StemCell Therapy

In the future, when people try to imagine what it was like to live in our time, there will be lots of artifacts to sift through: TV shows, YouTube videos, selfies on Instagram, as well as the traditional things, like newspapers and news reports.

But movies will have a special place.

A few things make movies a particularly good measure of what was happening and what people were thinking at a particular time. First, theyre meant to be watched by large groups, and so theyre intended to please almost everyone. This means that if a movie endorses an idea in strong terms, you can assume that either that idea was widely held or, at the very least, reasonable people thought that idea was widely held. Almost nobody makes a movie with the intention of offending the audience.

Second, movies are not spontaneous. They are meticulously composed fantasies, created to please viewers at a particular time, and as such they consciously and unconsciously capture the aspirations, assumptions and values of their day. They give the facts of the era the cars people drove, the phones people used but also capture the hopes and expectations, the ideas that people had about themselves.

So, we are now 20 years into the 21st century, a fifth of the way through. Today, were looking at 20 movies that people in the distant future can look at if they want a crash course on what Americans were thinking, feeling and experiencing in the first two decades of the 21st century.Each one captures an idea or a moment or a style that helped tell the story of their time, and ours.

Following 9/11, the national trauma that began our current era, movies suddenly began telling stories of civic collapse. Sometimes it was an invasion, sometimes zombies woke up, but the idea that ran through all these films is that civilization, something we thought was built on rock, was quite fragile and could actually go away. Blindness, in which a huge swath of the public suddenly lose their eyesight, was a mystical yet brutal treatment of this idea, a real plunge into the abyss.

Honorable Mention: A more popular version of this concept (from a post-apocalypse standpoint) can be found in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Written by and starring Oakland natives Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, this film told an affecting personal story about friendship, while dramatizing a number of current social issues, such as the strains of gentrification and the tension between the police and the black community.

This is very much a personal story, but because director Richard Linklater filmed Boyhood over the course of 12 years, it captures, as no film ever has, the incidentals of life over a long span of time the toys and the computers that people used, the haircuts that were popular, how people carried themselves and how families interacted.

By taking two straight archetypes and making them gay, this Ang Lee film about a rodeo cowboy and ranch hands secret relationship made pop cultures most powerful case for gay marriage, at a time when most Americans were against it.

Honorable Mention: Gus Van Sants Milk (2008), about the assassinated gay rights leader, presented the gay rights movement as a great American movement in the tradition of Martin Luther King and civil rights.

It was just another exciting, well-made Roland Emmerich action movie, except as the climate crisis has worsened, its images of superstorms, frozen oceans and mass migrations have stayed in mind. Essentially, it presents the climate version of the civic chaos film. We thought we could take the weather for granted. It turns out, we couldnt.

Jacob Aaron Estes wrote and directed this story of a mild-mannered obstetrician (Tobey Maguire) whose life begins to derail. A shrewd moral document, the movie steers the audience into taking the doctors side, while subtly revealing that every one of his problems is due to moral laxity. The film is, in essence, an indictment (and a record) of modern morality, which means that most of the audience watching never even figures out that the Maguire character is a bad person.

Starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor, this satire of early 1960s sex comedies was also a commentary on the fluidity of romantic and sexual mores in general, so that, in the end, when the movie contorts itself to please a modern audience, it both records the 2003 notions of right and wrong and slyly shows that these ideas will someday also seem outdated.

A running and increasing anxiety of the 21st century has been the notion that computers could take the place of people, or begin to dominate human life. This low-key film starring Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander, playing an android with impressive intelligence, made the most frightening and persuasive case for how that might happen.

A British and American counterterrorism team sits in a boardroom trying to figure out when to strike a cabal of suicide-vest-wearing terrorists, in this powerful film about awful choices in modern warfare. It contains the already classic curtain line from Alan Rickman, as a British general: Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.

Until this decade, the Civil War was always presented as a noble dispute between two equally worthy sides. This film presented the Confederacy as a political and social evil, which was stamped out in one Mississippi county, under the leadership of a Confederate deserter named Newton Knight. Theres a goosebumps moment when Gugu Mbatha-Raw looks at the baby she has had with Knight, trying to decide whether hes black or white. Finally, Mbatha-Raw says, Youre just a brand-new thing, arent you?

Honorable Mention: Quentin Tarantino got the ball rolling by presenting slavery as an unmitigated evil in Django Unchained (2012), and director Steve McQueen followed with the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave.

The spiritual sickness of modern life the loneliness, the longing, the problems of connection, the distorted and mournful eroticism was captured beautifully in this film, starring Emily Blunt and written by Erin Cressida Wilson.

Honorable Mention: Chloe (2010), a film in the same vein, also written by Wilson. And Watchmen (2009).

Steven Soderbergh made the first and best film about the Great Recession, with porn star Sasha Grey as a high-priced call girl who finds herself slipping. Its about someone finding out shes not as special as she thought she was, which is the bitter lesson for everyone in a recession.

Honorable Mention: The Wolf of Wall Street.

A vacation movie set in New Orleans during the Essence Music Festival that depicts adult female friendship and modern-day sexual mores in real ways, while demonstrating what was hilarious in 2017.

Honorable Mention: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016).

Justin Long and Drew Barrymore meet and fall in love, but theyre separated geographically by their careers in a film that captured the anxieties of young Americans trying to enter the job market during the recession.

Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with a Siri-like computer operating system in Spike Jonzes tale of the near future, in which the human personality becomes distorted by technology.

Honorable Mention: Robin Williams starred in The Final Cut (2004), which imagines a future in which everything people see and hear is recorded by a computer chip in their brains, thus transforming human interaction for the worse.

A lot of movies are making oblique commentaries about President Trumps administration, but this Ike Barinholtz comedy directly addressed the alienation, the bitter discord and the darkest fears that this presidency has introduced into modern American life.

There have been a number of 9/11 movies, but no film captured the aftermath of that tragedy the sick feeling we all carried with us better than this masterpiece from Spike Lee.

Honorable Mention: United 93 (2006), Paul Greengrass film about the hijacked flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

This Brady Corbet film attempted and succeeded in telling the moral history of the 21st century, through the story of a high school girl who survives a school shooting and becomes a pop star.

This celebration of the female principle, through the avatar of a superhero, made in anticipation of our first female president, became a focal point of aspiration and a statement of value when the election didnt go as planned.

Honorable Mention: Black Panther, which positioned Oakland as a focal point in a Marvel superhero film.

With Vin Diesel at the center, this aggressively directed Rob Cohen movie introduced a new kind of action film and a new kind of 21st- entury cool, which had something to do with tattoos and shaved heads. And what was all this cool fighting going up against? Terrorists, of course, intent on making the world unlivable.

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20 movies that tell the story of our century (so far) - San Francisco Chronicle

Renowned ophthalmologist and president and founder of the Eye Foundation of America Dr. V.K. Raju has been chosen to serve as the keynote speaker at a Jan. 1 100th anniversary event at the Rotary Club of Kolkata.

Born in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, Raju earned his medical degree from Andhra University and completed an ophthalmology residency and fellowship at the Royal Eye Group of Hospitals in London.

The Indian American physician is board certified in ophthalmology, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the American College of Surgeons.

He moved to the United States in 1976 and has since resided in Morgantown, West

Virginia, where he is currently a clinical professor of ophthalmology at West Virginia University, runs practices at Regional Eye,and is the

founder and medical director of the nonprofit Eye Foundation of American.

Raju is also thedirector of the International Ocular Surface Society, director of the Ocular Surface Research and Education Foundation, MBBS at Andhra University in India, and the chairman of the Goutami Eye Institute in Rajahmundry.

Serving as the keynote of the upcoming centenary event isnt the first great honor bestowed on Raju.

He has also received numerous awards, including the AMA Foundation Nathan Davis Excellence in Medicine International Award; four-time awardee by The American Academy of Ophthalmology; Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award from WVU; Distinguished Community Service Award from the American Association of Physicians from India; Pride of the Pride Award from Lions International District 29 Vaidya Ratna; Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Ophthalmologists of Indian Origin; and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the WV State Medical Association.

Raju also was among the class of 2017 inductees into the University of Toledo Global Medical Missions Hall of Fame, thePresidents Lifetime Achievement Award from President Barack Obama, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the North America Telegu Society.

The Rotary is a very near and dear partner to the Eye Foundation of America's heart. The Rotary has done amazing things on a local, national and global scale- most notably the work to end polio. The Eye Foundation of America works to back Rotary causes as well, especially those that work towards public health and disease prevention, Raju explained in an interview with India-West.

The 100-year history of this club is a monumental occasion, with Raju speaking on the work of the Eye Foundation as well as the collaborative project the EFA and the Kolkata Rotary Club are embarking on: The Retinopathy of Prematurity.

The project has been growing steadily in India for some time now. The Eye Foundation of America will be gifting a Ret-Cam during the celebration. With this device, ophthalmologists in Kolkata will be able to more efficiently and accurately screen more premature babies for the disease, allowing the possibility for vision saving laser treatments or surgery as needed. Without the screening, many premature babies would be blind for life.

This speaking event will be a great chance to further the joint mission of saving lives and improving health, Raju told India-West.

During a trip to India in 1977, the physician was approached with a request to use his ophthalmology experience to examine a local farmer with an eye problem. He realized just how much his home country needed eye care services, especially for under-served and under-privilegedareas.

He began returning to Andhra Pradesh every few months to conduct eye camps in rural locations where he and a team of medical professionals trained in eye care would perform vision screenings, check for glasses, provide medications, and recommend surgery, he explained.

As the eye camps grew in size and frequency, Raju realized the need for a more established care center to provide surgeries free of charge. The first eye hospital was constructed and ophthalmologists were hired full time to provide care, he added.

In 1982, the EFA was originally founded as the West Virginia Ophthalmology Foundation Inc. In 1990, the name was changed to the West Virginia Eye Foundation, Inc. The final name change happened in 1992 under the advice of a friend, who recommended a name that would encompass the wider spread of the foundation. The Eye Foundation of America has been so-called since 1992, Raju told India-West.

The mission of EFA is to prevent blindness by going where the need is greatestoften rural and remote areas of developing countries where there is no medical care or where the cost of the care is prohibitive.

Our primary goal is to eliminate avoidable childhood blindness. Although the Eye Foundation of America serves people of all ages, we have a special place in our hearts for children because it is they who have the most to lose, he said.

Visually impaired or blind children grow up without the same advantages as sighted children. Unable to read and write, they often cannot support themselves as adults and may become dependent on their families and /or communities, Raju added.

Raju continued to note that premature babies are also a focus, as they can suffer from Retinopathy of Prematurity, a retinal condition unique to premature babies as a result of receiving too much oxygen.

With help from our donors and volunteers worldwide, we have been able to screen over 200,000 premature babies and perform treatments on hundreds of babies that are affected by this disease, he said.

In addition to preventing childhood blindness, the EFA plans to touch the lives of 100,000 people in India as a part of its ongoing efforts to eliminate avoidable blindness due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy a condition that often leads to blindness if left untreated.

