NEW DELHI: Want to know how long you may live? A simple blood test - like the one that calculates cholesterol - will soon offer Indians a clue to their longevity and pace of ageing.

The test, to be available in India this year, measures Telomeres - protective caps at the end of chromosome that are the best indicators of biological age as against chronological age.

Scientists say the length of Telomeres is crucial in deciding biological age.

There is extensive scientific evidence showing the strong correlation between the percentage of short Telomeres and the risk of developing diseases associated with ageing such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer's.

Similarly, lifestyle habits (nutrition, obesity and exercise) are increasingly being shown to impact telomere length. The finding that human chromosomes are protected by Telomeres had won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2009.

Dr Jerry Shay, professor of cell biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center who has been instrumental in creating this blood test, told TOI during his India visit last week, "Now, more Indians believe in healthy living. Many would want to know how healthy their cells are and how long they may live. Telomeres are essential in preserving the regenerative capacity of different tissues and organs and significantly contribute to ageing when they become short. The blood test will tell the length of Telomeres."

Dr Shay's technology known as Telomapping determines the length of Telomeres of every single cell in biopsies and all tissues, such as skin. However, the test will be a costly affair at around $500. According to scientists, biological age is more than important chronological age. No wonder, some people look younger that they actually are.

Dr Shay, who is associated with Life Length - the Telomere testing company based in Spain - said, "Telomeres act like a clock of the cell's lifespan. Reduction in Telomere length means the cell's lifespan is shortening. Long telomeres are related to healthy ageing and overall longevity."

He added, "A short Telomere represents a persistent and non-repairable damage to the cells, which is able to prevent their division or regeneration. The Telomere length test will tell whether the percentage of short Telomeres of a person is within normality for a given age or indicates a younger or older biological age."

Dr Shay said Telomeres progressively shortens over life. "We also know that Telomeres are genetically inherited. Every child inherits 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 from the father. At the end of each chromosome, there are around 92 Telomeres. Telomeres are like the plastic ends of a shoelace. As the plastic ends shred, the shoelace becomes frayed and damaged. Similarly the shortening of our telomeres can leave our cells vulnerable to damage."

Interestingly, the findings of a study involving nearly 20,000 Danes announced on Thursday showed that there is a direct link between Telomere length and heart diseases.

A team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen isolated each individual's DNA to analyze their specific telomere length - a measurement of cellular aging.

"The risk of heart attack or early death is present whether Telomeres are shortened due to lifestyle or due to high age," said professor of genetic epidemiology Borge Nordestgaard from the University of Copenhagen.

The study followed people for about 19 years and the conclusion was clear: If the Telomere length was short, the risk of heart attack and early death was increased by 50% and 25%, respectively.

"That smoking and obesity increases the risk of heart disease has been known for a while. We have now shown that the increased risk is directly related to the shortening of the protective telomeres - hence, smoking and obesity ages the body on a cellular level, just as surely as the passage of time," says Nordestgaard. "Stress reduces Telomere length," Dr Shay said.

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Soon, a simple blood test to reveal your lifespan and pace of ageing

15 February 2012 Last updated at 05:10 ET

People with dementia and their carers are to be recruited for a trial looking at how word games and quizzes can benefit brain stimulation in sufferers.

Bangor University research suggests cognitive stimulation from playing dominoes or even baking a cake can also help boost memory.

There are now plans to trial the technique to see how it can be used by families and carers.

The trial in north Wales will be run jointly with University College London.

According to Bangor University, there is a general belief that activities that stimulate the mind – cognitive stimulation – help to slow its decline in people with dementia.

The review, led by Bangor University professor, Bob Woods, and published in The Cochrane Library, looked at trial results from around the world involving 718 people with mild to moderate dementia.

Prof Woods, of the university's dementia services development centre, told BBC Radio Wales: “This review involves people who have already developed dementia.

Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

It can range from music to dominoes, word games, quizzes, baking a cake, reminiscing – a whole range of things”

End Quote Prof Bob Woods Bangor University

“It suggests that in people with mild to moderate dementia this is very useful strategy, not only for improving memory, but for improving quality of life.

“These are very simple straightforward activities.

“It's not like brain training – repeating the same exercises over – these are meant to be enjoyable fun activities that people can do together.

“It can range from music to dominoes, word games, quizzes, baking a cake, reminiscing – a whole range of things.”

The review says the benefits of cognitive stimulation were still being seen up to three months after starting.

He said such activities were carried out by staff in many care homes.

“We are also interested in whether this can be taught to family carers looking after a person with dementia and we've got a major trail starting here at Bangor to examine the effects of that approach,” he added.

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U.S. medicine may be the envy of the world, but Hispanic women's risk of giving birth prematurely increases the longer they live here, according to a Houston-area study.

The study, led by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers, found that Hispanic immigrants have a low risk of delivering premature babies in the immediate years after arriving in the United States but higher risks over time.

"We were surprised by the study's findings," said Dr. Radek Bukowski, a UTMB professor of obstetrics and gynecology and the study's principal investigator. "We know that immigrants generally have good health, but we didn't expect Hispanic women's risk of premature births to increase so significantly once here."

Bukowski's study, presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in Dallas, found the risk not only grew as Hispanic immigrants resided in the United States, but that it was highest among Hispanic women born here.

The prevalence of premature birth was 3.4 percent among Hispanic women who had lived in the United States for less than 10 years, 7.4 percent among those here for 10 or more years and nearly 10 percent among those born here.

Extended family's role

The increased risk had nothing to do with the woman's age, body mass index, marital status, toxic exposures, diet, key health indicators or socioeconomic status. The increased risk showed up even after researchers adjusted for those factors.

