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The Club PUBlication 11/25/2019

11/25/2019

SCIENCE
565231422
Are you really only as old as you feel? New research suggests yes
Feel younger than your age? Your brain may be healthier and you may be more resilient than same-age peers.

By Emily Laber-Warren New York TimesNOVEMBER 23, 2019 — 5:09PM

Not long ago, Stephanie Heller was leaving her gym when she noticed a woman struggling to bend down. She bounded over to help. The woman blamed her age for her incapacity, explaining that she was 70. But Heller was 71.

“This woman felt every bit her age,” the real estate agent said.“I don’t let age stop me. I think it’s a mind-set, really.”

Each of us has a chronological age, the number we commemorate on birthdays. But some 50-, 60- and 70-year-olds look and feel youthful, while others do not.

Scientists can measure these differences by looking at age-related biomarkers — skin elasticity, blood pressure, lung capacity and grip strength. People with a healthy lifestyle and living conditions and a fortunate genetic inheritance tend to score “younger” on these assessments and are said to have a lower “biological age.” But there’s a much easier way to determine the shape people are in. It’s called “subjective age.”

When scientists ask, “How old do you feel, most of the time?” the answer tends to reflect the state of people’s physical and mental health. “This simple question seems to be particularly powerful,” said Antonio Terracciano, a professor of geriatrics at Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee.

Scientists are finding that people who feel younger than their chronological age are typically healthier and more psychologically resilient than those who feel older. They perform better on memory tasks and are at lower risk of cognitive decline. In a 2018 study, South Korean researchers scanned the brains of 68 healthy older adults and found that those who felt younger than their age had thicker brain matter and had endured less age-related deterioration. By contrast, people who feel older than their chronological age are more at risk for hospitalization, dementia and death.

“We have found many, many predictive associations,” said Yannick Stephan, an assistant professor of health and aging psychology at the University of Montpellier in France.

If you’re older than 40, chances are you feel younger than your driver’s license suggests. Some 80% of people do, Stephan said. A fraction of people — fewer than 10% — feel older. The discrepancy between felt and actual age increases with the years, Terracciano said. At 50, people may feel about five years, or 10%, younger. By the time they’re 70, they may feel 15% or even 20% younger.

Most of the research is based on associations between how old people feel and their health status, so it cannot establish cause and effect. It’s not clear, for example, whether feeling younger makes people healthier, or people who are already healthy tend to feel younger.

For Francisca Mercado-Ruiz of South Plainfield, N.J., getting healthier transformed her internal sense of age. In the months leading up to her 49th birthday, she fulfilled her goal of losing 49 pounds. Before the weight loss, she had back and hip pain and felt like she was 65. Now she’s off her blood pressure medication, full of energy, has few aches and says she feels 35.

A few intriguing studies suggest that a youthful frame of mind can have a powerful effect. In a 2013 experiment by Stephan and colleagues, for example, people’s grip strength improved after they were told that they were stronger than most people their age. A Chinese study published in November 2018 in the journal Aging & Mental Health found that people performed better on a memory task after being told they were sharper than others their age.

But critics assert that for many, subjective age simply reflects cultural obsessions with youth. People cultivate a younger identity to fend off stereotypes of frailty and senility, said David Weiss, a life span psychologist at the University of Leipzig.
Indeed, in cultures where elders are respected for their wisdom and experience, people don’t even understand the concept of subjective age, he said. When a graduate student of Weiss’ did research in Jordan, the people he spoke with “would say: ‘I’m 80. I don’t know what you mean by ‘How old do I feel?’ ”

Paradoxically, older people may hold warm feelings for their generation even as they feel distaste for people their age. In a 2012 experiment, Weiss and a colleague divided 104 people ages 65 to 88. Members of one group were asked to describe people their age, while those in the other were asked about their generation.

The first group wrote things like: “People of my age are afraid” and “People of my age often talk about their illnesses.” The generation-oriented group displayed a stronger sense of empowerment. Those members wrote things like: “People of my generation were the 68ers who founded a more civil society,” a reference to the student protest movements of the late 1960s. One way to combat internalized ageism, Weiss suggested, is to identify with one’s generation.

