Category Archives: Longevity Medicine

For Fast Companys Shape of Tomorrow series, were asking business leaders to share their inside perspective on how the COVID-19 era is transforming their industries. Heres whats been lostand what could be gainedin the new world order.

James Merlino,chief clinical transformation officer of the Cleveland Clinic

The old saying in crisis is never let the opportunity go to waste. Weve learned a couple things. One is that this has reemphasized the importance of safety. Were doing thermal screening for healthcare providers. Were testing any patient whos coming in for any surgery or ambulatory care. If theyre COVID-positive, well delay their procedure unless its an emergency.

The second thing is were seeing technology innovations, such as virtual rounding done on an iPad and virtual [visits]. Before COVID hit, we were doing 3,000 virtual visits a month. In March, we did 60,000. Then there are small things, such as putting IV pumps and ventilators outside the door in our COVID ICU.

We have to learn how to live with COVID. Some hospitals may suffer. But I want to believe that this is going to make us deliver care more efficiently. Weve been talking about social determinants and chronic health for a long time, but this is our opportunity to step in. COVID-19 preys on the elderly, on the socially disadvantaged. Going forward, we have to manage COVID-19 with more consistent care.

Nancy Lublin, CEO of Crisis Text Line, a nonprofit organization that provides free mental health texting services

If you were feeling things before, if you were struggling before, if you had an addiction or an eating disorder or anxiety or depression or a bad relationship, those things just became a lot harder. And even if you were perfect before, you are not perfect now.

53% of our texters before COVID were under the age of 17, and now the biggest age group were seeing is 18 to 34. Their lives have just been turned upside down. They were adulting, and now theyre home with their parents. Or theyre quarantined with roommates whom they didnt really know that well, or sheltering alone, and thats really hard. Or they have little children. Dating has been disrupted for the 18-to-34 age groupfor everybody.

When COVID first hit America, we saw a massive influx in anxiety. They were using words like freaked out, panic, and it was mostly about symptoms. That shifted into what we consider the second wave of feeling: the impact of the quarantines. Weve seen a 78% increase in domestic violence, a 44% increase in sexual abuse. Weve seen a huge increase in financial stress, people worried about homelessness, or thinking about financial ruin.

Mental health and well-being should be part of our education. One of the most important things is how to communicate with people, how to disagree with people, how to have productive relationships. And yet we dont learn any of this. Instead we learn calculuswhich I still havent used.

Christos Christou, international president of Doctors Without Borders

Because of COVID, it is now extremely challenging to move our resources and our people to those places that need them. Were not allowed to fly from Canada or Europe to Yemen, Tanzania, etc. And we are not allowed to export any material, because of nationalism, a very selfish approach by states, which are fighting against each other for supplies. They want to show that they can protect [their citizens]. They will ban any exportation of PPE and, in the event we get a new vaccine, they will make sure that they can stockpile it.

There are multiple crises within the COVID crisis. TB patients are not allowed to access any hospitals at the moment, and they need treatments every day. HIV patients, the same. We have war traumas. Some of the facilities have been repurposed, so its not easy for us to run surgeries. Malaria kills millions of people. We have the treatments, but [theyve] been affected a little bit because of all these debates about the chloroquine. We [also] have a rapid test for malaria. [But] the company that is producing this test has decided now that theres much more profit by repurposing it into a rapid test for COVID.

We have to rethink health systems. Its obvious that only public health systems and national health systems are going to provide the solution.

Im afraid for those places we cannot access. In Northwest Syria, [after] Idlib was bombed [in February], people were in desperate need of food, accommodation, and health services. All of a sudden, with COVID, everyone forgot about this situation. But this doesnt mean that their problems evaporated. Yemen is another place. In the past few days we have confirmed that theres a local transmission of COVID, and theres zero capacity. Im not talking about ventilators or ICU beds. They dont even have the test, the diagnostic. This is one of my nightmares.

[Source images: Videvo; _Aine_/iStock]The other one is related to those places where people live in high-density settlements. Im talking about communities like Coxs Bazar in Bangladesh, the Greek Islands, the favelas in Brazil, the [refugee] camps in Kenya. Anything related to good hygiene or stay-at-home policies in these place is just a luxury. [Its] not an option.

