways eerily reminiscent of the early days of tobacco smoking more than half a century ago, before regulators caught up with Big Tobacco. (It's no coincidence that many tobacco companies later acquired food companies.) This time, it's Big Food peddling harmful and possibly addictive products.

"We have now the accumulated evidence, particularly in the last five years, that people who eat more ultra-processed foods have higher risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, depression, cancer, renal and liver diseases," says Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. "The studies have been overwhelming. There've been hundreds and hundreds of them. There's no doubt that this is not a good thing. It is a problem."

A few years ago, Kevin Hall set out to debunk the theory, espoused by a growing number of nutritionists, that Americans were getting fatter and sicker because of the complex industrial and chemical processing that food companies were using to make their products appealing. Hall believed the explanation had more to do with Americans simply eating too many calories, fats and sugars. The notion that extra processing might be causing the problem struck him as "ridiculous."

To prove it, Hall, who runs a research laboratory that studies the regulation of metabolism and body weight at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), ran a controlled experiment that he thought would show beyond a doubt that processing wasn't as important as nutrients. He paid 20 volunteers $5,000 apiece to move into an NIH facility in Bethesda, Maryland, for one month. He divided the volunteers into two groups. One ate mainly healthy food derived from simple ingredients with minimal processing, such as Greek yogurt, beef tender roast and shrimp scampi with spaghetti. The other group ate Honey Nut Cheerios, Chef Boyardee beef ravioli, Eggo pancakes and other processed foodsthe kind most overweight people in America eat.

Hall and his colleagues did their best to ensure that the only significant difference between the two groups was in how much processed food they consumed. Each group ate diets that were nutritionally identical in every way Hall and his team could think of, containing the same amounts of sugar, salt, fat, fiber, macronutrients, carbohydrates and calories. Both groups of volunteers were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. After they finished a meal, their leftovers were carried down a couple floors and delivered to a team of nutritionists in a laboratory, who precisely weighed and characterized everything left on the plate.

Hall, it turns out, had it all wrongprocessing, in fact, made all the difference. The subjects in Hall's study who subsisted on Cheerios and Chef Boyardee gained one pound per week on average and consumed in excess of 500 calories a day more than the group with the healthier diet. What's more, when they later switched to a natural diet, they dropped the extra weight. The conclusion: whatever food company chemists are doing to food, it makes people fatter.

The results opened up a new avenue of inquiry for Hall and his colleagues. What was it about the ultra-processed food that prompted this overindulgence and weight gain? The question is a matter of intense speculation and debate in the world of nutrition sciencea debate that can only be solved with more research. What's clear, however, is that the ultra-processed foods favored by a vast proportion of Americans are causing harm.

Humans have been modifying food since hunter-gathers discovered fire and figured out how to barbeque stone-age animals. Ten thousand years ago, ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians learned how to smoke, salt and dry their food to preserve it. In the 19th century, pasteurization and canning techniques vastly expanded the capacity for long-term storage and transport of food.

Processed food, as we know it today, arrived in the first half of the 20th century. That's when food engineers figured out how to use modified potato starch to form pork, ham, sugar, water and sodium nitrate into a pliable gelatinous blob that would fit into a rectangular tin emblazoned with the word "Spam." Two World Wars, the Space Race and increasing consumer demand for fast meals with a long shelf life that could support the lifestyle of the expanding middle class financed the scientific efforts necessary to give us spray drying, evaporation, freeze-drying and a sophisticated understanding of how to make a decent tasting cupcake you can put on a shelf and still eat two years later. By the early 2000s, Americans were getting more than half of their calories from chicken nuggets, artificially sweetened canned food, potato chips and other man-made concoctions.

Nutritionists didn't create a language to describe this trend until 2009. That year, Carlos A. Monteiro, a lanky, curly-haired professor of nutrition at the University of Sao Paulo, introduced the "NOVA Food Classification system," a novel grouping of foods based not on their nutritional content but according to the extent and purpose of the physical, biological and chemical processes applied to them after they were separated from nature.

He coined the term "ultra-processed," (as opposed to "minimally processed" or simply "processed") to refer to "industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch), or synthesized in laboratories from food substrates or other organic sources (such as flavor enhancers, colors and food additives used to make the product hyper-palatable). Monteira excluded foods that had been exposed to simple processes like drying, fermentation, pasteurization or other processes that might subtract part of the food (frozen vegetables, dried pasta or eggs). He also carved out exceptions for products manufactured by industry with the use of salt, sugar, oil or other substances added to natural or minimally processed foods to preserve or to make them more palatable, but that could still be recognized as versions of the original foodsusually foods that had just two or three ingredients (such as beef jerky, or freshly made bread).

Ultra-processed food, by contrast, was meant to include Frankenstein-like creations that were often made up of added sugar, salt, fat and starches extracted from natural occurring foods and then blended with artificial colors, flavors and stabilizers to hold it all together. Soft drinks, hot dogs, cold cuts, packaged cookies and salty snacks like pretzel rods all qualified, as did many frozen dinners and canned entrees.

"They are not food," Monteiro says. "They are formulations. They contain chemical compounds that do not belong to foodthat should not belong to foods."

Many researchers dismiss Monteiro's classification system as overly broad. The category of "ultra-processed foods," after all, encompasses a wide variety of different products with endlessly varied nutritional profiles. It lumps Twinkies, Doritos and diet soda together with protein-rich entrees like Perdue Chicken tenders, which are made from the rib meat of an actual chicken and then combined with dextrose, sugar, guar gum, yellow corn flour and other ingredients, and Hormel Beef and bean chili, made from actual beef, beans and crushed tomatoes and combined with less than 2 percent modified cornstarch, soy flour and caramel color.

Nonetheless, by defining a new category that represents levels of processing, he gave public health experts and epidemiologists the language to discuss how industrial chemists had changed foodand how to measure their inventions against a wide array of health problems. The strength of those associations soon began to generate attention.

Although scientists haven't figured out how ultra-processed foods cause people to gain weightwhich of the thousands of chemicals, additives, nutrients actually lead to worse health outcomesthe market forces that have guided food manufacturers are clear enough. Between 1980 and 2000, the period in which obesity and metabolic diseases began to rocket upwards, the number of calories available for purchase in the U.S. food supply increased 20 percent, from about 3,200 per person per day to 4,000, which dramatically increased competition for the limited attention and stomach capacity of the American consumer.

Nestle, the author of many books on the politics of food policy, suggests that federal farm subsidies that ensured surplus crops, such as corn, made it to market, along with the widespread adoption of cheap additives in the 1970s like high fructose corn syrup, were among the factors that drove this overproduction. Meanwhile in the 1980s, activist stockholders stepped up pressure on food companies to grow their quarterly growth profits to keep the stock prices rising. All of this fueled a high-stakes arms race in the food industry between competing product development and marketing teams.

"If you're trying to sell your food product and make a profit in an environment in which there's twice as many calories as anybody needs," says Nestle, "you either have to get people to buy yours instead of somebody else's or to get everybody to eat more in general."

To sell more, food companies made their products ubiquitous. They sold them in bookstores and libraries. They set up in clothing stores, drugstores and gas stations. They offered up bigger portions and created more cartoon characters to sell cereal, using tactics pioneered and perfected by Big Tobacco, which by then had begun to diversify from cigarettes into food. They also called in scientists, who helped devise ingenious marketing techniques and scientific innovations to sell more food.

Michael Moss devotes a chapter of his 2013 book Salt Sugar Fat to the exploits of Howard Moskowitz, an industry star who pioneered the use of advanced mathematics and computational science to "optimize" food products so that they created the most powerful cravings. Over the years, Moskowitz reengineered a wide array of products, ranging from General Mills breakfast cereals to Prego Spaghetti sauce, by testing out modifications in color, smell, packaging, taste and texture on human guinea pigs, and then feeding the data into a sophisticated mathematical model that "maps out the ingredients to the sensory perceptions these ingredients create, so that I can just dial up the product," Moskowitz explained to Moss.

The most important weapon in Big Food's arsenal turns out to be sugar. Moskowitz coined the term "bliss point" to describe the "perfect amount" of the sweetness in a product to maximize consumption. By focusing on the bliss point, Moss argues, food companies have changed the American palate in ways that predispose us to overeating the bad stuff (potato chips and ice cream) and pushing the good stuff (broccoli and asparagus) to the side. Recent studies, he says, show that 66 percent of the food in grocery stores now contain added sweeteners.

"These companies have learned how to find and exploit our basic instincts that attract us to food," says Moss, whose latest book, Hooked, examines the addictiveness of the food. "The problem isn't that these companies have engineered the perfect amount of sweetness for things like soda, cookies or ice cream. It's that they've marched around the grocery store, adding sugar to stuff that didn't used to be sweet, like bread and yogurts and spaghetti sauce. This has created this expectancy that everything should be sweet."

Fructose, one of the most commonly used sweeteners, is now present in many foods at concentrations unheard of in nature, according Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist affiliated with UC San Francisco and author of Metabolical, about the dangers of processed food. In recent years, studies have shown that fructose destroys or inactivates several key enzymes needed for the healthy functioning of mitochondria, the power plants in human cells that convert simple sugars into ATP, the form of energy we use to carry out the functions of the human body and brain.

This disruption in energy conversion causes a backlog of unprocessed glucose to circulate in the bloodstream. Sensing the excess glucose, the pancreas floods the system with the hormone insulin, which tells the body to remove the glucose from the bloodstream and store it as fat. Some of this fat tends to build up on the liver, which the body relies upon to filter, process and balance the blood leaving the stomach. The liver becomes sick and the problem worsens. Starved of the energy our mitochondria would normally provide, we eat more.

"It shouldn't be surprising that kids are getting type-two diabetes and fatty-liver disease that used to be the diseases of alcohol," he says. "We now know that fructose is a mitochondrial toxin, which turns into fat in the liver and is metabolized by the liver in ways virtually identical to how alcohol is metabolized."

Sugar isn't even the worst problem in the American diet. More damaging still is the consumption of processed grains, used in corn flakes, white bread and many other products. These grains are stripped of their outer shell, known as the "bran," and their inner germ, which contains fiber, fatty acids and nutrients, leaving only the carbohydrates. The human body digests these liberated carbohydrates much faster than when they're locked inside the grains.

"Instead of sitting in the stomach and gradually being broken down into glucose, it begins to break down as soon as it gets to your mouth and is almost fully digested by the time it has moved through the stomach, and all absorbed by the time it gets to your small bowel," says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and dean of the nutrition department at Tufts University.

This rapid digestion starves the gut bacteria, which we rely on for healthy functioning of the digestive system, leading to increased gut permeability that in turn may allow bacteria and toxins to enter the bloodstream and cause widespread inflammation, a factor in a wide variety of diseases such as celiac disease, diabetes, asthma, Alzheimer's and cancer.

It also floods the bloodstream with glucose, causing insulin levels to spike. This high "glycemic load," a measure of how quickly blood sugar rises, can have long-term consequences for the way the body processes food, leading to a long-term dysregulation of the hormonal systems. These hormones tell the body to store more fat at the expense of providing calories to keep things running. The body, starved of energy, craves foodmeaning we are forever hungry, even when we overeat.

"Having seen thousands of patients with obesity, I think people can show a lot of discipline around food choice and selection if they experience benefits," says David Ludwig, a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital and a professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. "I think what we have trouble with consistently is resisting extreme hunger."

Some researchers suggest the change in our diet may also be changing our brains, rewiring them with aberrant patterns that lead to compulsive eating, and possibly even addiction.

Nora Volkow, a neuroscientist who is now Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the NIH, was one of the first to begin researching food addiction in 1980s. She was struck by similarities between the compulsive behaviors and experiences reported by drug addicts and alcoholics and those reported by obese patients who claimed to be unable to control their eating. In recent years, she says, evidence has emerged from her lab and others linking the pathological brain activation patterns seen in drug addicts to those seen in many obese research subjects and compulsive overeaters.

"When I first started to speak about it, there was a complete and absolute rejection, almost anger, from people who insisted it was an endocrinological disease, not a disease of addiction," she says. "But that's an artificial distinction. If you look at it from the outside, what is the difference between nicotine and an ultra-processed food if both have been designed optimally to generate that compulsive responsea response that manipulates the dopaminergic system in a way that you don't find in natural foods?"

Nicole Avena began studying whether or not sugar could actually meet the scientific criteria for other addictive substances in the early 2000s after hearing from recovering drug addicts that they found it more difficult to quit sugar than heroin. Avena, an associate professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, found that sugar, in both animals and humans, led to binging, withdrawal and cravingall components of addiction typically seen in drugs of abuse. She also saw neurochemical and neuroimaging changes in the brain virtually identical to those found in drug addicts. Sugar, when combined with other ingredients present in ultra-processed food, was more addictive still. In rats, sugar was found to be as addictive as cocaine.

"Our brains just aren't designed to be able to process these different types of ingredients in the quantities that we're being exposed to," says Avena.

Ultra-processed foods have something else in common with nicotine: Some of the biggest producers of processed foods were, from the 1980s to the end of the 2000s, known as Big Tobacco. In 1985, RJ Reynolds acquired Nabisco for $4.9 billion, and Phillip Morris acquired General Foods in a $5.75 billion deal that was then the largest takeover in U.S. history outside of the oil industry. Phillip Morris added Kraft to its portfolio in 1988 and rebranded itself as Altria in 2003. (RJR flipped Nabisco to Phillip Morris in 2000, which in turn spun off Kraft from its international tobacco business in 2007.)

UM's Gearhardt has been studying the events that led up the groundbreaking 1988 Surgeon General's report that deemed nicotine addictive, and the benchmarks used to do so, despite a concerted effort by one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation to prevent it.

One of the most important factors producing an addiction is the speed with which a drug hits the body and lights up the reward centers of the brain. By the time Big Tobacco began acquiring food companies, they had decades of experience studying and optimizing the speed with which their products delivered nicotine to the brain. They continued to harness that science in their food products.

