Category Archives: Human Longevity

When someone is calling to apply for a health plan under the Affordable Care Act -- often called ObamaCare -- chances are a Maximus employee may answer the phone.

In addition, the contact center representative will also input and digitize the application, request any missing info, verify eligibility, help choose the plan and notify the managed care plan of the selection.

This is only a portion of the services that the Reston, Va.-based firm provides to states and governments worldwide.Maximus ( MMS ) also runs comprehensive services for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid, helps consumers access long-term care, assists students in managing their loans, and aids people on welfare in joining and remaining in the workforce.

However controversial the topic of U.S. federal spending and ObamaCare may be now, it represents a portion of business for Maximus, which has a long and broad history in getting work done with programs that many governments implement.

The company currently operates 300 offices in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia and Saudi Arabia. It employs 11,000 people, striving to provide localized services in developed countries with a favorable regulatory environment.

"Our mission statement is helping governments serve the people," said Maximus CEO Rich Montoni. "Unlike many of our competitors, we've done this for nearly 40 years. It's been our sole focus and I really think it differentiates us in the marketplace."

When Maximus manages a program for a government or state, it is the first point of contact as people apply for benefits. Its business units are health care and human services. Health care includes services for federal or state health plans. Human services helps the unemployed find and keep jobs. Such programs are underway in the U.K. and Australia, with a pilot program in the U.S .

Capitalizing On Government

In fiscal 2013, the company booked $1.3 billion in revenue, of which 65% was from health services and 35% from human services. Three-quarters of the revenue came from the U.S., with the rest generated internationally. Maximus expects total revenue of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion in fiscal 2014.

Besides its two federal health insurance marketplace call centers, Maximus counts the most contracts of firms providing services to state health insurance exchanges. It manages those programs in eight states and the District of Columbia.

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Maximus Makes Money On ObamaCare, Government Spending

The molecule is thought to activate proteins involved in metabolism and inflammation

Scientists have known for decades how to make yeast, mice and other organisms live longer: give them less food. Credit: Aaron Logan/Wikimedia Commons

A synthetic chemical that may mimic the effects of eating a low-calorie diet extends life span in mice, a new study has found. Previous research showed that mice on a high-fat diet lived longer when given this compound, known as SRT1720; the new work shows that mice on a standard diet also benefit from it. This study is just the latest in an extensive effort to find compounds that may help slow aging and aging-related diseases.

Scientists have known for decades how to make yeast, mice and other organisms live longer: give them less food. Although this might sound paradoxical, it is well established that severely restricting the caloric intake of many lab-raised animals, as long as their essential nutritional needs are met, significantly increases their life span.

But whereas calorie restriction may work for lab mice, it is unlikely to be widely embraced by more than a select few humans. And although there is clear evidence that calorie restriction does prolong the lives of some lab animals, when it comes to nonhuman primates, there are only two long-term studies on the subject. One study by a group at the University of Wisconsin found that calorie restriction increased life span and reduced the occurrence of various diseases in rhesus monkeys. In contrast, the other study, by the National Institute of Healths National Institute on Aging, did not show improved survival of calorie-restricted rhesus monkeys, although they did have lower rates of cancer.

Despite these mixed results, scientists have been ramping up their efforts to find and test what they call calorie restriction mimetics: chemicals that can mimic the life-lengthening effects of calorie restriction by activating the same cellular pathways that low-cal diets activatebut without cutting calories. Although the exact mechanism linking calorie restriction and longevity is still a matter of debate among scientists, research efforts have narrowed the possibilities.

The pathway that has received the most attention involves the activation of proteins called sirtuins. These proteins are involved in a wide variety of processes, most notably metabolism and inflammation. Mice genetically modified to produce higher levels of these proteins were protected from diseases such as diabetes. And certain chemicals thought to activate sirtuins have been shown to have beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system and inflammation in mice.

A number of studies have looked at the sirtuin-activating capabilities of the naturally occurring compound resveratrol. The chemical, which is present in red wine, gained widespread attention when scientists showed that it boosts the life span of yeast, and a 2006 study found that obese mice also lived significantly longer when given resveratrol. Unfortunately, red wine likely does not contain sufficient levels of the chemical to have a measurable impact on human life spans, and studies of resveratrol supplements given to humans have shown varied results. Some scientists have also questioned whether resveratrol can actually directly activate sirtuins.