"I think what gets lost in the U.S. is the extended family dynamic Hispanic mothers had in their native land," said Norma Olvera, University of Houston professor and president of the Hispanic Health Coalition. "They miss the support provided by their parents, such as making sure they eat and rest properly."

Claudia Kolker, a Houston journalist who has researched the cultural traditions of immigrants in the United States, said Bukowski's study may be another manifestation of the "Hispanic health paradox," which emerged when another UTMB professor found that Latinos in the Southwest lived longer than native-born Americans.

"Although no one has nailed it down, there is some consensus about reasons for longevity, and I would guess that it also applies to pregnancy," said Kolker, author of The Immigrant Advantage: What We Can Learn from Newcomers to America about Health, Happiness and Hope.

People who walk across borders, Kolker said, tend to be strong and to have a more optimistic attitude than people born here.

Her research on immigrants from the Mexican state of Chiapas found that families insisted new mothers have 40 days of bed rest, reflecting "an attitude that we have to take care of these women. They're careful about what they eat, they're respected and treasured and protected."

This attitude, Kolker said, might carry over to prenatal care as well.

Manisha Gandhi, a Baylor College of Medicine specialist in maternal-fetal medicine, noted experts already have difficulty determining the role played by hormonal imbalances, stress, diet, infections and the environment.

Not better in U.S.

But she called the study intriguing and said it shows the assumption that health conditions are necessarily better in the United States isn't correct.

Despite improvements in prenatal care, more than 500,000 U.S. babies a year are born before 37 weeks. That's roughly 1 in 8 deliveries. The rate is highest, 17.5 percent, among black newborns, says the National Center for Health Statistics.

Such early labor puts babies at risk for all manner of health problems, from breathing difficulties to cerebral palsy to intellectual disability. Although there are known risk factors -- carrying multiple babies, previous preterm births, cigarette or alcohol use -- the cause is unknown about half the time.

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Study Finds Premature Birth Risk for Hispanics Increases With Time in US

For many of us, nutrition can be a confusing matter. It has become a topic of bewilderment, inciting dizzying searches for the ideal way to eat. Even if you've never wrestled with these concerns, you have to concur that Western society is bombarded with "expert" advice urging us to eat this and forego that for well being and longevity.

What's missing from this well-meant advice is the distinction between nourishment and nutrition, for nourishment is more than the sum of nutritional grams. According to Joshua Rosenthal, founder and director of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and author of Integrative Nutrition, "Eating well helps, but don't expect it to work miracles. It can fill you, but it cannot fulfill you."

When it comes to sustained health and aging well, sound nutrition is important, but it isn't everything. "The problem with nutrient-by-nutrient nutrition science," states Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition and food studies at NYU and author of What to Eat, "is that it takes the nutrient out of the context of food, the food out of the context of diet and the diet out of the context of lifestyle."

Mr. Rosenthal continues:

"If we are not physically starving, other dimensions of the human experience are much more important than what we put in our mouths. The foods you eat are secondary to all the other things that feed you -- your relationships, career, spirituality and exercise routine. All that we consider today as nutrition is really just a secondary source of energy."

The Ideology of Nutrition-ism

There exists an unexamined assumption that food, with its nutrients, phytochemicals and minerals, is merely a means to an end, a way of achieving and maintaining physical well-being and that its cultural and social implications are, in comparison, superficial.

According to Michael Pollan, professor of journalism at the University of California and author of Food Rules:

"Hippocrates' famous injunction to 'let food be thy medicine' is ritually invoked to support this notion ... it is not shared by all cultures and the experience of other cultures suggests that, paradoxically, viewing food as being about things other than bodily health -- like pleasure, say, or socializing -- makes people no less healthy; indeed, there's reason to believe that it may make them more healthy."

The X Factors

Chronic, overwhelming stress, including historic stress, is thought to be the most significant plague of modern life. Dr. Mark Hyman, chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine and author of The Blood Sugar Solution, states that 95 percent of all illness is caused or worsened by stress. Prolonged activation of the stress response and the subsequent overexposure to stress hormones can disrupt almost all your body's processes, making none of our organs immune to its effects. Heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, hypertension, depression, ulcers, headaches and chronic anxiety are all scientifically linked to chronic stress.

"So, if you don't think the mind has the power to influence your body, think again," states Dr. Hyman. "The good news is that you can change your beliefs and attitudes and their effects on your mind and body. You may need to learn a few new skills, like stress reduction techniques, but it can be done."

He continues, "... the health of your mind and spirit and your sense of connection to your community has an immense impact on the health of your body. In fact... the biggest predictor of longevity is psychological resiliency -- being able to roll with the punches that life throws at us." How does he suggest building this resiliency? Through our attitude, social networks, community and spiritual beliefs.

"We've known about this in medicine for a long time," he says. "There is a dramatic and powerful connection between your mind and body, and between your body and your mind. In fact, it really should not be called a connection because it is just one bidirectional system. Unfortunately, few doctors accept or understand this fundamental reality about biology."

Undoubtedly, eating a whole foods, nutrient-dense diet is essential for good health, but our attitude towards food and life and how we manage stress are equally if not more important, for nourishment is not limited to food alone. It includes all of the ways we feed the many needs we have as humans.

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Jill Grunewald: Beyond the Plate: Nourishment vs. Nutrition

HEALTH4ALL

More than half of my heart patients are above the age of 65. This doesn't come as a surprise since heart diseases usually come with advancing years; the older you are, the higher the risk. But in the not-too-distant future I expect that most of my patients will be 75, or older, because people are now living longer and this increased longevity means that our society contains a greater proportion of elderly citizens.

