Archive for the ‘Male Genetics’ Category

The Male Breast Cancer Market report examines the short- and medium-term economic and profitability prospects of the Male Breast Cancer industry. The Global Male Breast Cancer Market Report is a professional and comprehensive research report on the market situation in the worlds major regions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (USA, Germany, UK, Japan, South Korea, and China).

Over the years, the Male Breast Cancer market has grown exponentially, driven by the demand from baby boomers. Most people feel comfortable in their own homes, and leaving their comfort zone to seek treatment or care in a facility seems daunting to many. Male Breast Cancer has emerged as a reliable alternative when many seniors who have lived their entire lives at home struggle to adjust to a new institution/facility.

Request Illustrative PDF Brochure (Contains- Keyplayers, Growth Value, Segments, etc):https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/sample/556539

Market leaders mentioned in this report:

Pfizer, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Novartis, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Teva Pharmaceutical, Sun Pharmaceutical, BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Seattle Genetics, Accord Healthcare

Male Breast Cancer Market Segmentation by Type:

Medication, Chemotherapy, Others

Male Breast Cancer Market Segmentation by Applications:

Hospitals, Clinics, Others

The report provides an in-depth and broad understanding of the Male Breast Cancer market. The report provides dominant data for key players with accurate data covering all key features of the dominant market. An audit of the state of the market by the availability of accurate historical data for all segments during the forecast period is mentioned. Driving forces, restraints, and opportunities are provided to help provide an improved picture of investments in this market during the forecast period 2021-2027.

Analysis of the Impact of COVID-19:The full version of the report includes projected changes to the impact of COVID-19 and the future outlook of the industry, taking into account political, economic, social, and technological parameters.

Get the Covid 19 version of this report:https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/covidimpact/556539

The global Male Breast Cancer market is expected to grow at a healthy pace through 2020. The growth of the global baby boom generation population is expected to be a key driver of the global Male Breast Cancer market growth. Also, awareness of the benefits of receiving home care is expected to further propel the growth of this market.

Key Drivers and Regions of Global Male Breast Cancer Market

History Future Analysis and AssessmentHistory: 2015-2020Base year: 2021Estimated Year:2021Forecast Year: 2021-2027

In-depth qualitative analysis involves the identification and investigation of the following aspects:Male Breast Cancer Market Structure, Growth Drivers, Limitations and Challenges, Emerging Product Trends and Male Breast Cancer Industry Opportunities, Porters Five Forces.

The Asia Pacific, the USA, and Western Europe are expected to be major regions for global Male Breast Cancer market growth. The surging elderly population in the densely populated countries of Asia Pacific, particularly India and China, is expected to drive the demand for the Male Breast Cancer market. The easy availability of home care service providers and the increasing number of chronic diseases are expected to be the reasons to revitalize the global Male Breast Cancer market. The cost-effectiveness of Male Breast Cancer is expected to have a good impact on the growth of the Male Breast Cancer market in Western Europe.

Key Challenges of the Global Male Breast Cancer Market

The shortage of trained workers remains a major challenge for the growth of the global Male Breast Cancer market. The leading players in the global Male Breast Cancer market have strict hiring procedures and focus on providing the right training for their employees. However, new entrants to the market are lax about the history of workers and do not have the resources or budget to train them. This remains a key challenge for the growth of the global Male Breast Cancer market.

Key Questions in the Male Breast Cancer Market Report:-

The report analysts have focused on answering some key questions about the Male Breast Cancer market. It is intended to help the reader gain a clear knowledge of the growth of the Male Breast Cancer market and the ongoing changes that will diversify the market in the coming years.

Report Customization https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/quiry/556539If you have any questions or custom requirements, please contact our experts to make sure your requirements are met.

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Male Breast Cancer Market: Established Keyplayers Will Try to Generate New Growth Opportunities in the Upcoming Years: Pfizer, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline ...

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

By: Grecia Romero

Para leer en Espaol

A pink ribbon is distinct. Its unique meaning strikes in a millisecond.

The well-known ribbon and its distinctive color has become the official symbol of commitment and awareness in the global fight against breast cancer in October. Organizations and people interested in the cause use it to represent hope for the future while honoring those who have suffered from the disease. The ribbon joins people from all backgrounds in solidarity with those who are currently suffering from it.

This color is not a fashion trend. Its a visible form of awareness and education on prevention, early detection, and treatment of this disease.

Breast Cancer Does Not Discriminate

Breast cancer continues to be the most common type of cancer in women. About 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with this cancer in her lifetime, and 1 in 39 will die from the disease. According to the 2021 Cancer Facts & Figures report published last month by the American Cancer Society, it is estimated that by December of this year, there will be 281,550 new cases, which represents 30% of all possible cancer diagnoses.

Breast cancer is not exclusive to women. Men can also suffer from the disease although at a lesser extent. The same report estimates that 2,650 new cases of men will be diagnosed this year with a risk of life of 1 in 1000 cases.

Mary Ann Orlang works as a clinical nurse specialist in genetics at the Regional Cancer Center in Florida. She helps patients with genetic cancer tests that might be inherited. Orlang said that cancer is a disease that does not distinguish between sex and age.

We see a wide range of people with this condition on a daily basis. We serve very young women, in their twenties or thirties, as well as older women, said Orlang. We have also had male patients who have been diagnosed with breast cancer, although their risk is not as high as women.

As Orlang said, learning how this type of cancer behaves plays a very important role in prevention and treatment.

Awareness is importantespecially with risk factors like family history of breast cancer or prostate cancer since prostate cancer is also associated with BRCA genes.

Orlang also said that breast self-exam is highly recommended and should be started as early as 18 years of age for women with high-risk families. This allows the young woman to learn to distinguish what is normal for her and to recognize in time if there is something wrong. This is also true for men because, as Orlang points out, although the detection of breast cancer in men is much easier, it is common that the diagnosis comes as a result of a medical evaluation for the presence of lumps, secretions, or change in the appearance of the breasts.

Risk Factors: What Should You Know?

Breast cancer is not an infectious, bacterial, or transmissible disease like the human papilloma (HPV). Statistics from the American Cancer Society show that approximately 10% of all cases of this type of cancer are hereditary, an additional 10 to 30% have a close family member who also had cancer suggesting a familial link, and 60 to 80% are sporadic cases.

Although it is not possible to point to a direct and specific cause for its occurrence, several studies have verified the relationship of certain factors, some of them controllable, with the appearance of this disease.

The American Cancer Society lists all risk factors that increase the chances of getting the disease: the womans age (risks increase considerably after age 50), starting menstrual periods early, or having her first child at an advanced age, not having breastfed, a personal history of cancer, and direct family inheritance.

Potentially modifiable factors include obesity, physical inactivity, use of alcohol or tobacco, prolonged use of hormones, and excessive radiation exposure.

Prevention: What should be done?

Living a healthy lifestyle is the key to preventing cancer and multiple diseases. This requires different adjustments, but that will be undoubtedly of great benefit in the long term. According to the American Cancer Society, some preventive tips are:

Awareness Breast Cancer Month: Where Do We Start?

The keyword of October is action!

There are several things that can be done to fight this disease and really make an impact on the lives of those who suffer from it.

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Pink Ribbon is not a fashion trend: It is a Symbol of a fight! - Doral Family Journal

This is a rush transcript of "The Ingraham Angle" on October 1, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington tonight.

The pandemic of the unvaccinated narrative gets a reality check. My medicine cabinet is here and they'll expose why cases are surging in highly vaccinated areas. And it's not just Texas, Arizona now is under a massive strain from illegals crossing the border there. We're going to bring you a dramatic report from Yuma.

Plus, Pelosi becomes a dancing queen and James Bond gets a makeover from the woke left. Oh say it, ain't so, Raymond Arroyo is here for Friday Follies.

But first, last night special counsel John Durham dropped his second bombshell in just the last two weeks. He issued subpoenas to one of the most politically connected law firms in the country. It's called Perkins Coie.

Now, in 2016, that law firm represented the DNC and the Clinton campaign, who then, of course, used the firm to funnel money to former British spy Christopher Steele. Now Steele, in turn, used the funds to finance his phony dossier on then candidate Donald Trump.

Now, this comes just two weeks, by the way, the subpoena after the federal grand jury indicted former Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussman for lying to the FBI during a 2016 meeting that helped spark the Trump Russia probe. Now, we're not sure why it's taken Durham this long to do this. But we may finally, finally be close to learning just how far the Clintons and their allies went, and all their efforts to destroy Donald Trump, his campaign and his presidency.

And when the truth finally comes out, we'll also see how invested the Deep State was in deep siccing Trump. Their goal was to frustrate the Trump agenda, and put them on the defensive from day one.

And as we all remember, the main villains here were aided and abetted by a corrupt left wing media complex that fan the fraudulent Russian collusion accusations for years. By the way, remember, none of those media folks decided to resign after their role in all of this. There were no (inaudible). And as far as I can tell, there's been no accountability. Sound familiar, or sounds like just what's happening at the Biden Pentagon.

And when the Durham subpoena news did break, Hillary's collaborators in the press, they kind of just decided to downplay it or just ignore it entirely. So last night, ABC and CBS fond over Biden's moves to save his mega spending bill and also to keep our borders wide open. And the Durham probe didn't make NBC Nightly News either, but, well, they did find time to do a very important feature on the lineup for the Super Bowl halftime show.

But come on, it's understandable. Eminem, Snoop Dogg over here versus boring old Durham and Perkins Coie over there. Maybe it's time to strike the whole word, news, from NBC Nightly News at this point, more like NBC Nightly Distraction. Of course, the news blackout extended to MSNBC, which spent years dining out in the twisted Russian conspiracies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump was trying to do business with Russia. And then six months later, Russia is trying to help the Trump campaign. It's not very complicated.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: This is not how presidents behave. It's a dark moment in American history today.

DEXTER FILKINS, THE NEW YORKER CONTRIBUTOR: Eric Lichtblau of the 'New York Times' calls Alpha Bank's lobbyists in Washington. 48 hours later, the Trump domain vanishes from the internet. And--

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: One thing, if the alpha side of it disappeared, they called alpha and the Trump side disappear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Ok, ok. But surely CNN gave the Durham developments their due.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It seems like he's not delivering that big fish that former President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr promised.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. Exactly after 2.5 years or so, there's only been these two indictments. And they frankly have been very thin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, what's really thinnest here is their credibility and objectivity. It's not existent. Wolf Blitzer even trotted out one of the slimiest guys in this ongoing drama, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Is this the action of a special counsel, who after once again two years of investigating has found essentially not much, at least not yet?

ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Well, that's absolutely right. There's really very little here relevant to what he supposedly was hired to investigate. The recent indictment and these subpoenas really hold the FBI more in the position of victim rather than subject of an investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: The spin just never ends. Just remember, Andy's always going to play the victim though. So the FBI, our Intel agencies, the media, and dishonest Democrats, they did incalculable harm to the office of the presidency and the people's faith in these institutions. And none of the guilty parties in this saga, not the press, the DOJ, certainly not the Intel community, have learned anything over the last few years.

Since we discovered that the Russia probe was a fraud from the outset, they've just moved on to targeting innocent Americans, who oppose the Biden agenda, while dismissing Biden's conflicts of interests on China and his general incompetence and managing the affairs of our nation. It's a complete an ongoing disservice to the hard working people of America who deserve to know the truth about the lengths to which our own government and media will go to take and keep power.

Joining me now is Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at the Federalist; and Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, both Fox News contributors.

Mollie, this attempt to gloss over the Durham news, as if the first thing they're going to announce is that they have Jim Comey, or somehow Andy McCabe is going to be marched out in handcuffs. That's not how investigations ever work.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THE FEDERALIST: Well, the thing about this conspiracy is that it was complicated and very difficult to unravel. There are three different sets of bad actors. There are the Clinton campaign and their law firm who made up the hoax, invented it, mostly out of whole cloth. There are the corrupt intelligence officials, who weaponized it. And then there are the completely reprehensible media, who uncritically regurgitated it.

There is some accountability that can be had for the corrupt FBI officials and for the Clinton campaign. But the media are really the bad actors. They're the ones who reported this day in and day out for years, undermining administration affecting the 2016 election, the 2018 election, and the 2020 election. And because of the laws of our land, there's not so much you can do even though they probably knowingly lied about all of this. But one thing that can be done is that conservatives and victims and Republicans, who were victims of this need to hold them accountable.

And here's one way you don't hold them accountable. Chuck Todd, who's at a different network, lied about the Russia collusion for years. He brutally attacked Republicans who tried to fight back. He defended deep state actors as they lied. The Virginia Republicans had him host their gubernatorial debate, where they allowed that to happen where their candidate debated with him moderating. There is no reason that conspiracy theorist and liar at that level should have any access to Republicans.

And Republicans need to have greater self respect for themselves, that they don't allow these people to continue to act like nothing happened. What happened to this country was evil and wrong, and they need to be held accountable.

INGRAHAM: Ari, do you agree? It seems like Republicans are so quick to forgive what are frankly unforgiveable moves by an independent media, supposedly independent media. So they're basically just now an extended comm shop of the Democrat Party. So why shouldn't they at some point be treated as such?

ARI FLEISCHER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes, Laura. I'm not willing to forgive or move beyond. I'm actually writing a book about it and how much the media has led America down. But let's reset the table here.

First and foremost, the Democrats and much of the media never accepted the results of the 2016 presidential election in which Donald Trump won. And as a result of Trump's win, they did everything in their power to undermine the win and make the claim that it was somehow illegitimate that he's not the duly elected president, that the only reason he won was because of Russian interference in America's election. And they perpetrated that myth, and it became the dominant theme of the early years of the Trump era.

Everything Donald Trump did seem to be tainted by the press, falling over themselves, to make it lead the evening news, front page coverage, websites, everywhere about Donald Trump and Russia, and went as far as I'm accepting much of the Steel Dossier too. And so what do you have now with what happened last night in this revelation about subpoenas, a total media hypocritical approach.

Every time a subpoena was issued by Bob Mueller and his investigation of Donald Trump, it was hysteria in the media about this and where it could lead. And now, in the case of a subpoena issued to the Clinton law firm, 'The New York Times' and 'The Washington Post' buried it. One paragraph in each of those papers.

And as you pointed out, Laura, the network's poo-pooed it, made it act like it was nothing. A total hypocrisy by those who said the election was stolen by Donald Trump.

INGRAHAM: Now, moving on to another issue, which is I think, really hurting Biden is his approach to the border and immigration. And Mollie, the AP is reporting that "The administration announced new rules that require authorities to only pursue migrants who recently crossed into the country since November 1 without permission - or they're deemed to pose a threat to public safety".

Mollie, what message does that send to the 60,000 Haitians plus, who are making their way to our southern border?

HEMINGWAY: It sends the same message that the Biden administration has sent since before it was even in office. When Biden campaigned, he encouraged people to illegally cross the border. He tore down all of the rules and restrictions that we had put in place, kind of patchwork that we had in place, in other countries, in our country to ensure that some of the trafficking that we've seen would be controlled.

And so it's not - you know, it's a crisis of his own making. He chose this, he wants this. And so it's very difficult to solve, because he doesn't actually view this as a problem, even as much of the country is having to pay for this and deal with the consequences of his open borders policy.

INGRAHAM: And, Ari, yesterday's hearing on Capitol Hill in Congress was meant to strike back against Texas and other states that are putting abortion restrictions in place. And a lot of people didn't believe what they were seeing. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB (D-MI): Black Lives Matter should be very much at the forefront and every policy that we ever do in this country.

REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-MA): Abortion bans like this are rooted in patriarchy, white supremacy, and perpetuate systemic racism.

GHAZALEH MOAYEDI, OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY SPECIALIST: I know firsthand that abortion saves lives. Abortion is a blessing. Abortion is an act of love. Abortion is freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Ari, does that help the Democrats with those kind of working class Democrats, a lot of Catholic voters and others. But Congresswoman came up when they basically told their abortion stories and others, and it's an act of love now. Is that going to fly? What happened to safe legal and rare under Clinton?

FLEISCHER: Yes. And Hispanic voters too, Laura, between immigration and this. That's another reason the Democrats are suffering erosion in the Hispanic community. But now, that type of rhetoric, that type of extremist language never works on either side.

And that's why I've made a career of trying to carve out treating people with respect, understanding two different sides of an argument, coming down on a principal position and holding to it. But you don't vilify and demonize the other side. And on a host of issues, that's the only Democratic approach they have left, demonize and vilify. And that's why they're not getting majorities for anything they're doing on the Capitol Hill these days.

INGRAHAM: Mollie, does that work, that abortion tech they took?

HEMINGWAY: It's extreme, and it's mostly just sad to hear people talk this way about the ending of unborn human life. And it's a reminder that everybody needs to care for the women in their midst and the children that they bear. But this language is so extreme, and it doesn't match with what we know about Americans, which is that they, in general, would like to see restrictions - some restrictions on abortion, and that we have the most radical policies relative to any country on Earth. So not wise on their part.

INGRAHAM: All right. Mollie, Ari, great to see you. Have a great weekend.

And over on Capitol Hill, my next guest was hammering HHS secretary Xavier Becerra for twisting the science on COVID. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Do you want to apologize to the 100 million Americans, who suffered through COVID, survived, have immunity, and yet you want to hold them down and vaccinate them? Do you want to apologize for calling those people flat earthers?

XAVIER BECERRA, HHS SECRETARY: We follow the facts and the science at HHS, we use the expertise of the medical professionals, scientists at HHS to make decisions. It's a team effort. And we rely on what is on the ground showing us results.

PAUL: Except for the dozens and dozens of studies, in fact, most if not all of this studies, show robust immunity from getting the disease naturally. You're selectively doing this because you want us to submit to your will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining me now, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Senator, I had so many friends send me that exchange, texted it to me last night. It is stunning. The bureaucracy uninformed, ignorant, certainly no medical background. What's going to happen here?

Now, Dianne Feinstein has introduced legislation to stop the unvaccinated, prevent them from traveling domestically on an airplane.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): You know, the truth is actually the opposite. For those of us who have had the disease and survived, we're more at risk in being around only vaccinated people. So these people who are hysterical about the unvaccinated, it's actually the opposite of the truth. The riskiest people to catch it from are people who are vaccinated versus people who have had the disease.

Now, there are some people who are unvaccinated, who haven't had the disease, and I do recommend that they voluntarily get the vaccine. But the thing is, is think of all the doctors, think of all the lawyers, the orderlies in the hospital, who worked for a year and a half to save lives without any vaccine at all. They got COVID, they survived. They now have immunity. And the hospitals are just saying, you're worthless. We're getting rid of you unless you submit to a vaccine. But it doesn't go with the science. The science actually shows greater immunity if you've had the disease than if you've just simply been vaccinated.

INGRAHAM: Well, the court is ultimately going to have to settle this one. They're just not going to change their view on that. But getting back to my point about this radical legislation seeking to isolate and punish unvaccinated Americans to prevent them from flying domestically.

Dianne Feinstein, when we haven't seen her much lately, but she apparently introduced legislation to do just that. Your reaction, Senator?

PAUL: The ever present, Dr. Fauci agrees with her. He wants to ban people from flying as well, unless they're vaccinated. It totally goes against the science. It's ignoring the 100 million people that already have immunity who got it naturally. It's a terrible idea. It goes against, sort of, the very basic idea of a free society.

I said, yesterday, one of the most incredible, our primary medical rights we have is to decide what goes into our body, what kind of injections we get, which doctor we go to, whether we have surgery, or we don't have surgery. And so everything they're doing is against the science, but also against really the foundation of what are - the freedom that our country was founded upon.

INGRAHAM: And yesterday, on a separate issue, Senator, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, well, she addressed just how bad our national debt is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET YELLEN, TREASURY SECRETARY: The debt held by the public relative to GDP is around 105 percent.

REP. TED BUDD (R-NC): Do you believe that there is a level of debt that is unsustainable in our economy?

YELLEN: If interest rates are zero, and negative in real terms, certainly we could have a substantially higher burden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: So, I guess if there's no end to the debt we can rack up. That is terrifying. Real quick.

PAUL: Yes. The other way to look at it is that we're approaching the same percentage of debt that Greece had when Greece declared bankruptcy. So, yes, great nations can declare bankruptcy. The checks will all go out. But the question is, will the checks buy anything?

I think inflation is coming back in a big way. And I think the whole bait and switch of Democrats offering you free stuff, you will ultimately pay for it with higher prices. Don't be fooled. Nothing in life is really free.

INGRAHAM: Senator Paul, incredible exchange (inaudible) about yesterday. Thanks for joining us.

