The benefits of intermittent fasting – Starjournalnow

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By Wendy M. HenrichsBoard Certified Chiropractic Pediatrician and Nutrition Counselor

Is your diet in need of a reboot before the holidays? Remember that your diet is how and what you eat, not something that you do for a short period of time to lose weight. There are several popular diet patterns today, including Keto, Paleo, Gluten Free, Low Carb, High Protein, Whole 30, and Mediterranean. The number one diet pattern in 2018 was Intermittent Fasting. This article will explore intermittent fasting and its benefits. If you are looking for ways to manage your weight, decrease inflammation and pain, lower your blood pressure, lower your total cholesterol, decrease your risk for heart disease and diabetes along with having more energy and longevity then intermittent fasting could be for you.

Fasting originated in ancient evolution and healing tradition across millennia. It has been shown to support overall metabolic health. It supports cellular cleanup which leads to cellular regeneration and an increase in circulating stem cells (i.e. younger cells). It impacts genetic markers associated with an increase in human longevity and health span.

Fasting is not a fad. In Obesity 2019, those practicing time-restricted eating within a six-hour period and fasting for 18 hours improved fat-burning and lowered levels of the hungry hormone ghrelin, as compared to those who ate exact same meals in 12-hour period. Eating only during limited hours can improve weight management, increase longevity, and improve our immune systems ability to fight disease. Mt. Sinai researchers published a study (Cell, Aug. 22, 2019) showing that fasting reduces inflammation and improves chronic inflammatory diseases without affecting the immune systems response to acute infections. Intermittent fasting is known to improve sensitivity to blood glucose, lower blood glucose, protect against fatty liver, and lower pancreatic fat.

There are several approaches to intermittent fasting but, in my opinion, a 12-16 hour fasting period that includes breakfast and eating your last meal before 6 p.m. is doable for the average person with a multitude of benefits. A study published in Nutrients 2019 compared the effects of eating a high fat, high sugar diet (the Standard American Diet-SAD) to a 12-16-hour intermittent fasting diet. Eating more than six meals and snacks daily while skipping breakfast, eating high fat and high sugar, and eating the last meal later at night with a reduced fasting period causes increased hunger, inflammation and total cholesterol, and a decrease in insulin sensitivity. Just skipping breakfast leads to increased LDLs, increased body fat, increased weight and an increased incidence of diabetes. Eating breakfast and eating your last meal before 6pm with a fasting period between 12-16 hours has many positive effects such as decreased hunger, decreased inflammation (leads to decreased pain), decreased total cholesterol and increased insulin sensitivity. There were also decreases in LDLs, blood pressure, body weight, body fat and a decreased risk of diabetes and heart disease. These are some very compelling reasons to consider intermittent fasting.

Some things to keep in mind if you are considering intermittent fasting: Eat Breakfast: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It ignites your metabolism and your brain. Breakfast should include protein, healthy fats (avocado, grass-fed organic butter, salmon, omega 3 eggs, nuts or seeds), fruit or vegetables. Skipping breakfast leads to increases in body weight, body fat, LDLs and risk of diabetes. Eat Dinner/Supper before 6 p.m. (if possible): Eating later at night leads to increases in fat deposition, blood pressure, cholesterol and increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. I suggest brushing your teeth after supper which helps prevent the evening noshing. Your dinner should include four ounces of lean protein (organic chicken, grass fed beef, wild game, wild caught fish, or legumes) paired with one to two cups of steamed vegetables and/or leafy greens. If you must have starch, limit it to a half-cup serving. Eat three meals a day with two small snacks (if needed) that include protein, good fats, veggies and/or fruits. Fast for 12-16 hours between supper and breakfast: This improves your ability to burn stored fat, which amps up your metabolism. Eat whole foods that do not come from boxes or packages. That is, eat mostly plant derived food like fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables plus lean protein sources such as eggs, organic chicken, grass fed beef, wild game, wild caught fish, legumes and nuts. Eat organic foods as much as possible. Visit http://www.ewg.org for the dirty dozen and clean 15 as a guide. Eat good fats from grass fed butter, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil and grape seed oil. Drink half of your body weight in ounces of water daily. Try for eight ounces of water per hour throughout your waking hours. Avoid trans fats, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils/fats.

Intermittent fasting was used by our ancestors, sometimes out of necessity. It is a way to lower your blood pressure, lower your cholesterol and LDLs, decrease your risk for diabetes and heart disease along with long term weight management while increasing energy and longevity. Consider intermittent fasting as a means to not only live longer but get more life out of your years.

Dr. Wendy Henrichs is a board certified chiropractor and nutrition counselor at Timber Land Chiropractic in Rhinelander. For a complimentary chiropractic, nutrition or lifestyle counseling consultation, visit TimberlandChiropractic.com, Facebook, or call 715-362-4852.

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New "Monsterpocalypse" releases: Ulgoth, Apes, and Robots, Oh My! – Bleeding Cool News

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Monsterpocalypse from Privateer Press is unlike any other miniature game on the market. Players assemble and paint teams of giant monsters, then bring those monsters together to fight it out over a model city. Monsterpocalypse takes everything you love about Godzilla, King Kong, Ultraman, and Power Rangers and puts it all into the palm of your hand.

The latest Monsterpocalypse releases had a lot to offer just about anyone who loves giant monsters! Im going to start with the latest Kingdom of the Apes releases, since, well, giant fighting apes.

Thought to have emerged from somewhere within the harshest and most inaccessible peaks of the Himalayas, White Dajan is a ferocious giant ape that has emerged to confront Earths would-be despoilers. Possessing the power to summon winters ferocity, White Dajan is noted for his rage and unbridled violence even among the Empire of the Apes. He seems to have a particular hatred for buildings and crowded cities, seeking to level such structures whenever his anger is provoked. This makes him a perilous guardian, though he has also shown affection for humanity and a willingness to fight alongside them. Considering the foes Earth faces, a few toppled buildings are considered an acceptable price to pay to appease this formidable ally.

White Dajan also gets a little reinforcement from these crazy ape bombers, who appear to be riding bombs into battle!

Though the most gargantuan of the great apes might be mistaken for unthinking beasts, their intelligence is demonstrated by their ground forces, who possess borrowed technology that they utilize with uncanny sophistication. Ape bombers soar through the air on jury-rigged portable jet engines, capable of dropping high-yield explosives with considerable accuracy. And command apes have been witnessed making use of radio communication devices to orchestrate attacks, despite the fact that the language they employ seems like nothing but gibberish to human ears.

The Lords of Cthul have a new beastie, a nasty looking monster called Ulgoth:

An otherworldly embodiment of toxicity and pain, Ulgoths very blood destroys what he does not directly assault, and the world itself shudders in his passage. Unlike some other Lords of Cthul, it is difficult to determine if Ulgoth is even intelligent, so far as humanity is concerned, as it seems almost more a force of supernatural destruction and transformation. Wherever it treads, the world is changed around it, and some scientists have theorized Ulgoth might be akin to a sinister terraforming device, one bent on changing the very nature of the Earth into an environment more amenable to creatures of Cthul. It is also responsible for hastening the proliferation of lesser horrors from their reality, spawning and summoning such beings with a frequency that defies reason.

Ulgoth is not the type of monster that will be shown up by some damned dirty ape, so it brought its own reinforcements into battle:

It is difficult for even the brightest minds of humanity to understand the fiendish creatures of the Lords of Cthul. Snatchers are among the most feared of their lesser minions, bloated hovering creatures capable of seizing hapless victims and transforming them into a similar biomass of Cthulians. Against such a fate, some might consider the alternative of being torn apart by a swooping Hellion to be preferable. Hellions are batlike hunters capable of swift movement and similarly swift foe neutralization.

Finally, for those of you who like your giant, stomping Monsterpocalypse action in a mechanized form, there is Gorghadratron, who fights for whoever can afford its massive price tag:

Nothing demonstrates the military manufacturing capabilities of UberCorp International better than its gigantic weaponized hardware platforms, each customized to monstrous configurations. Gorghadratron brings the raw obliterating power of the so-called Planet Eaters to anyone with sufficient funds to commit to an exclusive purchasers license. Built with innovative polymers and alloys derived from recovered xenoexobiological materials, Gorghadratron is as durable as it is lethal, with longevity assured by the recommended 10-year UberCorp maintenance contract, purchased separately. UberCorp cannot be held responsible for any collateral damage incurred by overloading Gorghadratrons reactors.

Leigh George Kade is a writer, illustrator, and sculptor who lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and two small Skrulls. Leigh has also been a panelist on the wildly popular Geek Show Podcast since 2008. He has been an Entertainment Writer for Bleeding Cool since 2018.

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New "Monsterpocalypse" releases: Ulgoth, Apes, and Robots, Oh My! - Bleeding Cool News

What bamboo forests do for nature and human well-being – Forests News, Center for International Forestry Research

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Kiran Paudyal is an ecosystems services specialist at Forest Action Nepal. Chun Bahadur Gurung, is a development communication specialist and Ph.D. candidate at Tribhuvan University in Nepal.

Bamboo, which belongs to the grass family, is one of the fastest growing species of the plant kingdom. Its herculean attributes are not at first obvious when encountered in the forest. Although its hollow stems that bend in the wind may make it appear weak, its provision of a wide variety of ecosystem services defined as the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human well-being, makes this an invaluable plant.

Found in tropical and alpine climatic zones of Africa, Asia, Central and South America, scientists have so far recorded more than 1,600 bamboo species, which combined cover more than 31 million hectares of land.

With myriad potential uses, bamboo is an essential material for people living in poverty in developing countries. It is widely used as a raw material in industry, in handicrafts, its fibers are used to weave clothes and make paper, and its shoots and sprouts are used for food.

It may be no surprise then, that bamboo features heavily in cultural traditions. In Indonesia, it is used in ceremonies and in the construction of such instruments as the Balinese rindik. In China, its symbolism of modest character and longevity is heralded; in rural Nepal, babies sleep in beautiful bamboo cradles and the dead are buried in bamboo coffins.

From floods to good fortune in Nepal

Nepal a landlocked country is blessed with bamboo diversity. The country has more than 53 species covering an estimated area of 63,000 hectares of land.

Nepal has a tale to tell, a story of 70 households from Gauringar village, Chitwan, in the center of the country. In 2010, incessant rain caused flash floods. Homes and buildings near the Rui river in Gauringar were destroyed. When the river banks were washed away, tons of silt and sand flooded the land, rendering it infertile.

The resilient residents worked hard to reverse their fortunes: in their efforts, they planted 10,000 native bamboo seedlings. In less than a decade, the flood-ravaged land turned into a beautiful bamboo forest. Some 700 hectares of land were rehabilitated, allowing local communities to enjoy bamboo shoots for food and all of the benefits the bamboo forest provides. The new forest has even become instrumental in mitigating human-wildlife conflict, as Gauringar sits in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park, home to the rhino, sloth bear, tiger, elephant, wild boar and leopard.

Bamboo for water and energy in Indonesia

Across the Indonesian archipelago, bamboo can be found in 30 provinces, covering 2.1 million hectares of land. By selling bamboo shoots, a farmer on Java can earn $420700 per hectare, while others have recognized it for its incredible restoration properties. Scientist Yusuf Samsudin at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) reports how payments for environmental services (PES) have been awarded to communities living up-stream of Mount Batur and its lake in Bali, where the main water source for coastal communities flows. While many trees store around 35 to 40 percent of rainfall, bamboo can store up to 90 percent of rainfall.

Bamboo can provide sustainable supplies of biomass for energy productionwithout compromising food security or unduly affecting the wider landscape. One of CIFORs partners Clean Power Indonesia successfully developed a community-based power plant that uses biomass from bamboo in rural Indonesia. CIFOR Senior Scientist Himlal Baral says that CIFOR and partners are currently looking for opportunities to scale this up in several locations in Indonesia.

Untapped green good in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, two main bamboo species (Arundinaria alpine and Oxytenanthera abyssinica) grow naturally in six regions on a million hectares of land, making up 8.2 percent of the total forest area of the country.

However, bamboo was close to extinction in natural forests due to agriculture-related deforestation and forest degradation, and demand for fuelwood and timber in the villages. In the 1990s, more than 100 innovative smallholders planted savanna bamboo within agroforestry systems using a rhizome offset method from the natural forest, developing bamboo forests in the villages for multiple benefits.

Although bamboo coverage has been high in Ethiopia in recent years, uses have been traditional, and its full export market potential has yet to be realized.