In addition to these primary focus points, the EFA also contributes to Vitamin A supplements and education efforts, he said.

To date, the Eye Foundation of America has performed over 3 million vision screenings. Over 650,000 sight-saving surgeries have been performed at no cost, the foundation notes.

Hundreds of thousands of pairs of glasses have been provided, often the simplest form of vision care, but one which makes a huge impact to each person. The EFA also coordinates education for medical professionals, including grand rounds teaching sessions, fellowship programs for residents, and additional specialty training for ophthalmologists, it said.

In the coming years, Raju said that the Eye Foundation of America will continue to provide care to those that need it poverty stricken, rural and under-privileged people around the world.

We will continue to collaborate with groups that need our resources while growing our own footprint. In the immediate future, the Eye Foundation of America is thrilled to announce the imminent construction of another eye hospital in Rajahmundry, he told India-West. We have outgrown our current space at Goutami Eye Institute and we will be moving into a five-floor facility with wings devoted specifically to ocular oncology, pediatric ophthalmology, and retinopathy of prematurity.

The current Goutami Eye Institute will serve as a vision therapy and occupational rehabilitation center to help those individuals effected by vision-threatening diseases or blindness regain their independence and learn new skills, Raju said.

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Eye Foundation of America's Indian American Founder VK Raju to Speak at Rotary Club of Kolkata, Announce Project on Treating Preemie Eye Disease -...

By "Sunday Morning" contributing videographer Judy Lehmberg.

The caption on this past week's "Sunday Morning" Moment of Nature indicates the bighorn sheep were filmed near Gardiner, Montana. They were, but more specifically in Gardner Canyon. (That isn't a misspelling; the town is named Gardiner, but the nearby river is the Gardner River in Gardner Canyon; I have no idea why no one has adjusted the spelling of one or the other so they match.) The canyon is just inside the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park and just south of the town of Gardiner. The high cliffs of this steep canyon are some of the best places in the park to see bighorns, although that wasn't always the case.

Two hundred years ago there were at least several million bighorns in the western U.S., so many that the Shoshoni (sometimes referred to as the Sheepeaters) relied upon them as their primary food source. By 1900, after what Ernest Thompson Seton referred to as "the epoch of relentless destruction by the skin hunters," their numbers were reduced to a few thousand in the entire United States. Once the U.S. Army began protecting Yellowstone and its animals, their numbers began to rise, and by 1912 Seton reported a Yellowstone bighorn population of at least 200.

That number has fluctuated over the last 100-plus years with a high of close to 500. Most of that fluctuation has been due to disease. Bighorns are susceptible to conjunctivitis caused by Chlamydia which results in their cornea becoming keratinized and opaque, resulting in blindness. The disease itself doesn't kill them, but the blindness makes it difficult to both find food and navigate the cliffy areas they call home. An outbreak of conjunctivitis in 1981-82 reduced the Gardner Canyon bighorn population by 60%. Mature males were hit especially hard as the outbreak happened during the winter when they were in rut, presumably because that's when they devote more time to fighting and mating than looking for food. The sheep also suffered a decline when pneumonia broke out in 2015. However, they appear to have bounced back since then. Although the source of either disease has never been proven, it is known that domestic sheep carry both and can be found north of Yellowstone where some bighorns live. Domestic sheep-borne disease, reduction of habitat and ranching have all contributed to their decline nationwide.

Bighorns, like other sheep, have horns rather than antlers. The difference is antlers are new bone which grows every year and are shed in the spring. Horns are composed of an inner core of bone covered by a keratinized sheath, neither of which is ever shed, and continue to grow throughout a male's lifetime. The female's horns are smaller and only grow during the first few years of life. The age of a bighorn male can be determined by the deeper grooves in their horn. The grooves form during the November-to-December rut when males are more concerned with mating than eating. If the horn tips are broken or worn and the area between their nose and eyes is scarred, that is another indication of age.

The male's skull is about twice as thick as a female's to provide some protection while they butt heads during the rut. If they hit each other straight on, the horns can take the brunt of the collision. Even so, it is amazing how hard they can hit each other. Testosterone can be a scary chemical sometimes.

One of the most surprising encounters we've had with bighorns was several years ago in the early spring just before lambing season. We found a group of bighorns on a cliff near the confluence of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek, and stopped to film them.

What happened next can be seen in the video below:

If you visit Yellowstone and would like to see bighorn sheep, there are several areas you should look. The cliffy areas around the confluence of the Lamar River and Soda Butte Creek, the area near the confluence of the Lamar River and the Yellowstone River, both in the Lamar Valley, as well as during a hike up Mount Washburn and (probably the most reliable area) Gardner Canyon. Because the canyon is so high and steep, it is worth pulling off the road and carefully scoping the east side, especially in the late spring when the females are lambing. After the lambs get a few weeks old, it isn't unusual to see them form groups that run along the cliff side seemingly for the pure joy of being alive.

Judy Lehmberg is a former college biology teacher who now shoots nature videos.

See also:

To watch extended "Sunday Morning" Nature videos click here!

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Nature up close: Domestic sheep-borne disease, reduction of habitat and ranching have all contributed to their decline nationwide, but bighorn sheep...

Homonyms spawn countless puns and some of the most amusing turns of phrase in modern culture. Think of Baloo the bear singing Bare Necessities in the Disney version of Jungle Book.

Now though, the New Year presents an opportunity to consider a homonym as a motivating message. Just as the number 20/20 is the measure of optimal vision, the year 2020 can be about setting an intention for keeping clear sighted about what climate change means now and in the future, and how best to respond. One of my Sea Grant colleagues in Alaska said recently that residents there dont have to be convinced of the reality of climate change, because melting permafrost, flooding coastal villages and altered fisheries there are everyday realities. They are readily engaging in projects to adapt. Neither can we in Connecticut afford the luxury of willful blindness.

Already coastal roads from Greenwich to Stonington are experiencing sunny day flooding at high tides, storm drains are overwhelmed with frequent heavy rains, and warming waters in Long Island Sound are reordering the marine ecosystem. This March, municipal officials from around the state will gather for the seventh climate adaptation workshop co-sponsored by Connecticut Sea Grant in as many years. This time, the topic requested by previous attendees will be shoreline retreat. Its a highly sensitive but necessary conversation for the many cities and towns with shoreline neighborhoods increasingly vulnerable to rising seas and intensifying storms. Figuring out if, where and how to structure fair and orderly buy-out programs is one of the many daunting challenges thats better to face now than after the next natural disaster.

Managing shoreline retreat is just one of the many climate change conundrums involving the intersection of the coastal economy with the environment. Decades of fossil fuel emissions are changing the chemistry of the atmosphere, the ocean and the land, setting off a cascade of impacts moving with momentum that cant be stopped immediately, and not ever without confronting the truth. One of those truths is accepting what we dont know, and working to understand it.

Thats the case with the acidification of our coastal areas. Its the more complicated cousin of the better known phenomenon of ocean acidification turning offshore waters into hostile environments for coral reef survival, among other effects. But the changes there are following a more predicable path. Not so in coastal areas like the Long Island Sound estuary. Variable inputs of freshwater from rivers, nutrients and pollution from land and warming temperatures are combining with increasing carbon dioxide levels to change local water chemistry in erratic ways that threaten coastal economies. In some areas elsewhere in the North Atlantic region, commercial shellfish farmers are adding buffering agents to the seawater in their hatcheries where young shellfish are grown. Without it, the larvae cant develop their shells properly.

But the exact combinations of mechanisms causing this to happen in one area and not in another as little as 10 miles away remains unknown. Nor can we predict where it will happen next. Connecticut Sea Grant, working with the New England Coastal Acidification Network, has been working to further the science and will be communicating findings to industry, policymakers and the public in 2020, a continuation of work begun in 2018.

But working on the hard problems of climate change isnt just for the scientists and their colleagues in groups like Sea Grant. Consider the words of the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, who shared the panel with Connecticut Sea Grants Juliana Barrett and others at a forum last October titled, Reality, Hope and Action in an Age of Climate Change at St. James Episcopal Church in New London. In her recent book of Advent readings, she writes, However we participate in healing creation, all of us are needed. Everyone has a part to play.

Consider, too, the words of the wonderful writer Wendell Berry. In an essay about a sustainably managed Pennsylvania forest as metaphor for the kind of reordering needed in our collective and individual relationships with our home planet, he writes: To say that the good care of the forest, as of all the worlds places, depends upon love is, sure enough, to define a difficulty. But not an impossibility. The impossibility is that humans would ever take good care of anything that they dont love. And we can take courage from the knowledge that millions of Americans once loved their vegetable gardens, cared well for them, and kept them dependably productive and that a good many still do.

With love, clear vision and resolve to play our part, 2020 can be a better year for us and the Earth.

Judy Benson is the communications coordinator at Connecticut Sea Grant, a partnership of the University of Connecticut and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association that is one of 34 Sea Grant programs nationwide. She can be reached at: judy.benson@uconn.edu.

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Having 20/20 vision about climate change in 2020 - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

Now is the time of year when we typically take inventory of our lives and set new goals. Relationships, finances, careers and health are all important aspects that impact our overall wellbeing. For this New Year, consider making your health a top priority.

According to the recent Americas Health Rankings Annual Report, the nations obesity rate continues to rise, with one in three adults now experiencing obesity. In Arizona, 29.5 percent of adults are obese. This alarming statistic may have serious health consequences such as diabetes which now impacts approximately 30 million adults and is the No. 1 cause of kidney failure, lower-limb amputations, and adult blindness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are many factors that play a role in your health, but one that you can control is making a commitment to start living a healthier lifestyle. Sure, there will be some bumps during your wellbeing journey, but your goal can be achievable and you deserve to reap the benefits.

Consider some helpful tips for achieving a healthier you in 2020.

Regular exercise may help you live longer and may reduce your risks for a host of diseases. Try to aim for at least 2.5 hours of moderate aerobic activity a week, but if thats too challenging then start off with 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there. Every little bit counts. To be successful, your fitness program should become a part of your daily life.

Also, check with your health plan and employer to see if they offer wellness incentives. For example, UnitedHealthcares Gym Check-In program enables participating employers to provide employees and their spouses the opportunity to each earn hundreds of dollars a year for visiting a fitness facility 12 days or more per month.

Sure, its easier said than done, but good nutrition is a vital part of a healthier lifestyle. Experts say the healthiest diets are rich in fruits and vegetables, because these foods are full of healthful nutrients and fiber. Here are three simple tips to eating healthier: Go for more fruits and veggies; choose less meat and fat; and keep an eye on the size of your food portions. Just saying no, to the buffet can do wonders.

If youre feeling stressed, its important to unwind and relax by doing something you enjoy. Maybe its watching a movie, reading a book, or volunteering to give you time to recharge. Also, make time to connect with others. Maybe thats friends, family, a faith group or a hobby club. Its important that you dont isolate yourself after a stressful event. Remember, if you cannot get a handle on your stress, talk to your doctor. She or he may recommend a counselor who could help you find other ways to help reduce or manage the unhealthy stress in your life.