PAUL: Thank you, Laura.

INGRAHAM: And you've heard it repeated, ad nauseum. COVID is the pandemic of the unvaccinated, Biden said that, Fauci said it. Well, tonight we're giving that narrative our own INGRAHAM ANGLE reality check. My medicine cabinet is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Now, just as predicted by anyone who has studied viruses, the Delta variant looks to have run its course in the south. Over the last two weeks, daily caseloads have fallen precipitously in states like Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Texas and South Carolina.

Meanwhile, it looks like COVID has migrated northward toward more heavily vaccinated states. Maine has seen a jaw dropping 34 percent increase in cases over the last 14 days. Vermont's caseload jumped 29 percent. And even New York, the land of vaccine mandates has seen a surge.

Let's bring in my medicine cabinet. Dr. Steven Smith, founder of the Smith Center for infectious diseases and Urban Health; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford Professor, University Professor of Medicine there.

Dr. Bhattacharya, what should we take away from this COVID trend from south to north? Is it related to the strict mandates, the controls? Or is there something else going on?

JAY BHATTACHARYA, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, STANFORD: Laura, there's an illusion of control that we sometimes have with this virus that somehow we - if we just lock down hard enough, if we just bay enough we can stop the virus from spreading.

But, in fact, the virus spreads on a seasonal, regional basis, it's very, very difficult to stop a virus like this from spreading. It's unfortunate fact. That's why it's so important to protect the vulnerable with the vaccine and whatnot. But it's also important to realize that these measures that we take have enormous harms. We have to acknowledge that and we basically get away from it.

INGRAHAM: And, Steve, Dr. Smith, the other thing that's going on, is it not, as it has been reported is that, the vaccines overtime did begin to wane in their effectiveness. So after five months or so, you start to see waning antibodies. Is that also what's going on, because they went early all in on the vaccines in these states?

STEPHEN SMITH, SMITH CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Of course. And I agree with Jay. He is one of my favorite experts on TV. We don't know what the virus does, or why it does what it does.

But as far as we do know a few things, and one of the things as we know that the vaccine induce immunity or protection against infection and disease, more importantly disease. It wanes overtime, and that's not unexpected at all. We just didn't know what timeframe and we couldn't know what timeframe and in which hosts, older people of course, who is a quicker, without having time.

And with time and, of course, the experience in Israel has shown us that, it does wane and relatively quickly and especially in people that don't have perfect immune systems in other words, the elderly or otherwise. You may have compromised hosts.

INGRAHAM: Dr. Bhattacharya, President Biden chimed in earlier this week on the percentage that would need to be vaccinated, not taking into account any natural immunity, but percentage that would need to be vaccinated to kind of be done with this. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: how many Americans need to be vaccinated for us to get back to normal?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think we get the vast majority by just going on with some of these, some industries and some schools, 97 -- 98 percent. A quarter of the country can't go unvaccinated and us not continue to have a problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK. Dr. Bhattacharya, the phrase vast majority now means 97 percent. That's kind of almost 100 percent. But he's not taking into account as neither is Fauci nor any of the other public health experts, the fact that a lot of - millions of millions of people have already been infected with this virus, correct?

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'The Ingraham Angle' on Durham investigation blackout - Fox News

Our study provides an insight into the similarities and differences between England, France and Germany through a comprehensive literature review focusing on arguments about,and regulations of, prenatal testing and reproductive choices (specifically on NIPT).

Between December 2020 and April 2021, we reviewed approximately250 sources in legal and regulatory texts; public reports of national ethics committees and professional bodies; parliamentary debates; medical press; academic literature in prenatal genetics, bioethics, social sciences; and daily press. The sources covered a wide range of issues related to the implementation of NIPT such as ethical and practical issues; public, political and scientific debates; regulations and guidelines; criteria for offering the test free of charge; and communication of results. We focused on literature regarding the English, French and German context, since 2011, when NIPT became first available in the private sector before several countries decided to fund it within their public health system. We searched the databases of Cairn journals (Humanities and Social Sciences), Google Scholar, PubMed and SAGE journals. The review of documents and terminologies was guided by the following questions: how is NIPT regulated in each country? Who are the main stakeholders and institutions involved in the offer of NIPT? What are the ethical arguments used by stakeholders in public, political, parliamentary and professional debates? What are the meanings of these arguments in each context? We identified differences with regard to the ethical questions associated with NIPT and the ways these are discussed in each country.

This analysis is part of a wider comparative study combining literature review, empirical research (semi-structured interviews with stakeholders) and conceptual analysis to explore the ethical issues arising from prenatal genetics in England, France and Germany [5].

We propose to start with an overview of the practical regulations defining how and to whom NIPT is (or will) be offered as a publicly funded screening test in the three countries studied. In France, since January 2019, NIPT is reimbursed as a second-tier screening test, between the 11 and 14th week for pregnancies with a probability of trisomy 21 (T21) (between 1:51 and 1:1000), following cFTS (UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC)). In England, in 2016, UK NSC has recommended that NIPT should be offered to women with an increased probability of having a baby with T21, T13 and T18 with a higher cut-off than in France, at 1:150, following first trimester combined (1114 weeks) or second trimester quadruple screening (1420 weeks). This recommendation was implemented in June 2021 as part of the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme (FASP). Similarly, in Germany, it was decided in 2019 to cover NIPT for pregnancies with an increased likelihood of T21, T13, and T18 through the publicly funded health insurance system from 2021. Unlike in France and in England, the risk cut-off is determined individually and is independent of a quantifiable risk calculation [6, 7]. In Germany, a statistically increased risk is not seen as a sufficient criterion to reimburse the test [8]. It is stated that only a particular situation, where the pregnancy and its consequences present a burden to the pregnant woman and could lead to serious harm of her mental health, can justify the test; hence offering the test requires a case-by-case decision [6].

In the three countries, pregnant women are usually referred by their gynaecologistobstetrician, midwife or general practitioner to fetal medicine units, prenatal clinics or medical genetics service that offer NIPT. Because of the high accuracy of NIPT in detecting the common chromosomal trisomies (T21, T13 and T18), and in particular for T21, all three countries have decided to publicly fund the test only for these trisomies, and not for other conditions or traits for which the test is less accurate.Footnote 1

NIPT for T21, T18 and T13 is not used as a diagnostic test at present, and so a positive NIPT test requires further testing for confirmation in the second trimester (e.g. amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS)) [9]. However, because of its higher accuracy than cFTS in detecting trisomies, fewer women will need to undergo such confirmatory tests, which may involve some, albeit minimal, risk of miscarriage for amniocentesis and CVS (0.11% and 0.22% respectively) [10]. This clinical advantage has been one the main arguments mobilised for its use in routine prenatal care in the three countries, but also in other countries where NIPT is implemented.

Despite the advantages of the test, offering NIPT as part of routine clinical service raises important ethical questions. Through our literature review, we identified similarities among issues raised in England, France and Germany, for example by patient associations, national ethics committees, medical experts, politicians and journalists. The issues presented here are also largely discussed in the international literature on NIPT and are not particular to the three countries. For example, while it is acknowledged that NIPT offers a range of benefits such as earlier and more accurate results compared to cFTS, better understanding of fetal aneuploidies and, ultimately, better informed reproductive decision-making, concerns are expressed that its use in routine antenatal care may increase the risk of stigmatisation and discrimination of people living with an autosomal aneuploidy, having a negative impact on the support for women who decide to raise a child with a trisomy [11,12,13].

One other major concern discussed in the literature is that NIPT could become a routine test, which could intensify the already existing challenge of prenatal testing, potentially putting pressure on women to undergo testing, and hence undermining informed decision-making, and weakening reproductive autonomy [14]. Other arguments concern the risks of prenatal sex-selection and the risks of screening for less severeconditions, adult-onset conditionsand carrier status [15, 16]. Especially in England, there are concerns about prenatal sex-selection as expressed in parliamentary questions addressed to the Department of Health in 2016, and inthe Labour Partys call to ban early fetal sex testing in 2018 (BBC, Labour calls for ban on early foetus sex test, 2018). There are also ethical questions about the communication of results and information management in cases of misattributed paternity, secondary or incidental findings that may have implications not only for the fetus health but also the health of the mother or other family members [17]. Furthermore, where women use commercial companies, the quality of information returned and the counselling provided by some of these companies is criticised and challenges the idea of informed decision-making [18]. However, ethical issues of direct-to-consumer testing are not the focus of this paper.

Through our comparison, differences emerged in the ways in which the ethical issues related to reproductive autonomy are addressed in each country. First of all, in England, the debate highlights the risk that NIPT could be recommended to women as a standard test, a simple blood test that may not involve the same level of pre-test counselling and information as an amniocentesis or CVS. The concern, which is particularly highlighted in a 2017 report of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics is, that the less invasive nature of NIPT could make it difficult for women to refuse the test [19] and, therefore, undermine informed consent and reproductive autonomy [19, 20]. In order to address this concern, there is a strong focus on understanding and recognising the needs, beliefs and preferences of women in order to enable them to make autonomous decisions. In 2020, a collective of professional bodies (Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Royal College of Midwives, Society and College of Radiographers) have developed a consensus statement suggesting that information about NIPT is provided by healthcare professionals in a non-directive way so that women are able to make choices that are right for them. In the same way, the Public Health England Fetal anomaly screening programme, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and NHS England emphasise clarity, accuracy and non-directiveness when informing women on benefits and limitations of the NIPT [19, 21]. Parliamentary questionsFootnote 2 and daily pressFootnote 3 also reflect the importance of helping women to make informed decisions by providing appropriate information, explaining the different options, offering support and respecting their decision. This reflects the autonomy-focused approach in England [22].

Concerns are raised also in France about the negative impact NIPT may have on womens choices, emphasised in a regulatory framework of 2018 stating that: The woman is at the centre of the system and makes all decisions regarding her pregnancy. Her autonomy must be respected [23]. However, unlike England, France puts emphasis on the content of the information (e.g. organisation of screening and timeframes, results communication) rather than on it being non-directive. The focus is less on enabling women to make informed decisions than on the need to protect women from the risks of commercial exploitation of genetic screening tests (NIPT) and leaving couples alone and helpless when faced with non-validated tests [13], as described by the National Ethics Committee (Comit Consultatif National dEthique), in 2013. This concern about women as victims of the commercialisation of risk, the lobby of diagnostic merchants and pregnancy monitoring is present also in the daily pressFootnote 4. According to these accounts, women are described as likely to lack full understanding of complex genetic information and therefore ought to be protected in order to make their own decisions. Consistent with this discourse, empirical studies have confirmed a certain paternalistic attitude among French health professionals when it comes to prenatal decisions and informing women of the choice they have with regard to prenatal testing [24]. In France, the possibility for women to make informed choice is important [13] and has been included in the law (Loi n 2002303 du 4 mars 2002), reflecting an increased focus on a patient-centred approach as part of what is called a health democracy (dmocratie sanitaire) [25, 26]. In the case of NIPT, however, the concern for womens autonomous choice shows itself in the form of a rather protective approach that can be seen as restricting reproductive choice. In contrast, although France insists on free choice and the right to revoke the decision of consent to carry out examinations [23], it puts more emphasis on the content of the information than on the way it is delivered (provide fair and appropriate information, inform about stages of screening and diagnosis, times between the different examinations, distinction between risk and certainty of diagnosis, possibility to continue or not the pregnancy, etc.).

In Germany, the debate on reproductive autonomy in the context of NIPT often focuses on the womans right not to know or her right to decline available prenatal tests [27,28,29]. It is also suggested that, in addition to information provided by professionals, a woman should be put in contact with associations or families who have a child living with a trisomy [6, 30], so, she is able to make a fully informed decision about whether to continue or terminate herpregnancy. Furthermore, concerns are raised about the scope and limit of the respect for the dignity of the future child, and its right to life and to be recognised as a human being. The potential conflict between the future childs right to life and the womans right over her own body was also highlighted in the 2019 report of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment of the German Bundestag, on the current situation and development of prenatal diagnosis [31]. Generally, in the German debate, we notice a strong focus on enabling women to make their own informed decisions as well as a cautious approach with regard to new reproductive technologies that could compromise the dignity of human life from its very beginning. Public debates on bioethical issues in post-war Germany often emphasise the importance of respecting both individual autonomy and human dignity [32], two principles that echo Kants influence on contemporary debates. Policies aim to weigh the autonomy and dignity of one human life, that of the woman, against the autonomy and dignity of another human life, the future child. The first (womans autonomy and dignity) can outweigh the latter (future childs autonomy and dignity) only where there is guarantee that the woman makes a truly informed autonomous decision free of any undue pressure [27].

We have seen how reproductive autonomy is discussed differently in each country, and how it is associated with different ethical concerns, echoing different prevailing norms and values in each country. These aspects and nuances are also reflected in the various public reactions in England, France and Germany, as we will see below.

The incorporation of NIPT into public healthcare systems has led to criticism at different levels depending on perceptions and values associated with disability, new biomedical technologies and reproductive rights. In England, several campaigns have put NIPT on the political agenda. For example, in 2016, the Dont Screen Us Out campaign, led by a Downs syndrome advocacy group, started a petition which was signed by over 900 people with Downs Syndrome and their families denouncing the violation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). That same year, a documentary by the British actress, Sally Phillips, A World Without Downs Syndrome? (BBC, 5 October 2016) denounced the devaluation of families and children living with Downs syndrome, the biased information given to pregnant women about the condition, and the risk of the decline of members of this community. However, in England, such critical voices are outweighed by the value accorded to the right of women to make independent and informed choices [33, 34]. Furthermore, as evidenced in parliamentary questionsFootnote 5 and the daily press,Footnote 6 the public discourse favours the benefits and technological progress of NIPT such as its safety and accuracy.

In Germany, protests by civil society organisations (German Down Syndrome InfoCenter, KIDS Hamburg, Lebenshilfe, Joint Declaration on World Down Syndrome Day, Network against Selection through Prenatal Diagnostics) emerged in 2011, following an investigation by the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, revealing that the laboratory LifeCodexx had received around 300,000 Euros from the Federal Ministry for Research and Education for test development of NIPT. In response to these protests, the Federal Government commissioned the German Ethics Council to provide an expert opinion on NIPT [35]. The report mainly focuses on arguments in favour or against the public funding of NIPT. It offers an insight into the German context where access to NIPT through individualised genetic counselling is prioritised over the definition of a numerical risk threshold. Following a call for political transparency and a public debate around biotechnological innovations through an Open letter to the Federal Joint Commission (G-BA) by several patient organisations in 2016, there has been a plea for regular evaluations of the new prenatal test, including its ethical and social implications. In Germany, despite the importance given to reproductive autonomy, public attitudes showcase scepticism towards prenatal genetic technologies [36, 37]. As mentioned above, we notice also here a certain criticism and questioning of the use of new technologies, and an emphasis on risk prevention and management in the German debate [37]. These public attitudes reflect on the implementation of prenatal technologies in the public healthcare system; for example, cFTS is not reimbursed if there is no reason for concern such as advanced maternal age, which explains the slightly lower uptake of prenatal screening when compared to other European countries [38].

In France, criticism of NIPT has emerged in different formats within the associative space: examples of this are the organisation of a conference by the Jrme Lejeune Foundation, Stop Discriminating Down, in 2017, aiming to denounce the mass elimination of children with Downs syndrome before birth by the arrival of NIPT; or the publication of the book, Les premires victimes du transhumanisme. Dpistage prnatal de la trisomie 21 (The first victims of transhumanism. Prenatal screening for Downs syndrome), by Jean-Marie Le Mn, president of the Jrme Lejeune Foundation, in reaction to the reimbursement of the test in 2019. Also, a March for Life was organised in 2019, in Paris, to warn against a new step in eugenics as a response to the decision to reimburse NIPT. In France, these public reactions were largely driven by associations and had no impact on policies.

In addition to these critical reactions to NIPT, in the following section, we will discuss how the charges of eugenics have emerged at the centre of public debates in France and Germany, while remaining relatively marginal in England.

In the three countries, the reference to the risk of a drift toward eugenics appears in different forms and is used as an argument, especially in France and Germany, against the implementation of NIPT. While advocates of NIPT emphasise that the use of the test relies on an individual choice [33, 39] and is not linked to eugenic or coercive policy [40], critics express concerns that individual abortion practices could lead to widespread selection of babies and the lack of tolerance and care for people with disability [41].

In England, concerns about the risk to screen out and, hence, significantly reduce the number of births of children with Downs syndrome have been expressed, among others, by the campaign group Dont screen us out, the Church of England,Footnote 7 and in parliamentary questions.Footnote 8 Yet, generally, the public debate in England focuses more on the offer of NIPT and how to guarantee respect for womens decisions, accuracy of information, regular training of health professionals, and designing care pathways for women continuing their pregnancy with a baby who has Downs syndrome [42]. Also the Church of England states that it welcomes medical advances as long as women receive comprehensive and unbiased information about the condition [43]. It is rare in England to hear strong accusations against NIPT as a form of eugenics.

In France, the association between NIPT and eugenics, elimination eradication or selection is more explicit and recurrent. In 2007, prior to the revision of the bioethics laws, Le Monde published an interview with the president of the National Consultative Ethics Committee, Didier Sicard, where he warned against the risk of eugenics and social eradication if prenatal screening becomes routinised. This perspective is also reflected in parliamentary debates on NIPT where representatives of the centre-right refer to eugenicsFootnote 9 or elimination.Footnote 10 Similarly, the risk of increasing fetal selection, a new form of eugenics (no longer through the State, but the individual) and of further discrimination, is highlighted by the National Consultative Ethics Committee in its 2016 report n 124. The question of the re-emergence of eugenics with reference to Nazism is also raised by established media,Footnote 11 the Catholic Church in Paris which denounces the pressure on women to be screened for Downs syndrome [44] and the Jrme Lejeune Foundation which uses the terms elimination [45], disappearance, extinction [46] and eradication [47] to refer to NIPT. Despite the links made between NIPT and eugenics in the French debate, there is no evidence that expecting parents would desire a perfect child rather than just wanting to bring a healthy child into the world [40]. It should therefore be pointed out that there is a fine line between health and expectation of normality and that this should not lead to a search for the improvement of the genetic characteristics of the child, in the sense that we understand the term eugenics here [48]. In Germany, despite its Nazi past, eugenics is not as explicitly referred to as in France. The arguments used against potential discrimination or genetic selection, as a consequence of NIPT, are based on the principle of respect for the dignity of the unborn child [27, 31], which may conflict with the respect for the womans dignity as an autonomous individual [27, 28]. However, the possibility to terminate pregnancy in order to protect the life or the mental or physical health of the woman (Strafgesetzbuch 218a) indicated that the dignity of the unborn child can be suspended in favour of the protection of the dignity of the pregnant woman. As mentioned above, the German discourse is inspired by the Kantian concept of human dignity, and its adoption as the first constitutional principle since 1949.

As prenatal technologies such as NIPT have evolved, all three countries have seen discussions about the potential risk of eugenics. Although each country emphasises that reproductive decisions belong to the woman, critical voices caution against decisions that could be implicit forms of eugenics. To date however, there is no evidence that the introduction of NIPT has led to an increase in termination rates due to fetal anomalies [49]. The results highlight that, in many cases, women accept NIPT to obtain information about the fetus health and prepare for the childs arrival without intending to terminate pregnancy if an aneuploidy is discovered [49].

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The ethical landscape(s) of non-invasive prenatal testing in England, France and Germany: findings from a comparative literature review | European...

Abstract

Male breast cancer is a rather uncommon and understudied disease. It accounts for less than 1% of all breast cancers, but in recent decades its frequency has been on the rise. Clinical trials of breast cancer have traditionally excluded men. Due to the lack of large-scale prospective studies, most published data come from single-institution, small-cohort studies, and treatment recommendations are based on the extrapolation of data from clinical trials enrolling only women. Although to some extent etiology, diagnosis, and treatment characteristics can be similar, male breast cancer exhibits some distinct features. Men tend to be diagnosed with breast cancer at an older age and at a more advanced stage. A better understanding of the biologic features, clinically relevant differences, effective treatments, and outcomes of male breast cancer is crucial to appropriately manage these patients. We present a male breast cancer case with a germline BRCA2 mutation and discuss the epidemiologic, pathologic, and clinical characteristics along with treatment and follow-up recommendations in view of our recent understanding of this disease.