Because bamboo is a fast-growing species and adapts to harsh environments, people in Ethiopia are likely to pay more attention to it for rehabilitating degraded areas.

The missing link an ecosystem services framework built from bamboo

According to Sisay Nune et al. (2013) the capacity to provide regulating services such as soil conservation, environmental rehabilitation and carbon sequestration of forestland and other forest types, were assumed to be 99 and 93 percent respectively as compared with bare land. Thanks to a complex network of rhizome-root systems underground.

A recent study has shown that the ecosystem services a bambooforest can provide support natural, plantations, grasslands, and farmlands. Additionally, bamboo forests have proven more effective in slope stabilization and soil erosion control compared to other land use practices such as forests and grasslands.

It has an incredible ability to restore land, making it an important contributor in reaching such global restoration agreements as the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests. Experts engaged in bamboo research agree that a good framework is key to improve assessment of bamboo ecosystem services and to further strengthen bamboo forests for landscape restoration globally. During this research, the experts agreed that the lack of an appropriate framework, tools and methods means that the true ecosystem services of bamboo forests have not been properly assessed.

The best ecosystem service assessment framework accounts for the significance of bamboo forests to people and policymakers. Recently, Kiran Paudyal et al. (2019) designed a framework and tested it in Nepal, Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Contributions received from local communities and government further refined it, which facilitates limited resources while offering new opportunities to connect bamboo forests with ecosystem service markets from local to global scales such as PES including payment for carbon through REDD+ programs. The recently developed framework can now be replicated in other parts of the world.

Scientists are deeply concerned that the benefits of bamboo often go unnoticed. In view of the plants important but under-appreciated benefits, Paudyal, a bamboo expert said: Bamboo recharges groundwater and it significantly absorbs carbon, but it is hardly acknowledged.

An ecosystem framework can help significantly in the promotion of bamboo forests through effective management. Case studies conducted in three countries with different contexts confirmed that bamboo forests become increasingly important, and the study also validates that bamboos benefits have been found quite common globally.

Bamboo forests in different countries and context, have proven to be the best option for both landscape restoration and the supply of various ecosystem services. These forests supply more ecosystem services than any other type of planted forests. Restoration of degraded and abandoned land with bamboo could be an effective solution to cope with poverty, hunger and climate change in many parts of the world especially in developing countries.

This research was funded by CIFOR as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and the International Bamboo and Rattan Organisation (INBAR), China.

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Quorn’s secret to longevity in the meat alternative sector – Food Dive

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As far as meat alternatives are concerned, there are few people who have been in the business as long as Tim Finnigan.

He's been working at U.K.-based Quorn and its preceding corporate owners since 1995, and currently works as the chief scientific adviser. Almost 25 years ago, what is now a global meat alternative giant that claims to have served nearly 5 billion meals to consumers in 17 countries, was a project at British food company Rank HovasMcDougal. It dealt with turning mycoprotein, a fermented fungus culture, into food.Finnigan, a food scientist, expected work on the project to last maybe a year or two.

"I just found it a fascination, this whole idea ... was actually rooted back in the '60sand one man's vision, which is ... very inspiring," he said. "To kind of cut a long story short, that's where I've been ever since."

Tim Finnigan

Quorn first entered the U.K. marketplace in 1985, and started being distributed there in 1993. The company's products, which include meat-free burgers, fishless sticks, sausages, deli slices, roasts and cheese cutlets, made it to North American shelves in 2002.Quorn's sales in the U.S. grew 24% in the last year, according to Ben Sussna, the brand's U.S. director of marketing and innovation practice.

Through almost a quarter century at the company and in the meat alternative space Finnigan said he has seen it all. There have been times when consumers weren't necessarily interested in the segment. And now, meat alternatives are the hottest area in food. As the category becomes crowded with upstarts and new products, Quorn, currently owned by Philippines-based noodle powerhouse Monde Nissin, isn't standing still. Finnigan said the company is investing in improving its capacity, technology and knowledge.

The idea that became the company started in the 1960s when futurists projected the human race would run out of protein by the 1990s. J. Arthur Rank, a British industrialist, instructed scientists to work toward finding a non-animal solution to this potential problem. The fungus Fusarium venenatumwas discovered in soil in 1967, and scientists figured out a process to grow, ferment and assemble it into mycoprotein, which is then dried and processed to take on the characteristics of meat.

Mycoprotein is easily adaptable to different textures and tastes, which explains why Quorn has such a wide range of products. Finnigan said part of the reason Quorn has been able to succeed is the attention the company has paid to the variety and quality of its products.

"You quickly become irrelevant if your food doesn't excite and delight the consumer or intrigue chefs. I mean, those are the two must-have things for anybody who wants to win in this space," Finnigan said. "The quality of the food has to be number one."

Quorn's long history, he said, shows the product has endurance on the market. And he hopes the food can speak for itself.

Finnigan recalled an early meeting with a U.S. company he was hoping to do a commercial partnership with about 20 years ago. The people he was presenting to didn't really seem to understand what he was talking about.

"So I stopped the presentation, said, 'Look, let's just try some of the food.' And of course, then, the lights went on and these guys said, 'Yeah, these guys are from the U.K.They've got some kicka-- products.' And the rest was really easy because they thought the food was so amazing.

Tim Finnigan

Chief science officer, Quorn

"So I stopped the presentation, said, 'Look, let's just try some of the food,' " he said. "And of course, then, the lights went on and these guys said, 'Yeah, these guys are from the U.K.They've got some kicka-- products.' And the rest was really easy because they thought the food was so amazing."

While taste is paramount to keeping Quorn on the market, so are the product's sustainability and mycoprotein's health benefits. Finnigan said Quorn promotes its sustainability and health bona fides on a regular basis. After all, the company was founded with the goal of becoming a sustainable source of food for an uncertain future. Quorn puts out annual sustainability reportsto tout its low carbon footprint and water usage. According to the company, Quorn's carbon footprint is 10 times lower than beef and four times lower than chicken. It uses 20 times less water than beef and 6 times less water than chicken.

As for its health benefits, Quorn routinely funds and participates in industry studies. The ingredient itself, the company says, has all nine amino acids, no cholesterol, high fiber and is low fat.

"We can't just separate the impact of the choices we make in our diets from the impact on the health of our bodies and the health of the planet," Finnigan said. "Those two things have to be talked about together ... and I think that that's quite an important thing,as an industry, to start discussing."

Finnigan said younger generations are more ready to discuss this and take these aspects to heart. And as long as the company can show consumers that mycoprotein is good for them and the planet, consumers will be interested. He said many companies aspire to put back more than they take out when it comes to natural resources, and Quorn is trying to show its efforts to get there.

Quorn

While several newer companies are using fermentation to create protein products including Perfect Day, which makes dairy protein that way, and Future Meat Technologies, a manufacturer of fermented meat Quorn has been at it for decades. And while the process is rather complicated, the company has been proactive in educating consumers on how the products are made.

Finnigan has starred in videos taking consumers through the process while looking right at the fermenters where the product is born. And even though the process is a bit science heavy, it also adds to transparency, something that consumers are clamoring for.

"We have to have the good quality science that actually removes consumer uncertainty," he said.

"We can't just separate the impact of the choices we make in our diets from the impact on the health of our bodies and the health of the planet. Those two things have to be talked about together ... and I think that that's quite an important thing, as an industry, to start discussing."

Tim Finnigan

Chief science officer, Quorn

Although mycoprotein is created through a lengthy process, and is heavily processed in order to become a meat substitute, Quorn's products have a cleaner label than many competitors in the meat alternative space. This is one of its biggest differentiators, Finnigan said, and one that it may not play up enough.

"We're growing our tiny little member of the fungi family, and then we're simply cooking it and freezing it to create the texture," he said. "Whereas if you want to do something like [other popular meat-free alternatives] ... you can end up with a back-of-pack label that does look a bit like a chemistry set."

Quorn also has made efforts to be transparent with its labeling. In recent years, the brand has settled lawsuitsfrom U.S. consumers who said they were misled by package statements describing mycoprotein's origin. One lawsuit, settled last year,is a wrongful death case involving a child with a mold allergy who died of anaphylactic shock after eating a Quorn product. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has advocated to take mycoproten off of the FDA's GRAS list, claims there have been thousands of adverse reactions to the ingredient.

While the meat alternative movement is hot, Quorn is focusing on what's next. Finnigan said the company has a three-year innovation pipeline, and is always looking for new applications for mycoprotein.

Right now, there is some work being done to try to make a drinkable version, playing into the high-protein beverage trend. The company also has been talking to U.K. restaurants about some meat-free product launches.

Finnigan said he is interested in some of the work underway in the sector, including startups such as Sustainable Bioproducts that are producing similar fermented fungal protein items. He said while each company wants profits, the meat alternative segment is more about working together toward a common goal and less about cutthroat competition. The opportunities, he said, are enormous.

"We have to find a way of assuring a sustainable food future through the creation of healthy new proteins with the low environmental impacts. Because if you look at just business as usual with small adjustments, then it doesn't look very pretty," Finnigan said. "So it is important, I think, that the new entrants come. And they bring their energy, and if it's a great food and the consumers are delighted by that, then, you know, that's got in the long term to be a good thing. It might be difficult for some organizations, you know, that are toughing it out in the marketplace, but it's so important that we win, I think, as a sector."

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Quorn's secret to longevity in the meat alternative sector - Food Dive

MicroRNA Expression Tied to Triple-Negative Breast Cancer in Latin America – Cancer Network

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A grouping of 17 microRNA genes and their level of expression, can be used to distinguish between different cases of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), according to the findings of a study published inOncotarget.The results could also further explain the patterns of tumor development among certain ethnicities.

The study looked into the genomics of patients with cancer from Brazil. Fifty-four samples of non-treated primary breast tumors collected from the pathology tumor bank at the Hospital Nossa Senhora das Graas, in Paran. Those samples were split between patients with TNBC and those with other tumor forms.

The panel of miRNAs identified demonstrated the impact of CNAs in miRNA expression levels and identified miRNA target genes potentially affected by both CNAs and miRNA deregulation, the authors wrote. These targets, involved in critical signaling pathways and biological functions associated specifically with the TNBC transcriptome of Latina patients, can provide biological insights into the observed differences in the TNBC clinical outcome among racial/ ethnic groups, taking into consideration their genetic ancestry.

The DNA and RNA were isolated, purified, and quantified. Ancestral analysis was performed on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) using the SNP chip, Illumina Infinium QC Array.

Genome-wide copy number profiling was made possible by array-CGH using the SurePrint G3 Human CGH Microarray made by Agilent. The Global miRNA expression profiling was then performed using the NanoString nCounter technology Human v2 miRNA Expression Assay. The 2 data sets were integrated, especially through the identification of copy number alterations (CNAs), according to the study results.

The final tally produced a 17-microRNA panel which showed elevated expression in the patients with TNBC. Whats more, the majority of the target RNA molecules were significantly correlated with the aggressiveness of the tumor, including its advanced grade and stage.

The panel of miRNAs we identified indicate potential, critical cancer-related pathways and gene networks that could be targeted for the treatment of TNBC in Latinas, once our findings are validated by larger studies, said Luciane Cavalli, the lead author, of Georgetown Lombardi, in a statement released Tuesday.

The findings could eventually prove actionable for screening, and in the clinic added Cavalli.

Targeting these genetic alterations, that represent the unique biology of their tumors, may lead to more efficient treatments, which could increase the longevity of Latina women who do not have many therapeutic options to fight this very aggressive disease, she said.

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Thinking deep thoughts has impact on life span – Mother Nature Network

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Are you always deep in thought, thinking nonstop about the world around you? You might want to cut back on that. Researchers at Harvard Medical School just published a study in the journal Nature comparing the brains of people who had died in their 60s and 70s to those who had died over the age of 100.

They found that all roads lead to REST (RE-1 Silencing Transcription), that is, a protein that helps to calm your brain. This protein is enormously important to our brain health: Defects in REST have been linked to Huntington's disease and epileptic seizures, and it's also found in reduced amounts in elderly people with Alzheimer's disease.

REST has been found to quiet brain activity, and it can also protect those with dementia and other stresses.

It is currently not possible to measure REST in a living brain, so scientists relied on donated brain tissue from hundreds of people who died from ages 60 to over 100.

