Category Archives: Human Longevity

With salons largely closed until this week, male grooming has been in freefall since the start of the spring lockdown. DIY haircuts have not been successful for all. Yet one Hollywood star has proved that even in a global pandemic, bad hair is not the great equaliser we hoped it would be.

George Clooney, the 59-year-old actor and human rights activist, has admitted to successfully cutting his own hair at home using a device called a Flowbee. My hairs really like straw, so its easy, he told CBS Sunday Morning.

According to Clooney, twice voted People magazines sexiest man alive, the $139.95 (103) contraption is so reliable he has been using it for more than 22 years and not simply during 2020. My haircuts take literally two minutes, he said, adding that its speed and efficiency had afforded him time to stain the garage doors, mop the floors and do much of the familys washing during lockdown in their Los Angeles home.

The Flowbee was a defining product of the 1980s infomercial boom in the US. It was designed in 1988 by Rick Hunts, a San Diego carpenter who was moved to invent the product after using his industrial vacuum cleaner to suck sawdust out of his hair. Hunts initially created and sold the gadget from his garage. But it was live demonstrations at a local county fair that edged him towards success, before global fame soon beckoned him, in the form of late-night TV demonstrations. By 2010, more than 2 million Americans had bought one.

In effect a pair of clippers with different length spacers and a suction tube, its longevity is partly down to theatrics according to various online tutorials, an up and down bouncing motion is best as well as positioning within popular culture. The Flowbee appeared in the cult 90s sitcoms Party of Five and Home Improvement, and was one of the many products parodied in the film Waynes World, where it was misnamed the suck cut. It helps too that the product is almost too ludicrous to forget.

Google searches for Flowbee took off following Clooneys weekend admission and the Flowbee website itself crashed. But while his endorsement will no doubt lend invaluable celebrity cachet to the brands image, largely unchanged since the 1980s, the Clooney effect is not in fact responsible for the products pandemic-era success.

As early as mid-March, the Flowbee had sold out on Walmarts website and on Amazon. It is not available in the UK and, according to Fortune magazine, Amazon says it doesnt know when the item will be back in stock. The UK saw a similar story when in April, John Lewis experienced a 200% increase in demand for clippers, and grooming tools from Philips and Remington sold out. All those products are, however, now available. According to its website, the Flowbee is not. Hunts, who demonstrates the model himself on the website, was not available for comment.

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Go with the Flowbee: George Clooney reveals how he cuts his hair - The Guardian

A little bit of post-injection soreness is completely normal. Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Matthew Woodruff, Emory University

Takeaways

Temporary side effects from vaccines are a normal sign of a developing immune response.

Vaccines work by training your immune system to recognize and remember a pathogen in a safe way.

Expected side effects from a COVID-19 vaccine include redness and swelling at the injection site and stiffness and soreness in the muscle.

A potent vaccine may even cause fever. It does not mean that the vaccine gave you COVID-19.

In 2021 hundreds of millions of people will be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. The success of that COVID-19 vaccination campaign will heavily depend on public trust that the vaccines are not only effective, but also safe. To build that trust, the medical and scientific communities have a responsibility to engage in difficult discussions with the public about the significant fraction of people who will experience temporary side effects from these vaccines.

I am an immunologist who studies the fundamentals of immune responses to vaccination, so part of that responsibility falls on me.

Simply put, receiving these vaccines will likely make a whole lot of people feel crappy for a few days. That's probably a good thing, and it's a far better prospect than long-term illness or death.

In 1989, immunologist Charles Janeway published an article summarizing the state of the field of immunology. Until that point, immunologists had accepted that immune responses were initiated when encountering something foreign - bacteria, viruses, and parasites - that was "non-self."

Janeway suspected that there was more to the story, and famously laid out what he referred to as "the immunologist's dirty little secret": Your immune system doesn't just respond just to foreign things. It responds to foreign things that it perceives to be dangerous.