Male breast cancer is a rare disease accounting for less than 1% of all breast cancers, and less than 1% of all cancers in men. Worldwide estimated incidence of male breast cancer has been reported to be 1 per 100,000 men per year, with a mean age at diagnosis of 60 to 70 years.1,2 The average age at diagnosis is approximately 5 years older than it is for women (67 years vs 62 years, respectively).3 Based on data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, the age-adjusted incidence rate has increased from 0.85 cases per 100,000 in 1975 to 1.43 cases per 100,000 in 2011. Black men appear to be at greater risk than non-Hispanic White men.4,5

Male breast cancer seems to be an estrogen-driven disease; it has been likened to late-onset, postmenopausal, estrogen receptor/progesterone receptorpositive (ER+/PR+) female breast cancer.6 Male breast cancer tends to occur at a later age and to present at a more advanced stage, with more hormone receptor positivity.7 However, there are differences, resulting in an ongoing debate regarding the level of similarity.

Male breast cancer may be a unique tumor type with biological and clinicopathological features distinct from female breast cancer. However, similar to female breast cancer, family history has been shown to be an important risk factor.8,9 The risk of breast cancer doubles for men who have a first-degree relative with the disease.10 Population-based studies indicate that mutations in the 2 major high-penetrance breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, account for approximately 10% of male breast cancers11; 0% to 4% of men with breast cancer have BRCA1 mutations and 4% to 16% have BRCA2 mutations.8,9,12,13 The lifetime risk of developing male breast cancer has been estimated to be in the range of 1% to 5% for BRCA1 and 5% to 10 % for BRCA2 mutation carriers, compared with a risk of 0.1% in the general population.14-17

Genes other than BRCA1/2 may also be involved. A truncating mutation (CHEK2*1100delC) has been shown to increase the risk of male breast cancer by a factor of 10, compared with the risk among men who do not have the mutation.13,18 Also reported have been mutations in other genes, including the PTEN tumor suppressor gene and the androgen receptor gene, as well as TP53 mutations (Li-Fraumeni syndrome), PALB2 mutations, and mismatch repair mutations associated with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (Lynch syndrome).13,19-21 Other risk factors for male breast cancer are hormonal imbalances (caused by liver disease, Klinefelter syndrome, or obesity) and environmental factors (eg, chronic exposure to heat or radiation).22-26

A White man, aged 64 years, presented with complaints of a palpable lump on the upper outer quadrant of his left breast along with some pain for the past several months. On physical exam, he was noted to have a 2.5-cm left breast mass along with retraction of the retroareolar and nipple region without discharge (Figure 1). A left breast mammogram showed scattered areas of fibroglandular density throughout the breast. Ultrasound (US) confirmed a 1.9 cm 1.7 cm irregular hypoechoic mass with no identifiable axillary nodes. US-guided biopsy reported an invasive ductal carcinoma grade 3, ER+ (85%), PR negative (<1%), HER2 negative, and Ki-67 (30%). MRI of the bilateral breasts confirmed a retroareolar mass on the left consistent with known malignancy, with no chest wall or axillary involvement, and normal appearance of the right breast (Figure 2).

The patient was treated with left mastectomy and axillary sentinel lymph node (LN) sampling. Pathology revealed a 2.1-cm invasive ductal carcinoma, grade 3, with no ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) (Figure 3). One of the 3 sentinel nodes showed isolated tumor cells. Pathologic stage was pT2, pN0(i+). Tumor Oncotype-Dx Breast Recurrence Score (BRS) was 42. Pretest cancer genetic counseling followed by germline targeted multigene mutation analysis revealed a pathogenic mutation, c.1147delA in the BRCA2 gene, consistent with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) syndrome. Family pedigree is shown in Figure 4.

The most common clinical presentation in men with breast cancer is a painless, retroareolar mass. Nipple retraction, bleeding from the nipple, skin ulceration, and palpable axillary adenopathy are among other reported signs and symptoms.27 To differentiate from gynecomastia, a highly prevalent condition, breast imaging should be considered. The American College of Radiology recommends initial US for men aged younger than 25 years with an indeterminate palpable mass. For men 25 years or older or those with questionable findings on physical examination, mammography is recommended as the initial diagnostic test followed by US if the mammographic findings are inconclusive or suggestive of cancer.28 On mammograms, male breast cancers appear as eccentric, retroareolar masses with irregular, spiculated edges.29,30 Due to low public awareness and the lack of screening mammograms for men, male breast cancers are more frequently diagnosed as larger tumors with regional nodal metastases.31 Staging for breast cancer in men is the same as for women with no gender-specific recommendations.

Men with abnormal imaging findings suggestive of malignancy should undergo core biopsy to confirm the diagnosis. Approximately 10% of men with breast cancer present with DCIS compared with 20% to 25% of women. Lobular carcinoma in situ in men is very rare due to anatomical absence of terminal lobules in the male breast. Most male breast cancer cases are invasive ductal carcinomas, but rarely papillary cancers (in 2% to 3% of cases) and mucinous cancers (in 1% to 2% of cases) can be seen.3,32,33 Invasive lobular carcinoma is much less prevalent among men, accounting for only 1% to 2% of cases.3,34 In the largest series of male patients with breast cancer analysis, tumor samples from 1483 men showed 99% ER+, 97% androgen receptor positive, 87% PR+, and 9% HER2+. Less than 1% of male breast cancer specimens were triple negative.34

In a genomic profiling study of 59 male patients with breast cancer, 29% of samples were classified as luminal Alike and 71% as luminal Blike, with a heterogeneous repertoire of somatic genetic alterations. PIK3CA and TP53 mutations, and losses of 16q, which are typically seen in ER+/HER2-negative female breast cancers, were less frequent in male breast cancer samples. Mutations affecting DNA repairrelated genes were more frequent.35 Using unsupervised clustering approach, a gene-expression analysis study identified 2 unique and stable subgroups of male breast cancer with differences in tumor biological features and outcome: luminal M1 tumors with low expression of ER signaling genes, aggressive clinical behavior, and worse prognosis; and luminal M2 tumors with activated ER signaling genes, upregulated immune response genes, and favorable clinical behavior. Both subgroups differed from the established 4 intrinsic subgroups of female breast cancer.36

Evidence from observational studies shows that breast-conserving therapy in men is associated with similar survival rates as mastectomy.37-40 Interestingly, however, men with breast cancer, even in early-stage disease, are being treated with mastectomy and either with axillary LN dissection or sentinel node biopsy despite the absence of any medical contraindication for breast conservation. Based on a SEER registry data analysis, only 18% of men with T1N0 tumors underwent breast-conserving surgery.38 Sentinel node biopsy, the standard approach for women with a clinically negative axilla, has been shown to be feasible and effective in men with breast cancer.41,42

Due to the rarity of male breast cancer and lack of randomized trials, the role of radiotherapy after mastectomy in node-positive male breast cancer has not been well studied. Hypofractionated radiotherapy regimens have not been tested in male breast cancer, as men were excluded from the UK START trials as well as the Canadian trial(NCT00156052.)43-44As adjuvant radiotherapy has been shown to decrease the rate of relapse, adjuvant radiotherapy should be offered to men who have undergone breast-conserving surgery, based on the same guidelines developed for women with breast cancer.2 Indeed, population-based observational studies suggest a benefit in this setting.45-47

In real-world practice, however, radiotherapy seems to be underutilized in men with breast cancer. Also, patient compliance rates with adjuvant radiation therapy seem to be generally low. Based on the SEER data, only 42% of men with stage I breast cancer received radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery.38,48 Recently published National Cancer Data Base study data are somewhat encouraging and show that adjuvant radiotherapy was given to 70% of patients undergoing breast-conserving surgery in stage I to III male breast cancer.49 Worldwide data involving 1483 male patients with breast cancer treated between 1990 and 2010, examined in a retrospective study in collaboration with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium, the North American Breast Cancer Group, and the Breast International Group period, showed that about one-half of men who were treated with breast-conserving surgery did not receive radiotherapy.34

Due to exclusion of male patients with breast cancer from clinical trials involving female breast cancer, there are no randomized studies of adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy or of HER2-targeted therapy in this population. There has been 1 reported prospective National Cancer Institute study evaluating adjuvant chemotherapy in 31 men who had stage II breast cancer with LN involvement. Patients were treated with mastectomy and 12 cycles of cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil between 1974 and 1988. This cohort was followed for more than 20 years; survival was 80% at 5 years, 65% at 10 years, and 42% at 20 years, comparing favorably with historical rates.50 In a more recent study of 32 men with breast cancer treated with systemic adjuvant/neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the 5-year and 10-year overall survival rates were 86% and 75%, respectively, for men with LN-negative disease, and 70% and 43%, respectively, for men with LN+ disease. For men with LN+ disease, adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with a lower risk of death (HR, 0.78).51 Additional observational cohort studies in men have suggested improved survival with the use of adjuvant chemotherapy.52-55

Since the majority of male breast cancers are HR+, endocrine therapy plays an important role in both in the adjuvant and metastatic settings. Observational studies of adjuvant treatment with tamoxifen suggest a survival benefit. Male patients with breast cancer were shown to benefit more from endocrine therapy with tamoxifen than from aromatase inhibitors (AIs) in a cohort of 257 patients.56,57 Population-based series have shown inferior survival rates when men were treated with adjuvant AIs as compared with tamoxifen. The lack of complete estradiol suppression due to feedback loops in the hypothalamus and pituitary glands has been shown to be the reason for the lower efficacy of AIs in men.58,59 For men who are not good candidates for tamoxifen, a GnRH analogue with or without an AI can be used to overcome this.60

Gene expression profiling assays have been widely used to quantify the risk of recurrence as well as to guide systemic therapy in early-stage breast cancer in women. The 21-gene BRS and 70-gene MammaPrint assay tests provide individualized estimates of distant recurrence risk and help predict benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy in women with ER+ breast cancer.61 Data on the utility of these assays in male patients with breast cancer are limited. Crozier et al reported that while similar MammaPrint index distributions between male and female breast cancer tumors existed, there were distinct biological pathways between male and female breast cancernotably, upregulation of estrogen response and MTORC1 signaling in male compared with female breast cancer specimens.62 Similarly, Oncotype DX results have shown comparable mean BRS in men and women, but mean quantitative gene expression for genes related to ER, proliferation, and invasion were higher in men compared with women.63-65

Germline mutations in BRCA1/2 are inherited in an autosomal dominant manner with the majority of individuals having inherited it from a parent (de novo rate 5%).66 The parent with the mutation may or may not have had a cancer diagnosis for several reasons, including penetrance of the mutation, gender and age of the parent, cancer risk reduction due to screening/prophylactic surgeries, or early death.67 It is appropriate to offer germline testing to both parents of an individual with a BRCA1/2 mutation to determine which side of the family is at risk; however, the parent with the family history of BRCA1/2-related cancers can be tested first. Being a carrier of a BRCA1/2 mutation also comes with reproductive risks. For example, in cases where both partners carry a BRCA2 mutation, there may be a high risk for the offspring to develop Fanconi anemia, a rare autosomal recessive condition.68 Additionally, a case has been found in which biallelic BRCA1 mutations caused a Fanconi anemialike disorder.69 The current estimates of the frequency of BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations in the population is approximately 1 in 500 individuals.70

Male carriers of BRCA1/2 mutations are at increased risk for development of several types of cancers, including breast (BRCA1, 1.2% lifetime; BRCA2, 7% to 8% lifetime), prostate (BRCA1, exact risk unknown; BRCA2, 20% to 30% lifetime), pancreas (BRCA1, 2% to 3% lifetime; BRCA2, 3% to 5% lifetime), and melanoma (BRCA2, 3% to 5% lifetime).14,16,71-73 The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (v1.2021) recommends breast self-exam training and education starting at age 35 years, a clinical breast exam every 12 months starting at age 35 years, and consideration of annual mammogram screening in men with gynecomastia starting at age 50 years or 10 years before the earliest known male breast cancer in the family (whichever comes first).74

While tamoxifen can be used as a chemopreventive agent for female breast cancer, there are no data for men in this setting. Similarly, prophylactic mastectomy has not been offered due to lack of data to support this type of risk reduction. However, Jemal et al.75 reported an increase in contralateral mastectomy in men diagnosed with a unilateral breast cancer. The procedure was more common in younger, White, and privately insured patients. For male patients harboring BRCA2 mutations,prostate cancer surveillance with annual prostate-specific antigen and digital rectal examination beginning at age 40 years is recommended, and these should be considered for male BRCA1 carriers as well. Pancreatic cancer screening with contrast-enhanced MRI/ magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography and/or endoscopic US is recommended for BRCA1/2 carriers at age 50 years (or 10 years younger than the earliest pancreatic cancer in the family, whichever comes first who have 1 or more first- or second-degree relatives with pancreatic cancer. No BRCA1/2-specific screening guidelines exist for melanoma, but general melanoma management, with annual full-body skin examination and minimizing ultraviolet exposure, is a sensible option.74

Here, we discuss a male patient with breast cancer presenting with a palpable mass; surgical treatment and staging led to a diagnosis of pT2, pN0(i+) invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast with a Oncotype Dx BRS of 42. Pretest cancer genetic counseling followed by germline targeted multigene mutation analysis revealed a pathogenic mutation, c.1147delA in the BRCA2 gene, consistent with HBOC syndrome.

Although breast cancer in men and in women is similar in some ways, thereremain gaps in our understanding of breast cancer in men. Examination of the biology of the disease would help identify the differences and determine whether identified differences have therapeutic implications. Further work that focuses on appropriate treatment of men with breast cancer is needed.

Following surgical treatment, the patient was treated with adjuvant chemotherapy (docetaxel/ cyclophosphamide) for 4 cycles; postmastectomy radiation; and adjuvant tamoxifen therapy to be given for 5 years. Currently he does not have any evidence of disease.

Financial Disclosure: The authors have no significant financial interest in or other relationship with the manufacturer of any product or provider of any service mentioned in this article.

References

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A 64-Year-Old Man With Germline BRCA2-Mutated Breast Cancer: Known and Unknown Aspects of Male Breast Cancer - Cancer Network

One-third of the members of the editorial board of a leading American medical journal has resigned in protest against the publication of several research papers that could help the Chinese regime in its persecution of minorities. According to a report by The Intercept, after a slew of research papers that can help racial profiling of minorities in China were published by the journal named Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine, eight of the 25 editorial board members resigned in protest. The members protested after the management of the journal failed to take any action on the papers despite repeated complaints.

According to The Intercept, emails accessed by it shows that the editor-in-chief of the journal was slow in responding to several controversial papers related to Tibetans, Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in China. Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine is published by Wiley, a New Jersey based company, and the company also took a long time to respond to concerns about the papers published by the journal.

The papers under question were first flagged by Yves Moreau, a Professor of Engineering and a bioinformatician at the University of Leuven in Belgium, and according to The Intercept, he has been fighting a tireless campaign to get journals to retract troubling or unethical papers. He has been successful in getting an order of Kuwait govt overturned, which had called for compulsory DNA collection from all citizens.

He was studying the DNA profiling of the minorities done by the Chinese authorities. During such searches, he found 18 papers published by Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine, which dealt with various genetic topics related to the people in China. Some analysed the genetic differences between ethnic groups, including the genetic gaps between the majority Han community and minorities like Tibetans and Hui Muslims, and some had relied on samples that Moreau suspects were collected without proper consent.

Many of the papers were related to forensic genetics, a problematic subject in the entire scientific community. It refers to the collection of DNA for forensic databases, which is used by the police in criminal investigations. But although in theory it should be used only to find suspect criminals, it has the potential to conduct racial profiling, a highly problematic area. Moreover, scientists also worry about collection of DNA sample from ethnic minorities without their consent, which is happening in China.

The Chinese government is already DNA from its male citizens to build a massive a national forensic DNA database. Reportedly, the Communist government aims to collect and store genetic profiles of around 70 million people, around 10% of the countrys male population. Apart from that, Chinese police also forcibly collecting DNA samples from ordinary citizens, including migrant workers, dissidents, and minority Uyghur Muslims.

Although the Chinese govt says it is being done to fight crimes, researchers dont believe that, they say it is a part of the government efforts to deepen social control. Although most western countries collect DNA sample of convicts, the collection of such samples from ordinary citizens have been described as unprecedented. Human Rights Activists say the only purpose of this genetic profiling is the oppression of ethnic minorities by the Chinese govt.

This concern is being raised because of the kind of data collected by the Chinese govt. They are cataloguing markers known as short tandem repeats (STRs), which are repeating regions of DNA that are specific to the Y chromosome found in men. These STRs are extremely similar between men in the same male lineage, which means, when the authorities nab a dissident man, they can track all his male relatives using the database, even if they are not identified as relatives in official documents.

Since 2019, Molecular Genetics & Genomic Medicine has published several papers authored by Chinese authors on the topic of forensic genetics, which means they used samples collected by the police, many of which could be done without consent. Many of the papers listed institutions as co-authors which work closely with the police or receive funding from the police. One paper even lists the Public Security Bureau in Tibet as the co-author, which is the police agency in the region.

All these show that the research papers published by the American journal were effectively authored or sponsored by the Chinese govt.

After discovering the papers, Yves Moreau had written in March this year to Suzanne Hart, the journals editor-in-chief and deputy director at the medical genetics and genomic medicine training program with the U.S. National Institutes of Healths National Human Genome Research Institute. He noted that before 2019, the journal had published only two papers on forensic genetic studies from outside China, which shows that the Chinese govt has specifically identified the journal where the papers on forensic genetic studies of vulnerable Tibetan and Muslim minorities can be published.

However, although Suzanne Hart acknowledged the mail and promised to look into the matter, he received no update for months after that. As a result, he wrote to the entire Editorial Board in June, describing the concerns with the papers published by them. Many of the board members agreed with him for a probe in the matter, and many said that they were not even aware of the papers.

When the board members wrote to Hart, she said she will get back with further information on how the management intends to address this issue. But when no communication came from her for several weeks, the board members started to resign in protest. Ophir Klein, a board member and a pediatric medical geneticist at the University of California San Francisco said that he left the board as he was really concerned about the lack of communication.

However, not all editorial board members who question the paper have resigned, some have decided to stay on to push for scrutiny of the papers, including Joris Veltman, the dean of the Biosciences Institute at Newcastle University Medical School in UK. After he wrote to the management escalating the issue, they responded that Wiley would begin an investigation immediately.

After that, the company released a statement saying that the Integrity in Publishing Group of the company was overseeing the matter. However, they informed that they are only contacting with the authors and the institutional review boards associated with the published papers to clarify the consent procedures undertaken for collecting the DNA samples.

Although the consent was a major issue, it was not the only one. The company kept silence on the much larger issue of use of scientific instruments in racial profiling and discrimination by authoritarian governments. Moreau said the focus on consent is too narrow, and the larger question is whether the journal should be publishing research on vulnerable minorities, some of which directly involves the authorities persecuting them.

The board members are saying that if the papers are determined to be unethical, at least they should be retracted.

This is not the first time that Wileyhas been accused of allying with China. In September 2000, the editor of another journal published by the company had resigned over the issue of freedom of speech. Prof David Curtis, from University College Londons Genetics Institute, had resigned as the editor-in-chief of the Annals of Human Genetics, after he was prevented from publishing an article which said that academic journals should boycott papers from China protesting against Chinas human rights violations in Xinjiang.

Wiley, and Lancet which also refused to published the article, had said that publication of the article could pose difficulties for their offices in China. Yves Moreau was one of the co-authors of the article.

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One-third of editorial board members of American medical journal resign over papers that could help China persecute its minorities: Details - OpIndia

Ungulate keepers and scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia, are celebrating the birth of two scimitar-horned oryx calves born via non-surgical artificial insemination. A male calf was born July 9 to 6-year-old female Esmerelda, and a female calf was born July 10 to 5-year-old female, Leanne. Both mothers and calves are doing well and bonding. As the calves grow, their vocalizations and play behavior with each other and interactions with the rest of the herd will increase.

Assisted reproduction for rare and endangered species is constantly evolving, said Budhan Pukazhenthi, reproductive physiologist at SCBI. Scimitar-horned oryx have similar estrous cycles to those of cattle, so we tried a protocol developed for the artificial insemination of livestock called CO-Synch. Narrowing the insemination window helped increase the chance of conception. These births are proof positive we can apply this protocol with increased success in scimitar-horned oryx population management in zoos and for animals being prepared for reintroduction to the wild.