Study author Bruce Yankner, professor of genetics at Harvard, found that the differences in brains were immediately compelling: The longest-living people had lower expression of genes related to neural excitation. REST regulates these genes, and the centenarians' brain cells contained higher amounts of the protein than those who died younger.

It was extremely exciting to see how all these different lines of evidence converged, says study co-author Monica Colaicovo, also a professor of genetics at Harvard.

Socrates would likely disagree with the notion that too much deep thinking can lead to an earlier death. (Photo: DIMSFIKAS [CC by SA 3.0]/Wikimedia Commons)

While the brain's neural activity has long been explored in issues like dementia and epilepsy, this is the first evidence to reveal how it affects human longevity.

An intriguing aspect of our findings is that something as transient as the activity state of neural circuits could have such far-ranging consequences for physiology and life span, says Yankner.

Besides looking at hundreds of human brain tissue samples, the Harvard team also experimented with worms and mice by decreasing and increasing their mental activity. All of these experiments found that changing neural excitations affected life spans and creatures without the precious protein REST in their brain died at a faster rate.

It's still unclear how a person's exact thoughts, feelings or behavior can affect their longevity. Numerous studies have linked optimism to a longer life, and suggested a positive outlook can even affect your body's chemical balance.

Perhaps most striking about the study is that it contradicts many long-held popular beliefs about our brains and aging. Doctors have stressed that keeping your mind active, whether it's with brain-training games or a daily crossword puzzle, can also help you live longer. But this study's findings suggest that not all thoughts are equal.

The completely shocking and puzzling thing about this new paper is brain activity is what you think of as keeping you cognitively normal. Theres the idea that you want to keep your brain active in later life, neuroscientist Michael McConnell told The Washington Post.

The researchers hope this study will encourage more research on neural overactivity and what types of therapeutic interventions are possible. But until then, just to be safe, it's probably best not to think too hard about it.

Thinking deep thoughts has impact on life span

A recent Harvard study finds that neural activity is a new player when it comes to human aging.

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Vulnerability of the industrialized microbiota – Science Magazine

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One world, one health

As people increasingly move to cities, their lifestyles profoundly change. Sonnenburg and Sonnenburg review how the shift of recent generations from rural, outdoor environments to urbanized and industrialized settings has profoundly affected our biology and health. The signals of change are seen most strikingly in the reduction of commensal microbial taxa and loss of their metabolic functions. The extirpation of human commensals is a result of bombardment by new chemicals, foodstuffs, sanitation, and medical practices. For most people, sanitation and readily available food have been beneficial, but have we now reached a tipping point? How do we conserve our beneficial symbionts and keep the pathogens at bay?

Science, this issue p. eaaw9255

The collection of trillions of microbes inhabiting the human gut, called the microbiome or microbiota, has captivated the biomedical research community for the past decade. Intimate connections exist between the microbiota and the immune system, central nervous system, and metabolism. The growing realization of the fundamental role that the microbiota plays in human health has been accompanied by the challenge of trying to understand which features define a healthy gut community and how these may differ depending upon context. Such insight will lead to new routes of disease treatment and prevention and may illuminate how lifestyle-driven changes to the microbiota can impact health across populations. Individuals living traditional lifestyles around the world share a strikingly similar microbiota composition that is distinct from that found in industrialized populations. Indeed, lineages of gut microbes have cospeciated with humans over millions of years, passing through hundreds of thousands of generations, and lend credence to the possibility that our microbial residents have shaped our biology throughout evolution. Relative to the traditional microbiota, the industrial microbiota appears to have lower microbial diversity, with major shifts in membership and functions. Individuals immigrating from nonindustrialized to industrialized settings or living at different intermediate states between foraging and industrialization have microbiota composition alterations that correspond to time and severity of lifestyle change. Industrial advances including antibiotics, processed food diets, and a highly sanitized environment have been shown to influence microbiota composition and transmission and were developed and widely implemented in the absence of understanding their effects on the microbiota.

Here, we argue that the microbiota harbored by individuals living in the industrialized world is of a configuration never before experienced by human populations. This new, industrial microbiota has been shaped by recent progress in medicine, food, and sanitation. As technology and medicine have limited our exposure to pathogenic microbes, enabled feeding large populations inexpensively, and otherwise reduced acute medical incidents, many of these advances have been implemented in the absence of understanding the collateral damage inflicted on our resident microbes or the importance of these microbes in our health. More connections are being drawn between the composition and function of the gut microbiota and alteration in the immune status of the host. These relationships connect the industrial microbiota to the litany of chronic diseases that are driven by inflammation. Notably, these diseases spread along with the lifestyle factors that are known to alter the microbiota. While researchers have been uncovering the basic tenets of how the microbiota influences human health, there has been a growing realization that as the industrial lifestyle spreads globally, changes to the human microbiota may be central to the coincident spread of non-communicable, chronic diseases and may not be easily reversed.

We suggest that viewing microbiota biodiversity with an emphasis on sustainability and conservation may be an important approach to safeguarding human health. Understanding the services provided by the microbiota to humans, analogous to how ecosystem services are used to place value on aspects of macroecosystems, could aid in assessing the cost versus benefit of specific microbiota dysfunctions that are induced by different aspects of lifestyle. A key hurdle is to establish the impact of industrialization-induced changes to the microbiota on human health. The severity of this impact might depend on the specifics of numerous factors, including health status, diet, human genotype, and lifestyle. Isolating and archiving bacterial strains that are sensitive to industrialization may be required to enable detailed study of these organisms and to preserve ecosystem services that are unique to those strains and potentially beneficial to human health. Determining a path forward for sustainable medical practices, diet, and sanitation that is mindful of the importance and fragility of the microbiota is needed if we are to maintain a sustainable relationship with our internal microbial world.

Aspects of lifestyle, including those associated with industrialization, such as processed foods, infant formula, modern medicines, and sanitation, can change the gut microbiota. Major questions include whether microbiota changes associated with industrialization are important for human health, if they are reversible, and what steps should be taken to prevent further change while information is acquired to enable an informed cost-versus-benefit analysis. It is possible that a diet rich in whole foods and low in processed foods, along with increased exposure to nonpathogenic microbes, may be beneficial to industrial populations.

The human body is an ecosystem that is home to a complex array of microbes known as the microbiome or microbiota. This ecosystem plays an important role in human health, but as a result of recent lifestyle changes occurring around the planet, whole populations are seeing a major shift in their gut microbiota. Measures meant to kill or limit exposure to pathogenic microbes, such as antibiotics and sanitation, combined with other factors such as processed food, have had unintended consequences for the human microbial ecosystem, including changes that may be difficult to reverse. Microbiota alteration and the accompanying loss of certain functional attributes might result in the microbial communities of people living in industrialized societies being suboptimal for human health. As macroecologists, conservationists, and climate scientists race to document, understand, predict, and delay global changes in our wider environment, microbiota scientists may benefit by using analogous approaches to study and protect our intimate microbial ecosystems.

Ecosystems change. Seasonal or periodic fluctuations may occur over short time scales, trajectories of lasting change can occur over time, and sudden perturbations can result in instability or new stable states. Ecosystems can also reach tipping points at which biodiversity crashes, invasive and opportunistic species take over, and the services expected of the original ecosystem are lost, which may result in further damage and/or extinctions. Each human is an ecosystem composed of thousands of species and trillions of members, the host body of Homo sapiens being just one of those species. Most of these community members are microorganisms that reside in the gut, which is the focus of this article. Sequencing of the microbiota shows that human microbiomes are composed of a stunning array of species and functional diversity. An intricate set of interactions, just now being mapped, connects microbial species within a microbiota to one another and to human biology and is beginning to show how profoundly these microbes influence our health.

The first steps in human microbiota assembly occur upon birth, with microbes vying to colonize environment-exposed surfaces in and on the body. This process is influenced by many factors, including mode of birth, nutrition, environment, infection, and antibiotic exposure (1, 2). Specific taxa of microbes have codiversified with Homo sapiens, consistent with vertical transmission over hundreds of thousands of generations (3). The millions of years of association have provided ample opportunities for our biology and theirs to coevolve (4).

Intimate connections between the microbiota and the human immune system, nervous system, and metabolism have been revealed over the past decade (59). The specific microbes that first colonize the infant gut and the ensuing succession of the community can irreversibly influence mucosal and systemic immune development (10). Orchestrating the assembly of a health-promoting gut microbiota or manipulating a mature community to alter human physiology has vast therapeutic potential, which has captured the attention of the biomedical community. Beyond the importance of the microbiota to human health, recent research has also demonstrated its vulnerability. This ecosystem is susceptible to change by selective forces (11, 12). For example, a single course of one type of antibiotic can decimate and reshape the gut microbiota (13). Exciting research is racing to identify disease treatments using microbiome manipulation, but less focus has been placed on how to protect the microbiota from damage that may be deleterious to human health (14).

The germ theory of disease, formalized in the 1860s by Louis Pasteur, portrayed microbes as an enemy to be controlled and eradicated. The subsequent war on microbes deploying hand washing, sterile surgical techniques, and antibiotics has saved countless lives. In 1900, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and infectious enteritis were the three leading causes of mortality in the United States, accounting for almost one-third of all deaths (15). By the end of the millennium, these infectious disease killers were replaced by chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and stroke, which offered evidence of our ability to effectively manage germs. However, the inverse relationship of infectious and chronic disease rates may share a similar underlying cause. Consistent with tenets of the hygiene hypothesis, limited exposure to microbes may result in defects in immune function and/or regulation, leading to an increasing burden of allergic and autoimmune diseases. In light of our new knowledge about the role of the microbiota in health, the war on microbes likely needs to be reconsidered in less combative terms. The profound success of germ-killing techniques and drugs developed in the past century that have minimal acute side effects has led to overuse. The rise of superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics and chemical bactericides reveals that there is a cost to our war on microbes (16). However, the longer-term and less obvious costs to human health of disrupting the microbiota may come from chronic metabolic and immune diseases. Although intimate, the communities that live in our guts are hard to study, and at present we do not fully understand the health impact of the differences in the microbiota observed between human populations.

Microbiota composition, diversity, and gene content in industrialized peoples vary substantially from that of more traditional rural populations and likely from that of our ancient ancestors, indicating that aspects of our lifestyle are changing our resident microbes (4, 1720). Antibiotics are not the only potential contributor to this effect. Other recent changes in practice, including Caesarean section (C-section) delivery, infant formula, and consumption of industrially produced foods, have all been shown to influence the gut microbiota of humans (2123). Although these technological and medical advances have had undeniable benefits (especially for emergency health care), their implementation and widespread use have occurred without an understanding of their impact on our resident microbial communities. At one extreme, microbiota shifts coincident with industrialization may have no impact (or even a beneficial impact, for example, by removing or reducing microbes with pathogenic potential) on human health and longevity. At the other extreme, the microbiota alterations observed in industrialized populations may be a major contributor to the misregulation of the human immune system that drives chronic inflammation (4, 24). Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as stroke, heart disease, some cancers, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and dementias, all of which are fueled by chronic inflammation, are associated with the worldwide expansion of industrialized lifestyles and are predicted to create a global health crisis in the coming century (25, 26).

In many ways, the rapid changes experienced by the microbiota of urban humans are analogous to those observed in macroecosystems throughout the world (27). Over time and with tremendous efforts to generate and analyze data, a global scientific consensus has emerged that human-induced climate change will have a devastating impact on Earths species and ecosystems if not curtailed and reversed (28, 29). Likewise, as we become increasingly cognizant of the importance of the microbiota in dictating the duration and extent of our health, it is vital that we reframe our relationship with microbes and use strategies similar to the sustainability and biodiversity conservation efforts under way around the globe. What steps should we take now to protect resident microbes, given the current data and range of possible outcomes?

That the gut ecosystem would change in response to marked lifestyle alterations is not surprising. What is notable is that the microbiota of traditional populations share taxa that have been lost or reduced in individuals living in the industrialized world, which we have termed VANISH (volatile and/or associated negatively with industrialized societies of humans) taxa (Fig. 1A) (30). A study comparing the industrialized microbiota with that of three Nepalese populations living on a gradient from foraging to farming showed the shift in microbiota composition that takes place as populations depart from a foraging lifestyle (31). Intermediate states of lifestyle change toward urbanization are accompanied by less extreme but evident changes in the microbiota (Fig. 1, B and C).

