Category Archives: Human Longevity

When it comes to aging, research shows that, next to genetics, lifestyle habits are the biggest shapers of the human body. That means your destiny is largely in your hands, and not your DNA. This should be enough to motivate you to fine-tune your diet, start a regular exercise routine and ensure you get eight hours of sleep.

Is this enough though? The healthy lifestyle drill is something weve all become accustomed to, so why do we tend to revert to our old habits? Perhaps this is down to following trends because we think we ought to, rather than really wanting to. The want needs to come from within and, post-lockdown, we now have a choice and, more importantly, a reason.

Our priority should be focused on building a strong immune system and looking after our mental health. And what better way to start than with exercise?

When you exercise and learn to relax, your immune system lifts, cortisol, and blood pressure levels go down, and your mood is enhanced. Bone density increases with weight-bearing exercise; you have improved joint mobility, and a stronger heart and lungs.

Nowadays, with many of us working from home, its become clear that we dont need the most high-tech gym equipment to get a great workout, but still, theres Im pressed for time when it comes to taking action and getting to exercise.

A workout Ive been teaching for years that has finally been given an official name. Peripheral heart action is a time-efficient training formula that gives you a great CV workout, while simultaneously toning up the muscles all in one session.

It can be completed almost anywhere with minimal equipment, such as light weights and resistance bands. Your own home can save you time traveling to and from the gym, but it can also be done in the gym, incorporating both resistance training and CV equipment.

The theory behind PHA training is that, by alternating between upper and lower-body exercises, the heart has to work harder to divert blood from one end of the body to the other, which is further enhanced with bursts of CV training. However, Ive also found that switching between the upper and lower body allows you to achieve more without realizing how hard youre working because you work the lower body to fatigue and then rest it while you train the upper body, and so on.

Whatever your current level of fitness, incorporating even two PHA sessions into your schedule will make significant improvements to your fitness levels and all-around conditioning.

Once youre into the PHA routines, youll notice changes fairly rapidly, and realize just how effective and challenging they are. Its certainly a smart way for time-pressed individuals to train with or without lockdown.

Prepared by Jenni Rivett

Equipment needed: a chair, 6-8kg kettlebell, 2kg dumbbells

Warm-up for 5 minutes.

REPEAT ABOVE ROUTINE

REPEAT ABOVE ROUTINE

Photo by AirFit from Pexels

REPEAT ABOVE ROUTINE

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Now You Have A Reason To Exercise - Longevity LIVE - Longevity LIVE

(Photo by iStock/Chinnapong)

The figures on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment weve been seeing over the last few years are substantial. According to the US SIF Foundation, $12 trillion in assets under management using ESG strategies at the beginning of 2018 grew to $17.1 trillion by the beginning of 2020, an increase of 42 percent. Bloomberg Intelligence reports ESG assets at $35 trillion in 2020, up from $30.6 trillion in 2018 and $22.8 trillion in 2016, accounting for one-third of total global assets under management. The same study holds that by 2025 ESG assets are on track to exceed $50 trillion.

These are big numbers, and they are already bearing dividends: many businesses are starting to get environmental action rightthe E of ESGand through paying attention to executive compensation and getting more diversity on boards, many companies are also starting to get governance right, the G of ESG. Environmental impact is relatively easy to measure: carbon emissions, deforestation, waste management, and water usage are all tangible factors lending themselves to quantitative assessment. Governance matters too can be held to account by quantifying executive pay, representation of non-white, non-male board members, political contributions, and large-scale lawsuits, all of which can be reduced to numbers.

But what about the S, or the social component? By comparison, the social component consists of much more qualitative factors, things like employee gender and diversity, data security, customer satisfaction, human rights, and fair labor practices at home and abroad. Because these more amorphous factors are a lot harder to measure in numbers, the S factor is always prone to falling out of ESG considerations. For this reason, it is all the more important to emphasize social factors that are measurable, such as public health. While Public Health might be implicit in Social, it is not explicit. Therefore, by attaching an H for Health and broadening the mandate to ESHG, well come closer to a more inclusive form of capitalism, one that places equal emphasis on causing human capital to flourish as it does on financial capital.

The pandemic has not only exposed health inequalities that run from school to community to the workplace. Health should be of immediate importance to business: Public Health is analogous to climate in that a businesss activities will have health impacts, positive or negative, across three broad areas: employees, customers/consumers, and the communities in which it operates. The right actions can reduce absenteeism due to sickness while increasing productivity and enabling better management of risks of regulatory, taxation, and litigation risks.

Even before the pandemicas Sir Michael Marmots groundbreaking 2010 study Fair Society, Healthy Lives (and his 2021 follow-up, Build Back Fairer demonstratehealth not only stopped improving over the last decade, but health inequalities increased, and life expectancies for the poorest people went down. Marmot has identified six areas that are essential to meeting the health inequality and life expectancy challenge head on: giving every child the best start in life; education and lifelong learning; employment and working conditions; ensuring that everyone has at least the minimum income necessary for a healthy life; healthy and sustainable places in which to live and work, including housing; and taking a social determinants (data-based) approach to prevention.

The UK is in a bit of a bubble with health initiatives, compared with the United Stateswe have the NHS, which is a public health system, whereas, as pointed out in Michael Lewiss searing book on the pandemic, The Premonition, the United States. does not. But various surveys show that roughly two-thirds of the American population is stressed over the cost of health insurance and health care in general. An equivalent to Marmot as a US spokesperson might be Harvard professor David Sinclair, an expert on longevity, who believes that as population growth begins to slow, saving lives and making people more productive by helping them to live healthier longer is a massive economic benefit for society. He also points out that currently, the rich are investing in these new longevity therapies, and they are the ones who benefit. But he hopes to democratize his findings to include a broader swath of society.

Can we come up with compelling alternatives that might reduce the strain on the system? We certainly must try new ideas, because hitherto, the old ideas are only working for the select few. Most of these areas can be addressed by deep, long-term investment. But as Professor Marmot and many others have pointed out, government funding alone isnt going to get things done. Business must step in. Companies can play a role in broadly improving public health by such means as rethinking their products, investing in health tech projects, developing programs and policies that promote health both within their companies and externally. By setting frameworks around hot-button industries and influencing ESHG outcomes, asset managers will pre-empt both stakeholder and regulatory pressure.

Its an idea as old as Adam Smith that its in the self-interest of an insurance company for people to live out their lives healthier and longer. And while were waiting for Dr. Sinclairs longevity practices to find a wider audience, companies can start putting the trillions of dollars they are sitting on, earning nominal interest, to work. It is nothing if not enlightened self-interest for businesses to help improve the health of many more peoplenot only their own employees but those in the community that both need and support a company or consume its goods and services. But getting to a more virtuous cycle with public health is going to take action and vision, not to mention putting the necessary investment on the line, to do it.

In my role as part of a council of businesses working with the U.K. Prime Minister on Building Back Better, and even prior to that, my company has taken on several health-first projects, including making direct investments in health science and tech research, community and elder health, and supporting a global challenge that elicited tech-driven solutions to the next pandemic. These initiatives have a few principles in common, which are worth mentioning here, as the goal is to get many more businesses and investors, along with government, thinking this wayin the United States, too:

1. Invest in health versus remediation. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cureand that also goes for investing in health. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) emphasizes preventive health measures such as vaccinations, altering risky behaviors, and banning substances known to be associated with a disease or health condition. Businesses can invest and become involved in these measures and others that will have broad benefits, such as building wellness and mental health in the workplace. Initiatives could take the form of healthier cafeteria food, gym memberships, well-being services and incentives, and better working conditions. There are greater gains to be made through early intervention and prevention of physical and mental health issues, than when a situation requires controlling absenteeism or limiting healthcare costs. Recent research suggests that CEOs are starting to pay attention and make the necessary investments.

2. Keep it local. Any health-related investment comes down to people, to individuals, and to a community. While health is certainly a global issue, governments and businesses alike must start investing far more meaningfully in it at the local level. By partnering with a local university or identifying a specific community need for, say, a health technology or healthier housing, businesses can become involved in a clear and tangible way, which is why were working with university research facilities in Edinburgh, Newcastle, and other local venues on initiatives to develop new models for delivering elder care, especially to facilitate aging in place rather than in institutions. This is a multi-disciplinary approach across medicine, engineering, data science and architecture.

3. Build a model that has measurable impact. Outcomes should not only be felt by the recipients of health investments but observable to the investors. To achieve this, any successful health initiative needs to be based on a model that is observable and fact-based. One example is the way business and research so speedily mobilized to get billions of vaccinations made and distributed for the pandemic. But while the pandemic was a relative snapshot, over two years, the challenge is greater when results are delivered over decades. This may partly explain low investment in dementia and Alzheimers, relative to the proportion of the population at risk. There are many models to emulate, but to be successful from a business standpoint, they need trackable metrics.

4. Harness the COVID-19 disruption to think deeply about workplace changes. Required vaccination, changes in building management with testing for COVID-19and other safety measures, and remote working have touched all businesses as well as everyone connected to them. Many people are missing the support systems and wellness components found in many workplaces as they continue to work remotely. Businesses should educate employees about health, make products and packaging healthier, and make health available. And as Professor Marmot points out in Fair Society, Healthy Lives, the social gradient on health inequalities is reflected in the social gradient on educational attainment, employment, income, quality of neighborhood. Employees need to make a living wage. There is a close correlation between social/income inequality and health inequality. While its understood that around 20 percent of an individuals health outcomes are genetic, the other 80 percent is environmental and predicated by economic success: the poorest decile have significantly lower healthy life expectancy, some twenty years less, than the wealthiest decile.

5. Gig workers need a framework that includes healthcare and retirement. This is extremely important, as the number of workers who dont have employers or regular workplaces keeps risingcurrently more than a third (36 percent) of USworkers are part of the gig economy, and by 2027 more than half will be.With no health benefits and often little in the way of retirement plan, these workers represent a special challenge for health investing. Marmots studies show that poverty breeds ill health; you can have happier, healthier employees by paying them better.