"Many of these ultra-processed foods are almost pre-chewed for us," she says. "They melt in your mouth immediately. There's no protein, there's no water, there's no fiber slowing them down. It's going to hit your taste buds and light up your reward and motivation centers of the brain immediately. Then there's a secondary hit of dopamine when it gets absorbed into the body."

The threat is so grave that policymakers have recently shown glimmers of a newfound willingness to take on the food industry. A report by the General Accounting Office in August, commissioned by members of Congress on the powerful House appropriations committee to review diet-related chronic health conditions and federal efforts to address them, painted a grim picture.

More than 30 percent of young people aged 17 to 24 no longer qualify for U.S. military service because of their weight. Diet-related ailments such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes soaked up 54 percent of the U.S. government's $383.6 billion in health care spending, which includes Medicare and Medicaid, in 2018. They accounted for about one-quarter of the nation's total $1.5 trillion in health care spending in 2018 and were associated with 1,487,411 deathsmore than half of deaths from all causes.

Recently policymakers on both sides of the aisle called for a White House conference along the lines of the 1969 conference on food, nutrition and health. That meeting, called by then-President Richard Nixon to address the hunger crisis, resulted in the creation of the special supplemental nutrition program for Woman, Infants and children (SNAP) and the school lunch program, among other things.

"Now we face a second food crisis," said Senator Cory Booker, who chaired a farm subcommittee earlier this month that focused on the GAO report. "Despite being the wealthiest nation in the world, we have created a food system that relentlessly encourages the overeating of empty calories that are literally making us sick and causing us to spend an ever-increasing amount of taxpayer dollarsliterally, trillions of dollars a yearon health care costs to treat diet related diseases."

Nobody is under any illusions that solutions will come easy. In recent years, public health officials have launched major campaigns to deal with what many consider to be the lowest hanging fruit: regulations to reduce soda consumption through taxes and limitations on how federal and state food assistance can be spent, among other measures. The food industry, which has poured tens of millions of dollars into lobbying, campaign contributions and influencing public opinion, has fought back ferociously.

In California, where four cities have passed soda taxes, the beverage industry spent $7 million promoting a 2018 ballot initiative that would have made it harder for cities to raise taxes of any kind. The industry dropped the initiative after lawmakers agreed to implement a 12-year moratorium on local taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks. The word "ultra-processed foods" appears in U.S. dietary guidelines only in the references, says NYU's Nestle, because if it appeared more prominently "the food industry would go berserk." She notes that in 2015, when a scientific committee recommended changing guidelines to encourage Americans to eat less meat for reasons of "health and sustainability," industry lobbyists convinced Congress to insert language into a spending bill ordering the Department of Agriculture to change it.

"We could put restrictions on portion size, put restrictions on advertising and marketing, change federal subsidy policies to subsidize healthier foods and make them more available," Nestle says. "There's a whole lot of things we could do. But you can't do anything without taking on the food industry. And nobody wants to do that because they're very powerfuleverybody eats and loves their products. Anytime anybody talks about taking on the food industry, all of a sudden we have charges of 'nanny statism.'"

(In response to a request for an interview, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Brands Association, which represents companies that manufacture food, beverages, household and personal care products, suggested Newsweek reach out to the SNAC International, formerly the Snack Food Association, which did not respond to inquiries.)

Congress has been slow to address the obesity crisis. Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, has been among those advocating for the passage of a bipartisan bill that would require Medicare to cover medications, behavioral therapy, dietician visits and other approved therapies to treat obesity. The bill has been introduced in both the House and Senate every year since 2013, but Congress has not passed it.

It will take time, research and public pressure to change minds in Washington, advocates say. For now, the best hope for a solution is to catalyze a groundswell of consumer demand for products that are healthier. Many food companies have recognized that diet-friendly, healthy choices are in demand and can move products. Which brings us back to the science.

To change minds, scientistsand the food industry itselfwill need a better understanding of precisely what it is about the nation's diet that is feeding the public health crisis. "We need to better understand what the mechanisms are that are driving the deleterious effects of ultra-processed food so we can target policies and potential reformulations to improve the health of the nation."

"We need a national nutrition moonshot," says Tufts Mozaffarian. "We're drowning under an epidemic of diet-related disease."

Hall, for one, plans to run another comparison study to make sure people aren't simply eating more because the food tastes better. This time he'll make sure the processed and unprocessed dishes both taste equally delicious, as judged by independent tasters. The results will hopefully bring us another step closer to understanding and, eventually, action.

Original post:
Americans Are Addicted to 'Ultra-Processed' Foods, and It's Killing Us - Newsweek

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Link:
The association between sexual function and body image among postmenopausal women: a cross-sectional study - BMC Women's Health - BMC Blogs Network

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

WILMINGTON, Del.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AstraZeneca's EVUSHELD (tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab), a long-acting antibody (LAAB) combination, has received emergency use authorization (EUA) in the US for the pre-exposure prophylaxis (prevention) of COVID-19, with first doses expected to become available very soon.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211208006139/en/

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted the EUA for EVUSHELD for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 in adults and adolescents (aged 12 and older who weigh 40kg or more) with moderate to severe immune compromise due to a medical condition or immunosuppressive medications and who may not mount an adequate immune response to COVID-19 vaccination, as well as those individuals for whom COVID-19 vaccination is not recommended. Recipients should not be currently infected with or had recent known exposure to a person infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Myron J. Levin, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine, US, and principal investigator on the PROVENT trial, said: Millions of people in the US and around the world remain at serious risk for COVID-19 because their immune systems do not generate a sufficient immune response, even after receiving all recommended doses of vaccine. I am excited to offer my patients EVUSHELD as an easily-administered new option that provides long-lasting protection that could help them return to their everyday lives.

Mene Pangalos, Executive Vice President, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca, said: We are proud to play a leading role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and, with EVUSHELD, we now have the first antibody therapy authorized in the US to prevent COVID-19 symptoms before virus exposure, while also providing long lasting protection with a single dose. EVUSHELD neutralizes all previous SARS-CoV-2 variants to date, and we are working quickly to establish its efficacy against the new Omicron variant. We thank our clinical trial participants, the investigators, scientists, and government agencies and our colleagues at AstraZeneca who have all contributed to the development of EVUSHELD.

Brian Koffman, MDCM (retired), MS Ed, Co-Founder, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of the CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia) Society, US, said: One of the primary questions I keep getting asked by patients is When can I hug my grandchildren again? As a physician and person with a weakened immune system, l am filled with hope now that EVUSHELD will soon be available to those who cant count on vaccination alone to provide the protection they need.

EVUSHELD is a combination of two long-acting monoclonal antibodies and is the only antibody therapy authorized in the US for COVID-19 pre-exposure prophylaxis and the only COVID-19 antibody delivered as an intramuscular dose (150mg tixagevimab and 150mg cilgavimab).

About 2% of the global population is considered at increased risk of an inadequate response to a COVID-19 vaccine.1,2 About seven million people in the US are immunocompromised and may benefit from EVUSHELD for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19.1,3,4 This includes people with blood cancers or other cancers being treated with chemotherapy, and those taking medications after an organ transplant or who are taking immunosuppressive drugs for conditions including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.5-9

The primary data supporting the EVUSHELD EUA are from the ongoing PROVENT Phase III pre-exposure prevention trial, which showed a statistically significant reduction (77% at primary analysis, 83% at median six-month analysis) in the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 compared to placebo, with protection from the virus continuing for at least six months. More follow-up is needed to establish the full duration of protection provided by EVUSHELD. Data from the Phase III STORM CHASER post-exposure trial and the EVUSHELD Phase I trial also supported the EUA. EVUSHELD was well-tolerated in the trials.

EVUSHELD and SARS-CoV-2 variants

Studies are underway to provide information on the impact of the new Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) on EVUSHELD.10,11 Of the Omicron binding site substitutions relevant to EVUSHELD that have been tested to date in preclinical assays, none have been associated with escape from EVUSHELD neutralization.10,11 In vitro findings demonstrate EVUSHELD neutralizes other recent emergent SARS-CoV-2 viral variants, including the Delta and Mu variants.10

EVUSHELD is being developed with support from the US government, including federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority in partnership with the Department of Defense; Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, under Contract No. W911QY-21-9-0001.

AstraZeneca has agreed to supply the US government with 700,000 doses of EVUSHELD. The US government has indicated that it plans to distribute these doses to states and territories at no cost and on a pro rata basis.

AstraZeneca is progressing with filings around the globe for potential emergency use authorization or conditional approval of EVUSHELD in both COVID-19 prophylaxis and treatment.

EVUSHELD is authorized only for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of the emergency use of EVUSHELD under Section 564(b)(1) of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. 360bbb-3(b)(1), unless the authorization is terminated or revoked sooner.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION

EVUSHELD (tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab) has not been approved, but has been granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by FDA. There are limited clinical data available and serious and unexpected adverse events may occur that have not been previously reported with EVUSHELD use.

Contraindication:

EVUSHELD is contraindicated in individuals with previous severe hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis, to any component of EVUSHELD.

Warnings and Precautions:

Hypersensitivity Including Anaphylaxis

Serious hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis, have been observed with IgG1 monoclonal antibodies like EVUSHELD. If signs and symptoms of a clinically significant hypersensitivity reaction or anaphylaxis occur, immediately discontinue administration and initiate appropriate medications and/or supportive therapy. Clinically monitor individuals after injections and observe for at least 1 hour.

Clinically Significant Bleeding Disorders

As with any other intramuscular injection, EVUSHELD should be given with caution to individuals with thrombocytopenia or any coagulation disorder.

Cardiovascular Events

A higher proportion of subjects who received EVUSHELD versus placebo reported myocardial infarction and cardiac failure serious adverse events. All of the subjects with events had cardiac risk factors and/or a prior history of cardiovascular disease at baseline. A causal relationship between EVUSHELD and these events has not been established. Consider the risks and benefits prior to initiating EVUSHELD in individuals at high risk for cardiovascular events, and advise individuals to seek immediate medical attention if they experience any signs or symptoms suggestive of a cardiovascular event.

Adverse Reactions:

The most common adverse events are headache, fatigue and cough.

Use in Specific Populations:

Pregnancy

There are insufficient data to evaluate a drug-associated risk of major birth defects, miscarriage, or adverse maternal or fetal outcomes. EVUSHELD should only be used during pregnancy if the potential benefit outweighs the potential risk for the mother and the fetus.

Lactation

There are no available data on the presence of tixagevimab or cilgavimab in human milk or animal milk, the effects on the breastfed infant, or the effects of the drug on milk production. Maternal IgG is known to be present in human milk.

Pediatric Use

EVUSHELD is not authorized for use in pediatric individuals under 12 years of age or weighing less than 40 kg. The safety and effectiveness of EVUSHELD have not been established in pediatric individuals.

AUTHORIZED USE

EVUSHELD (tixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab) is authorized for use under an EUA for the pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19 in adults and pediatric individuals (12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kg):

EVUSHELD has been authorized by FDA for the emergency use described above. EVUSHELD is not FDA-approved for any use, including use for pre-exposure prophylaxis of COVID-19.

EVUSHELD is authorized only for the duration of the declaration that circumstances exist justifying the authorization of the emergency use of EVUSHELD under section 564(b)(1) of the Act, 21 U.S.C. 360bbb-3(b)(1), unless the authorization is terminated or revoked sooner.

LIMITATIONS OF AUTHORIZED USE

See Full Fact Sheet for Healthcare Providers for examples of medical conditions or treatments that may result in moderate to severe immune compromise and an inadequate immune response to COVID-19 vaccination, the justification for emergency use of drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic, information on available alternatives, and additional information on COVID-19.

The FDA Letter of Authorization is available for reference, as well as the Fact Sheet for Patients, Parents And Caregivers.

SARS-CoV-2 Viral Variant

There is a potential risk of treatment failure due to the development of viral variants that are resistant to tixagevimab and cilgavimab administered together. Prescribing healthcare providers should consider the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 variants in their area, where data are available, when considering prophylactic treatment options.

Reporting Adverse Events

The prescribing healthcare provider and/or your designee must report all SERIOUS ADVERSE EVENTS and MEDICATION ERRORS potentially related to EVUSHELD within 7 calendar days from the healthcare providers awareness of the event (1) by submitting FDA Form 3500 online, (2) by downloading FDA Form 3500 and then submitting by mail or fax, or (3) contacting the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 to request this form.

In addition, please fax a copy of all FDA MedWatch forms to AstraZeneca at 1-866-742-7984.

Report adverse events by visiting https://contactazmedical.astrazeneca.com, or calling AstraZeneca at 1-800-236-9933.

Notes

EVUSHELD

EVUSHELD, formerly known as AZD7442 is a combination of two LAABs - tixagevimab (AZD8895) and cilgavimab (AZD1061) - derived from B-cells donated by convalescent patients after SARS-CoV-2 virus. Discovered by Vanderbilt University Medical Center and licensed to AstraZeneca in June 2020, the human monoclonal antibodies bind to distinct sites on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein13 and were optimized by AstraZeneca with half-life extension and reduced Fc receptor and complement C1q binding. The half-life extension more than triples the durability of its action compared to conventional antibodies and could afford up to 12 months of protection from COVID-19 following a single administration;14-16 data from the Phase III PROVENT trial show protection lasting at least six months.17 The reduced Fc receptor binding aims to minimize the risk of antibody-dependent enhancement of disease - a phenomenon in which virus-specific antibodies promote, rather than inhibit, infection and/or disease.18 EVUSHELD is delivered as an IM dose of 150mg tixagevimab and 150mg cilgavimab administered in two separate, consecutive injections.