Now, 30 years later, immunologists know that your immune system uses a complex set of sensors to understand not only whether or not something is foreign, but also what kind of threat, if any, a microbe might pose. It can tell the difference between viruses - like SARS-CoV-2 - and parasites, like tapeworms, and activate specialized arms of your immune system to deal with those specific threats accordingly. It can even monitor the level of tissue damage caused by an invader, and ramp up your immune response to match.

Sensing the type of threat posed by a microbe, and the level of intensity of that threat, allows your immune system to select the right set of responses, wield them precisely, and avoid the very real danger of immune overreaction.

Vaccines work by introducing a safe version of a pathogen to a patient's immune system. Your immune system remembers its past encounters and responds more efficiently if it sees the same pathogen again. However, it generates memory only if the vaccine packs enough danger signals to kick off a solid immune response.

As a result, your immune system's need to sense danger before responding is at once extremely important (imagine if it started attacking the thousands of species of friendly bacteria in your gut!) and highly problematic. The requirement for danger means that your immune system is programmed not to respond unless a clear threat is identified. It also means that if I'm developing a vaccine, I have to convince your immune system that the vaccine itself is a threat worth taking seriously.

This can be accomplished in a number of ways. One is to inject a weakened - what immunologists call attenuated - or even killed version of a pathogen. This approach has the benefit of looking almost identical to the "real" pathogen, triggering many of the same danger signals and often resulting in strong, long-term immunity, as is seen in polio vaccination. It can also be risky - if you haven't weakened the pathogen enough and roll out the vaccine too fast, there is a possibility of unintentionally infecting a large number of vaccine recipients. In addition to this unacceptable human cost, the resulting loss of trust in vaccines could lead to additional suffering as fewer people take other, safer vaccines.

A safer approach is to use individual components of the pathogen, harmless by themselves but capable of training your immune system to recognize the real thing. However, these pieces of the pathogen don't often contain the danger signals necessary to stimulate a strong memory response. As a result, they need to be supplemented with synthetic danger signals, which immunologists refer to as "adjuvants."

To make vaccines more effective, whole labs have been dedicated to the testing and development of new adjuvants. All are designed with the same basic purpose - to kick the immune system into action in a way that maximizes the effectiveness and longevity of the response. In doing so, we maximize the number of people that will benefit from the vaccine and the length of time those people are protected.

To do this, we take advantage of the same sensors that your immune system uses to sense damage in an active infection. That means that while they will stimulate an effective immune response, they will do so by producing temporary inflammatory effects. At a cellular level, the vaccine triggers inflammation at the injection site. Blood vessels in the area become a little more "leaky" to help recruit immune cells into the muscle tissue, causing the area to become red and swell. All of this kicks off a full-blown immune response in a lymph node somewhere nearby that will play out over the course of weeks.

In terms of symptoms, this can result in redness and swelling at the injection site, stiffness and soreness in the muscle, tenderness and swelling of the local lymph nodes and, if the vaccine is potent enough, even fever (and that associated generally crappy feeling).

This is the balance of vaccine design - maximizing protection and benefits while minimizing their uncomfortable, but necessary, side effects. That's not to say that serious side effects don't occur - they do - but they are exceedingly rare. Two of the most discussed serious side effects, anaphalaxis (a severe allergic reaction) and Guillain-Barre Syndrome (nerve damage due to inflammation), occur at a frequency of less than 1 in 500,000 doses.

Side effects are normal.

Early data suggest that the mRNA vaccines in development against SARS-CoV-2 are highly effective - upwards of 90%. That means they are capable of stimulating robust immune responses, complete with sufficient danger signaling, in greater than nine out of 10 patients. That's a high number under any circumstances, and suggests that these vaccines are potent.

So let's be clear here. You should expect to feel sore at the injection site the day after you get vaccinated. You should expect some redness and swelling, and you might even expect to feel generally run down for a day or two post-vaccination. All of these things are normal, anticipated and even intended.

While the data aren't finalized, more than 2% of the Moderna vaccine recipients experienced what they categorized as severe temporary side effects such as fatigue and headache. The percentage of people who experience any side effects will be higher. These are signs that the vaccine is doing what it was designed to do - train your immune system to respond against something it might otherwise ignore so that you'll be protected later. It does not mean that the vaccine gave you COVID-19.