Life expectancy is now higher than ever before. The average life span of a Thai person back in 1997 was about 70 years; that figure rose to almost 80 in 2005.

In the US, senior citizens (65 and older) now make up 12% of the population and statisticians have estimated that by 2030 there will be over 70 million elderly people worldwide. In Thailand, the number of people aged between 60 and 79 is about 6.2 million, and in excess of 755,000 people are above the age of 80. So, 11% of Thailand's population is now older than 60.

The reason why we are now living longer is partly due to technological advances, especially in medicine. In the past, a lot of people died from infectious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. Once drugs were discovered to fight the pathogens that give rise to such contagions, the main cause of death changed to illnesses that stem from our own lifestyles, such as coronary artery disease which is caused by bad diet, lack of exercise and smoking.

Doctors and scientists have tried to find ways to extend our lives as much as possible. Maybe, three decades from now, average life expectancy will have reached 100, but that still won't alter one absolute certainty: that we all have to leave this world at some point.

In the past, doctors and scientists didn't pay a lot of attention to elderly people, partly because there weren't that many of them. Most people passed away before reaching old age. Another reason was that medical practitioners used to think it was too late to try and save the lives of people once they had passed a certain age. However, if we take a closer look at the matter, we will realise that a whole quarter century separates people aged 65 from 90-year-olds. Just as a 25-year-old is different from a 50-year-old, so too are there differences between 65-year-olds and 90-year-olds.

It is never too late for the elderly to start looking after their health. Apart from good food, exercise is also important for a longer, healthier life. Sitting around the house doing nothing (or being waited on, hand and foot, by your kids) could be bad for your health.

I am particularly interested in the topic of exercise for the elderly, mainly because most of my patients are in that age group. Even if I try my best to save their hearts, I can't change their lifestyles for them. If they have an unhealthy lifestyle, they won't have the energy to get involved in activities. Exercise can improve the health of those who are 90 years old as much as it can benefit those aged 50.

A study was conducted in which 90-year-olds were asked to do resistance exercises (such as lifting light weights) under supervision to see whether exercise could improve their muscle tone. It was found that eight weeks of daily weight-lifting _ three times a day, eight repetitions per session _ boosted the strength of their leg muscles by 174%. Almost half of the people who took part in the study said they were able to walk faster afterwards, while 20% of them no longer needed the assistance of a cane. And isn't that what you'd want if you were to reach the grand old age of 90: to be able to retain a measure of mobility and independence?

For older people, nothing is more important than a healthy lifestyle because this will allow them to continue engaging in the activities they enjoy without having to rely too much on others for help. Apart from resistance exercises, another important practice is balance training; this minimises the risk of accidental falls which are a major cause of death among the elderly.

Good food, regular health check-ups, proper medication and a contented mind are also important, but the best medicine of all is the love and care of one's family.

Taking care of elderly people is, in some ways, a bit like caring for a baby. They should be given the chance to do things for themselves and should call on us for assistance as little as possible. We can watch over them to guard against the possibility of accidents, but if they are allowed to do things on their own, they will be able to lead better and longer lives.

We are born, grow old, get sick and leave this world _ that is a fact of life. However, given lots of love and care, life can still be beautiful no matter what age one has reached. Love your parents as much as they loved you and cared for you when you were just a helpless little baby.

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Caring for the elderly

When you're in the early stages of falling in love, you might hide it from friends and family. But you can't hide it from neuroscientists. By charting brain activity with an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine, scientists can spot telltale regions of your brain glowing joyously when you look at a photograph of your beloved.

But new research suggests that neuroscientists can tell you much more than what you already know (that you're madly in love). Like fortune-tellers who read brains instead of palms, they have begun to figure out how to determine the fate of your relationship by studying your brain activity alone. And armed with the knowledge of the brain responses they're looking for, you too may be able to find clues in your own behavior as to whether you and your loved one will be happily married years from now, or bitterly separated and wondering why it all fell apart.

Not all in-love brains look alike. Several years ago, Xiaomeng Xu, now a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University School of Medicine, and her colleagues performed fMRI scans on 18 Chinese men and women who reported being in the early stages of romantic love. Though all the study participants showed clear signs of love — looking at the face of their beloved triggered a flurry of activity in the areas of their brains involved in reward and motivation — the researchers identified subtle differences between the individuals' brain scans. When the team followed up with the study participants 18 months later to learn how their budding relationships had turned out, they found a surprisingly strong correlation between certain characteristics in the original brain scans and the participants' relationship status a year and a half later. [13 Scientifically Proven Signs You're in Love]

The team detailed its results in the journal Human Brain Mapping in early 2010. Now, another two years have passed, and the researchers have contacted 12 of the original study participants. Half of the participants are still in the relationships they had just begun at the time of the brain scans three and a half years ago; the other six aren't. Among the admittedly small sample, there is a striking divide between the original brain activity of the people whose relationships lasted and those whose relationships fell apart.

Rose-tinted shades

"Even with this small number of people, the results are really interesting," said Lucy Brown, a leading expert on the neuroscience of love at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a member of the research team.

Two key aspects of the participants' brain activity correlated with their relationship longevity, Brown said. Among the people whose relationships became long-term, looking at a picture of their beloved "caused a decrease in activity in regions that we associate with making judgments, and also a decrease in activity in systems associated with a person's sense of self," she said. "Sense of self" can be thought of awareness of one’s own existence, interests and desires.