In August 2021, AstraZeneca announced that EVUSHELD demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 in the PROVENT trial; efficacy was 83% compared to placebo in a six-month analysis announced on November 18, 2021. In October 2021, AstraZeneca announced positive high-level results from the EVUSHELD TACKLE Phase III outpatient treatment trial. EVUSHELD is also being studied as a potential treatment for hospitalized COVID-19 patients as part of the National Institute of Healths ACTIV-3 trial and in an additional collaborator hospitalization treatment trial.

Under the terms of the licensing agreement with Vanderbilt, AstraZeneca will pay single-digit royalties on future net sales.

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines in Oncology, Rare Diseases and BioPharmaceuticals, including Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism, and Respiratory & Immunology. Based in Cambridge, UK, AstraZeneca operates in over 100 countries, and its innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.astrazeneca-us.com and follow us on Twitter @AstraZenecaUS.

References

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EVUSHELD (formerly AZD7442) long-acting antibody combination authorized for emergency use in the US for pre-exposure prophylaxis (prevention) of...

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

People due to receive their Covid-19 booster vaccine in coming weeks will primarily be offered the Moderna dose at HSE vaccination centres.

The HSE is reported to have large supplies of Moderna due to expire next month, so that will be the main vaccine administered over coming weeks to the over-60s, over-50s, healthcare workers and younger people in vulnerable groups though it will be restricted to people over 30.

Anecdotally there are indications some people may be reluctant to take the Moderna vaccine. This may be due to Irish stocks about to expire shortly and/or confusion about its efficacy. This follows the companys chief executive Stphane Bancel warning last week the Moderna jab may not be as effective against Omicron as it had been with the Delta variant.

The HSE has confirmed recipients will have no choice on what vaccine they are given.

What type of coronavirus vaccine is the Moderna jab?

It is a new kind of synthetic mRNA vaccine the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is from the same stable. They provide excellent protection against severe illness and hospitalisation and have played a critical role in reducing Covid-19 deaths since being approved. A downside, however, is that they must be stored at very cold temperatures.

In a half-dozen studies published earlier this year the Moderna jab appears to be more protective over the long term than the Pfizer-BioNTech jab. Protection against symptomatic infection was 93.1 per cent for people aged 60 and above who originally received the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab and 94 per cent for BioNTech/Pfizer recipients a fortnight after the booster shot was administered.

Should people be worried about receiving a soon to be out-of-date vaccine?

In short no, as they retain the ability to boost antibody production within currently approved time spans though inevitably potency wanes over time. The Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Janssen (Johnson&Johnson) vaccines were put on the market with emergency use authorisation of up to six months.

This compares with a shelf life of two to three years for most vaccines and other medicines. This is an inevitable consequence of getting the vaccines out of the door as quickly as possible , chief scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Gino Martini told the journal BMJ.

Months later,these emergency expiry dates remain in force for these vaccines. For approved Covid-19 vaccines, the initial shelf lives were based on data available at the time of submission for regulatory approval.

The long-term shelf life has not been extended for any of the vaccines. A shelf life extension would require supporting evidence from relevant stability studies. Vaccine manufacturers are monitoring batches of vaccines with the aim of providing a longer shelf life; probably the usual two years.

What about the Omicron threat?

While Moderna said existing vaccines including its mRNA version will probably be less effective against the Omicron variant, most experts believe they will continue to provide significant protection against severe disease and hospitalisation. It should be stressed, however, definitive indication has yet to emerge. That will be a matter of weeks, if not days.

Moderna has confirmed it is developing an Omicron-specific booster though manufacturing the new vaccine would take time. Tens of millions of doses could be available in the first quarter of 2022, but scale-up would not happen until the second quarter provided it is shown such boosters are required.

What is the latest indication on the benefits of mixing vaccines?

Evidence supporting a mixing of vaccine doses has hardened over recent months. A study this week shows combining a first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine with a second dose of either the Moderna or the Novavax jabs results in far higher levels of neutralising antibodies and T-cells compared with two doses of the AstraZeneca jab.

This finding also has important implications for lower-income countries that have not yet completed their primary vaccination campaigns as it suggests you do not need access to mRNA vaccines and therefore ultra-cold storage facilities to trigger an extremely potent Covid-19 vaccine response.

The study also bolsters confidence that using the Moderna vaccine as a booster dose in people who have previously received the AstraZeneca jab should result in high levels of neutralising antibodies and T-cells.

It follows separate data published last week suggesting the Pfizer and Moderna booster jabs can dramatically strengthen the bodys immune defences.

The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) has decided not to recommend the Moderna booster vaccine for eligible people aged under 30 years as a precaution. A similar approach has been taken by authorities in France and the Scandinavian countries after early data showed a higher rate of myocarditis in young males who received Moderna compared to those who were administered Pfizer.

For those aged 30 and over, Niac advises the Pfizer vaccine or a half-dose of Moderna should be administered after a six-month interval, though for operational reasons a minimum interval of five months may be used.

There are early indications the infection rate is slowing down among those aged 75-79 due to the administration of boosters. Covid-19 infections have already fallen among those aged 80 and over, where booster coverage is above 80 per cent. It also describes as encouraging a decrease in the number of infections among healthcare workers.

The rise rapid rise of Omicron elsewhere, which is likely to be replicated in Ireland soon, is the big new complicating factor. So all bets are off until clarity on the exact extent of that threat emerges.

Link:
Q&A: All you need to know on getting the Moderna vaccine as a booster - The Irish Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Humans have always been fascinated with the concept of immortality but what seems to be even more exciting to some is the thought of using technology to make immortality a real-world application. A movement called transhumanism is even devoted to using science and technology to augment our bodies and our minds, and to allow humans to merge with machines, eradicating old age as a cause of death. So the big question is can we really evade death?

From Hans Moravecs classic book Mind Children to Gene Roddenberrys iconic TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the idea of uploading a persons feelings, memories, and experiences onto a machine, has been explored in many popular non-fiction and fiction works. However, whether or not mind uploading could become a reality, like 3D printers, robots, and driverless cars? We are yet to find out.

Mind uploading describes a hypothetical process of separating a persons consciousness (which involves their emotions, thought process, experiences, and basically everything that makes a person unique), then converting it into a digital format, and finally transferring the digital consciousness into a different substrate, like a machine.

The process would conceivably incorporate different steps, like mind copying, mind transfer, mind preservation, and whole brain emulation (WBE). Here is a detailed overview of how mind uploading can actually work:

The human brain regularly performs complex processes with the help of its 86 billion neurons that function simultaneously in a large neural network. And the complexity does not stop there. There aremore than 125 trillion synapsesjust in the cerebral cortex alone. That is a lot of information and storage capacity. Some have suggested that, in order to completely replicate an individual's brain, it would be necessary to first dissect the brain.

However, mind uploading advocates claim that noninvasive brain scans can provide sufficient resolution for copying the brain without actually killing the person to do it. The information stored in our brain would then be used to create aconnectome, a complete map of the neural connections in the brain, created using incredibly precise scanning of the neurons, and the synapses.

However, to date, we only have a complete connectome for a 1.5-millimeter roundworm called Caenorhabditis elegans, which has just 302 neurons and about seven thousand synaptic connections.In 2014, theOpenWorm projectwhich mapped the brain replicated it as software and installed it in a Lego robot which was capable of the same sensory and motor actions as the biological model.

Building a human connectome is clearly a much more complicated process. Even in the case of the C. elegans, researchers had to work for more than a decade to understand the organisms neuronal pathway.

Now imagine how much time and resources will be required for the identification of about 86 billion neurons, determination of their precise location, and tracing and cataloging of their projections on one another. Building and interpreting even a single human connectome is inconceivable using existing technologies.

Another proposed method of getting information from the brain is through a brain-computer interface (BCI). There are already existing implanted devicesthat can translate some types of neuronal information into commands, and arecapable of controlling external software or hardware, such as a robotic arm.However, modern BCIs are only very slightly related to the theoretical BCIs which would be needed to allow us to transfer our brain states into a digital medium.

Brain-computer interfaces which would allow mind uploading would need a technology similar to modern-day brain scanning technology. Some suggest that downloading consciousness would require technology capable of scanning human brains at a quantum particle level.

Elon Musks Neuralink is one company working on aspects of mind-uploading. They are designing a neural implant which would work "like a Fitbit in your skull". It would have many micron-scale electrode threads connected to different parts of the brain. While this technology is showing some promise in allowing humans to interface with computers in a limited way, it is not close to the technology needed to upload an entire brain.

Neuralinks website mentions that their chip will kick off a new kind of brain interface technology and as it develops further, they will be able to increase the channels of communication with the brain, accessing more brain areas and new kinds of neural information.

Some wealthy individuals who wish to live foreverare opting to preserve their brains and sometimes bodies through cryopreservation. In theory, in the future when human connectome technology is fully developed, their consciousness could then be retrieved and uploaded. An American cryonics company Alcor Life Extension Foundation already stores around 180 cryopreserved human bodies (with more preserving just their head) at its Phoenix-based facility.

However, some experts also claim that such cryonic techniques may damage the brain beyond repair.

Recently, an MIT graduate Robert McIntyre, rekindled the brain preservation hype when he announced his Y-Combinator backed startup Nectome is building some next-generation tools to preserve brains in the microscopic detail needed to map the connectome.

While previously working at a cryo research firm 21st Century Medicine, McIntyre along with cryobiologist Greg Fahy developed a method that combines embalming with cryonics. Fahy suggests that through this technique they could preserve the entire brain to the nanometer level, including the connectome. They even received an $80,000 science prize from the Brain Preservation Foundation for preserving a pigs brain so well that every synapse inside it could be seen with an electron microscope.

One element of this process that may give some pause for thought, however, is that the "brain embalming" needs to take place while the person is still alive. The company hopes the process will be allowed as part of doctor-assisted suicide programs. Even if it does not lead to an uploading technology, any brains that Nectome manages to preserve might help in the research towards building the human connectome.

Once all the neural activity is mapped out and the connectome is ready, the next step would be to digitize it. According to a rough estimate published in Scientific American, the memory storage capacity of the human brain could be around 2.5 Petabytes (2,500 TB).

While the popular notion is that we only use 10% of our brain, neurologists say this is actually a myth and we actually use almost all of our brain, all the time. That's a lot of storage.

Apart from the storage, we will require a computer architecture on which the brain can be reconstructed in the form of computable code. And there is the issue of power for that architecture.Today, a computer with the same memory and processing power as the human brain would require around 1 gigawatt of power, or "basically a whole nuclear power station to run one computer that does what our 'computer' does with 20 watts," according to Tom Bartol, a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute.

In computing, artificial neural networks (ANN) have been created which are inspired by the biological neural networks. An ANN is based on a collection of connected units or nodes which loosely model the neurons in a biological brain. However, there are some major differences between an ANN and a human (or animal) brain:

Also, the human brain uses approximately 300 times more parameters (neurons combined with synapses) as compared to GPT3, the largest artificial neural network ever built.

Once all the requirements are fulfilled and the artificial brain is ready, the mind can now be uploaded into a simulation, such as a virtual world,like the metaverse, or into a network of artificial brains connected to each other in a swarm (also called hive mind). Another transhumanist idea suggests that the mind can also be uploaded on a humanoid robot. Uploading into a physical robot would require robots that are a lot more functional than any that currently exist.

However, if the consciousness is uploaded as a substrate-independent mind (SIM), and if the SIM is deemed to be conscious, then it will also need toexist in a place and be able to interact with things. This will require virtual reality that is identical to how humans experience actual reality, everything from tasting a soda to feeling the pain of a car accident. All of this will require yet more storage capacity, signal bandwidth, and power.

Neuroscientist Michael Hendricks from McGill University called mind uploading an abjectly false hope in his 2015 report published in the MIT Technology Review. According to Hendricks, scientists still dont know exactly what kind of technology can allow them to replicate a human mind.

In his report, Hendricksalso raised doubts about the success of current or foreseeable freezing methods for brain preserving, as well as methods for retrieving the information stored in the human brain. Furthermore, as an expert on the neural activity of the C. Elegans roundworm, he says that having a connectome is by itself not a sufficient condition to simulate a nervous system.

Even once we figure out the technical side of whole brain emulation, there's still the philosophical part of the equation. Would that emulation still be you? Answering that will require a great deal of thinking about what it is that constitutes consciousness and identity something there is no clear answer to.

Another study reveals, that depending on their personal views on death, suicide, fiction, philosophy, and science, some people may show great support for mind uploading, while others strongly disapprove of any such practice.

Sure, mind uploading has the potential to change human lives forever, but this is also why the advent of this sci-fi technology in the real world might also give rise to a lot of conflicts revolving around its ethical and social impact on humanity.

Steve Jobs once said, "Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new." If this is true, then defeating death by mind uploading may in fact be self-defeating. It would allow a few individuals to go on, but at the expense of everything and everyone else.

For now, a number of scientists, researchers, and tech companies are working towards making mind uploading a reality. Whether they would be successful or not, and how our society would react to consciousness transfer, only the future could tell.

View original post here:
Will We Ever Cheat Death and Become Immortal With Mind Uploading? - Interesting Engineering

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Republicans in the Ohio House are trying, again, to limit thehealth care transgender children can access regardless of parental consent.

House Bill 454 would outlawthe use ofpuberty blockers, hormonesandgender reassignment surgery for childrenunder the age of 18. If approved, doctors who broke the law could face professional discipline andcivil lawsuits. Teachers would also be required to tell parents about a"minor's perception thathis or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex."

Twenty-five of Ohio's 64 House Republicans signed upto sponsor the bill, which is nicknamedthe Save Adolescents from Experimentation or SAFE Act.

Supporters say the law would protect parents and children from being "bullied" into treatments that can be irreversible. Opponents saybanning treatment for one specific groupisunconstitutional, grossly disrespectful and a serious threat to the health ofOhio's most vulnerable children.

Only a handful of medical providers in the Buckeye State providegender-affirming medical care to minors, such as puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohiodoesn'tprescribe hormones toanyone under 18.