A similar feeling of shared purpose keeps Thomas W. Dortch Jr., 69, an Atlanta businessman and philanthropist, vibrant. He said he feels like he’s in his early 40s. As national chairman of the organization 100 Black Men of America, he nurtures the next generation of leaders. “I’ve been focused all my life on being engaged and working to make sure that life is better for future generations,” he said. “I can never be too tired to make a difference.”

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The Club PUBlication 11/18/2019

11/18/2019

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BUSINESS
Trade warriors should heed bloody lessons of the Civil War

That's where the reality of the war finally sank in for Gen. Grant: There wasn't going to be any one decisive action that could bring the war to a quick close.

NOVEMBER 16, 2019 — 8:32AM

A battle campaign portrait of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, taken by Mathew Brady,

LEE SCHAFER

As the trade war with China continues with no real end in sight, those in charge of American trade policy might want to revisit the story of the American Civil War Battle of Shiloh.
It might be one of those stories familiar only to Civil War buffs, but the lesson of Shiloh seems to be one our president should heed.

The Shiloh battle came a year or so into the war, on the site of the small log Shiloh Church in southwest Tennessee. That’s how a terrible battle ended up getting named for an Old Testament city that was a place of peace and rest.

The U.S. Army contingent that gathered there in 1862 was led by two of the most celebrated West Point graduates ever, Ulysses S. Grant and his right-hand guy, William T. Sherman. Grant had quickly gone from being a store clerk in Illinois to a major general in the U.S. Army. He had found some success in Tennessee and was preparing to push into Mississippi.

Grant’s own account of this period is well worth reading, and a fine 2012 book on Shiloh by Winston Groom made the case that a great battle had been anticipated. Both sides hoped it would prove to be the decisive fight that quickly ended this war.

Sherman had been dismissive of repeated reports of a nearby Confederate threat. Early on a Sunday morning, he rode out to check for himself, just in time to see a host of Confederate infantry emerge from the woods and begin its assault.

The Union Army barely hung on that first day of horrific fighting, but reinforcements arrived overnight, allowing Grant to eventually drive the Confederates off. By the time the fighting finally subsided in this first great battle of the war, more than 23,000 from both sides were dead, wounded or missing.

Yet nothing much had really changed.

That’s when the reality of the war finally sank in for Grant: There wasn’t going to be any one decisive action that could bring it to a quick close. As Grant later wrote in his memoirs, “I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest.”

It would take years and many more horrific battles.

Now, try to think back to when the recent trade conflicts first really escalated. It was March 2018, and maybe the easiest thing to remember from that period is the president’s observation that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”

The S&P 500 index of American stocks slumped about 2.5% the day the administration announced its first broad tariffs on Chinese goods. Yet a fair reading is that this newly aggressive approach was at least going after real problems. The hope was to see a changed playing field that would protect American intellectual property in China from strong-arming, if not simple theft.

Trade officials in the administration, as described by Bloomberg in an excellent analysis last week, thought they had a carefully chosen set of tariffs to put pressure on the Chinese government without causing too much pain. Yet their plan went off the rails almost right away.

Administration officials had once suggested that there would be little reason to fear retaliation, as trade with the big American market was too big and important. But there has been, leading to escalation.

There were assurances that it was the Chinese really paying the tariffs on Chinese imports, but that’s simply not how it works. We pay, businesses and households. And China has lowered many tariffs on imports from other countries even as it slapped higher tariffs on American imports, according to a piece published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a nonprofit Washington economic and policy research organization.

As Bloomberg described, the aspiration to enter into a new and broad agreement for trade with China has died. More limited agreements with China have been close to being completed a few times, but then the momentum seems to stall.
It’s difficult to tell if that is now happening again, with an agreement that would at least boost Chinese imports of U.S. agricultural products. But as this column is being written, even that more limited agreement isn’t done.

Much as Gen. Grant finally realized that terrible April in 1862 about his war, by now we have to conclude that there’s no decisive moment coming. No brilliant maneuver will quickly end this trade fight with China on terms favorable to the United States. Once the shooting starts, conflicts just don’t seem to go that way.
There have been a few studies published already tallying the cost, from how much the typical American household has had to pay for tariffs to the dampening effect on economic growth.

Another item published by the Peterson Institute earlier this year caught my eye, because it was trying to make the call on who will emerge as the winner of America’s trade war with China.

The authors, Sherman Robinson of the Peterson Institute and Karen Thierfelder of the U.S. Naval Academy, looked at what would happen if tariffs as of June 1 remained in place, as well a different scenario that included additional U.S. tariffs.

