Daily Archives: April 9, 2014

Secrets of Longevity / Mental Health Factors
This video is the "Mind" section of the longevity series, which contains some of the mental health factors inherent to those who live long, happy and healthy...

By: Kendelyn Lane

Read more from the original source:
Secrets of Longevity / Mental Health Factors - Video

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

8-Apr-2014

Contact: Michael Ristow, M.D. michael-ristow@ethz.ch 41-446-557-446 ETH Zurich

Glucosamine has been freely available in drugstores for many decades. It is widely used to treat arthritis and to prevent joint degeneration. Moreover, glucosamine is known to delay cancer growth. In addition, glucosamine reduces metabolism of nutritive sugars, as was already shown some 50 years ago.

In 2007, Michael Ristow showed that too much nutritive sugar shortens the lifespan of roundworms, a widely studied model organism in ageing research. Conversely, impairing carbohydrate metabolism in these worms was capable of extending lifespan [reference 1]. Unfortunately, the method used in worms at that time unexpectedly appeared to be ineffective in rodents [reference 2], and hence was not studied further.

Extended lifespan by almost 10%

In the recently published study that was performed at ETH Zurich and four German research institutions, Ristow and his colleagues applied glucosamine to roundworms and found that they live around 5% longer than their untreated counterparts.

Next and most importantly, the researchers fed glucosamine to ageing mice in addition to their normal diet. The mice were 100 weeks of age, reflecting a comparative human age of approximately 65 years. A control group of mice received no glucosamine while otherwise receiving an identical diet. Feeding the supplement to mice extended their lifespan by almost 10%, reflecting around 8 additional years of human lifespan. Moreover, glucosamine improved glucose metabolism in elderly mice indicating protection from diabetes, a life-threatening disease most prevalent amongst the elderly.

Mimicking a low-carb diet

Additional analyses revealed that glucosamine feeding promotes the breakdown of amino acids in both worms and mice. Amino acids are key components of proteins, and they become preferentially metabolized in the absence of carbohydrates. As Ristow points out, "this reflects the metabolic state of a low-carb diet due to glucosamine supplementation alone while these mice ingested the same amount of carbohydrates as their unsupplemented counterparts." This implies that glucosamine would mimic a low-carb diet in humans as well without the necessity of reducing the uptake of carbohydrates in our daily diet.

Follow this link:
Glucosamine promotes longevity by mimicking a low-carb diet

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) April 08, 2014

The nations largest law firms spend billions of dollars each year to recruit, train, and ultimately lose lawyers from their ranks. The Right Profile and JD Match are teaming up to help reduce both the human and monetary costs involved in the legal industrys high turnover rate. The firms have launched a nationwide initiative to offer the online assessment tool free to the legal industry and others for a limited time. The goal is to build a broader database reflecting the full range of career choices made by law school graduates and the personalities that accompany those decisions. The study is available at http://www.attorneyassessment.com.

The goal of the study is to build a broader database reflecting the full range of career choices made by law school graduates and the personalities that accompany those decisions. The Right Profile, is a pioneer in assessing candidate-organizational fit through scientifically validated psychometric instruments, and is best known for its work with professional sports teams. JD Match is the first online platform that connects law students and law firms to deliver the legal industrys first trait assessment tool purpose-built for lawyers, the Sheffield Legal Assessment.

Most assessments developed for the general population arent able to finely discriminate among lawyers, said Bruce MacEwen, President of JD Match. Further, he said We believe the legal industry can benefit from a meaningful, empirically driven toolset that lets firms and individuals understand their particular strengths and weaknesses as lawyers. We believe were creating something not available anywhere else.

Although technology in the legal industry has made huge progress in the last ten years to increase the efficiency of legal research, litigation and document assembly, the human side how law students determine their practice areas, how firms recruit, develop and retain attorneys, and even how college students answer the simple question of should I go to law school?, has changed little in the past 40 years. This lack of focus on the human side results in a huge cost to attorneys, law firms and their clients 46% of new associates are gone within their first three years at a firm, lateral partners see similar turnover rates, but at much higher costs to the law firm, and clients suffer disruptions in service.

The first step in solving any of these issues is better understanding attorneys, said Mark Levin, General Counsel of The Right Profile. He added, as we grow our service, we will better understand the specific trait patterns of an intellectual property attorney versus a litigator or other practice areas, and will be able to help law students know what practice areas might be interesting for them. Moving that later in the career spectrum, we can also help law firms better deploy their talent in areas that actually fit well for the lawyer, and also help firms identify attorneys that might be more predisposed to business development.

Upon completion of the 20 minute assessment, at http://www.attorneyassessment.com, each participant will immediately receive a detailed report that profiles the individuals distinctive characteristics in the traits that are most important to practicing law, and how he or she compares to the collective norm of attorneys across the country in each measured trait. The individual can use these results to understand his or her own strengths and how to leverage them. All data will be aggregated anonymously in the study, with no identifying individual characteristics.

Any law firm, law school or bar association interested in taking part in the study can contact either of the companies or their representatives listed below.

JD Match, the first truly 21st-Century legal recruiting platform, headquartered in New York, has been developed by Bruce MacEwen and Janet Stanton, the same individuals behind industry-leading publishing and management consulting firm Adam Smith, Esq.

The Right Profile (TRP) is the leader in predictive talent selection integrating the latest technologies with predictive methodologies in behavioral science that transforms the way organizations select and develop talent. We harness people-centric science and predictive analytics to help organizations make smarter personnel decisions. TRP is active in multiple markets including professional sports, corporate, legal and military. TRP is headquartered in Chicago and has offices in Orlando and Kansas City, MO.

Read the original post:
Attorney Study Hopes to Find Key to Attorney Longevity and Fit

The Middle East is certainly not the most peaceful region of the world.Lets take Iraqs perspective: It has fought three major wars in the past 35 years, including an eight-year war with Iran that cost 1-1.5 million lives on both sides. It also saw the widespread use of poison gas by Iraq, with the strong encouragement of the United States.

Looking at the region from Israels perspective cannot make one any cheerier. Israel has fought five major wars with its Arab neighbors in 1947-48, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. It also had to deal with the bloody Second Palestinian Intifada from 2001 to 2005.

The first four major wars were all ones of national survival. The Lebanese Civil War next door cost at least 150,000 Lebanese lives.

Here is a surprise, though: The Middle Easts record in longevity and scale of wars, as well as of human rights abuses is actually minuscule when compared with the records of Europe, Asia and Africa.

Even Saddam Husseins vicious campaigns against the Kurds in northern Iraq never approached the scale of genocide, or inflicted the scale of casualties that Mexico has experienced in its unsuccessful war against the drug lords in its northern provinces over the past decade.

This is a racist and anti-Muslim stereotype that has wrongly received the force of a self-evident truth which is mostly due to the fact it has been repeated ad infinitum.

In fact, the Arab world resisted colonization by the European powers longer and more effectively than any other region. It was the last region to be annexed into the colonial system after World War I. And it was the first region to gain its full freedom after World War II.

Until the past 20 years, the Arab world vastly out-stripped all of sub-Saharan Africa in its development and rise in prosperity. It is still far ahead of it.

The horrific dictatorships of Adolf Hitler in Germany, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China enslaved hundreds of millions of people each. They brought terror and death to scores of millions across Europe and Asia. They did so on a scale no Arab government ever dreamed of doing.

Yes, torture was regularly used by autocratic regimes through the region. But until recent events in Egypt, it took second place, for example, to the military junta dictatorship in Argentina in the late 1970s, which murdered at least 30,000 people

Read more:
Three Myths About the Middle East