6. Hold companies and investees accountable. Impact investing on the ESHG level is about investing in companies. A strong condition for including companies in the ESG roster is their stance to providing access to proper healthcare or healthcare insurance to their workers. ESHG-minded Investors can leverage their financial power by divesting from companies that arent doing healthy business. Companies need to understand that good health is good business.

This begins with a recognition that many products and outputs negatively influence health, and so need to be redesigned to improve health outcomes. Think about health as we do about climatethe health of any organizations workforce could be viewed similarly to its direct greenhouse gas emissions.

Health costs from negative corporate activity are often borne by the consumers or taxpayers. So conversely, companies can proactively engage to improve public health by self-regulating before regulators impose product bans or punitive taxation. For example, rethink sourcing of materials or change ingredients to promote rather than impair customers health. Bottom line, companies can look up and down their value chains and identify points where a positive health outcome could replace a negative one.

7. Corporate taxes low? Reinvest. How can businesses be made responsible for a wider swath of society that goes beyond their employees? Some portion of taxes are allocated to public health, but the corporate tax rate is the lowest its ever been (21 percent) and many of the wealthiest individuals have devised ways of legally minimizing their tax burden.With all of these funds stashed away at low interest rate returns or negative gains, wouldnt it be better to put this money to work in high return investments that promote public health?

While none of these ideas will get us there alone, the aggregate will move the needle. All positive, innovative change can be said to be an outcome of much thought and action that came before it. We live in a moment that calls for deep change in the way we invest in and care for our communities and our environment. Asset managers who have done so much to bring ESG to the fore can add this new mandate. Lets not waste this opportunity.

Read more stories by Nigel Wilson.

More:
Adding Public Health to ESG - Stanford Social Innovation Review

DURHAM, N.C.

Mike Krzyzewskis last order to a Duke basketball player at Cameron Indoor Stadium was telling guard Jeremy Roach to stop fouling North Carolina with 22.8 seconds left.

No more, Coach K said.

The next time down, Dukes Wendell Moore Jr. fouled again, prolonging one of the most shocking losses of his coachs storied career.

None of it made any sense. Unranked North Carolina 94, No. 4 Duke 81. On this night. As unbelievable as the 40 minutes were that led to that score, the next 15 would be even more surreal.

Coach K and his players went back to the locker room, leaving the faithful with their sad tears. The arena remained full because of the promised postgame celebration, but the spirit that has flowed within these rafters for four decades was now gutted.

Inside the Duke locker room, Coach K was showing his distaste to a young group of Blue Devils that will never live this down. Outside in Cameron, We Are Family was blaring from the speakers, but nobody was singing along. Hours earlier, it had been the voices of these same 9,000 souls belting out the national anthem in unison that had cut right through Krzyzewskis hope that he would keep his emotions in check. He wanted to stay in character, he said, but, just the music, you start crying.

Now Coach K was walking back into the building, holding his wife Mickies hand. He formed two huddles, one with Mickie and their three daughters, the other with his 10 grandchildren.

Then he decided to do his own thing. It was not in the program for him to go take the microphone at half-court.

We love you! a fan yelled.

No, no, I dont love me right now, he said, his voice hoarse. Im sorry about this afternoon.

They did not accept his apology.

No, no, NO, please everyone be quiet! he pleaded, as if truly surrounded by trusted loved ones. Let me just say, its unacceptable. Today was unacceptable, but the season has been very acceptable.

The season isnt over, alright?

Coach K said earlier this week that sports is the best reality TV, that he was going to just let Saturday happen and see where it would lead him. Indeed, this unscripted outburst, HIS internal disgust pouring out in public on a stage that was meant to glorify him, was an undeniably real look into the man some claim is the greatest college basketball coach of all time (like the Lakers LeBron James, who appeared on the pregame video, saying, The GOAT).

In retrospect, maybe it shouldnt have been so surprising that Coach Ks young men, playing with the weight of 42 years on their 18-to-22-year-old shoulders, couldnt complete the task.

We can all be beaten by human nature, Coach K would say later. The ones who do it really well have a very high winning percentage against human nature.

John Woodens UCLA teams had a pretty good record against our worst impulses too.

There is no way to measure Coach Ks immeasurable impact on college basketball and American sporting culture as a whole without bringing up Wooden, who remains the GOAT inside many hearts and minds, especially in Southern California. A fresh point of comparison Saturday, given the events in Durham, was how they handled their respective retirements.

For a revered coach who has stayed around long enough to morph into a legend walking among mortals, there is no perfect way to leave the stage to someone else.

Wooden battled within himself throughout the spring of 1975 about when to tell his players. By the time the Final Four came around, rumors of his retirement were beginning to swirl, and the one thing he knew for sure was that he didnt want them finding out from a newspaper.

UCLA basketball coach John Wooden celebrates with Sidney Wicks and other UCLA players after defeating Villanova for the 1971 NCAA title at the Houston Astrodome.

(AP)

To begin the week, he told his two seniors, who admirably kept the secret. And, after UCLA beat Louisville 75-74 in the national semifinal on a last-second shot in overtime by Richard Washington, Wooden decided it was time to tell the rest.

Im bowing out, the 64-year-old said, his words met by silence in a locker room that normally would have been raucously celebrating advancing to Mondays final.

Wooden could have told the team at halftime when the Bruins were trailing by four points, but said, I didnt want to because I wouldnt want to use a thing like that to try to hype up a team. I dont believe in using artificial means like that.

But he was fine to see if the emotional jolt would motivate his team against Kentucky. Of course it did, and the Bruins beat the Wildcats 92-85 for their 10th national championship in 12 seasons, sending The Man as they called Wooden fittingly out on top.

By design, Wooden did not receive a seasons worth of ceremonial sendoffs, but in some small way, maybe the sports zealots were cheated a bit by not being able to say a more proper goodbye. He was suddenly gone, and the next generation of hungry younger coaches like North Carolinas Dean Smith and Indianas Bob Knight were eager to take over.

The greatest threat to Woodens throne, however, remained anonymous.

That spring, as Wooden took his first steps toward a normal life with his wife, Nell, the United States Military Academy quietly hired a 28-year-old retired Army captain named Mike Krzyzewski to be its basketball coach.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, second from left, stands with his former players during a pregame ceremony Saturday.

(Gerry Broome / Associated Press)

Nearly half a century later, hundreds of Duke students are walking toward the thumping heart of their campus, almost in a trance, as dark falls on Durham. It is Friday night, the eve of the end, before Coach Ks Blue Devils host North Carolina one last time.

It is tradition for Krzyzewski to welcome the students to Cameron the night before the Carolina game to listen to him speak. This time, dozens of the 96 former players who are in town are there, too, soaking up as much of their coach as they can in his final hours.

Sporting a blue Duke quarter-zip shirt and gray pants, Coach K takes the microphone and begins by covering the basics congratulating his team for its ACC regular season title and laying out his expectations for Saturday.

I want to ask you to make tomorrow night all about Duke, he says. When the other team is introduced, do not say, You suck.

BUT THEY DO! a young man blurts out. The kids laugh.

Dont say it. Im asking you not to, Krzyzewski says. Dont pay attention to them. Dont have signs that bring up stupid I mean, theyre probably smart things. Only Duke.

This is the type of moment that made Coach K a beloved figure in the early 1990s as his clean-cut Blue Devils took down Jerry Tarkanians UNLV Runnin Rebels, who were already in the NCAA infractions committees crosshairs, and Michigans famed Fab Five, which would find their own NCAA reckoning down the road.

Eventually, though, Coach Ks holier-than-thou vibe likely because fans got so tired of the Blue Devils consistent winning and ESPNs love affair with all things Duke solicited more eye rolls than appreciation, especially as Krzyzewski began to build his teams with the same one-and-done NBA talents as John Calipari at Kentucky.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski takes a bow while being recognized during a pregame ceremony Saturday.

(Gerry Broome / Associated Press)

In the last days before name, image and likeness was approved by NCAA rules, did a guy like Zion Williamson really choose to play at Duke without some kind of improper inducement behind the scenes? The critics had good reason to be dubious.

Over four decades in Durham, Coach K had certainly spanned the eras like no other coach had and, despite everything that had changed around him, held tightly to the romantic ideals that defined college basketball back when Krzyzewskis program grabbed the nations imagination.

Addressing the students, he cant help but want them to know that Duke is still different.

College basketball has changed a lot, he says. Last spring, we had four players coming back, and we had four recruits coming in, and I met with all eight of those guys, and I said, Im not accepting any transfers except for two grad transfers. You can have as many as 13 guys, but Im not taking anybody. Youre my guys.

Coach K also wants the students to know how his retirement came to be. It started with a conversation he and Mickie had in Las Vegas. Then they convened with their three daughters who make up the familys starting five, as they call it. The plan was now in place, and one of the best parts of this year was getting to tell his grandson, Michael Savarino, a Duke walk-on, that he had earned a scholarship.

Hes just balling his eyes out, and Im starting to cry too, Coach K says. I knew then what I wanted this season to be. I wanted to be so close to my players that they all felt that way. I can tell you this has been one of the closest teams that Ive coached. I love my team.

Surrounded by former players, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski applauds while being recognized before Sundays game against North Carolina.

(Gerry Broome / Associated Press)

The students can feel his emotion, and its not even Saturday yet. He tells them that they have given him energy all these years, keeping him young. He tells them this is his Senior Night, and together they give him an awww.

Theres a cheer where people say, This is our house, Coach K says. But for us, this is not our house. This is our home. What does that mean to all of you? It means that this is your home forever. Theres going to be a time when youve graduated, youre making a lot of money, hopefully following your heart, and youre going to come back here. Well, its your home.

And thats the difference between Cameron and every other place. Its yours. When we play tomorrow night, cheer like its your home.