There’s complexity in their analysis simply because the world is complex.

One reason is that businesses have had to respond as problems arise, coming up with workarounds to new and costly tariffs. That might have meant finding a new place to get something built, or seeking new sources for soybeans and other farm products that used to come from the United States.

Of course, it seems better to win a trade war than lose it, and the authors thought there would be a lot of winners.

Mexico, Canada and Japan are named, but it could have been a far longer list.
There will only be two real losers, the authors found. One will be China, the other the United States.

So both lose.

That is probably a notion Gen. Grant would have grasped right away.

Lee Schafer joined the Star Tribune as columnist in 2012 after 15 years in business, including leading his own consulting practice and serving on corporate boards of directors. He's twice been named the best in business columnist by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, most recently for his work in 2017.

lee.schafer@startribune.com 612-673-4302 @LeeASchafer

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The Club PUBlication 11/11/2019

11/11/2019

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SCIENCE 56457568
In stunning reversal, Alzheimer's therapy may actually work
Seven months after clinical trials for aducanumab were halted, a new analysis suggests it was actually effective.

By Tara Bahrampour Washington Post
NOVEMBER 8, 2019 — 4:38AM

In what could be a landmark step, Biogen said it will seek approval for a drug for use for early Alzheimer’s disease.

Seven months after clinical trials for a promising Alzheimer’s drug were halted and the treatment was declared a failure, a new analysis suggests it was actually effective.

The astonishing reversal on aducanumab, an antibody therapy which targets a protein called amyloid beta that builds up in the brain, comes after new data from the discontinued studies showed that at high doses the drug reduced cognitive decline in patients with early Alzheimer’s.

“It could be a game-changer for the field,” said Rebecca Edelmayer, director of scientific engagement at the Alzheimer’s Association. “It could be one of the first disease-modifying therapies approved for Alzheimer’s disease.”

An estimated 5.7 million Americans 65 and older have Alzheimer’s. A handful of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration can alleviate some symptoms, but in the past 16 years no new drugs have been approved for the disease.

That may now change.

The drugmaker, Biogen, said patients receiving aducanumab experienced “significant benefits on measures of cognition and function such as memory, orientation and language.” They also saw benefits in conducting personal finances, performing household chores and traveling independently outside the home.

The company stopped the trials in March after an independent board said the drug offered little hope of success — news that baffled scientists who’d seen encouraging early results and dealt a blow to patients. Biogen studied aducanumab at more than 350 trial sites with more than 3,000 patients. Each needed to be told that it had failed.

“There was a devastating feeling,” said Samantha Budd Haeberlein, head of clinical development for Alzheimer’s disease at Biogen. “The phase 1 was perfect.”
After the futility analysis, Biogen told 20 of its scientists to comb the trial data for answers. The team eventually expanded to 49. “I thought we must have been missing something,” said Biogen Chief Medical Officer Al Sandrock.

The initial analysis appeared to confirm the decision to halt the trials. Then more data rolled in. By June, one of the studies turned positive. The other was still negative.

Haeberlein said her team was working 15-hour days and sometimes weekends. As they pored over the data, a picture emerged that seemed to explain the discordant results.

Biogen changed the plan for the trials twice: once to temporarily suspend treatment for patients who experienced side effects, and once to allow patients with a common genetic variant to get a higher dose. But the changes affected the two trials unequally.

The second trial had more patients getting consistent, high-dose treatment. It was the second trial where aducanumab clearly slowed the disease, while the first one, with fewer patients on the highest dose, failed to show an effect.
Given the mixed results, what lies ahead is uncertain. Biogen said it plans to pursue federal approval in early 2020.

Ronald Petersen, director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s disease Research Center who consulted with Biogen but was not involved in the studies, called the news “a bright light” after “so many failures in the field.” But he cautioned that it is not clear the FDA will approve the drug. With few drugs on the market, the FDA might be pressured to approve the therapy on the basis of one positive trial — instead of the traditional two, researchers said.

If approved, aducanumab would bolster the theory that treatments that remove or reduce amyloid beta are an effective approach. Other therapies now in the clinical trial pipeline include those that address inflammation, the immune system, blood vessels and synaptic cell health.