We have to rethink health systems. Its obvious that only public health systems and national health systems are going to provide the solution. If we leave it to the free market, their rules are different: Their driver is profit making. They have every right to do so, but you cannot ask for vaccines or therapeutics and diagnostics from those people. In this [pandemic], we should not allow anyone to profit from the solution.

Dr. Gianrico Farrugia,CEO of Mayo Clinic

COVID has enabled us to create virtual health as a new normal. Not only in terms of remote monitoring and acute medical care, but also for advanced care at home. For example, electrocardiograms can be done on a smartwatch to diagnose heart failure or to measure potassium.

As a nation, we have been promising and not delivering on telehealth now for several years, and that has had to do with licensure, regulation, billing, but also just healthcares reluctance to change. With those barriers removed, weve been able to move from maybe 400 to 35,000 virtual visits a week.

Some of the regulations that have been relaxed need to become permanentand in a way that can be enforced so patient safety does not suffer. We [shouldnt] go back to where we were, because we would have lost a huge opportunitythis tiny silver lining in the pandemic, which is the digital revolution of healthcare.

Yonatan Adiri,CEO of Healthy.io, a company that uses cellphone cameras to create clinical grade at-home tests for urinary tract infections and kidney disease

I dont buy that this has been the watershed moment for healthcare. The forces of status quo are very strong. Physicians can now practice across state lines; Medicare will reimburse remote patients sessions at the same price as in-person. People thought these things would take a decade to happen. We now have to work to keep this the new normal. All it takes is one company making false claims that creates a safety or efficacy issue and the whole thing will be rolled back.

If this had happened 10 years ago, it would have been a million-and-counting dead, and not 300,000 dead.

If this had happened 10 years agowithout computation, without DNA sequencing, without cloud, without bandwidth, without high-resolution selfie camerasit would have been a million-and-counting dead, and not 300,000 dead.

Andrew Diamond,chief medical officer at primary care company One Medical, which offers outdoor testing sites for COVID-19

We need a strategy to test enormous numbers of people, almost on a surveillance-like basis. And if you cant do that, then you need an alternative, like really robust contact tracing. I could see by the fall or maybe mid-winter that we could have technology where you couldat the door of your office building or apartment building or mass transit station or airport airline terminalspit into a disposable cup at a machine that gives you a readout in a matter of minutes.We also need to double down on taking care of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity. Some of the people who are most vulnerable to the worst effects of the infection are people with those conditions. Thats our bread and butter in primary care, but thats also how were actually going to contain the damage from COVID-19, as it lives with us for months and years to come.

Peter Diamandis,founder of the XPrize Foundation and several companies in the health space, including Cellularity, Human Longevity, and Covaxx

People feel abandoned by the healthcare system. They feel its dangerous to go to hospitals because theyre overloaded. There is a significant opportunity for new startups and for Apple, Google, and Amazon to step in and deliver much more efficient turnkey data-driven services.

The government should be pouring capital into research, but its going to be entrepreneurial companies that are in your home already that are delivering and collecting the data [that will] make you the CEO of your own health. How do you partner with AI to really understand whats going on and what your options are? I dont think health systems can innovate sufficiently [on their own].

Richard Park,cofounder of CityMD and CEO of Rendr Care

Whats going on now is this huge, bubbling, socioeconomic friction between the haves and the have-nots. COVID-19 is a real reflection of that, especially in New York. If you look at CityMD and its hot spots, its [where you find] the vulnerable populations.

I was born here in the States, but to immigrant parents, who migrated here in the late 60s. They were grateful to be second-class citizens here in the greatest country on the planet. That humility, that you are always in debt to the greater society . . . was an underlying theme at home.

Theres going to be more and more pressure to be efficient on healthcare, and so the baseline standards will get more and more meager.