Recently, scientists have been testing synthetic chemicals that activate sirtuins much more efficiently than resveratrol, including SRT1720. The newest study, published in the February 27 Cell Reports, found that SR1720 extended the life span of mice on a standard diet by about 9 percent. They also confirmed their earlier work indicating that the compound extends the life span of mice fed a high-fat diet.

I think the data in the paper is compelling, says sirtuin researcher Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is not a co-author of the study, although he is a consultant for a company involved in the research. He acknowledges it is impossible to say for sure that SRT1720 is activating sirtuins and nothing else. But that qualification would hold for really any pharmacological intervention, he observes.

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Compound That May Mimic Calorie Restriction Extends Life Span in Mice

Amid recent scandals and a potential budget cut, the Outback Teen Center's board of directors has started an online petition asking the town to support the facility.

The move comes weeks after the town's Health and Human Services Department announced it was cutting its annual contribution to the Outback by 12.5 percent. If the budget is approved as is, the Outback would receive $17,500 from the town for 2014-15. Last year, it received $20,000, and the year before it got $28,000.

"This will negatively impact the longevity of the Center," the petition states. "Close to $2 million was invested by parents and the community to build the facility 12 years ago, and it would be a travesty to lose it. By signing this petition you are indicating that you value the Outback and consider it an important asset for our youth and community."

The $17,500 must still be approved by the Board of Finance and Town Council, though the latter does not have the power to increase any budgets.

Outback's Community Director Christine Simmons said the amount the Human Services Department is proposing to give them represents less than a 10th of the center's $250,000 annual budget. The rest of the funding is raised through private donations. Percentage wise, the center receives a smaller town contribution than do the teen centers in Darien and Wilton, according to Outback documents.

"It is very difficult to provide programming for our young people with the town support of less than 9 percent of the Outback's budgeted income," Simmons said. "Our Outback board members and our Outback staff work hard and devote many hours of time to raise money for operating expenses and programs."

Human Services Director Carol McDonald declined to comment specifically why her department has decided to cut funding for the Outback, but she said it supports the teen center.

"Human Services supports all the Outback's endeavors," she said in an email. "Our Youth Services staff continues to work jointly with them as well as other youth providers in New Canaan."

Dividing the pie

In a January presentation to the town governing bodies, McDonald said the department did the best it could to shift money around instead of requesting a big increase. Her department is requesting a $690,554 budget for 2014-15, a 1.5 percent increase over 2013-14.

The rest is here:
Despite recent challenges, Outback seeking support from town

COLLEGE STATION If a new medication came on the market to help one lose weight, increase exercise, stop smoking and prevent heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory illness and diabetes, people would flock to physicians for a prescription and buy stock in the company, one expert believes.

But thats not likely, according to Dr. David Katz, a physician and director of the Yale Prevention Research Center, who spoke at Texas A&M University today.

Yet, the knowledge already exists to prevent those ailments and few are taking advantage, Katz told about 200 people at the Produce for Health seminar conducted by Texas A&Ms Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center.

Its about lifestyle factors and a plant-based diet, Katz said. Weve seen it in repetitive scientific studies.

The Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center hosted Katz as part of the 20th anniversary of its collaborations among plant production scientists, medical researchers, farmers and food industry experts. The center was created in 1993 as researchers worldwide began to realize the connection between food consumption, food production and human health, according to Dr. Bhimu Patil, director.

Weve known for a long time the top five causes of premature death in humans heart disease, cancer, stroke, respiratory ailments and diabetes, Katz said. What changed in 1993 was a scientific study that encouraged researchers to realize that these are effects not causes. Thats when we began to look for the causes and found that virtually all premature deaths are attributable to diet, exercise and tobacco.

He calls them the feet, fork and fingers: failure to exercise, improper eating and smoking.

In a study that compared people who eat poorly, have out-of-control weight and smoke to people who eat well, have their weight in control and do not smoke, we learned that reversing any one of those would increase ones lifespan by 50 percent. Reversing all three would increase lifespan by 80 percent, Katz said.

The U.S. fight over health care, he added, was about money not health.

The whole thing (mandatory health care) is moot if we dont solve this problem with obesity and the projection about what it will do to our future, Katz said, pointing out that obesity in U.S. children may be linked to the recent 35 percent increase in strokes for children 5-14 years old.

Continued here:
Feet, fork and fingers: clue to health, longevity, national medical expert says

In his first interview after taking over as chief executive officer of Microsoft, Satya Nadella talks to Adam Bryant on leadership, management approach, business and his vision for the company. Excerpts:

What leadership lessons have you learned from your predecessor, Steve Ballmer?