Most family doctors won't either, said Liam Gallagher, the program director for an LGBTQ youth nonprofit called Kaleidoscope Youth Center. Transgender kids who want to transition get referred to specialized programs at a handful of major hospitals.

One of those is theTHRIVE programat Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus whereDr.ScottLeibowitz serves as its medical director of behavioral health.

"We work with parents and families on all ends of the belief spectrum ...," Leibowitz said. "Ethical and morally responsible care respects families of different cultures, different races anddifferent religious viewpoints."

He rejected the idea that anyone at THRIVE would pressure parents into medicating their children.

"Any type of treatment decision that would have potentially irreversible effects, that is something that is not ever rushed," Leibowitz said.

That can mean waiting on hormones until the child's 18th birthday.

Gallagher, who began his own transition at 21, said he's observed that most Ohio doctors want both parents to agree before they prescribe medication.Group sessions at the youth center where he workscan feel like"an echo chamber where we talk about the frustration of having to wait."

"The waitingfelt like years for me even though it was just months," Gallagher said.

For a lot of the teenagerswho frequentKaleidoscope,gender-affirming care doesn't go beyond choosing clothing, haircuts and pronouns that fit them.

When it comes to surgery something HB 454 calls gravely concerning Liebowitz was more circumspect, saying it dependedon the "emotional maturity of a young person."

Data on how many minors undergo this kind of surgery is scarce, but the standards of care written by theWorld Professional Association for Transgender Healthrecommend frank discussions about thelifelong impacts onfertility.

The standards state that for most minors "genital surgery should not be carried out untilpatients reach the legal age of majority to give consent for medical procedures in a given country."

The larger issue for Leibowitz is that the fear of surgery is being used as a cudgel to beat back against all forms of medical intervention.

"Its about raising fear for unknowing people who think the medical community is out to harm patients,"Leibowitz said.

That's howJames Lewis, a Columbus-area parent,felt when his then-12-year-old daughter started questioning her sexuality and gender identity.

"She explored having girlfriends and boyfriends," Lewis said. "It wasnt a moral issue for us."

Then, she asked to cut her hair and wear more masculine clothing. That wasn't a problem either until she refused to wear shorts to soccer practice and Lewis discovered his daughter had been cutting herself. Diagnoses of depression, anxiety and gender dysphoria soon followed.

She started asking abouttransition, but Lewis wasn't comfortable with the idea when she had so many other mental health diagnoses.

"I dontthink weshould allow children to make adult choices," Lewis said.

His daughter eventually concludedthat her feelings better aligned with body dysmorphia, a preoccupation with perceived defects or flaws in appearance,and she's since recovered. She's in college, and Lewis is optimistic about her future.

The USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau spoke with Lewis' daughter, and she confirmed this story. She is not being named due to a request for privacy.

Lewis said the biggest issue he had withthe medical community during those years was the way he they pushed hormones and other gender-affirming therapies.

He was warned that his decisions might cause her to take her own life.

About85% of transgender adolescents reported seriously considering suicide, according to a 2019 study published in the American Academy of Pediatrics. Family acceptance can reduce those risks.

But it felt to Lewis like the practitioners he spoke with couldn't or wouldn'taccept that some children might be confused or claim to be something they're not.

"I think the human experience,as much as we want to make it simple, I think thats doing injustice to everyone," Lewis said. "With this bill, I think the intent is to prevent being too hasty."

Opponents of HB 454 strongly disagree.

"Banning ethically appropriate and life-saving treatment options universally for all youth, on the grounds that they are not indicated for some youth, takes shared decision-making away from the family and doctor and places it entirely into the hands of Ohio politicians," Leibowitz said.

At the heart of the debate overHB 454 is this question about whether children like Lewis' daughter are the exception or the rule.

Supporters of the bill claimthat almost all children who experience gender dysphoria will "desist" or grow out of it by adulthood.

"The standard of care for gender dysphoria should be watchful waiting, which doesnt mean we do nothing," said Dr.Andre Van Mol, a family physician who works with a conservative advocacy group called the American College of Pediatricians. "We protect gender dysphoric children from making permanent, life-altering mistakes."

These studies, including those referenced in the Ohio bill, are considered problematic because they often don't distinguish between children who are transgender and those who are non-conforming. The latter refers to children who don't fit the stereotypes associated with their gender.

"Those young children were never declaring they were transgender in the first place," Leibowitz said."They were gender diverse."

A2013 studyfrom theUniversity Medical Center in Amsterdamfollowed127 adolescents who had been referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria. Researchers claimed 63% grew out of their dysphoria by adulthood, but38 of the kids were considered "sub-threshold" for a diagnosis in the first place.

Major medical groups like the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatricsstrongly support medically necessary transition-related care for minor patients.

Supporters said it's betterto look at long-term studies like the one psychologistKristina Olson is running out of the University of Washington. Her research aims to develop criteria for determining whichgender-diverse children go on to transition.

Our study suggests that its not random, Olson told The Atlantic in 2019. We cant say this kid will be trans and this one wont be, but its not that we have no idea.

Another theory written into HB 454 is that the onset of gender dysphoria can be rapid or sudden and therefore potentially the result of outside influences like peer groups and social media. That's what Lewis believes happened to his daughter.

But Gallagher, ofKaleidoscope Youth Center, says that's not true. When he came out to his parents at 21, it might have looked sudden, but he'd been thinking about it for years and preparing to start testosterone for months.

"For the person we are coming out to, they are seeing the tip of the iceberg," he said.

TransOhio Chair James Knapp started his transition at a time when doctors required people to live openly as the opposite gender for at least oneyear before getting hormones.

"Trans kids who are trying to access gender-affirming care have to jump through so many hoops," Knapp said. "You have to have two physicians sign off before you can start talking about hormone blockers."

The hurdles aren't all medical, either.

"Look," Gallagher said, "As much as I love my identity, and I love my experience, I am going to be honest: No one wants to be trans. It is really difficult."

Trans people especially transgender women of color face higher rates of unemployment, homelessness and violent crime.

"It wasn't like I read a book that talked about being a magician and suddenly I was a magician," Gallagher said. "This is something I have always felt."

If passed, Ohio would be the second state to ban medical interventions for transgender youth.At least 15statesintroduced similar legislation, but only Arkansas passed a law. A federal judgeblockedits implementation soon after.

Ohio lawmakers introduced a similar bill last General Assembly but itdidn't get a hearing.

Still, opponents of the proposal concedethat Ohio's legislature seems to grow a little more conservative each year. In addition to HB 454, Republicansintroduced abill to ban transgender girls from participating in women's sports, and they inserted language into the state budgetthat lets doctors refuse care on religious grounds.

"We had the gay panic of the 1950s through the 1980s. Now it's thetrans panic," Gallagher said. "It has just shifted. Instead of being worried about 'thehomosexual' in the classroom,we're afraid ofthe scary trans person in the bathroom."

Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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Ohio Republicans want to ban treatments for transgender youth but what would that mean? - The Columbus Dispatch

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When it comes to staying at the top of your lifting game, a few factors matter as much as a high-quality recovery plan between training sessions. Some athletes prefer foam rolling, while others swear by low-intensity jogs on their off days. For others, its all about embracing the cold specifically, cold water immersion (CWI).

Ice baths, a more casual term for CWI, have risen in popularity in recent years. Fitness guru Wim Hof who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in the wintertime in his underwear and is a staunch supporter of cold exposure and celebrities such as Joe Rogan routinely riff on the benefits of sitting still in an ice water-filled tub. High-level strength and power athletes use ice baths to enhance recovery from high-intensity competitions and training sessions. Although the exact mechanisms are not fully understood, there are some conflicting findings that suggest CWI may or may not be an effective recovery alternative for weightlifters, powerlifters, and other athletes.

Editors note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it shouldnt take the place of advice and/or supervision from a medical professional. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. Speak with your physician if you have any concerns.

Here are the cold-hard facts and findings on CWI, the potential benefits, and possible detrimental long-term effects on muscle recovery and adaptation as we currently know them.

Disclaimer: Exposure to extreme cold can affect people with cardiovascular conditions. You should check in with your doctor before experimenting with cold exposure of any kind, and especially so if you have a cardiovascular condition.

According to a 2017 study, CWI can reduce inflammation and muscle soreness after intensive bouts of training. (1) The study had 15 participants immerse themselves in water that was 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) for 15 minutes after their workouts. A control group rested in ambient (room temperature) air.

Researchers found that CWI was effective at reducing the inflammatory marker neopterin two hours after participants mixed martial arts training sessions. In other words, 15 minutes in cold water may help you reduce muscle soreness after training rather than just chilling in room temperature air.

Cold water immersion can also help athletes feel like theyre recovering better. A 2017 study found that MMA competitors who dunked in cold water after working out reported being less sore than those who didnt. (1) A 2018 study also employed 15 minutes of cold water immersion (15 degrees Celsius, or 50 degrees Fahrenheit) for participants after a mixed martial arts competition. (2)

Participants who sat up to their torsos in cold water baths actually performed less well on various fitness assessments soon after immersion (sprinting, for example). But athletes consistently reported feeling better sleeping harder, being less stressed, and reporting less fatigue after CWI. In other words, if you enjoy slipping into a freezing bath, itll probably help you. If you dont, theres probably no need to force yourself.

Need to recover quickly between bouts of intensive cardio? A 2010 study had 41 elite, cis male athletes perform 20 minutes sessions of exhaustive, all-out effort, intermittent exercise. (3) These high-intensity cardio bouts were followed by 15 minutes of recovery.

Participants who used cold water immersion during those 15 minutes recovered faster than those who didnt. So, if youre looking to perform multiple bouts of all-out effort, 10 degree Celsius cold water immersion in between sessions can help you come back all the stronger.

For athletes engaging in high-intensity training, a 2010 study found that cold water immersion might boost acute recovery. (3) That is perhaps especially true if the way youre training is high impact.

MMA fighters in particular seem to benefit in the short-term by CWI, reporting feeling less sore and being less inflamed after sessions and simulated competitions. (1)(2) If youre feeling tossed around after a particularly intense deadlift or squat session, then it may do you some good to dunk yourself into some chilly water.

Especially when youre training in the heat, cold water immersion after your sessions may be able to help ease your cardiac stress from exercise. A 2019 study found that CWI may not reduce your physiological stress levels or otherwise improve hormonal recovery. (4) But after 45 minutes of cycling in a hot environment, the study did find that CWI helped reduce participants heart rate faster than passive recovery.

A study published in 2014 explored the idea of people strengthening their immune system response through a combination of meditation, breathing techniques, and cold exposure. After participants of the study were exposed to a bacterial infection, it was found that the group that implemented the techniques mentioned above experienced fewer symptoms.

The researchers note that they think the deep breathing was more influential. However, deep breathing often goes hand-in-hand with colder exposure, and they do think cold exposure can help build a stronger immune system over time. (5)

Ice baths may not be for everyone and, frankly, they can be uncomfortable, especially to the uninitiated. But if theyre all the rage with folks at your CrossFit box, its understandable to wonder if theyre for you. Ultimately, it depends on your training goals and your preferences.

If your training involves getting punched or otherwise slammed around quite a lot, CWI might be able to give you relief. Martial artists who train for their sport at high impact or who are looking to recover immediately after a competition might choose to brave some icy waters.

Training at high intensities can create a whole lot of soreness not to mention mental fatigue. Cold water immersion might be just what you need to soothe your immediate muscle aches and recover for your next session.

Regardless of your sport or training methods, you can benefit from cold water immersion if you love the cold. If you think itll make you feel better, its likely that it will. Thats why the studies discussed above have found that perceived recovery after CWI is high, even if your hormone levels stay the same.

If it sounds like ice baths might be a good addition to your recovery routine, youll have to be strategic about how to integrate them into your program. As with pretty much anything in training, start with your goals and make sure youre switching up your routine gradually.

A 2020 study found that cold water immersion may actually be bad for hypertrophy in the long run. (6) Muscle biopsies after sustained immersion in cold water found that the cold exposure reduced the levels of proteins that you need to build up muscles after training sessions. Bear this in mind when considering integrating ice baths into your program. If hypertrophy is your goal, you might want to avoid CWI.

But if your goal is to recover quicker between intense sessions or experience less muscle soreness after a high-impact training, you may decide to move forward.

Most of the studies discussed in this article above had athletes immerse themselves in cold water (around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, or 10 degrees Celsius) for 15 minutes. If that sounds like a walk in the proverbial park, thats great. On the other hand, if the idea of even 15 seconds in cold water makes you shiver, remember to build up your tolerance.

Just as you gradually increase your load during training, youll have to gradually settle into an effective ice bath routine. If 15 minutes wont do, start with 30 seconds or a couple of minutes and add time each week until youre at a level youre comfortable with.

According to a 2021 study, a periodized approach to recovery can help athletes benefit most from CWI. (7) Just as you dont train the same exact way all year, you dont need to recover the same way all year. Base your CWI approach on what youre doing with your training, this study suggests.

Are you going through a particularly high-intensity or high-impact training block? Are you recovering from a competition? CWI might be great for you. If youre in a hypertrophy block, though, you might want to hold back on the cold water. Periodize your CWI in the same way you periodize your training if you want to maximize benefits.

If CWI immersion is detrimental to hypertrophy goals and potential long-term training success, how come so many athletes swear by it? What gives? It seems that its a matter of perspective.

If youre assessing the effectiveness of CWI, you need to ask how youre measuring effectiveness. If your goal is for it to help you feel better, and it does, then awesome. If your goal is to build more muscle or receive tangible improvements in performance, you may want to stick to more tried-and-true recovery methods.

Featured Image: Dudarev Mikhail/Shutterstock

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6 Ice Bath Benefits That May Convince You to Take the Plunge - BarBend

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HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., Nov. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- United Rheumatology, the pre-eminent rheumatology care management organization known for empowering rheumatologists to advance the standard of care, recently announced findings that suggest Repository Corticotropin Injection (RCI) Acthar Gel significantly improves clinical outcomes and decreases the need for concomitant medications for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The study, published in Open Access Rheumatology: Research and Reviews, evaluated real-world treatment patterns and outcomes from an electronic medical records database for patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with RCI and provided valuable insights into the use of this treatment and management of these difficult-to-treat patients during routine clinical practice. The link to this article can be found here.