Take time today to make an appointment with your doctor for your annual wellness visit and be sure to ask about preventive services such as health screenings and vaccines. Check with your health plan as many preventive services have no additional cost, as long they are delivered by care providers in your plans network. Your doctor will help you create a treatment plan to help manage any chronic conditions, such as asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Ann Marie OBrien, R.N., is the national director of health strategies for UnitedHealthcare.

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Tips to help achieve a healthier you in 2020 - AZ Big Media

LAHORE: Pakistan stands at the 12th spot in the global ranking for cataract surgical rate (CSR) and tops the Muslim world with a ratio of 5,203 per million population per year.

Released by the National Committee for Eye Health (NCEH) -- under the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, the report, titled Cataract Surgical Mapping Pakistan-2019, was prepared under the supervision of Prof Asad Aslam Khan, the coordinator for National Programme for Prevention and Control of Blindness. The report has been declared a landmark achievement for Pakistan in meeting the targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Cataract remains the leading cause of blindness worldwide, accounting for nearly half (47.8 per cent or 17.7 million) of the cases. The treatment is surgical, a highly cost-effective intervention.

The report, a copy of which is available with Dawn, mentions significant statistics regarding Pakistans record cataract surgeries in the last two decades. The surgeries were conducted through public-private partnership between the federal/provincial health department and international and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) following WHO guidelines.

The current report on mapping of cataract surgical services indicates that Pakistan has exceeded its targets for 2020 that were projected in 2002, the report reads.

The NCEH carried out a comprehensive survey all over the country to compile the report and found that over 1.1 million cataract surgeries were reported in 2018. The data indicates that Pakistan achieved CSR of 5,253 (with Azad Jammu and Kashmir included) and 5,307 (minus AJK).

There is an overall preponderance of cataract surgeries in females (male to female ratio is 0.95), the report further states.

The data indicated the proportion of cataract surgeries by service provider nationally barring AJK with the government sector contributing to 15.9pc of the surgeries, forces 1.8pc, NGOs 39.9pc, and the private sector 42.4pc.

In order to achieve a CSR of over 7,500 by 2030, at least 1.84 million surgeries must be performed annually. If there is no change in the current annual cataract surgical output, the CSR will drop to 4,628 by 2030, the report stated. At least 58,000 to 60,000 more cataract surgeries will need to be performed every year than the rate of each previous year to achieve the 7,500 target.

Prof Asad Aslam Khan, also chief executive officer of the Mayo Hospital, said that during the last two decades the NCEH upgraded eye units of 27 teaching, 120 district headquarters and 100 tehsil headquarters hospitals. More than 800 optometrists, 50 orthoptist, 51 investigative oculist, 1,200 ophthalmic technician, 34 vitreoretinal specialist, 24 paediatric ophthalmologist, 92 community ophthalmologist and more than 100 ophthalmic nurses have been produced in the country, he claimed.

He said the first report on mapping of cataract surgical services was compiled in 2002, which determined the national, provincial and district CSRs, and it had noted that Pakistan had a national CSR of 2,254.

He said the Universal Eye Health a Global Action Plan 2014-2019 had been launched by the WHO following a resolution passed by the World Health Assembly in 2013. This global action plan identified cataract surgical rate as one of the three global monitoring indicators.

In the last 20 years, there has been an incremental change in the distribution of eye care services in Pakistan, especially with development in and investment by the public sector, a mushroom growth in the non-government sector and a massive increase in the private sector.

We now approach the end of Vision 2020 The Right to Sight next year in 2020 and straddle the Sustainable Development Goals era with about 10 years left to go by 2030, said Dr Khan.

For future planning, he said, it was vitally important to obtain updated data about the changing trends of CSR at the national, provincial and district levels in Pakistan. As a result of all the achievements of the NCEH, Pakistan is now among the top 12 countries with highest CSR, he added.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2019

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Pakistan ranks 12th globally in conducting cataract surgeries - DAWN.com

Its only been 10 years, but in that time the world has been transformed. Social media has gone from angel of democracy to demon. Climate change has become something we can see with our own eyes. All over the world, established orders have been overturned.

In Israel, new technologies like auto-tech, fintech, AI and food-tech have emerged to dominate Israels high-tech scene, while Israels food scene has come of age as you can tell by the high number of accolades to Israeli restaurants rolling in. Israeli TV has also won its fair share of praise, spurring an unexpected new area of export.

In this decade, Israel lost one of its most internationally popular leaders, Shimon Peres; but women the world over got two strong new role models Israeli actor Gal Gadot, who stormed the world with her portrayal of Wonder Woman, and Netta, who swept Eurovision with her bubbly empowerment song, Toy.

Weve looked back through our archives to discover your favorite stories. Its an extraordinary journey that charts the emergence of Israels aid industry, the move toward veganism and alternative meats, and the growth of tourism to Israel from just 1.9 million tourists to Israel in 2010, to 4m. in 2019.

Some of the technologies we wrote about went on to huge success, some pivoted, and some notably Shai Agassis Better Place went out with an almighty bang.

Take a look through the decades and remember some of the highlights of every year.

2010

An IDF doctor tends to a patient at the field hospital in Haiti, January 23, 2010. Photo courtesy Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

One of the decades most iconic gadgets, Amazons Kindle e-reader, was largely developed in the heart of Israels high-tech center in Herzliya.

In June 2010, a professor from Bar Ilan University announced that he was developing a male contraceptive pill. His hope was that it would be out on the market within five years. While the idea created huge interest, the product ultimately never came to fruition.

Israel gained worldwide praise for the speed and efficiency with which it offered aid to Haiti in the wake of a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed around 160,000 people. The field hospital set up by the Israel Defense Forces was one of the most advanced hospitals in Haiti. Five years later, Israel was still in Haiti helping rebuild the community. Haiti was the first time that the world really sat up and noticed Israeli humanitarian aid.

A breakthrough from Hadassahs Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center was poised to enable cultivating embryonic stem cells for treatments for disorders such as Parkinsons disease, diabetes and age-related macular degeneration. This later formed the basis for CellCure Neurosciences, currently developing OpRegen for treating dry AMD.

2011

The beaches of Tel Aviv. Photo by Shutterstock

Our top story of 2011 was on Vaxil Bio Therapeutics, which was developing a vaccine that could activate the bodys natural immune system to seek and destroy cancer cells. Since then, the company has completed a Phase I/II clinical trial in multiple myeloma patients, and is advancing toward clinical studies in additional solid tumor indications.

Yokneam-based Neuronix developed an electromagnetic stimulation system for treating moderate Alzheimers disease, allowing patients to regain faded cognitive skills. Though approved for use in Europe, Australia and Israel, in 2019 an FDA advisory panel decided that the benefits of the system did not outweigh the risks to patient health.

In June, we published a list of the 10 best beaches in Israel. Nine years later, the story continues to be one of our most popular, which for a country with as much beautiful coastline as Israels, isnt that surprising.

In May, we launched the first of a series of articles on hiking in Israel. The top 10 hikes in Israel was first, followed by water hikes, desert hikes, hikes in Jerusalem, and hikes in the Dead Sea.

2012

Tal-Yas trays catch every drop of dew. Photo: courtesy

To celebrate Israels 64th birthday, ISRAEL21c described 64 blue-and-white innovations with the potential to transform and enrich lives across the planet.

The US developer of skyTran chose Israel as the perfect place to pilot the software-guided personal transport pods that glide on a cushion of air. While the Tel Aviv project has yet to get off the ground, additional Israeli cities including Netanya and Eilat have since signed development deals with skyTran to upgrade public transportation.

This story about groundbreaking agricultural innovations from drip irrigation to drought-proof seeds proved so popular, and so important, that we updated it in 2019.

An amazing invention that turns pet droppings into harmless, odorless powder within seconds has developed into game-changing applications for human waste-management in the United Statesand Brazil.

2013

Pomegranate juice on sale at the Carmel Market. Photo by Anna Wachspress

The outright winner for story of the yearin 2013 though we could never completely understand why was our piece on 10 great reasons to love the pomegranate. Pomegranate, anyone?

In 2013, we began a new series on things to do for free in various cities around Israel. Our first story was an immediate hit and continues to be popular. We updated it earlier this year.

To celebrate Israels 65th birthday, we took a look at some of the incredible ways Israel is helping to look after our planet. Its still an impressive list.

When we reported on CartiHeal in 2013, the novel Israeli implant which provides a scaffold for the body to regenerate joint-protecting cartilage was already regarded as a major potential advance. It also featured in the top stories of 2016. Find out more below.

2014

The Iron Dome proved the unexpected hero of the 2014 war with Gaza. Photo by Shutterstock

From the Babysense baby breathing monitor to the Skysaver emergency evacuation device, this list compiled 18 potentially lifesaving technologies developed in Israel.

In 2014, the Iron Dome defense system emerged as the undisputed savior in Israel during the summer conflict with Gaza. Born out of necessity and Israeli chutzpah, the Iron Dome intercepts rockets, artillery and mortars headed for population centers. Sneak preview: Some of the prototype components were taken from a toy car.

Most of these unusual places to lay your head that we featured in this story including a yurt and a converted bus are still in business and popular with visitors looking for a different hospitality experience.

Medical devices and pharmaceuticals are a risky business and not all make it to market. But many of the exciting products anticipated in 2014 went on to successful clinical trials, such as Premia Spines TOPS alternative solution to spinal fusion surgery and CartiHeals implant for treating cartilage lesions in arthritic and non-arthritic joints.

2015

Is clean meat on the way? Photo by Shutterstock

This story exploded on the Internet, going viral within a day. It featured the work of nonprofit Modern Agriculture Foundation, which launched the worlds first feasibility study to determine how to create commercial tissue-engineered chicken breast. We featured the organization again in 2017, and it is still hard at work collaborating with academics and commercial companies to create a clean meat alternative.

We asked photographers across Israel to help us out with this gorgeous compilation of photographs to celebrate Israels 67th birthday.

3. 12 impossible ideas that Israelis turned into reality

Tell an Israeli that their idea is preposterous, and youve just given that inventor a reason to see it through. We loved this article, which highlights not only Israeli innovation, but the Israeli can-do attitude that takes an impossible idea irrigating crops in the desert, or a missile defense shield for an entire country and turns them into reality.

4. Israeli school builds cool classroom for ADHD teens

Our readers loved this story on a new classroom built at the Darca High School inKiryat Malachi, developed specially for children with attention and learning disorders. The room featured bouncy chairs made from yoga balls, walled off cubicles, desks on wheels, and a touch of the outdoor.

5. How well do you know Israel? The quiz

We knew it was going to be a tough one, but we were still surprised when virtually no-one managed to get a full 25 out of 25 questions right. You can still try this quiz. Will you get it right? Dont say you havent been warned!

2016

CartiHeal is advancing its implant for cartilage regeneration. Image by Natalia Budianska Shutterstock.com

1. Syrian refugee creates website to thank Israelis

A Sunni Muslim originally from the city of Homs created Thank You Am Israel, a website dedicated to the Israeli and Jewish organizations and people helping Syrian refugees.

