The Lucky Years gives us a smart, correct and reliable view of medical breakthroughs and new technologies. It solves difficult questions and at the same time shows us how to prolong life and improve quality of life.
Luck in the new era is a guide for you to understand the remarkable development of medicine in solving society's most pressing health problems. While advances in genetics may be the key to curing cancer, infertility or aging problems, this book shows simple, meaningful and possibly effective methods. in improving the health and well-being of people around the world.
This book is especially for
- medical students interested in the latest medical developments;
- patients who are looking for ways to manage chronic illnesses;
- Enthusiasts learn about new ways to improve health every day.
About the author
David B.Augus is a doctor and an engineer, famous for his oncology in the US. He has founded many companies that focus on providing personal healing services. He is also the author of many other books such as The End of Illnesses and The Secret to a Long Life.
Understand the benefits of living in an age with medical advances.
If you went to a doctor in the early twentieth century, you would get standardized treatment for people with the same type of illness.
However, with the development of science and technology, today's healing methods have changed. You are now more likely to have access to a method that is not only right for your disease but also for you personally.
But what exactly does this mean? This book will make you better understand the new treatments and innovative ways that doctors are using to battle chronic diseases and ways to improve health every day.
It's time to put aside our previous notions of health and immerse yourself in the new world of modern medicine.
Advances in genetics may provide the tools to beat cancer, but using those tools is still dangerous.
When Steve Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, he looked for ways to cure the disease.
Author David Agus was one of the 2007 doctors who tried to save Jobs from the disease using a completely new approach to genetics.
By monitoring cancer cells, scientists can find areas of the cell's DNA that they cause damage. This allows doctors to prescribe specific treatments that target only the damaged areas by analyzing the cells.
Unfortunately, cancer cells are very crafty. Harmful cells can mutate and neutralize the given drugs. A new analysis and method must be introduced and the process repeated.
In the end, Agus' team was unable to save Steve Jobs' life. But their work marked the beginning of a journey into the application of genetic medicine.
One genetic modification tool that is leading the way is called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats).
In the near future, CRISPR could allow scientists to delete a specific gene involved in a person's immune function - the CCr5 gene. This can make a person immune to HIV and protect them from AIDS.
The main risk is that the genetic modification is permanent. For example, the composition of the gene carrying the CCR5 gene can change, predisposing a person to other diseases, such as West Nile virus.
There's still a lot we don't know about the dangers of modifying genes to treat patients. But the latest developments and research could change that.
Cancer is not the only field that captures the imagination of genetic scientists. The researchers also make new discoveries in the biology of human aging.
Genetics may be the key to why some people appear "younger" than their actual age.
The question “How old are you” has more than one answer. While most of us view age as the number of years since birth, we also have a "biological age" that shapes our overall health.
Think of a 30-year-old with rosy cheeks who still needs to show ID to buy a bottle of beer, while a 21-year-old-looking teenager has no problem getting six bottles at a time without any problems. fined.
In 1972, scientists in New Zealand began the Dunedin study, tracking the health of 1,000 adolescents as they began to age. When the participants reached the age of 38, the researchers met with each person for general health checks and comparisons.
The researchers looked at a variety of factors including voices, cholesterol levels, oral health and the effectiveness of the immune system in measuring differences in the participants' "biological age," even though their real ages are the same – 38 years old.
The results are amazing. While most of the participants aged relatively normally, a few had the stamina and endurance of a 28-year-old younger.
In contrast, some other participants displayed signs of exhaustion commonly seen in 60-year-olds. Some were even biologically three times older than their actual age!
Scientific studies of biological age are becoming more and more precise these days, and scientists have developed the ability to count age through human voices.
Boson University researchers have created an online counter that can help you determine the biological age of your heart by answering a few questions. A 2015 report based on data indicates that three in four Americans have a heart that is at least five years older than that person's chronological age.
Some people on the other hand have amazingly "young" hearts, and these are the ones that scientists are most interested in studying.
Genetics can help researchers learn which part of human DNA is responsible for increasing the biological age of our bodies. However, at present, research is still being continued on this interesting question.
New technologies offer promise in solving the problem of infertility, but many questions remain.
Thanks to technology, many infertile women today are able to give birth to healthy babies. However, other infertility solutions based on genetic research are still being developed and can involve significant risks.
Doctors have found that infertility in some women can be caused by faulty mitochondria cells. Mitochondria are small components in cells that can produce the cellular energy that the body needs to function. Mitochondria have our own DNA; When this gene is faulty, muscle and nerve disorders can occur.
Women with mitochondria who are disabled can still get pregnant through IVF, but the babies are more likely to be born with degenerative diseases.
To address this, scientists have developed an IVF method that can combine not only the parents' eggs and sperm, but also select a healthy sample of mitochondria from a second woman of childbearing potential. . This 'three-way' approach solves the genetic problem by introducing a healthy mitochondria to address a cellular defect in a woman's eggs who are unable to bear children.
Although very promising, the influence of molecular modification methods such as three-dimensional IVF remains unclear.
In 1997, Jersey's new doctor, Jacques Cohen, successfully tested three-dimensional IVF on mice. He then tried these methods on humans and 17 children were born. However, three of them are either autistic or have Turner syndrome, a genetic defect in girls that can lead to infertility or stunted growth.