“We need to continue these different approaches because we think that a treatment is potentially going to be complex,” Edelmayer said.
Bloomberg

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

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The Club PUBlication 11/04/2019

11/4/2019

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SCIENCE 5

In fast-thawing Siberia, radical climate change is warping the Earth beneath the feet of millions
NOVEMBER 2, 2019 — 11:05PM

Pipes traditionally are built aboveground in Yakutsk, Russia, because of the hard permafrost. Its thaw is altering Siberia’s landscape as well as the region’s economy.

Russia’s vast permafrost area once covered more than half the country. But that permanently frozen ground is rapidly thawing as Siberia has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on Earth.

Scientists say the planet’s warming must not exceed 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — but Siberia’s temperatures have already spiked far beyond that. And a Washington Post analysis found that the region near the town of Zyryanka, in an enormous wedge of eastern Siberia called Yakutia, has warmed by more than 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit since preindustrial times — roughly triple the global average.
For the 5.4 million people who live in Russia’s permafrost zone, the new climate has disrupted their homes and their livelihoods. Rivers are rising and running faster, and entire neighborhoods are falling into them. Buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure are at risk.

The economic loss is $780.5 million to $2.3 billion a year, said Alexander Krutikov, deputy minister for the Far East and Arctic development. “This problem needs to be addressed, because the amount of damage will grow every year,” Krutikov said. “The scale is very serious. The pipes explode, the piles collapse.”

His comments are another sign that Russia, the world’s fourth-biggest emitter, is taking the effects of climate change more seriously. President Vladimir Putin has challenged the widely held assertion that global warming is due almost exclusively to human activity. Still, he decided to ratify the 2015 Paris climate accord this year and said Russia must do whatever it can to mitigate the impact of global warming.

It’s a particular worry for mining, oil and gas companies. The permafrost area accounts for 15% of Russia’s oil and 80% of its gas operations. It is also home to miners including Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel), the biggest refined nickel and palladium producer.

MICHAEL ROBINSON CHAVEZ Mammoth bones that could be tens of thousands of years old are strewn near the Kolyma River. They probably were discarded by poachers in favor of valuable tusks.

Russia has long built structures on piles to improve stability. But as the ground warms it becomes softer, and there are signs problems are increasing. “Buildings lost stability as the permafrost warmed,” Nornickel said. That prompted the Arctic city to build the first new homes in decades, with fewer floors and weighing less.
New craters have also been found in the gas-rich Yamal region, which is a risk to pipelines, and some houses have had to be pulled down in Norilsk, the industrial town where Nornickel operates.

Meanwhile, Siberians who grew up learning to read nature’s subtlest signals are being driven to migrate by a climate they no longer understand. This migration from the countryside to cities and towns represents one of the most significant movements to date of climate refugees.

Then there’s that smell. As the permafrost thaws, animals and plants frozen for thousands of years are decomposing and sending carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere — accelerating climate change.

“The permafrost is thawing so fast,” said Anna Liljedahl, an associate professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “We scientists can’t keep up anymore.”
The impact on farming has been catastrophic. The permafrost that sustained farming — and upon which villages and cities are built — is now blanketing the region with swamps, lakes and odd bubbles of earth. Scientists say the degradation of land helped bring about the collapse of the region’s agriculture.
“The earth is slowly sinking,” horse farmer Vladimir Arkhipov said. “There’s more and more water and less and less usable earth.”

The economic consequences may get much worse. By 2050, warming may affect about a fifth of the area’s structures and infrastructure, costing $84 billion, research said. That would be equal to about 7.5% of Russia’s gross domestic product. More than half of residential real estate, worth about $53 billion, might be also damaged.

Companies are planning ahead. Gas producer Novatek PJSC is designing new infrastructure to cope with warming, billionaire owner Leonid Mikhelson said. As well as driving piles deeper, it’s using technology to help keep the ground frozen.
The city of Norilsk has put about a quarter of homes on watch over their stability, the Taymirskiy Telegraph said. Diamond miner Alrosa PJSC is monitoring ground temperatures and has a special department to supervise the permafrost, a spokeswoman said.

“Studying the permafrost is one of the most unfairly forgotten tasks and priorities of the state,” Krutikov said. “It directly affects economic development.”
Alexander Fedorov, deputy director of the Melnikov Permafrost Institute, agreed. “The warming got in the way of our good life,” he said. “With every year, things are getting worse and worse.”

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

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