Saturday, the students would have to be willing to share their space too. Over the course of this season, this ticket became such a bucket list item among Duke fans and general appreciators of sport that the average ticket price soared to more than $5,000.

One woman brought a sign that said, I spent my kids inheritance to be here. Theres a decent chance she wasnt joking.

The sideline seats behind the team benches had the feel of a Lakers game. Jerry Seinfeld sat next to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Seinfeld was wearing earplugs, a sure sign that the Cameron Crazies were doing their job just fine (but also totally on brand for the persnickety comedian). Pro golfer Justin Thomas sat close to Warriors general manager Bob Myers. Then, of course, there was Dukes star-studded cast of former players Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, JJ Redick, Shane Battier, Carlos Boozer, Grayson Allen the list went on and on.

Actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, center, sits next to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, right, before Dukes game against North Carolina.

(Chris Seward / Associated Press)

When Coach K took the court for pregame, nearly 100 of his Formers, as he calls them, formed a column around him from the locker room to half-court. They all wore white pullovers with a blue K on their right breast.

Theyre all friends, Coach K would say. Our lives have intertwined, so you see them and you try to not get into a story about each one.

The game simply fell apart for the Blue Devils late. They couldnt do anything right on both ends of the floor. Even a lesser North Carolina team like this years group wasnt going to let Duke off the hook. And yet, the fans were still waiting for them afterward inside Cameron, yearning to love them.

How could Coach K leave all of this? Well, easy. It was just the right time. Hes already been thinking about getting a new dog.

After John Woodens sudden exit, it was natural to wonder if there would ever be another like him.

If youre into purely counting national championships Coach K has five to Woodens 10 then the answer remains no and will likely remain so into eternity.

But if youre charting Krzyzewskis overall impact on the game over 47 years, how much the countrys love or hate of one coach and his program colored the experience of college basketball, theres at least an argument that Wooden has been eclipsed by Coach K as a towering figure.

Its hard to argue with 10 championships in 12 years. That was unprecedented and impossible to duplicate, says ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who played at Duke from 1982 to 1986. But I think if you stretched it out over Woodens entire career, you can make the argument that Coach K had a higher level of success over a more extended period. His first time at No. 1 was my senior year in 1986, and he was No. 1 this year. Hes been No. 1 in every decade.

For the last 75 years, one of John Wooden or Mike Krzyzewski has been manning a college basketball sideline. Could there really be another coach waiting in the wings that could captivate like them, or is Coach K the last of the lions?

Bobby Hurley, who along with Laettner was one of the faces of Dukes back-to-back national title run, followed Coach K into coaching as many of his players have. Every day at Arizona State, Hurley is trying to build something special, something his mentor would be proud of, but its just hard to replicate these days.

It certainly is a different world, Hurley says, just in terms of the transfer portal and now NIL. I played for my dad, who was a very hard-nosed disciplinarian type coach, then Coach K, who was very good at building connections with his players but was also very hard on you. I think you have to reach this generation a little different and be very creative in how you coach. To me, its more of a partnership with how I view coaching my team, getting through to them in a different way than maybe coaches were able to 20-30 years ago.

Says Bilas, Its pro basketball, with the amenities they have, the facilities, the travel. Theyre pro players, and now they can make money. Theyre going to be paid at some point in the very near future by their institutions. Players can transfer now without penalty. Players now have rights they were denied before, and you cant treat them the way you used to be able to treat them.

In this long overdue time of player empowerment, the coachs power has been minimized in every place but his pocketbook.

The money has gone up which is awesome, but the jobs become 365, 24/7, UCLA coach Mick Cronin says. Coach Wooden used to write guys letters [to recruits]. Hed write a letter to guys and then he saw them again in September. Dean Smith lived in the Outer Banks in the summer and the only time he went back to Chapel Hill was to run his camps.

Right now, my daughter is asking me about vacation and Im looking at AAU weekends in April, high school tournaments in June and the July recruiting calendar. And you dont know whos going pro. You cant plan a vacation because you just dont know, and nobody feels sorry for us, nor should they, because of the money we make. But it all leads to people throwing up the white flag at some point.

Longevity, then, will be the biggest issue going forward.

Wooden made $32,500 his last year. I think Coach K made that during the course of this conversation, says CBS Sports analyst Seth Davis, who wrote Wooden: A Coachs Life.

The conversations I have with coaches now are less interviews and more like therapy. They say never say never, but it is hard to imagine somebody doing again what Mike Krzyzewski did.

Clearly, Coach K could not imagine himself doing it. Last year, it was North Carolinas Roy Williams who could not muster the energy for it any longer.

This week, Krzyzewski sounded absolutely fed up with the state of college basketball and disappointed that he hadnt been able to leave the game in a better place for the next generation of coaches.

I dont even know who you talk to about it, he says. Its like a bunch of ships out there, but where do you port, where do you dock? Its a troubling time, really. Im probably not on top of it like I would normally be. To be quite frank, I dont want to think about it anymore. Its been very frustrating, kind of a failing in my time, that we were unable to have a bigger influence, me and my brothers in coaching.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski speaks to the crowd following the teams 94-81 loss to North Carolina on Saturday.

(Gerry Broome / Associated Press)

After his apology ad-lib to kick off the postgame ceremony, Coach K got back on script for the rest of the night. But with a crushing loss fresh, he still wanted to make sure none of the Formers in particular left with any bigger worries about the state of their program.

The brotherhood, its not going to go away, he said. We have a great succession plan.

Jon Scheyer, one of the leaders from Dukes 2010 national championship team and a current assistant coach, will be entrusted with the kingdom.

The pressure will be incalculably high, following this guy.

We didnt play well. And there are times when you didnt either, Coach K reminded them, getting some laughs.

Hopefully today for this program right now is a great learning experience. First of all, look what youre a part of. Are you kidding me? We need to fight for Duke, we need to fight for the brotherhood, and we need to fight with all our might the rest of this season.

Then Ill be ready to get the hell out of here.

See more here:
Mike Krzyzewski shows the fire that sent him into John Woodens orbit - Los Angeles Times

Can Ukraine weaponise time? As long as the will to fight exists, the countrys soldiers and citizens can hope to wear down, even to repulse, the Russian invaders. But their dilemma is a terrible one. As Vladimir Putins bombardments grow more barbarous and indiscriminate, the human cost of resistance is rising daily. If they hold on, will the western powers belatedly come to their rescue?

Time does not favour Russias president. Casualties are increasing. His Nazi-style military blitzkrieg didnt work. His conscripts are reportedly demoralised, his war machine may bog down. His hubris is destroying Russias economy. Protests at home reflect a new political vulnerability. Putin is being tracked by war crimes prosecutors in The Hague.

For any rational leader, an immediate ceasefire, accompanied by a bogus claim of victory, would be an obvious way out. But logic and reason play no part in Putins thinking. This catastrophe recalls Iraq in 2003. How could anyone, however delusional, possibly believe a full-scale invasion was a good idea? The man Donald Trump calls a genius turns out to be really stupid.

To avoid defeat to eventually win Ukrainian resistance forces will need the wests sustained, long-term military, logistical, financial and intelligence support. Will the allies, fresh from their Afghan cop-out, stay the course this time? Nato combat jets are nowhere to be seen in Ukraines skies but theres a whiff of betrayal in the air.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraines president, wants instant EU membership. He was cheered at the European parliament last week but he will not get his wish. Kyiv is pleading for a Nato-patrolled no-fly zone to help stop the merciless bombing of cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv. That isnt happening, either.

Ukraines people are determined to fight on. Its impossible not to admire them but also impossible, or so western leaders appear to say, to protect them from mass murder.

Such bravery underscores the grave responsibility of western governments. Britain and the US, in particular, have encouraged resistance, sending missiles and lethal aid. Raising the stakes, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden portray the war as a defining struggle between freedom and tyranny, democracy and authoritarianism. Thats not the sort of war you can afford to lose.

Most European countries, plus Australia, Japan, Canada and others, have pledged open-ended backing, too. For the first time, the EU will supply weaponry. This is all very dramatic, perhaps suspiciously so.

Should Ukrainians trust these sweeping promises? What if the war lasts five or 10 years, which is not unusual for such conflicts? Fuelling an apparently endless, widely destabilising insurgency will require grit and consistency in London and other capitals.

Few western politicians, eyeing the next election, display such qualities. How long, for example, will German voters current outrage outlast the impact of higher bills and taxes to pay for non-Russian gas and vastly increased defence spending?

How long will Biden stay engaged if the crisis turns into a grinding war of attrition? He could be a lame duck after Novembers midterms. Possible 2024 replacements, such as Trump, have a very different view of Nato and Russia. The longevity and reliability of public and political support for Ukraine is one question. Another will be how to meet the resistances need for an unceasing flow of arms, assistance, and staging posts and safe havens outside Ukrainian territory.

The probability that displaced fighters, plus a European foreign legion, will seek bases in neighbouring Nato members from which to launch attacks on the occupiers is strong. Remember how the mujahideen, fighting the Red Army, and later the Taliban, fighting Nato, operated from Pakistan.

Extended cross-border warfare would ineluctably suck in alliance countries. It would be viewed by Putin as the product not of unextinguished Ukrainian nationalism but of US-plotted regime change. If Russia, over time, continues to suffer significant losses to a western-backed resistance, Putin will take the war to the west. This is exactly the dangerous escalation Biden and Nato say they are determined to avoid, which supposedly justifies their refusal of a no-fly zone. Its the third world war nightmare scenario Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, warns against. But how to dispel it?

Uncertain, too, is the wests ability to maintain the unusual unity of purpose lauded by a too self-congratulatory Biden in last weeks State of the Union address. The EU is likewise proud of its united stance and tough sanctions package.