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It all comes down to this: Some time in the coming months, you will be given a simple choice to protect yourself, your loved ones and your community from a highly transmissible and deadly disease that results in long-term health consequences for a significant number of otherwise healthy people. It may cost you a few days of feeling sick.

Please choose wisely.

Matthew Woodruff, Instructor, Lowance Center for Human Immunology, Emory University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Vaccines against COVID-19 will have side effects that's a good thing - Kiowa County Press

ANN ARBOR, MI Larry Hunter, a social activist who served 12 years on Ann Arbors City Council and advocated for human rights and affordable housing and fought racial discrimination and segregation, died Nov. 12.

He was 69.

Hunter was a Democratic 1st Ward representative from 1982 to 1994 and served as mayor pro tem under both Democratic and Republican mayors.

At last weeks council meeting, 1st Ward representative Jeff Hayner observed a moment of silence for the late city leader, calling him a king among men who will be missed.

Born in 1951, Hunter, one of 14 siblings, grew up in a public housing project and lived in both the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti areas.

He became politically active at an early age, organizing walkouts at Pioneer High School as a Black Student Union leader, and joined the Black Panther Party and participated in marches and demonstrations against injustice.

He made his first run for public office in 1982 as a 30-year-old former city employee and 18-year resident of Ann Arbor, unseating three-term incumbent Earl Greene.

At the time, Hunter lived at 610 N. Fifth Ave. in a historically Black neighborhood just north of downtown.

Hunter, an anti-death penalty advocate with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, lost in eight of 11 precincts in his first run, but scored heavily in the three precincts that included predominantly Black neighborhoods, The Ann Arbor News reported in 1982.

In a win that somewhat surprised his opponent, he outpolled Greene 70-25 at the Ann Arbor Community Center, 97-35 at the Arrowwood Hills Cooperative and 127-37 at Mack School.

We reached the grass roots, Hunter said. People have traditionally written off Arrowwood, but we didnt.

Prior to being elected, Hunter spent several years working with Ann Arbors public housing and Model Cities youth programs.

He also was on the board of the Community Skills Center, where he once recalled we managed to save a lot of kids and return them to the Ann Arbor Public Schools system. He also served as director of the Ypsilanti Resource Center.

These are some of the most difficult times in Ann Arbors history, Hunter wrote during his 1982 campaign, calling attention to revenue challenges, business losses and declining human services.

However, after many years of grassroots involvement in this community, I know that solutions will be found and that we will prevail and prosper, he said. This is because Ann Arbors greatest asset is its people and the unique human environment they have generated. Now more than ever, we need to mobilize their energies to solve our problems through active participation in the process of city government.

He advocated for holding the line on property tax increases wherever possible, while addressing neighborhood needs. He called for aggressive leadership to ensure the continuation of essential human services by the public sector.

Hunter also thought economic regeneration, along with carefully planned growth, should be among the citys top goals, pursued through broad-based community involvement.

On the campaign trail in 1982, he vowed to give careful consideration to the concept of a Downtown Development Authority, which City Council created during his first term. In November 1982, council adopted a downtown development and tax-increment financing plan to combat urban decline and revitalize downtown.

Hunter vowed to work with downtown businesses to advance equitable measures to improve the business environment and create jobs.

He quickly rose to party leadership after knocking off Greene, an old-guard Democrat, and was known for a blunt and sometimes rambling speaking style, engaging opponents in bitter debate while providing sage political advice for his allies, The News reported.

In a 7-3 vote described as a symbolic blow against apartheid in 1985, Hunter won support for a resolution to divest stock the city held $19 million in city pension funds in companies doing business in South Africa. He carried a Divest Now sign as he marched with protesters in front of city hall beforehand.

In an endorsement in 1990, The News called Hunter a consistent, thoughtful voice for the 1st Ward and a council member who worked skillfully behind the scenes.