These two brain responses, and the associated behavioral traits, suggest that a promising relationship is one in which people refrain from judging their new partners, and instead, tend to overrate them, even finding the positive aspect of a patently negative trait. A promising new romance is also one in which people give great importance to their loved one’s interests and desires, even to the subjugation of their own. Both these tendencies seem to be "a huge help in the longevity of a relationship," Brown told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

The researchers plan to conduct a larger-scale study to see if the correlation between relationship longevity and the two fMRI signatures — corresponding to the two behavioral traits — is as strong as their small data set implies. They also intend to investigate whether certain people more easily exhibit the traits in question, and are thus inherently more suited to long-term attachments, than others.  "We would like to know, 'Does relationship longevity depend on the other person, the relationship or who you are?'" Brown said. "A lot of it may be who you are." [Why Do We Have Sex?]

Similarly, new work indicates that what might be fortuitous in a new relationship doesn't necessarily bode well later on.

Realism sets in

According to brand-new work by Bianca Acevedo, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University, the characteristics identified by Xu, Brown and their colleagues point only to a happy future when exhibited by brand-new couples. When it's time to get married, your brain needs to change its ways.

Acevedo did fMRI scans of newlyweds who had been with their partners for an average of four years. She looked for correlations between their brain responses and how happily married they said they were one year later. Many of the study participants reported feeling less in love with their new husbands or wives after a year of marriage, but some actually reported feeling more in love. She focused on the latter set. "The question was, is there any activation around the time of the wedding that's associated with an increase in love over the first year of the marriage," Acevedo said.

Unlike people in the early stages of a relationship, in the case of newlyweds, "it's a good sign to have heightened activity in the areas of the brain associated with the representation of ourselves and others," Acevedo said. "In particular, it was a good sign to see activity in areas that are part of the mirror neuron system. The way this works is, if you stretch your arm out, we see neurons firing in these areas, but if you see someone else stretching their arm out, the same neurons fire off. So this idea of including the other in the self — when looking at a picture of your partner causes activities in these areas — this predicts an increase in love over time."

Furthermore, unlike the study of brand-new relationships, in which a tendency to overrate your partner indicates that your relationship with them will last, Acevedo's study of newlyweds found that activation of the brain regions involved in judgment and decision-making correlated with an increase in love over the course of their first year of marriage. "It's true that when people show nonjudgment in the beginning of their relationships, that helps them get hooked on that person. That's OK in the beginning, but later, it's important to see things clearly when you're stepping into a lifelong commitment," she said.

Taken altogether, the new research suggests the following: Selflessness and idealizing your partner will carry you through the first few years of romance. Later, when things get serious, your sense of self must re-blossom, but it must now be intimately tied together with your sense of your partner. And at that point, assessing him or her accurately — accepting the good with the bad — bodes well for a happy marriage.

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

Originally posted here:
Brain Scans Could Reveal If Your Relationship Will Last

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31-10-2011 12:11 The Tango as Physical Therapy Parkinson’s Disease. Performing at the Parkinson walk in Rome, GA for fundraising to increase PD awareness. Choreographer and Researcher, Madeleine Hackney Ph.D., Emory School of Medicine leads the performance with partner Ben Jackson, a Person with Parkinson’s who was diagnosed at the age of 28. Clinical research studies continue to demonstrate physical benefits of the Argentine Tango for People with Parkinson’s Disease. Parkinson’s Disease is a chronic, progressive, neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system. PD symptoms are cognitive and non-motor as well as the more commonly recognized movement disorder symptoms. The CDC reports Parkinson’s as the underlying cause of death for more than 20000 Americans every year. Currently, there is no treatment for Parkinson’s Disease, and there is no cure. There is only treatment for certain symptoms of PD, all of which progress every day. See how you can help, Please visit gaparkinsons.org today!

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Parkinson’s Disease and The Argentine Tango – Video

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16-08-2011 08:53 Researchers have discovered a new gene mutation they say causes Parkinson’s disease. The mutation was identified in a large Swiss family with Parkinson’s disease, using advanced DNA sequencing technology. The study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, was led by neuroscientists at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida and included collaborators from the US, Canada, Europe, United Kingdom, Asia and the Middle East. “This finding provides an exciting new direction for Parkinson’s disease research,” says co-author Zbigniew Wszolek, MD, a Mayo Clinic neuroscientist. “Every new gene we discover for Parkinson’s disease opens up new ways to understand this complex disease, as well as potential ways of clinically managing it.” The team found that mutations in VPS35, a protein responsible for recycling other proteins within cells, caused Parkinson’s disease in the Swiss family. Mutated VPS35 may impair the ability of a cell to recycle proteins as needed, which could lead to the kind of errant buildup of protein seen in some Parkinson’s disease brains and in other diseases like Alzheimer’s disease says co-author Owen Ross, Ph.D., a neuroscientist at Mayo Clinic in Florida. “In fact, expression of this gene has been shown to be reduced in Alzheimer’s disease, and faulty recycling of proteins within cells has been linked to other neurodegenerative diseases,” he says. In this video, Dr. Wszolek and Dr. Ross discuss Parkinson’s disease and the study.

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Mayo researchers: Genetic mutation linked to Parkinson’s disease – Video

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Dr. Jerome S. Tobis, a former professor and founding chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at UC Irvine whose long career included a number of precedent-setting studies on physical therapy, cardiac rehabilitation and other subjects, has died. He was 96.

Tobis, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer in July, died Feb. 3 at his home in Corona del Mar, said his daughter, Heather Tobis Booth.

As an emeritus research professor at UCI since 1986, Tobis continued teaching residents and medical students until last summer.