[My family] would open stores and close stores and [have] terrible financial troubles. Not unlike so many other New Yorkers today, especially now with COVID. We had borrowed money from so many people to pay rent. It accentuated a tremendous amount of shame and guilt. I would, as a kid, walk around, knowing, That person lent us $5,000. That person lent us $10,000, over the years. I couldnt even look them in the eye. The beautiful part of it was, as a community, they lent us money and they knew they were never getting it back. And I finally actually paid back everybody. Some of that debt was more than 35 years old. People were never expecting it.

[Source images: Videvo; _Aine_/iStock]At CityMD, the other founders are immigrants, and they understood this. We made a decision early on not to separate Medicaid [patients] from [those with] commercial [insurance plans]. People said, You cant mix the two populations. The Wall Street banker will not sit next to the Medicaid person. Maybe that was true in the past, but we said, Were not going to do that. Now we know, it absolutely does work together.

Concierge medicine is wrong. I consider that wrong. Its not how I want to roll. I dont want to participate in that. [But] as the economy has difficulty, as Medicaid enrollment swells, revenue decreases at the state level. Its a bad mix: more enrollment, less revenue for it. This puts pressure on everybody. In the same way, employers have this impossible 5% year-over-year [increase in] healthcare costs. Its not sustainable. Theres going to be more and more pressure on healthcare to be efficient, and so the baseline standards will get more and more meager. Thats why the [concierge medical services] will arise. There are people who can afford it.

More from Fast Companys Shape of Tomorrow series:

Continued here:
Here's how COVID-19 is reshaping medicine, according to experts - Fast Company

FARRELL

Last of two parts.

Many people have reported sleep problems during the coronavirus pandemic not a good development, because we need our sleep.

But why do we need our sleep? And how can we promote good sleep habits?

Cognitive performance

Although it may be tempting to sleep in on weekends after a long week of classes, some studies report that this habit results in a smaller volume of gray matter in adolescent brains.

One study found that students who altered their sleep pattern on weekends had a lower grade average than those who did not. It seems that it is not only important to maintain a healthy average amount of sleep each night, but also to stay consistent with the hours you sleep.

Physical fitness

Many studies have linked unhealthy sleep patterns to obesity. Inadequate sleep causes irregular levels of the hormones that are responsible for telling our brains when we need to eat. This hormone imbalance can lead to obesity and thus make us vulnerable to the dangerous effects of dramatically increased body fat.

Longevity

A healthy sleep schedule has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, which are two of the leading causes of death in the United States. For example, interruptions in sleep due to disorders like sleep apnea have been shown to be a risk factor for stroke, and that persistent tiredness often preceded heart disease.

Physical performance

Whether you are a high school or collegiate athlete, or simply enjoy some daily exercise, a healthy sleep schedule can help maximize performance. Its possible that athletes require different sleep patterns than the general population to reach peak performance. And sleep loss has been linked to a decreased ability in athletes to store sugar in the muscles to use as energy during a workout.

There are, of course, a plethora of things that can negatively affect our sleep. Even one night of poor sleep can drastically affect our performance and ability to concentrate the following day. So how do we combat this? There are several simple habits that can improve sleep hygiene and increase the likelihood of getting a good nights sleep.

Tips for better sleep

Set a routine: Going to bed and waking at the same time every day, even on weekends, strengthens our circadian rhythms. Our brains become accustomed to the routine and allow us to fall asleep quicker, reach more restful sleep faster, and wake up feeling refreshed rather than startled by the blaring of our alarms.

Limit screen time before bed: The light from our electronic devices tricks our eyes into believing its day rather than night. Try to stop using your devices an hour before you head to bed to allow your brain to naturally power down for the day. This means limiting falling asleep to Netflix as best we can. An even better idea would be to remove TVs from the bedroom altogether.

Exercise earlier in the day: While frequent exercise is essential to our health and helps us fall asleep, working out right before bed can result in poorer sleep. Avoid strenuous exercise at least one hour before bed.

Meditation: I can hear the groans already, but it works especially in individuals who have difficulty quieting their minds after a hectic day. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated significant improvement in the quality of sleep for those who practiced mindfulness meditation compared with those who did not.