He is a respected and knowledgeable politician, whose contributions to the community are numerous, The News wrote, saying one of his strongest traits was his willingness to compromise and find consensus, such as his work with Mayor Jerry Jernigan and other Republicans to assist the Ann Arbor YMCA with building additional housing.

Hunter has put his longevity to good use by taking strong leadership positions on major issues without neglecting the benefits of compromise, The News wrote. He also has represented his district with sensitivity, continues to press for affirmative action and articulates a vision of the city that includes affordable housing.

Few at city hall had a better grasp of the issues or better knowledge of the workings of government than Hunter, The News said.

In January 1991, Hunter, then 39, was arrested by Washtenaw County sheriffs deputies following a traffic stop on Michigan Avenue in Ypsilanti, an arrest he and his Democratic colleagues argued amounted to racial harassment.

White deputies who made the arrest alleged Hunter assaulted a deputy after the car in which he was a passenger was stopped because of a broken tail light.

Deputies also arrested the driver, 46-year-old Raymond Chauncey, an Ann Arbor human rights investigator and 21-year employee of the city.

Both men were jailed for about seven hours, according to news reports.

Hunter said the next morning there was absolutely no basis for the arrest and he questioned why deputies asked him for ID and searched him. He said his hand accidentally brushed a deputy while he was being searched and another deputy laughed and said, Thats assault.

The prosecutors office later determined there was not enough evidence for an assault charge.

Deputies claimed Hunter initially did not produce ID when requested and slapped and pushed away a deputys hand three times, and they searched him because he made a rapid movement to his pocket. Hunter maintained he initially didnt identify himself because he wasnt accused of a crime and was asserting his legal rights.

Hunter and Chauncey filed complaints against the sheriffs office alleging they were harassed because they were Black, and the sheriffs office launched an internal investigation.

Ray and I were subjected to brutality and incarceration and received overtly racist treatment by some deputies, Hunter said. It is not a crime to be born as an African American.

City Council Member Ann Marie Coleman, who represented the 1st Ward with Hunter, said she was truly outraged, while Liz Brater, D-3rd Ward, said she was very disturbed.

Everyone reports that when they have a tail light out and theyre stopped by the police, they get a warning, Coleman said. Im speechless that they did all they did with Mr. Chauncey and Mr. Hunter.

Weeks later, Republican Sheriff Ronald Schebil exonerated his deputies, saying they did nothing wrong.

There was probable cause to stop the vehicle, arrest the occupants and detain them at the correctional facility, he said in a news release.

Hunter called the finding an outrage and vowed to file a lawsuit for false arrest, false imprisonment and racial harassment.

He said he and Chauncey were not allowed to call attorneys while they were jailed until they pointed out two white men who also were jailed were given access to a phone.

Sabra Briere, a former 1st Ward council member, recalled this past week how Hunters arrest became a prime example of racial harassment by police when she was president of the Washtenaw County branch of the ACLU in the 1990s.

That was one of the things that people used when the ACLU was looking at driving while Black issues ... and its still an issue, Briere said. It is a shame it happened.

In 1993, as Ann Arbors longest-serving council member, Hunter announced he would not seek another term, saying 12 years is enough. He instead threw his support behind Pat Vereen-Dixon, manager of the Arrowwood Hills housing cooperative, who ran in the citys first November election and became the first Black woman on council.

Hunter later went on to earn a law degree and got involved in supporting lawsuits for fair housing and other issues in Washington, D.C.

Two years ago, while he was in town from D.C., he participated in a 74-minute video interview about his life as part of the Living Oral History Project, a partnership between the Ann Arbor District Library and the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County.

He recalled his early life, how he became politically active, how he was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and his involvement with the Black Panthers, which he called the first Black mans book club.

He also offered some advice to the younger generation to stay in school and never fall behind on getting an education.

But my most important thing is be yourself and learn how to stand up and fight, he said. And if you get knocked down, you get back up and you keep fighting.

Briere said shes saddened by Hunters loss. She considered him a fighter for human rights and those with lesser means.

Hunter was probably concerned about national issues more than some were comfortable with locally, Briere said.