"It's a rare individual that is able to continue with a career at 96 and over all those years have an absolutely impeccable reputation," said Dr. Ralph V. Clayman, dean of the UC Irvine School of Medicine.

As part of his university service to the community, Tobis continued to see patients at Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa once a week until a week before his death. His most recent visits were in a wheelchair.

"Everybody was impressed with his longevity," said Dr. Ronald B. Miller, a clinical professor of medicine emeritus at UC Irvine, "and he remained mentally astute and alert and competent."

In 1970, Tobis joined the UCI medical school faculty as a professor and founding chairman of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation.

He also was the medical school's founding director of geriatric medicine, a position he held from 1980 to 1986, and chaired the ethics committee at UCI Medical Center from 1986 to 2000.

Tobis was co-author of the 1970 book "Cardiac Rehabilitation," the first on the subject. He also served as the principal investigator for the first scientific research to show the effectiveness of spinal manipulation in improving lower back pain. The research was published in 1981 in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Tobis also worked on studies of traumatic brain injury and the causes of falls by the elderly, among other topics.

Born July 23, 1915, in Syracuse, N.Y., Tobis earned a bachelor's degree from City College of New York in 1936 and graduated from Chicago Medical School in 1943. As a captain in the Army during World War II, he served as a stateside doctor.

Tobis was named chairman of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at New York Medical College in 1948. In 1961, he became chairman of a similar department at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx, and in 1963 joined the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.

Hazel, his wife of 64 years, died in 2002. Besides his daughter Heather, Tobis is survived by his partner of seven years, Myra Fono; his sons, David and Jonathan; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

dennis.mclellan@latimes.com

Excerpt from:
Dr. Jerome Tobis dies at 96; UCI professor, physician and researcher

Science recently hosted a live chat event with researchers Aubrey de Grey and S. Jay Olshansky, public figures who have debated their views on longevity science a number of times over the last seven years or so. The logs and viewer comments from the event remain available for those interested in viewing the discussion, but note that it takes a little while for the widget containing them to load.

Live Chat: The Science of Antiaging

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel: And here’s a question from Roy: Does the paper titled “Clearance of p16 positive senescent cells delays ageing-associate disorder” published in Nature January, 2011, prove the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS’s) validity, i.e. extend lifespan by remediating damage? If so, are their other examples of experimental validation of SENS in animal models?

Aubrey: Roy: that paper is a great proof of concept for one component of SENS, the benefits of removing “death-resistant” cells. The experiment didn’t show life extension, but it wasn’t expected to, because to do that you have to fix all the things that limit lifespan, not just one of them. Yes, there are various other examples, such as the elimination of amyloid in mouse models of Alzheimer’s and the introduction of stem cells (or the stimulation of their division) in various tissues. We’ll see more of this soon, that’s for sure.

…

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel: An interesting question from Morten: Why do you want to live longer (as I understand it at least de Grey is after living longer)? What can’t you accomplish in a life time?

Aubrey: Morten: this is the most insidious misunderstanding of the work that I and other biomedical gerontologists do. We are NOT working to extend life for the sake of extending life. We are working to postpone the ill-health of old age, which will probably have the side-effect of extending life, but it’s no more than that, a side-effect. I personally have no idea how long I want to live, [any] more than I have an opinion on what time I want to go to the toilet next Sunday. In both cases I know I’m going to have better information nearer the time, so it’s idiotic to even think about it. However, I can tell you that I have at least 1000 years of backlog already (books to read, films to se…) – don’t you? If not, why not?

S. Jay Olshansky: Morton. The goal of research in this area in my view is not to extend life. The goal is to extend healthy life. If we live longer, I consider that a bonus. However, I would encourage you to be asking the same question of those now working to combat heart disease, cancer, and stroke, and those who experience these conditions. Why [do] we all want to live longer? I believe what we are talking about here are interventions that enable us to live our lives healthy for as long as possible.

…

Comment From Guest: Couldn’t you guys be focusing on pain control, quality-of-life and ending poverty and depression in the elderly?

S. Jay Olshansky: [Think] about this for a moment. In 1900 life expectancy at birth was about 45. Now it’s about 80 for women and 76 for men. We gained 30 years of life — most healthy. Wasn’t that worth it? It’s hard to imagine the goal of extending healthy life as being harmful in any way — it would enable people to remain working longer if they want, or retire healthier for a longer time period. Health also begets wealth for individuals and populations. Goodness — why are we working so hard to combat heart disease and cancer then?

There’s a lot more there to look through; you should certainly read the whole thing.

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UTICA, NY--(Marketwire -02/07/12)- CONMED Corporation (NASDAQ: CNMD - News) today announced that its CONMED Linvatec business unit will formally launch multiple new medical devices in its Sports Medicine and Powered Instrument product lines at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) in San Francisco, CA on February 8 - 11, 2012. Further information about the products related to the Company's recently completed association with the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation (MTF) will also be available.

"The launch of several new, important products at AAOS, combined with the recent agreement with MTF, has CONMED off to an excellent start in 2012," said Joseph Darling, President of the CONMED Linvatec division. "We are pleased to add to our already extensive Sports Medicine and Powered Instrument product lines. Of significance, we think our Hip Preservation System will be an excellent resource for surgeons in the fast-growing area of hip arthroscopy. CONMED is committed to the consistent introduction of high-quality, innovative new products that will address customer needs and fuel CONMED's long-term top-line growth."