Move when you have difficulty falling asleep: If you find yourself unable to fall asleep within 30 minutes of lying down, get out of bed. Go to another room and read in dim lighting or listen to music until you feel tired, then try again.

There are thousands of other resources that can help you achieve a great nights sleep. Apps like Calm and Headspace have guided meditations and relaxation techniques to help you unwind before bed. More useful information about healthy sleep and why it is important can be found on Harvard Medical Schools Healthy Sleep website. And there are plenty of YouTube videos with relaxation techniques and informative healthy sleep videos to be discovered.

If these interventions do not improve your sleep, talk to your primary care doctor and see which next steps are right for you.

Sleeping well is not always easy, and there will undoubtedly be nights on which rest eludes you despite your best efforts. But with consistent healthy sleep habits, youll be on your way to a healthier and better tomorrow.

TODAYS COLUMN is a regular health feature created in partnership with Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in Scranton. It appears monthly in place of Dr. Paul J. Mackareys Health & Exercise Forum. Dr. Mackarey, a doctor in health sciences specializing in orthopedic and sports physical therapy, is in private practice and an associate professor of clinical medicine at GCSM. Email: drpmackarey@msn.com. This column is written by

TIMOTHY FARRELL, a third-year medical student at GCSM. Originally from Clarks Summit, he received his bachelors degree from Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, is currently a second lieutenant in the Army and hopes to pursue a career in general surgery. He also volunteers with the Cody Barrasse Foundation in the Organ Transplant Assistance Program.

View post:
Why you need to sleep well, and how to do it - Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice

Jo's was a discreet but constant presence. She was practically always there, in the audience, listening to her husband, who spoke from the stage in front of crowds of theaters and auditoriums. And he, Franco Berrino, epidemiologist, director of the predictive medicine clinic of the Cancer Institute of Milan for years and author of very successful texts on longevity and healthy life, knows that she is still there, even if last February She was born in heaven. She knows it because it is the message that she left him on their last day, when she asked him to sing her Tibetan mantras (she had never done it before, I understood afterwards that it was her way to greet me) by letting herself be kept close in your arms. And it went like this, serenely. Because he was not afraid of death. But in order not to be afraid of death explains Berrino to Half an hour with Corriere (here the full video interview) you need to know how to live life well. Death does not scare those who have had a conscious life, those who have been aware, those who have realized they are living . Moreover, he himself already imagined his death and told it in his new book The food of wisdom What really feeds us , written with four hands with the Taoist master Marco Montagnani, and dedicated to his life partner (who in the soul guarded the shadow of the valleys and the light of the peaks, like our mountains) who comes out today for Mondadori: I dreamed of being dressed in a white tunic, which in real life I never wear, in a dojo, at the end of a group meditation session. In the end everyone leaves, except for a beautiful girl: she comes back to me, touches my shoulder and I simply disappear. The dress empties of my body and slides to the ground . He wouldn't know who that girl was. No, I didn't recognize her. However, we like to think that it could be his Jo (with him above in the photo of Enrica Bortolazzi) , which he tenderly continues to call my bride.

You say that those on death are among the most beautiful pages of your book We are experiencing difficult days. But I think the most terrible thing is not so much the number of the dead, but the fact of dying alone, intubated, without being able to hold the bride, the groom, a son by the hand. After all, the death had already been stolen from us by medicine, by medical assistance, by resuscitators. And above all it had been stolen from a culture that sees it only as something terrible and negative. Life is said to be the thing that goes by while you are busy doing something else. Death can be beautiful. Today in the medical environment it is thought that one dies only from illness. But a disease is not necessary to die: we can very well get to die from old and disease-free. Diseases are and have many causes, but we can do a lot to avoid them, with food or exercise .

You have long maintained that healthy eating is the best medicine Food has a great effect on the immune system. We need good food to feed our soil, which is then our intestines, where billions of microbes that work for us live. But in today's way of eating there is no good food for our microbes. Vegetable fibers are good food and if we eat them, we get sick less of diabetes, cancer, heart attack, diseases of the respiratory system of the digestive system and also of infectious diseases. The studies in this field are very clear: those who follow a diet rich in fiber get less ill. Also of infectious diseases, because we make the digestive system that is the seat of our immune system work better .