The most important one I learned from Steve happened two or three annual reviews ago. I sat down with him, and I remember asking him: "What do you think? How am I doing?" Then he said: "Look, you will know it, I will know it, and it will be in the air. So you don't have to ask me, 'How am I doing?' At your level, it's going to be fairly implicit."

I went on to ask him, "How do I compare to the people who had my role before me?" And Steve said: "Who cares? The context is so different. The only thing that matters to me is what you do with the cards you've been dealt now. I want you to stay focused on that, versus trying to do this comparative benchmark." The lesson was that you have to stay grounded, and to be brutally honest with yourself on where you stand.

And what about Bill Gates?

Bill is the most analytically rigorous person. He's always very well prepared, and in the first five seconds of a meeting he'll find some logical flaw in something I've shown him. I'll wonder, how can it be that I pour in all this energy and still I didn't see something? In the beginning, I used to say, "I'm really intimidated by him." But he's actually quite grounded. You can push back on him. He'll argue with you vigorously for a couple of minutes, and then he'll be the first person to say, "Oh, you're right." Both Bill and Steve share this. They pressure-test you. They test your conviction.

There's a lot of curiosity around what kind of role Bill is going to play with you.

The outside world looks at it and says, "Whoa, this is some new thing." But we've worked closely for about nine years now. So I'm very comfortable with this, and I asked for a real allocation of his time. He is in fact making some pretty hard trade-offs to say, "OK, I'll put more energy into this." And one of the fantastic things that only Bill can do inside this campus is to get everybody energised to bring their "A" game. It's just a gift.

What were some early leadership lessons for you?

I played on my school's cricket team, and there was one incident that just was very stunning to me. I was a bowler - like a pitcher in baseball - and I was throwing very ordinary stuff one day. So the captain took over from me and got the team a breakthrough, and then he let me take over again.

The rest is here:
Longevity in this business is about being able to reinvent yourself: Satya Nadella

By Anthony F. Shaker

Western propaganda about Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela,and a host of other so-called "human-rights files" around the world, is being churned out on an industrial scale these days. Working in unison with the politicians are NGOs like Human Rights Watch, which is currently beating the drum of war at a frenetic speed, much as we rememberAmnesty Internationaldoing at the height of the Cold War. True, the argumentspresented to the public stand, almost invariably, on wild assumptions and claims that have no basis in reality except in the minds of armchair strategists,secretplotters and lunatics.

One recent example is an article in Foreign Affairs, a major establishment policy journal ("The Good and Bad of Ahrar al-Sham. An al Qaeda-Linked Group Worth Befriending," by Michael Doran et al.). Its authors actually tried to promote American rapprochement with Wahhabi and Saudi-sponsoredjihadism around the world, as if this has not already happened. However, the mock ignorance behind this moral acrobatics seems to reflecta far more sinister design than even the larger and expanding rivalry into which the US is now locking itself with the Russian Federation.

The first question that comes to mind, even if the authors are correct in distinguishing good from bad Wahhabi terrorists, is towhat end? What do the authors hope Obama would achieve with such analliance? Liberty? Some antiquatedAmerican version of "democracy"?

The tragedy is that the United States is operating, more than ever, under the cloak of "revolutionism," one based on the notion that human rights must be practiced according to US values and whenever the US dictates.

Naturally, this new tribal redefinition of liberty requires the demolition of "regimes" that refuse to embrace such a divinely ordained "self-evident truth." But because nobody has the patience to listen anymore, the Obama administration regularly has to issue military threats, sanctions, etc., just to be heard over the growing din of misery around the world.

Most disturbingly, the US has returned to its old tactic of deploying armed local militias, as it has done against Nicaragua, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, of course Afghanistan under the Soviets, not to mention other nations. Bloodthirsty terrorists--and literally, cannibals who film themselves eating human flesh--apparently pose no problem. We nickname them freedom fighters--more offensively, "activists."

Is this how human rights and democracy are to be established in countries we claim to care about? Or, is it a useful instrument with which to demolish states that the governments of both the US and Israel feel are blocking their view of the glorious future awaiting us all under Americo-Israeli "guidance."

That is a cartoonish interpretation of the world at the intellectual level of Bibi the Bomber during his comical address at the UN.I say this because it has become amply clear the US is on a fast-track to the "dustbin of history" on this march (as the "evil Communist revolutionaries" once used to paint their capitalist opponents).