The following products are being launched at AAOS:

SPORTS MEDICINE - ARTHROSCOPY

Hip Preservation System™ - The CONMED Linvatec Hip Preservation System optimizes patient outcomes by providing comprehensive instrumentation and technique solutions for hip joint preservation. This is one of the fastest growing segments in the Arthroscopic repair market. CONMED Linvatec now offers a full range of instrumentation for minimally invasive repairs of the hip joint, including:

suture anchors for labral tears, prebent burs and blades for easier access to the hip joint space, access instruments to provide better access during Hip arthroscopy, manually operated forceps, graspers, scissors, powered resection instruments and cutting tools, microfracture awls

Y-KNOT™ 1.3mm All-Suture Anchor - This is the smallest "all-suture" anchor on the market and is comprised entirely of high strength suture. This 1.3mm device allows for additional tissue to bone contact and enables more points of fixation to be made where they are needed the most. When deployed, the anchor contracts vertically and expands laterally, producing 360° FormFit™ fixation within the bone for superior pull out strength.

PressFT™ Suture Anchor - These suture anchors are available in PEEK and biocomposite variants for shoulder and hip arthroscopy in 2.1mm and 2.6mm sizes. They are used for arthroscopic stabilization procedures of the shoulder and labral repair of the hip. The percutaneous guide system permits exact placement without the use of a cannula.

XACTPIN™ Graft Passing Guide Pin - The XACTPIN Graft Passing Guide Pin is used during soft tissue repairs, including cruciate ligament reconstructions, to facilitate the positioning of cannulated drills, passing of a soft tissue graft through the bone tunnel and referencing of the tunnel length. Specifically engineered for fast, accurate and minimally invasive referencing of the Aperture to Cortex length, the XACTPIN is the only graft passing guide currently available on the market that allows surgeons to confidently confirm the femoral tunnel length in the early stages of the reconstruction, saving time and minimizing potential complications.

Allografts for Sports Medicine - As recently announced, CONMED Linvatec will serve as the exclusive world-wide marketing representative for MTF's sports medicine allograft tissues. Additional information regarding allograft tissue use for sports medicine will be available at the Company's exhibit booth (845) at AAOS.

Cascade Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy - Also due to the agreement with MTF, CONMED Linvatec has become the exclusive world-wide distributor of the Cascade Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) product, which leverages the body's capacity to heal itself. When the body becomes injured, a natural healing process occurs to repair the damaged tissue. The body signals platelets and other components in human blood supply to migrate to the site of injury. Under normal conditions, these platelets release a variety of factors that initiate and subsequently promote healing. New advances in medicine have been developed to harness and concentrate these platelets to be precisely introduced to the injury site in an injectable form. The implantation of these platelets from a small amount of the patient's own blood has the potential to enhance the body's capacity for healing.

POWERED SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS

Hall® Lithium Power Battery System - Rechargeable Lithium Ion Nanophosphate battery packs for all CONMED Linvatec PowerPro® Max and MPower™ battery operated surgical instruments will be available shortly, and will be on display at the Company's AAOS exhibit booth. These new battery packs are designed to provide maximum power and longevity. Unique technology allows CONMED Linvatec to offer industry leading 13.2v batteries that are significantly smaller and lighter than existing packs, and that are fully sterilizable. This system includes a smart charger that will provide advanced battery diagnostics.

M-Class™ Blades - The new M-Class Blade series is a complete system of premium oscillating saw blades specifically engineered with an innovative tooth profile to provide superior blade control and stability during large bone procedures. These blades are compatible with all CONMED Linvatec Hall oscillating saw handpieces.

Hall® Classic Blades - This new line of oscillating saw blades is designed and produced to ensure optimal performance during large bone procedures, while offering a compelling value proposition for the Company's customers. They are also compatible with all Hall oscillating saw handpieces.

In addition to introducing the above new products, the CONMED Linvatec business unit will feature interactive surgeon procedural demonstrations throughout the AAOS Annual Meeting. These demonstrations will take place at the Company's technical exhibit, Booth 845.

CONMED Profile

CONMED is a medical technology company with an emphasis on surgical devices and equipment for minimally invasive procedures and monitoring. The Company's products serve the clinical areas of arthroscopy, powered surgical instruments, electrosurgery, cardiac monitoring disposables, endosurgery and endoscopic technologies. They are used by surgeons and physicians in a variety of specialties including orthopedics, general surgery, gynecology, neurosurgery, and gastroenterology. Headquartered in Utica, New York, the Company's 3,400 employees distribute its products worldwide from several manufacturing locations.

Forward Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on certain assumptions and contingencies that involve risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and relate to the Company's performance on a going-forward basis. The forward-looking statements in this press release involve risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results, performance or trends, to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements herein or in previous disclosures. The Company believes that all forward-looking statements made by it have a reasonable basis, but there can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs or projections as expressed in the forward-looking statements will actually occur or prove to be correct. In addition to general industry and economic conditions, factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to: (i) the failure of any one or more of the assumptions stated above, to prove to be correct; (ii) the risks relating to forward-looking statements discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010; (iii) cyclical purchasing patterns from customers, end-users and dealers; (iv) timely release of new products, and acceptance of such new products by the market; (v) the introduction of new products by competitors and other competitive responses; (vi) the possibility that any new acquisition or other transaction may require the Company to reconsider its financial assumptions and goals/targets; (vii) increasing costs for raw material, transportation, or litigation; (viii) the risk of a lack of allograft tissues due to reduced donations of such tissues or due to tissues not meeting the appropriate high standards for screening and/or processing of such tissues; and/or (ix) the Company's ability to devise and execute strategies to respond to market conditions.