Among other things, in this period it seems that everyone is spending time eating. Do you know that the hashtag #andratuttostretto was coined by paraphrasing the slogan It will be all right? I suggest taking advantage of the time finally found to stay in the kitchen and prepare healthy things. Cooking whole grains or foods rich in fiber that, in fact, also defend us from coronavirus. Instead, sweets should not be eaten because they are not good for our immune system. And if you really want to do them, prepare them so that they don't raise the blood sugar level

You also offer recipes on your Facebook page, some with captivating names. Like the panzerotti della happiness, which are just sweets Serotonin is the hormone of happiness and something sweet is needed to get it to the brain. So I chose ingredients that contain large quantities of amino acids that stimulate it: tofu, dates, nuts. The result was a sweet baked with whole wheat flour, which is a healthy concentrate of happiness .

How do you live this confinement period? Net of the situation healthcare, it's fantastic to be in Milan with clean air and silence. My apartment has a small terrace, which I had never used much in the past, only my wife sometimes looked after us with flowers. At noon it is in the sun. I'm going to have lunch there and it's a beautiful thing: you can taste the feeling of a city without pollution, which has certainly played a role in this epidemic. Then every day, in contravention of the rules a bit, I go upstairs to the friends who have a big TV screen and together we do aerobics: 40 minutes of aerobic exercise. You must always be active, even physical exercise helps us not to get sick, it has a great effect on the immune system .

Silence is something that in fact we all have a little rediscovered these days. Yes, and it is very important. It is not only silence understood as distance from sounds but from all the things that disturb our intimacy, our ability to look inside ourselves, our internal hygiene. Silence is indispensable to free the mind. The great masters can also meditate in the midst of traffic, but the less gifted people really need silence to find themselves. And finding yourself is very important in this world where we are always distracted by something, noise, images, television. TV is a truly perverse tool, it seems that it was invented on purpose so that, always remaining in operation, it prevents us from thinking and reflecting. Do you think that Gandhi remained silent one day a week, even when he had great political responsibilities and if there was an urgency he responded by writing on a ticket. I occasionally do a day of silence, a day when I don't speak. Silence helps us to realize that we are alive, that we exist .

A chat with Franco Berrino is never just an interview. It is a small journey that takes unexpected directions, a sort of journey without a specific destination. Like what he did for an entire day with Marco Montagnani, a Taoist teacher, in the Casentino woods, addressing the theme of life and that of death, that of fear (I was born in '44 under the bombing, I learned to know fear from the beginning ) and that of destiny, that of simplicity and that of gratitude. And also that of love. Love is like the sun, it is love for everything underlines Berrino -. Many of our hardships depend on the ego that we built in our mind, on the personality that we created to be accepted by our parents, people, employers. That ego that is so selfish that it hinders us in the search for the deep truth that is within us. At some point it is good to go the other way, to dismantle our ego. And that's when we will discover love. Because, as my Taoist master says, love appears when the mind dies .

Excerpt from:
Berrino: Death can be beautiful. But first you have to learn to live (long) - Surfacing Magazine

Players and coaches dont win championships;organisations win championships.

These are the infamous, supposedly self-interested words of former Chicago Bulls GM Jerry Krause, the villain of Netflixs ongoing 10-part documentary, The Last Dance. At the time of writing, two more episodes remain of the ultra-popular basketball documentary; and while public favour of former Bulls star player Michael Jordan seems to be at an all-time high, the same could probably not be said of MJs front office counterpart. At a time when people have more reason than ever to engross themselves in television, Krauses infamy in pop culture is currently matched only by Tiger King protagonist Carole Baskin. If you arent familiar with the NBA or the documentary, here are a couple of tweets to give you an idea:

Throughout the series, Krause is portrayed as jealous,greedy and bitter. On multiple occasions he is openly mocked by Michael Jordan,mainly in reference to Krauses stature. On one occasion, Krause is shownswallowing medicine while standing on the sidelines during a practice session.Jordan, without missing a beat, sarcastically remarks: So those are thepills that keep you short! Or are those diet pills? It was Jordan, the mostdecorated player in NBA history, who immortalised Krauses nickname, Crumbs,in reference to the doughnut crumbs which Krause was often said to leave on hissuits. Despite being ostensibly the boss of the team, Jerry Krause was at thevery bottom of the Bulls social hierarchy. He sat by himself on the team bus,he was the butt of every joke, and he was critiqued publicly and privately by the Bulls playing and coaching staff.