(A) Aggregation of gut microbiota composition from multiple studies separated by principal component analysis of BrayCurtis dissimilarity of 16S rRNA enumerations [adapted from Smits et al. (33)]. Top panel: The first principal component explains 22% of the variation in the data from 18 populations living lifestyles spanning from uncontacted Amerindians in Venezuela (top) to fully industrialized populations in Australia, the United States, Canada, and Ireland (bottom). Bottom panel: Mapping the relative abundance of bacterial families on PCo1 reveals global patterns in the VANISH taxa, which are associated negatively with industrialized societies, and BloSSUM taxa (bloom or selected in societies of urbanization/modernization), such as the Bacteroidaceae and Verrucomicrobia. (B) Heat map adapted from Jha et al. (31) displaying taxa that change across lifestyles in one geographic location (Nepal) of individuals living as foragers (Chepang), settled foragers (Raute, Raji), or agriculturalists (Tharu) versus industrialized individuals in the United States. (C) Model adapted from Jha et al. (31) of strain loss and/or reduction versus gain and/or increase across a lifestyle gradient. Different patterns of changing abundance correspond with specific aspects of lifestyle that change as populations move away from foraging and toward urbanization. The model could also reflect the historical progression of industrialized humans from foraging (Homo sapiens arose ~200,000 to 300,000 years ago) to agriculture (starting 10,000 to 20,000 years ago) to industrialization (starting 100 to 200 years ago).

Similarly, a longitudinal study of individuals immigrating from a Thai refugee camp to the United States showed a loss of VANISH taxa within months of immigrating (32). The longer the immigrants lived in the United States, the more profound the changes. In addition to changes in microbial membership, functional differences in the microbiota correspond to lifestyle. Traditional populations such as the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer group living in Tanzania, like the immigrants from Southeast Asia, harbor microbiota with a larger and more diverse collection of carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes) than their industrial counterparts. CAZymes digest complex plant polysaccharides, characteristic of traditional dietary fiber intake (32, 33). By comparison, the microbiota of U.S. residents are enriched in CAZymes that degrade host mucus, which serves as a backup food source for gut microbes when dietary fiber is limited, a hallmark of the industrialized diet (33, 34). The selection of mucus-utilizing bacteria in industrialized populations is evident in the enrichment of Akkermansia muciniphila (a mucin-loving bacterium in the phylum Verrucomicrobia) that was found in a worldwide comparison of industrialized and nonindustrialized microbiomes (Fig. 1A) (33). Whether the loss or reduction of VANISH taxa cause or contribute to the growing burden of NCDs in humans remains to be determined. However, determining the potential importance of VANISH taxa to human biology will require efforts to maintain their diversity before it is lost (35, 36).

We must not forget how the attempted eradication of pathogenic microbes with antibiotics, increased sanitation, and medicalized birth has saved countless lives. Other features of industrialized life, such as the Western diet and infant formula, have added convenience, increased human productivity and met the food demands of a growing population. The development and widespread implementation of these technological advances occurred before there was an understanding of their effect on the microbiota and the significance of the microbiota to human health. One difficulty in understanding the effects of different aspects of industrialization on the human gut microbiota is that so many lifestyle factors covary. Below, we summarize studies that have sought to disentangle facets of the industrialized lifestyle that change the microbiota.

The development and use of antibiotics have accompanied human population growth, industrialization, and rapid technological advances. Antibiotics have become the prototypic factor associated with industrialization that negatively affects the gut microbiota. Antibiotic resistance and increased susceptibility to enteric pathogens are well-known negative effects of antibiotic use. Accumulating data also show that oral antibiotic use has long-term effects on the composition of the gut microbiota (37). Just 5 days of ciprofloxacin was shown to decimate the gut microbial community, which only recovered slowly over the ensuing weeks and months (13). Recoveries were individualized, were incomplete, and differed in their kinetics (13). Similarly, other studies have shown that antibiotics can have a long-term impact on the microbiotaperhaps we should not be surprised because most of these medicines were originally designed to have broad-spectrum effects (38).

For most of human existence, humans consumed food and water laden with microbes, some of which caused disease. But humans also routinely consumed benign bacteria, both through incidental environmental exposure (e.g., from dirt or unsanitized food or on the skin) and from fermented foods (39). The recent shift to consuming largely sterile food and water has likely also influenced the microbiota. For example, the source of drinking water was significantly associated with microbiota composition in the cross-sectional study of Nepalese individuals living on a lifestyle gradient, as well as the Hadza (31). As industrial populations removed microbes from drinking water, the burden of diseases such as cholera and other waterborne illnesses decreased. Recent studies in mice suggest that sanitization in the form of cage cleaning does exacerbate extinctions in the microbiota after perturbation (40). The industrialized human microbiota also bears the hallmarks of sanitation, showing greater interindividual differences in microbiota composition (an indication of less microbe sharing between people) compared with traditional human populations in Papua, New Guinea, where individuals share more bacterial species with one another (20). Risking increased infectious diseases by reducing standards of sanitation would be misguided, but a better understanding of how hygienic practices shape our microbiota and the resulting impact on human health is needed. Restoring the consumption of nondisease-causing microbes may ameliorate diseases that are common among populations that consume sterile food and water (41).

Antibiotics and sanitation are intended to limit exposure to pathogenic microbes, but other practices such as the Western diet and C-section births that are not targeted at microbe control may nevertheless be having a profound effect on the microbiota.

Diet is a major driver of the composition and metabolic output of the microbiota (4244). Humans have shifted from a diet of exclusively wild animals and gathered foods to one of domesticated livestock and agricultural produce (10,000 to 20,000 years ago) to a more recent shift to industrially produced foods, including chemically managed livestock and produce and sterilized, ultraprocessed foods containing preservatives and additives (45, 46). These shifts have resulted in a food supply capable of supporting a growing human population, but perhaps at the cost of the populations health (47).

One notable change to foodstuffs is the unintentional depletion of a major form of sustenance for the microbiota: microbiota-accessible carbohydrates (MACs; the complex carbohydrates found in the dietary fiber of edible plants such as legumes, whole grains, vegetables, nuts, etc.) (42). A high-MAC diet was commonplace when humans exclusively foraged for nutrition, and low-MAC diets have been associated with lower microbiota diversity and poor markers of health in humans and in animal models (4850). The paucity of MACs in the industrialized diet was compensated for by additional protein, simple carbohydrates, and fat, which had the effect of altering the composition and functional output of the microbiota (43, 51). The use of additives such as emulsifiers and non-nutritive sweeteners is pervasive in industrialized food. Both have been shown to alter microbiota composition and promote intestinal inflammation. In addition, emulsifiers promote adiposity and non-nutritive sweeteners alter the metabolic output of the microbiota toward one that resembles that of type 2 diabetics (21, 52).

Small changes to the microbiota have the capacity to amplify over generations. For example, mice fed a low-MAC diet showed reduced microbiota diversity that compounded over generations. Restoration of a high-MAC diet was not sufficient to regain microbiota diversity, which indicated that species within the microbiota had gone extinct during the four-generation length of the experiment (50). In another study, antibiotic treatment of pregnant mice altered the microbiota of the offspring and resulted in metabolic derangement that predisposed the pups to diet-induced obesity (53). Similarly, C-section delivery in humans results in colonization of the infant with microbes derived from skin instead of the mothers vaginal microbiota (54). Acute perturbations from diet, antibiotics, and medical practices could have been propagated over generations and synergized with heightened hygiene and sanitation to result in the population-wide ecosystem reconfigurations observed today. The effects of other factors associated with an industrialized lifestyle on the microbiota, including increased sedentary behavior, stress, exposure to new chemicals (e.g., plastics, herbicides, and pesticides), and social isolation, have only begun to be explored (5557).

It is not a given that the microbiota found in traditional populations, which likely shares more commonality with that of our ancient ancestors, would improve the health of a person living in an industrialized society (4). For example, several members of a traditional gut microbiota, such as parasites, are frank pathogens. Some functions of a traditional microbiota may have beneficial effects in the context of a traditional lifestyle but may not in a more urbanized context. We have simplified these points and recognize that some parasites may confer benefits to human health, but how benefit is defined may depend on context and the individual. For example, parasites that protect against intestinal inflammatory diseases may cause opportunistic infections in immunocompromised individuals (58).

While remaining agnostic about broad connections between change in the microbiota and human health, it is worth considering underlying evolutionary principles that might predict whether microbiota changes are likely to be beneficial, deleterious, or neutral. A very conservative view is that until we have a good understanding of which microbes or communities are beneficial or deleterious, including how context determines this answer, we should recognize that (i) our resident microbes have the potential to affect our health in profound ways and (ii) individual lifestyle and/or medical choices and population-level lifestyle, medical, and dietary choices can change these communities. Similar to early, albeit insufficient, steps to address climate change before the full scope of the problem was understood, such as developing renewable alternatives to fossil fuels, a hedge against potential catastrophe seems warranted. In the case of our gut microbes, acting to minimize unintended loss of biodiversity is likely a wise strategy until we know more. We discuss possible strategies below.

An important question is whether loss or reduction of resident, codiversified microbes and associated functions could have a negative health impact on humans. Some properties of the human microbiota appear to have been stable during much of human evolution before industrialization. It is expected that the combined biology and genome of the human body and its commensal microorganisms would have coevolved to maximize human reproductive success (fitness) during that time (59). Because industrialized humans are interested in a long, healthy life, it is worth asking whether long life is consistent with the reproductive success of early humans. The reproductive success of modern hunter-gatherers corresponds to being long lived (as demonstrated by evidence supporting the patriarch hypothesis); therefore, the components of the microbiome that lived within humans throughout most of our existence as a species likely promote biology consistent with a long, healthy life (60).

From the microbial point of view, a bacterial species is chiefly concerned with making more of itself. Therefore, it is worth considering whether it is possible for members of the microbiota that increase host health and longevity to arise. In other words, the question is not only whether the interests of host and microbiota are aligned (i.e., to promote a long, healthy life of the host), but whether microbes that promote the health and longevity of their hosts are retained and favored over evolutionary time.

Gut-resident microbes that improve host health and life span are most likely to arise when the health-promoting function does not incur a short-term fitness cost to themselves (61, 62). For example, imagine a microbial pathway that not only generates energy for the microbe by fermenting a dietary complex carbohydrate but also produces a fermentation end product that can be absorbed by the host and play beneficial metabolic and/or regulatory roles. These microbes would contribute to host health without incurring a fitness cost and could be selected over time as a result of host fitness, longevity, and transmission to offspring and other individuals. We might expect that loss of these coevolved microbes and associated functions would have a negative health impact.

The industrialized microbiota could be considered better adapted to an industrialized host lifestyle by harboring more resistance to antibiotics and being less proficient at dietary fiber degradation. However, such a microbiota may not be optimized for our health.

Learning how to minimize harm to an ecosystem is an easier prospect than rebuilding one that has deteriorated; however, the realization of an ecosystems importance often only becomes apparent after major change has taken place. In the case of the gut microbiota, we may have to confront the daunting task of reconfiguring an ecosystem that we are just beginning to understand. Biodiverse ecosystems are characterized by complex networks of interactions; delete or add one node and the cascade of changes through the network of interactions can be difficult to anticipate. Predicting ecosystem changes from species reintroduction, such as wolves into Yellowstone National Park, is a challenge long faced by conservation biologists (63, 64) (Fig. 2A).

(A) Gray wolves were introduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995 to control the swelling elk population (105). The rewilding of Yellowstone set off a trophic cascade that resulted in a decreasing elk population (thereby promoting new growth in aspens), an increase in berries available to bears, and stream morphology changes caused by increased woody plants (64). This provides an example of how wildlife management can be used to restore a more diverse and perhaps functional ecosystem, as well as how reintroduction of species into a habitat can lead to unanticipated changes to that ecosystem. (B) Rewilding of a C. difficileinfected microbiota by FMT results in largely predictable outcomes in host health, but the specifics of the resulting microbiota composition are difficult to predict. (C) Long-term strategies for managing the microbiota include precision approaches of adding defined cocktails of microbes, engineered bacterial species, and improving ecosystem habitat quality. For example, increasing dietary MACs encourages commensal growth and provides fermentation end products such as butyrate to the epithelium, which can help keep oxygen tensions lower in the gut and prevent the growth of facultative anaerobes with pathogenic potential (106).

