Category Archives: Human Longevity

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

15-Apr-2014

Contact: Christopher James christopher.james@nyu.edu 212-998-6876 New York University

Antiretroviral therapy (ART), the primary type of treatment for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), can reduce sexual transmission, prevent illness, and increase longevity and quality of life for patients. However, according to current data, only an estimated 77-percent of U.S patients on ART therapy have suppressed viral loads. This suggests patients' adherence to the current ART treatment regiments is in need of improvement to reduce the viral load and also to lower sexual transmission risk behaviors.

Now, new research from faculty affiliated with New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR) at the NYU College of Nursing (NYUCN), published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, shows that computerized counseling is a promising intervention for increased ART adherence and safer sex, especially for individuals with problems in these areas. This is the first intervention to report improved ART adherence, viral suppression, and reduced secondary sexual transmission risk behavior.

"The computer-delivered intervention model, Computer Assessment & Rx Education (CARE+), is a .Net-based custom software application with intervention content based on theoretical frameworks, which acts as additional support for traditional ART treatment," said Ann Kurth, PhD, CNM, FAAN, Professor; Executive Director, NYUCN Global; and Associate Dean for Research, NYU Global Institute of Public Health. "The tool incorporates evidence-based elements shown to improve ART adherence or reduce sexual risk, as well as a personalized printout summarizing feedback, health plan and referral phone numbers."

The objective of the study, "Computerized Counseling Reduces HIV-1 Viral Load and Sexual Transmission Risk: Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial," was to evaluate the potential effectiveness of a computerized intervention made specifically to support patients towards positive behavioral change. The study included 240 participants who were randomly divided into two groups: one receiving CARE+ and the other group receiving only a computerized questionnaire.

By focusing on the confidence, motivations and knowledge of the participants, the study reflects a better understanding of how behaviors affect ART adherence and HIV transmission risk. The results were positive and point to a new platform for further studies in HIV self-care and prevention.

"Nearly all CARE+ intervention participants found the tool easy to use, felt the session helped as much or more than face-to-face counseling with a staff person and three out of four even preferred the computer over a human counselor in the future."

After the nine-month period, CARE+ intervention participants overall had an average decrease in HIV viral load, had better ART adherence, and decreased the odds of transmission risks. A majority of participants also stated that their confidence in their health behavior plan success increased by 20-percent by the end of the trial.

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Computerized counseling reduces HIV-1 viral load, sexual transmission risk

Lindsay France/University Photography

Adam Boyko, assistant professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, plays with a dog.

From ancient alchemical quests to modern biological research, efforts to understand and combat human aging have borne few fruits. Now Cornell scientists aim to bridge the gap between lab research and agings complexities in real life using the power of dogs.

With funding from the National Institutes of Healths National Institute of Aging, they are joining interdisciplinary collaborators from across the country to form the Canine Longevity Consortium the first research network to study canine aging. It will lay the groundwork for a nationwide Canine Longitudinal Aging Study (CLAS), using dogs as a powerful new model system that researchers can study to find how genetic and environmental factors influence aging and what interventions might mitigate age-related diseases.

Dogs offer tremendous potential as a model system for human aging, said Adam Boyko, assistant professor of biomedical sciences and an evolutionary geneticist specializing in canine genomics at Cornells College of Veterinary Medicine. They share many genetic characteristics with humans that let us combine traditional demographic and epidemiological approaches with new techniques like comparative genomics. Unlike any other model system for aging, dogs share our environment and, increasingly, our health care options. Once developed, a canine model holds enormous promise, and we expect it to have a significant impact on aging research.

Until now, researchers have studied aging mostly in short-lived, inbred, lab-based animal models like yeast, worms, flies and mice. Yet a large gap divides these models from humans and other genetically variable populations living in complex environments. For a model system to bridge that gap, its constituents would need to have more genetic variability than lab clones, live in environments similar to humans and age in patterns long enough to closely study individuals entire lifetimes.

Boyko and his colleagues aim to craft the CLAS to see how an individual dogs aging trajectory is shaped by genes and the environment, gain detailed understanding of when and why dogs die, and find treatments to combat age-related illness. The consortium will also develop training opportunities in aging research for junior scientists, veterinarians and the general public.

The researchers will start with pilot projects to choose the best breeds for the study and to determine how best to collect, analyze and share the large-scale data it will produce. The team will conduct an epidemiological analysis of genetic and environmental factors influencing canine lifespan, high-resolution mapping of canine longevity, and a yearlong epidemiological analysis of age and cause of death in all dogs seen within a select group of three private veterinary clinics.

Though past longitudinal studies in humans have lent insight to aging research, Boyko says a longitudinal study in dogs has the potential to test a range of critical ideas at a rapid pace not possible with humans.

Such a study would change the way we understand aging, said Boyko. It would be the first longitudinal study of aging in a controlled genetically variable model system. Unlike in human longitudinal studies, within the context of the CLAS, it would be relatively easy to try treatments that may help extend healthy lifespans in dogs and humans. Ultimately, the knowledge gained through this project has the potential to greatly increase our understanding of aging and our ability to treat age-related disease.

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Aging research goes to the dogs

The Future of Longevity: The Death of Til Death Do Us Part?
The Future of Longevity: The Death of Til Death Do Us Part? Human longevity is drastically increasing. In the coming years, it seems possible that we will li...

By: Maddie Smith

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The Future of Longevity: The Death of Til Death Do Us Part? - Video

The Future of Longevity: Welcome
The Future of Longevity: Welcome Human longevity is drastically increasing. In the coming years, it seems possible that we will live out our extra years or e...

By: Maddie Smith

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The Future of Longevity: Welcome - Video

The Future of Longevity: Can We Ever Retire? Would We Even Want To?
The Future of Longevity: Can We Ever Retire? Would We Even Want To? Human longevity is drastically increasing. In the coming years, it seems possible that we...

By: Maddie Smith

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The Future of Longevity: Can We Ever Retire? Would We Even Want To? - Video

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

By: Kendelyn Lane

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Secrets of Longevity / Mental Health Factors - Video

Chicago, IL (PRWEB) April 08, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Attorney Study Hopes to Find Key to Attorney Longevity and Fit

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

8-Apr-2014

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

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

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

Extended lifespan by almost 10%

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

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

Mimicking a low-carb diet

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

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Glucosamine promotes longevity by mimicking a low-carb diet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Three Myths About the Middle East

Secrets of Longevity / Physical Health Factors
This video is the "Body" section of the longevity series, which contains some of the physical health factors practiced by those who live long, happy and healthy lives. Longevity Series Links:...

By: Kendelyn Lane

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Secrets of Longevity / Physical Health Factors - Video