Though once distributed across most of North Africa, scimitar-horned oryx are currently considered extinct in the wild due to a combination of widespread over-hunting, habitat loss and persistent drought.A reintroduction project led by the Environmental AgencyAbu Dhabi and including the Sahara Conservation Fund, the Zoological Society of London and SCBI is working collaboratively with the government of Chad and the international zoo community to return oryx to their native habitat. The first release, consisting of 23 individuals bred in human care, began in 2016. Smithsonian scientists monitor the release of every animal via satellite tracking collars. The tracking collars provide data on oryx movements and survival, as well as a means for tracking and monitoring individuals on the ground through radio telemetry.

Artificial insemination helps zoos and conservation breeding facilities with limited space maximize genetic diversity and minimize the number of animals needing to be transported, which can be costly and potentially stressful for the animal. In 2017, SCBI scientists developed an alternate protocol for inseminating scimitar-horned oryx where animal handling takes place in a hydraulic restraint device without the need for anesthesia. In June 2018, there was a successful birth using this modified approach.

The revised CO-Synch protocol included three hormone injections over nine days leading up to the non-surgical artificial inseminations in November 2020. Esmerelda and Leanne were artificially inseminated using frozen-thawed semen collected from two different male oryx ranked in the top 45 of male oryx in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan. The samples were originally collected 20 and 13 years ago.

SCBI plays a leading role in the Smithsonians global efforts to save wildlife species from extinction and train future generations of conservationists. SCBI spearheads research programs at its headquarters in Front Royal, Virginia, the Smithsonians National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and at field research stations and training sites worldwide. SCBI scientists tackle some of todays most complex conservation challenges by applying and sharing what they learn about animal behavior and reproduction, ecology, genetics, migration and conservation sustainability.

# # #

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Two Scimitar-Horned Oryx Calves Born as Result of Artificial Insemination at Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute - Smithsonian's National Zoo...

Queen of Dancehall Spice had a stellar opening week for her new album 10 to say the least. With rave reviews from various outlets (including ours) plus billboards in Times Square, Spice has been over the moon about the response and the only place left for her to go wasup.

The acrobatic deejay takes on an intergalactic space mission to find the perfect male specimen in her latest video, Send It Up. Hilarious antics ensue (with cameos from comedians World Dawg and Slick Whiteline) but Spice didnt come to play, as the old, young and well-endowed see how they measure up with the waistline warrior Queen.

Many have lauded the transportive quality of Spices debut LP: a nostalgic medley of booming 90s dancehall with EDM, R&B and Afropop nudges and an overall inventive cadence. For her fourth music video from the suite, the Inches singer took fans light-years away with a cinematic concept on the sexually charged track. With only ten men left in the universe, Spice must find the chosen one to repopulate the planet Zariah.

Mi cyaan live without man so me ah go find him, Spice says upon receiving her mission and spends the clip fashionably fulfilling her duty.

In the Jay Will directed visuals, Spice reaffirms yet another of 10s track titles: Size Matters. The QOD and her team of experts aboard Starship Spice busily test genetics, waistlines and fitness as Spice lays down the credentials.

One f mi gi yuh, we nuh haffi romantic/ Me ah gyal weh like when di sittn gigantic, Spice declares in the first verse, a lyric that was also quoted by rap queen Nicki Minaj, when she hailed Send It Up as her favorite track on the album.

Even amongst stars and planets, Spice brings her dancehall A game with a Magnum Tonic Wine to power through the mission. After all the raunchy dance moves and lab work, however, the cinematic clip ends in suspense and we never get to see Spices cosmic Prince Charming.

She does leave us a clue though, as an unseen character in a spacesuit makes his way towards the lab and it seems we might be in for a follow-up soon.

10 is clearly the Genie deejays magic number nearly 200K viewers have sent the mini-movie to Top 10 Youtube trending in mere hours. Most weighed in on its cinematic style, while others praised the QOD for taking traditional dancehall to a new frontier.

All hail the Queen SPICEthis video is out of this world. . literally. Absolutely love it, you are blessed beyond measure. Nuff Love and Respect, one fan wrote while another praised the blue haired divas golden touch, Queen, you delivered once again, you have the midas touch, anything you touch is just golden. Once again well done.

Press play on the Send It Up visuals above.

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Spice Goes On Intergalactic Mission In Cinematic Visuals For Send It Up: Watch - DancehallMag

About 30,000 years ago, when enormous mammoths and woolly rhinos roamed the Northern Hemisphere, a tiny cave lion cub with golden-brown fur took her final stroll through the Siberian tundra.

Disaster struck suddenly perhaps a mudslide, or a crack splitting open the permafrost underfoot and the cub fell. Buried in ice, she was quickly mummified; today, her fur, skin, organs and teeth remain almost exactly as they appeared on the day of her death, thousands of years ago.

Scientists named this ill-fated cub Sparta, after mammoth tusk hunters discovered her fossilized remains poking out of the melting permafrost of Yakutia, Siberia, in 2017. Along with Boris a male cave lion cub discovered just 50 feet (15 meters) away in 2018 Sparta is the subject of an extensive new study published Aug. 4 in the journal Quaternary, in which scientists examined the anatomy of the extinct cats in unprecedented detail.

"Sparta is probably the best-preserved ice age animal ever found, and is more or less undamaged apart from the fur being a bit ruffled," study co-author Love Daln, a genetics professor at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, told CNN.com. "She even had the whiskers preserved."

Cave lions (Panthera spelaea) are close relatives of modern African lions. They lived widely across the Northern Hemisphere during the last ice age (the chilly epoch that spanned from approximately 2.1 million to 11,600 years ago). Unlike their modern cousins, these large cats adapted to extremely harsh conditions, including freezing winds and long, cold winters marked by continuous nights.

According to the new study, Boris and Sparta didn't get much of a chance to test their mettle against the perils of the ice age. Through a variety of methods including radiocarbon dating, X-ray imaging and partial DNA sequencing, the researchers learned that the two cubs were approximately 1 to 2 months old when they died, with their sharp frontal teeth just beginning to emerge.

Although the cubs' remains were discovered a stone's throw away from each other, their deaths were separated by tens of thousands of years. A radiocarbon analysis of the cubs' skin, hair and muscle showed that Sparta died approximately 28,000 years ago, while Boris met his end more than 43,000 years ago. This finding suggests that the area was probably "attractive to cave lions for making dens, but it was probably also susceptible to them collapsing," the researchers wrote in the study.

X-ray scans of the cubs' bones seem to support a collapse scenario. Both cubs showed skull damage, dislocated ribs and other small "distortions" in their skeletons that could have been caused by "the earth's mass pressure," the researchers wrote. Further distortions likely occurred after the cubs were already buried, as the surrounding permafrost turned their bodies into furry mummies.

For all their injuries, the cubs didn't show any markings indicative of a predator attack, the team added.

At the moment, there's little more that can be learned about how the cubs died but further research could help reveal how they lived. In future studies, the researchers hope to completely sequence Boris and Sparta's DNA, which could put the evolutionary history of cave lions in a broader context and reveal some of their unique genetic features.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Frozen mummy of extinct cave lion is 'best-preserved ice age animal ever found,' researchers say - Livescience.com

He said he had been consuming the blackpill overdose, referring to a fatalistic sector of the incel community who describe themselves as blackpilled and believe there is no hope of life getting any better for them because their genetics rule out any woman ever being attracted to them.

Most incels start by, as they call it, taking the red pill, a metaphor borrowed from The Matrix science-fiction films, in which swallowing a coloured capsule allows the protagonist to see the world as it really is. They claim to have discovered that the whole world is a feminist gynocracy ruled by women, where men are helpless victims.

Some believe it is possible to improve their relationship prospects through strategies like gymmaxxing (working out), but those describing themselves as blackpilled have a nihilistic worldview and tend to see violence against women as a better solution than self-improvement.

Online incel forums are steeped in extremist misogyny, with members regularly suggesting women should be raped and murdered. They encourage each other to rise up in a day of retribution or incel rebellion, when they will punish society, and women in particular, for their suffering, by murdering as many normies (non-incels) as possible.

I know this because I spent two years undercover in incel forums to research these communities and the threat they pose, for my book Men Who Hate Women.

It started when I realised some of the boys I work with on gender inequality and sexual consent in UK schools were parroting extremist beliefs and fake statistics (didnt you know 87 per cent of women lie about rape, one of them said). I soon realised that these teenagers had been radicalised online. But it wasnt a kind of radicalisation anyone was talking about.

So I posed online as Alex, a disillusioned young white man who was tired of being called privileged when he felt deeply unsatisfied with life.

I had to pass tests to be allowed access to certain forums, explaining in detail what kind of incel I was so I began the painstaking process of learning incel terminology and the bizarre pseudoscientific theories incels use to justify their worldview.

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I went undercover in the incel community to try to understand men like Jake Davison - Telegraph.co.uk

It was in 1968 when archaeologists discovered a weapon grave at Suontaka Vesitorninmki in Finland. Ever since then, the remains found in the grave have been at the centre of a major debate over the gender of its occupant. Initial interpretations of the remains suggested that the grave contained a woman but, the interpretations have always been debated.

Now, DNA analysis of the grave, including an examination of its content, soil sample and microremains, have once again challenged long-held beliefs. The analysis suggests that the 1000-year-old grave could be of a non-binary person.

The new findings not only challenge pre-held notions, but also raise the possibility that non-binary people were accepted as well as respected among their peers in ancient times. The findings of the DNA analysis, which were published in the European Journal of Archaeology, state that the occupant of the grave was a respected person whose gender identity may have been non-binary.

The early medieval grave, likely dated 10501300 AD, had a person buried with two swords -- a hiltless sword placed on the persons left side and another buried above the original grave. The interpretation of the occupant being a woman was made based on dress accessories and jewellery, which suggested that the individual was dressed in feminine clothes.

"For decades, the grave has been a popular example of powerful women in Late Iron Age and early medieval societies. The grave was used as evidence of female leaders in the past. The decorated bronze-hilted sword allegedly found in the Suontaka burial is presented as a female warrior's weapon," the researchers behind the latest findings said in their paper.

A plan of the Suontaka burial. Tckdike marks the water pipe trench which led to the discovery of the grave. (Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency)

Ulla Moilanen, an archaeologist from the University of Turku said that the buried individual seems to have been a highly respected member of their community.

Researchers conducted a study of microscopic animal hair and fibre remains from soil retrieved from the grave and studied ancient DNA (aDNA) from the skeletal remains to infer the chromosomal sex of the individual. It is to be noted that historically, the gender identity of buried individuals is inferred based on the remains of objects or items found alongside. However, with the advancement of technology and modern genetics, new methods have been developed to determine gender of remains.

DNA analysis of the 1000-year-old grave in Finland showed that the occupant of the grave had Klinefelter syndrome -- a condition where boys are born with an extra X chromosome. Normally, a female has two X chromosomes (XX) and a male has one X and one Y (XY). According to UK's National Health Service (NHS), the X chromosome is not a "female" chromosome and is present in everyone. The presence of a Y chromosome denotes male sex.

People with Klinefelter syndrome (XXY) don't exhibit any specific symptoms during childhood. They are usually marked with shyness and low self-confidence. During the teenage years, the syndrome leads to broader hips, poor muscle tone, and reduced facial and body hair that starts growing later than usual. In adulthood, the syndrome could lead to inability to have children naturally and a low sex drive.

The objects found in the Suontaka grave. A: bronze-hilted sword; B: hiltless sword with silver inlays (inset); C: two oval brooches with textile fragments; D: twin-spiral chain-bearer ; E: sheathed knife ; F: penannular brooch ; G: sickle. (Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency)

The researchers believe that the body in the Finnish grave had XXY chromosomes and that the person was non-binary. "It is rare in a Nordic context to find a sword in a grave with several artefacts with feminine gender association," the researchers said in the paper.

Non-binary people are those who do not identify themselves with a particular gender. According to the National Centre for Transgender Equality, people whose gender is not male or female use many different terms to describe themselves, with non-binary being one of the most common. Other terms include genderqueer, agender, and bigender among others.

None of these terms mean exactly the same thing -- but all speak to an experience of gender that is not simply male or female.

"The complexity of gender is evident in the problem of determining the sex or gender of individuals based on the artefacts recovered from their graves. It is unclear how well the grave goods represent the gender roles and identities of the past, and whether these roles should be interpreted from a binary perspective," the paper said.

Non-binary identities have been recognised by cultures and societies around the world.

Continued here:
Man or woman? 1000-year-old grave in Finland likely of a non-binary human being - India Today

Alopecia is an autoimmune disorder that usually results in unpredictable, patchy hair loss. Read to know everything about this hair condition.

Written by Arushi Bidhuri | Updated : August 9, 2021 2:07 PM IST

The first Saturday of August each year is observed as International Alopecia Day to raise awareness about Alopecia, which is an autoimmune disorder that usually results in unpredictable, patchy hair loss. A disease known as androgenetic alopecia is the most prevalent kind of hair loss. Both men and women are susceptible to this form of hair loss. "Male pattern balding" and "female pattern hair loss" are two more names for androgenetic alopecia. But who is more likely to suffer from alopecia men or women? We asked some experts in the industry to help you understand all about alopecia and who is more likely to develop the problem.

Dr Viral Desai says, "Alopecia or androgenetic alopecia is also known as patterned baldness, which may occur in men or women due to several factors such as ageing, genetics, lifestyle disorder, nutritional deficiencies and stress." According to the expert, male-pattern baldness is a well-defined pattern, beginning from the hairline and progressing backwards in a central zone up to the crown region (top part of the head), often progressing to partial or complete baldness. He further states, "In female pattern hair loss, the hair thinning is present all over the head, and the hairline does not recede. Androgenetic alopecia in women rarely progresses to complete baldness."

While alopecia can affect both men and women, studies suggest that men are more likely to suffer from the condition. Dr Desai gave us some statistics, explaining, "a recent study found that alopecia is known to occur in 50 per cent of men above the age of 50 and 30 per cent under the age of 50. In women, the onset of alopecia commonly occurs around menopause. From the above statistics, it is clear that alopecia affects men, both young and old, more than women."

If you are wondering why alopecia affects more men, Mr Vikas Chawla, Founder and Director, Vedas Cure explains how it affects males and why is it more common in men. He says, "Alopecia is much more prevalent in men and occurs especially due to a male sex hormone known as dihydrotestosterone (DHT) leading to male pattern baldness the most common symptom. DHT is thought to cause hair follicles to miniaturize; it inhibits the nutrients to reach the follicles leading to hair loss. This may differ in the pattern as hair starts to recede at the temples and on the crown slowly thin and eventually disappear. Alopecia also occurs due to usage of salty water and begins in men from age 27-35."

The situation today is such that men are presenting with hair loss much earlier than ever before, says Dr Rinky Kapoor, Director - The Esthetic Clinics India, and Inventor of the QR 678 therapy for hair loss treatment. "Earlier, the problem affected men in their thirties and forties, now we see teens and men in their early twenties suffering from hair fall. This leads to physical, social, emotional and psychological stress in the group." Highlighting that women causes of hair fall are also increasing in women, Dr Kapoor says, "There are more and more women suffering from hormonal issues due to stress of modern life, poor lifestyle habits, polycystic ovarian disease and environmental factors. As high as 60% men over the age of 30 and 45% women over the age of 30 seem to be facing some sort of hair fall issue and are increasingly seeking treatment for retaining their hair, and thus, their confidence."

Talking about the treatment for the same, Dr Kapoor says, "The revolutionary QR 678 therapy works really well for both male and female hair loss and also for COVID related hair fall and is a major part of our arsenal now for our young patients, as it is plant based and has zero side effects."

Some of the common cures for this disorder can be keeping a good diet full of nutrients. Vedas Cure has prepared a herbal composition comprising of 30 herbs that contribute to hair growth, prevent hair loss, and facilitate nutrients to the hair. Along with the products a diet plan is also recommended. Hair is made of a tough protein called keratin. It needs proteins for good growth. If the Alopecia symptoms are genetic, then the precautions must be taken from the age of 15-16 years.

Some of the herbs which treat the dehydrated as well as damaged hair and help in gaining hair naturally are Bringraj, Punarnava, Amla, Brahmi etc.

Once alopecia is diagnosed by the doctor, it is vital to find the cause and treat it. Thankfully, there are some non-surgical and surgical treatments available when making lifestyle changes that don't work. Here are the treatments as explained by Dr Viral Desai.

Note: If you are suffering from alopecia or massive hair fall, do consult a dermatologist to get a proper diagnosis.

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International Alopecia Day: Is This Serious Hair Condition Reversible? Here's What You Need To Know - TheHealthSite

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Over the years, many physical traits have been touted as correlated with male success. Tall guys make more money. Attractive men have a better chance of getting hired. Obese fellows suffer in job interviews.

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That height/income correlation is pretty well documented. University of Florida researcher Timothy Judge and colleagues analyzed data from 8,500 American and British subjects and worked out that someone who is six feet tall earns, on average $166,000 more in a 30-year career than someone who is 5 feet 5 inches. This was true for both genders, though shorter men are slightly more likely to encounter height bias in the workplace than are shorter women.

Likewise, the attractiveness bias, sometimes called lookism, is well established. A 2019 article in the Harvard Business Review noted that it starts early. Attractive applicants score higher in college admissions interviews and earn higher grades when they get to class. The author, business psychology professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, cites the very well-established halo effect whereby attractive people are generally perceived as being more sociable, healthy, successful, honest, and talented.

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He also makes an interesting suggestion for tackling this type of bias artificial intelligence. If programmed correctly, he writes, AI could become an objective way to measure what we dont always see ourselves. The key phrase there is if programmed correctly. So far, many artificial intelligence models simply automate the biases of their creators.

Testosterone certainly appears to predict some kinds of business success. Researchers led by Sean Harrison of the University of Bristol note that among male executives, circulating testosterone has been linked with a number of subordinates and among male financial traders, with daily profits.

It has been suggested that this happens because higher testosterone levels tend to increase a mans tolerance for risk. This, in turn, leads many guys with high testosterone to choose the path of entrepreneurship, with the attendant risks and rewards. Even for those in standard employment situations, a higher testosterone level may affect willingness to engage in assertive wage bargaining.

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Harrison and colleagues dove into a huge biomedical database, the U.K. Biobank, and studied the records of 306,248 men and women. They were seeking to establish a causal relationship between testosterone levels and what they called socioeconomic position (SEP).

One concern here is the direction of causation. Perhaps having a lower SEP causes lower testosterone levels in men. This would make sense because being poor is stressful and, as they note, psychosocial stress associated with socioeconomic adversity could influence testosterone alongside other aspects of health.

One unique contribution of this study is the fact that it used a technique called Mendelian Randomization. Made possible by advances in genetics, this method analyzes single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which are determined at conception and related to a single factor, in this case, testosterone production. This allows the researchers to rule out reverse causation and other confounding effects.

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At the end of the day, they concluded that We found little evidence that testosterone affected socioeconomic position, health, or risk-taking. Were previous studies wrong? Not necessarily, but they may have been clouded by reverse causation or other factors.

Another study, also from the U.K., compared men who grew up in the relatively healthy and wealthy environment of London with those raised in Sylhet, Bangladesh. As the authors note, Men in wealthier countries tend to have higher levels of testosterone than men in poorer countries or places with high rates of infectious disease.

What wasnt clear is when this effect took place. Was it in infancy? Childhood? After puberty? New research by Kesson Magid of Durham University studied men who moved to London at various life stages. The researchers looked at factors like height, age of puberty, and testosterone levels as adults.

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Migration before puberty predicted higher testosterone and an earlier recalled pubertal age compared with Bangladeshi sedentees or adult migrants, with more pronounced differences in men who arrived before the age of eight.

They have an interesting explanation for their results, which is based on the energy cost of various activities. Boys in Bangladesh, where sanitation is poor, spend a lot of their biological resources developing immunity. This comes at the expense of building a strong reproductive function.

As the authors write, We found that the longer a man lived in Bangladesh as a child, the shorter he was as an adult. This suggests that boys growing up in Bangladesh had to trade off growing taller for something else, such as immunity.

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Theres not much you can do about your height or attractiveness unless you are ready for serious plastic surgery. As for tweaking your testosterone levels, experts like urologist Dr. Puneet Masson of the University of Pennsylvania urge caution. He treats men with low testosterone levels who are trying to become fathers. Many times Im taking these guys off of supplements or medications and putting them on something to get their body to make its own testosterone, he notes. The Penn Medicine site also cautions that taking exogenous or external testosterone shuts off other hormones essential for sperm development.

Its worth a mention that these testosterone studies were published both in academic journals and, in a more approachable format, on a free website called theconversation.com/ca. Spending some time reading articles there might have an even stronger correlation with your career success than your height, looks, or testosterone levels.

