How to Get Into Star Trek
This article idea was suggested by a Conscious Growth Club member. After a little reflection, I thought, why not?
I’ve seen every episode of every non-animated Star Trek series, including the original 1960s classic, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, and the new Picard series. I’ve seen many episodes multiple times. I’ve seen all of the movies. I’ve been to a Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas. So I’m pretty well versed in Star Trek lore.
I met William Shatner (aka Captain Kirk) very briefly when I was in my 20s because we had the same lawyer for a while...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - August 13, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Lifestyle Values Source Type: blogs
A new hormonal therapy for prostate cancer is under expedited FDA review
In June, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an accelerated review of a promising new drug for advanced prostate cancer. Called relugolix, it suppresses testosterone and other hormones that speed the cancer’s growth. If approved, this new type of hormonal therapy is expected to set a new standard of care for the disease.
Doctors give hormonal therapies when a man’s tumor is metastasizing (spreading beyond the prostate), or if his PSA levels start rising after surgery or radiation. The most commonly used hormonal therapies, called LHRH agonists, will eventually lower testosterone levels in blood. ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - July 13, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Incontinence Management Change Up Could Make Dad ’s Fishing Trip Possible
Dear Carol: My father is 72 and is in the moderate stages of dementia. Before his dementia diagnosis, he was an active hunter and fisherman. He also has incontinence issues due to prostate cancer, surgery, and treatment. This requires an external urinary attachment system to maintain an active daily life. My mother, as his primary caregiver, works diligently to keep the system and attachments clean and in working order. However, he is at the stage in his dementia journey where he is not able to maintain this attachment on his own, yet he is defiant when we try to explain that he cannot go on trips with friends because his ...
Source: Minding Our Elders - July 6, 2020 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 6th 2020
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter,
please visit:
https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/
Longevity Industry Consulting Services
Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 5, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Aging Impacts Progenitor Cells in the Thymus
The age-related decline of the immune system has several causes, but the involution of the thymus is an important one. The thymus is responsible for the production of mature T cells of the adaptive immune system, but the organ atrophies with age. The supply of new T cells falls off dramatically in later life, and without these reinforcements, the adaptive immune system becomes ever more populated with broken, misconfigured, senescent, exhausted, and outright harmful T cells.
A few research groups and companies are investigating ways to restore the thymus, typically by provoking it to regrow. A number of approaches h...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 1, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
New drugs approved for advanced BRCA-positive prostate cancer
Defective BRCA genes are well known for their ability to cause breast and ovarian cancers in women. But these same gene defects are also strong risk factors for aggressive prostate cancer in men. About 10% of men with metastatic prostate cancer — meaning cancer that is spreading away from the prostate — test positive for genetic mutations in BRCA genes. Fortunately, these cancers can be treated with new types of personalized therapies.
In May, the FDA approved two new drugs specifically for men with BRCA-positive metastatic prostate cancer that has stopped responding to other treatments. One of the drugs, called rucapa...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - June 15, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
More Women Are Pursuing Majority-Male Specialties and Changing Patients ’ Perceptions
By AMY E. KRAMBECK, MD
With the exceptions of pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology, women make up fewer than half of all medical specialists. Representation is lowest in orthopedics (8%), followed by my own specialty, urology (12%). I can testify that the numbers are changing in urology – women are up from just 8% in 2015, and the breakdown in our residency program here at Indiana University is now about 20% of the 5-year program.
One reason for the increase is likely the growth of women in medicine – 60% of doctors under 35 are women, as are more than half of medical school enrollees. I also credit a generat...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 5, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Amy Krambeck female physicians majority male specialties Patients Source Type: blogs
Massachusetts Health Committee Makes History: Approves End of Life Options Bill for 1st Time since 2011 Introduction
On Friday afternoon, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health approved legislation that would authorize medical aid in dying as an end-of-life care option. This is the first time the committee approved such legislation since it was originally introduced
in 2011.