2. 9 of the best Israeli snacks

The rising global popularity of Israeli cuisine isnt limited to gourmet fare. Here we tempted your taste buds with Israels most iconic snack foods, such as Bamba and Krembo, getting attention from bloggers and noshers around the world.

3. 9 of the most beautiful sukkot in Israel

Our readers loved seeing photos of the gorgeous booths created for dining during the Sukkot holiday in the fall, from Jerusalems Waldorf Astoria, to kibbutzim in the north and south, to the Samaritan communities of Mount Gerizim and Holon.

4. My Name is Israel

Our downloadable, printable 15-slide exhibition shares the stories of Israeli aid in the wake of international disasters and Israelis helping refugees even citizens of enemy nations and sharing their expertise and knowledge worldwide. This DIY exhibition, still available on our home page, was displayed in creative ways in several countries.

5. Cartilage regeneration on the way for knees, osteoarthritis

CartiHeal, mentioned already in 2013,caused quite a stir among readers for its groundbreaking Agili-C implant to treat cartilage and osteochondral defects in traumatic and osteoarthritic joints. Agili-C has now been implanted in over 500 clinical study patients with knee, ankle, and great toe cartilage lesions in Europe and Israel; clinical studies have begun in 15 US sites.

2017

Israeli actor Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Photo: courtesy

When Hurricane Harvey barreled into Texas in August, Israeli NGO, IsraAID rushed to help. The story touched a chord and was shared on Facebook alone more than 260,000 times.

2. 14 things you didnt know about Gal Gadot

2017 was most definitely Gal Gadots year. In fact, so were 2018 and 2019, and 2020 could turn out to be just as successful for this Israeli actor. But it was in 2017 that Gadot first stormed the world with her role as Wonder Woman. Find out how Beyonc helped her get the part.

3. 25 brilliant tech companies to watch in 2017

In January, we asked high-tech experts which companies to watch for in the coming year. They identified many hot growth areas including augmented reality, auto-tech, fintech, clean-tech, drones and digital health. And many of the companies they mentioned have indeed gone on to significant things.

4. 69 fabulous reasons we love Israel

For Independence Day, we put together a slideshow of photographs showing some of the many reasons we love Israel.

5. Test your glucose levels without drawing blood

Integrity Applications developed a glucose monitoring device that allows diabetics and pre-diabetics to track blood sugar levels without the need to prick a finger. The device is now on sale in several locations around the world.

2018

Koolulam mass singalong at the Tower of David Museum, June 2018. Photo by Ricky Rachman

1. 800 Jews, Christians, Muslims sing One Love in Jerusalem

You just cant watch this video without getting goosebumps. Israel social singing sensation Koolulam gathered Jews, Christians and Muslims at the Tower of David Museum in a vocal show of unity coinciding with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

2. Israeli scientists develop implanted organs that wont be rejected

Its the stuff of sci-fi, only its real: Israeli researchers invented the first fully personalized tissue implant, engineered from a small fatty tissue biopsy from the patient. This will make it possible to engineer any kind of tissue implant for any part of the body, without danger of rejection.

3. One drug could treat Alzheimers, MS, Crohns and more

Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School Prof. David Naor is developing a single drug that could effectively treat incurable inflammatory diseases such as Crohns disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis as well as neurodegenerative maladies such as Alzheimers disease.

4. 8 of the most anticipated hotels opening in 2018

Youre always on the lookout for exciting new places to stay in Israel, and this list really whet your appetite. Now you can book rooms at (most of) these fabulous hotels in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the Galilee and the Negev, aside from two that still havent opened.

5. Rescuers turn to Israeli tech to save trapped boys

Maxtech Networks communications technology helped divers free 12 boys and their coach trapped for 11 days in a flooded Thai cave.

2019

REEs prototype vehicle chassis. Photo by Yuval Chen

It is testament to just how successful and admired Israeli TV shows have become worldwide, that our most popular story of the year was about the best Israeli TV. While many Israeli shows have been remade, streaming services have opened up the original Israeli versions to viewers all over the world to great acclaim. Last week, the New York Times named Hatufim (Prisoners of War) the finest international TV show of the decade, and Fauda came in at number eight.

2. Buy fresh unsold food from restaurants

The new SpareEat app that lets restaurants and markets offer surplus food at the end of the day at a huge discount appealed to readers two-fold firstly they get to eat great Israeli restaurant food at a discount, and secondly it reduces food waste. Its a win-win!

3. An Israeli startup is totally reinventing how cars are built

The inventors thought investors would laugh at them when they came up with the revolutionary idea of a flat modular platform, a bit like a skateboard, that houses all the cars major components, but instead they loved it. We wrote about Ree in September. The following month, the company unveiled its flat-chassis technology inside Hino Motors new FlatFormer design.

4. Could immunotherapy treatment from Israel cure cancer?

In January we ran a story on Jerusalem startup Immunovative Therapies, which is developing an immunotherapy that could potentially cure cancer. No surprises why this was popular. The company has conducted dozens of clinical trials, but its still a very long road ahead. Worth watching in future years.

5. 13 reasons you should eat like an Israeli

Large breakfasts, salad with every meal, copious amounts of vegetables and olive oil, a reliance on the Mediterranean diet its no surprise that Israel was #1 on a new ranking of countries with the lowest rate of diet-related deaths worldwide, and #10 on the 2019 Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index. In our article we took a look at the reasons why.

Read the rest here:
The top 45 stories of the decade - ISRAEL21c

JK McKnight, Opinion contributor Published 7:03 a.m. ET Dec. 26, 2019

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans John Lennon

Last summer I left the music industry the land of perpetual planning after a 20-year climb. Over the course of the last year, Ive had the opportunity to look around and see what escaped me previously.

When I drive around our city, I notice more and more concrete, less and less tree canopy. More honking,less patience. More frustration, less fulfillment. It wasnt long ago that we didnt have smart phones, online retail, delivery servicesand other modern conveniences advertised to simplify our lives yet we feel like we have less time than ever before.

What were missing is balance.

In 1980, there was a little-known independent film produced by Francis Ford Coppola titled Koyaanisqatsi.The title is derived from the Hopi tribeand means "life out of balance."The documentary has no words. It shows images of natural landscapes and elemental forces that over time transition to chaotic scenes of modern civilization and technology. Set in fast-paced, consumer-driven Los Angeles, the images move slowly against an orchestral backdrop to achieve maximum dramatic effect. Simple frame by simple frame.

The film reveals humanity growing further and further apart from its native environment. The message is simple: Balance is everything. From the moment of conception, our bodies must maintain the right balance of fluids, gases, nutrients and temperature to grow, surviveand thrive.

Today our lives are out of balance.

Too much time in cars, cubiclesand conference rooms, not enough time in nature. Too much screen time, not enough human time. The largest study of adult development in history (Grant Study, Harvard University) determined that relationships not genetics are the No. 1factor in determining happiness and longevity.

We are social beings whohave depended on one another throughout civilization to survive. We think weve evolved so much from our primitive ancestors. We have not.

You may like: 37 years after Mother Teresa came to Appalachia, her nuns return to help the poor

A life out of balance impacts everything we do, and Im convinced it is responsible for most societal ills. The solution is balance in three core sectors:

We need to get outside the concrete and spend more time outside. A 2017 UK study found 75% of children spend more time indoors than prison inmates. Immersing yourself, family and friends in nature and connecting deeply with them is the antidote we all need. I hear that families dont family anymore. Its true. Husbands and wives need to do a better job of putting their phones (and work) away, especially around children. We all need to talk less, listen more. As they say, no one knows everything, but everyone knows something. Go to great places with great friends, take your relationships off social media and into the real world. Forge real connections. Be vulnerable. Stop preaching, start doing.

Check this out: Here are the 12 highest-rated Louisville restaurants our critic reviewed in 2019

Find your purpose and passion. Work nourishes noble minds, but your work should be meaningful and worth doing for more than money and status. You are not a machine. You are a human being, capable of incredible things. Dream beyond your surroundings. Anything is possible with a plan, setting achievable goals with clear ends coupled with the will and determination to succeed. So consider cutting yourself loose from a job that brings no joy or fulfillment, or a boss that doesnt inspire and uses fear to motivate, and pursue what truly moves you. Work should be rewarding and have a positive impact on your family and community.

More: Courier Journal photographer travels to Belgium looking for the ghost of his father

Embracing community helps us live longer, be happier and more fulfilled, and happiness is the byproduct of fulfillment. We live in a global economy, and what happens on the other side of the planet impacts our daily lives.

Ive found service provides fulfillment that money, status or accomplishment cant possibly reach, a sense of wholeness that connects me to people and places all around the world. One of my most powerful life experiences came in 2015, when I visited the Guayaki Foundation a remote Argentina reserve my Foundation co-sponsors with Patagonia. It was there I met a man, Evaristo Borges, who was our guide through the week.

He was warm and welcoming, and while he couldnt speak a lick of English, I immediately connected to his energy, determination, pride and purpose. I didnt know it until the end of our trip, but his livelihood was made possible by our foundation, and the way he embraced that opportunity said everything I needed. A commitment to service helps mold a high-character person who leaves an enduring, inspiring, positive legacy. Isnt that what we all want?

I challenge us all to think about our daily routine differently, growing together to have greater life, work, community balance in the 2020s.

JK McKnight isthe founder of Louisville'sForecastle Festival, Forecastle Foundation and the Man of the Land: The Art of Impact. Reach him atjk@jkmcknight.com and manoftheland.org.

Read or Share this story: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/2019/12/26/work-life-balance-rethink-your-daily-routine-these-three-areas/4194977002/

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Our lives are out of balance. Here are 3 ways we can straighten ourselves out - Courier Journal

Clock on white plate with fork and knife, intermittent fasting, meal plan, weight loss concept on ... [+] blue table

With the holidays upon us and everyone focused on watching their waistline, its a natural to think about the ideal diet to prevent weight gain and maybe even promote weight a little loss.

Lets face it, its really difficult to go on a diet. Diets are faced with a high risk of failure with the bulk of them failing, ending with eventual weight gain above and beyond where you started.

The concept of caloric restriction which has been explored as a way to improve longevity has been shown to be successful in animal models (mice), offering an enticing possibility to humans. But implementing this into your daily lifestyle may be problematic and may not be realistic in the long run.

Another more intriguing approach that has been gaining popularity in the past decade is intermittent fasting (IF), a form of time-restricted eating.

In a nutshell, its a way to extend the window of time during the day in which you dont eat. Instead of eating from the time you awaken, the goal is to delay the onset of eating, thereby extending your fasting period that naturally occurs when you sleep.

IF involves only eating for a defined period of time in a 24-hour period. For example, it may involve eating for an 8-hour period during the dayas opposed to grazing on food all day longand fasting for the remaining 16 hours. (During the fast, you are permitted to drink water, have black coffee, or tea.)