But big gaps and internal differences remain. Revenue-spinning Russian oil and gas still flow. The banking bans have large loopholes. Even the best-laid sanctions regimes crumble over time. And despite an initially generous EU welcome, the expected huge increases in refugee numbers, if the war drags on, will exacerbate existing tensions in Europe and the UK.

Worries about an unvanquished Putin going on to threaten other former Soviet republics, as Biden predicts he might, are also intensifying. The defeatist argument goes like this: Ukraine, sadly, is already lost. Better to concentrate on ensuring the Baltic republics and similarly vulnerable states do not go the same way. The paradox is that the more successful and long-lived Ukraines resistance is, the bigger the dangers for Nato. Yet if by supporting it, the allies cannot ultimately avoid being drawn into conflict with Russia, why delay the inevitable?

In other words: rather than leave the fighting, and the dying, to Ukrainians alone and then eventually abandon them the western democracies should put their air combat forces on standby, declare their intention to impose a no-fly zone and tell the Kremlin to stop the killing.

Putins slaughter of innocents is unbearable, yet we are forced to watch. Will the west fight to the last Ukrainian? Or will it stand up and fight for itself?

See the article here:
The more Ukraine resists, the greater the danger to Nato. It should act now to stop the slaughter - The Guardian

Introduction

Life expectancy at birth is the measure synthetically describing mortality in a population. It is estimated that 2030% of human life expectancy is determined by genetic factors, and 7080% is determined by environmental factors.1 Life expectancy at 5 years of age is similarly influenced by genetic factors, while it excludes neonatal, infant and early childhood mortality that depends heavily on environmental factors, especially hygiene and infection controls. These percentages, however, have not received a general scientific consensus. What is clearer is the genetic/environmental interplay that informs human health. Nutrition offers the means to improve health and well-being and acts as a significant predictive factor of healthy aging, so it appears as one of the major determinants of life expectancy.2

Extensive studies regarding the role of conventional meat containing diets and vegetarian diet (excluding meat3) in increasing our life expectancy have been controversial and circumstantial.2 Since the early Paleolithic period, meat consumption (understood as intake of parts of any animal bodies) has constituted a proportion of the hominin diet.4 It has been argued that consumption of meat, as a high-quality component of the hominin diet, allowed increases in body and brain sizes while at the same time permitting reduction of the size of the gastrointestinal tract producing typically human increased brain weight/body weight ratios.57

The effects of meat eating on human health have been debated in nutrition and diet research for a long time. Over the last 50 years, although the associations between meat eating and illness are circumstantial and controversial811 to some extent, they have prompted the spread of vegetarianism and veganism, based on the assumption that non-meat diets provide more health benefits than diets that include meat.1214 Moreover, it has been argued that vegetarianism and veganism form a part of trendy Western consumerist lifestyles only accessible to privileged white people.15 Vegetarianism that has been prevalent in Western countries has been subject to prejudice,15 low self-esteem, and low psychological adjustment.16

To date, there has been prevailing research stating that vegetarians tend to have greater life expectancy compared with non-vegetarians in some populations, particularly among Seventh-day Adventists.14,17 However, lack of population representativeness and failure to remove the influence of lifestyle in these studies have been heavily criticised.18 Thus, the suggestion that vegetarian diet improves longevity is questionable. For example, several studies with large sample sizes conducted in Australia18 and the United Kingdom19,20 did not show that meat eating correlated negatively with life expectancy after controlling for health-related elements of lifestyles.

Meat intake has been associated with adverse health issues, but the evidence in support of this hypothesis is limited and reliant on epidemiologic associations as opposed to clinical trials, which are supposed to reveal a cause-and-effect relation.2125 For instance, epidemiological studies in humans could not reveal a direct relationship between nitrite and/or nitrate, which has been assumed as the major carcinogenic factor derived from meat consumption, and cancer development.25

Before agriculture was introduced (circa 119000 years ago), human ancestors could not grow, harvest and store the majority of plant-based products as the staple food. Plant foods are mostly accessible only in particular seasons of the year.26 Contrariwise, animals, including large game, small animal, fish and some insects, could constantly provide humans with meat as the staple food.5,2630

Although modern agriculture diversifies our diet components and offers us many food choices, meat is still one of the significant food components worldwide.31 Modern nutritional science has revealed that meat provides complete nutrition. Modern food technology is capable of producing artificially all meat components, so that in special situations complete meat contents can be introduced into a diet without including actual muscle tissue of animals. This, however, does not argue against the benefits of eating meat. On the contrary, it supports that meat contents are necessary for good human nutrition. Availability of artificially produced meat may provide a solution for people who are ethically opposed to killing animals.

This population-based study, using data collected by the United Nations and its agencies, tests the hypothesis that, worldwide, populations with more meat consumption have greater life expectancies.

The data for this study were selected in consideration of the following criteria:

a) Listed all the countries/territories of the world (research subjects) with data on meat intake, and then collected other variables that were matched with this list. A set of data consisting of 175 populations with all required information available was obtained for this study. This covers approximately 90% of the world.

b) Considered the 3 years delayed presentation of effects of meat intake on metabolic/physical changes possibly affecting health adversely.

c) Included the major potential confounding factors, such as total calories consumed, wealth measured by the gross domestic product (GDP PPP), urbanization, obesity and education levels.

A whole set of data is attached to this article (Appendix 1).

1) The independent variables are the cross-population food supply data32 on food groups of total meats (flesh of animals used for food, The FAO 201833), cereals, starchy roots, sugar and sweeteners (sugars). These variables are expressed in grams per person per day in each population. In order to avoid random errors occurring during the data collection and integration, each variable was averaged for the years 20112013. These most up-to-date data were captured from the Food Balance Sheet published by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Cereals, starchy roots and sugars are primarily energy sources that do not provide a large nutrient range. They have been clustered and new variable carbohydrate crops was created as the independent contrast variable to meat. Another reason for clustering is that meat used to provide over 50% energy needs before the introduction of agriculture circa 119000 years ago,26 while carbohydrate foods eventually became a source of over 50% of current human energy needs.32

Additionally, we extracted the world meat intake data (g/day/capita) for all the years with the available FAO data (19612013) as the independent variable to correlate with the worldwide longitudinal life expectancy for the same years.

In terms of meat source included in this study, it is necessary to highlight that, in order to reflect the real meat consumption in human diet, we included total meat intake, instead of a particular animal meat or a particular group of animal meat as the predicting variable. As per the FAO, meat is defined as flesh of animals used for food, and total meat includes beef and veal, buffalo meat, pig meat, mutton and lamb, goat meat, horse meat, chicken meat, goose meat, duck meat, turkey meat, rabbit meat, game meat and offal.33

2) The dependent variables in the analysis were the population level life expectancy at birth (e(0)), and at 5 years (e(5)) for both sexes calculated for the period of 20102015 by region, subregion and country published by the United Nations.34 The child mortality rate before age 5 years (average of years 20112013) was also extracted from the World Bank data35 as another dependent variable.

3) The potential confounding variables are population-specific data on:

i) Total calories intake (kcal/capita/day) which was the average for the 3 years (201113) as per FAO Food Balance Sheet32

The relationship between total energy intake, rather than that of particular nutrients in the diet, and life span has been debated in animal and human models3638 so it needed to be controlled for.

ii) GDP PPP, purchasing power parity in 2011 US dollars for comparability among countries as per the World Bank data39

Income and wealth, as a measure of socioeconomic status, have been less frequently used but are an important variable along with education and occupation in affecting human health and life span.40,41

iii) Urbanization, the percentage of the population living in urban areas as determined by the United Nations (UN) Population Divisions World Urbanization Prospects42

Urbanization implies considerable changes in the living habits of extant humans, easy access to health care,43 how they earn their livelihoods, dietary regimes, and the wide range of environmental factors to which humans are exposed.4346 Consequently, some researchers have assumed that urban populations are healthier than their rural counterparts.43

iv) Obesity levels as measured by the prevalence of adult individuals with the body mass index (BMI) equal to or exceeding 30 kg/m2 were obtained from WHO.47 Obesity is a result of metabolic imbalances and is considered as a risk factor for a number of non-communicable diseases.

We have also used information on the percentage of vegetarians in countries (N=30) that had this information available and on the level of education as measured by the percentage of adults (>25 years old) with completed primary school education (World Development Indicators).48 These latter data were available only for 103 countries, and the rationale for exploring the relationship between the level of education and e(0) is that education may affect eating habits and domestic food preparation.

Our data analysis proceeded in five steps to examine the association between meat intake and life expectancies and child mortality at the population level:

1. Scatter plots were produced with the cross-population data (not transformed) in Microsoft Excel to explore and visualize the strength, shape and direction of worldwide cross-sectional association between meat intake and life expectancy and mortality variables.

To highlight the hypothesis and facilitate the readership to understand the meaning of this study, the correlation between total meat intake and e(0) was explored in each WHO region with the scatterplots.

2. Bivariate (Pearsons r and Spearmans rho) correlations were performed to evaluate the direction and strength of the correlations between all the variables across all countries. Log transformed data were used to improve homoscedasticity of data distributions. Curve estimation function of the SPSS was used to explore shape of relationships between logarithmed data. In all cases linear relationships were better or equal to the long list of possible other relationships including logarithmic, inverse, quadratic, cubic, compound, power, growth, S-curve, exponential and logistic. Distributions of residuals around linear regression lines were close to normal (Appendix 2). Thus, linear relationships were consistently used in our analyses of log-transformed variables.

Nonparametric correlation analysis was conducted to examine whether the Pearsons correlations between logarithmed values of life expectancy/mortality and all variables differ due to potentially non-homoscedastic distributions of variables.

3. Partial correlation of Pearsons moment-product approach was performed to identify the worldwide correlations between meat intake and life expectancy/mortality independent of the potential confounding variables, energy intake, urbanization, GDP PPP and obesity.

4. Standard multiple linear regression was conducted to identify and rank the variables that had the greatest predicting effects on life expectancies and mortality.