Electronic medical records data was obtained from the United Rheumatology-Normal Integrated Community Evidence (UR-NICE) repositoryfor patients who used RCI to treat RA. RCI is a naturally sourced mixture of adrenocorticotropic hormone analogs and other pituitary peptides that exerts anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties via melanocortin receptors. It is approved as a short-term adjunctive therapy for RA and is typically used in patients with refractory RA.

"This study is an excellent example of the importance of the UR-NICE data repository to the understanding of the performance of a pharmaceutical in the real-world ecosystem of Clinical Rheumatology," said Executive Vice President and Chief Value Medical Officer of United Rheumatology, Dr. Andrew Concoff."The deidentified and aggregated data from United Rheumatology member practices across the country creates the opportunity to gain novel insights as to the performance of medications in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The clinical phenotype of the patients that have typically been treated with RCI is better understood by the analysis of UR-NICE data in this study."

Patients with severe RA activity, at initiation of RCI therapy, showed a significant reduction of swollen and tender joints, pain, and the need for additional medications such as anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids, and disease-modifying antirheumatic medication. Dr. Concoff added, "For clinicians, this study is a reminder that routine and consistent capture of a measure of disease activity as part of a treat-to-target strategy is vital to clearly identify whether a given patient is adequately treated on their current regimen."

A total of 66 independent rheumatology practices in United Rheumatology's physician network and 114 patients participated in the study.

About United Rheumatology: United Rheumatology represents over 660 community-based rheumatologists in 39 states. It does not own or operate rheumatology practices; the practices are all independent. A comprehensive portfolio of physician, patient, and health plan payer offerings, driven by the largest rheumatology electronic medical records clinical database in the US, supports an unparalleled platform for jointly developed coordinated care solutions.

Contact:Corrie Fisher Email:[emailprotected]

SOURCE United Rheumatology

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Options for Those who Suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis as New Research Reflects the Benefit of Repository Corticotropin Injection (RCI) to Real-World...

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SLEEP is vital for all of us and if you're struggling to get the snooze you need then it can be difficult.

While keeping regular sleeping hours and have a good sleep environment is key, eating right can also help.

1

Physician in psychiatry and sleep medicine, Alex Dimitru said seven to eight hours of sleep per night is ideal for most people.

He explained: "We should aim to be realistic, and ideally create a "window" of time for sleep of eight or nine hours - with the realisation that despite our efforts, we all end up sleeping a little less than we planned.

Alex, who is working with mattress brand OTTY said in order to try and restore your sleep deficit, simple tweaks in your diet can help.

"Adding minerals like potassium, magnesium, calcium, and iron onto your plate can help promote the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for sleep regulation.

"Research shows that some specific foods contain sleep-promoting properties that will encourage you to drift off more easily and quickly."

Here are the 10 foods that could help you drift off into a peaceful slumber.

Melatonin is key to sleep and cherries contain plenty of this.

Alex said that these are great to snack on in front of the TV and that you could also mix them with other sources of melatonin such as nuts and oats.

He added: "When eaten regularly for breakfast or as a post-workout snack, they can help in regulating your sleep cycle."

If you're a chocoholic then it's best to stick to the dark variety to help you drift off to sleep.

"Dark chocolate contains serotonin, which relaxes your body and mind, and promotes a general feeling of happiness", Alex said.

Almonds contain tryptophan and magnesium, which both help to naturally reduce muscle and nerve function while also steadying your heart rhythm, Alex said.

If you don't fancy chomping down on nuts, then he said that almond butter will also have the same effect.

"Spread it on crackers, a banana, or a piece of toast when your late night cravings hit. Be careful not to go overboard though, and keep your dollop to under a tablespoon so you're not feeling too full before attempting to rest", he added.

Alex said that if almonds aren't for you then you could try walnuts, as they contain a few compounds that help promote better sleep at night, such as melatonin, serotonin and magnesium.

"Walnuts are fantastic when chopped up and added to a fresh salad, as a topping on cereal or yogurt, or by themselves as a crunchy alternative to crisps or more unhealthy nuts", he said.

Alex said that if you're waking up in the middle of the night then it might be because you're still hungry.

He suggested adding homous to your meal as it is a great source of tryptophan, which the body uses to help make melatonin and serotonin.

"Melatonin helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle, and serotonin is thought to help regulate appetite, sleep, mood, and pain", he added.

Throughout the day we consume lots of drinks from tea to booze and many people don't drink enough water throughout the day.

Alex said: "As well as compromising your overall energy levels, dehydration could also be impacting your ability to not only fall asleep, but remain asleep.

"Choosing watery fruits like watermelon can make up for any deficits. A simple 2-cup serving is half water, which will hydrate you before bed and eliminate post-dinner hunger pains due to its fibre and volume.

"Other fruits with high water content include pears, oranges and apples."

Chamomile tea has been proven to help ease the symptoms of insomnia as the herb contains a flavonoid compound that is known to harbour sleep inducing properties, so once your taste buds become accustomed to the unique taste, a cup a night before bed could do wonders for your rest, Alex said.

Pistachios contain protein, magnesium, and vitamin B6, all of which contribute to better sleep.

Alex said: "Hold back on them though, and don't exceed a 1-ounce portion.

"If you eat too much it can reverse the effect and keep you awake due to a high calorie intake!"

Porridge is a breakfast staple for many, but Alex said making a small bowl in the evening could help promote a better night's sleep.

"A bowl for breakfast may be your usual go to, but making yourself a small bowl oatmeal in the evening could help promote a better night's sleep.

"The grains in oatmeal trigger insulin production, which raises your blood sugar naturally and makes you feel sleepy.#

"Oats are also rich in melatonin, which relaxes the body and helps you fall asleep", he explained.

Bananas are packed with potassium and magnesium that are known to relax the muscles, Alex said.

"They also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which gets converted to 5-HTP in the brain. The 5-HTP is converted to serotonin, a relaxing neurotransmitter.

"As youre probably already aware, when it's getting close to bedtime, its important you're steering clear of heavy fried foods, alcohol, caffeine (like coffee, tea, and energy drinks), and any heartburn-inducing foods, such as tomato sauce or orange juice.

"These can have the exact opposite effect and keep you tossing and turning for longer."

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The 10 foods that can help you drift off to sleep... - The Sun

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The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results ofoperations should be read in conjunction with our unaudited condensed financialstatements and related notes included in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q andthe audited financial statements and notes thereto as of and for the year endedDecember 31, 2020 and the related Management's Discussion and Analysis ofFinancial Condition and Results of Operations, both of which are contained inour Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, filed withthe Securities and Exchange Commission on March 31, 2021. Past operating resultsare not necessarily indicative of results that may occur in future periods.

Company Overview

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded, or FFPE. In March 2020 we also released a RUOBRAF Target SelectorTM validated for both ctDNA and FFPE.

Our revenue generating efforts are focused in three areas:

providing laboratory services to medical oncologists, neuro-oncologists,

and other physicians or healthcare providers treating patients with cancer

providing laboratory services using both our CTC and ctDNA and ctRNA

assays in order to help pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies run

licensing our proprietary technology and selling our distributed products,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assays, Products and Services

Our current assays and clinical trial services include:

CTC and ctDNA and ctRNA Testing. Our current assays and our other planned

cancer diagnostic assays are based on our Target-Selector technologies.

After completing testing, we or our partners provide our customers with an

easy to understand report that describes the results of the analyses

performed, which is designed to help medical oncologists, neuro-oncologists,

surgical oncologists, urologists, pulmonologists, pathologists and other

physicians make better decisions about the treatment of their patients.

Clinical Trial Services. We plan to utilize our clinical laboratory and

translational research capabilities to provide clinical trial and research

services to pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies and clinical

research organizations to improve the efficiency and economic viability of

their clinical studies. Our clinical studies and translational research

services could leverage our knowledge of CTCs and ctDNA and ctRNA and our

ability to develop and implement new cytogenetic, immunocytochemical and

molecular diagnostic assays. Our current assays can, and our other planned

cancer diagnostic assays and biomarker assays are anticipated to be able to,

help optimize clinical trial patient selection and/or monitor cancer drivers

during the course of treatment or disease progression. Demonstration of

clinical utility of our assays would more easily enable these tests to be

adopted in standard clinical practice, helping physicians select the most

appropriate therapy for their patients.

RT-PCR COVID-19 Testing. We are currently performing RT-PCR testing for

COVID-19 and have received more than 640,000 samples for processing to

date. We believe that our RT-PCR COVID-19 testing will be an important aspect

of our business until the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.

In May 2020, we announced the availability of a Target-Selector molecular assayRUO kit for the detection of BRAF mutations in ctDNA and FFPE samples.

Pharmaceutical, Research and Health Economic Collaborations

In February 2021, we announced establishing a research collaboration withProtean BioDiagnostics, Inc. to research the ability of our Target Selectormolecular assay to determine EGFR status in non-small lung cancer (NSCLC)patients.

Provider Agreements

In July 2019, we announced that we entered into a Laboratory Services ProviderAgreement with Beacon Laboratory Benefit Solutions, Inc., a nationallyrecognized premier provider of laboratory benefit management technologysolutions to health and managed care companies in the United States.

In June 2020, we announced that we entered into a managed care provideragreement with Medical Cost Containment Professional LLC (MCCP), to processout-of-network claims for Biocept's Target SelectorTM liquid biopsy testing.MCCP is a reference-based pricing insurance network that includes more than150,000 providers nationwide.

Patents and Technology

Our success depends on an intellectual property portfolio that supports ourfuture revenue streams and erects barriers to our competitors. We aremaintaining and building our patent portfolio through filing new patentapplications, prosecuting existing applications, and licensing and acquiring newpatents and patent applications.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

In January 2021, we signed an agreement with the Foundation for CaliforniaCommunity Colleges to make COVID-19 testing available to the 116 Californiacommunity colleges and their more than 2.1 million students. Through theFoundation's CollegeBuys program, our PCR-based COVID-19 test is now availablefor community colleges to purchase for students, faculty and staff.

In June 2021, we announced a collaboration with CLEARED4, a market leader inpandemic health and safety solutions, to develop a system for tracking andmanaging COVID-19 testing requirements and test results for our customers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Results of Operations

Three Months Ended September 30, 2020 and 2021

The following table sets forth certain information concerning our results ofoperations for the periods shown (dollars in thousands):

expenses

operations

taxes

delivered

Costs and Expenses

Income Tax Expense

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Results of Operations

Nine Months Ended September 30, 2020 and 2021

The following table sets forth certain information concerning our results ofoperations for the periods shown (dollars in thousands):

Income Tax Expense

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Cash Flows

Our net cash flow from operating, investing and financing activities for theperiods below were as follows (dollars in thousands):

Liquidity, Capital Resources and Expenditure Requirements

the costs of developing our anticipated internal sales and marketing

capabilities;

the scope, progress and results of our research and development programs,

including clinical utility studies;

the scope, progress, results, costs, timing and outcomes of the clinical

utility studies for our diagnostic assays;

our ability to manage the costs for manufacturing our microfluidic channels;

the costs of maintaining, expanding and protecting our intellectual

property portfolio, including potential litigation costs and liabilities;

our ability to obtain adequate reimbursement from governmental and other

third-party payers for our assays and services;

the costs of additional general and administrative personnel, including

accounting and finance, legal and human resources, as a result of becoming

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

We have not engaged in any off-balance sheet arrangements as defined inItem 303(a)(4) of Regulation S-K.

Critical Accounting Policies and Significant Judgments and Estimates

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BIOCEPT INC - 10-Q - Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - Insurance News Net

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Songs in the Key of Life: Belt It Out for Good Health

By Sara Butler

>We've all done it: Belted out a tune along with the radio in our car or while we're sudsing up in the shower. It doesn't matter if you can carry a tune or not, people simply love to sing.

The good news for all you budding songbirds out there is that singing can actually be good for you, both physically and mentally. So, get those pipes ready and learn about why you should be singing for your life!

There's quite a bit of research out there to support the benefits to your body and mind when you sing. In fact, whether you sing alone or in groups you reap many benefits, including the following.

Stress relief - You can literally sing your stress away. Studies have found that the level of the stress hormone cortisol is lower in people after singing. Participants in studies also report feeling more relaxed after singing. As long as the conditions you're singing under don't make you feel anxious, it's really good for your stress levels!

Gives a boost to immunity - There is some evidence that singing can also be good for your immune system. Studies have found that singing, when compared with merely listening to music, boosts levels of antibodies in your system that help to fight off infection. Simply listening to music didn't have the same effect.

Increased lung function - It makes sense that all that deep breathing associated with singing and the use of muscles that support your respiratory system would help to increase your lung function! Studies have found that the breathing techniques often associated with singing benefit people who have conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. Singing won't cure lung conditions, but it can help. Plus, deep breathing helps to increase the amount of oxygen in your blood which leads to improved mood.

Social connection - When you sing with other people, then you build relationships with them -- and that's good for everyone. Studies have found that people who sang in groups together felt more connected to one another and bonded, likely due to the oxytocin that's released when you do an activity together. Oxytocin, in case you forgot, is also known as the love hormone that helps to bond people together and create feelings of inclusion.

Might help with snoring - If you or someone you love snores, then it may be time to take up singing. Studies have found that those who sing regularly snore less than the general population. While more research needs to be done, it's an interesting hypothesis to try out for yourself!

Higher threshold for pain - If you're a chronic pain sufferer, then you may want to start singing. That's because the endorphins released during singing can help to change how your body perceives pain, making it more manageable.

If you are intrigued and now want to work more singing into your day, there are some practical ways to do it! You can:

The next time your favorite song comes on, sing it loud and proud. In no time at all, you'll be walking on sunshine.