For example, instead of eating from 7 am when you awaken, you would begin eating at 11 am or noon until 7 or 8 pm. When you do eat, the goal is to eat moderately, although you are permitted to eat the foods that you would normally eat.

Variations on this theme include the 5:2 approach (eating normally 5 days a week and approximately 500-600 calories 2 days week), or alternate day fasting (ADF).

With IF becoming more popular, its important that physicians and other healthcare professionals be aware of the principles and science behind the diet in order to have a rational discussion with their patients.

In an article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, Mark Mattson, PhD, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, explains the nuances behind the approach to IF, along with why he adopted this approach to eating more than 20 years ago.

Mattsons personal reasons for adopting intermittent fasting began well before he embarked research into the topic itself. It actually began about 35-40 years ago as a method he could use to reduce symptoms related to acid reflux which he found were worse if he ate breakfast and then rode his bike to work in the research lab.

I started doing it way back in graduate school at the University of Iowa in the early 80s, he explained. So I quit eating breakfast and found that I didnt get the refluxand I havent eaten breakfast since then!

Little did he realize that this was at the beginning of a pursuit of a concept that would shape his research, and have broad implications for disease management, metabolism as well as weight loss.

Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

While certain subgroups of patients, including those with diabetes and pre-diabetes may benefit from adopting this approach to eating (by lowering HB A1C levels), its value and principles certainly extends to other subgroups including those with cardiovascular disease, neurologic ailments (multiple sclerosis, Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease) and patients with cancer.

While IF may facilitate weight loss by reduced caloric intake, its more important benefits include improved glucose regulation via lower insulin levels, reduced blood pressure and lower resting heart rate, all indicators of improved health.

There may also be a reduction in weight-related medical conditions such as elevated cholesterol, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), offered Dr. Minisha Sood, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City.

Importantly, intermittent fasting or alignment of eating with our natural circadian rhythms may positively impact the gut microbiome which could improve overall metabolism and health,she explained.

Metabolic Switching

The concept by which this is facilitated is known as metabolic switching, which according to Mattson, is a healthy homeostatic mechanism that evolved in Homo Sapiens over thousands of years during periods when food was scarce. This involves switching by our bodys cells from using glucose during the fed state to free fatty acids (FFA) and ketone bodies during periods of starvation. This switch, which is metabolically advantageous, actually serves to reduce inflammation by utilizing adaptive pathways in our cellular machinery.

As Mattson explains, glucose is the normal fuel our bodies rely on during the fed state. When we eat, excess glucose beyondimmediate caloric expenditures is stored as a compound known as glycogen in the liver for quick burst of energy, but excess as fats (triglycerides). Triglycerides or fat is broken down to compounds known as free fatty acids (FFA) along with glycerol. Further metabolism of FFA by the body produces compounds known as ketone bodies which are used by the brain, heart and other organs during periods when glucose is not immediately available.

Clearly IF is not for everyone, with lifestyle, age, medical history, work hours (shifts) and personal preference being key factors that may influence the ability to adhere to this lifestyle and approach to eating, as Mattson explains. There may also be sex differences and genetics that ultimately influence individual success with IF.

Time restricted eating or intermittent fasting may be actually easier to stick with than daily calorie restriction or daily calorie control, explained Sood. When studied head-to-head, intermittent fasting and daily calorie restriction are both equally effective for weight loss so its really a matter of finding an approach which works with ones lifestyle and which can be followed consistently.

In regard to potential downsides of IF, Sood explained that some people may experience increased hunger toward the end of the fasting period each daythe hunger response may wane over time and people adjust. If they do not feel an improvement in hunger levels or they experience headache or fatigue while fasting they may want to consider a shorter fast or an alternative approach to weight loss.

Health coaches and fitness professionals also have seen encouraging results in terms of improved stamina and muscle strengthening after integrating IF into workouts and training sessions for clients.

Ive seen clients drop 1-2 lbs per week, making no changes to their diet at the startonly changing the time that they eat, said Nicole Winhoffer, a fitness artist, and creator of the NW Method in New York City. Their brains functioned better, they performed better, and were able to execute 30% more in their workouts.

Elite athletes have also embraced this concept, according to Mattson. Its clear that British athletes have excelled in the Tour de France in the last 5-7 years, he offered. The potential reason? The use of keto esther, a supplement which Mattson points out has surged in popularity among elite British cyclists in recent years. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), he explained, has cleared this compound since it is naturally derived. The results have been rather impressive to say the least.

Intermittent Fasting to Treat Chronic Disease

Buy there are several areas where Mattson believes that IF may have positive benefits including cancer and neurologic diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) Parkinsons, and Alzheimers disease .

He points out various studies where improvement in tumor burden may be seen. His rationale for this approach is based on the premise that cancer cells can only use glucose to proliferate. With IF, with only ketone bodies available, the cells are unable to survive and the tumor burden is reduced.

Research also supports the numerous beneficial metabolic effects of IF related to neurologic function, including positive effects on verbal and working memory and cognition seen in older adults. The benefits further extend to disease states such as MS where ongoing trials hope to show improved function based on preliminary results seen thus far.

Mattsons article is an important contribution to our understanding of metabolism.It demonstrates that beyond choosing healthy diets and avoiding high sugar/high fat and processed food, the amount of time between meals can provide significant benefits as well, offers Benjamin Hirsh, M.D., Director, Preventive Cardiology, Northwell Health's Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital, Manhasset, New York.

Physician and public health guidance on how to implement healthy lifestyle choices overall will yield much greater benefits overall to individuals hoping to improve their health and the population at large, he explained. However, for the individual who wants to try a diet where the pattern is as much about fasting as it is about food intake choices, there is now a dietary pattern that they can pursue.

However, this also must be done under the guidance of a physician very knowledgeable about this science, and the diet must be followed very strictly, which will be difficult to do outside the context of a clinical trial, he added.

Breakfast As The Least Likely Meal

Mattson sums his thoughts about IF up by stating that from an evolutionary perspective, breakfast is the least likely meal, a reflection of his thoughts that embrace cellular adaptations and metabolic switching as products of evolution of human physiology. Mattson explains that we never awoke to a ready-made breakfast over ten thousand years ago, prior to the agricultural revolution.

Instead, humans had to forage or find food, or make a kill. It involved work and time with the natural process of fasting already part of our existence before we could ever eat.

He also envisions how this approach could one day be adopted as part of an approach or treatment for obesity, to help jumpstart the process with inpatient stay, ideally reimbursed by insurance companies or other third party payers. Since we already treat alcohol use disorder and opiate abuse in this manner, why not obesity? The concept is compelling to say the least.

Read more here:
Can Intermittent Fasting Help You Lose Weight And Improve Your Health? - Forbes

On the night, it didnt seem too alarmist or over the top to think his entire career was in jeopardy. It was the angle at which Zlatan Ibrahimovics leg bent, the way his entire body seemed to vibrate when he hit the deck and the crowds sense of foreboding as this big, powerful man stayed down. Everyone knew the likely diagnosis: ruptured knee ligaments, and that it was the injury every footballer feared the most, especially one who was 18 years into his career.

As it turned out, more fool us for underestimating the man wearing Manchester Uniteds No 9 shirt on that April evening at Old Trafford in 2017.

Ibrahimovic was not the kind of guy, we ought to have remembered, who would be defeated by a career-threatening injury. He was the kind of guywho wouldnail the rehab, attempt a flying bicycle kick in the first minute of his comeback match and have the surgeons in Pittsburgh wanting to use him for medical research.

He would go on to score 53...

View original post here:
Daniel Taylor: With Zlatan and Ronaldo still united at the top of the game, it's 'what if' for Rooney ahead of... - The Athletic

Methylation clocks are far and away the most accurate markers of a persons age, and so are a promising tool for evaluating anti-aging interventions, but they are a bit of a black box. We know from statistics that certain places on chromosomes become steadily methylated (or demethylated) with age, but we often dont know what effect that has on expression of particular genes.

For the first time, a clock has been devised based on proteins in the blood that is comparable in accuracy to the best methylation clocks. This has the advantage of being downstream of epigenetics, so it is less of a black box. What can we learn from the proteins that are increased (and decreased) with age?

Ive written often and enthusiastically about the utility of methylation clocks for evaluation of anti-aging interventions [blog, blog, blog, journal article]. This technology offers a way to promptly identify small age-reversal successes (perhaps not in individuals, but averaged over a cohort of ~50 to 100 subjects). Before these tests were available, we had no choice but to wait usually 10 years or more for enough experimental subjects to die that we could be sure the intervention we were evaluating affected life expectancy. (This is the plan of the worthy but ridiculously expensive TAME trial promoted by Nir Barzilai.)

Can we rely on methylation clocks to evaluate anti-aging interventions? If we succeed in setting back the methylation clocks, are we actually making the body younger? The answer depends critically on the relationship of methylation to aging.

The majority view derives from the belief that aging is a passive process, while methylation (epigenetics) is a process under tight evolutionary control. The majority holds that methylation changes with age are a response to the damage that accrues unavoidably, and the changes in gene expression that result are actually the bodys best effort to fight back against this damage.

My view is with the minority. Aging is a programmed process (evolved, I believe, for the purpose of demographic stability). Changes in methylation and epigenetic changes generally are the primary cause of aging. Far from being a response to damage, epigenetic changes with age invoke the very signals that cause damage (e.g. inflammation) and simultaneously cut back our repair processes (e.g., detoxification and autophagy).

If you hold with the majority, then setting back the methylation clock (with drugs or gene therapies or ) could actually shorten our lifespans. Setting back the methylation clock means thwarting the bodys efforts to rescue itself. We should not use methylation clocks as a measure of whether a particular technology has achieved rejuvenation.

If you hold with the minority, then setting back the methylation clock is an indication that whatever we have done has struck at the root cause of aging, reversing the epigenetic changes that are the primary driver of senescence.

(In the scientific community of aging, there are a few of us speaking directly about the primary importance of epigenetics [Horvath, Barja, Johnson, Rando, Mitteldorf ], and many more who are tacitly accepting the idea that setting back the methylation clock is a good thing. Most scientists remain skeptical and are not embracing the methylation clocks as a reliable gauge for anti-aging technologies [Han, West].)

The battle lines are not clearly drawn, and the basic conflict in beliefs is not yet out in the open. But resolution of this issue is a major next step for geriatric research. I say this because it is likely there is some truth on each side. Most of the epigenetic changes with age are drivers of senescence (Type 1), but some are the bodys attempts to rescue itself from damage (Type 2). Each of the methylation clocks that are now available averages hundreds of methylation sites, and it is likely that they are a mixture of sites that play these two opposing roles. [background in my October blog]

So the urgent need is for a clock that is constructed exclusively of drivers of aging (Type 1), so that we can use it with confidence as a measure of whether an intervention that we are testing will extend lifespan.