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is an example of how ecosystem remodeling through multispecies rewilding can be applied to the gut microbiota. In this procedure, all of the bacterial species of a healthy human donors stool microbiota are introduced into a diseased recipient in an attempt to reconfigure a maladaptive ecosystem (Fig. 2B) (65). FMT has been highly effective in treating Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) refractory to conventional antibiotic-based treatment (66). Although this procedure cures CDI, the addition of hundreds of microbial species into an equally complex, although disrupted, ecosystem results in an unpredictable community that is composed of strains from the donor, recipient, and other sources (67, 68). CDI represents an extreme case of ecosystem disruption; therefore, the lack of precision in dictating the resulting community after ecosystem rewilding is clinically tolerable, as almost any resulting microbiota configuration lacking or minimizing C. difficile is preferred. However, FMTs are not an ideal long-term solution for the treatment of many diseases. In many cases, they are simply ineffective, and in others, the unintended consequences may include transmission of antibiotic-resistant microbes or other infectious agents and the transference of unwanted phenotypes from the donor (69). Gut microbiota rewilding through FMT has currently only been consistently successful for C. difficile cases. Similar to cases of animal reintroduction in macroecosystems, success as defined by the ability of these reintroduced species to thrive has been mixed (70).

Targeted rewilding through discrete changes in habitat quality or the introduction of specific species chosen based on known interactions may be a more predictable and successful approach to ecosystem management in a disrupted gut microbiota. Habitat quality is a key element of success in macroecosystem restoration and is also an important consideration in the gut (71). Ecosystems are made up of interacting species and their physicochemical environment. Factors that influence the suitability of the gut habitat, including temperature, pH, osmolality, redox status, water activity, and chemical and nutrient availability, will likely affect the success of microbiota reconfiguration efforts. Mice chronically infected with C. difficile can be effectively treated using a diet containing MACs. This simple change to habitat quality enabled the recovery of a robust indigenous community and reestablished important functions such as short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production (72). Diet can also create a niche for a newly introduced microbial strain to colonize. For instance, feeding mice the seaweed polysaccharide porphyran allowed engraftment of a porphyran-utilizing Bacteroides strain (73). This example of engrafting a new species into a microbiota may provide a strategy that can be extended to help targeted rewilding (Fig. 2C).

An additional challenge to managing ecosystems is identifying the features within an ecosystem that are beneficial and thus worthy of conservation. One strategy used by ecologists is to assess the services provided by an ecosystem. Ecosystem services, popularized in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, enable value to be placed on different components of an ecosystem (74). For example, if a lake provides fresh drinking water and recreation (swimming, fishing), then pollution of that lake would put those services in jeopardy. Likewise, we can consider the ecosystem services supplied by the gut microbiota (75) (Fig. 3). However, determining whether a microbiota ecosystem service is beneficial is difficult enough in itself, and establishing whether this benefit is universal or specific to a subpopulation of people or even only one individual, a developmental period of life, or during disease or reproduction adds complexity. For example, extraction of calories was an important microbiota ecosystem service rendered in the preindustrialized world, but when eating modern, calorie-dense foods, this service becomes less important.

Identifying the benefits provided by the gut microbiome to human health is one way to determine when the ecosystem is functioning well. (A) List of benefits provided by the gut microbiota. This list is not intended to be comprehensive, and the categorization is only one of many possibilities, but it is presented as a potentially useful framework for conceptualizing how to value specific features of microbiota. (B) Current data suggest that, along with the shift in the composition of the industrialized microbiota, certain services may be lost or out of balance, resulting in suboptimal states of host physiology or disease. A more nuanced understanding of which services are beneficial and in what context will be enabled by longitudinal high-dimensional profiling of microbiome and host biology combined with long-term monitoring of health in humans.

Studying microbiota configurations in different contexts may reveal associations that are positive for human health. For example, work on the gut microbiota in individuals undergoing immunotherapy to treat cancer has shown associations between specific microbiota components and improved outcomes (76). Although many specifics remain to be determined, these findings are consistent with the ability of different microbiotas and their services, such as SCFA production, to alter host immune status and function. Unfortunately, such observational work is usually conducted on people living in industrialized countries and therefore is limited in the microbiota configurations and features that are queried.

If humans have developed a dependence upon microbiota services that have been lost during industrialization, then might reintroduction of these services be analogous to complementing a lost portion of human biology and provide broad benefit? Even if this is not the case, given the recent success of prophylactic antibiotics in low- and middle-income countries in improving health and reducing mortality in children, rewilding the microbiota after treatment using defined key strains may become a standard treatment to aid in ecosystem recovery (77). Should this be the case, then considerations of how to make reintroductions self-sustaining, especially in the face of spreading industrialization, will be important.

The goals of a managed microbiota should be to optimize ecosystem services to prevent disease and improve health and longevity. Optimization requires precise, targeted approaches that consider an individuals genotype, microbiome, or subcategory of disease. Given the large global health impact, strategies to protect the microbiome in all populations should be considered to maximize the palette of microbial and molecular tools available. Efforts are under way to archive the microbial diversity found in the gut of humans around the globe (35, 36). Whether these efforts will result in new therapeutics remains to be seen, but at the very least they provide a time capsule of microbial diversity in a rapidly industrializing world. Industrialization of the microbiome, and its accompanying loss or reduction of certain species, can occur on a time scale of months within an individual, creating some urgency for the banking of vulnerable species (78). An additional challenge is navigating the changing restrictions on the distribution of bacterial strains for research and therapeutic development while protecting the rights and recognizing the contribution of the people from which they came (79, 80).

Reshaping ingrained aspects of industrialized societies to moderate practices that have negative impacts on the microbiota will be a challenge but will be more practical than reversion to preindustrial practices (see Box: Sustainable ecosystem management approaches). Antibiotic use will remain an important aspect of industrial life; however, regulation in clinical and agricultural settings is needed to maintain efficacy and to protect the microbiome. Similarly, rationally engineered microbial cocktails or fermented foods could offer safe microbe exposure to compensate for sanitization. Government subsidies similar to those provided for certain crops could be justified to make MAC-rich and fermented foods cheaper and more widely available. Until food policy reflects the findings of biomedical research, short-term solutions, such as supplementing processed foods with MACs or probiotic bacteria, could provide a gradual progression toward health-optimizing food systems in industrialized countries.

Expanding cohort and interventional studies in humans from a wide representation of humans while simultaneously documenting microbiome and health changes is key for healthy, sustainable microbiota. Numerous associations have been made between the microbiota and human disease, but additional microbiome datasets from longitudinal, prospective observational and interventional studies of humans will provide insight into causal relationships. High-resolution measurements of host biology, including omics approaches and high-dimensional immune profiling, will be important to elucidate the specific lifestyle practices that lead to the most meaningful microbiome changes for human health (44, 81, 82). Animal models informed by human-derived data can be used to perform controlled studies with the goal of developing strategies to rebuild and maintain a healthy microbiota (83).

Some of the specific forces that are bad for Earth appear also to harm our microbiota. For example, animal meat production removes forest habitat for pasture and results in increased methane production. Excessive meat consumption has been coupled to trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) production by the microbiota, and TMAO is a risk factor for cardiovascular events (84). It may be wise to approach climate and health and microbiota sustainability simultaneously to identify solutions that align Earth and human health (i.e., One World, One Health) (85). Given that environmentally sustainable agricultural practices are compatible with producing food generally recognized to promote health, solutions for the planet and human health may be compatible (86). As Earths microbes adapt to our changing environment, we can expect our bodys ecosystem to reflect our external environment in ways that are difficult to anticipate. Determining microbial or molecular equivalents of rewilding will require a much better understanding of community dynamics and hostmicrobiota interactions than we presently have. Continually monitoring and managing a healthy internal ecosystem may be an effective strategy to combat and prevent the litany of chronic diseases that are currently spreading with industrialization.

As we continue to learn of the multitude of benefits afforded by our microbial symbionts, developing alternative strategies to manage microbial ecosystems will enable us to promote short- and long-term public health priorities simultaneously (87). Listed here are a few examples of successes in using beneficial microbes to manage microbial ecosystems.

Sterility in skin-injury repair has been viewed as an important factor in effective wound healing. However, maintaining a sterile wound-healing environment is a difficult prospect considering the exposure of most wounds to the environment (88). Recent evidence suggests that populating wounds with commensal microbes can reduce infections after surgery and minimize the need for antibiotic treatment (89). Similar strategies are also being tested in treating skin conditions including atopic dermatitis (clinical trial NCT03018275) and acute wounds (90).

Health careassociated infections are pervasive in both high- and low-income countries and are a leading cause of death in the United States (91). Germicidal treatments of hospital surfaces are not completely effective, leaving behind dangerous pathogens, some of which can inhabit surfaces for months and also lead to increasing antibiotic resistance. The use of probiotic-containing cleaners can be an effective, alternative method to decontaminate hospital surfaces that does not select for antibiotic-resistant strains (92).

Concerns over increasing antibiotic resistance, consumption of antibiotic-laden meat, and antibiotic-induced reduction of natural resistance to pathogens have led to the exploration of alternatives to antibiotics in livestock. Probiotic use in chickens has resulted in better growth rates, reductions in pathogen load and antibiotic resistance genes, and improved egg quality (93, 94). Probiotics have also been used to prevent infections and improve milk production in dairy cows and to aid growth in beef cattle (95). Use of probiotics is also beneficial in aquaculture, improving water quality, resistance to pathogens, and growth (96).

There is growing evidence that the use of beneficial bacteria is a promising path forward for managing pathogenic microbes in humans (97). Probiotics can reduce the duration and severity of infectious diarrhea and may be an effective alternative to antibiotics in the treatment and prevention of bacterial vaginosis (98, 99). A synbiotic mixture of Lactobacillus plantarum and fructo-oligosaccharides reduced the incidence of sepsis and lowered rates of respiratory tract infection in a cohort of infants from rural India (100). The use of bacteriophage to control pathogens, especially those that are resistant to multiple antibiotics, is another emerging alternative with recent success (101).

Antibiotics are commonly used in cancer treatment to minimize the risk of infection in a patient population with a disrupted immune system. However, in animal models, antibiotic treatment can alter the microbiota in ways that reduce treatment efficacy (102, 103). In fact, specific manipulation of the microbiota improved immunotherapy-based tumor control in a mouse model of melanoma (102, 103). Optimization of the microbiota to optimize immune status, whether augmenting immunotherapy or enabling bone marrow transplantation, will likely be integral to the future treatment of diseases such as cancer.

Given newly acquired data about the importance of early microbiota assembly in the health of the infant, a rethinking of medicalized birth is warranted. A recent pilot study showed that infants delivered by C-section who were seeded with their mothers vaginal microbes developed microbiota more closely resembling those of vaginally delivered infants (104). Future studies are required to determine whether vaginal seeding after C-section delivery provides any lifelong health benefit to the infant.

Acknowledgments: We thank members of the Sonnenburg lab and collaborators for helpful discussions. Funding: This work was supported by the NIH (R01-DK085025 and DP1-AT00989201). J.L.S. is a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. Competing interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Vulnerability of the industrialized microbiota - Science Magazine

Global Longevity & Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Review 2017-2018 and Forecast to 2023 – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Longevity and Anti-Senescence Therapy Market" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Global longevity and anti-senescence market will witness rapid growth over the forecast period (2018-2023) owing to an increasing emphasis on Stem Cell Research and increasing demand for cell-based assays in research and development.

An increasing geriatric population across the globe and rising awareness of antiaging products among generation Y and later generations are the major factors expected to promote the growth of global longevity and anti-senescence market. Factors such as a surging level of disposable income and increasing advancements in anti-senescence technologies are also providing traction to the global longevity and anti-senescence market growth over the forecast period (2018-2023).

Senolytics, placenta stem cells and blood transfusions are some of the hot technologies picking up pace in the longevity and anti-anti-senescence market. Companies and start-ups across the globe such as Unity Biotechnology, Human Longevity Inc., Calico Life Sciences, Acorda Therapeutics, etc. are working extensively in this field for the extension of human longevity by focusing on the study of genomics, microbiome, bioinformatics, and stem cell therapies, etc. These factors are poised to drive market growth over the forecast period.

The report provides analysis based on each market segment including therapies and application. The therapies segment is further sub-segmented into Senolytic drug therapy, Gene therapy, Immunotherapy, and Others. Senolytic drug therapy held the largest market revenue share in 2017. The fastest growth of the gene therapy segment is due to the Large investments in genomics.

Report Scope

The scope of this report is broad and covers various therapies currently under trials in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market. The market estimation has been performed with consideration for revenue generation in the forecast years 2018-2023 after the expected availability of products in the market by 2023.