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Keenan: Is your success tied to your testosterone? - Calgary Herald

As well as the objects we find in graves, were able to extract ever more information from the bones themselves. For me, as a biological anthropologist, its been astonishing how the science around this has developed over the past 20 to 30 years.

If Im presented with a skeleton, I can tell quite a lot just by looking at the bones with the naked eye. I have a background as a medical doctor and before I started learning the business of osteoarchaeology, I would have thought: Its just a skeleton. How much can you really tell? You cant ask it about symptoms, you cant do blood tests. But I was astonished at how much you could work out. First, bone responds to disease. Some infections, such as syphilis and tuberculosis, affect bone in very distinctive ways. Osteoarthritis is also easy to identify from tiny holes on the surface of a joint.

Next you can look at teeth. People suffered from dental disease in the past, just as we do today, but most prehistoric people actually had much better teeth than ours because they didnt have such a starchy, sugary diet. They didnt brush their teeth as fastidiously as we do, but their teeth are nevertheless usually in surprisingly good condition.

Employing radiography techniques, such as using X-rays, allows us to uncover more clues hidden features of the bones. And with a micro CT [computed tomography] scanner were able to slice up the bones virtually, allowing us to analyse them without incurring any damage.

Then there are chemical techniques that allow us to analyse the ratios of different elements in bones and teeth. Our bodies are built from what we consume, so we are essentially made out of our surroundings. That means that the signatures of the landscapes in which we grew up are written into our bodies particularly into teeth, because tooth enamel is laid down in childhood.

For instance, your body is constantly incorporating different stable isotopes of oxygen and strontium in various ratios. We can analyse isotopes in ancient human remains, and see how these elemental ratios match those found in the geology of places in Britain or farther afield. This can be really useful for telling where somebody grew up, for instance, or where they spent the last decade of their life.

Finally, we can extract DNA from ancient bones and sequence it. That technology has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years.

Alice Roberts is the author of Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials (Simon & Schuster, 2021)

The human genome was fully sequenced in 2003. Since then weve developed the ability to extract DNA from very ancient bones, and to work out how to combine separate fragments of DNA into a complete genome. By doing that, were able to look for rare variants that might give us clues indicating when particular groups of people moved in or out of Britain. Sometimes were able to reconstruct more detailed information about individuals, too. One of the prehistoric skeletons I discuss in the book is known as Cheddar Man, who was discovered in Somerset in 1903, and lived around 10,000 years ago. By analysing his genome, geneticists have revealed that he probably had an unusual combination of dark skin and bright blue eyes. Being able to work that out from just a skeleton is utterly extraordinary.

DNA can also reveal information about kinship and relationships between individuals. Thats been quite profound when it comes to looking at the communal burials found inside Neolithic chamber tombs, for instance. One theory about these chamber tombs is that they were intended to anonymise the dead, and therefore contain people from across the whole community. Another theory is that they effectively acted as family vaults and some recent genetic analyses provide hints that this may indeed have been the case. For example, its been revealed that two bodies buried together in a Neolithic monument at Primrose Grange in County Sligo, Ireland are those of a father and his daughter.

Elsewhere in Ireland, DNA analysis of a man buried at Newgrange Stone Age tomb in the Boyne valley has revealed that he was the son of an incestuous union between either a parent and a child or two siblings. So were finding out some quite extraordinary details, some of which may not even have been public knowledge at the time of those peoples deaths.

Genetic science is not a panacea. Its not as though DNA technology somehow supersedes archaeology in fact, it could actually leave us with more questions than answers. But it does provide important strands of new evidence with the potential to answer some big questions, especially about mobility and migration. We should view it more as a tool for archaeologists to use one that will hopefully help us see the picture more clearly.

Genetics can certainly be disruptive. In fact, its probably as disruptive as radiocarbon dating was when that emerged, from the late 1940s suddenly, archaeologists were able to pin absolute dates on organic material. I think you can see a similar effect playing out with DNA analysis at the moment.

There have been some instances of geneticists treading on archaeologists toes. Theres been a perception by some archaeologists that geneticists have waded into long-standing archaeological debates and simply said: Youve been arguing about this for ages. Well, now weve got the answer. Not surprisingly, archaeologists have responded: Hang on a minute first you need to learn a bit about archaeology and the kinds of questions were asking.

But weve got to capitalise on the power of genetics to help us solve archaeological conundrums. In the book, I talk about a cutting-edge new project called 1,000 Ancient British Genomes, led by Swedish geneticist Pontus Skoglund of the Francis Crick Institute. This is a brilliant example of the power of collaboration between geneticists and archaeologists. Skoglund is engaging with archaeologists up and down the UK, asking them to identify questions that genetics might be able to help solve.

One of the people I became quite obsessed with is Augustus Pitt-Rivers (18271900). Hes best known as a collector, but he also came up with some really interesting ideas about how cultures change and evolve over time, and how these transitions happened. Pitt-Rivers was very influenced by 19th-century evolutionary theory and biology, and wondered how these ideas could apply to culture. He also started to think about whether the origins of new cultures might be linked to the movement of people.

For instance, Bronze Age people in Britain obviously had a different culture from the Neolithic people who preceded them. But where did they pick up this culture from? Pitt-Rivers suggested that there had effectively been a population replacement that Bronze Age culture was actually brought in by a whole load of new people. He tried to back up this theory by measuring skulls, arguing that there were detectable differences between the shapes of Neolithic and Bronze Age skulls. He was trying to use the study of skulls in a similar way to how we would now use DNA studies.

Whats astonishing is that DNA evidence now emerging suggests that Pitt-Rivers may have been right that a lot of people may have arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age, largely replacing Neolithic populations. Those earlier people didnt completely disappear, but there was a really profound turnover of population. Its really interesting to think about the contact between these two groups, and about the ways in which their different cultures may have merged.

Archaeology is a very introspective, self-aware discipline, which I think is extremely useful. Weve long been aware that every archaeologist always has ideas from their own time in the back of their mind whenever they approach a set of observations.

That can impact ideas about gender, for example. Take Iron Age chariot burials: not all of them contain men we know that some, such as the site at Wetwang in East Yorkshire, definitely contain women. I think that in the past antiquarians would have very quickly jumped to a conclusion that the body was male, based on the style of the burial or perhaps artefacts that were buried with the body. This is similar to what Reverend William Buckland (17841856) did when he discovered the oldest skeleton yet found in Britain, on the Gower peninsula in south Wales, which he called the Red Lady of Paviland. The remains are clearly male, but Buckland didnt think it could possibly be a man because the individual was buried with what looked to him like ivory jewellery. As a 19th-century antiquarian, he couldnt stomach the idea that a man might be buried with jewellery.

And these ideas still persist. When we find an Iron Age burial with a sword, theres often an assumption that its a man. Or if a mirror is excavated from a burial, theres an assumption that the remains are that of a woman. In the book, I talk about the need to avoid seeing discoveries through our own current cultural lens to accept that there may have been many more diverse identities in the past than perhaps we understand today, for example. We think that our society and culture is normal in the way that it defines two genders, but perhaps in the past there was a much more diverse approach to identity. Certainly, if you find an Iron Age burial with both a sword and a mirror (and one such site has been excavated), that might be telling us something quite interesting about ancient identities.

I think that new scientific technologies encourage us to move away from our current preconceptions to look at the evidence in isolation to begin with and then to build up a bigger picture.

Its a stunning discovery the most richly furnished Copper Age burial yet found in Britain. This man was buried with almost 100 objects in his timber-lined grave, so he was certainly high status or special in some way. All sorts of things were buried with him: lots of flints and arrowheads, and stone items that we presume are wrist guards for archery hence his name as well as copper knives and five bell-shaped beakers. There were also gold ornaments, thought to be hair wraps or possibly earrings the oldest gold found in Britain.

Because the Amesbury Archer was found only about three miles from Stonehenge, some have suggested that he may have had a link with that site. That may be true, but well never be able to prove it. You can also speculate about who he was his position in that society: are we looking at some kind of Bronze Age shaman or magician? And, connected with that idea, what did people think of those who first developed the ability to extract metal out of stone? It must have been amazing to see a completely new material being produced.

What I find particularly interesting about the Amesbury Archer is that analysis of the stable isotopes in his remains shows that he wasnt a local in fact, he grew up in or near the Alps. Graves such as his show just how far these connections stretched, and the distances that people were travelling. Theres this popular idea that in the ancient past people never travelled farther than the next village, but now we have evidence of some, such as the Amesbury Archer, travelling hundreds of miles in a lifetime.

That burial, found in 2017, is absolutely spectacular. I was lucky enough to visit it with the team that discovered it. We dont see many Iron Age burials across most of Britain, but in Yorkshire several very characteristic chariot burials have been found. These belonged to the Arras culture, which had connections to the near continent and possibly brought this very distinctive funerary style with them.

That Pocklington grave contains the body of a man buried within a chariot. In other similar burials, the chariots tend to have been dismantled before being put in the grave flatpacked, essentially. This one, though, was standing up and intact, with the man placed inside in a crouching position.

Along with the grave, theres evidence of a funeral feast. You get the impression that this funeral was a great spectacle, intended to show off the status of the deceased individual but also that of the surviving family. There are animal bones in the grave, including a rack of ribs, so it looks as if dishes from the feast were being shared with the deceased individual.

The other utterly extraordinary thing is that two pony skeletons were found standing up in the grave. That was just unbelievable. We spent quite a long time scratching our heads, wondering how on earth they got those ponies in there upright. Did they winch dead animals into the grave and then somehow support them, maybe piling up the soil underneath to hold them in a standing position? Or were the ponies led into the grave and then killed? I dont know if well ever quite get to the bottom of how it was achieved, but obviously it was extremely important to the design of the grave to have the chariot looking as though it was ready to depart, taking the dead man off, possibly to the afterlife. That is, of course, if they believed in the afterlife we dont know!

I think that exploring prehistory shows us just how multicultural Britain has always been. What weve seen is that many different groups of people have crossed the North Sea and the Channel in both directions over time, and that those cultures all enriched the others.

Although I write a lot about the power of genetics, I dont think we should be trying to trace direct genetic links between us and people in the ancient past because, once you get back into prehistory, these connections arent terribly meaningful. You dont need to have a direct genetic link with the Red Lady of Paviland or the Amesbury Archer to think about what the lives of these individuals might have been like. Im aiming for an egalitarian approach to ancestry in the landscape. The ancestors I look at in the book belong to everybody.

Alice Roberts is the author of Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials (Simon & Schuster, 2021). Buy it now on Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org

This article was first published in the July 2021 issue of BBC History Magazine

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Prehistoric Graves: Why They Are Time Capsules Of Early Britain - BBC History Magazine

Everyone wants their skin to be flawless and younger-looking. Unfortunately, our skin becomes dull and flaky because of regular contact with dust, residue, pollution, and the suns harmful rays. Hyperpigmentation is the umbrella term for these often undesirable skin alterations.

UV light, which encourages the production of melanin, is one of the most common hyperpigmentation culprits. Every dermatologist we spoke with emphasized the necessity of using sunscreen to protect the skin from UV rays, whether you are treating existing spots or attempting to avoid developing new ones.

If you are struggling with skin issues, this article is for you, as it is about the best skin lightening creams for scars and hyperpigmentation. All you have to do now is find the best option for you. So, let us get started.

Before starting with the guide, we will first talk about what this is. Hyperpigmentation is a condition in which an area of skin becomes darker than the surrounding skin. Our bodies produce melanin, a pigment molecule that gives our skin its black color. The organelle that secretes this chemical is the cells melanosomes. It occurs when your melanocytes secrete too much melanin, resulting in a tan or skin discoloration.

Melasma and sunspots, for example, are more prone to affect parts of the skin that are exposed to the sun, such as the face, arms, and legs. Cuts, burns, acne, and lupus are examples of hyperpigmentation that occurs after an injury or with skin inflammation. These can show up anywhere on the body.

Skin problems like scars and pigmentations can be treated with a variety of therapy regimens. Let us take a look at each one individually:

Avoiding sun exposure, which is one of the most common causes of hyperpigmentation, is the simplest option. If you must go out in the sun, an SPF 30+ cream should be used.

You can always go to a cosmetologist or dermatologist for clinically approved therapies including laser treatment, strong pulsed light therapy, chemical peels, and other procedures.

This is the type of product we will be discussing in this article. These lotions are safe, have no negative effects, and are simple to obtain. Hyperpigmentation creams are the greatest option if you do not mind waiting a little longer for results.

Collagen is a natural protein that gives your body its structure. It appears to be effective because it is already present in the human body. It provides us with advantages such as youthful and healthy skin. Unfortunately, the amount of collagen in our skin decreases as we get older.

So, the founders of XYZ have developed a natural cosmetics solution to visible indicators of aging skin that is free of artificial components and side effects. The active ingredients in XYZ Smart Collagen are sourced from organic, responsibly-farmed plants that have been delicately cold-pressed to preserve their important active components.

They devised this anti-aging lotion and made sure that, unlike its competitors, it would not encourage your skin to generate collagen in an uncontrolled manner. In just 12 weeks of application, the skin may be tighter, smoother, and the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles may be reduced.

Apply XYZ Smart Collagen over your entire face and neck, taking care not to get any in your eyes. Use moderate upward strokes to allow this anti-aging lotion to soak thoroughly and effectively into your skin.

Customers praise this cream as an excellent anti-aging product that actually works. XYZ Smart Collagen reviews, case studies, and confirmed components show this product delivers people positive benefits in as little as 84 days. Simultaneously, it demonstrates how it interacts with the human body and seeks a long-term answer. In contrast to fast remedies and long-term adverse effects, this is a positive indicator.

Because of its manufacturers, the product has a guarantee. Wolfson Berg is a well-established corporation with a diverse product line and clientele. All of this adds up to a strong endorsement for XYZ Smart Collagen.

Visit the Official Website of XYZ Smart Collagen for the Best Discount

Zeta White is a three-step skin lightening treatment that consists of a face wash, moisturizer, and sleep cream. All three are suitable for all types of skin. The Zeta White skin whitening technique is marketed as a safe alternative to harsh bleaching treatments.

The lotion contains anti-inflammatory characteristics that brighten skin without causing damage and addresses uneven skin or dark spots. It may also lighten your general appearance.

It is made entirely of safe and natural materials, 95% of which are organic. It is free of the harsh chemicals and poisons found in most bleaching creams. It brightens the skin and provides a calming and anti-inflammatory effect.

It can also treat uneven skin tone caused by acne, aging, freckles, melasma, scars, and sun damage with excellent results. Any part of your body that you desire to lighten can be treated with Zeta White products.

It is a three-part lightening system. When you buy the whole three-step lightening system, you also get a skin-lightening body lotion worth $77.09.

Zeta White is a product of the United Kingdom, made by a reputable producer. In terms of safety and purity, its component list is encouraging. It is entirely organic and manufactured from natural extracts and mineral oils.

If you are looking for the greatest face wash, moisturizer, or night cream to brighten your skin and stimulate skin regeneration, you will have to pay a lot of money and receive no results. However, Zeta White offers you all three for the price of one, as well as a bonus with your order.

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Melanin is a pigment found naturally in the skin that gives it color. Melanin pigment is produced in melanosomes, which are specialized cytoplasmic organelles. Melanosomes in the darker parts of the skin are more active than those found elsewhere on the body. Overactive melanosomes can also lead to apparent skin hyperpigmentation, such as aging, melasma, and other skin color disorders.

Meladerm works by combining the well-documented qualities of the most efficient skin whitening substances to diminish the appearance of hyperpigmentation. Many of the formulas active constituents are taken from natural extracts like Mulberry, Licorice, and Bearberry. Civant Skin Care prioritizes your safety beyond all else. Their products are free of hydroquinone, mercury, steroid hormones, and other bleaching agents.

Meladerm, when used with exfoliation agents, can typically show results in as little as two to four weeks. On average, the full results take about two to three months and depend on the type of skin of the person. In addition, a 30-day money-back guarantee is offered to new customers with their first purchase.

Meladerm may be worth a try if you are having trouble getting rid of dark patches on your skin. It is one of the most natural skincare options available, and many Meladerm reviews back up its efficacy claims.

The product is extremely popular and is the number one skin-lightening formula on the market. Skincare professionals have used and have been recommending it all over the world for more than a decade.

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Illuminatural is a topical serum that must be administered to the skin to eliminate all dark spots and wrinkles. It is part of the Skinception skin care line, which is made in the United States by Leading Edge Health. They focus on the development and marketing of beauty-related items, particularly for women.

It is one of the few skin lighteners on the market today that does not include any dangerous ingredients. The product works by blocking the tyrosinase enzyme, which causes skin cells to create melanin when stimulated. It also exfoliates pigmented dead skin cells, promoting the growth of new skin cells. It is a much safer and more convenient alternative to using a peeler to exfoliate the skin.

The products main goal is to eliminate these skin issues, and users of the topical serum do not experience any skin irritation, which is frequent with similar skincare products. The manufacturers also claim that in as little as four weeks, the solution may lighten the skin and may improve the appearance of unattractive dark areas.

Customer reaction has been overwhelmingly positive thus far for this product. Many people have turned to natural skin whitening methods, mostly because they are 100% safe and have no known adverse effects. Our research, as well as information from other Illuminatural 6i reviews, reveals this product makes a difference, particularly with little dark spots.

It is a highly effective, natural skin-lightening product and is one of the most well-known and widely used whitening products on the market. It is made by a renowned brand, and it also comes with a guarantee.

Visit the Official Website of Illuminatural 6i for the Best Discount

Amaira Natural Lightening Serum is one of Amaira Skincares many plant-based products. The brand promotes skin care regimes that are as natural as possible. Amaira dermatologists use herbal elements to create safe and helpful skincare solutions. The same ingredients are used in Amaira Natural Lightening Serum to whiten skin in delicate regions.

It claims to reduce the appearance of unpleasant dark patches, birthmarks, and freckles. It is suitable for all skin types and contains no hazardous chemicals, parabens, fragrances, or colorants. Natural components in Amaira provide a safe and quick way to lighter skin.

Six weeks of treatment is usually suggested; however, some people get effects in as little as two weeks.

The formula for Amaira Natural Lightening Serum is FDA certified and can be used by men and women of all skin types. This lightening cream is gentle enough to use on both the face and the body, giving you even-toned, young skin from head to toe.

This is a popular, well-designed product that claims to minimize the appearance of dark spots and discoloration by working with the skins natural renewal cycles. It appears to provide satisfactory outcomes, although not every user is totally happy with this product.

Customers have given the product a thumbs up in product reliability. A vast number of users around the world have given positive feedback. One point of worry is the packaging, as there have been several instances of the pump assembly on the bottle breaking relatively quickly, making use of the product more difficult.

Overall, we found Amaira Natural Lightening Serum to be a reasonable product. The result matters most, and the vast majority of users are able to attain their desired outcomes in the end.

Visit the Official Website of Amaira Natural Serum for the Best Discount

Hyperpigmentation might affect any region of your body. However, those that damage the face, chest, or limbs require rapid attention. Melasma, sunspots, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation are the most prevalent.

Melasma is mostly caused by hormonal changes and is most commonly seen in pregnant women. Hyperpigmentation can affect any part of the body, however, it most typically affects the stomach and face.

Sunspots, also known as liver spots or solar lentigines, are a common occurrence. However, if you are routinely exposed to the sun, it will only happen over time.

This is caused by a skin injury or inflammation. Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation includes acne, pimples, and scar discoloration.

When opposed to ordinary whitening face creams, these ones offer a wide range of benefits. The following are some highlights:

Because all of the items mentioned above are 100% natural, safe, and organic, there are no long-term side effects. The following are some of the possible adverse effects which you may face:

If you are on a budget and want to save money on hyperpigmentation treatments, the best option is to use a lightening cream. Treatments like intense pulsed light therapy, laser peel, chemical peels, etc. come with adverse effects and are very expensive too.

As a consumer, you are looking for therapy that gives the best possible answer to your problem at the lowest possible cost. So, a lightening cream is the greatest option for this.

Hydroquinone is a natural pigment lightening and skin brightening combination derived from African potato and tara tree. It also boosts collagen and infuses your skin with beneficial antioxidants. Your dark spots will lighten as a result, and your complexion will become more even. In addition, the solution protects your skin, slowing the formation of new hyperpigmentation.

Gigawhite is a skin lightener and brightener that helps to reduce the appearance of age spots and melanin concentrations in the skin. This substance has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that help to soothe your skin and even out skin tone and dark spots.