Since life expectancies and mortality measures are strongly correlated (Table 1), most further analyses were carried out only for the life expectancy at birth.

Table 1 Pearson's r (Above the Diagonal) and Nonparametric rho (Below the Diagonal) Coefficients of Correlation Between All Variables Studied (Log-Transformed Variables)

To compare the magnitudes of contribution of meat intake and carbohydrate crops to life expectancy stepwise linear regression analysis was repeated twice when meat intake and carbohydrate crops were excluded, respectively. The decrease of R2 due to exclusions of meat intake and carbohydrate crops was respectively calculated and compared.

5. Countries grouped for the association analysis.

Human diet patterns, varying in different food components, may be affected by the food availability type in a particular region, socio-economic status and by cultural beliefs. In order to demonstrate that a correlation exists between meat availability and life expectancy regardless of these factors, countries were grouped for correlation analyses. The criteria for grouping countries were:

1) Developed and developing world defined by the United Nations;49

2) Six regions grouped by WHO:50 African Region (AFRO), Region of the Americas (AMRO), South-East Asia Region (SEARO), European Region (EURO), Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO), and Western Pacific Region (WPRO);

3) Countries sharing specific characteristics such as geography, culture, development role or socio-economic status,51 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),52 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC),53 Southern African Development Community (SADC),54 the Arab World,55 Latin America (LA), and Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD).56 All the population listings were sourced from their official websites for matching, except LA which is self-classified based on the region primarily speaking romance languages.

4) In particular, two country clusters that are associated with overall health benefits are created for exploring the relationships between the level of total meat intake and e(0):

A list of countries that have the percentage of vegetarian population segment was accessed through the extensive internet search. Its summary can be accessed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country#cite_note-2. This list was matched to the populations with the data on life expectancy.

Countries primarily on the Mediterranean diet were grouped. The Mediterranean diet is a way of eating that is based on the traditional cuisines of Greece, Italy and other countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. It includes meat but also primarily plant-based food, such as olive oil, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and herbs. Due to the combination of food components, the Mediterranean diet is considered a comprehensively healthy diet and has been associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality in most of observational studies.57,58 However, it is not clear if a portion of a particular food component, such as total meat can improve its health effect leading to greater life expectancy. We extracted the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea and matched them to the list of countries with available data on e(0) for creating a country group, Mediterranean diet.

5) Countries above and below the average meat intake The FAO 2018.33

The population list was also stratified into two population groupings based on our calculated mean daily meat intake. The high meat intake group was comprised of populations with more than 138.82 g/day/capita meat consumption on daily basis; and the low meat intake group included those populations with less than 138.82 g/day/capita on daily basis. The relationships between meat eating and life expectancies were examined in these two population groups, respectively.

Bivariate correlations, partial correlation of Pearsons moment-product and multiple linear regression analysis were conducted with SPSS v. 25 on the log-transformed variables. Microsoft Excel was used for scatter plots of raw data (not log transformed). The significance of association was kept at the 0.05 level, but 0.01 and 0.001 levels were also reported. Standard multiple linear regression analysis criteria were set at probability of F to enter 0.05 and probability of F to remove 0.10.

Figure 1 shows, globally, the cross-sectional association between meat intake and life expectancies and child mortality. Life expectancies show linear positive regression on meat consumption, while child mortality is negatively exponentially related to meat intake. All regressions show strong correlations meat intake explains at least 50% of variance in life expectancy and mortality.

Figure 1 The worldwide cross-sectional association between meat intake and life expectancy at birth, at 5 years of age and child mortality below the age of 5 years.

Notes: Data sources: Meat consumption is expressed in g/capita/day and extracted from the FAO website. Life expectancy data are measured with at birth and 5 years old respectively and extracted from the United Nations. Mortality rate was extracted from the World Bank website.

The relationship trend was observed in the WHO regions except in SEARO (Figure 2).

Figure 2 The relationship between meat intake and life expectancy at birth in each WHO region.

Notes: The cross-sectional association between predicting variable (meat intake) and dependent variables (life expectancy at birth) was graphed for each WHO region in the scatterplots above, respectively. Data sources: meat consumption is expressed in g/capita/day and extracted from the FAO website. Life expectancy is measured at birth. Unit of axis: the X-axis Meat consumption (kg/person/year); the Y-axis Life expectancy at birth (year).

Table 1 presents, worldwide, that, in Pearsons r analysis, e(0) shows significant and strong correlation with meat intake (r=0.710, p<0.001) and weak and negative correlation with carbohydrate crops intake (r=0.111, p=0.150). Other measures of life expectancy and mortality show similar relationships. Nonparametric correlations indicate similar relationships between variables studied (Table 1).

Table 2 indicates that in partial correlation analysis life expectancies and child mortality correlate significantly with meat intake when controlling for carbohydrate crops intake, urbanization, GDP PPP, calories, and obesity. However, with meat intake and the same potential confounding factors being kept constant, carbohydrate crops do not correlate with life expectancy and child mortality at all. This may imply that meat intake correlates with life expectancy not because of its energy contribution, but rather due to other nutrient effects.

Table 2 Pearson's r, and Partial Correlations Between Meat Intake and Life Expectancies and Child Mortality

Table 3 shows that meat intake is identified as the one of the variables that have a significant influence on life expectancies and child mortality when all the six variables, GDP PPP, calories, meat, urban, obesity and carbohydrate crops are included as predictors in multivariate linear regression analysis.

Table 3 Results of Multiple Linear Regression Analyses to Identify Significant Predictors of Life Expectancy e(0), e(5) and Child Mortality (n=171175)

When meat is excluded as one of the predicting variables respectively in linear regression, adjusted R2 decreases by about 0.03. Carbohydrate crops are not a significant predictor of life expectancies/mortality in either model regardless of whether meat is included as one of the predicting variables or not. Statistically, this means that carbohydrate foods do not contribute to the change of life expectancy nor child mortality. This finding corresponds to the lack of correlation of carbohydrate intake with life expectancies in Pearsons r correlation, Spearmans rho and partial correlation analysis.

Table 4 shows that, in general, meat intake is correlated with life expectancy in different population groupings regardless of cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic status, meat intake level and geographic locations of the clustered countries.

Table 4 Correlation of Meat Intake to Life Expectancy e(0) in Different Country Groupings

Meat intake correlates with life expectancy in population groupings with high meat intake (r=0.442, p<0.001, n=83), low meat intake (r=0.436, p<0.001, n=88), high socioeconomic status (r=0.555, p<0.001, n=45) and low socioeconomic status (r=0.620. p<0.001, n=126).

Based on the WHO region classifications, the correlation is observed in all regions except in SEARO. This may be due to similar diet patterns in SEARO countries with little difference in the amount of meat intake and similar life expectancies. This is statistically presented with the smallest standard deviations of meat intake (SD=13.21) and e(0) (SD=3.50) compared to other WHO Regions.

The correlations between meat intake and life expectancy are also observed in country groupings of the Arab World (geographically scattered in Asia and Africa, r=0.760, p<0.001), LA (r=0.504, p<0.05) and LAC (located in Americas only, r=0.469, p<0.001) featured with the similar cultures, respectively. The trends are also present in functional alliances, albeit some comprise developed countries only and others comprise both developing and developed countries (Table 4). Education has two possible effects on longevity and nutrition. It potentially improves health care, especially care for child health, and it may influence the food preparation in households and individual food choices that are partially informed by understanding the physiological role of nutrients. Since we could obtain uniform data for education levels for a smaller number of countries than those included in main analyses, we have conducted some analyses separately. We have chosen the percentage of adults who completed full primary education as the index of education in the country. This has been done in preference to other education indices that separate females from males or use higher levels of educational achievement because these characterise only parts of the entire population. In the partial correlation analysis keeping all other variables statistically constant, education correlates significantly (p=0.001) but weakly (r=0.334) with life expectancy and at a similar level (r=0.237, p=0.021) with meat consumption.

In the regression analysis (Table 5), education is an important contributor to life expectancy similar to caloric consumption while meat consumption has a significant effect on life expectancy at age 5 years.

Table 5 A Multiple Regression Analysis to Identify Significant Predictors of the Life Expectancy at Birth (e(0)) in a Set of 103 Countries for Which Information About the Education Level Was Available

Interestingly, among countries with available percentages of vegetarians, meat intake still has a moderately strong correlation with e(0) (r=0.667, p<0.001, n=30, Table 4). Unsurprisingly, populations with lower percentage of vegetarians have greater life expectancy, though the relationship is only marginally significant likely due to small sample size (r=0.303, p=0.0518, n=30).

In the Mediterranean diet country grouping, the strong relationship trend was observed that high total meat intake is associated with greater e(0) (r=0.860, p<0.001, n=21, Table 4). This may suggest that, regardless of suggested beneficial health effects of Mediterranean diet, more total meat intake may benefit e(0) in the populations primarily on this diet.

This ecological study examined the relationship between meat intake and life expectancy at birth e(0), at age 5 years e(5) and child mortality at a population level. Our statistical analysis results indicate that countries with the greater meat intake have greater life expectancy and lower child mortality. This relationship is independent of the effects of caloric intake, socioeconomic status (GDP PPP), obesity, urbanization (lifestyle) and education. Of course, nutritional variations among countries include many more variables than those included into this study. Diet composition, food preparation methods, cultural dietary constraints, availability of some nutrients and a number of other variables should have been considered to obtain a complete picture of meats importance in human diet. However, even with these possible analytical inadequacies, our statistical analyses indicate a significant role that meat plays in influencing variation of survival and mortality.