The global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market has been segmented by the following therapies: Senolytic drug therapy, Gene therapy, Immunotherapy and Other therapies which includes stem cell-based therapies, etc.

Revenue forecasts from 2028 to 2023 are given for each therapy and application, with estimated values derived from the expected revenue generation in the first year of launch.

The report also includes a discussion of the major players performing research or the potential players across each regional longevity and anti-senescence therapy market. Further, it explains the major drivers and regional dynamics of the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market and current trends within the industry.

The report concludes with a special focus on the vendor landscape and includes detailed profiles of the major vendors and potential entrants in the global longevity and anti-senescence therapy market.

The report includes:

Key Topics Covered

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights

Chapter 3 Market Overview

Chapter 4 Global Longevity and Anti-senescence Market by Therapy

Chapter 5 Global Longevity and Anti-senescence Market by Application

Chapter 6 Global Longevity and Anti-senescence Market by Region

Chapter 7 Industry Structure in Longevity and Anti-senescence Market

Chapter 8 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/zy7jt

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Global Longevity & Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Review 2017-2018 and Forecast to 2023 - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

LyGenesis Closes $4 Million Convertible Debt Financing to Begin Clinical Development of its Liver Regeneration Technology – PRNewswire

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PITTSBURGH, Oct. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- LyGenesis, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on organ regeneration, announced today that they have completed a total of $4 million in private financing of convertible notes from Juvenescence, Ltd. and Longevity Vision Fund. Their technology uses lymph nodes as bioreactors to regrow functioning organs within a patient's own body. This financing will enable LyGenesis's lead program in liver regeneration to transition into clinical development, beginning with a Phase 2a clinical trial for patients with end stage liver disease in 2020.

"We have advanced our liver regeneration program through preclinical trials and this financing will help us to rapidly transition into a clinical-stage biotechnology company," said Michael Hufford, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of LyGenesis. "Our ability to use the lymph node as a bioreactor for organogenesis is also generating interest from partner companies looking for an enabling technology so that their genetically modified cell therapies are able to engraft, proliferate, vascularize, and produce a therapeutic effect in patients."

"We are thrilled to continue our financial support of LyGenesis as they transition into clinical development," said Greg Bailey, MD, Co-Founder and CEO of Juvenescence, and a member of LyGenesis's Board of Directors. Sergey Young, founder of Longevity Vision Fund, said "The ability to regenerate functioning ectopic organs was science fiction just a few short years ago. The progress of LyGenesis's technology is emblematic of the rapid advances we are witnessing as biotechnology transitions from bench research, to preclinical models, and now into the clinic."

About LyGenesis, Inc.LyGenesis is a biotechnology company with an organ regeneration technology platform enabling a patient's lymph nodes to be used as bioreactors to regrow functioning ectopic organs. LyGenesis's lead allogeneic cell therapy program is focused on liver regeneration for patients with end stage liver disease. Its drug development pipeline includes thymus, pancreas, and kidney regeneration. Privately held, LyGenesis is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To learn more, please visit lygenesis.com.

About Juvenescence, Ltd.Juvenescence Limited is a life sciences company developing therapies to increase healthy human longevity. It was founded by Jim Mellon, Dr. Greg Bailey and Dr. Declan Doogan. The Juvenescence team are highly experienced drug developers, entrepreneurs and investors with a significant history of success in the life sciences sector. Juvenescence will create, partner with or invest in new companies with longevity-related therapeutics, by in-licensing compounds from academia and industry, or forming joint ventures to develop therapeutics for longevity. Juvenescence believes that recent advances in science have greatly improved our understanding of the biology of aging and seeks to develop therapeutics with the possibility of slowing, halting or potentially reversing elements of aging. To learn more, please visit juvenescence.ltd.

About Longevity Vision FundLongevity Vision Fundis a $100M life extension-focused investment fund dedicated to making longevity affordable and accessible to all. Founded by Sergey Young, the fund accelerates breakthroughs in longevity by investing in start-ups and companies that develop technologies, products, and services that extend human lifespans and overcome the negative effects of aging. The Fund provides funding to biotech and life extension-focused companies developing early diagnostics, AI in healthcare, and therapies addressing age-related diseases. To learn more, please visit lvf.vc.

Media Contact:Michael Hufford, PhD+1.858.603.2514226496@email4pr.com

SOURCE LyGenesis, Inc.

http://www.lygenesis.com

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LyGenesis Closes $4 Million Convertible Debt Financing to Begin Clinical Development of its Liver Regeneration Technology - PRNewswire

Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS …

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WELCOME! The Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) has been supported by NIA/NIH grants R01 AG023627-01 (PI: Zeng Yi) (Grant name: Demographic Analysis of Healthy Longevity in China) and P01 AG 008761 (PI: Zeng Yi; Program Project Director: James W. Vaupel), awarded to Duke University, with Chinese matching support for personnel costs and some local expenses. UNFPA and the China Social Sciences Foundation provided additional support for expanding the 2002 CLHLS survey. The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research has provided support for international training since the CLHLS 1998 baseline survey. Finally, in December 2004 the China Natural Sciences Foundation and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) partnered with NIA/NIH, providing grants to partially support the CLHLS project.

Until present, the CLHLS conducted face-to-face interviews with 8,959, 11,161, 20,428, 18,549 and 20,366, 10,188, and 7,192individuals in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008-09, 2011-12, and 2014, respectively, using internationally compatible questionnaires. Among the 96,843interviews conducted in the sevenwaves, 16,547were with centenarians, 22,232with nonagenarians, 25,719with octogenarians, 19,884with younger elders aged 65-79, and 11,461 with middle-age adults aged 35-64. At each wave, survivors were re-interviewed, and deceased interviewees were replaced with new participants. Data on mortality and health status before dying for the 26,236elders aged 65-110 who died between waves were collected in interviews with a close family member of the deceased.

The CLHLS has the largest sample of centenarians in the world according to a report in Science (see the report). Our general goal is to shed new light on a better understanding of the determinants of healthy longevity of human beings. We are compiling extensive data on a much larger population of the oldest-old aged 80-112 than has previously been studied, with a comparison group of younger elders aged 65-79. We propose to use innovative demographic and statistical methods to analyze longitudinal survey data. Our goal is to determine which factors, out of a large set of social, behavioral, biological, and environmental risk factors, play an important role in healthy longevity. The large population size, the focus on healthy longevity (rather than on a specific disease or disorder), the simultaneous consideration of various risk factors, and the use of analytical strategies based on demographic concepts make this an innovative demographic data collection and research project.

Our specific objectives are as follows:

The organizational framework of the CLHLS is summarized as follows:

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Opinion: Entrepreneurs and Their Startup Businesses Need San Diegos Support – Times of San Diego

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Share This Article:Startup teams at an EvoNesus incubator in downtown San Diego. Photo by Chris JenneweinBy Duane Cameron

Everyone in business and economic development agree that startups are great for citiesbut how can communities and leaders do more than just tout the benefits of startups, and actually help pave the way for entrepreneurs to bring their business ideas to life?

Support Times of San Diego's growthwith a small monthly contribution

One way of getting behind San Diego startups is through celebrating the innovation and creativity being brought to our region. This month Cox Business, Tech Coast Angels and the San Diego Venture Group are doing exactly that by sponsoring and organizing the John G. Watson Quick Pitch Competition.

The Quick Pitch Competition on Oct. 29 gives 10 local startups the opportunity to compete for grants of up to $50,000 to further develop their idea. Its one of several others like it throughout the year here in our region.

However, we can always do more to support our startup ecosystemespecially if we want to hang on to our distinction as one of the best cities in America to launch a business. Moreover, San Diego in particular has a number of very good reasons to do so:

Small businesses, including startups, are the backbone of our regional economy. Small businesses, defined as those with 100 employees or fewer, employ697,000 people, or 59 percentof San Diegos workforce. If we were to attract fewer talented entrepreneurs, opportunities for both our long-time residents and recent transplants would dry up, and our economy would suffer.

Theyve given us our reputation as a life sciences and biotechnology innovation hub. Aside from the San Francisco Bay Area and the Boston-Cambridge region, were one of the top cities for manufacturing, testing and research in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Several of the top employers in this area are, of course, large companies like Illumina, but a vast majority of the more than 1,100 life and sciences biotech businesses in San Diego began life as small startups with an idea.

They encourage competition. Competition is a good thing and spurs innovation, and a competitive business ecosystem makes our city stand out as a dynamic source of tech solutions. As Ben Yoskowitz, an angel investor and founding partner at Year One Labs puts it, Any reasonably good idea has 10,000 people working on it right now.

A few local startups have made it big already. Thanks to our large pool of talent both local and transplanted (the perks of being a major center for universities) as well as a good network of accelerators that coach startups on how to prepare for a successful launch, many of our startups have emerged as major players on the national scene. Think GoFundMe, Classy, Brain Corp, and Human Longevity. Imagine how many more ideas like these are currently incubating among San Diegos startup founders.

They employ talent from other tech hubs, especially recent graduates. The job market may have improved greatly since the 2008-2009 recession, and unemployment may be low, but its still challenging to get your foot in the door as a recent college graduate. In cities like San Diego, though, where theres a strong pool of startups, these young professionals can easily find employment that develops them professionally into the future talent that our city will need to continue to grow.

San Diego has steadily climbed higher on lists of top U.S. cities for startups over the past few years, but that didnt happen in a vacuum. Every big company started small, and its important that larger companies encourage startups, and help provide funding through programs such as the Quick Pitch Competitionespecially if theyre in your field. Its good for business and for everyone who lives and works in Americas finest region.

Duane Cameron has more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. He is vice president for Cox Business, helping to bring innovative products and services to Southern California businesses.

Opinion: Entrepreneurs and Their Startup Businesses Need San Diegos Support was last modified: October 17th, 2019 by Editor

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Careers Human Longevity, Inc.

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Human Longevity, Inc., is a rapidly growing company founded by visionary scientists, innovators, and entrepreneurs to revolutionize the practice of medicine by using genomics and technology to make healthcare more personalized. We have built and continue to expand the worlds largest database of genotype, phenotype and clinical information that with a proprietary data mining infrastructure generates health intelligence to illuminate new ways to predict, prevent, and treat some of the worlds foremost health threats like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.

Founded by renowned scientist J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., Human Longevity, Inc., and its clinical research center, the Health Nucleus, are blazing new trails in science, medicine, and research and we need people who, like us, want to change the world. We are leading the way in learning tools, cloud technology, and sequencing operations, and are looking for individuals to join with us in developing these new innovations.

If you are dynamic, innovative, curious, resourceful and want to be a part of revolutionizing healthcare, HLI is the place for you.

Human Longevity, Inc., offers a comprehensive Total Rewards program, enabling you to focus on revolutionizing healthcare:

To view opportunities to make your mark at HLI, click below.

HLI PARTICIPATES IN E-VERIFY

HLI will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with information from each new employees Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. Human Longevity, Inc., is an equal opportunity employer.

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Is longevity determined by genetics? – Genetics Home …

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The duration of human life (longevity) is influenced by genetics, the environment, and lifestyle. Environmental improvements beginning in the 1900s extended the average life span dramatically with significant improvements in the availability of food and clean water, better housing and living conditions, reduced exposure to infectious diseases, and access to medical care. Most significant were public health advances that reduced premature death by decreasing the risk of infant mortality, increasing the chances of surviving childhood, and avoiding infection and communicable disease. Now people in the United States live about 80 years on average, but some individuals survive for much longer.

Scientists are studying people in their nineties (called nonagenarians) and hundreds (called centenarians, including semi-supercentenarians of ages 105-109 years and supercentenarians, ages 110+) to determine what contributes to their long lives. They have found that long-lived individuals have little in common with one another in education, income, or profession. The similarities they do share, however, reflect their lifestylesmany are nonsmokers, are not obese, and cope well with stress. Also, most are women. Because of their healthy habits, these older adults are less likely to develop age-related chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, than their same-age peers.

The siblings and children (collectively called first-degree relatives) of long-lived individuals are more likely to remain healthy longer and to live to an older age than their peers. People with centenarian parents are less likely at age 70 to have the age-related diseases that are common among older adults. The brothers and sisters of centenarians typically have long lives, and if they develop age-related diseases (such as high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, or type 2 diabetes), these diseases appear later than they do in the general population. Longer life spans tend to run in families, which suggests that shared genetics, lifestyle, or both play an important role in determining longevity.