Can we design experiments with the methylation clock that would tell us which of the age-related methylation sites are Type 1 and which are Type 2? Its hard to know how to begin, because we dont yet have a way to do controlled experiments. What we want is a molecular tool that will methylate a selected target CpG site while leaving everything else untouched, and we dont have that yet. (It may become feasible as CRISPR technology improves.) Based on present technology, the only way to tell for sure is to compare how different interventions affect the methylation clocks in thousands of experimental subjects, and then wait and wait and wait and see how long these subjects live. LEF is undertaking this ambitious plan, but it will be decades before it bears fruit.

Clocks based on the proteome

This month, a new clock came out of the Stanford lab of Tony Wyss-Coray that is based on measuring levels of proteins in blood plasma, rather than patterns of methylation on chromosomes. It is not the first proteomic clock, but it is the most accurate. For some of the proteins that feature prominently in the clock, we have a good understanding of their metabolic function, and for the most part they vindicate my belief that epigenetic changes are predominantly drivers of senescence rather than protective responses to damage.

Wyss-Coray was one of the people at Stanford responsible for the modern wave of research in hetrochronic parabiosis. In a series of experiments, they surgically joined a young mouse to an old mouse, such that they shared a blood supply. The old mouse got younger and the young mouse got older, though both suffered early death from their cruel and macabre condition (excuse my editorial license). Later, it was found that chemical constituents of the blood plasma (proteins and RNAs but not whole cells) were responsible for moderating the effective ages of the animals. As part of the current study, Wyss-Coray compared the proteins in the new (human) proteome clock with the proteins that were altered in the (mouse) parabiosis experiments, and found a large overlap. This may be the best evidence we have that the proteome changes are predominantly Type 1, causal factors of senescence. (Here is a very recent BioRxiv preprint of a UCSD study relating epigenetic clocks in people to mice and dogs.)

Different proteins change at different ages

The Stanford group notes that some of the proteins in their clock increase in the blood with age and some decrease. Typically, the changes do not occur uniformly over the lifespan. Though none of the curves is U-shaped (on-off-on, or off-on-off), some proteins do most of their changing early in life, and some later.

The group identifies three life periods and three groups of proteins: mid-30s, ~60yo, and late 70s.

At young age (34 years), we observed a downregulation of proteins involved instructural pathways, such as the extracellular matrix. These changes were reversed in middle and old age (60 and 78 years, respectively). At age 60 years, we found a prominent role of hormonal activity, binding functions and blood pathways. At age 78 years, key processes still included blood pathways but also bone morphogenetic protein signaling, which is involved in numerous cellular functions. Pathways changing with age by linear modeling overlapped most strongly with the crests at age 34 and 60 years (Fig below), indicating that dramatic changes occurring in the elderly might be masked in linear modeling by more subtle changes at earlier ages. Altogether, these results showed that aging is a dynamic, non-linear process characterized by waves of changes in plasma proteins that reflect complex shifts in biological processes.

This paragraph doesnt tell all we need to know to decide which changes are Type 1 and which Type 2. There is more information in their Supplementary Tables 5 and 14. I dont have the expertise in biochemistry or metabolics to extract the information, but if you do and you are reading this, I hope you will contact me.

Intriguingly, the three age-related crests were largely composed of different proteins

For example, the top four proteins changing at age 78 are

With Google searches, what I could find about all of these was that they have been previously identified as CV risk factors, and they all are increasing rapidly at age 78. The third one (SMOC) is described as binding calcium, which presumably affects blood clotting. All are clearly Type 1 an important bottom line but it would be nice to know more about their metabolic roles. Caveat: the technology used to measure these proteins comes from SomaLogic, and their mission was to look for proteins that could signal CV risk.

I could find nothing about numbers 5 through 8

It is interesting to me that almost all the proteins identified as changing rapidly at age 78 are increasing. The few I have identified seem to be increasing in a way that makes us more vulnerable to CV disease. It is natural to interpret this phenomenon as programmed aging.

In contrast, a few of the fastest-changing proteins at age 60 are decreasing (though most are increasing). The one decreasing most significantly is identified as SERP a2-Antiplasmin, which seems to me to be involved in autophagy, but Im out of my depth here. At age 60, the proteins increasing most rapidly is PTN.3045.72.2, another CV risk factor, and GDF15.

GDF15 deserves a story of its own. The authors identify it as the single most useful protein for their clock, increasing monotonically across the age span. It is described sketchily in Wikipedia as having a role in both inflammation and apoptosis, and it has been identified as a powerful indicator of heart disease. My guess is that it is mostly Type 1, but that it also plays a role in repair. GDF15 is too central a player to be purely an agent of self-destruction.

Why not make use of different proteins at different ages in constructing the clock?

The implication is that a more accurate clock can be constructed if it incorporates different information at different life stages. Age calculation should be based on different sets of proteins, depending on how old the subject is. (You might object that you have to know how old the subject is in order to know which proteins to emphasize, but this problem is easy to overcome in practice, by calculating age in two stages, a rough cut using all proteins, and then a fine tuning based on proteins that change most rapidly around that age.) In my reading of the paper, the Stanford team prominently notes that patterns of change roll along in waves through the lifetime, but then they fail to incorporate this information into their clock algorithm, which is independent of age. This seems to be a lost opportunity. The methylation clocks, too, might gain accuracy by this approach. (All the Horvath clocks use the same collection of CpG sites for young and old alike.)

Maybe I am misreading the text about how the clock was constructed, and maybe the authors have already optimized their algorithm with different proteins at different ages. The text in question is

To determine whether the plasma proteome could predict biological age, we used glmnet and fitted a LASSO model (alpha= 1; 100 lambda tested; lamda.min as the shrinkage variable was estimated after tenfold cross-validation). Input variables consisted of z-scaled logtransformed RFUs and sex information. [ref]

In any case, I know that none of the Horvath clocks have been derived based on different CpG sites at different ages, and this suggests an opportunity for a potential improvement in accuracy.

Comparison to Predecessor

Last year, this paper was published by a group at NIH, describing their own study of how the human proteome changes with age. Their sample was smaller, but they also found that aging is characterized more by increasing plasma proteins than by proteins lost with age. They also singled out GDF15 as their most prominent finding. They didnt look for different proteins at different ages, as the Stanford group did. The functional pathways enriched in the 217 ageassociated proteins included blood coagulation, chemokine and inflammatory pathways, axon guidance, peptidase activity, and apoptosis. The clock they constructed showed correlation with age r=0.94, compared to r=0.97 for the new Stanford clock. (The difference between 0.94 and 0.97 implies that the Stanford clock is twice as accurate (half the uncertainty)).

The bottom line

If proteome clocks eventually replace methylome clocks, the process will take several years. Proteome lab procedures are more complicated and more expensive than technology for measuring methylation. More to the point, the Stanford results must be replicated by independent labs, and must be stress-tested and cross-checked against other markers of aging. For the next few years, we have more confidence in the methylation clocks, which have been through this process and found to be solid.

But starting immediately, we can use the specifics of the proteome clock to engineer anti-aging remedies. The plasma proteome is directly related to the metabolism, and it can be altered with intravenous transfusions. (We cannot yet directly directly modify the methylome.) So lets apply the results of the proteome clock. Most of the significant changes with age involve increases in certain proteins, so we will have to either remove these from the blood or infuse antibodies designed to bind to them and neutralize them. The infusions will probably have to be carefully titrated so as not to overdo it.

The large and crucial question hanging over the clock technologies (methylome and proteome) is which of these changes are drivers of senescence and which are protective responses to damage. The new proteome data provides reassurance that the predominance are of Type 1 (drivers of aging), and we can safely use them to gauge the effectiveness of our anti-aging interventions. But this issue is central, and deserves explicit attention. Every methylation site and every plasma protein that we use to evaluate new technologies should be individually validated as Type 1.

Visit link:
New Aging Clock based on Proteins in the Blood - ScienceBlog.com

The recent report added by Verified Market Research gives a detailed account of the drivers and restraints in the Global Regenerative Medicine market. The research report, titled [Global Regenerative Medicine Market Size and Forecast to 2026] presents a comprehensive take on the overall market. Analysts have carefully evaluated the milestones achieved by the global Regenerative Medicine market and the current trends that are likely to shape its future. Primary and secondary research methodologies have been used to put together an exhaustive report on the subject. Analysts have offered unbiased outlook on the global Regenerative Medicine market to guide clients toward a well-informed business decision.

Global Regenerative Medicine Market was valued at USD 19.10 Billion in 2018 and is expected to witness a growth of 22.72% from 2019-2026 and reach USD 98.10 Billion by 2026.

The comprehensive research report has used Porters five forces analysis and SWOT analysis to give the readers a fair idea of the direction the global Regenerative Medicine market is expected to take. The Porters five forces analysis highlights the intensity of the competitive rivalry while the SWOT analysis focuses on explaining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats present in the global Regenerative Medicine market. The research report gives an in-depth explanation of the trends and consumer behavior pattern that are likely to govern the evolution of the global Regenerative Medicine market.

The following Companies as the Key Players in the Global Regenerative Medicine Market Research Report:

Regions Covered in the Global Regenerative Medicine Market:

Europe (Germany, Russia, UK, Italy, Turkey, France, etc.)

The Middle East and Africa (GCC Countries and Egypt)

North America (United States, Mexico, and Canada)

South America (Brazil etc.)

Asia-Pacific (China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Australia)

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Table of Content

1 Introduction of Regenerative Medicine Market

1.1 Overview of the Market 1.2 Scope of Report 1.3 Assumptions

2 Executive Summary

3 Research Methodology of Verified Market Research

3.1 Data Mining 3.2 Validation 3.3 Primary Interviews 3.4 List of Data Sources

4 Regenerative Medicine Market Outlook

4.1 Overview 4.2 Market Dynamics 4.2.1 Drivers 4.2.2 Restraints 4.2.3 Opportunities 4.3 Porters Five Force Model 4.4 Value Chain Analysis

5 Regenerative Medicine Market, By Deployment Model

5.1 Overview

6 Regenerative Medicine Market, By Solution

6.1 Overview

7 Regenerative Medicine Market, By Vertical

7.1 Overview

8 Regenerative Medicine Market, By Geography

8.1 Overview 8.2 North America 8.2.1 U.S. 8.2.2 Canada 8.2.3 Mexico 8.3 Europe 8.3.1 Germany 8.3.2 U.K. 8.3.3 France 8.3.4 Rest of Europe 8.4 Asia Pacific 8.4.1 China 8.4.2 Japan 8.4.3 India 8.4.4 Rest of Asia Pacific 8.5 Rest of the World 8.5.1 Latin America 8.5.2 Middle East

9 Regenerative Medicine Market Competitive Landscape

9.1 Overview 9.2 Company Market Ranking 9.3 Key Development Strategies

10 Company Profiles

10.1.1 Overview 10.1.2 Financial Performance 10.1.3 Product Outlook 10.1.4 Key Developments

11 Appendix

11.1 Related Research

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Regenerative Medicine Market Segmentation, Top Companies, Applications, Comprehensive Research Report and Forecast to 2026 - Market Research Sheets

As a critical care resident from Peru studying at Saint Louis University, the process of a lung transplant caught Dr. Jorge Malleas attention.