Read more here:
CONMED Corporation Launches New Products at 2012 Annual American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Meeting

The course of our future lives, our health and longevity, is swayed by a population of timid mice – but malicious mice, ever ready to use state force to punish and hold back anyone they see as being insufficiently timid. These are people who support the ball and chain of centralized regulation of medical research, people who fear all change, people who fear everything they don’t understand, and people who rush to prevent anyone else from enjoying the freedom to undertake personal risk in the course of advancing progress. This describes the vocal mainstream of Western culture: risk-averse, ignorant, and enamored of control for its own sake: a dangerous combination for those who pull upon the strings of law and regulation.

As I have often remarked in the past, freedom is absolutely essential to progress in medicine: the freedom for researchers to attempt goals as they see fit; the freedom for anyone to fund the research and clinical development they desire; the freedom for people to take personal risks in the use of medical technology; the freedom for groups to create an unhampered marketplace in medicine, in which technologies are rapidly sifted for those with the greatest benefit. These are all simply parts of economic and personal liberty, something that is in extremely short supply in the medical industry.

So the mice stamp their little feet, and the impersonal engines of government – the unaccountable employees of bureaucratic bodies such as the FDA – move to prevent us all from undertaking rapid development in medicine, on penalty of jail. For our own good, supposedly.

If anti-aging drugs are possible, they will require dangerous – and ethically troubling – clinical trials. … If anti-aging medicine is to become a reality, then the various theories about how to halt or reverse the aging process will require testing on human subjects. Carrying out such tests will place unprecedented pressure on the rules protecting human participants in clinical trials. I suspect, then, that human guinea pigs for anti-aging trials will come disproportionately from the poor and disempowered. … The rich and powerful will be looking to do away with rules that they perceive as denying them millennial life spans.

Those would be the rules preventing terminal cancer patients from choosing to up and pay for their own personal trial of a promising therapy-in-development – forcing them to die without any recourse. The rules that make formal clinical trials so lengthy and expensive that many potential therapies are simply never developed or tried by humans, and those that are might be a decade in the slow regulatory grind from readiness to actual availability. The rules that raise the costs of medicine too high for those poor folk that the author seems to be concerned about. Regulation of medicine, which raises costs, disrupts the effective market mechanisms of progress, and prevents people from using potential therapies that are technologically feasible and ready to field-test, is a morally bankrupt affair.

But this is the culture we live in, sad to say: one in which vague and poorly articulated discomfort with potential future inequities are given more consideration than the ongoing massive toll of death and suffering that we should be working day and night, as fast as possible, to prevent. A toll of 100,000 lives every day, and the hundreds of millions who are crippled, diminished, and in pain. Instead we get institutions like the FDA, whose staff toil to prevent new medicine from ever seeing the light of day. The mice would close their eyes and drown the world in blood just to feel a little better in their own vague sense of disquiet: they are the very worst of humanity, not even willing to acknowledge the fearsome costs of their own timidity.

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Here is an open access PDF format mini-review on what is known of growth hormone and aging – that less of it is generally better: “A recent report of virtually complete protection from diabetes and cancer in a population of people with hereditary dwarfism revived interest in elucidating the relationships between growth, adult body size, age-related disease and longevity. In many species, smaller individuals outlive those that are larger and a similar relationship was shown in studies of various human populations. Adult body size is strongly dependent on the actions of growth hormone (GH) and the absence of GH or GH receptor in mice leads to a remarkable extension of longevity. Many mechanisms that may account for, or contribute to, this association have been identified. It is suggested that modest modifications of the diet at different ages may extend human healthspan and lifespan by reducing levels of hormones that stimulate growth.”

Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22261798

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From the Independent: “It is one of medicine’s mysteries: what has caused Britain’s plummeting rate of heart disease over the last decade? Deaths from heart attacks have halved since 2002 and no one is quite sure why. Similar changes have occurred in countries around the world but the death rate in England, especially, has fallen further and faster than almost anywhere. … The researchers looked at 840,000 men and women in England who had suffered a total of 861,000 heart attacks between 2002 and 2010. Overall, the death rates fell by 50 per cent in men and 53 per cent in women. … For the last 70 years we have been in the grip of a heart disease epidemic that began in the 1940s, rose to a peak in the 1970s and then began to fall. All Western countries were affected and all followed broadly the same pattern. … researchers conclude that just under half the decline in heart attack death rates in England over the last decade is due to better hospital treatment; the rest is due to changes in lifestyle and the widespread use of pills to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.” One might theorize that – at the high level – increased heart disease across the last seven decades is a consequence of the fat and sedentary lifestyles that tend to accompany increases in wealth across the board, while reductions are largely due to improvements in medical technology.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-killer-6294626.html

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This year’s Buck Symposium, an event hosted by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, will be held on March 1st. The Institute is very much a part of the mainstream of biogerontology, wherein frank talk of extending human life span is rare, and the public relations tends to focus on age-related diseases and length of healthy life within the current human life span:

At the Buck Institute, world-class scientists work in a uniquely collaborative environment to understand how normal aging contributes to the development of conditions specifically associated with getting older such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, macular degeneration and glaucoma. Our interdisciplinary approach brings scientists from disparate fields together to develop diagnostic tests and treatments to prevent or delay these maladies.

Some of their work has application to more useful research programs, however, those that aim directly to extend human life and reverse aging – such as SENS. That said, the program for the event is attractive, and in the speakers list you’ll see a few noted researchers who are in fact public supporters of SENS, such as Irina Conboy.

The 2012 Buck Symposium: Stem Cell Research and Aging provides a stage for key players in the rapidly developing areas of stem cell research and the basic biology of aging to share their research, findings and thoughts. Some of the world’s most influential and respected investigators from diverse background, in fields such as development, diseases, stem cell biology and model systems will be sharing their ideas, sparking new dialog, new alliances and promising collaborations.