The purpose of using Saudi- and Gulf-sponsored armies of Wahhabi jihadists around the Islamic world, most devastatingly in Syria, is not to build anything, but to pave the way for direct foreign control in an increasingly desperate situation for the US and the EU on nearly every front (geopolitical, diplomatic and, for the EU, economic).

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President Obama, the 'Permanent Revolutionary'

As soon as a friend gets into a serious relationship, you might think: Good for her! The second: I wonder how long will it last? Its human nature. A new app, Forever|NOT (clever) adds some fun, interactivity, and competition into our natural inclination toward thinking horrible things about happy people by letting you bet on the longevity of your friends relationships. You dont get any money if youre right, but youll get paid out with oodles of schadenfreude.

Forever|NOT works in the same vein as Tinder: It accesses your Facebook information, finds your coupled-up friends, analyzes their interactions, and gives them a score. If you think a couple is one step away from a registry, swipe left. If youre certain youll be sweeping up the smoldering relationship ashes of your high-school friend Emotionally Repressed Rachel and her new boyfriend, Overgrown Alcoholic Fratboy Frank, swipe right. Bonus: To help you feel like less of a jerk, the app throws celebrity relationships like Amber Heard and Johnny Depp into the mix. (Swipe right.)

But, like every gambling game, there's a way to cheat the system. The Forever|NOT website offers some sound advice for increasing your relationship score and ensuring a left swipe. It recommends:

1. Dont fight in public! 2. Tell your friends all the great things your significant other does for you (if they dont, fake it!). 3. Send flowers to your girlfriend at work or school so everyone else sees. 4. Message your friends that you support their relationship and invite them to bet on yours. 5. PDA is GOOD.

(User warning: Forever|NOT might have been created by a group of jilted tweens who are app-shaming their BFFs into treating them better.)

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Theres a Handy New App for Betting on Friends Relationships

A wide-ranging blog on new businesses, events and other happennings in the Flathead Valley.

State asking for names of Montanans who will turn age 100 or older by Dec. 31, 2014

To do that, the agency needs the help of Montanans all across the state.

DPHHS staff members are asking for names of residents who will turn 100 years old or older by Dec. 31, 2014.

The centenarians will be honored at noon luncheons on May 6 in Kalispell and May 8 in Bozeman.

All centenarians who submit information will receive a recognition proclamation from Gov. Steve Bullock, as well as a free lunch during the luncheon event.

Our Montana Centenarians have such inspiring stories of triumph and perseverance, Bullock said. These men and women helped to do the hard work of building Montana; its an honor to recognize them.

Montanas 2010 census showed that Montana is home to 175 centenarians and that number continues to grow.

The Governors Conference on Aging is also designed to raise the publics awareness of the states current elderly population, as well as focus attention on the impact of the baby boom generation which started turning 65 years old in 2011.

If you are a Centenarian or are aware of someone who is, and would like them to be recognized, please supply DPHHS with the following information by April 1, 2014.

Link:
Kalispell to Host Governors Conference on Aging

Feb 17, 2014 New research suggests that the shapes of both plants and animals evolved in response to the same mathematical and physical principles. By working through the logic underlying Kleibers Law (metabolism equals mass to the three-quarter power) and applying it separately to the geometry of plants and animals, researchers were able to show that plants and animals display equivalent energy efficiencies. Credit: Loretta Kuo

Why does a mouse's heart beat about the same number of times in its lifetime as an elephant's, although the mouse lives about a year, while an elephant sees 70 winters come and go? Why do small plants and animals mature faster than large ones? Why has nature chosen such radically different forms as the loose-limbed beauty of a flowering tree and the fearful symmetry of a tiger?

These questions have puzzled life scientists since ancient times. Now an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Maryland and the University of Padua in Italy propose a thought-provoking answer based on a famous mathematical formula that has been accepted as true for generations, but never fully understood. In a paper published the week of Feb. 17, 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team offers a re-thinking of the formula known as Kleiber's Law. Seeing this formula as a mathematical expression of an evolutionary fact, the team suggests that plants' and animals' widely different forms evolved in parallel, as ideal ways to solve the problem of how to use energy efficiently.