What Larry was, was a good spokesperson for all politics is local ... think globally, act locally, she said. Those were things that he was always doing.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Records show wide range of citizen complaints against Ann Arbor police

Police oversight in Ann Arbor challenged by citys refusal to release officer discipline records

Ann Arbors new cutting-edge recycling plant with zero-waste ethic to open October 2021

3 days of court hearings planned for arguments in Ann Arbor dioxane pollution case

Coronavirus on campus: How Michigan colleges handled it and what the winter semester holds

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Larry Hunter, former Ann Arbor council member and Black Panther, dies at 69 - MLive.com

Longevity expert Dr. Brian Kennedy explains the signs behind increasing your life span and happiness. Dr. Kennedy says the United States ranks 39th in life expectancy. Sleep is key to longevity and also human connection. He says he believes the pandemic is leading to poorer lifestyle choices that are increasing our aging at the same time. Stress is affecting our sleep and its keeping us from being with our friends and family. He says weve known in the elderly these two factors are predictors for mortality. Older people often live alone and they have these problems naturally but the pandemic is really exasperating those problems for the elderly and it is extending to everyone now so we need strategies to deal with that. Dr. Kennedy says the first thing he would say sounds obvious but try to stay positive. This pandemic will come to an end. One thing that is important is mindfulness; finding ways to be self-aware to figure out whats going on in your own brain. To realize when you are stressed is a big step toward dealing with it and that can be through meditation or yoga. There isnt one right answer. Dr. Kennedy says he does a lot of runs and that clears his head. He says one thing that may be worth reading is Be Your Own Harmonist by Lola Till. He says the reason he brings it up is that it is a personal journey for a healthy lifestyle. She is not a doctor. She wanted to find a way to adopt a healthier approach to her life.

Dr. Kennedy says we are losing exercise right now if you are not going to work or out with your friends. He says probably missing four or five thousand steps a day that you normally get so it is important to find safe ways to get that exercise whether it is running or biking or exercising at home. Then with diet he says in the United States the problem is people are overeating. He said life expectancy is not going up in part because of obesity. The research shows that fasting can be very beneficial. This is going periods of time without eating. One way people do it is by time restricted eating where you eat all of your food in an 8 or 12 hour window. There are a lot of different ways to do fasting but all of them show really good benefits. They are good for metabolism, they help you lose weight, they are good for inflammation and in the long term they help rejuvenate your skin cells and deal with cellular damage. One way to do that is with a fasting mimicking diet. ProLon has this diet that has five days of food and it gives you healthy nutrition and good things to eat but keeps those pathways that drive aging and inflammation down and it gives you the benefits of fasting without actually having to go through the fast. He says he thinks a really good way to kickstart a healthy diet if you want to go down that path.

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For information on the book Be Your Own Harmonist by Lola Till click here.

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Life Longevity and the pursuit of harmony - WKBW-TV

Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Want to live a long and healthy life? Experts in human longevity often stress the importance of staying active.

But new research suggests more sedentary animals -- species that stay put, avoiding long distance travel -- enjoy comparatively longer lifespans.

The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, suggest animal species that migrate tend to "live fast and die young."

For the study, scientists at the University of Exeter analyzed the development patterns and lifespans of some 1,300 mammal and bird species. They found species that migrate develop faster, reproduce earlier and generally live shorter lives than their more stationary peers.

Their analysis may explain why many migratory species are on the decline.

"Many species migrate over long distances and this requires substantial amounts of energy," lead study author Andrea Soriano-Redondo said in a news release.

"This energy cannot be used for other purposes such as self-maintenance or reproduction, so we would expect animals to adjust the amount of energy they use for these things," said Soriano-Redondo, a conservation biologist and research fellow at Exeter.

Instead of investing their energy in survival, migrating species focus on reproducing earlier and faster. The ability to generate offspring more rapidly may help migrating species offset the risks posed by their fast-paced lifestyle.

Researchers gauged the "pace-of-life" of hundreds of bird and mammal species by considering their longevity, age of female sexual maturity and the number of times a species can reproduce each year.