Of course, some of this criticism was entirely fair. When Scottie Pippen, Jordans brightest co-star and a perennial all-star player in his own right, asked for a contract which didnt even remotely come close to other players of his calibre, it was Krause who stubbornly refused. Pippen would become renowned as the most criminally underpaid player of his generation. And when the Bulls did win their sixth championship in eight years in 1998 spoiler alert it was Krause who seemingly inexplicably dismantled the team, losing four of the teams starting five players and replacing long-term head coach Phil Jackson. The prevailing diagnosis for this decision has, for the guts of two decades, been that Krause simply could not stand being out of the limelight. That his jealousy simply overrode his professionalism and steered the Bulls into the (mostly) mediocre two decades which followed in his absence. I, however, would like to offer up a defence.

It is not easy to win a battle of public opinionagainst a man like Michael Jordan. In todays age of ultra-accessiblecelebrities enabled by social media, it is simply impossible to quantify thescale of Jordans ethereal fame in the 90s. Between commercials with Nike,McDonalds or Coca-Cola, Jordan would win a record 6 MVP awards and find thetime to star in Space Jam, which at the time was the highest-grossing sportsmovie ever which didnt have a bloke called Rocky in it. Suffice to say: Jordanspeaks, people listen. And, in The Last Dance, he speaks at great length usually at the expense of Jerry Krause.

But heres the problem: in the NBA, general managers arent supposedto engage in wars of public opinion, and Krause was dragged into a public trialwhich he never wanted any part of. One of his more complimentary nicknames wasThe Sleuth, earned due to his renowned ability to keep secrets and do hiswork outside of the mass media horde. The team Krause inherited in 1985 consistedof what Jordan himself compared to a travelling cocaine circus, and TheSleuth transformed this into the most successful team in the history of thesport within 15 years, winning three championships in a row on two occasions.For those unaware, the NBA operates on one crucial egalitarian principle: eachyear, the teams with the worst record in the previous season receive the firstchoices in the following years NBA Draft, consisting of the best prospectsfrom colleges throughout the country and elsewhere. If youre a good team, thatmeans you have to try exceptionally hard to find diamonds in the rough if youare to achieve any modicum of longevity, given every other worse team are beinggiven the best young players in the world year upon year and as it happened,diamonds in the rough were Jerry Krauses speciality. In one famous example, hetravelled to Yugoslavia to personally scout young forward Toni Kuko, who wouldgo on to be drafted as late as 29th overall in 1990, and ended upbeing an integral part of the team as the Bulls won their second three-peat.

Other than Jordan, there was not a single player on any ofthe Bulls championship-winning teams in the 90s who hadnt been hand-picked byJerry Krause, and yet the Bulls faithful and general public have painted him asthe villain at every turn. The Last Dance and its long full-featureinterviews with Jordan and Pippen do not help to soften this depiction.[Krause] would rather destroy an institution than see it thrive, seethes oneof the aforementioned tweeters off the back of another episode of thedocumentary, but in my view this anger is misplaced. Jerry Krause orchestratedarguably the most successful period of sporting dominance of the last 30 yearsand initiated a rebuild of the team when it appeared as though that era wascoming to an end. Krause died in 2017 and wasnt able to be interviewed by theproducers of The Last Dance. Perhaps if he had been, the unfortunatenarrative which continues to shroud his legacy could have been reversed.

Originally posted here:
In defence of Jerry Krause: Responding to 'The Last Dance' - Cherwell Online

May 23, 2020

TOKYO Uncertainty grips next years postponed Tokyo Olympics: Will there be fans or empty stadiums in 14 months? And how will thousands of athletes, staff, and technical officials travel, be housed, and stay safe amid COVID-19?