Meat has advantages over food of plant origin in containing complete protein with all essential amino acids, is rich in vitamins, in particular vitamin B12, and all essential minerals. It has a significant role not only for maintenance of health, development and proper growth59 but also has played an important evolutionary role in ancestral hominins for approximately 2.6 million years.60,61

Benefits of meat eating include better physical growth and development,62 optimal breastfeeding of neonates, and offspring growth.63 Human adaptation to meat eating and mechanism to digest and metabolise meat6,59,62,6467 have been supported by studies in human dietary evolution. This may also be reflected in the importance of meat eating for humans whole life span.5,60,68 Culturally, meat production and eating have also been integrated into human societies.62,6972

A study of more than 218,000 adults from over 50 countries around the world suggests that consuming unprocessed meat regularly can reduce the risk of early death and can increase human longevity.73 A recent dietary advice published by Lancet Public Health advocates an increase of dietary meat in order to benefit our heart health and longevity.74 This study also highlights that saturated fat in meat may be cardio protective, as well as, that meat contains many vitamins and the essential amino acids for human health and well-being.73,74

Recent epidemiological literature highlights that increasing meat consumption, especially in its processed forms, may have adverse health effects, such as cancer,8 cardiovascular disease,75 obesity31,7678 and diabetes.79 However, there has been no clinical trial evidence to consolidate the putative negative effects of processed meat consumption for human health.21 The aforementioned epidemiological literature is not reflected in the healthy food guidelines published by the government authorities for general public. These guidelines always include meat as a major human dietary component. One reason for their position could be a lack of evidence-based research that demonstrates negative aspects of meat consumption in the general human population.8083 Statistically, the finding of this study unequivocally indicates that meat eating benefits life expectancy independently.

Meat contains high protein with all the essential amino acids, and is a good source of minerals (iron, phosphorus, selenium and zinc) and vitamins (B12, B6, K, choline, niacin, riboflavin). Simply put a human animal consuming a body of another animal gets practically all constituent compounds of its own body. Recently, massive agricultural production and advanced food manufacturing technologies have made it possible to replace the beneficial nutrients of meat with other agricultural industry products and/or synthetic chemicals. For example, proteins are easy to obtain by incorporating nuts and beans into diet. Vitamin B12 can be absorbed adequately from cheese, eggs, milk, and artificially fortified pills, and iron can be found in legumes, grains, nuts, and a range of vegetables.84,85 Relying on meat nutrient replacements and available food products, well-planned vegetarian diets, including vegan diets, are nutritionally adequate and are appropriate for various individuals during all stages of life,84,85 but it is only because their nutritional composition adequately imitates and replaces what is commonly provided by meat. These technological developments provide an opportunity for individuals to select their dietary behaviours based on religious and ethical concerns. Traditionally, meat has been included in many human diets in order to provide humans engaged in high physical activity levels with substrate for muscle tissue synthesis and recovery support, increased bone density, and oxygen transport.84 Currently, however, dieticians are able to construct sport-specific diets for athletes based on vegetarian foods.84

Since many beneficial nutrients found in meat can now be replaced by vegetarian sources, increasing numbers of people have questioned whether meat consumption is necessary.84 Over the past decades, a number of studies have advocated that vegetarian or plant-based diets may contribute to low mortality rate, and high life expectancy. These studies have received criticism due to questionable study designs:

1) Health effects of a vegetarian diet may be only a perceived benefit. The correlation identified between vegetarianism and high life expectancy may not necessarily depend on their diets, but rather on the lifestyles that vegetarians maintain.18 It is important to acknowledge that vegetarians (especially in western countries) tend to be more health-conscious, with overall healthier lifestyle patterns than other people. Two studies conducted among British people have shown that vegetarians and non-vegetarians had very little20 and even no difference19 in life expectancy if other healthy lifestyle factors were considered. A study on the cohort consisting of 243,096 adults in Australia revealed that the protective effects of variations of vegetarian diets (semi-vegetarians or pesco-vegetarians) on life expectancy depended on multiple potential confounding factors, such as age, smoking and alcohol consumption, history of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.18 Therefore, it is apparent that the advocacy of vegetarianism to increase longevity may have been biased.15

2) Vegetarianism study designs were flawed in that research subjects were not representative of the general population.86 With the exception of India and some Buddhist cultures, vegetarianism is practiced by a small percentage of world population. On this note, the Seventh-day Adventist cohort has been over researched in order to demonstrate the relationship between vegetarianism and life expectancy.1214 However, studies in non-Adventist vegetarians have shownnil or very weak correlation between vegetarian diet and longevity.86 Importantly, the Seventh-day Adventist population engages in a beneficial life-style, which includes non-smoking, marital maintenance, regular exercise and maintaining normal body weight.87,88

Furthermore, a study conducted by Singh et al. showed that vegetarians did not benefit from their meat-free diet.12 However, Singh et al. have proposed that low meat consumption increases life expectancy in humans.12 This claim does not concur with our finding, which argues that more meat eating may increase human life expectancy. This discrepancy may arise due to several biases in Singh et als study: 1) The cohorts recruited for the study were not representative of global ethnicities. All the cohorts were derived from developed countries only (the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States). A majority of individuals in these countries did not succumb to mortality due to nutritional deficiency from low meat consumption, as they had access to nutrition supplements and good-quality Medical services.8993 2) More potential confounders of the relationship between meat intake and life expectancy, such as total diet intake and urban lifestyle, could have been included for data analysis (with the exception of aging). 3) Levels of meat intake were only considered as three categories: zero, very low and low. This reduced the accuracy of the correlation due to the limited variation of meat intake quantity as the independent variable.

People on vegetarian diets may be able to maintain health because they avoid potential meat-related nutrient deficiencies through one or more of the following ways:

1) Taking meat nutrient replacements to meet essential nutrient needs.

2) Eating a vegetarian diet and identifying as vegetarian are two different things. Ruby (2012) and Rosenfeld and Burrow3,69 have concluded that the majority of self-identified vegetarians may still eat meat occasionally. This would allow them to absorb the unique nutrients from meat.69

3) Many vegetarians do not follow meat-free diets from birth. Instead, many have decided to avoid eating meat at some point during their adult lives.94 Thus, their dietary limitations missed the period of critical growth and development childhood and early adolescence.

4) Many vegetarians include dairy products in their diets (eg, Hindus). These contain animal proteins and minerals in proportions similar to meat.

Saturated fat in red meat has been associated with the onset of atherosclerosis. However, this hypothesis has been based on observational or animal studies, instead of randomised controlled trials, a standard study designed to identify the causal relationship.95 Therefore, this conclusion has been subject to debate.96,97 Studies have revealed that low-fat diets reduced serum cholesterol, but they did not reduce cardiovascular disease incidence or mortality.98 The healthy diet recommendation advises people that their diet should have less saturated fat, but more polyunsaturated fat. Interestingly, when saturated fat is replaced with polyunsaturated fat in diet, cardiovascular events or mortality are not convincingly reduced.99 We are advancing the correlation between total meat, instead of red meat, and life expectancy. This hypothesis is supported by a systematic review concluding that total meat consumption did not facilitate the onset of atherosclerosis.100

Another finding in this study is that carbohydrate crops correlate with life expectancy weakly and negatively. This finding is supported by several ethnological and archaeological studies, which concluded that the transition to cereal-based diets caused a reduction in life expectancy74,101103 because cereals tend to have lower nutritional value.

The correlation between meat and life expectancy was observed in all country groupings except in SEARO where small variation of meat consumption and life expectancies reduces covariance. It is worth noting that, in this study, countries on the Mediterranean diet have greater e(0) if there is more total meat in their diet. This finding may be sufficient to form the contrast to either beneficial or detrimental health benefit of the Mediterranean diet. Socioeconomic level is associated with mortality and e(0) due to a variety of reasons. However, the majority of countries bordering Mediterranean Sea are developing economics, and have high mortality rates for chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancers. The correlation between the Mediterranean diet and low incidence or low prevalence rates of chronic diseases might be sporadic in the studies in the populations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea because their high mortality rates or low e(0) have eliminated the patients with chronic diseases.

Previous studies controversially showed the health effects of selected meat groups, in particular red meat, on human health.100 However, a series of rigorous systematic reviews which were simultaneously published, concluded that there is a lack of sufficient evidence to show that red meat and processed meat contributes to cardiovascular diseases,104106 cancer mortality and incidence104,106,107 and all-cause mortality.105 Although the red meat and processed meat have been associated with negative health outcomes, meat eating people are still determined to be omnivores due to their values and preferences.108 Therefore, dietary guidelines recommendation published in a reputable nutrition and diet journal advised that adults can maintain their current level of intake of red meat and processed meat.109

Contrary to the majority of studies that have focused on health effect of red meat, this study argues that total meat consumption, in general, benefits people health, which leads to greater longevity. This hypothesis is supported by a study conducted by Campbell advocating that total meat consumption may offset the detrimental effect of red meat on peoples health.100,110

Several strong pointsin this study need to be noted:

1) Independent variable, total meat (animal flesh), instead of different categories of meat was selected for the correlation analysis,4,111 which allows us 1) To reflect that human ancestors ate any available meat, and also various modern populations consume all sorts of meat in broad circumstances.31,112 2) To remove the potential and conflicting influence of different food cooking methods on health.113118 3) To eliminate the bias from processing aids, preservatives and additives in ready-to-eat meat, which may pose adverse health effects to humans.8,119

2) Populations across the globe (representing about 90% of extant humans) were considered in this study as units. Data included in this study were aggregated at the population level, so that they include information relevant for all people in each population. Thus, we did not study a sample but practically the whole population. This had the advantage in overcoming the common biases in studies of limited sample size.

3) Data representativeness determines who the study results are targeted at. Apparently, data representativeness must be considered for all studies in order to avoid a defect in the study design.18 The argument that vegetarians have long life spans is questionable since most of the studies supporting this statement were conducted within the specific groups of people, such as Seventh-day Adventists. This argument may also be biased due to the healthy cohort effect, which drives health conscious people to be more likely to be recruited and remain in the study cohort than non-health conscious people.15,120

4) Reporting bias in nutrition studies has been a constant issue as food intake data must be reported by volunteers accurately and truthfully. However, a number of studies have shown that people tend to underreport energy intake121 and overreport healthy food consumption.122

5) Cross-sectional data at a population level used in this study may offer more accurate estimates of e(0) and meat intake than individual-based data adopted in nutrition studies. Data on e(0) and meat intake in this study were collected by observing all the populations at the same period of time, which provides general comparability.