Several studies have highlighted the dangers climate change poses to migrating species. The latest research suggests changes in temperature and seasonal patterns can amplify the risks of what was already a perilous lifestyle.

"We have long thought that migration is a risky behavior," said study co-author Stuart Bearhop.

"Animals often take a chance when they migrate, hoping to find the right conditions in their destination. In the case of birds that migrate to the High Arctic, they arrive in spring and have a short window in which to breed," said Bearhop, professor of biology at Exeter's Center for Ecology and Conservation.

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Migrating species tend to 'live fast and die young' - UPI News

Lets face it: life expectancy in the U.S. is an issue. Ranked 39th in the world at 78.93 years, Americans life expectancy lingers behind dozens of comparable countries (take Japans 84.67 years). As if this trend werent hard enough to navigate on its own, the Coronavirus pandemic has taken over 200,000 American lives and age is among the top risk factors for severe illness.

Americans are feeling overwhelmed. The pandemic has thrown their lives off track physically, mentally, and emotionally. A recent survey shows 8 out of 10 Americans have changed their eating habits; theyre snacking more and moving less. 80% of mothers are dealing with mild to high levels of anxiety around COVID its keeping 23% of moms up all night.

With no end in sight to the pandemic, Americans are desperate for advice on how to adjust and find ways to live their best life. American longevity expert Dr. Brian Kennedy is famous for his research in the biology of aging. Hes a visionary, translating research discoveries into new ways of delaying, detecting, and preventing human aging and associated diseases. Dr. Kennedy is joining viewers virtually from Singapore to give them knowledge and tools as they seek to find harmony, balance, and longevity amid the chaos.

Dr. Brian Kennedy will share key insights with viewers, and discuss the three top factors to increasing longevity:

Sleep for success: Did you know that sleep and longevity are directly related and can affect memory and immunity? Deep, consistent sleep is tied to good health and too little of it may end up shortening your life. Researchers say that every 5% reduction in REM sleep increases mortality rates by 13% to 17% among middle-age and older adults.

Human Connection is Key: Social isolation and feelings of loneliness have become widespread issues in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. Studies show loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan, and are as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Recently, researchers found links between poor physical and mental health outcomes and major risk factors like social isolation, especially in older adult populations. In general, Dr. Kennedy will explain why social connection is so important to our emotional health and overall longevity and will share ways to stay connected despite distance.

Mindfulness over matter: One of the most essential aspects to preserving and enhancing your health is mindfulness the ability to be fully present in the moment. Studies have linked quieter brains with longer lifespans. Dr. Kennedy will explain that mindfulness isnt just about observing the thoughts in your brain it also includes practices like forgiveness and time in nature that benefit emotional and physical health, and can reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety. Dr. Kennedy will share his tips and favorite reads on the subject.

The Science of Eating and Moving: Americans say the pandemic has thrown their eating habits out of whack. A recent survey shows Americans are snacking more and thinking about food more than usual. Dr. Kennedy believes a combination of proper nutrition and exercise leads to increased energy, mental clarity, and longevity. He will share how overall wellness and longevity can be positively impacted by eating foods that give your body the nutrients it needs to function at its best. Additionally, Dr. Kennedy will explain how periods of fasting can allow the body to rest and reset, and benefit processes in the body including cell rejuvenation.

About Dr. Brian Kennedy:Dr. Brian Kennedy is internationally recognized for his research in the basic biology of aging and as a visionary committed to translating research discoveries into new ways of delaying, detecting, and preventing human aging and associated diseases. He is a Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Physiology at National University Singapore and Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity in the National University Health System. From 2010 to 2016 he was the President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. Currently he remains as a Professor at the Institute. Dr. Kennedy also has an adjunct appointment at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. He is also actively involved biotechnology companies, serving in consulting and board capacities, as well as Scientific Director of Affirmative Health. Dr. Kennedy is on the Board of Directors for L-Nutra, Inc. and serves as a Co-Editor-In-Chief at Aging Cell.

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Fountain of youth? The science behind living longer - KGUN