The study of longevity genes is a developing science. It is estimated that about 25 percent of the variation in human life span is determined by genetics, but which genes, and how they contribute to longevity, are not well understood. A few of the common variations (called polymorphisms) associated with long life spans are found in the APOE, FOXO3, and CETP genes, but they are not found in all individuals with exceptional longevity. It is likely that variants in multiple genes, some of which are unidentified, act together to contribute to a long life.

Whole genome sequencing studies of supercentenarians have identified the same gene variants that increase disease risk in people who have average life spans. The supercentenarians, however, also have many other newly identified gene variants that possibly promote longevity. Scientists speculate that for the first seven or eight decades, lifestyle is a stronger determinant of health and life span than genetics. Eating well, not drinking too much alcohol, avoiding tobacco, and staying physically active enable some individuals to attain a healthy old age; genetics then appears to play a progressively important role in keeping individuals healthy as they age into their eighties and beyond. Many nonagenarians and centenarians are able to live independently and avoid age-related diseases until the very last years of their lives.

Some of the gene variants that contribute to a long life are involved with the basic maintenance and function of the bodys cells. These cellular functions include DNA repair, maintenance of the ends of chromosomes (regions called telomeres), and protection of cells from damage caused by unstable oxygen-containing molecules (free radicals). Other genes that are associated with blood fat (lipid) levels, inflammation, and the cardiovascular and immune systems contribute significantly to longevity because they reduce the risk of heart disease (the main cause of death in older people), stroke, and insulin resistance.

In addition to studying the very old in the United States, scientists are also studying a handful of communities in other parts of the world where people often live into their nineties and olderOkinawa (Japan), Ikaria (Greece), and Sardinia (Italy). These three regions are similar in that they are relatively isolated from the broader population in their countries, are lower income, have little industrialization, and tend to follow a traditional (non-Western) lifestyle. Unlike other populations of the very old, the centenarians on Sardinia include a significant proportion of men. Researchers are studying whether hormones, sex-specific genes, or other factors may contribute to longer lives among men as well as women on this island.

Martin GM, Bergman A, Barzilai N. Genetic determinants of human health span and life span: progress and new opportunities. PLoS Genet. 2007 Jul;3(7):e125. PubMed: 17677003. Free full-text available from PubMed Central: PMC1934400.

Sebastiani P, Gurinovich A, Bae H, Andersen S, Malovini A, Atzmon G, Villa F, Kraja AT, Ben-Avraham D, Barzilai N, Puca A, Perls TT. Four genome-wide association studies identify new extreme longevity variants. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2017 Oct 12;72(11):1453-1464. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glx027. PubMed: 28329165.

Sebastiani P, Solovieff N, Dewan AT, Walsh KM, Puca A, Hartley SW, Melista E, Andersen S, Dworkis DA, Wilk JB, Myers RH, Steinberg MH, Montano M, Baldwin CT, Hoh J, Perls TT. Genetic signatures of exceptional longevity in humans. PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e29848. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029848. Epub 2012 Jan 18. PubMed: 22279548. Free full-text available from PubMed Central: PMC3261167.

Wei M, Brandhorst S, Shelehchi M, Mirzaei H, Cheng CW, Budniak J, Groshen S, Mack WJ, Guen E, Di Biase S, Cohen P, Morgan TE, Dorff T, Hong K, Michalsen A, Laviano A, Longo VD. Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Sci Transl Med. 2017 Feb 15;9(377). pii: eaai8700. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aai8700. PubMed: 28202779.

Young RD. Validated living worldwide supercentenarians, living and recently deceased: February 2018. Rejuvenation Res. 2018 Feb 1. doi: 10.1089/rej.2018.2057. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed: 29390945.

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Offer Ends Soon Ready Version – The Human Longevity Project

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The Human Longevity Project is a 9-Part documentary with over 100 interviews from the worlds leading doctors, researchers, scientists, health experts, and healers.

We combine the most cutting-edge science with a deep investigation into the worlds healthiest and oldest populations.

This program gives you a detailed roadmap and step-by-step action plan for you to live your longest, happiest, and healthiest life.

Included are detailed interviews with the worlds healthiest and longest-lived people, a large number of whom are happy centenarians, tapping into powerful ancient wisdom for optimal health, wellbeing and maximum longevity!

Whether you or your loved ones have a chronic illness like depression, autoimmune disease, digestive issues

Or maybe its Diabetes, Heart Disease, Autism or Alzheimer's

Never before have so many doctors, researchers, scientists, health experts, and the healthiest populations on Earth come together to create this educational masterpiece, showing you solutions that can be implemented to avoid pain and disease in your life, and start accessing the SECRET, MODERN and ANCIENT remedies for You and Your familys Optimal Healing and Lifespan.

Dont delay get your personal copy today. Once The Human Longevity Project premiere is overyou'll never see this offer again! Prices will more than DOUBLE at the end of the premiere!

REMEMBER This offer is only available here during The Human Longevity Project World Premiere! Once this series is over, this offer will be gone FOR GOOD.

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Offer Ends Soon Ready Version - The Human Longevity Project

Human Longevity – Wikipedia

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Human Longevity is a San Diego-based venture launched by Craig Venter and Peter Diamandis in 2013. Its goal is to build the world's most comprehensive database on human genotypes and phenotypes, and then subject it to machine learning so that it can help develop new ways to fight diseases associated with aging.[1] The company received US$80 million in investments in its Series A offering in summer 2014 and announced a further $220 million Series B investment offering in April 2016.[2] It has made deals with drug companies Celgene and AstraZeneca to collaborate in its research.

While it is conducting research, the company is offering a wellness service known as "Health Nucleus," which offers customers a range of medical tests such as a full genome sequencing and tests for early indications of cancers, Alzheimer's and heart disease.[3] This testing is meant to help people catch diseases earlier than otherwise possible and to identify risk factors for diseases later in life.[4]

At the start of 2017 the company hired Cynthia Collins from GE Healthcare, and Venter became Executive Chair. The company's chief operating office, Mark Winham, left the company in mid-2017, and Collins and the company's chief medical officer, Brad Perkins, left in December. Venter stepped back into the CEO role, but announced in May 2018 that he was leaving the company to return to the J. Craig Venter Institute.[5] Venter was sued for allegedly 'stealing trade secrets' at Human Longevity.[6] The case has been dismissed.[7]

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Longevity – Wikipedia

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The word "longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography. However, the term longevity is sometimes meant to refer only to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas life expectancy is always defined statistically as the average number of years remaining at a given age. For example, a population's life expectancy at birth is the same as the average age at death for all people born in the same year (in the case of cohorts). Longevity is best thought of as a term for general audiences meaning 'typical length of life' and specific statistical definitions should be clarified when necessary.

Reflections on longevity have usually gone beyond acknowledging the brevity of human life and have included thinking about methods to extend life. Longevity has been a topic not only for the scientific community but also for writers of travel, science fiction, and utopian novels.

There are many difficulties in authenticating the longest human life span ever by modern verification standards, owing to inaccurate or incomplete birth statistics. Fiction, legend, and folklore have proposed or claimed life spans in the past or future vastly longer than those verified by modern standards, and longevity narratives and unverified longevity claims frequently speak of their existence in the present.

A life annuity is a form of longevity insurance.

Various factors contribute to an individual's longevity. Significant factors in life expectancy include gender, genetics, access to health care, hygiene, diet and nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, and crime rates. Below is a list of life expectancies in different types of countries:[3]

Population longevities are increasing as life expectancies around the world grow:[1][4]

The Gerontology Research Group validates current longevity records by modern standards, and maintains a list of supercentenarians; many other unvalidated longevity claims exist. Record-holding individuals include:[5][6][7]

Evidence-based studies indicate that longevity is based on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices.[9]

Twin studies have estimated that approximately 20-30% the variation in human lifespan can be related to genetics, with the rest due to individual behaviors and environmental factors which can be modified.[10] Although over 200 gene variants have been associated with longevity according to a US-Belgian-UK research database of human genetic variants,[11] these explain only a small fraction of the heritability.[12] A 2012 study found that even modest amounts of leisure time physical exercise can extend life expectancy by as much as 4.5 years.[13]

Lymphoblastoid cell lines established from blood samples of centenarians have significantly higher activity of the DNA repair protein PARP (Poly ADP ribose polymerase) than cell lines from younger (20 to 70 year old) individuals.[14] The lymphocytic cells of centenarians have characteristics typical of cells from young people, both in their capability of priming the mechanism of repair after H2O2 sublethal oxidative DNA damage and in their PARP gene expression.[15] These findings suggest that elevated PARP gene expression contributes to the longevity of centenarians, consistent with the DNA damage theory of aging.[16]

In preindustrial times, deaths at young and middle age were more common than they are today. This is not due to genetics, but because of environmental factors such as disease, accidents, and malnutrition, especially since the former were not generally treatable with pre-20th-century medicine. Deaths from childbirth were common for women, and many children did not live past infancy. In addition, most people who did attain old age were likely to die quickly from the above-mentioned untreatable health problems. Despite this, there are many examples of pre-20th-century individuals attaining lifespans of 85 years or greater, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Cato the Elder, Thomas Hobbes, Eric of Pomerania, Christopher Polhem, and Michelangelo. This was also true for poorer people like peasants or laborers. Genealogists will almost certainly find ancestors living to their 70s, 80s and even 90s several hundred years ago.

For example, an 1871 census in the UK (the first of its kind, but personal data from other censuses dates back to 1841 and numerical data back to 1801) found the average male life expectancy as being 44, but if infant mortality is subtracted, males who lived to adulthood averaged 75 years. The present life expectancy in the UK is 77 years for males and 81 for females, while the United States averages 74 for males and 80 for females.

Studies have shown that black American males have the shortest lifespans of any group of people in the US, averaging only 69 years (Asian-American females average the longest).[17] This reflects overall poorer health and greater prevalence of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer among black American men.

Women normally outlive men. Theories for this include smaller bodies (and thus less stress on the heart), a stronger immune system (since testosterone acts as an immunosuppressant), and less tendency to engage in physically dangerous activities.

There is debate as to whether the pursuit of longevity is a worthwhile health care goal. Bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, who is also one of the architects of ObamaCare, has argued that the pursuit of longevity via the compression of morbidity explanation is a "fantasy" and that longevity past age 75 should not be considered an end in itself.[18] This has been challenged by neurosurgeon Miguel Faria, who states that life can be worthwhile in healthy old age, that the compression of morbidity is a real phenomenon, and that longevity should be pursued in association with quality of life.[19] Faria has discussed how longevity in association with leading healthy lifestyles can lead to the postponement of senescence as well as happiness and wisdom in old age.[20]

All of the biological organisms have a limited longevity, and different species of animals and plants have different potentials of longevity. Misrepair-accumulation aging theory [21][22] suggests that the potential of longevity of an organism is related to its structural complexity.[23] Limited longevity is due to the limited structural complexity of the organism. If a species of organisms has too high structural complexity, most of its individuals would die before the reproduction age, and the species could not survive. This theory suggests that limited structural complexity and limited longevity are essential for the survival of a species.