6) Compared to previous sample-based studies (ecological studies posited on collecting relevant data), more potential confounders have been included in this study for analysing the relationship between meat intake and e(0).

Firstly, the intrinsic limitation conceptualized as the ecological bias or ecological fallacy exists in this ecological analysis.31,123 Population level data have been applied for analysing the correlation between meat intake and e(0). Therefore, this correlation might not necessarily be valid at an individual level.76,123

Secondly, the nature of the relationship between meat intake and longevity is longitudinal. However, the method adopted in this study is cross-sectional data analysis, which may not necessarily reflect the actual longitudinal relationship in particular populations.

However, the constant and significant correlation between meat intake and e(0) may increase the possibility of the true correlation at an individual level. The relationship identified in this study may have shed light at further studies within the cohorts with large sample size, high representativeness and long life period at an individual level.76,123

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Meat intake is associated with life expectancy | IJGM - Dove Medical Press

Feb. 21, 2022, Switzerland Life Science Newswire Molecule, a biotech IP Web3 marketplace, announces a tripartite partnership with Apollo Health Ventures, a leading longevity-focused venture capital fund, and VitaDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization funding early-stage longevity biotech (LongBio) R&D.

VitaDAO and Molecule collaboratively source geroscience assets and finance R&D at universities, institutes, and biotech companies. VitaDAO has a worldwide network of >4,000 community members engaged in sourcing and evaluating early stage longevity biotech assets. Apollo and VitaDAO will collaborate on financing and building the LongBio ecosystem. By connecting a leading LongBio VC to the DeSci (decentralized science) movement, this partnership is a major milestone for the greater decentralized ecosystem.

There are inefficiencies in biopharma R&D and university tech transfer that new Web3 marketplace tools will address. Molecule has pioneered a new type of liquid asset class, the IP-NFT (a non fungible token that holds intellectual property) that is one such tool. With new forms of governance via DAOs, such as VitaDAO, and valuation of IP, such as IP-NFTs, moves early-stage intellectual property into Web3 to allow for greater liquidity, discoverability, and reduced legal complexity by standardizing licensing terms.

About Apollo Health VenturesApollo Health Ventures is a transatlantic venture capital firm specialized in developing and investing in data-driven biotechnology and health tech ventures. Apollo Health Ventures invests in game-changing companies at the seed or early stage and builds companies within the aging sector. Apollos team consists of entrepreneurs, seasoned biotech investors and scientists with remarkable track records in life science investments and venture creation.

About MoleculeMolecule is a decentralized biotech protocol building a web3 marketplace for research-related IP and scalable frameworks to build biotech DAOs. They enable quick and easy funding for academics and biotech companies globally, while enabling patient, researcher, and investor communities to directly fund, govern, and own research-related IP. Molecule democratizes biopharma research and development.

About VitaDAOVitaDAO is a DAO collective for community-governed, decentralized drug development. Its core mission is the acceleration of research and development (R&D) in the longevity space and the extension of human life and healthspan. To achieve this, VitaDAO funds and digitizes research and the resulting assets using IP-NFTs and other innovative financialization approaches.

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VitaDAO and Molecule AG partner with Apollo Health Ventures to build the longevity biotech & Web3 ecosystem - Microbioz India

How are you? Are you happy? Would you like to be a little bit happier? Or a lot? On a scale of one to ten, what would you give your happiness level today? Nobody feels like a ray of sunshine all day every day, nor is that a realistic goal, but it is quite possible to make your days a bit brighter. All it takes is the right tips and tricks, and a commitment to use them!

One very important caveat: mood disorders are very real conditions, just like any other disease, and require medical intervention to be managed. This article in no way suggests that a mood disorder or other mental condition can be cured or managed without help. If you feel you are in crisis, call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.

Coping with anxiety, depression, a family trauma or illness can be too much to handle on your own. INTEGRIS Mental Health is committed to helping you meet these challenges by offering a variety of treatment options, and a 24/7 crisis line to get you pointed in the right direction. Learn more about our mental health services here.

Youll notice that some of the happiness-boosting tips weve assembled are also often recommended for improving overall health and wellness. Thats no accident. Some of the basics of self-care, such as eating well and getting plenty of sleep, help us in a variety of ways, physical and mental.

Help someone else. Turns out the human brain is wired for altruism. Were taught from childhood that it is better to give than to receive, and theres lots of evidence to suggest its true. We can now see, thanks to MRI technology, that the act of giving to others lights up the same parts of our brains as do food or sex.

Experiences are more important than possessions. New shoes may make us smile initially, but the happiness they bring fades quickly. The joy we feel when we focus on experiences is longer-lived in part because they foster in us a greater sense of vitality. We also often share experiences with others, which generates happiness.

Practice gratitude. Try this: each day for ten weeks, keep a gratitude journal. Write down three things you are grateful for each day. In an experiment at the University of California, Davis, three groups of volunteers kept journals. One group wrote about life events, another wrote about hassles in their lives and the third wrote about what they were grateful for. At the end, the gratitude group reported feeling more optimistic and satisfied with their lives.

Learn. Conquering new concepts or ideas helps build confidence and pride. US NEWS tells us that education has been widely documented by researchers as the single variable tied most directly to improved health and longevity. And when people are intensely engaged in doing and learning new things, their well-being and happiness can blossom.

Get more sleep. Seven to nine hours a night is the gold standard. Good sleep is crucial to having active, happy days. If youre having trouble falling or staying asleep, its worth talking to your doctor.

Get older. One of the biggest perks of having a few decades in the rear-view mirror is that our happiness tends to increase as we age. Multiple studies indicate that as we age, we become happier and more satisfied with life. It may be a matter of having more perspective, but whatever it is, well take it.

Smile. We know. Being told to smile can be annoying, so we are merely making a suggestion. BECAUSE practicing real smiles, AKA smiles that include your eyes, is a proven way to feel less distress in a distressing situation. In the word of psychology, this is called the facial feedback hypothesis, which suggests that our emotional experience is partly influenced by our facial movements. Its a mind-body connection.

Dark chocolate. The darker the better. Its science! Chocolate is a mood booster because eating it causes the release of endorphins in the brain. It also contains chemicals known to lift our mood such as phenylethylamine (a natural antidepressant) and tryptophan, which is linked to the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that produces feeling of happiness.

Wake up earlier. First, make sure youre sleeping seven to nine hours a night. Next, build a pleasant morning buffer into your day. You should enjoy your mornings, which is hard to do if youre running around trying to get out the door. An extra half an hour (or even 15 minutes) will give you some space and youll notice a shift in attitude right away.

Manage your stress. Get better at time management if youve got too much on your plate. Something as simple as a to-do list can give you a sense of control and order, and lets face it, it feels so good to cross things off the list.

Tidy up. When we think of self-care, cleaning house doesnt often make the list but it should. In 2016, a study out of the University of New Mexico found that clutter directly interfered with folks ability to feel pleasure in a room. On the flip side, a clean, organized space can increase productivity, boost confidence and imbue its occupants with a sense of control, accomplishment and clarity.

Start a meditation practice. Its easier than you think. Mindful.org suggests getting started this way:

Put down your phone. Unless youre keeping an online gratitude journal, that is. If you find yourself scrolling through social media, stop. A 2017 article in Forbes (and many subsequent studies) indicate that the more we use social media, the less happy we are. In fact, social media is known to increase anxiety, loneliness and depression.

Take a walk. A walk is good for your mood, your mind and your body. Tie your laces and go!

Avoid gossip. Fact: gossip may feel good in the moment, but really it causes stress. Its not helpful and it immerses both the teller and the listener in negativity.

Dont drink too much. When its been a rough day, an alcoholic beverage of choice can sound like just the ticket. Alcohol blunts our feelings, so if we feel bad it will make us feel less bad - BUT - it can also crank up feelings of anger and depression or make you feel aggressive.

Look at the stars. Researchers have found that there is a link between experiencing a sense of awe with feeling greater satisfaction and less stress.

Dont believe everything you think. In other words, challenge negative thoughts. Heres a technique: write down your negative thought. Maybe its something like I am having problems at school/work. I dont think Im very smart. Next, challenge that thought. Is there any evidence behind it? Am I misinterpreting the situation? What would someone else think if I told them my thoughts?

Read a story of adventure. Turns out you can reap the benefits of an awe-inspiring experience, like stargazing, by reading about one. Pick up a copy of Moby Dick, by Herman Melville; The Call of the Wild, by Jack London; or Wild, by Cheryl Strayed.

Hang out with happy people. Motivational coaches will tell you that you are an amalgam of the top five percent of the people you spend the most time with. Makes sense to hang with the happy crowd, then, doesnt it?

Be your own best friend. Treat yourself like you would a dear friend. When youre feeling sad or negative, ask yourself what advice youd give a friend feeling the same way.

Breathe. Controlled breathing is an ancient practice and science is beginning to understand that its benefits are real. Do it any time you need or want to: take a deep breath. Pause. Exhale slowly as you count to five. Repeat four more times. This low-key practice can help reduce feelings of anxiety, depression and more.

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22 Ways to Be a Little Bit Happier Every Day in 2022 - Integris

Well before the pandemic raised concerns around the health impacts of social distancing, isolation from others and feelings of loneliness have been shown to be contributing factors to higher rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in older adults.

Now, new research in older women in particular shows that isolation and loneliness are associated with an increased risk for a composite endpoint of major CVD, which includes heart disease, stroke, and death from cardiovascular disease.