Licorice Root works as a natural skin lightening agent by inhibiting the enzymes that cause melanin formation. It helps to prevent future hyperpigmentation while also reducing the appearance of existing dark spots on your skin. Licorice Root is also an anti-inflammatory, so it will benefit your skin by lowering swelling and redness, as well as assisting in skin regeneration for a more balanced complexion.

We have already discussed the mechanism of hyperpigmentation. A variety of factors can cause this phenomenon, including sun exposure and possibly an underlying ailment. Some of the most common causes are:

Melasma can be passed down across generations. According to studies, over half of all women with melasma have a family member who is also affected. As a result, if you are a woman and your mother has melasma, you are more likely to get it as well.

Melasma can be caused by a variety of factors, including your gender. Melasma affects more women than it does men. While female-to-male ratios vary by the group due to factors including skin type and sun exposure, studies have reported female-to-male ratios ranging from 6:1 to 39:1. Melasma is typically provoked by sun exposure in men with this skin disorder.

One of the most common things that causes Melasma is exposure to the sun. To protect the skin from prolonged sun exposure, the body creates more melanin. This might cause age spots or sunspots, which are dark spots or patches on the skin. In addition to sun exposure, extremely bright artificial light can exacerbate melasma. Melasma might be difficult to cure for people who work in these types of environments. Heat, which is scientifically known as infrared radiation, can also aggravate melasma.

Antimalarial medicines and tricyclic antidepressants, for example, can produce hyperpigmentation. One of the most researched causes of melasma is inflammation caused by skin irritants.

Certain scents, soaps, and cosmetics can irritate the skin. The usage of these products can create inflammation in people who have melasma due to their genetics, gender, or skin type, which can lead to a melasma flare.

Although it may seem self-evident, popping pimples causes hyperpigmentation. This is one of those skin-care guidelines that has not changed in a long time. When you get a pimple, your body interprets it as an injury and rushes to the scene to fix it. However, instead of letting your body cure itself, many people pick at their spots.

When you pop a pimple, it causes further irritation. Inflammation then triggers melanin production. As a result, long after the inflammation has faded, you may get acne scars.

It should go without saying that touching or plucking your skin regularly can aggravate hyperpigmentation. Exfoliating too much might cause inflammation and compromise the skins moisture barrier, which is the first line of protection against bacteria and other contaminants. Your moisture barrier can no longer fully protect you if it becomes damaged.

As a result, acne and hyperpigmentation may become more prevalent. If you give in to the temptation to use severe pressure or too abrasive materials on your skin, you may wind up doing more harm than good.

We do not always consider it, but eating a 15-minute lunch outside in direct sunlight can exacerbate hyperpigmentation. You have probably heard it before, but skincare protection is critical for preventing hyperpigmentation.

Inflammation is exacerbated by prolonged sun exposure. As a result, the formation of acne scars is aided. Applying sunscreen and going about your day is not enough. You should reapply throughout the day.

As the name implies, these are creams that whiten the current layer of skin to improve skin tone. Depending on the cream, the process used to accomplish this may differ.

Plant extracts are used in the normal whitening or lightening creams mentioned above to suppress the production of the tyrosinase enzyme, which catalyzes melanin synthesis.

A bleaching cream, on the other hand, would diminish the number of melanocytes in skin cells, lowering melanin secretion. Other creams act by exfoliating the outer or pigmented skin to promote the growth of new skin cells.

Yes, you can apply makeup over these items. However, allow enough time for the lightening cream to seep into your skin. These items might be sticky and can cause problems with makeup.

However, once the cream has thoroughly diffused into the skin, no sign of it remains. Some brands also exfoliate the dead skin as a bonus, resulting in greater highlights on the fresh skin.

Breastfeeding women are permitted to use skin-lightening cosmetics discreetly. These are all-natural items that are free of dangerous chemicals.

However, it is preferable to avoid using this product on feeding days because it may be absorbed into the bloodstream. The study is still underway, and convincing proof of the safety of this cream during pregnancy or feeding days has yet to be established.

As a result, if you require expert advice before using these items, you should consult your doctor.

In the beginning, mens skincare products were quite rare. However, many products in the womens market are now available for males as well.

Nowadays, most items are designed to be unisex; so, people of any gender may use them, and their gender has no bearing on how well they operate.

All of the products described above are safe for both men and women to use. The creams are based on a universal molecular phenomenon that whitens the skin and is found in everyone.

As a result, males can use the skin whitening cream without fear.

However, because of differences in skin texture and roughness, certain product categories, such as moisturizers, may act differently on men and women.

Benefits may be visible in a few days. Depending on the product, the complete result, i.e., the improvement in uneven skin tone, may take up to eight weeks.

These products must first diffuse into the skin before being able to control melanin synthesis. You must wait until new cells proliferate before doing anything with the already created pigments.

After that, the hyperpigmentation begins to recede, and after long-term use, it may totally vanish.

No, you do not have to see a doctor to utilize these lotions. However, it is a good idea to schedule a simple consultation.

To begin with, these skin-lightening creams are produced with natural components that are safe to use on the skin.

Second, before being formed into a product, they are thoroughly researched in the lab and clinically evaluated. So, you do not need to see a doctor unless you have a skin issue that is being treated or has been treated previously.

We all have a highly hectic routine in our daily lives and are often outside in the sun. In the process, we overlook the factors that affect our skin, such as dust, sunshine, or anything else that causes hyperpigmentation.

Hyperpigmentation is a challenging skin condition to treat; but, with the provided knowledge in this article, you can easily overcome that obstacle. When looking for the best lightening cream for hyperpigmentation, keep in mind that each persons hyperpigmentation responds to treatment differently.

We trust that we have provided you with sufficient information to protect you against its negative consequences. You may see the effects soon if you use the lightning cream correctly and follow the instructions.

More here:
5 Best Skin Lightening Creams for Hyperpigmentation in 2021 - The Island Now

On the great philosophical question of why bad things (i.e. injuries) happen to good people (i.e. runners who obey the ten percent rule), the sages are divided. Some say its because we havent yet figured out precisely which form flaw, muscle imbalance, or training error triggers a given injury. Others say that the problem runs deeperthat we need a comprehensive causal framework that links together training and life stresses, the resulting biomechanical loads applied to different parts of the body, and the ever-changing capacity of each joint and tissue to absorb those loads.

In a new (and free to read) opinion piece in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, running injury experts Chris Napier of the University of British Columbia and Rich Willy of the University of Montana advance that latter perspective. For example, they point out, simple rules about training load are doomed to failure because increasing the stress on a tissue like a tendon by just ten percent will cause it to fail 50 percent earlier. Thats one reason that the addition of speedwork so often triggers problems even if youre not running any farther than usual. You cant prevent an injury unless you understand the sequence of events thats likely to cause it.

But drawing that web of causal arrows remains a tall ordera point illustrated nicely by another new study, this one on Western States ultramarathoners. A team led by Emily Kraus, a sports medicine doctor and researcher at Stanford University, studied 123 runners (83 men, 40 women) who ran the 100-mile race in 2018 and 2019, publishing the results in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. Their goal: to explore the components of the female and male athlete triads, including the risk of stress fractures and other bone stress injuries, in ultramarathoners.

In women, the athlete triad refers to the combination of low energy availability, menstrual irregularities, and low bone mineral density (BMD). In men, low levels of sex hormones such as testosterone substitute for menstrual irregularities. Its a subset of the broader condition known as relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S).

In theory, the causal arrow here is pretty straightforward. If you dont eat enough, either overall or during the periods of the day when you need it most to support your training, youll end up with lower levels of sex hormones. Thats what triggers the warning sign of irregular or absent periods. And over time, it can lead to lower bone mineral density, which in turn leaves you vulnerable to stress fractures, even at training loads you might previously have been able to handle. Theres good evidence for every step of this chain.

Based on a self-reported questionnaire (sample question: Are you trying to change your body weight or body composition to improve your performance?), lots of the Western States runners appeared to be at risk of disordered eating: 62.5 percent of the women and 44.5 percent of the men. Quite a few (16.7 and 30.1 percent, respectively) had low bone density, defined as a Z-score less than -1. Many (37.5 and 20.5 percent) had a history of stress fractures, which matches data from other studies of hardcore runners. Add in a few other variables like low body mass and irregular periods, and you can calculate a cumulative triad risk score, which identified 61.1 percent of women and 29.2 percent of men as being at moderate risk for bone stress injuries and 5.6 percent of each as high risk.

In a sense, this is a nice illustration of Napier and Willys point. If you zero in on a single risk factor like bone mineral density, youre not going to get a very useful gauge of injury risk. Relatively few of the women had low BMD, but lots had stress fractures; for men, it was the opposite. Hormone levels, measured using InsideTrackers blood testing battery, were similarly ambiguous. In women, there did seem to be a link between low levels of testosterone and estradiol and low bone mineral density. The same pattern didnt show up in men, though.

If you broaden the causal diagram, as with the cumulative triad risk score, you get a more meaningful assessment of injury risk. In one of Krauss previous studies, for example, every one-point increase in the cumulative risk score for male athletes (which doesnt even include any direct assessment of hormones, since theres no simple proxy like menstrual dysfunction for men) produced a 57 percent increase in the risk of a subsequent stress fracture. For women, its even more pronounced: a diagnosis of moderate risk doubles your chances of a stress fracture, and high risk quadruples it.

Thats still just one part of Napier and Willys grand plan, though. Napier co-authored another recent paper (with Karrie Hamstra-Wright of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Kellie Huxel Bliven of A.T. Still University) that describes a holistic approach to bone stress injuries, suggesting that athletes have their own cumulative risk profile that influences their capacity to withstand specific training loads. Here theyre no longer talking only about triad risk factors: instead theyre summing up a vast web of non-modifiable (sex, race, age, genetics, alignment, prior injury) and modifiable (strength, fatigue, flexibility, biomechanics, stress, recovery, nutrition) intrinsic factors, as well as extrinsic factors like footwear, training surface, and training load.

Theres no equation for this hypothetical super-calculation of injury riskyet. In a sense, this is simply an attempt to mathematically describe what already goes on inside the head of a good clinician when he or she is assessing an athlete. The big question is whether the equationor, more likely, a future machine-learning algorithmwill ever be able to combine all those inputs and produce injury advice thats meaningfully better than, say, the ten percent rule plus occasional reminders not to do anything stupid. Only time, and a lot of painstaking research, will tell.

For more Sweat Science, join me on Twitter and Facebook, sign up for the email newsletter, and check out my book Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance.

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Seeking a Grand Theory of Injury Prevention - Outside Magazine

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dovetail Genomics, the world-leader in high-quality de novo genome assembly, and Revive & Restore, the leading wildlife conservation organization promoting the incorporation of biotechnologies into standard conservation practice, announced today a new partnership that will accelerate the use of de novo genome assembly in the conservation efforts of threatened and endangered species.

Through its Wild Genomes program, Revive & Restore is funding high-quality, de novo genome assembly for select species in which an immediate, practical application of genomic data can inform and improve conservation efforts. Dovetail Genomics will be the preferred de novo genome assembly provider for this effort, building on the companys near decade-long success in delivering over 1600 high-quality plant and animal assemblies to hundreds of researchers across the globe.

We are honored that Revive & Restore has selected Dovetail to be their preferred genome assembly partner, said Todd Dickinson, CEO of Dovetail Genomics. Applying high-quality reference genomes more broadly to biodiversity efforts will advance conservation efforts globally as it quickly becomes a standard tool for the conservation biologist.

Global biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate due to climate change and other human-based pressures. Perhaps one of mankinds most important responsibilities is the preservation and even enhancement of biodiversity, for this generation and those to come. A high-quality reference genome assembly is required to fully understand the biology of any organism and is a critical tool for species preservation.

Genomic insights are foundational to genetic rescue. The information that is held within a species DNA can help conservationists discover the genetic basis of adaptability and resilience, reveal breeding structures, the genetics of stress and immune responses or local adaptations. This information can help us predict a species responses to climate change, and allow people to make better wildlife management decisions, said Revive & Restores Wild Genomes program manager Bridget Baumgartner.

Revive & Restore will initially leverage Dovetail Genomics experience and sample-to-assembly workflow to build reference genomes for 15 endangered species in the Revive & Restore Wild Genomes program. One of these species, the Banggai cardinalfish, will be funded using a unique crowd-sourcing arrangement. Dovetail Genomics will donate $500 on behalf of every Dovetail services customer starting August 9, 2021, until enough funds are raised to sequence and assemble the cardinalfish genome. The genome assembly will be available as an open resource to the scientific community.

Learn more about this program: https://dovetailgenomics.com/a-genome-for-basuki/. To view, use this password: Basuki

The male Banggai cardinalfish specimen that will be sequenced has been nicknamed Basuki, which means to prosper or flourish. The goal of this program is to help restore the Banggai cardinalfish population back to historical numbers. Banggai cardinalfish went from discovery to near extinction in a matter of a few years due to high demand in the aquarium trade; their current status is endangered and their population is in severe decline. The Banggai cardinalfish distribution range is extremely small a 23 km2 region of the Banggai Archipelago in Indonesia. Several local populations are now either extinct or vanishing. Unlike most other coral reef fishes, Banggai cardinalfish lack a pelagic larval phase that portion of their life where dispersal occurs. Instead, they exhibit mouthbrooding and direct development, where juveniles remain close to their parents. This unique life history results in genetically distinct local populations that are ecologically and evolutionarily significant, but also extremely vulnerable.

We are thrilled to finally have the opportunity to utilize a genome assembly for this critically endangered fish, stated Giacomo Bernardi, Ph.D., Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. The genome assembly will be an important tool that we will put to use immediately to measure population diversity, heterozygosity and other metrics that will help us in our quest to save this species.

About Revive & Restore

Revive & Restore is the leading wildlife conservation organization promoting the incorporation of biotechnologies into standard conservation practice. The Sausalito, California non-profit was formed in 2012 with the idea that 21st century biotechnology can and should be used to enhance genetic diversity, build disease resistance, facilitate adaptation and more. Its mission is to enhance biodiversity through the genetic rescue of endangered and extinct species.

Wild Genomes is part of Revive & Restores Catalyst Science Fund, which supports proof-of-concept science to advance the development of new biotechnology tools for conservation. Launched in 2018, the Catalyst Science Fund is designed to hasten impactful innovations in conservation. A key barrier to the adoption of genomic solutions by the conservation community has been the lack of success stories. To that end, the Catalyst Science Fund supports early-stage, transformative bio-science research, and proof-of-concept projects.

For more information visit https://www.reviverestore.org/wild-genomes and follow Revive & Restore on Twitter @Revive_Restore.

About Dovetail

Dovetail Genomics LLC is transforming genomics by making long-range information readily accessible to all. The company enables researchers and clinicians to solve complex problems involving de novo assembly, structural variation, microbiome analysis, cancer research, phasing analysis and more by providing them a more comprehensive view of the genome. With 68 pending applications and 14 issued patents, its proprietary in vitro proximity ligation approach and assembly algorithms simplify genomic discovery by integrating the highest quality long-range genomic information with next-gen sequencing output. Dovetail is based in Scotts Valley, California. For more information on Dovetail, its technology, and service offerings, visit https://dovetailgenomics.com/omni-c/. Follow Dovetail on Twitter @DTGenomics.

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Dovetail Genomics and Revive & Restore Form Partnership to Sequence and Assemble Genomes of 15 Endangered Species - Business Wire

On last nights episode of Beauty & The Geek,they went on a makeover frenzy, giving four geeks incredible glow ups. But did you know there was another geek who is just as hot, yet he never had a makeover?

Yes, Jackson Palmer, is an undercover hottie who could honestly be a Calvin Klein model. The geek has been posting some fire pics on his Insta post-show and OOFT.

Palmers beauty on the show was Jessica Antoniou, who made a TikTok about how she actuallyhad the hot geek this season.

Remember this guy?

Well this is what he actually looks like.

The TikTok has over 1.5 million views and isnt even the first time the Beauty & The Geek star has gone viral. Antoniou has made a number of TikToks about her BATG journey, including ones made within the mansion (or apartment) they were staying in.

Just kidding already knew jackson was a qt #beautyandthegeek#batg#jessickbish#foryoupage#makeover

Know Yourself Drake

Many of the comments asked if the pair were still together. However, Antoniou hasnt been able to reveal anything and thats likely because Beauty & The Geek is still airing and shes under a contract.

But *fingers crossed* they still are, because they are cute AF.

Theyre not the only couple either where real love looks like a possibility. George and Josie (who are still on the show) seem to really be obsessed with each other and I am so here for it.

Kiran and Bryanna are my other favourite couple, who also genuinely seem smitten with one another. They also played coy when asked about their relationship, which only makes it seem more likely that they are together IRL.

No comment, both Bryanna and Kiran told PEDESTRIAN.TV when asked if they were still together last week.

Inject Beauty & The Geek into my veins. I am truly obsessed.

Originally posted here:
One Of The Geeks From BATG Had A Post Show Glow Up & Damn, I Could Cut Steak With That Jaw - Pedestrian TV

Matt Damon is copping mass backlash for revealing in an interview that fa**ot (a homophobic slur) was part of his vocabulary up until months ago when his daughter pointed out that its a fucked-up thing to say.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, he recounted dropping the word in conversation while at the table with his family.

The word that my daughter calls the f-slur for a homosexual was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application, he toldThe Times.

I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table. I said, Come on, thats a joke! I say it in the movieStuck on You!, Matt Damon added, referencing the 2003 film in which he plays a conjoined twin with Greg Kinnear.

She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, I retire the f-slur! I understood.

After the interview did the rounds online, folks on Twitter began calling him out for thinking it was okay to use it as of 2021. Come on, man..

Matt Damon actor has three daughters Isabella, 15, Gia, 12, and Stella, 10, with his wife of 16 years, Luciana Barroso.

It comes shortly after rapper DaBaby was called out for going on a gross homophobic rant at a recent performance.

According to avideo posted by TMZ, DaBaby encouraged the audience to hold up their phones, but only if they didnt show up today with HIV/AIDS or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that will make you die in two to three weeks, among other derogatory remarks about HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ people.

Following the backlash, DaBaby tried to defend the comments he made at the show via Instagram Live, but he dug himself an even deeper hole by making further offensive statements.

He denied that the rant was homophobic, but rather a call to action. He also said that his gay fans dont got fucking AIDS because they arent nasty or junkies.

Several stars have slammed his actions, including Dua Lipa and Madonna, and he has been subsequently dropped from Lollapalooza, Apple Music and Boohoo (to name a few).

Wonder if Matt Damon will cop similar repercussions

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Matt Damon Is Copping A Pasting After Revealing He Used The Homophobic F Word Until Recently - Pedestrian TV

5 July 2021

It is becoming clear that our gene functions are influenced by a variety of epigeneticfactors throughout our lives and even before we are conceived. Environmental context may affect gene expression and which genes are 'activated' or not in children conceived via IVFmay be influenced by the dietary and lifestyle habits of an embryo's parents or grandparents, as well as by the culture medium in which eggs and embryos are kept in vitro. These findings have implications for the way we think about fertility, assisted reproduction, and genetic identity.

Epigenetics and bioethics of human embryonic development is a multidisciplinary project that spans disciplinary boundaries in order to better understand how scientists, clinicians, patients, and society should respond to these challenges. The project is funded by the University of Oslo Life Sciences, as part of its convergence environments initiative which has seeninterdisciplinary research groups formed to address major health and environmental challenges faced. The project started in 2017, and is now drawing towards its close. Here, three of our project members explain their work within the project.

Trine Skuland is a developmental biologist who works on epigenetic regulation of early embryo development.

When an egg and a sperm unite to form a zygote, numerous events need to be coordinated in order to achieve successful development. Out of the ~30,000 human genes, the right selection has to be switched on/off at the appropriate time point. No wonder these events are error-prone!

Upon fertilisation, extensive reprogramming happens in order to reset the epigenetic marks of the egg and the sperm DNA, and to set up a new pattern that is compatible with further embryo development. Epigenetic marks are chemical groups that are attached either to the DNA itself or to the proteins the DNA wraps around inside the cell nucleus. The pattern of these epigenetic marks will decide whether genes are activated or silenced.

When an embryo reaches the eight-cell stage, one of the most critical events takes place. This is when the first major set of genes is activated. My team is currently studying one specific epigenetic mark that we think is important for the embryonic genome activation and we hope our research will contribute in further characterisation of epigenetic factors involved in this crucial part of embryo development.