It was very interesting to me to see how you could actually change one persons lungs for another persons lungs and then make it work, said Mallea, medical director of Mayo Clinics lung restoration facility.

It was very intense, very labor demanding, intellectually, very challenging, he said.

Mallea went on to complete his fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.

As he was looking for work, a mentor from his residency, Dr. Cesar Keller, recruited him to join the lung transplant team at Mayo Clinic.

Two other doctors he knew from St. Louis already were at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, so Mallea joined the hospital in 2003.

In 2015, Mayo Clinic announced it would partner with United Therapeutics to develop a lung restoration center on its Jacksonville campus.

The form of regenerative medicine is designed to take donor lungs thatpreviously would have been unusable and turn them into viable transplant organs.

The center is on the first floor of the new Discovery and Innovation building on Mayo Clinics campus.

In August, Mallea became medical director of the facility. He believes the technology can change the way lung transplants are done.

The ex-vivo lung perfusion technology, which is used in the facility, allows for the lung restoration team to spend more time with donor lungs, which would help make more lungs available for transplant.

Mallea said the technology can make the lungs treated in the Jacksonville facility better than the standard lung, and last longer than the typical lung transplant.

He wants to save the nearly 400 people who die annually waiting for a lung transplant.

The goal is to chop that number from 400 to zero, Mallea said.

So far, only trials have been completed in the Mayo Clinic facility, which opened in August. When it receives FDA approval, which likely will be in January, the facility will have the capacity to treat nearly 900 lungs each year.

Aside from serving as medical director of the facility, Mallea works as a pulmonologist, seeing patients suffering from COPD or emphysema on campus.

He said those patients, given the nature of their disease and chance of mortality within the next year, often are low on the list to receive a transplant.

Part of his work at Mayo Clinic is trying to find solutions for those patients. Hes working on developing a trial to treat COPD patients with mesenchymal stem cells, but its in the early stages, he said.

Mallea said he and the United Therapeutics team also hope to be able to regenerate lungs using biomaterials or stem cells in the future, which would create more ways to increase the lung donor pool.

Sometimes its looking into the future and it looks like science fiction, Mallea said. But it really is exciting, the things that we can do, or the things that were hoping to do soon.

Working on the lung transplant and now lung restoration teams has been rewarding, Mallea said. Hes seen lung restoration in action at United Therapeutics Silver Spring, Maryland, facility, which performs the procedures.

Sometimes lungs will come into the facility, and its unclear if they will work for a transplant. After inspection and by tweaking a few things, those lungs can then be suitable, he said.

You can see the difference that having them in the facility can make, he said. So thats definitely a satisfaction of being part of that team, being able to know that another persons getting a second chance of life because theyre receiving lungs that are going to save their lives.

Mallea considers himself lucky to be in a situation where I can be part of developing, discovering and hopefully transforming the future with a great team.

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Doctors goal: End the wait for lung transplants - Jacksonville Daily Record

Brian Wedding

Boca Raton, FL The Florida Atlantic University Athletic Department has partnered with Brian Wedding and RoofClaim.com on a $5 million, 10-year sponsorship to name the RoofClaim.com Arena, home of the FAU mens and womens basketball and volleyball teams.

We are tremendously excited to partner with Brian Wedding and RoofClaim.com, saidBrian White,vice president and director of athletics. This partnership is transformational for our student-athletes and fans, as well as the community. We are thrilled about the opportunities provided to FAU and our athletics department from this investment.

Wedding is the founder/CEO of RoofClaim.com, a company he has aligned with several reputable and charitable companies and organizations though corporate partnerships. RoofClaim.com is a technology service company specializing in the diagnosing and processing of shingle and tile roof replacement insurance claims though the use of cutting-edge technology, and industry leading processes. The company is recognized nationally for its services and is also a member of the National Roofing Contractors Association and the National Association of Home Builders. RoofClaim.com is a subsidiary ofJasper Inc.

I am very excited about the growth and vision of Florida Atlantic University, under the direction of President Kelly and Director of Athletics Brian White, said Wedding. There is a lot of synergy between FAU and RoofClaim.com. We are both working to help those in the South Florida region, as well as expand the student and fan experience. I look forward to raising a championship trophy with FAU one day.

Florida Atlantic University Athletics:

FAU Athletics is comprised of 21 intercollegiate teams involving 450 student athletes that compete in baseball, basketball, cross country,football, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track, volleyball, beach volleyball, cheer and dance. The Owls are a NCAA Division I-A (FBS) institution and compete in Conference USA and the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) (Beach Volleyball, Mens Swimming). The Owls have been playing football since 2001 and have captured two bowl games. The dance team finished its 2014 season No. 8, nationally. FAU Cheer won a national championship in 2016.

About Florida Atlantic University:

Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six county service region in southeast Florida. FAUs world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAUs existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visitfau.edu.

Arena

Link:
FAU Athletics Receives $5 Million Sponsorship from Roof Claim to Name FAU Arena - The Boca Raton Tribune

In this 1998 photo, Teresa Hershey works her first job in veterinary medicine as mixed animal practitioner in southeast Minnesota. Submitted photo

Idid a double pet euthanasia recently.

Two small poodles who grew up together and in old age were both very sick. I had done this only a couple of times before. The problem with this situation is the logistics. Who do you euthanize first?Do I ask the owner? That seems like a lot of weight to put on their shoulders, and I thought it would be best to decide for them.

I will euthanize Naomi and then I will euthanize Bear, I said. It was agreed that would be the order.

Once it was done, I laid the two dogs side-by-side on the table and covered them with a blanket to the chin. For some reason, it is not twice as sad to see two little bodies instead of one, but exponentially so.

My next patient after that appointment was a new puppy.Time to switch from being Doctor Death to Doctor Smiles. I do it all of the time, so I am used to it. My job is to be what the client in front of me needs right now. I suppose that is the definition of being a professional: the ability to perform your job with skill even under duress.

I recall one time when I was not successful in making that transition between a euthanasia and a puppy appointment. While examining the puppy, I started to cry and explained to the owner that I had just euthanized a pug friend and was feeling sad.

I didnt see that client again at my clinic. Who would come back to see a doctor who was crying?I wouldnt! When a client gives you money for a service, they want and deserve to have your undivided attention.

Many people dream of being a veterinarian.But soon enough, most realize it is not for them not only because of the rigors of school and the time and cost involved, but also because you have to be able to compartmentalize your day and deal with heavy things.

You have to like animals and be able to still think clearly when they are suffering. If you get too caught up in your feelings, you can become paralyzed and not perform your job well.

Of course the other extreme is also possible: where you look past the patient and only see the disease. This happened with one of my veterinary teachers.

One day when I was in veterinary school, one of my professors decided to move his bovine necropsy (autopsy) lab outside on a nice spring day.He sliced into the cow, setting her organs on the grass. He explained the pathology occurring in his subject while his boot-and-overall-clad veterinary students looked on with interest.Meanwhile, the English and history majors walking by were horrified and promptly reported him to school administrators. I can imagine the shock of my professor when he found out that public dissection is not appropriate for the masses.

Being a good veterinarian means that you can find that sweet spot between being caring and being analytical.Both are skills to be developed over time.

I am glad to be a seasoned veterinarian now.The growing pains of a young doctor are huge. Not only are you trying to figure out who you are as a person in this profession and how best to present yourself and your information,but also there is so much knowledge to accumulate about pathology, disease and what is normal.

I have been in practice for 20 years now and have diagnosed all manner of cancers, orthopedic issues, skin problems and metabolic disorders.Every once in a while, though, I will see something I have never seen before. Several years ago, a dog came into my clinic that the owner reported was just off. We have a term for this in veterinary medicine. It is called ADR Aint Doin Right. (This is a real abbreviationveterinarians use when we havent been able to pinpoint the disease.)

My ADR patient had very nondescript and subtle symptoms: moderate lethargy and a slight loss of appetite. All of his tests came back normal. When I saw the dog back three days later, he looked like a totally different animal. His face was twisted into a smile as if someone were standing behind him pulling his skin backwards. The diagnosis could now be made.This expression, called a sardonic grin, is classic for the disease tetanus and occurs because all of the muscles of the face tense up. Tetanus is fortunately extremely rare, but its effects are horrible to see and, for this dog, it was fatal.

Besides treating the animals that come through my door, I also have to treat the people.When I was in middle school and I told my mother that I wanted to be a veterinarian, she told me that was a good career choice for me because I wasnt good with people.(Note: My mother is a wonderful woman whom I love very, very much). My middle school self must not have been very pleasant to be around.

But my mother was wrong that veterinarians dont need to be good with people.Veterinarians have two customers: the patient and the person who brings the patient to your door.

Only a small portion of my job is occupied with real doctoring, like analyzing lab samples and sewing up lacerations.The majority of my job is being a human with feelings while trying to solve a problem with another human with feelings.That part is harder.

Of course, this would not be a proper article about the experience of being a veterinarian if I didnt talk about the best part of my job: the animals I get to meet.

I have a 30-pound Maine coon with a head the size of a small melon who visits me at the clinic.He is such an amazing creature that it is just an honor to be in the same room as him.

My smallest patient is a 3.5-pound Maltese who hides her head in the crook of her moms arm when I come into the room.Poor thing, everyone is a looming giant to her!

My biggest patient is a 150-pound mastiff. His jowls hang low and, after examining him, I need to sponge myself off because of the amount of saliva he deposits on me.

When the day is done, my calls are made and my notes are complete, I sit back and think, I get to come back again and do this all over tomorrow! and I feel I am very lucky to do so.

Dr. Teresa Hershey is a veterinarian at Westgate Pet Clinic in Linden Hills. Email pet questions to drhershey@westgatepetclinicmn.com.

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What is it like to be a veterinarian? - Southwest Journal

Animal athletes come in all shapes and sizes. Generations of selective breeding have produced genetic lines of animals that are deemed more suited to a specific athletic discipline. For example, some dogs are bred to hunt, while others are bred for agility; some horses are bred for racing, while others are bred to work with cows. The evolution of todays bucking bull athlete is no different.

Traditionally, the bull riding event at a rodeo centered on the cowboy and how well he performed atop the bull. A high score usually meant a big payday for the cowboy but little, if any, credit or reward for the bull or his owner. Nowadays, competitive bucking bull events are a common occurrence with the bulls scored on their individual bucking ability rather than the performance of, or lack thereof, the cowboy riding them.

Since the early 1990s, and perhaps before, bucking bull breeders have aimed to produce animals that display superior athleticism. Bucking bulls are judged on their speed, power, front end drop, hind end kick, ability to change direction and body rolling. Those performing in todays bull riding events are faster, stronger and more agile than bulls from years past. These athletes engage in swift, powerful movements that place unique strains on their bodies not ordinarily experienced by their non-athletic bovine counterparts; thus, these bulls can and do suffer performance-related injuries.