The information, including but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material contained on this page are for informational purposes only. The purpose of this post is to promote broad consumer understanding and knowledge of various health topics, including but not limited to the benefits of chiropractic care, exercise and nutrition. It is not intended to provide or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your chiropractor, physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this page.

Disclaimer

The Joint Corp. published this content on 19 November 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 19 November 2021 00:12:05 UTC.

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Songs in the Key of Life: Belt It Out for Good Health - marketscreener.com

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Breast canceris the most common cancer in women after skin cancer and up to 15% of people with breast cancer have a genetic or inherited cause for the disease.

Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services.Policy

ResearcherCharis Eng, MD, PhD, explains what you need to know about breast cancer genes and genetic testing.

The termbreast cancer genesmeans genes that, when altered (mutated),increase your risk of getting breast cancer. These gene mutations shut down some of your natural cancer-fighting genes. When you dont have your full army of genes fending off cancer, your risk of certain cancers goes up.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are the most common breast cancergenes when mutated, followed closely by PTENmutations, says Dr. Eng.But several other breast cancer gene mutations exist. We know ofat least14 differentgenesright now, and we are currently exploring several others, too.

These gene mutations arent limited to breast cancer risk. Some of these gene mutations may also increase the risk of:

Breast cancer gene mutations arent common in the general population, Dr. Eng says, but they are common in people who have breast cancer. About 10% to 15% of people with breast cancer have one of the breast cancer gene mutations.

You can inherit these gene mutations from either of your biological parents, and the cancers theyre linked tocanaffect both men and women so considerallyour relatives when thinking about your family history.

Genetic testing is the only way to know whether you have a breast cancer gene. These blood tests check for BRCA1 and BRCA2, as well as other known breast cancer genes.

If you have already been diagnosed with breast cancer, you may need genetic testing if you:

If you havent been diagnosed with breast cancer, consider genetic testing if you:

Genetic tests are helpful for people with risk factors, but not everyone needs them.

Testing everyone in the general population would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, Dr. Eng says.Most people would get negative results. And right now, the world doesnt have enough geneticists tosee all those patients and do a follow-up. Knowing your family history is important because it tells us whoneeds to be tested or if you need to be tested.

If your doctor finds that youre at risk for hereditary breast cancer, they will refer you to a geneticsprofessional, such as a geneticcounselor, for genetic evaluation and pre- and post-test genetic counseling. Then, your blood is drawn and sent to a clinical lab for genetic analysis.

A geneticist (genetics expert) reads your blood test results and follows up with your provider. If you have a positive result, youll meet with your genetic counselor to discuss next steps for your care.

Having a positive genetic test result doesnt mean youll get cancer. It means you have a higher risk of getting breast cancer than people without the mutation.

Consider these statistics:

Even if you get tested and get a negative result, dont skip mammograms or other health screenings, and continue to follow the American Cancer Societys guidelines.

Most cases of breast cancer arent hereditary, says Dr. Eng.A negative result means you dont have the known gene mutations for breast cancer. But you can still get breast cancer.

A positive result for breast cancer genes can be difficult to deal with. But you can use this information to your advantage.

If we know you have a breast cancer genealteration, we can take extra steps to catch cancer early, when its most treatable, Dr. Eng says.Your providers can perform enhanced screenings starting at an early age, usually 25 or 30, depending on the gene.Knowledge is power.

More here:
Breast Cancer Genes Explained: How & When to Get Tested - Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Consider 100 baby boys and 100 baby girls born in 1950. Experts predict that 46 of the men and 61 of the women a third more will still be alive at age 80 in 2030.

Even Steven Austad, an expert on aging at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, didnt give statistics like that much thought until about 10 years ago. Everyone knew that women outlived men. He figured it was just because men had more heart disease.

But Austad, who is senior scientific director of the American Federation for Aging Research, is a sucker for topics that others take for granted, and he dug deeper. He learned that girls started out-surviving boys even before they were born and that their survival advantage lasted throughout life. It was present in virtually every country, rich or poor. Women were more likely to live through natural disasters, famines, pandemics (including COVID-19) and many of the diseases that most often kill human beings. Under almost any condition we can imagine, women do better, he said.

A rare upside for men was that those who made it to their senior years were less disabled than female peers. There were also surprising studies that found that a few drugs that extended the life of male mice did nothing for females. Thats a really stunning result, said Richard Miller, a biogerontologist who directs the Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research at the University of Michigan and has been studying life-extending drugs in mice. One medication, he said, worked in both sexes.

Austad and a growing cadre of researchers started to think that these differences in aging between men and women were fundamental to human biology and potentially much more complex and divergent than many had assumed. They are now in the early stages of studying how our chromosomes and genes, hormones and immune systems influence how long and how well we live, with an eye toward expanding our healthy lifespans.

If we could find a way to make men live as long as women and make women be as healthy as men later in life, then we would have an enormous impact on our lives, Austad said.

Candace Kerr, a stem cell biologist in the division of aging biology at the National Institute on Aging, agreed that understanding these sex differences could improve the health of both men and women as they aged. It paves the way to finding sex-specific targets for disease, she said.

For decades, scientists assumed that information they gleaned from male patients and male lab animals would naturally apply to females, as well. Since 2016, the National Institutes of Health has required scientists to incorporate males and females into the design, analysis and reporting of clinical research studies of people and vertebrate animals.

Now researchers are finding unexpected differences throughout our bodies, but they say its too soon to draw sweeping conclusions. I think that we are in a renaissance of sorts in really beginning to understand and appreciate the differences, said Dena Dubal, a neurologist at University of California-San Francisco who studies how to slow aging with a focus on hormones and genetics. Her research has found fascinating evidence of the benefits women may derive from their second X chromosome.

The signs that women are the tougher sex when it comes to health are copious. Eighty-five percent to 90% of centenarians are women. All of the worlds 10 oldest people with credible birth records were female, Austad said. In 2018, women died at a lower age-adjusted rate of 13 of the top 15 causes of death, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. There was no sex difference for stroke. Women were more likely to die of Alzheimers disease, although men who get dementia die of it more quickly, said Michelle Mielke, a Mayo Clinic epidemiologist who studies sex differences in neurodegeneration.

Women tend to die of the same basic things that men do, but they die at later ages, Miller said.

At the cellular level, womens brains look four to five years younger than mens, Dubal said. Many biological markers indicate faster aging in almost all of the tissues in male bodies, Kerr said. Women get heart disease later. Their vascular health is generally better than mens, although they have more disease in small blood vessels in late life, Mielke said. Womens immune systems respond more quickly to viral invasions. This is one explanation for why theyre more likely to recover. It may also be why theyre more prone to autoimmune diseases than men.

Then we come to what Austad calls the morbidity-mortality paradox. Men who survive into late middle age and old age tend to have less disability than women. One theory is that men die of diseases that women survive, but the women do not emerge unscathed. Many women will survive and remain fairly functional after diseases that men would have died from, Miller said.

Anne B. Newman, a geriatrician and epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh, added that women are more prone to arthritis, which causes disability. Everyone loses muscle mass with age, and women start out with weaker muscles and a higher percentage of body fat. Women are also more prone to osteoporosis after menopause, and that puts them at risk for broken hips. There are more older women with frailty, partly because frail men dont live long.

Women are just physically less endowed to keep moving as they get older, Newman said.

READ MORE: It's never too late to start moving, but you may not catch up to lifelong exercisers

As to why women live longer, the theories are many and complex.

The gap between male and female lifespan widened during the 20th century. Caleb Finch, a biologist at the University of Southern California who studied that phenomenon, thought lung cancer and heart disease accounted for most of the difference. He also studied an indigenous Bolivian population whose pre-industrial lifestyle included exercise and a healthy diet. People there had very little coronary artery disease, but men still had more evidence of blood vessel damage than women.

Newman added that women began living longer when better medical care meant they less often bled to death or became infected during childbirth. She thinks that qualities that allow women to successfully carry a child, such as the ability to tolerate stress and store additional nutrition, may lengthen their lifespans.

You cant ignore behavior. Men are more likely to smoke and eat fatty food. Theyre also less likely to see doctors regularly and get cancer screenings and flu and COVID-19 vaccines. They more often age in isolation. Behavior feels like more than half of the picture, said Aroonsiri Howell, a Temple Health geriatrician.

Young men are prone to risky and potentially deadly activities, a period that Austad calls testosterone dementia. Their death rate compared to womens slows after 35 or so, but its still higher.

Finch said trying to tease out whats affecting our aging is like analyzing a hoard of arrows shot into the air at the same time but traveling at different rates. Genes and hormones matter, but the role of culture and society in shaping the outcomes is also huge and not easy to define at the molecular level.

Beyond behavior, much current research focuses on hormones and sex chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes, one from their mother and one from their father. Men have an X from their mother and a Y from their father.

Those two Xs give women a richer dose of X-related genes. In each cell of a womans body, one X dominates and the other is mostly inactivated, but its not always the same X. Early in life, the mom and dad Xs may split the work fairly evenly, but, as women age, the fitter X may take on a bigger role, Austad said. Plus, scientists now know that the inactivated X isnt really inactivated. About 15% of its genes are functional.

Austad thinks the Y deserves more attention than scientists are giving it, but its clear that it codes for many fewer genes (55) than the X (900). While the second X may give women a safety net of sorts if one of their Xs is faulty, a mans Y chromosome is not much help when theres a problem with his X. This is why certain X-lined diseases, such as fragile X syndrome, hemophilia A, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy are more common in men.

Dubals work with mice suggests that womens extra X complexity also gives women a longevity advantage. She used a technique that allows researchers to grow the gonads of one sex in the bodies of another, thus exposing them to the other sexs hormones. So, genetically female mice could have testicles and penises and male mice could have ovaries and vaginas. She compared four groups of mice: XX mice with ovaries, XX mice with testicles, XY mice with testicles and XY mice with ovaries. The XX mice lived the longest, regardless of their gonads.

The X accounts for about 5% of our genome, Dubal said, and it is rich in brain-related genes. This may help explain why women are more cognitively resilient. One of her studies found that 19 of those genes were associated with slower cognitive aging in women, but not in men. Three genes, meanwhile, were linked to higher levels in men but not women of misformed tau, a protein seen in the brains of people with Alzheimers.

Women may reap the benefits of the double-dose of X throughout their lives, but theres little doubt that things go downhill from an aging perspective after menopause, so hormones are clearly also a factor. Estrogen, the most important female hormone, drops markedly as a woman enters menopause. Testosterone production also slows in men.

Estrogens are thought to be protective against a variety of diseases, whereas testosterone seem to enhance the risk of disease progression, wrote Brnice Benayoun, a geneticist and cell biologist at the University of Southern Californias Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, in a 2020 paper.

The average woman reaches menopause at 51. Studies show that later menopause is associated with longer life.

Jennifer Garrison, a neuroscientist and chemist at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, focuses on the impact of ovarian aging in women. Menopause makes a womans body age about 6% faster, she said. It unleashes this negative cascade of health effects, including more heart disease, cognitive decline, and bone weakening. She said the ovaries are involved in important communication channels with the brain that have systemic physical implications.

She would like to do away with menopause entirely. Theres no biological imperative to have it, she said. She thinks menopause should be a choice, not something imposed on you by some out-of-date biology. She realizes that not every woman dreams of extra decades of periods and pregnancy fears. Pregnancy and fertility and menstruation can potentially be uncoupled from having functioning ovaries, she said.

No doubt it will take a while to figure out how to do that, and there is no similar fix available to aging men.

In the meantime, Temples Howell counsels male and female patients differently. She tells the men to worry about heart disease and high-fat diets. Women need to worry about preventing osteoporosis and falls.

READ MORE: Steps to prevent falls as we age

And we all can do the usual things that promote healthier aging: Eat good food, avoid smoking and exercise.

More:
In most ways, women age better than men and live longer. Scientists are trying to figure out why. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The new Head & Shoulders Scalp X collection goes beyond just treatment to help you regrow hair and actually keep it around.

Theres a moment in every mans life when he has to look himself in the mirror and ask, am I losing my hair? Statistically, it happens way earlier than youd expect. Around two-thirds of men will see signs of hair loss by the time they are 35 and that number jumps to 85 percent by the time theyre 50, according to the American Hair Loss Association. But knowing youre not alone in the struggle doesnt make it any easier, especially if youre not sure whats causing itor what to do about it.

Read more: Best Grooming Products for Men

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, there are as many as 20 causes of hair loss, but for most men, its genetic (some say upwards of 95% of male hair loss is due to genetics). Obviously, treating something rooted in genetics, as opposed to, say, diet or stress, is tricky. Most traditional hair loss treatments focus on getting back the hair you lost, but dont do much to help it stick around.

Scalp X 5% Minoxidil Hair Regrowth Treatment for Men

$44.94

The new Scalp X collection from Head & Shoulders is designed to not only help regrow hair, but also retain it and strengthen the hair you still have, curbing the genetic aspect of male hair loss. The collection includes two productsa shampoo with zinc pyrithione and vitamin E and a hair regrowth treatment with minoxidil. The duo could help you not only grow back hair that youve lost but keep it around for longer.

Read more: Best Vitamins for Hair Growth

The centerpiece of the collection is the Scalp X Hair Regrowth Treatment For Men With Minoxidil ($44.99 for a 3-pack), a topical foam you apply to your scalp every day. It contains 5% minoxidil, the maximum strength you can get without a prescription and the ingredient is the only FDA-approved hair regrowth treatment on the market. It works by enlarging hair follicles that shrink during the hair loss process and effectively speeds up the life cycle of the hair.