The Massachusetts End of Life Options
Act (H.1926 / S.1208), would give mentally capable, terminally ill individuals
with a prognosis of six months or less to live the option to request, obtain
and self-ingest medication to die peacefully in their sleep if their suffering
becomes unbearable.
“I can’t tell you how much this hist...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - June 1, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs
Combining different biopsies limits uncertainty in prostate cancer diagnosis
Are prostate cancer biopsies reliably accurate?
Not always.
The most common method, called a systematic biopsy, sometimes misses tumors, and it can also misclassify cancer as being either more or less aggressive than it really is. During systematic biopsy, a doctor takes 12 evenly-spaced samples of the prostate, called cores, while looking at the gland with an ultrasound machine.
A new method, called MRI-targeted biopsy, guides doctors to suspicious abnormalities in the prostate, and emerging evidence suggests that it’s better at detecting high-grade, aggressive tumors that need immediate treatment. These biopsies re...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 26, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Diagnosis Health Prostate Knowledge HPK Source Type: blogs
Chemicals and Pregnant Women: Taking Care of Your Unborn Baby
This study is not a warning of a scary new epidemic of problems arriving with next year’s babies.
Instead, it’s a peak behind the curtain at what might be the hidden story behind the marvelous kids we already see on today’s playgrounds across the country. Most are very healthy – among the healthiest kids in history. Yes, too many are overweight. Too many have asthma. Too many have allergies. Too many have learning problems. Too many start puberty early. More than half have some chronic illness. But this isn’t slowing kids down as much as the devastating infectious diseases of the past. It is a vib...
Source: Conversations with Dr Greene - May 25, 2020 Category: Child Development Authors: Alan Greene MD Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Parent's Decision Not To Be Treated for Cancer Upsets Daughter
Photo credit Aaron Andrew
Dear Carol: There’s probably no right answer to what I’m asking but I felt the need to write just for comfort. My mother died when I was in my teens, so Dad has been the only parent that I’ve had for more than 20 years. I have no siblings. Dad’s now in his 70s and has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He’s beaten both melanoma and lung cancer in the past, but he tells me that this cancer should be slow-growing and that he’ll probably die before it’s a problem so he doesn’t want to treat it. I want him to go full-on with every treatment possible. I watched both of my parents figh...
Source: Minding Our Elders - May 14, 2020 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 4th 2020
The objective is to start treating chronic diseases from the root and not the symptoms of the disease. As we are starting to enroll patients in "senolytics-clinical trials," it will be imperative to assess if senolysis efficiently targets the primary cause of disease or if it works best in combination with other drugs. Additional basic science research is required to address the fundamental role of senescent cells, especially in the established contexts of disease.
Notes on Self-Experimentation with Sex Steroid Ablation for Regrowth of the Thymus
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/04/notes-on-self-experi...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 3, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Notes on Self-Experimentation with Sex Steroid Ablation for Regrowth of the Thymus
I periodically publish thoughts on self-experiments that seem interesting and relevant to aging. Despite the influence of the quantified self movement, the broader self-experimentation community is largely terrible on matters of research, rigor, reporting, and safety. My motivation is to something to raise the bar on all of these items.
For every discussion I've published on a particular self-experiment, there are half a dozen others sitting at some stage of research and interest. Over the past year or so, I've been on and off looking into sex steroid ablation as a mechanism for thymus regrowth. Since my company, Re...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 30, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Self-Experimentation Source Type: blogs
More sexual partners, more cancer?
Two headlines caught my eye recently:
The relationship between chronic diseases and number of sexual partners: an exploratory analysis
and
Study warns more sex might mean higher likelihood for cancer
It may be hard to believe, but both of these refer to same medical research. I’m not sure which one I like better. The first one is the actual title of the research, which provides no information about its findings. The second one is a newspaper headline. It cuts right to the chase about the study’s main findings. While it’s much more specific — and alarming — it is also misleading.
Is there a link between the number...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 28, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Cancer Relationships Sex Sexual Conditions Source Type: blogs