The 8-year prospective cohort study, conducted from March2011 to March2019 in the United States, showed that social isolation and loneliness were associated with an increased risk for incident CVD in postmenopausal women by 8% and 5%, respectively, after adjustment for health behaviors and outcomes. For older women who experience high levels of both social isolation and loneliness, the increased risk was up to 27%.

Results of the study were published in the February issue of JAMA Network Open.

Several previous trials have indicated that social isolation and loneliness are prevalent among older adults, and are associated with CVD risk factors, such as elevated blood pressure, cholesterol levels, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity, and poor diet.

Given that women make up the majority of older adults in the United States, targeting postmenopausal women was a particular area of interest. For this analysis, the researchers focused on women 65 to 99years of age who had previously participated in the Women's Health Initiative Extension StudyII and had no history of myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, or coronary heart disease.

Over the duration of the study, information was gathered from 57,825 women with an average age of 79years. Participants responded to questionnaires designed to assess social isolation in 2011 or 2012, and then were sent a second questionnaire assessing loneliness and social support in 2014 or 2015. A total of 1599 CVD events occurred over 186,762 person-years of follow-up.

Results shows that social isolation and loneliness were tied to heightened CVD risk in this population, even after adjustment for behaviors that already affect cardiovascular health, such as smoking, poor diet, and sedentary lifestyle.

High vs low social isolation was associated with major CVD, with a hazard ratio of 1.18 (95%CI, 1.13- 1.23). The hazard ratio for high vs low loneliness was 1.14 (95%CI, 1.10- 1.18).

After additional adjustment for health behaviors and health status, those hazard ratios were 1.08 for social isolation (95%CI, 1.03- 1.12) and 1.05 for loneliness (95%CI, 1.01- 1.09).

"Women with both high social isolation and high loneliness scores had a 13.0% to 27.0% higher risk of incident CVD than did women with low social isolation and low loneliness scores," the authors report.

"This is a strong signal to us that there is some pathway that is causing higher levels of cardiovascular disease among people who are socially isolated and lonely," said coauthor John Bellettiere, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of epidemiology at the UCSanDiego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. "I think further epidemiological investigation will go into understanding what those pathways are [so] we might be able to come up with alternate solutions."

The fact that social isolation and loneliness were also distinct factors for increasing CVD risk in this population group was another key study finding. "In my mind, those two things are almost the same, [yet] there are a lot of people who have high levels of social isolation but they're not lonely," said Bellettiere. "Understanding the whole dynamic between the lack of relationship between these two constructs and that each of them are independently important in CVD in postmenopausal women was a surprise."

Interestingly, social support was not a significant effect modifier of these associations, they note.

"I always thought social support would buffer any type of loneliness or isolation, but as we tested in the study, I don't think it functions that way," says lead author Natalie Golaszewski, PhD, a post-doctoral scholar at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. She cautioned that this could be due to the fact that too few women who were assessed had low levels of social support to see a modifying effect.

"Those women who were socially isolated and lonely also had poor health behaviors and health outcomes, so it warrants more research around what is the relationship between feeling [this way] and your behaviors," says Golaszewski.

Kathryn Rexrode, MD, MPH, chief of the Division of Women's Health, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, noted that having a more granular look at the factors that affected study participants such as race, economic status, and living conditions would have been beneficial in determining different interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness.

"If I think about my own patients and their different living conditions, there is a dramatic difference if you're a senior in assisted living with a lot of social interaction compared to someone alone in an apartment with poor physical function," she said. "I think we have to look at structural issues, including financial resources, that might contribute to social isolation and loneliness."

Given that there is a very clear relation between social isolation, loneliness, and poor health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease, the next step would be to focus on developing ways to identify people who are at risk, Rexrode said. "I do think this study stresses the need to think about effective interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness, especially with our aging population."

Researchers say measuring social isolation and loneliness as part of standard primary care practice could go a long way in identifying patients at risk. They suggest asking a few simple questions around living conditions or creating an index score to get a pulse on a patient's social connection.

The National Institute on Aging has also developed a Social Isolation and Loneliness Outreach Toolkit. "This toolkit includes a whole host of ideas for supporting older adults in reducing social isolation and lonelinessand there may be some interventions that resonate," said Bellettiere.

Beyond social supports, there is potential for future treatments that could help patients at risk, he said. "I believe if we can isolate some of the physiologic pathways, interventions specifically tailored to that pathway could be developed, potentially alternative mechanisms that might be able to shift the levers that are contributing to cardiovascular disease."

The study was supported by unrestricted grants from the NIA, HIH, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestion and Kidney Diseases. Bellettiere reported receiving grants from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) during the conduct of the study, and personal fees from Meta outside the submitted work. Disclosures for coauthors appear in the published study.

JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5:e2146461. Full text

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Social Isolation, Loneliness Tied to CV Risk - Medscape

Staff photo by Clay SchuldtAfter 50 years with the Boy Scouts, Tom Henderson is retiring as a scout leader. During the Troop 25 pancakebreakfast, scouts from across Minnesota and across generations came to thank Henderson for his serviceto the scouts. Henderson poses with a family of scouts that were impacted by his service. Back Row L toR: Janet Samuelson, Jared Budenski, Tom Henderson and Jordan Budenski. Middle Row: Annika Samuelson,Jake Budenski and Jenna Andrews. Front Row L to R: Ronik Samuelson, Jacey Budesnki and Carter Andrews.

NEW ULM There was more than pancakes to celebrate Sunday at the New Ulm area Boy Scout Troop 25 annual Pancake Breakfast Sunday at Holy Trinity Cathedral. Scouts gathered as well to celebrate Tom Hendersons service to Scouting. Henderson is retiring from the Scouts after 50 years of volunteer service and leadership.

The annual pancake breakfast is the troops main fundraiser for the year. The profits cover the cost of programming and other activities for the scouts. The money covers a variety of odds and ends, including camping supplies. The average turnout for the pancake breakfast is between 700 and 800 people.

This years pancake breakfast was special because it was also a chance to honor long-time Troop Committee Chairman Tom Henderson, who has helped multiple generations of Scouts.

Throughout the pancake breakfast, dozens of current and former members of Scouting came to see Henderson and thank him for his service.

Hendersons time with the scouts is actually longer than 50 years. He originally joined Cub Scouts as a kid in Fairmont. As an adult, while living near Chaska, Henderson again joined the scouts as an assistant scoutmaster. After a year in a half, he moved to Brown County to become the Director of Human Services for the county.

Henderson said when he became director at 27 he was not sure if he would have time for the Scouts, but a month into moving to Brown County, he was contacted by the local Troop and asked to serve as a Troop assistant. Henderson agreed to join as an assistant, but upon arriving at an early campout, learned he was scoutmaster.

Few adults serve in the Boy Scouts for 50 years. Henderson said the secret to his longevity in the Scouts was the great help he received from other adults.

Henderson Sid there was a time in the late 1970s when it seemed like he was the only adult assisting with the local Troop, and he resigned. Henderson was asked to return with the promise there would be more adult assistance.

Ever since I came back Ive been surrounded by helpers, he said. Several parents and other available adults stepped up to keep the Troop going strong. With extra assistance, he said being in the Scouts became much more fun.

Henderson said his best memories with the Scouts were the campouts. He recently did the math and estimates at least two full years of his life were spent camping outdoors during various scout events.

Henderson received numerous awards and accolades for his service to the Scouts. His most prized award was being listed at one of the 10 Outstanding USA Scoutmasters in 1998. This was a national award. He was brought out to the National Adult Boy Scout of American Convention in San Diego, CA for the presentation.

Of the many things he taught the Scouts over the years, Henderson hoped to impart leadership skills, a sense of service and camaraderie among the boys.

He was very proud to see several of his former scouts move on to leadership positions and continue to give back to the community.

Henderson was also happy when Scouts became more comfortable communicating. He saw many shy scouts join the Troop and leave as chatterboxes.

You do learn to work together as a team, Henderson said.

Scoutmaster Dan Kotten said the thing he will miss most about Henderson is the wealth of knowledge he brought to the Scouts.

If you had a question, he always had the answer, Kotten said.

He will also be remembered by all the scouts who learn from him.

Kotten counted himself among those many scouts.

It was estimated Henderson was a leader of at least a thousand scouts in his tenure. Roughly 125 scouts achieved the rank of Eagle Scout under his supervision.

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IKEDA, Osaka -- A 33-year-old male wombat at Satsukiyama Zoo in this west Japan city has recently been certified as the oldest ever captive member of his species, and Guinness World Records sent certificates for a Feb. 11 ceremony at the zoo.

Wain the wombat is over 100 years old in human terms, the zoo said.

The average lifetime of wombats in captivity is 20 to 25 years. Although Wain, who turned 33 in January 2022, has cataract in one eye and his legs and back have weakened, he has won fans for his cutely clumsy but vigorous demeanor as he moves around every day. He is so friendly to humans that he approaches visitors when he sees them holding a camera, apparently because he has lived at the zoo for so long and has gotten used to being photographed.

The secret to Wain's longevity is eating well. The zoo said that his favorite foods are green grass and sweet potatoes, and he also eats special order rusks and almonds to boost his calorie intake.

Zookeeper Iori Matsumoto, 24, cited other keys to Wain's longevity, saying, "He's been kept in a calm, stress-free environment surrounded by nature, and being right next to his good female friend Yuki might have helped, too."

Wain was rescued from the pouch of his mother, who was hit by a car on Australia's Tasmania island in 1989, and was transferred to the city of Ikeda the following year. Currently, four of the six wombats in Japan are at Satsukiyama Zoo. One of them, named Fukumaru, has become a kind of mascot for the city, appearing on posters as part of its local revitalization efforts.

"We hope Wain will stay healthy and live even longer," said zoo vice head and keeper Taiki Endo, 33.

(Japanese original by Makiko Nagao, Student Newspapers Editorial Department)

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33-yr-old wombat at Osaka Pref. zoo certified as oldest ever in captivity - The Mainichi - The Mainichi