But lets get reala minoxidil foam isnt exactly a new thing (you might know it from Rogaine fame). Whats most intriguing is the Scalp X Shampoo For Men. It contains zinc pyrithione, a typical treatment for dandruff (these are Head & Shoulders products, after all) and in this case, the anti-dandruff shampoo has another purpose. Zinc pyrithione can also increase hair strength to protect against damage, says Rolanda Wilkerson, Ph.D., Principal Scientist and Senior Director of Scientific Communications in Beauty Care at Procter & Gamble. Combined with vitamin E, an antioxidant that helps support scalp and hair health, it can help build up hair follicles to not only strengthen the hair itself, but help the scalp keep them firmly in place and help prevent loss by breakage. And of course, zinc pyrithione still helps with itch and flakes, a bonus for anyone trying to solve both issues at once, she says.

The two products in the collection have their own unique benefits and to get them, you dont necessarily have to use them together (though, we say, why not cover your bases). Use the treatment foam after you wash your hair with (or without) the shampoo , but Dr. Wilkerson recommends using the treatment foam twice a day every day even if you dont wash your hair (because, really, who is washing their hair twice a day) as you dont have to rinse it out. Results begin to show after about three months of consistent use and side effects are minimalthough when you stop using minoxidil, results stop, too. While you should consult a dermatologist before starting any sort of hair loss regimen, you dont need a prescription for Scalp X. Its available now on Amazon and soon at your local drug store. With accessibility like that, were ready to grow.

Read more: Best Hair Products for Men

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Inside Head & Shoulders' New Hair Loss Treatment That Actually Works - menshealth.com

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Em is a non-binary person speaking out the pressure they feel to be thin.Photo: Emily Bashforth

Unrealistic beauty standards are pervasive in all areas of society. However, non-binary people face unique pressures to look a certain way in order to be accepted. Restrictive ideals surrounding androgyny and thinness often leave trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming folk feeling invalidated and uncomfortable within their identity. This has led to a spike in eating disorders amongst trans youth, and prolonged battles with gender dysphoria.

25-year-old Em identifies as trans, genderqueer, transmasc and non-binary. They are also fat. They have known they are genderqueer for over four years, but continue to explore their relationship with their gender.

Related: This mom handled her sons coming out as trans in the most mom way possible

Despite feeling assured in their identity for several years, Em often feels that they fail to meet a non-binary beauty standard.

There is a widely accepted image of the skinny androgynous AFAB [Assigned Female At Birth] white enby [non-binary] that is most peoples first conception of what non-binary looks like. I think this image gets held up because it is the most palatable in our current culture of patriarchy and white supremacy. The truth is, there should be no general understanding at all of what non-binary looks like. The only way to be non-binary is to not identify as binary female or binary male. Anything outside of or between that can be grouped under this umbrella label and can look however a non-binary individual wants, they share.

Em explains that the goal of non-binary presentation always seems to be androgyny, and there is something about fatness that we have decided is not androgynous.

On the surface level, there are obvious things like fat AFAB folks are more likely to have larger, harder to conceal chests, and to have fat sitting in places like hips that create a curvier, feminine body type. But deeper than that, Im convinced there is a relationship between the way that fat binary folks are expected to perform gender to a higher standard in order to be deemed attractive, and how to be androgynous you must not be fat at all.

Em feels the pressure to be thin in order to be non-binary has definitely muddied their gender journey.

They find it much easier to present as masc and to identify with maleness, because it is widely accepted that men can be fatter than women and still be considered attractive.

In my experience, I can go shopping and buy pants that fit my waist in the mens section, but they dont sell pants that fit my waist in the womens section. Though fatness is not the beauty standard for men, society is designed to accommodate fat men more than fat women. The result of this is that I am constantly feeling unable to play with gender expression.

19-year-old Alex echoes that standards in the fashion industry take a toll on non-binary people simply being able to exist as themselves.

A lot of mainstream non-binary people are thin, including actors and influencers. As well, I think LGBTQIA+ people are expected to be thin because were supposed to be fashionistas, and there is a widespread issue within fashion that clothes only look good on thin people, and that skinny is synonymous with stylish.

Alex admits that the expectation to be thin as a non-binary person can be overwhelming, and they want people to know that non-binary people arent some type of mass produced doll.

Theres an image that non-binary people are supposed to conform to. This constrains me so badly from wearing what I want to wear, or experimenting. My mental health has really suffered as a result of this, and I fear abuse when I go outside as other people look at my body.

So, how does Alex practise self-care when the pressure to squeeze themselves into a mould mounts up?

I think sweatpants are the greatest invention ever. They allow me to walk around the house without seeing my body. But also, if I need to go out, I can still put together an outfit that makes me feel hot. Its just important for people to do what is comfortable for them, because you are with yourself your whole life. You have to look after yourself.

Anna, 22, knows all too well the feeling of needing to be thin in order for society to recognise them as non-binary.

On top of unaccepting partners and being misgendered by parents, they battle with depression and an eating disorder, mental illnesses that are only exacerbated by pressures to be thin.

Theyre currently in a place of finding their true self, but this proves difficult when the media and misconceptions perpetuate the androgynous non-binary stereotype.

I feel a lot of androgyny is connected to looking like an adult boy. I was born in a female body that cant just turn into a male body. My genetics prevent that. Yet I have breasts and hips that are sexualised and visual female body parts and make people see me as female, which I dont want. Im neither a man nor a woman.

Anna shares that trying to reframe their own transphobia provides comfort when the pressures to look a certain way get loud.

I am who I am. I matter. My identity matters. I find reading about other enby and trans people also helps a lot and reminds me I am not alone with this. I also purchased a binder recently, which brought me gender euphoria, since I can now hide my breasts. I wear it when I feel really uncomfortable in my female body.

They also want society to take the focus away from gender, allowing things to just be rather than labelling them as male or female.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs that non-binary people exist. We are real. We are not a trend. We finally have the vocabulary to express ourselves so, please, dont just tolerate us, accept and respect us.

Visit link:
The pressure to be thin as a non-binary person - LGBTQ Nation

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

FRIDAY, Nov. 19, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Young African American patients have had an increasing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and worsened in-hospital outcomes, though with improved survival odds, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2021, held virtually from Nov. 13 to 15.

Rupak Desai, M.B.B.S., from the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues compared the burden of CVD risk factors and major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and in-hospital outcomes among young hospitalized African Americans (18 to 44 years). The analysis included 1,341,068 admissions in 2007 and 1,581,675 in 2017 identified from the National Inpatient Sample databases.

The researchers found that the 2017 cohort often had younger (mean age, 30 versus 31 years), male (30.4 versus 28.8 percent) patients with higher nonelective admissions (76.8 versus 75 percent). The 2017 cohort also showed a rising burden of traditional cardiometabolic comorbidities, congestive heart failure, chronic pulmonary disease, coagulopathy, and depression, along with an increased likelihood of diabetes, obesity, and smoking and notable reductions in alcohol abuse and drug abuse versus the 2007 cohort. Worsening in-hospital outcomes included MACE (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.21), acute myocardial infarction (aOR, 1.34), cardiogenic shock (aOR, 3.12), atrial fibrillation/flutter (aOR, 1.34), ventricular fibrillation/flutter (aOR, 1.32), cardiac arrest (aOR. 2.55), pulmonary embolism (aOR, 1.89), and stroke (aOR, 1.53). However, the 2017 cohort showed a decreased rate of percutaneous coronary intervention/coronary artery bypass graft and all-cause mortality compared with the 2007 cohort.

"Many potential factors seem to be responsible for these findings, including less frequent annual wellness visits; absent or insufficient screening measures at a younger age; genetics; stress; an unhealthy diet; a lack of awareness or insight into a healthy lifestyle; and even financial constraints," a coauthor said in a statement.

Press Release

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More:
AHA: Risk for Heart Disease Up for Young Black Adults in the U.S. - HealthDay

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

When your cannabis strains have remained popular for decades, are named in hundreds of hip hop songs, and inspire countless imitations, we think the title legend is a good fit. Mr. Sherbinski, the Cannabis grower responsible for the beloved Gelato (one of the most highly-sought after strains in the world), is one such legend.

Keep reading to learn where the Sherbinskis brand came from and how its strains have become cannabis cannon.

Before he took on the alias Mr. Sherbinski, the cultivating hegemon was Mario Guzman, son of Mexican immigrants and successful real estate broker in San Francisco. When the dot-com bubble burst the U.S. economy, Guzman made an interesting pivot.

At the suggestion of a friend, Guzman decided to turn to another entrepreneurial endeavor: cannabis cultivation out of his garage.

People hate on garage growing, Guzman said to Cannabis Now. But you look at that picture, the one that shows all the garages where Apple and Microsoft started, its true in cannabis too. A lot of the products that changed the culture of cannabis and strains came from garages.

When Guzman crossed paths with Jigga (the creator of Thin Mint Cookies) he became a co-creator of one of the strains to change the game. His collaborations with Jigga brought Sunset Sherbert and Gelato to life. Then Guzman modified the strains to fruity perfection.

Mr. Sherbinksi reached cannabis stardom once the hip-hop community got their hands on his weed. Rappers like Young Dolph, Future, Berner, and Lil Yachty have shouted out Gelato (often, more than once), helping to make this West Coast strain a global phenomenon.

Thanks to Gelatos explosive popularity, Mr. Sherbinski has come a long way from his garage and basement days. You can still find his strains in rap songs, but you can also purchase his brand of bud from licensed dispensaries across North America. Hes in the dispensary business himself as the owner of an elite cannabis shop (were talking rooftop garden, modern design, and premium products) in Los Angeles.

On top of his posh retail shop, Guzman owns growing facilities across California, including a one million square foot greenhouse in Santa Barbara and a 22 thousand indoor grow space in Sacramento. However, Guzman has created a lifestyle brand that offers much more than top-shelf cannabis.

Browse through the Sherbinskis online shop, and youll find all kinds of merchandise. Everything from Sherbinskis-branded batteries to cannabis leaf-covered accent chairs are available for nationwide delivery. This brand evolution is strategic national cannabis legalization is on the horizon and cannabis culture is shape-shifting once again.

The Sherbinskis origin story is quite different from the beginnings of cannabis corporations like Curaleaf and Green Thumb Industries, but Guzman is confident that theres room for legacy cannabis entrepreneurs like him.

The people that are running these $500 million hedge funds, they have smart people and big checkbooks, but I still feel like theres a shortage of people who are passionate and have been doing this a long time, Guzman said to the New York Times.

A balanced hybrid cross between Sunset Sherbert and Thin Mint, Gelato (AKA Gelato #42 and Larry Bird) is one the most popular weed strains in the world. Gelatos most abundant terpene is caryophyllene and tests show it holds an average of 17% THC.

Fans of Gelato love the strains gentle body high and fruity aroma, but we recommend that consumers new to cannabis or with a THC sensitivity take it easy Gelatos effects can come on quickly and powerfully.

Gelato was only the beginning for the Sherbinskis brand. The following strains are some of our favorite Gelato creations:

We cant include a list of Gelato genetics without starting with Sunset Sherbert. An indica-dominant hybrid cross between Girl Scout Cookies and Pink Panties, this strain was created by accident. Sherbinski left a male Pink Panties in a basement with a female Thin Mint Cookies. We dont know if love or marriage came first, but the two produced Sunset Sherbert, the strain that really got Sherbinksi started.

The offspring of Sunset Sherbert and Thin Mint Cookies, Bacio is an indica-dominant hybrid with more THC than its siblings. An average of 24% THC makes the Bacio the high-tolerance consumers best friend. Enjoy the Bacio at night to wind down with a relaxing body high and gentle euphoria.

Expect a fruity, creamy bouquet when you inhale Mochi, the indica-dominant hybrid member of the GSC family. Mochi consumers return to this strain again and again because of its energizing and creativity-promoting effects. Containing an average of 10% THC, creatives can relax without feeling sluggish, produce art that makes sense, and combine their fun with their therapy in one tasty toke.

Pink Panties was born in Mr. Sherbinskis garage by crossing a Burmese Kush and Florida Kush. Pink Panties is also the unplanned parent of Sunset Sherbert, Sherbinskis flagship strain. Containing an average of 16% THC and an abundance of myrcene, consumers of this strain report a relaxing high and relief from anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

A rare sativa-dominant hybrid, Acai Berry is a cross between Pink Panties and Sunset Sherbert. Fruity and energizing, Acai Berry makes a delicious daytime treat. Reviewers find that the high is relaxing but mild enough for daytime consumption.

Containing an average of 20% THC, Gello offers a potent high with a delicious aroma. Gellos flavor is similar to Bacios and Mochis, combing sweetness with earthiness for a rich and calming experience. Consumers describe Gellos effects as uplifting and enjoyable during the day or night.

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Sherbinskis Genetics and the Gelato Explosion - Wikileaf

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A specialist general surgeon with a passion for cutting-edge breast care, Dr Liana Roodt explains that different breast sizes and types are completely fine, breasts are breasts. "Your breast size is a unique body trait determined by your genetics, body type, hormones and stage of life, she says. Your breasts will undergo many changes during your lifetime love each stage and your body regardless.

Breast size does not determine how attractive you are this is a horrible belief we have made our own mainly due to the often-distorted portrayal of the ideal female body by the media. Own your body and unique beauty with pride.

READ MORE |SA YouTuber on her breast reduction surgery - 'I felt the weight off my back when I woke up post op'

The vast majority of women have some breast asymmetry with one breast slightly larger than the other. This is completely normal. If there is significant asymmetry, especially during adolescence, be patient, it often changes and becomes far less noticeable once the acute developmental phase is over. If it persists and is bothersome, some procedures can assist with achieving better symmetry.

Some people prefer to have a breast reduction or enhancement and Dr Liana explains that people should always do their research before undergoing these procedures.

Cosmetic breast surgery is still surgery and comes with risks be sure that a decision to have a breast reduction or breast enhancement will improve your quality of life and confidence. Neither of these procedures is currently covered by medical aid and is a huge financial commitment too. Breast implants also have a shelf life and often needs removal and/or replacements after 10-15 years keep this in mind when you research these procedures.

READ MORE |Sharon Stones surgeon enhanced her breast size without her consent

Here is what Dr Liana has to say about some common myths regarding breast size.