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The principle use of stem cells in the near future is actually research, not therapy – generating diseased cells to order will lower the cost of better understanding the mechanisms of disease and age-related conditions. For example: “scientists have, for the first time, created stem cell-derived, in vitro models of sporadic and hereditary Alzheimer’s disease (AD), using induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with the much-dreaded neurodegenerative disorder. … It’s a first step. These aren’t perfect models. They’re proof of concept. But now we know how to make them. It requires extraordinary care and diligence, really rigorous quality controls to induce consistent behavior, but we can do it. … We’re dealing with the human brain. You can’t just do a biopsy on living patients. Instead, researchers have had to work around, mimicking some aspects of the disease in non-neuronal human cells or using limited animal models. Neither approach is really satisfactory. … With the in vitro Alzheimer’s neurons, scientists can more deeply investigate how AD begins and chart the biochemical processes that eventually destroy brain cells associated with elemental cognitive functions like memory. Currently, AD research depends heavily upon studies of post-mortem tissues, long after the damage has been done. … The differences between a healthy neuron and an Alzheimer’s neuron are subtle. It basically comes down to low-level mischief accumulating over a very long time, with catastrophic results. … The researchers have already produced some surprising findings. … In this work, we show that one of the early changes in Alzheimer’s neurons thought to be an initiating event in the course of the disease turns out not to be that significant.”

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120125131029.htm

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Here is another example of work on creating patient-specific cells to order, one of the necessary building block technologies needed for an industry that constructs organs and other larger masses of tissue in the body: researchers have “discovered a method of generating different types of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) – the cells which make up the walls of blood vessels – using cells from patients’ skin. … Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world. These deaths are mainly caused by the hardening and subsequent blockage of blood vessels due to the accumulation of fatty materials, a condition called atherosclerosis. As not all patients are suitable for conventional stenting or bypass treatment, an option in the future may be to grow new blood vessels to bypass their own blocked vessels. The [team] worked with embryonic stem cells and reprogrammed skin cells, collectively known as human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), which have the potential to form any cell type in the body. They discovered a method of creating all the major vascular smooth muscle cells in high purity using hPSCs which can also be easily scaled up for production of clinical-grade SMCs. This is the first time that such a system has been developed and will open the door for comparative studies on different subtypes of SMCs to be carried out, which are otherwise extremely difficult to obtain from patients.”

Link: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-cambridge-team-smooth-muscle-cells.html

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An interview with a researcher: “Advances in the study of stem cells have fueled hopes that someday, via regenerative medicine, doctors could restore aging people’s hearts, livers, brains and other organs and tissues to a more youthful state. A key to reaching this goal – to be able to provide stem cells that will differentiate into other types of cells a patient needs – appears to lie in understanding ‘epigenetics,’ which involves chemical marks stapled onto DNA and its surrounding protein husk by specialized enzyme complexes inside a cell’s nucleus. These markings produce long-lasting changes in genes’ activity levels within the cell – locking genes into an ‘on’ or ‘off’ position. Epigenetic processes enable cells to remain true to type (a neuron, for instance, never suddenly morphs into a fat cell) even though all our cells, regardless of type, share the same genetic code. But epigenetic processes also appear to play a critical role in reducing cells’ vitality as they age. … Aging seems to involve a gradual deterioration of function as cells and tissues are exposed to stresses either from outside the body, such as chemicals we ingest or irradiation from the sun, or from inside the body, such as free radicals, produced every moment when cells are making energy. These myriad insults can, among other things, alter a cell’s epigenetic settings, resulting in changed patterns of gene activity that diminish the cell’s overall ability to function. … Although some aspects of cellular aging – DNA mutations, for instance – would be difficult to ‘reset,’ we and others have done experiments suggesting that many of the characteristics of old cells and tissues can indeed be reversed, restoring them to a more youthful state. Much of our work has focused on stem cells, and in particular on the changes that occur with age and that reduce stem cells’ ability to maintain or repair tissues. Our findings fit nicely with the idea that some of the causes of aging are epigenetic in character, as opposed to actual damage to genes. Most importantly, our data suggest that cells and tissues can be rejuvenated without losing their specific characteristics – old muscle stem cells, when rejuvenated, remain muscle stem cells rather than become some more generic, undifferentiated cell.”

Link: http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2012/january/5q-rando-0123.html

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From the New York Times: “A treatment for eye diseases that is derived from human embryonic stem cells might have improved the vision of two patients. The report, published online in the medical journal The Lancet, is the first to describe the effect on patients of a therapy involving human embryonic stem cells. … The results [come] from the second clinical trial involving the stem cells, using a therapy developed by Advanced Cell Technology to treat macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness. … Both patients, who were legally blind, said in interviews that they had gains in eyesight that were meaningful for them. One said she could see colors better and was able to thread a needle and sew on a button for the first time in years. The other said she was able to navigate a shopping mall by herself. … esearchers at Advanced Cell Technology turned embryonic stem cells into retinal pigment epithelial cells. Deterioration of these retinal cells can lead to damage to the macula, the central part of the retina, and to loss of the straight-ahead vision necessary to recognize faces, watch television or read. Some 50,000 of the cells were implanted last July under the retinas in one eye of each woman in operations that took about 30 minutes. … Before the treatment, the woman with Stargardt’s was able to see the motion of a hand being waved in front of her but could not read any letters on an eye chart. Twelve weeks after the treatment, she was able to read five of the biggest letters on the eye chart with the treated eye, corresponding to 20/800 vision, according to the paper.”

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/business/stem-cell-study-may-show-advance.html

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