And Tokyo is not alone.

China where the COVID-19 outbreak was first detected will hold three mega-sports events within a year after Tokyo is set to close.

The World University Games in Chengdu in western China open 10 days after the Tokyo Games close, with up to 8,000 athletes. Next come the Beijing Winter Olympics beginning on Feb. 4, 2022, and the Asian Games in Hangzhou starting on Sept. 10. The previous edition of the Asian Games in Indonesia drew 11,000 athletes and featured more sports than the Olympics.

A fourth major event, soccers 24-team Club World Championship, was to open in China in June of 2021, but has been postponed because of scheduling conflicts created by the pandemic.

China is a go-to country for these mega events, through expertise gained from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and because it absorbs the massive costs. It spent at least $40 billion to organize the 2008 Olympics, and there was no national debate since the authoritarian state prohibits voting or referendums.

Voters in Europe and North America have repeatedly said no to referendums to hold the games. China landed the 2022 Winter Olympics when several European bidders withdrew. Beijing won narrowly in a vote by the IOC against Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Telling the citizens of Bavaria or Switzerland that another Winter Olympics would benefit them greatly doesnt work, Jonathan Grix, who studies sports policy at Manchester Metropolitan University, wrote in an email. He said voters sense that citizens rarely benefit the most from such events.

Authoritarian states have no need to ask the populace, they have no need to compromise on policy, there is no political opposition (by definition) and most delivery services are state-run, ensuring the smooth running of the event, Grix added.

Japanese and International Olympic Committee officials have given few details about how the Tokyo Olympics will be staged, the cost of postponement, and who will pay for it. Theyve teased the problems and floated tenuous solutions. Theyve agreed on one thing: If the games cant open on July 23, 2021, theyll be canceled.

In a joint news conference last weekend, the director general of the World Health Organization cautioned it would not be easy to make the Olympics a safe global gathering spot.

But Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed confidence: I think its possible,

IOC President Thomas Bach has been cautious in speculating how the Olympics can be held. Hes suggested a possible quarantine for athletes, hinted at limited fan access to venues, and has not ruled out events in empty stadiums. Of course, he says thats not his preference.

IOC member John Coates, who oversees preparations for Tokyo, has been direct.

Weve got real problems because weve got athletes having to come from 206 different nations, Coates said, speaking at a News Corp Australia digital forum and reported in The Australian newspaper. Weve got 11,000 athletes coming, 5,000 technical officials and coaches, 20,000 media. Theres also about 4,000 working on the organizing committee and an expected 60,000 volunteers.

Some scientists in Japan and elsewhere believe a vaccine is needed to guarantee safety for athletes. But some have asked if young, healthy athletes should be a priority for vaccination.

The biggest challenge might be guaranteeing the safety of fans who have already bought millions of tickets. If there are no fans, will there be refunds? Will there be lawsuits? Tickets provide at least $800 million income for local organizers with the added cost of postponement estimated in Japan at $2 billion to $6 billion.

Eric Saintrond, the CEO of the FISU the Switzerland-based governing body of the World University Games said in an email to The Associated Press that decisions related to security and health will be taken by the Chinese government. He said final decisions in this area do not in fact rest with FISU. He said all preparations were on track.

University Games spokesman Wang Guangliang was asked about housing for athletes, fans, and so forth, but offered little clarity, deflecting back to the FISU.

The impact of the pandemic is still unforeseeable and we are still studying the situation and need to discuss with FISU about what to do to reduce the impact and ensure the safety of all participants, Wang wrote in a email to the AP.

Postponing the Summer Olympics by a year has raised questions about marketing the Winter Olympics, which open six months after Tokyo closes. Construction is on schedule, but sponsors may face challenges.

Sponsors and business partners of the games will have to keep investing extra money in their marketing programs for Tokyo if the games are postponed, potentially forcing them to reduce their budgets for the next Olympics, Wei Jizhong, a former secretary general of the Chinese Olympic Committee, told the China Daily.