Longevity myths are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), either as individuals or groups of people, and practices that have been believed to confer longevity, but for which scientific evidence does not support the ages claimed or the reasons for the claims.[24][25] A comparison and contrast of "longevity in antiquity" (such as the Sumerian King List, the genealogies of Genesis, and the Persian Shahnameh) with "longevity in historical times" (common-era cases through twentieth-century news reports) is elaborated in detail in Lucian Boia's 2004 book Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity from Antiquity to the Present and other sources.[26]

After the death of Juan Ponce de Len, Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo y Valds wrote in Historia General y Natural de las Indias (1535) that Ponce de Len was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging.[27] Traditions that have been believed to confer greater human longevity also include alchemy,[28] such as that attributed to Nicolas Flamel. In the modern era, the Okinawa diet has some reputation of linkage to exceptionally high ages.[29]

Longevity claims may be subcategorized into four groups: "In late life, very old people often tend to advance their ages at the rate of about 17 years per decade .... Several celebrated super-centenarians (over 110 years) are believed to have been double lives (father and son, relations with the same names or successive bearers of a title) .... A number of instances have been commercially sponsored, while a fourth category of recent claims are those made for political ends ...."[30] The estimate of 17 years per decade was corroborated by the 1901 and 1911 British censuses.[30] Time magazine considered that, by the Soviet Union, longevity had been elevated to a state-supported "Methuselah cult".[31] Robert Ripley regularly reported supercentenarian claims in Ripley's Believe It or Not!, usually citing his own reputation as a fact-checker to claim reliability.[32]

The U.S. Census Bureau view on the future of longevity is that life expectancy in the United States will be in the mid-80s by 2050 (up from 77.85 in 2006) and will top out eventually in the low 90s, barring major scientific advances that can change the rate of human aging itself, as opposed to merely treating the effects of aging as is done today. The Census Bureau also predicted that the United States would have 5.3 million people aged over 100 in 2100. The United Nations has also made projections far out into the future, up to 2300, at which point it projects that life expectancies in most developed countries will be between 100 and 106 years and still rising, though more and more slowly than before. These projections also suggest that life expectancies in poor countries will still be less than those in rich countries in 2300, in some cases by as much as 20 years. The UN itself mentioned that gaps in life expectancy so far in the future may well not exist, especially since the exchange of technology between rich and poor countries and the industrialization and development of poor countries may cause their life expectancies to converge fully with those of rich countries long before that point, similarly to the way life expectancies between rich and poor countries have already been converging over the last 60 years as better medicine, technology, and living conditions became accessible to many people in poor countries. The UN has warned that these projections are uncertain, and cautions that any change or advancement in medical technology could invalidate such projections.[33]

Recent increases in the rates of lifestyle diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, may eventually slow or reverse this trend toward increasing life expectancy in the developed world, but have not yet done so. The average age of the US population is getting higher[34] and these diseases show up in older people.[35]

Jennifer Couzin-Frankel examined how much mortality from various causes would have to drop in order to boost life expectancy and concluded that most of the past increases in life expectancy occurred because of improved survival rates for young people. She states that it seems unlikely that life expectancy at birth will ever exceed 85 years.[36] Michio Kaku argues that genetic engineering, nanotechnology and future breakthroughs will accelerate the rate of life expectancy increase indefinitely.[37] Already genetic engineering has allowed the life expectancy of certain primates to be doubled, and for human skin cells in labs to divide and live indefinitely without becoming cancerous.[38]

Reliable data from 1840 through 2002 indicates life expectancy has risen linearly for men and women, albeit more slowly for men. For women the increase has been almost three months per year, for men almost 2.7 months per year. In light of steady increase, without any sign of limitation, the suggestion that life expectancy will top out must be treated with caution. Scientists Oeppen and Vaupel observe that experts who assert that "life expectancy is approaching a ceiling ... have repeatedly been proven wrong." It is thought that life expectancy for women has increased more dramatically owing to the considerable advances in medicine related to childbirth.[39]

Currently living:

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Longevity - Wikipedia

Eight Duke Books on Religion and Spirituality – Duke Today

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This month we offer a collection of Duke-authored books that explore historical and current aspects of faith, spirituality and religious culture in society.

These books along with manyothers are available atthe Duke University Libraries, the Gothic Bookshop or the Regulator Bookshop.

What It's About:Professor Marc Z. Brettler and co-author Amy-Jill Levine take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Comparing various interpretations historical, literary, and theological - of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives. They show how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, and so illuminate the Bibles ongoing significance.

What It's About:How have millions of American Christians come to measure spiritual progress in terms of their financial status and physical well-being? How has the prosperity gospel movement come to dominate much of our contemporary religious landscape? Professor Kate Bowler's Blessed traces the roots of the prosperity gospel: from the touring mesmerists, metaphysical sages, Pentecostal healers, business oracles, and princely prophets of the early 20th century; through mid-century positive thinkers like Norman Vincent Peale and revivalists like Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin; to today's hugely successful prosperity preachers.

What It's About:In Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition, Professor Omid Safi translates more than 200 poems into contemporary English from the original Arabic and Persian. In this anthology of newly translated poetry, Safi focuses on love especially ishq/eshq, what he renders as radical love. The volume organizes translations of Quran and Hadith, Sufi mystics and poets into four thematic sections: God of Love, Path of Love, Lover & Beloved, and Beloved Community. Radical Love introduces readers to key ideas from Islamic mysticism that are rooted in firsthand knowledge of Arabic and Persian texts.

What It's About:Opening Israels Scriptures is a collection of 36 essays on the Hebrew Bible from Genesis to Chronicles which gives insight into the complexity of the Hebrew Scriptures as a theological resource. Based on more than two decades of lectures on Old Testament interpretation, Professor Ellen F. Davis offers a selective yet comprehensive guide to the core concepts, literary patterns, storylines, and theological perspectives that are central to Israel's Scriptures.

What It's About: In God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist, Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and William Lane Craig bring to the printed page two debates they held before live audiences. Avoiding overly esoteric arguments, the two directly address issues such as religious experience, the Bible, evil, eternity, the origin of the universe, design, and the supposed connection between morality and the existence of God. The book is composed of six chapters that alternate between Craig and Sinnott-Armstrong, so that each separate point can be discussed as it arises.

What It's About:In these devotions for the season of Advent, the Rev. Dr. Luke Powery dean of the Duke University Chapel and associate professor at Duke Divinity School leads the reader through the spirituals as they confront the mystery of incarnation and redemption. In Rise Up, Shepherd! each devotion features the lyrics of the spiritual, a reflection on the spiritual's meaning, a Scripture verse, and a brief prayer.

What It's About:In Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating Professor Norman Wirzba demonstrates that eating is of profound economic, moral, and theological significance. Unlike books that focus on vegetarianism or food distribution as the key theological matters, this book broadens the scope to include discussions on the sacramental character of eating, eating's ecological and social contexts, the meaning of death and sacrifice as they relate to eating, the Eucharist as the place of inspiration and orientation, the importance of saying grace, and whether or not there will be eating in heaven.

What It's About: Though fascinated with the land of their traditions birth, virtually no Japanese Buddhists visited the Indian subcontinent before the 19th century. In the richly illustrated "Seeking kyamuni," Professor Richard M. Jaffe reveals the experiences of the first Japanese Buddhists who traveled to South Asia in search of Buddhist knowledge beginning in 1873. Analyzing the impact of these voyages on Japanese conceptions of Buddhism, he argues that South Asia developed into a pivotal nexus for the development of twentieth-century Japanese Buddhism.

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Eight Duke Books on Religion and Spirituality - Duke Today

The Best Cities For Vegans and Vegetarians in 2019 – Forbes

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Growing up, someone was always cooking meat in my household. My grandmother was an amazing cook and soulfully prepared fried chicken, smothered pork chops, chilis and stews right up until she died last year. She was even known to whip up pigs snout, cows tongue and chicken feet on special occasions, but Id always make myself scarce on those days.

It never occurred to me that, one day, Id be preparing food with vegetarian children in mind. Ive got six kids ranging from 26 down to 3-year-old twins and four of them will not touch meat. As their mother, I can assure you that from the moment they could digest food, they knew they didnt want animal protein.

So, when the holidays roll around, Im quite busy preparing different dishes for the keto eaters in our family, the gluten-free crowd and my league of vegetarians. When we go on vacation, we even try to pick destinations that will accommodate our varied dietary needs. Recently weve been looking to relocate, which is why WalletHubs 2019 Best Cities for Vegans and Vegetarians immediately caught my eye.

The Method

There are roughly 10 million vegan and vegetarian adults in the United States. Depending on where you live, though, finding meatless options at local grocery stores and restaurants can be difficult. Thats why WalletHub set out to find the 100 largest cities with the best and most affordable plant-based options across the country.

The team looked at 17 key indicators including the cost of groceries, number of salad shops and share of restaurants serving meat-free dishes. For the full findings and description of the methodology used to compile the list, see the full article.

The Top 10

While there was a time when vegetarianism was closely associated with a California lifestyle, looking at the top 10 cities on WalletHubs list, its clear that people across the country are choosing a meatless diet. Lets take a look:

These cities are spread all across the country, which is not surprising considering acceptance of veganism and vegetarianism has grown the number of vegans increased by 600% between 2014 and 2017.

Plant-Based Options Are Growing

The options for plant-based eaters are growing every single day. Just look at how many meatless meals are now available at fast food restaurants! Who would have ever thought that Burger King would sell an Impossible Whopper, which contains zero beef? Yet, chains such as Carls Jr. and White Castle are carrying burgers that vegetarians can actually enjoy.

Gone are the days where theyd be forced into ordering nothing more than a salad at sit-down restaurants. Today its pretty common to find a whole section of meatless appetizers and entrees on menus. The offerings are becoming bolder and more creative too, a trend for which vegans and vegetarians nationwide are undoubtedly thankful!

While plant-based options are growing across the country, its great to have a list of cities that are particularly friendly for vegans and vegetarians. Its so much easier to live a fulfilled, happy life in a community where you feel supported. Not happy with whats available in your area? One of these cities might just be for you!

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The Best Cities For Vegans and Vegetarians in 2019 - Forbes

An Increase in Variety of Vegetarian Food could Tempt Carnivores to Stay Away From Meat. – DailyHealthTalks

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With Climate Change on individuals minds and livestock farming in trouble for greenhouse gas emission, many individuals see vegetarianism as a positive step. A research advises that offering a greater vegetarian selection should be a way to lure meat eaters into selecting more veggie meals.

Livestock farming gets a bad rap for its contribution to greenhouse gases, which trap heat and contribute to global warming. In the United States, agriculture contributes 9% of gas emissions to the atmosphere, much of which is down to livestock. By passing gas, ruminants, such as cattle and sheep, pass methane into the atmosphere. Methane is 25 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide and concentration have more than doubled in the last 200 years.

So, lowering methane levels in the atmosphere could have and important positive impact on the environment, which is why vegetarianism seems like a viable solution.

A new research from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom shows that the solution as adding more vegetarian options to menus. The paper appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research observed at the sales information over 94,000 meals in three unnamed Cambridge College cafeterias over a year. It discovered that by doubling vegetarian choice to 2 out of 4 of the meal options available, the sales of vegetarian meals increased by 40.8% to 78.8%.

This research is significant because high eat diets are incompatible with a safe climate, so we need to find effective simple, non-controversial approaches to get us all to eat more plant based food.

Meat eaters might also order veggie options

The Cambridge study members discovered that the biggest meat eaters- those who had consistently chosen fish or meat before the second vegetarian option became available- were the one who opted for a vegetarian meal in the largest numbers.

Not only did that but having a vegetarian lunch not make it any more possible that the traditional meat eaters would compensate by having a meaty dinner.

The research which observed at diners daily meal choices through payments made on university cards ran through two canteens. The canteens varied their range from no vegetarian dishes at all to days when 75% of options were vegetarian.

A third canteen offered lunchtime menus that shifted every 2 weeks from one veggie option to two. Investigators concluded that upping the proportion of vegetarian meals had the most important effect on those who ordinarily chose more meat.

The response was striking, says Garnett. It seems obvious in hindsight, and a number of commentators have asked, Why is this science? Isnt this obvious? I would say yes and no. If we had discovered no effect which could also seem obvious.

She continues, I find it fascinating that by responding, people are implicitly acknowledging that our food environments can have a strong influence on what we eat and other health behaviors.

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An Increase in Variety of Vegetarian Food could Tempt Carnivores to Stay Away From Meat. - DailyHealthTalks

Mirtha Legrand made a funny bill pass to Juana Viale: This is a confession – Inspired Traveler

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The television diva Mirtha Legrand, shared a very special table with his granddaughter Juana Viale and took the opportunity to make a confession in relation to the vegetarianism of the actress.

You always have your garden, said Mirtha. Yes, that is the tomatoes are about to explode, replied Juana. Whenever I go to Juanas house they give me everything from the garden, and Im leaving hungry, because I ate everything green, everything green. Im not like that, I eat compact. And when I go in the car I say Im hungry. I said that I always carry a cookie, the diva confessed to her granddaughters laughter. Chocolates, Juana added. This is a confession, Mirtha concluded.

Mirtha received several surprises on the air after being absent from television for nine months because of the coronavirus pandemic. From greetings from friends to the unexpected presence of your daughter Marcela tinayre and his great-granddaughter Amber.

He also gave his opinion on how he sees the current situation in the country: This pandemic is very hard. It has hit us very hard, economically, very difficult. With respect to Argentina, a lot of poverty. What terrifies me the most is unemployment, lack of work, he confessed.

BESIDES

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Mirtha Legrand made a funny bill pass to Juana Viale: This is a confession - Inspired Traveler