Our aim is to find another piece of the big genome activation puzzle in order to get a more complete picture of what is necessary for normal embryo development. This is as more than half of the embryos created during assisted reproduction develop abnormally and have to be discarded. Our ultimate goal is giving infertile people higher quality embryos to increase their chances of becoming parents.

Birgit Kvernflaten is a medical anthropologist who looks at prospective parents' experiences of assisted reproductive technologies.

My role in the project is to explore prospective parents' experiences and perspectives of practices and treatments used in assisted reproduction.It starts from the idea that their experiences do not take place in a vacuum, but are shaped within a particular socio-cultural and political context. The project further aims to explore and understand prospective parents' experiences and perceptions of the status of the embryo, embryo donation, research, and selection, in light of increased epigenetic knowledge.

This project has highlighted how prospective parents' experiences of infertility treatment are related to and shaped by social and cultural discourses on Norwegian family life.

In Norway, biological or genetic ties are considered central to people's understanding of kinship and identity, shaping couples' negotiations about gamete donation, family, relationships, and responsibilities. Yet people's understanding of genes is also ambiguous. As for the concept of epigenetics; it seems it has not yet entered the public's imagination.

Although the role of environmental factors in shaping who we are is acknowledged in Norwegian society, couples tend to view genetics in a rather deterministic way, in that they believe it shapes both looks, personality, and risk of disease. While difficult to truly grasp, the role of genetics is central to people's ideas about reproduction and parenthood. New epigenetic knowledge raises questions about the interface between nature and nurture, as well as opening up discussion related to the role mothers and their bodies play in determining the health of future offspring.

Joona Rsnenis a bioethicist who works on the philosophical and ethical implications of epigenetics.

Epigenetics raises challenging ethical issues throughout the human life cycle. Epigenetic transmission from one generation to the next may raise questions of moral responsibility of parents and grandparents. Epigenetics plays an important role in a range of chronic diseases, such as diabetes. Our lifestyle habits during pregnancy and even before, may influence whether our future children will live healthy lives or suffer from lifelong illness.

It is commonly known that we should eat healthily for our own sake, but these developments in our understanding of epigenetic could imply that we should eat healthily for the sake of our future children as well. Does this demand too much of future parents?

Epigenetics seems to put prospective parents under pressure since they would be partly responsible for their future child's health even before the child is conceived. Pregnant women are often advised to abstain from alcohol and tobacco, but maybe it is worth reminding them to eat healthily as well and this advice applies not only to future mothers, but to prospective fathers too, since epigenetic inheritance occurs through the male germline as well.

Conclusion

The interplay between science, anthropology, and philosophy in the context of epigenetics is complex.Skuland notes that a key aim for scientists working to unravel the epigenetic mechanisms involved in early embryo development, is to fulfil the needs of IVF patients to have their 'own' child. Dr Kvernflaten shows how genetics is central to patients' ideas about kinship and identity, yet epigenetics is still something unfamiliar to most prospective parents. Rsnen's example suggests that if parents did take on board some of the moral implications of epigenetics, they might find that the scope of their responsibility for future offspring is dramatically expanded.

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Epigenetics and bioethics of human embryonic development: a birds' eye perspective - BioNews

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Harappan seals, pottery, figurines and animal bones reveal many real and mythical animalsdog, tiger, birds, wild ass, unicorn, humped bull, elephant, rhinoceros, water buffalo, short-horned humpless bull, goat, antelope, crocodile and harebut not horse, one-humped camel or donkey. The horse appears in the subcontinent after the collapse of the Harappan Civilization. It likely arrived in numbers along with the Aryans from Central Asia, a horse-riding nomadicpastoralist people with perhaps some knowledge of crops. What also accompanied them was their language and religion: proto-Sanskrit, proto-Vedas and Vedic godsmostly male gods, such as Indra, Agni, Mitra, Varuna, Rudra and Surya, and a few female gods, such as Usha and Prithvi. They used iron, revered fire and the cow (though they also slaughtered it and ate beef), and preferred cremating the dead. By the time these Aryan herders entered the subcontinentin the middle centuries of the second millennium BCEurban Harappans had largely dissolved into rural life.

Notably, the Vedic lore of the Aryans mentions defensive armour, weapons, chariots and warfare against dark-skinned foes named Dasas. But the Dasas were not Harappans, who no longer lived in fortified cities by the time the Aryans reached the Indus Valley. Based on the styles of Dasa forts described in the Rig Veda, Parpola and others have argued that the Dasas were proto-Sakas, a pastoralist group of the Central Asian steppes, and the major fights between the Aryans and the Dasas probably took place not in the Indus Valley but in the Indo-Iranian borderlands, en route to the Indus Valley. Nor does the description of the Saraswati River in the Rig Veda fit the Ghaggar-Hakra River that dried up c. 2000 BCE, and instead maps on to the river called Haraxvaiti (in Avestan) or Harahuvati (in Old Persian), which is very likely the Arghandab River, or less likely the Helmand River, both in modern Afghanistan.

After the arrival of the Aryans to the Indus Valley, the locals (rural descendants of the Harappans) probably saw them as an aggressive bunch and their encounters were likely not all peaceful. One indicator of this is the very skewed genetic footprint of the Aryan male in later populations, despite the fact that, like all migrating groups, they had come with entire families. According to a scientific study in 2017, Genetic influx from Central Asia in the Bronze Age was strongly male-driven, consistent with the patriarchal, patrilocal and patrilineal social structure attributed to the inferred pastoralist early Indo-European society. Further, while archaeologists havent found any telltale signs of war or invasion, its reasonable to expect that the locals would have initially resisted the imposition of the Aryan language, religion and culture, since thats how such encounters usually play out.

Also read: Indias native horses disappeared by 8000 BC. But Rig Veda mentions them more than the cow

The Aryans also brought with them a form of social hierarchy with priests at the topa proto-varna system without endogamy (i.e., marrying only within a specific social group). They had no linguistic script and the need for it was reduced due to the lack of an urban civilization. The priests may also have impeded the rise of a script that might have democratized their oral chants and deflated their esoteric powers. Notably, such instincts seem alien to the Harappan ethos, given the ubiquity of the artefacts with their script on them. For instance, their script often appears as graffiti-like scribbles on stone blocks in non-elite parts of Dholavira, and as messages stamped on pottery items used by ordinary people (possibly brand or ownership details?).

After a millennium of mixing and migration in the subcontinent, numerous sites arose in the Gangetic Plain, whose settlers had learnt to fire a more durable and sophisticated series of ceramics known as painted gray ware (PGW), writes historian Sudipta Sen. They evolved social formations in which clans, lineages, and tribes began to yield to new ruling councils and kings. From this came new urban life, hybrid cultures, languages, pantheons and religio-spiritual ideas that we now associate with mid-first millennium BCE India. These developments had strong contributions from both the Aryan and the Harappan substrates. New political and social conflicts en route also seem to have inspired many of the stories in the great epic Mahabharata.

Could the Harappan social hierarchy have included endogamy based on occupation, i.e., a proto-caste system? Did a hereditary group of manual scavengers clean the sullage jars of Dholavira homes? Current archaeology and genetics consider this unlikely (more ancient DNA analysis of Harappans may provide conclusive evidence). Scientists trace the earliest instances of endogamy to the first millennium BCE, probably more than a millennium after the Aryan migration into the subcontinent; mixing of populations was the norm until then. Thereafter, mixing coexisted with a few groups practicing endogamy, which eventually led to a more widely endogamous caste system.

But can we say which cultural substratethe Aryan or the Harappandrove the creation of the caste system? A strong clue comes from the fact that Aryan genes register far more strongly in the higher castes, who are also lighter skinned on average. Further, DNA evidence has shown that endogamy first appeared and became the norm among upper castes and Indo-European speakers. Indeed, as many scholars have long argued, the roots of the Indian caste system almost certainly trace back to the Aryan substrate.

Also read: Was Harappa wet or arid? Rhinos hold a clue

Further, patriarchal practices like Sati, too, appear to be a legacy of the Aryan substrate. Satis earliest noted occurrence in India dates to the fourth century BCE, as recorded by two first-century-BCE writers, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo. Though now mostly associated with India, sati also occurred back then in the Near East and Europe, among descendants of earlier migrants of the root proto-Indo-European culture, the Yamnayaalso the parent culture of the Indo-Aryans. In the fifth century BCE, Greek historian Herodotus wrote about a Thracian tribe where the most beloved wife of a dead husbanddeemed so by family and friends, and intended to be a coveted honourwas sacrificed and buried with him.

A century later, the Thracian wife of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, was burned on her husbands funeral pyre, as per the custom of her people. In the first century CE, Roman historian Tacitus observed that in a Germanic tribe (descended from the Yamnaya), the wife refused to survive her husband, but killed herself in order to be burnt on the same funeral pyre as him. He noted that many other tribes disliked widow remarriage. In the tenth century CE, Arab historian Al Masudi noted sati among Slavic and Russian tribes (also descended from the Yamnaya) in the Caucasus region and in India. Such funerary customs have a distinctly patriarchal script. Theyre qualitatively different from those of ancient Egyptians, where servants were sometimes sacrificed and buried with an important man. Sati was likely alien to the Harappans, but in the mixed culture that arose later, it gained a foothold among the warrior elites and became part of the Indo- Aryan cultural legacy in the subcontinent.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, however, cultural chauvinism reared its ugly head in the scholarship of Indian prehistory. A host of Hindu nationalists and motivated scholars (almost entirely brown or white Hindu men) began championing an alternative view of the Aryan migration, arguing that there was no Aryan migration at all! That the Aryans and the Harappans were one people, both fully indigenous. They claimed that the proto-Indo-European language family, of which Sanskrit is a part, was created by these indigenous folks and taken to the westthe Out of India Theory (OIT). This also implied that the Harappans spoke proto-Sanskrit and codified it in their as-yet-undeciphered script, that they composed the Rig Veda, which describes their own fortified cities like Dholavira. Such bogus scholarship, as is now amply clear, has fed hordes of middlebrow Hindutva ideologues since the 1980s. Armed with little knowledge and misplaced pride, well-heeled urban Hindus began to confidently assert that the Aryan Migration Theory was discredited. Countless websites carry this fake news.

In fact, the controversy about Aryan migration was never an honest disagreement among scholars. Parpola, for instance, has long considered it impossible that the Vedic Aryans were indigenous to South Asia. The massive weight of evidence from linguistics, philology, and archaeologythough it had gaps that its rivals tried to exploit has long favoured whats now being proven or refined by population archaeogenetics, a field whose impact on ancient history may end up being as significant as radiocarbon dating (1949).

The OIT was motivated by bad politics rather than by good scholarship.

This excerpt from Indians: A Brief History Of A Civilization by Namit Arora has been published with permission from Penguin Random House India.

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Aryans or HarappansWho drove the creation of caste system? DNA holds a clue - ThePrint

CONSERVATIONISTS at Dudley Zoo and Castle are playing a major role in helping to secure the future of endangered black lemurs.

Senior figures at the Castle Hill attraction have been managing the European Endangered Species Programme for black lemurs for almost two decades, first overseen by zoo director Derek Grove before curator Richard Brown took over the reins in 2015.

But Richard is now not just the co-ordinator of the entire European captive population, but hes also overseeing the International Studbook and studying the genetic make-up of captive black lemurs as far afield as America and Japan.

He said: Its really exciting to have a bigger gene pool of the captive black lemur population to work with.

Im now overseeing 350 black lemurs in more than 75 collections worldwide, studying their genetics and making recommendations about which of these lemurs are suitable for exchanges or breeding.

Zoo registrar Nicola Wright has also been helping with the Studbook and collates details of all births, deaths and transfers within collections as well as identifying surplus animals.

Richard added: Its crucial for the survival of the species that we keep the gene pool viable, so we have to get the genetics right when matching pairs together.

We have to identify who is genetically closely related, to avoid in-breeding and prevent any defects.

Its a really interesting task and hopefully the new role may also open up the potential for us here at DZC working with Japanese zoos in the future.

Lemurs can live up to 30 years in captivity and, on average, they make between one and two moves throughout their lifetime.

The zoo has a breeding pair, Florence and Bryan, and their three-year-old offspring, Jimmy.

Ten-year-old Florence moved to Dudley in 2016 from Bioparc Fuengirola in Spain, while, Bryan, aged 15, relocated to the Midlands from Luxembourg in 2009 after originally being born in France.

The pairs first offspring, daughter Kimmy, who was born at DZC in 2017 and was the zoos first black lemur birth in a decade, was moved to Planckendael Zoo in Belgium in 2019 after Richard successfully matched her to a male there.

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Dudley Zoo staff are part of global effort to protect endangered black lemurs - Dudley News

Living to be 100 used to be a novelty, so much so that Willard Scott, the Today Show weatherman, would announce your name on air in awe (Al Roker still does). Yet, these days it's not so uncommon to live that long. We're all living longer than ever. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently pegs 78 years of age as the average life expectancy. That's not too shabby considering a century ago people lived to be around 39 (due to an influenza outbreak).

But what if we could push it 25 years more?

Worldwide, there are nearly 500,000 people who have made, or surpassed, the 100-mark, and this number is projected to grow to 3.7 million by 2050. Here, Eat This, Not That! Health rounds-up the latest research that'll not only help you to live to be triple digits, but ensure you're happy doing so. Read onand to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these 19 Ways You're Ruining Your Body, Say Health Experts.

Don't down a bottle of Jgermeister in hopes of a long life ahead. But a glass of red wine, by all means. "Our research shows that light-to-moderate drinking might have some protective effects against cardiovascular disease," says Bo Xi, MD, associate professor at the Shandong University School of Public Health in China and the lead author of a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, "while heavy drinking can lead to death. A delicate balance exists between the beneficial and detrimental."

The Rx: Red wine contains antioxidants, can lower cholesterol, reduces the risk of stroke and increases bone density. Enjoy one to two glasses a day if you wish.

Eating meat less than once a week may increase longevity by 3.6 years, according to a study published in the American Journal of Nutrition. Another 22-year study out of Finland found increased mortality and disease among individuals with higher animal protein intakes.

The Rx: If you must eat meat, opt for leaner proteins (chicken, turkey, lean cuts of beef) and keep off the bacon and sausages since diets heavy in processed meats are linked to higher risk of cancer and heart disease. Otherwise, explore the exciting new world of plant-based nutrition, with a product like Beyond Meat, made with pea protein.

Be mindful of your surroundings, and what you're breathing in. Everything from Benzene (found in gasoline), smoke, and other toxins can lead to cell degeneration and increase mortality rates, studies show.

The Rx: Don't miss this essential list of 100 Ways Your Home Could be Making You Sick.

Olive oil, veggies, fruits, nuts, seafood and a moderate amount of wine and cheesewe've all heard the Mediterranean diet is the secret to a longer life. In fact, numerous studies have linked the diet to improving brain health and function, lower risk of cancer and other diseases.

The Rx: Now it's time you tried it. Eat almonds, hummus, wild salmon, garlic, lemon, quinoa, cauliflower, chia seeds and olives frequently. Eat eggs, Skyr, and chicken moderately. And eat red meat rarely. Avoid entirely the packaged, processed, store-bought items that are loaded with additives.

RELATED: 9 Everyday Habits That Might Lead to Dementia, Say Experts

Gene variants found in centenarians have been linked to their longer lives. A healthy lifestyle can help people live into old age, but these genes help maintain basic maintenance and function of the body's cells in individuals of advanced age, in their 80s and beyond.

The Rx: You can't outrun genetics but you can learn about yours. Consider taking a DNA test, in which you'll learn about your proclivity to certain diseases.

Japan is doing something right! It currently holds the title of longest life span, according to the World Health Organization. This may have something to do with the size of their plates. When it comes to diet, the Japanese tend to eat smaller portionsspecifically the size of a salad plateand don't overstuff themselves. Centenarians studied in Okinawa stop eating when they are 80 percent full. They also tend to live seven years longer than Americans, according to a study, and have fewer cases of heart disease and cancer.

The Rx: Experiment with the 80% rule. Or at the very least, don't keep eating when you feel full.

Don't work so hard; your life depends on it. A Finnish study followed male businessman born between 1919 and 1934, and found that those who didn't sleep enough, were overworked, and didn't take enough time off (i.e. vacation) were 37 percent more likely to die between the years of 1974 and 2004. By 2015, some of the oldest participants, who always took their vacay, reached 81 to 96 years of age.

The Rx: Our current culture rewards non-stop go-and-do work. But at what cost? If you have vacation days, use them to unplug, and be firm with your boss if you must. He'll value your work more if you're alive than dead.

RELATED: The #1 Reason You Could Get Cancer, According to Science

Each hour you binge Netflix, Hulu, HBOthe list goes onafter the age of 25 may cut your life by 22 minutes, according to research out of the University of Queensland, Australia. Those who spent an average of six hours in front of the tube per day were also likely to die five years earlier than those that didn't watch TV at all.

The Rx: There are other reasons to stop clicking "next episode." They can be addictive and eat up your time. (Robert De Niro is currently suing an ex-employee because he watched 55 episodes of Friends in a row.) Enjoy your One Day at a Timeone episode at a time.

A study out of the University of Naples found that too little or too much sleepsleeping less or more than six to eight hours on averageis linked to a 30 percent higher chance of premature death.

The Rx: Seven to eight hours of shuteye is the sweet spot.

RELATED: This Supplement Can Raise Your Heart Attack Risk, Experts Say

Packed with vitamin C and other nutrients, studies have found mustards, also known as Brassicaceae, will keep you around longer, according to researchers.

The Rx: Enojy cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radishes, watercress, Brussels sprouts and a few spices like horseradish, wasabi and, yes, white, Indian and black mustard.

Hey, none of us are getting out of this alive, but that's no reason to keep that sour mug. Researchers examined smile intensity among photos of baseball players from the 1950s. Of the players who had died in the years 2006 to 2009, those who were not smiling in those photos lived an average of 72.9 years, while the big smilers lived nearly 80 years. They concluded that there's a clear link between smiling intensity and longevity.

The Rx: Men, stop telling women to smile. It's demeaning and implies they're subservient. However, given the impact on our health (mental and otherwise), we could all stand to turn that frown upside down.

Old dogs can't learn new tricks but you can. Education, coupled with a healthy weight, leads to a longer life expectancy, revealed a study out of the University of Edinburgh, with almost a year added to your life for each year spent studying beyond school.

The Rx: Pull a Dangerfield and go back to schooleven if it's just an herbalism course, knitting class or continuing ed program.

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Avoid certain jobs, some of the deadliest out there, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, if you want to stick around longer. On the flip side, find a job you love. You'll be happier, longer, which can impact you positively long-term.

The Rx: Truck driver, farmers and construction laborers are among the most dangerous, mainly owing to vehicular accidents.

Country life is serene, but the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging found that living in a major city can also support longer life spans because of stronger health systems, and more access to learning, arts, culture, and other healthy stimulants.

The Rx: Eat This, Not That! Health is based in New York City and our editors can attest living here indeed makes you feel young, although struggling to afford it might age you. Weigh the fantasy versus reality before any leaps.

Good relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, a Harvard study revealed. Another study in Personal Relationships looked at 270,000 people in nearly 100 countries with a strong link to better health in older age among those with strong friend and family connections.

The Rx: Send a "friend request" to someone you'd like to be closer toand meet them in person, not just online.

Compared with persons with a normal body mass index (18.5 to 25), those who are underweight, overweight, and obese have an increased risk of death over a 30-year period. Being too underweight, or at the extreme, obese, can impact health significantly over time, show studies.

The Rx: A book like Zero Belly Diet can help you cut dairy, reduce bloat, stay plant-based and be leaner for life.

Stay away from men. That's what centenarian Jessie Gallan, at one time Scotland's oldest woman, credited for her longevity. "They're more trouble than they're worth," she said in an interview before her death in 2015. Granted, Gallan was a tough woman without or without a man. She started working at the age of 13 and spent her 109 years staying fit and having good people in her life but never walked down the aisle.

The Rx: There's no definitive research supporting a link between marriage and longevity one way or the other, although one study found that "current marriage is associated with longer survival. Among the not married categories, having never been married was the strongest predictor of premature mortality." Our advice: Marry the person you want to spend your life with, and give one another room to grow.

If you want to live longer, make sure you and your spouse are happy. A study published by the Association for Psychological Science found that a happy marriage can lead to a longer life.

The Rx: A good marriage is linked to a more active life and healthier habits, overall. How's your relationship?

RELATED: The #1 Cause of Obesity, According to Science

As stressful as parenthood gets at times, having kids can actually keep you around longer since it encourages a healthier lifestyleyou're more likely to give up smoking and stay active, shows one study.