The Associated Press emailed questions about Beijing 2022 preparations to Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC vice president who oversees Beijing preparations. He did not immediately reply to the request, nor to a follow-up. Beijing could also face the issues of athlete quarantines, fewer fans, and the fear of spreading the virus even more.

In an interview in February with Chinas official Xinhua News Agency, Samaranch was laudatory about preparations. He praised Beijing organizers, President Xi Jinping, who heads of the Chinese Communist Party, and Chinas handling of the virus.

Sheena Greitens, who studies Asian politics at the University of Texas at Austin, said large sports events give China high visibility and can keep reporters focused on the sporting events rather than having them use their time in-country to dig around on other topics that might reflect poorly on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).

They provide a way for China to boost its cultural and discourse power globally, Greitens wrote in an email. And they do so in a forum that generally emphasizes international cooperation and is weighted away from the serious disagreements that many countries have with China over territorial conflict, human rights, and trade, among other topics.

Go here to read the rest:
NBA says it is talking with Disney about resuming season - Wilkes Barre Times-Leader

Chronological age has little to do with a person's biological age: some people are old at fifty, while others are still sharp and spry at ninety. This book is a guide for living a long and healthy life, providing hundreds of practical tips readers can implement today to help them live a satisfying and productive life.

Dr. Robert M. Goldman and Dr. Ronald Klatz, revolutionary thinkers, innovators, and co-founders of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, authored this handbook loaded with tips for living a long and healthy life. This book provides hundreds of practical tips readers can implement to help them live a satisfying and productive life through anti-aging medical techniques.

Nobody wants to get old. And why would we? The aging process eventually affects every one of our body systems-from mental function and sexual performance to physical appearance, ability, and strength. But chronological age has little to do with a person's biological age: some people are old at fifty, while others are still sharp and spry at ninety. While aging may be inevitable, that doesnt mean that we have to sit idly and just allow it to happen, there are steps we can take to slow the aging process to extend our healthspan and longevity.

The things we've always considered "normal aging" are actually caused by physiological problems that, in many cases, respond to medical treatment and healthy lifestyle habits. As a result, the human life span can be significantly increased while maintaining-or even improving-the quality of life! This contemporary approach to aging-known as anti-aging medicine-is a specialty practiced by more than 30,000 physicians worldwide. It uses advanced scientific and medical technologies for the early detection, prevention, treatment, and reversal of age-related dysfunction, disorders, and diseases. In the near future, we can look forward to boundless health and vitality thanks to these anti-aging approaches.

121 Ways to Live to 121 Years And More!, covers thirteen categories of topics that relate to improving the healthy human lifespan. With hundreds of individual tips on a wide variety of subjects, this book was written to help provide you with the knowledge you need to be your own health advocate and control your health destiny. Each of us must learn enough, and keep learning, about how to keep ourselves healthy. As Marcus Annaeus Seneca, Roman writer (c. 54 BCc. 39 AD) remarked, For the great benefits of our being our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves.

Tip 42: Fiber, The Anti-Fat: Fiber soaks up fat. A high-fiber diet can improve your digestion, relieve the strain on your liver and gallbladder, and reduce your risk of large bowel cancer, gallstones, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, colitis, hemorrhoids, hernia, and varicose veins. Your body will benefit from both soluble fiber (sources include dried beans, oats, barley, apples, citrus fruits, and potatoes) and insoluble fiber (found in whole grains, wheat bran, cereals, seeds, and the skins of many fruits and vegetables).

Remember, self-reliance is the key to our health, happiness, and well-being. Anti-aging medicine, a clinical specialty that embraces patient education and empowerment, represents the dawning of an exciting new era in medicine, one that will result with longevity intervention orders of magnitude greater than any other advancements made in medicine to-date. Enjoy a future of boundless health and vitality by implementing anti-aging approaches to help you feel, look, and perform better today by making simple lifestyle changes that can assist you on your way to living a long and healthy lifespan.

View post:
121 Ways to Live 121 Years . . . And More: Prescriptions for Longevity - Anti Aging News