Myth 1- The size of your breasts is related to how many men you have slept with - the more men you've slept with, the bigger your breasts will be.

This has to be the biggest lie. Absolutely not. Your breast size has nothing to do with your sexual history. Breasts grow and that is normal.

Myth 2 Your breast size is an indication of your femininity and sexual appeal.

This is not true at all. This becomes especially evident when you look at transgender patients who completely identify as male but may have very large breasts. A woman can have very small breasts and be incredibly feminine and appealing those factors have way more to do with your psychology and head space than your bra size.

Myth 3 Your breasts will stay the same size your whole life once you have gone through puberty.

This is not true hormonal fluctuation, pregnancy, menopause and even very subtle weight gain or weight loss can influence your breast size over your lifetime. This is also why we tend to advise young patients not to consider plastic surgery (breast enhancement or breast reduction) too early.

READ MORE |'I threw my breasts a farewell party before having them removed due to cancer concerns'

Myth 4 The bigger your breasts, the more fertile you are and the easier it will be to breastfeed.

This is false. Both fertility and a patients ability to breastfeed, are influenced by a plethora of factors of which breast size is not one.

Myth 5Certain types of exercise can enhance your breast size and prevent sagging.

This is unfortunately not true as the breast tissue is predominantly composed of fatty and glandular tissue not muscle. While having strong and well-developed pectoral muscles, a strong upper back and shoulders will improve your posture, it will not influence your breast size. Many athletes feel that their breasts get smaller as they train more and lose weight. Weight loss or weight gain has a definitive impact on breast size.

Myth 6Your bra size is standardized and therefore the same size bra will always fit you.

This is not entirely accurate although the sizes are standardized, bras are like any clothes. One brands size 34 jeans may fit you perfectly while another brands size 34 may be too small. The shape and other features of a bra (like an underwire) may also impact the comfort and fit of the garment.

Myth 7 Having large breasts means you have a greater risk of developing breast cancer.

This is nuanced and should be interpreted with caution a high BMI and high body fat are associated with an increased risk for cancer. If your body weight is healthy and you have big breasts, that is certainly not going to be a high-risk factor. Cancer risk is complicated whether you have large or small breasts, make sure you do your check-ups regularly.

READ MORE |Womens health is better when women have more control in their society

Stop worrying about your breast size, there are factors that contribute to breast size.Your genetics, and not just from your maternal line. Your mom and sisters may have small breasts, but you may find that a grandmother or aunt on either side of your family has larger breasts.Your body type and body fat as well as certain hormones are the main factors influencing your breast size.

Health is wealth having a healthy and strong body is the biggest gift! Try and focus on that privilege when you feel self-critical. Confidence has very little to do with how we look the most beautiful people in this world often suffer from very low self-esteem. Find your worth beyond your bra-size and embrace your unique beauty, says Dr Liana.

Have you been wrongly convinced that there is something wrong with you based on your breast size? Tell us about it here.

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Your breast size has nothing to do with the number of men youve had sex with, and more myths busted - News24

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Women's sports are about to change dramatically. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently published a set of guidelines for international sports federations on the issue of transgender people to protect their rights. The new guidelines will take effect after the Beijing Olympics. In 2022 there will be many more transgender athletes, such as weightlifter Laurel Hubbard.

Ildus Akhmetov, M.D., Associate Professor at Liverpool John Moores University Research Institute of Sport and researcher at the Federal Medical and Biological Agency, in an exclusive interview with Metaratings.ru, shared his opinion on the IOC manifesto on transgender athletes.

Recently, we have heard a lot of emotional opinions of the State Duma members on this topic. From the scientific point of view, I would like to understand how dangerous this statement of the IOC is. What can we say about it now?

Yes, that's right, there is a danger to the sports movement. The IOC has removed itself, shifting the responsibility to the federations. In 2015, the IOC said that sports federations had the right to adopt their policies towards trans women. Since then, the federations started to act individually.

Wasn't the IOC originally based on testosterone indicators?

In 2004, the IOC recommended that only men who had undergone a gonadectomy (an operation to remove the reproductive organs) and taken testosterone-reducing drugs to be allowed to compete in women's competitions, but they had to wait two years after the operation.

Then in 2015, the IOC updated the rules and eliminated the need for a gonadectomy. At the same time, testosterone had to be lowered to 10 nanomoles per liter and kept at that level for at least 12 months. It was mandatory to be listed as a woman on the documents.

Some federations went their way, proposing stricter eligibility criteria. The rugby federation banned trans women from competing among women because they understood that there would be great risks of injury and, most likely, trans women would injure regular women. The athletics, cycling, rowing federations said that reducing testosterone to 10 nanomoles per liter was too mild a condition, and we should reduce it to 5.

When the IOC saw that everyone was starting to interpret and understand everything in their way and that there are some peculiarities, they just pulled themselves off. They said: "Guys, you decide everything on your own."

It must be added that the previous admission criteria left a loophole for some men. The fact is that there is a small percentage of people with low testosterone levels among the elite male athletes. For example, we found 2.5% of men with testosterone levels of less than ten nanomoles per liter in our Russian national team. It turns out that these men, who perform on a good level, despite the low level of testosterone, can change the sex in the passport and be easily sent to women's competitions. No one would be able to refuse their participation.

How does the decision to allow trans women to participate in women's competitions look from a scientific point of view?

To put it mildly, not quite logical. It turns out that the fight for minority rights in our sport implies a fight against the rights of the majority. It is not so easy to find a balance here.

There could be two options: a transwoman who became a woman before puberty is one thing. In Europe, in some countries, children before puberty can go for sex reassignment surgery or start hormonal therapy without parental permission. Then the human body will be arranged a little differently.

What if the person is already past puberty?

In such a case, there will be a clear advantage of a man. Firstly, muscle memory remains. Secondly, the male genotype is likely to continue to manifest itself, and there would be a clear advantage for a man who became a trans woman over other women. If we go back to testosterone, it is not a determinant of success in sport. By the way, the IOC has finally recognized this in the new rules. Because the contribution of testosterone to strength and sprinting ability is no more than 30-35%, other factors influence strength and speed. You must understand that men have other advantages besides testosterone that are not affected by surgery and hormone suppression.

A man is always taller, which is already an advantage. Men have a more defined bone mass, a stronger tendon and ligament apparatus, a lower risk of injury from strokes, falls in games, and other contact types of sports. If ciswomen and transwomen clash, ciswomen will break bones or tear ligaments. Men naturally have more muscle mass and less fat than women. Accordingly, this is also an advantage for any athletic activity. Besides, we must realize that men, on average, have 10% more fast muscle fibers, and they are actively used in strength sports, martial arts, and competitive sports, where speed and strength qualities are required.

There is also an element of psychology: men are emotionally more stable, they can get involved faster, they can be more aggressive, for example, in martial arts, and this is another advantage.

How well is this field studied when a person changes genders and prepares to compete among other genders?

Unfortunately, little research has been done on how a person's physical qualities change after sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy. For sure, muscle mass might slightly decrease after hormonal correction. Accordingly, strength only slightly decreases. However, for example, a person's stamina and agility do not change.

It is well known that men are superior to women in many physical qualities. Therefore, in general, transwomen will keep the advantage. A simple example is Laurel Hubbard. Before the sex change, he lifted 300 kilograms. Seven years later, when the sex change happened, and he resumed training and became a woman, his record in competitions was 285 kilograms, which means that he worsened his results by 15 kilograms. But it's probably because of his age - he's 43 years old now.

Also, he made a pause in his career.

Yes, that could be an important factor, too. Altogether, it had such an effect that his strength performance dropped only by 5%. Most likely not because of the suppression of testosterone levels, but because of age and the long pause. It raises the question: how was he allowed to compete in weightlifting? Especially if you look at the current results of many weightlifters, Laurel claimed silver at the Olympics, but at the expense of all the failed attempts, there was no resonance, no scandal. Everyone got away with it because he failed the weight snatch and left the competition early.

At the same time, Laurel took many medals at local tournaments, outperforming the ciswomen who rightly expressed dissatisfaction. I don't think that's very fair to women. Another thing would be if they weren't winning medals but were just somewhere in the top 100, for example. Then let them do it, and we'll be watching and gathering statistics. But if they are going to qualify for prizes, then, of course, it's unfair to ordinary women.

It's clear with Hubbard. You said that some federations were making refinements on trans athletes, but that was an exception. Now it has to go as a stream. How do you get this kind of work started?

Sports scientists say that special studies need to be done for each sport, but there will be a problem with sampling. It won't be easy to find people, elite athletes, who would agree to participate. We need an adequate sample, at least 20 people in each sport, and, accordingly, to see if there is an advantage or not after the sex change.

How do we deal with the situation now that the number of transgender people in the Olympic movement has increased dramatically?

There are three ways to solve the problem. The first one is to allow the athlete to compete if it is proven that there is no gender reassignment advantage, but we have not seen this yet. It is an unlikely event.

The second option is to introduce a correction factor into the results of competitions within individual sports. For example, sometimes the Wilkes formula is used in strength sports, and it considers a person's weight and gender. Therefore, if there are competitions between men and women of all weight categories, you can equalize everyone with the help of Wilkes formula, and the strongest person may be a girl from a lightweight category. In that case, please compete in weightlifting or powerlifting, but we need to figure out exactly what the correction factor should be for transwomen. So far, it is not known.

The third option is to do separate competitions, but this is also a bit romantic because there are few transgender people, and it is unlikely to attract much attention. The spectacle will be low due to the small number of participants and little competition. In general, there are a lot of problems, and scientists are unanimous in the opinion that, to begin with, it is necessary to collect statistics on individual sports.

We covered the topic of transgender people. But how do scientists feel about allowing women to compete if they have high testosterone levels?

The situation here is different. The fact is that such women have not had a sex-change surgery but have high levels of testosterone naturally. Sports geneticists believe that such women should not be excluded from general women's competitions because it is part of their talent. In modern high-performance sports, medals are won exclusively by gifted men, and each has its advantage over the others. It may be testosterone, high height, defined muscle mass, high hemoglobin levels, reaction speed, and other factors, which may be due to rare genetic traits.

The history of testosterone in athletics is paradoxical. It all started with South African 800-meter runner Caster Semenya. After she won two gold medals at two consecutive Olympics, the IAAF and WADA commissioned a scientific study that showed that in the 400, 800, and 1500 meters, high testosterone levels gave an advantage over women with normal testosterone levels. Based on that study, the IAAF banned Semenya from international competition in the 800-meter run but said that let her testosterone levels drop if she wanted to participate. Caster did not want to do this essentially and continued to compete at the regional level. There are no bans in South Africa; she is a national hero there.

Going back to that sponsored study, there was no evidence that high testosterone levels give any advantage at 100 or 200 meters. Probably because of the small sample size. That's the paradox of the situation because you can't go out for the 400, 800, and 1500 meters, but you can go out for the 100 and 200 meter short sprints. You could say that Namibian track and field athlete Christine Mboma took advantage of this and won Olympic silver this summer in Tokyo. Our study showed that in the 100 and 200 meters, high testosterone also gives an advantage to women with high testosterone, but this has been established in all sprinting disciplines of many sports, not just track and field. Nevertheless, even though testosterone gives an advantage, I believe that women with high testosterone levels should not be prohibited from competing in women's events because every elite athlete has their strengths.

- After the IOC has left this issue alone, will we have to rely on the federations' sanity to introduce the criteria for admission competently?

That's right. The responsibility lies on the federations and their scientific groups. I think the number of scientific studies in this area is about to increase. One of my students, who deals with testosterone in sports, is going to Australia next summer, where he and his colleagues will conduct a series of experiments on transgender volunteers. Now, this is a very hot topic. We hope that in 5 years, when there will be some statistics, the issue will become clearer.

Can we assume that there will already be more transgender people at the Olympics in Paris?

I think so if there are transgender people who are comfortable in competing. Right now, many transgender people are in the shadows. It is psychologically difficult for them to perform because there will be a lot of attention to them, including criticism from female competitors and the media. Hubbard's example showed this. It all depends on how brave transgender people will be and whether the international federations will compete.

Is sport gradually becoming a compromise phenomenon with more blurred boundaries?

Yes, but I think when a lot of scientific evidence comes out, people will react appropriately, and emotional decisions will be reconsidered. Right now, a lot of people are trying to be tolerant of the issue of transgender acceptance. But as specific scientific studies come out, people will realize that somewhere there has been over-tolerance. Fair play should come first. Now the balance has shifted in the direction of tolerance. People are making hasty statements, trying to please minorities, and forgetting that there are science, honesty, and ciswomen, who are the majority. It's unfair to apply some policy to them that will shut them out once and for all from winning a medal. Even in chess, women can't handle the male competition. If we let trans women into all sports, I believe that they would take 90% of the medal places.

Some people might think that you are a person from Russia and say that because we are not the most tolerant country. Is your reasoning the thoughts of the entire global scientific community?

I am now presenting a weighted average opinion of most scientists who deal with the physiology, biochemistry, and genetics of sport. We have experts in sports science in the ethics and psychology of sport. They may have their own opinion on whether or not to allow someone to compete. That's another topic. On the other hand, I speak on behalf of scientists who deal with the biomedical issues of sport. We believe it is too early to allow trans women to compete because no data shows that they have no advantage over regular women.

Does it feel like there will soon be a debate about the participation of queer people who mentally feel that they are of a different gender but have not made any physical or chemical changes to their bodies? Example: This year, Canadian soccer player Rebecca Quinn became the first Olympic champion to identify as transgender publicly, but physically she remains a woman.

This is possible if we are talking about a particular country and local tournaments. But at the level of international competitions, such a scenario is not likely to happen because it is necessary to consider logic, science, and the interests of all countries and different cultures.

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"In a Clash With a Transgender Woman, the Ordinary Woman Will Break Bones." A Scientist From Liverpool On Transgender People In Sports -...

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