While the realm of veterinary medicine has not usually included the practice of bovine sports medicine, due to the popularity and growth of the sport of bull riding and competitive bucking bull events, many veterinarians find themselves providing, to some extent, just that. Additionally, the owners perceived value of these animal athletes often allows for much more thorough veterinary evaluations and treatments than for the many bulls used solely for production.

Sports-related injuries are common in competitive athletics, regardless of the species; however, the bucking bull presents some unique challenges in identifying, diagnosing and treating injury or disease. Their fractious and sometimes aggressive nature can limit the display of pain or lameness, making minor injuries impossible to detect until they become more severe. Specialized facilities with sturdy corrals and hydraulic squeeze chutes are also often required to safely examine, hospitalize, and treat bucking bulls.

The two most common areas of injury or disease in the bucking bull athlete involve the musculoskeletal system (approximately 70-75 percent) and the horns (approximately 10-15 percent). Disorders to the musculoskeletal system frequently occur in the back or hind limbs and include bone fractures, tendon or ligament strains and joint disease. These injuries are often sustained during performance or training. Horn disorders often occur outside of the performance arena either during husbandry, transport, handling or fighting with other bulls. Disorders of other body systems do occur but with much less frequency.

Regardless of the source, injury or disease in a bucking bull commonly results in a lower performance if the bull can perform all together. Veterinarians with knowledge and experience specific to the bucking bull are often called on to evaluate these athletes, correctly diagnose the injury and prescribe a treatment plan. Following treatment and rehabilitation, many of these athletes are able return to the arena, performing at or above their previous level.

The bucking bull is a unique animal athlete, and the practice of bovine sports medicine is becoming a reality for more and more veterinarians each year. Injuries to the musculoskeletal system and horns are common and may be very different from injuries sustained by the non-athletic bovine. The continuous popularity of the sport of rodeo and other competitive bucking bull events will likely call for more experienced, specialized veterinarians in the field of bovine sports medicine and rehabilitation. The OSU Veterinary Medical Hospital has many veterinarians who specialize in all areas of bovine medicine including internal medicine, surgery and sports medicine.

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VETERINARY VIEWPOINTS: Bovine sports medicine Keeping the buck in the bull - Stillwater News Press

Hope, the special-needs pig who was flown to a veterinary hospital in Pennsylvania last month to undergo an examination for her legs, is back home at an animal refuge in Caswell County, North Carolina.

The pig could not use her rear legs and was taken to New Bolton Center at the University of Pennsylvanias School of Veterinary Medicine in Kennett Square about an hour outside of Philadelphia Nov. 16.

About a week later, she returned home to Ziggys Refuge Farm Sanctuary after vets could not find anything wrong with the animal.

Her bone structure was all there, said Kristin Hartness, co-founder of Ziggys, located in the community of Providence. They had no idea why her legs were [spread] out to the side.

Born on a farm in Floyd, Hope was set to be euthanized when someone reached out to Ziggys. Hartness and her husband, sanctuary co-founder Jay Yontz, take care of special-needs farm animals at the 85-acre refuge.

Hartness and Yontz have been giving Hope physical therapy.

When Jay got her and started handling her and working her legs and massaging them ... all of a sudden Jay starts noticing her standing on all fours, Hartness said.

But her legs still spread out to the sides, she said.

Jennifer Miller, the Pittsylvania County resident who went on the flight with Hope in November, visited the 3-month-old pig at Ziggys on Dec. 21.

She is quite happy and very, very sassy, Miller said. She doesnt like to be held, but she is very food motivated. Shes learning all kinds of tricks. She knows how to spin in a circle to get food.

Hope will not need surgery, at least not in the near future, Miller said.

But she does drag her legs when shes tired.

She still has a ways to go, but we couldnt be happier with whats going on, Hartness said of Hopes progress.

Yontz expressed amazement at the pace of her recovery so far.

Its remarkable how she started using those legs, Yontz said.

Physical therapy has included stretching the pigs legs the way they need to go, he said.

She gets around on all fours regularly and can walk in a handstand.

A lot of times, her toes tuck under her, Hartness said. We just have to constantly work with her. The more that we do, the better she does.

On top of that, Hope is growing quickly.

Shes probably doubled in size since the flight, Hartness said.

Even Ziggy, Yontzs and Hartnesss first and much larger older pig, has warmed up to Hope a little.

She loves Ziggy ... and climbs in his bed, Yontz said. He tolerates that. Hes particular about his bed. She fits right in. Shes a lot of fun.

Crane reports for the Register & Bee. He can be reached at (434) 791-7987.

Crane reports for the Register & Bee. He can be reached at (434) 791-7987.

Read more from the original source:
Hope the flying pig back at Caswell County refuge after plane trip to Pennsylvania vet - GoDanRiver.com

Zulqarnain Baloch,1,* Luchao Lv,1,2,* Lingxian Yi,1,2 Miao Wan,1,2 Bilal Aslam,3 Jun Yang,1,2 Jian-Hua Liu1,2

1College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, Peoples Republic of China; 2Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Veterinary Pharmaceutics Development and Safety Evaluation, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Peoples Republic of China; 3Government College University, Faisalabad 54000, Pakistan

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Jian-Hua LiuCollege of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples Republic of ChinaEmail jhliu@scau.edu.cn

Abstract: The New Delhi Metallo--lactamase (NDM) producing Enterobacteriaceae is spreading worldwide. Although the blaNDM gene has been identified in animal associated Enterobacteriaceae isolates in many countries, little is known about its occurrence in animal products in Pakistan. In this study, 13 Escherichia coli isolates were collected from chicken meat samples in Pakistan. Two isolates, 15978 and C4109, exhibited reduced susceptibility (MIC 1 g/mL) to imipenem, and carried blaNDM-5 and blaNDM-7 gene, respectively. Whole-genome sequencing and Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing revealed that 15978 and C4109 belonged to ST156 and ST167, respectively. blaNDM-7 was carried by an IncX3 plasmid that has disseminated worldwide, whereas blaNDM-5 was located on an F36: A-: B32 plasmid, which shared high identity with two plasmids carried by E. coli isolates from other countries (one from a patient in Canada). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report characterizing blaNDM-carrying plasmids from chicken meat samples in Pakistan. The dissemination of almost identical blaNDM-5-bearing F36:A-:B32 and blaNDM-7-bearing IncX3 plasmids in different countries highlights the importance of international trade and travel in the spread of antimicrobial resistance strains and plasmids worldwide.

Keywords: plasmid, animal food, carbapenemase, blaNDM

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

Read the original:
Emergence of Almost Identical F36:A-:B32 Plasmids Carrying blaNDM | IDR - Dove Medical Press

By TNH Staff December 29, 2019

Jars of honey. Honey is on the list of foods for longevity. Photo: Marcobeltrametti, via Wikimedia Commons

NEW YORK Ikaria is well-known for the impressive longevity of its people. The secret to living a long and healthy life is eating nine foods typical in the diet of Ikarians, according to a report on Well+Good, a healthy living website, citing Blue Zones expert Dan Buettner who recommends eating like the Ikarians.

Blue Zones are regions of the world where Buettner claims people live much longer than average and the term first appeared in his November 2005 National Geographic magazine cover story, The Secrets of a Long Life. Buettner noted that the five regions are Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and among the Seventh-day Adventists living in Loma Linda, California.

The nine healthy Greek foods help ensure Ikaria has a high percentage of centenarians among its population without chronic illnesses associated with aging such as dementia, cancer, and depression.

The nine foods are as follows:

Wild greens, including dandelions and purslane, are eaten seasonally, and are not sprayed with pesticides, Well+Good reported.

Olive oil lowers inflammation and with its antioxidants is Greeces heart- and brain- healthy liquid gold, Well+Good reported.

Black-eyed peas, the overlooked legume according to Well+Goods report, are full of magnesium and iron. One of the fastest cooking of the legumes, skip the can, and buy dried black-eyed peas which are not only more affordable, they dont have the added sodium of the canned version.

Mediterranean herbs including oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, basil, parsley, and garlic are associated with reducing inflammation.

Lemon revs up your metabolism and helps with digestion. Pro tip: use the peel, too. Its high in calcium, potassium, and vitamin C, Well+Good reported.

Chickpeas, full of fiber and protein, are most commonly served in soups but can also make a great addition to salads and meat-free meals or as hummus.

Coffee is also full of antioxidants which are associated with reducing inflammation.

Honey has a long history in Greece as a health food and for its antibacterial and antimicrobial qualities. It is also high in antioxidants.

See the original post here:
Nine Foods Are the Secret to Longevity in Ikaria - The National Herald

JFES promotions

Jacksonville Fire and Emergency Services Fire Chief Tee Tallman recently announced the following promotions: A-Shift - Michael Williams was promoted to captain. Raymond Sorrell, Edward Rochelle and Brian Charles-Craft were promoted to lieutenant. Driver Operators I Zachary Getts, Richard Johns and Forrest Williams were reclassified as Engineer I. Driver/Operators II Robert Hunt and Jerome Scott were reclassified as Engineer II. B Shift -Duane Messner, Robert Steffee and Benjamin Franck were promoted to lieutenant. Driver/Operators I Kenneth Netznik, Brandon Hansley, Matthew Baker and Greg Williams were reclassified as Engineer I. Driver/Operator II Gary Casen was reclassified as Engineer II. C Shift - Brandy Bruns was promoted to captain. Driver/Operators II Brent Cook and Johnathan Prevatte and Joshua Booth were promoted to lieutenant. Driver/Operators I Riley Maready, William Stanley, Heather Szymanik and Chris Gandy were reclassified as Engineer I. Driver/Operators II Frankie Howard, Jorge Toranzo and Roger Parker were reclassified as Engineer II.

JPD certificates presented

Jacksonville Police Chief Yaniero recently recognized staff members with Longevity Awards and Law Enforcement Certifications presentation at the Center for Public Safety. Longevity Awards were presented to School Crossing Guard Jeffrey Walters (10 years); Sgt. Joshua Porter (10 years); Cpl. Brittany Carlton (10 years); Admin Assistant II Jennifer Parker (5 years) and Officer John Maiorano (5 years). Officer Christopher Padrick received his Intermediate Law Enforcement Certification.

Jacksonville-Onslow Christmas Parade float winners

The Jacksonville-Onslow Christmas Parade recently announced its winners of its annual parade Old Fashioned Christmas. First place professional, Filipino-American Community; first place amateur, The Door Christian Fellowship; second place professional, Brigade Boys and Girls Club; second place amateur, Onslow County Animal Services; third place professional, Rubys Misfits; third place amateur, IQUOLIOC.

Service Member of the Month

Marine Corps Sgt. Ken Tolentino was recently named Service Member of the Month for November by the Jacksonville-Onslow Chamber of Commerces Military Affairs Committee. He is a Training NCO for Maintenance Platoon, Communication Company at Combat Logistics Regiment 27 aboard Camp Lejeune.

Sandmann graduates with Masters

Tara Sandmann, a 2008 graduate of Northwest High School, recently received a Master of Arts degree in American History & Government during Ashland University's winter 2019 commencement ceremony.

Send us your neighbors

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Neighbors in the News - Jacksonville Daily News