The Rx: Don't have children just to live longer. But if you do have or want kids, remember that your habits become theirs. Set the example.

Keep a good pace. Brisk walking will keep your heart healthy and add some years to your life, according to a recent Mayo Clinic study. Researchers reported that women who walked more quickly had a life span of about 87 years compared to 72 years for women who walked slowly. Meanwhile, men who walked quickly had a life span of about 86 years compared to 65 years for men who walked more slowly.

The Rx: "Walking is man's best medicine," said Hippocrates. Get steppin'.

A handful of nuts a day may keep the doctor away, according to Harvard University research, which found that people who crunch some nuts daily lived 20 percent longer than those who didn't.

The Rx: Our favorite is almonds. Besides being an easy go-to snack that you can whip out of your bag during a good ol' 9-5 shift, almonds are also chock-full of essential vitamins and minerals, with vitamin E and biotin being the most predominant. Those nutrients enable your skin to remain smooth and gives your lush hair and strong nails the nutrition they need to flourish.

Don't stopever! The moment you become stagnant, things may go downhill. Stay active. A 2016 study found that elderly people who exercised for just 15 minutes a day, at an intensity level of a brisk walk, had a 22 percent lower risk of early death compared to people who don't exercise.

The Rx: "For most healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends these exercise guidelines: Get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity a week, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity," reports the Mayo Clinic.

To quote Dr. Nelly of Nellyville: It's getting hot in here. Frequent spicy food consumption is linked to a longer life. Those who eat spicy foods nearly every day have a 14 percent chance of living longer, according to a Harvard study. Capsaicin and other compounds in chili peppers have been linked to fighting cancer, obesity, and more.

The Rx: Sprinkle some cayenne pepper into your eggs every morning, for a one-two punch of protein and spice.

RELATED: Signs You're Getting One of the "Most Deadly" Cancers.

Researchers at the Carleton University in Canada say that having a sense of purpose may add more years to your life, because of positive relations and emotions and overall well-being.

The Rx: Start small. Rather than ask yourself, "Why am I here? What is my place in the Universe" ask yourself, "What can I do today that will make me feel like I've enriched my life, or the lives of others?"

Yoga can help improve digestion, calm the nervous system, lower blood sugar, and so many other tangible benefits. It's no wonder researchers say it will help increase your overall life span.

The Rx: Get your chaturanga on! There's no doubt a yoga studio near you, with teachers who will welcome first-timers. For long-timers, consider a retreat.

Taking care of your teeth and gums isn't just about preventing cavities or bad breath. The mouth is the gateway to the body's overall health. Not flossing allows plaque to build up, which then turns into tartar that can eventually irritate the gums, which can lead to various infections and disease over time. Researchers followed more than 5,400 people for 18 years and found that those who did not brush their teeth daily had a 22 to 65 percent greater risk of dementia than those who brushed three times a day.

The Rx: The American Dental Association recommends brushing your teeth twice a day. Use fluoride toothpaste, and brush for two minutes.

Coffee is packed with tons of healthy compounds, including antioxidants, which can protect the body against cellular damage that can lead to disease, studies show.

The Rx: Drinking four to five cups daily is also associated with a reduced risk of early death.

This one is pretty self explanatory. An active lifestyle will keep you around longer. Exercising at a moderate level for at least 150 minutes can add on 3.4 years to your life, according to the National Institute of Health.

The Rx: Try one of these 25 Easy Exercises That Boost Your Health Fast. They really work.

Helping others can only make you feel good, and it helps boost overall mental health throughout time, which impacts the body's immunity to fight disease, according to a study published in BMC Public Health.

The Rx: Animal rescue shelters, national parks, Habitat for Humanity, local libraries, political campaigns and the YMCA are a few places that rarely say no to help.

RELATED: Sure Signs You Had COVID and Didn't Know It

Studies show sex releases endorphins and hormones in the body, which can help combat feelings of loneliness and depression, keep you physically active, reduce stress relieving, and boost mental wellness.

The Rx: Take this advice seriously. Having sex is one of theSimplest Ways to Avoid a Heart Attack, Say Doctors.

Are there stairs nearby? Good. Use them. The European Society of Cardiology released a study showing how brisk movement, particularly being able to climb three flights quickly, can reduce your risk of early death from cardiovascular and oncologic, and other diseases.

The Rx: Skip the elevators and escalators, and track your steps with a fitness watch, if you need more motivation.

The sweet stuff won't get you far in lifeliterally. Too much sugar is linked to shorter life spans, according to one study. Sugar has even been linked to reprogramming how our genes function. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that about 14% of the daily calories the average Ameican consumes comes from added sugars. And it shows. According to a Population Health Management publication, the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes increased more than three times between 1990 and 2010. This just so happens to be the same years sugar starting becoming more prevalent in our food.

The Rx: A book like Sugar Free 3 can teach you how to identify added sugarsand how to give them up.

Get in touch with your spiritual side. People who attend religious services, or have some spiritual connection, typically experience lower levels of anxiety, depression, have lower blood pressure, and are generally in better health. An 18-year study published in PLOS One found that regular service attendance was linked to reductions in the body's stress responses, and worshippers were 55 percent less likely to die.

The Rx: You read that right: 55 percent less likely to die. Start by defining what spirituality means to you, and then see if there's a community that supports that common interest.

If you're not connected to a particular religion, you can still find your spiritual balance through meditation. Not only does it improve mental health, but meditating has been linked to a lower risk of cancer and other diseases, according to a study from the University of California-Davis, which found that regular meditation produces higher levels of telomerase, an enzyme that helps lengthen the telomeres in our chromosomes, which impact aging.

The Rx: Apps like Insight Timer, Headspace and Calm have taken meditating mainstream; try one. One of our favorite apps is 10% Happier, from ABC News man-turned-meditator Dan Harris.

If you know how to laugh at things, you'll live longer. A 15-year study out of Norway assessed the link between a sense of humor and mortality rates among 53,556 men and women and found that women who had a good sense of humor lived longer, despite illnesses, including cardiovascular disease; cheerful men faired just as well with laughter protecting them from infection.

The Rx: We've been obsessed with the funniest lines from HBO's Successionand aren't even sure it's a comedy!

RELATED: Everyday Habits That Make You Look Older, According to Science

Want to live to 85 or longer? Optimistic thinking can add years on to your life, say researchers at Boston University School of Medicine. Optimistic people can better regulate emotions so we can bounce back from stressors and difficulties more effectively.

The Rx: Technically, the glass is always half full. The other half is air.

Creativity keeps the brain healthy and may decrease mortality rates. Researchers agree. Creative people just tend to live longer.

The Rx: Remember this, if something's blocking you: You don't have to be "creative" to create.

Be good to yourself. Self compassion goes a long way, say researchers. It's associated with better moods, can improve body image, and is linked to happiness, optimism, wisdom, personal initiative, and more. Overall, it improves our entire mental health, which keeps our body more resilient to stress and illnesses.

The Rx: Did we mention we love that thing you said today? So smart! So funny! So wise.

People who eat fiber-rich foods, including some good 'ole oatmeal or porridge, cut their risk of dying from cardiovascular, infectious, and respiratory diseases by 24 to 56 percent in men and by 34 percent to 59 percent in women, shows one study.

The Rx: Buy "regular" oatmeal and add berries for sweetness. Anything else may be loaded with dangerous added sugars.

Owning a dog is linked to a longer life, according to researchers out of Uppsala University in Sweden, who reviewed national registry records of 3.4. million men and women, ages 40 to 80.

If you're a cat person, you'll get some extra years from kitties as well. A study by the Minnesota Stroke Institute found that people who owned cats were 30 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack.

The Rx: We mentioned volunteering at the ASPCA. If you feel truly capable of caring for a pet, discuss taking one home. We like these questions from Nylabone:

Get back to basics with food. Those who incorporate more whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and fish and limiting too much sodium, unhealthy fats, excess red meat, sugar, and processed foods, improved their overall health and life expectancy.

The Rx: For the web's #1 nutrition resource, and to make the right food choice every time, head to Eat This, Not That!

Does longevity run in your family? Dig deeper into your family history, including lifestyle habits, illnesses, deaths, and beyond. It may help us tap into how long we ultimately have here.

The Rx: Put together a family treewith dates of birth, death, and causes.

Tea contains flavonoids, a compound that works to boost health. One study found that 88 percent of women were 40 percent more likely to live longer because they drank two cups of tea per day.

The Rx: Go green. The most potent catechin in green tea is EGCG, the powerhouse compound that's responsible for most of green tea's weight loss properties. In addition to revving your metabolism and boosting the breakdown of fat, EGCG can also block the formation of new fat cells.

Read more:
Simple Ways to Never Age, According to Experts | Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

Patients with germline and/or homozygous tumor DNA damage response (tDDR) alterations among male patients with heavily pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) were most likely to respond to treatment with the PARP inhibitor talazoparib (Talzenna), according to data from a retrospective ad hoc exploratory subgroup analysis presented during the 2021 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting.1

The open-label, international phase 2 TALAPRO-1 trial (NCT03148795) examined single-agent oral talazoparib at 1 mg daily in patients with mCRPC previously treated with taxane-based chemotherapy, as well as abiraterone acetate (Zytiga)/prednisone), enzalutamide (Xtandi), or both hormonal agents. All patients had at least 1 homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene alteration from a panel of 11 genes (HRR11) likely to sensitize their tumor to PARP inhibition: ATM,ATR,BRCA1, BRCA2,CHEK2,FANCA,MLH1,MRE11A,NBN,PALB2,RAD51C.

The data cutoff was September 4, 2020, and the primary end point was objective response rate (ORR) by blinded independent central review (BICR). The study met its primary end point as the final analysis showed that among 104 patients in the efficacy population, the ORR by BICR was 29.8% (n = 31).

The strongest antitumor effect was observed in patients with BRCA alterations, with a confirmed ORR of 45.9% and a median radiographic progression-free survivalof 11.2 months, said Johann de Bono, MB, ChB, FRCP, MSc, PhD, FMedSci, head of drug development at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

Talazoparib also induced objective responses in patients with non-BRCA HRR gene alterations, including PALB2 and ATM alterations.

Both the antitumor activity and tolerability was promising [with talazoparib] for this heavily pretreated population of mCRPC patients, said de Bono.

Regarding the ad hoc analyses presented during the AACR meeting, de Bono said, We explored the importance of germline versus somatic origin and the zygosity of these DNA repair defects [in association with] response.

De Bono explained, Characterization of alteration origin was based on a comparison of DNA sequences from matched tumor and saliva samples. FoundationOne was used to test tumor tissue and Ambry Genetics CustomNext-Cancerpanel was used to test saliva. The somatic-germline-zygosity (SGZ) computational algorithm established by Sun et al2 was used to predict zygosity.

Both the characterization of origin and zygosity prediction were limited to short variants. The analysis was focused on the HRR-altered measurable disease population, defined as patients who had measurable soft-tissue disease at screening and a DNA-repair gene defect presumed to directly or indirectly sensitize [the tumor] to PARP inhibition as assessed in the HRR11 core gene panel, and had received at least 1 dose of talazoparib, said de Bono.

The assessment of tumor alterations by origin showed that 25 were germline, 43 were somatic, and 33 were unknown or not evaluable.

BRCA2 and ATM were the most commonly altered genes. The BRCA2 alterations were evenly split between germline and somatic, at 13 versus 19, respectively. In contrast, the ATM alterations tended to be somatic in origin, said de Bono.

Among 25 patients with germline alterations, the ORR was 28% (n = 7), comprising 1 CR and 6 PRs. An additional 10 patients had stable disease (SD), 6 patients had progressive disease (PD), and 2 patients were not evaluable.

The ORR was 25.6% (n = 11) among 43 patients with somatic mutations; this included 3 CRs and 8 PRs. Another 16 patients reached SD, 9 had PD, and 5 were not evaluable. Two other patients were categorized by the investigators as non-CR/non-PD.

ORRs were similar for germline and somatic alterations, said de Bono.

In the BRCA2 subpopulation, among 13 patients with germline BRCA2 alterations, the ORR was 53.8% (n = 7), comprising 1 CR and 6 PRs. An additional 5 patients had SD and 1 patient was not evaluable.

The ORR was 36.8% (n = 7) among 19 patients with somatic BRCA2 alterations; this included 2 CRs and 5 PRs. Another 6 patients reached SD, 2 patients had non-CR/non-PD, 2 patients had PD, and 2 patients were not evaluable.

As expected, for the BRCA2-altered tumors we saw the highest ORR, independent of germline versus somatic origin, said de Bono.

The assessment of the prevalence of tumor alterations by zygosity across all HRR11 alterations found that 30 were homozygous, 30 were heterozygous, and 13 were not evaluable.

Among 30 patients with homozygous alterations, the ORR was 40% (n = 12), comprising 3 CRs and 9 PRs. An additional 9 patients had SD, 2 patients had non-CR/non-PD, 6 patients had PD, and 1 patient was not evaluable.

The ORR was 13.3% (n = 4) among the 30 patients with heterozygous alterations; this included 1 CR and 3 PRs. Another 12 patients reached SD, 10 had PD, and 4 patients were not evaluable.

The ORR was significantly higher for homozygous alterations. Interestingly, the short variants not evaluable for SGZ prediction (n = 32) exhibited an ORR (40.6%) similar to homozygous alterations, although the interpretation of these data are unclear, said de Bono.

Regarding zygosity in the BRCA2 subgroup, alterations were primarily homozygous; there were 18 homozygous and 9 heterozygous alterations. This breakdown contrasted with some of the other variants, such as CHEK2, in which the alterations were mainly heterozygous.

In the 18-patient BRCA2 homozygous group, the ORR was 50% (n = 9), comprising 2 CRs and 7 PRs. An additional 5 patients had SD, 2 had non-CR/non-PD, 1 had PD, and 1 patient was not evaluable.

Among the 9 BRCA2 patients with heterozygous alterations, the ORR was 44.4% (n = 4), comprising 1 CR and 3 PRs. Another 2 patients reached SD, 1 had PD, and 2 patients were not evaluable.

The ORR was higher for BRCA2 patients, independent of detectable zygosity. The difference in response by zygosity observed in the BRCA2 subset and the larger HRR panel does suggest a higher ORR for homozygous loss across the DNA repair genes and may reflect differences in zygosity distribution between the genes. For example, we saw 1 homozygous, 6 heterozygous, and 3 non-evaluable alterations for CHEK2, explained de Bono.

Summarizing his discussion, de Bono said, Based on this retrospective ad hoc exploratory analysis in this heavily pretreated mCRPC population, patients with diverse DDR alterations demonstrated responses to talazoparib monotherapy.

Based on analysis of short variants, tumors exhibiting homozygous DDR alterations were more likely to respond to talazoparib than those with heterozygous DDR alterations. Potential explanations include gene-specific imbalances in zygosity of alterations and/or sensitivity to talazoparib, but further investigation in a larger data set is needed, de Bono added.

Reference

1. de Bono JS, Laird AD, Mehra N, et al. TALAPRO-1 final data: Talazoparib (TALA) monotherapy in men with DNA damage response alterations (DDRalt) and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)exploration of DDRalt germline/somatic origin and zygosity. Presented at: 2021 AACR Virtual Annual Meeting Week 1; April 10-15, 2021. Abstract CT027

2. Sun JX, He Y, Sanford E, et al. A computational approach to distinguish somatic vs. germline origin of genomic alterations from deep sequencing of cancer specimens without a matched normal. PLoS Comput Biol. 2018;14(2):e1005965. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005965

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Talazoparib Most Likely to Inhibit Response in Men With Heavily Pretreated mCRPC - Cancer Network

SECAUCUS, N.J. and HELSINKI, Finland, April 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and Blueprint Genetics announced today that they will present results of 10 studies at the virtual 2021 American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) Annual Meeting, to be held April 1316, 2021. These studies demonstrate the value of a broad range of genomic sequencing and other technologies to help diagnose several inherited disorders across various medical specialties.

In January 2020, Quest Diagnostics acquired Blueprint Genetics, a leading specialty genetic testing company with deep expertise in gene variant detection using next generation sequencing (NGS), proprietary bioinformatics, and clinical interpretation. Since that time, Quest and Blueprint Genetics have broadened access to actionable insights in genetic disorders and inherited diseases for patient care and anticipatory management as well as pharmaceutical drug research and development and clinical trials, particularly in the United States.

"Genomic testing is an essential component of patient care as results can impact treatment and management on many levels. Too often, patients experience a diagnostic odyssey, spending months, years or even a lifetime searching for a diagnosis because they lack access to genomic testing insights," said Carrie Eglinton Manner, Senior Vice President, Advanced Diagnostics, Quest Diagnostics. "Quest and Blueprint Genetics are working together to bring innovative advanced diagnostics from test ordering to gene variant interpretation and clinical reporting to patient populations with unmet medical needs."

Featured studies focus on mitochondrial disease, hearing loss and skeletal dysplasias

Among the research is the study "Retrospective review of mitochondrial genome analysis in over 6600 cases using clinical grade mtDNA sequencing" (Poster: eP345), which demonstrates that including high-quality mitochondrial mtDNA analysis by next generation sequencing (NGS) in panels in multiple medical specialties increases the ability to make diagnoses for patients with mitochondrial disease. Mitochondrial disorders can be difficult to diagnose, as many of the symptoms, such as vision or hearing loss, seizures or poor muscle tone, can be mistaken for other diseases. While mitochondrial disorders have no cure, patients often do better when the underlying cause of their symptoms is diagnosed and addressed early.

"It's exciting to witness first-hand how mtDNA analysis increases diagnostic yields: Greater than a 1 percent increase in diagnostic yield, on average, across all panels, and a greater than 5 percent increase in multiple panels. The NGS-based technology we developed and extensively validated is specifically optimized for the detection of large mtDNA deletions and low levels of heteroplasmy. Mitochondrial disorders need to be considered in the diagnostic workflow for patients with suspected inherited disorders to provide more molecular diagnoses for all patients, not just those with complex presentations," said Jennifer Schleit, Blueprint Genetics Laboratory Director, North America.

Molecular genetic testing is now considered a standard part of the evaluation of hearing loss in infants. However, comprehensive genetic testing in hearing loss using standard NGS methods is complicated. A comprehensive testing strategy that includes difficult-to-sequence regions is needed for the most accurate diagnosis. A study titled "Next-generation sequencing panels for hereditary hearing loss testing with approaches for difficult-to-sequence regions" (Poster: eP345) demonstrates that the inclusion of difficult-to-sequence genes, such as STRC and OTOA, contributed to more than 10 percent of the diagnostic yield.

Another study, "Diagnostic utility of next-generation sequencing panel tests in the diagnosis of skeletal dysplasias" (Poster: eP346), found that NGS panels enabled diagnosis in 42 percent of patients. Skeletal dysplasias involve more than 450 heritable conditions that cause abnormalities of cartilage and bone, but diagnosis is challenging given significant overlap in symptoms. The analysis also demonstrated a diagnostic yield of 62 percent in prenatal cases, suggesting that testing in prenatal situations has significant clinical utility.

Abstracts can be accessed on the ACMG website.

Among the scientific and clinical work being presented at the meeting are:

Quest Diagnostics and Blueprint Genetics are improving patient outcomes through high-quality genomic testing. Quest Diagnostics is the leader in advanced diagnostics, including in genetics and genomics. The company offers more than 1,000 genetic tests, including whole exome sequencing, germline and somatic gene sequencing, noninvasive prenatal screening, pharmacogenomics as well as cytogenetics and biochemical genetic testing. With a global customer base in over 70 countries, Blueprint Genetics brings specialty genetics knowledge in sequencing and bioinformatics and variant interpretation and reporting to Quest, which complements and extends its existing genetics leadership. Quest Diagnostics' 600 MDs and PhDs and genetic counselors aid physicians in test selection and interpretation and publish hundreds of studies each year.

About Quest DiagnosticsQuest Diagnosticsempowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve health care management. Quest Diagnostics annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals intheUnited States, and our nearly 50,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. http://www.QuestDiagnostics.com.

About Blueprint GeneticsBlueprint Genetics, a Quest Diagnostics company, is a leading specialty genetics and bioinformatics company focused on providing genetic testing for inherited diseases. The company is based in Helsinki and Seattle, with a customer base spanning over 70 countries.www.blueprintgenetics.com

SOURCE Quest Diagnostics

http://www.questdiagnostics.com

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Quest Diagnostics and Blueprint Genetics to Present New Insights from Genetic Testing at the 2021 Annual American College of Medical Genetics and...