If you studied biology in high school or college, odds are you memorized Kleiber's Law: metabolism equals mass to the three-quarter power. This formula, one of the few widely held tenets in biology, shows that as living things get larger, their metabolisms and their life spans increase at predictable rates. Named after the Swiss biologist Max Kleiber who formulated it in the 1930s, the law fits observations on everything from animals' energy intake to the number of young they bear. It's used to calculate the correct human dosage of a medicine tested on mice, among many other things.

But why does Kleiber's Law hold true? Generations of scientists have hunted unsuccessfully for a simple, convincing explanation. In this new paper, the researchers propose that the shapes of both plants and animals evolved in response to the same mathematical and physical principles. By working through the logic underlying Kleiber's mathematical formula, and applying it separately to the geometry of plants and animals, the team was able to explain decades worth of real-world observations.

"Plant and animal geometries have evolved more or less in parallel," said UMD botanist Todd Cooke. "The earliest plants and animals had simple and quite different bodies, but natural selection has acted on the two groups so the geometries of modern trees and animals are, remarkably, displaying equivalent energy efficiencies. They are both equally fit. And that is what Kleiber's Law is showing us."

Picture two organisms: a tree and a tiger. In evolutionary terms, the tree has the easier task: convert sunlight to energy and move it within a body that more or less stays put. To make that task as efficient as possible, the tree has evolved a branching shape with many surfaces its leaves.

"The tree's surface area and the volume of space it occupies are nearly the same," said physicist Jayanth Banavar, dean of the UMD College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. "The tree's nutrients flow at a constant speed, regardless of its size."

With these variables, the team calculated the relationship between the mass of different tree species and their metabolisms, and found that the relationship conformed to Kleiber's Law.

To nourish its mass, an animal needs fuel. Burning that fuel generates heat. The animal has to find a way to get rid of excess body heat. The obvious way is surface cooling. But because the tiger's surface area is proportionally smaller than its mass, the surface is not up to the task. The creature's hide would get blazing hot, and its coat might burst into flames.

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How evolution shapes the geometries of life: Scientists solve a longstanding biological puzzle

SPEAKING FREELY Silence as Myanmar 'genocide' unfolds By Nancy Hudson-Rodd

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

On January 23, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar and humanitarian chiefs voiced "deep concern" on reports of "alarming levels of violence" against ethnic Rohingya in Myanmar's western Rakhine State. When their houses were being robbed in DuChiraDan village, Maungdaw, the Rohingya residents called for help, according to reports. The villagers fled the site when they realized that the robbers included police and ethnic Rakhine extremists.

At 3am that morning, a group of military, other security forces, and police raided the village, blocked the entrance, and fired indiscriminately on escaping men, women, and children. At least 40 people were killed and many more injured. The remaining villagers were rounded up, put into two trucks, and carried off to an unknown location. Authorities later declared the village a "no-entry zone".

The UN Rapporteur demanded the government immediately investigate the reports of violence. This call was ignored, as have been all the other "urgent" calls for action by various international groups. Instead, the Ministry of Information announced that journalists responsible for reporting the story would be held accountable for any "unrest" in Rakhine State supposedly caused by their reports.

The government's media mouthpiece, New Light of Myanmar, ran an article claiming false reports of violence, citing a Maungdaw policeman who denied any incidents occurred. The article concluded that "reports of killings caused by racial and religious conflicts seemed to instigate unrest".

Ethnic Rohingya are not recognized as one of Myanmar's 135 "official national races". According to the UN, they are one of the world's most persecuted minority groups. The UN refused a Myanmar minister's request in 2011 to resettle to second countries all of the estimated 800,000 Rohingya now resident in Myanmar.

President Thein Sein, meanwhile, refuses to amend the 1982 law which stripped all Rohingya of their citizenship. He recently asserted: "the law is meant to protect the country and the government has no plans to revise it". A census to be completed in 2014 has no category for the Rohingya, only Bengali, an exercise that will effectively erase the minority group's existence from the country.

The Rohingya's lack of legal status effectively gives state approval to endemic discrimination. Thein Sein claims sectarian, religious or ethnic tensions are an "unwelcome by-product" of political liberalization. Such official deflections deny the state's involvement in the unfolding genocide now taking place in Myanmar.

They also build upon dangerous psychological and ideological factors that have induced violent grassroots reactions to racist rumors and claims against Rohingya. Progress Magazine, the official journal of the Rakhine Nationalities and Development Party, openly wrote (November 2012) of ridding Myanmar of its Rohingya population. The magazine wrote:

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Silence as Myanmar 'genocide' unfolds