Experiments with mice show that mice born with three-dimensional IVF can develop cognitive disabilities in middle age.
It is not yet clear how the development of genetic defects is related to the three-way IVF procedure, but the approach is still too risky to be applied on a large scale.
Many smart and effective prevention methods are ignored in Western culture.
There's nothing quite as compelling as a holistic health solution that promises quick healing with little effort. The problem is that there is no way to guarantee good health for the whole world because everyone's body is different.
Doctors and scientists are often limited to making general health claims. For example, authors often suggest taking a small aspirin daily and using cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins for long-term health maintenance.
Large-scale studies have confirmed that such regular use can help prevent heart attacks and inflammatory diseases. However, that treatment can also cause side effects for some people.
This is not to say that people who have used the remedy effectively should stop taking it, but many issues have shown that there is a need for alternative approaches to cholesterol control.
Perhaps we can find a major alternative from the way society approaches drugs. For example, people from the West can learn a lot about preventive medicine from the people of Africa.
When David went to Africa in 2014, he was surprised to discover that the guide refused to take anti-malaria medication. The person explained that he was not taking the drug because it would require him to continue taking it for the rest of his life.
Instead, the guide made sure to wear enough clothes to completely cover his skin, sleep in mosquito-protected spaces, and use insect repellent. Doing so will reduce the risk of contracting diseases from mosquitoes.
The author recognizes that conventional methods of prevention do not exist in current Western medicines. Addressing blood pressure problems with dependence on statins is a temporary, unsustainable solution.
Preventive actions, on the contrary, can keep a body healthy without constantly taking medicine. Ultimately, however, each person is forced to spend time thinking about which solution works best for them.
Extensive medical research is a well-founded choice for good advice. Don't search from Wikipedia.
Do you believe everything you read online about the celebrity you idolize? Hope not.
You should also practice caution when you google about your illness and search for a cure. In other words, don't trust the editors at Wikipedia to give you an accurate diagnosis.
While many collaborative online forums can provide useful general information about human disease, they are not reliable for issues as complex as your personal health.
A 2014 study in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association revealed that 90% of Wikipedia articles on common ailments including heart disease, depression, obesity or back pain contain serious errors.
So for the best health-related information you need to research from reliable sources.
You may have heard of the dwarf palm extract, which is often touted as a miracle cure for prostate problems. Advertisements and advice online often lead you to believe that you are using a harmless product made from the fruit of a small palm tree.
However, careful research will show you that dwarf palm can cause side effects, blocking remedies that slow blood clotting and mess with your hormones, causing dizziness. face and nausea.
Try to avoid seeking advice or believing claims on online forums or advertisements. Instead, look to recent large-scale medical studies for sound advice, as they tend to be well-reviewed and follow rigorous scientific methods for medical professionals. Other studies may follow and confirm the results.
Unfortunately, medical studies can also give misleading information, or sometimes results are misinterpreted.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield's research on vaccines for measles and mumps indicates that vaccination, as most children do, can lead to the development of autism.
This study was based on only 12 children and proved to be completely false. Even so, the story that vaccines can cause autism is still widespread.
Society is often unaware of when weight becomes an issue for both adults and children.
Surprisingly, only about 36% of people who are overweight are aware of their condition. Others believe their weight is average or even below average.
This phenomenon was demonstrated by a study in Obstetrics & Gynecology in 2010. As obesity became more and more common, society gradually came to regard being overweight as normal.
This trend is evident in the way parents perceive their children's weight, as revealed in a 2014 study that appeared in the journal Pediatrics .
About 50% of parents of children who are overweight or obese are not aware of their child's health problems. The results of this can be very dangerous, because being overweight puts people at risk for a number of complex diseases later in life.
Breast cancer is one of those complications. After menopause, obese women have a 60% higher risk of developing breast cancer. With a better understanding of the relationship between cancer and obesity, people may be able to take the issue more seriously.
Weight isn't the only health issue for a blind-spotted society. A study from the University of Cambridge shows that many people are not aware of how much sugar they eat every day.
Many study participants claimed that they ate very little sugar, but a urine test revealed that they ate too much sugar, which can lead to obesity and many other diseases.
Strangely, people who felt they ate too much sugar turned out to eat almost no refined sugar at all!
Regular exercise can make you live many years longer, but many people can't or don't want to get up and change.
Our ancestors spent more time hunting, farming and gathering food, their bodies developed more efficient and skillful. However, amid the pressures of modern society, many people don't even exercise enough to live longer or be healthier.
A 2012 Harvard study published in the medical journal The Lancet confirmed that lack of exercise leads to worrying epidemic rates for the United States, as 80% of Americans do not exercise enough. as recommended for good health.
A study conducted by physicist Jannique van Uffelen showed that women who spend at least nine hours a day sitting at work or for other reasons face a higher risk of depression than women. sitting less than six hours a day.
Sitting is not inherently a harmful posture, especially in states that require effort to balance the body. For example, sitting on the ground requires the muscles of the legs and lower body to work.
But leaning on a chair or slouching on the sofa requires very little effort. Sitting for a long time with those postures causes the body's metabolism to decrease. This causes blood sugar and fat to build up.
If sitting puts the body at risk of disease, getting up and moving again does the opposite.
Daily exercise is one of the most powerful anti-aging methods we know of. In 2012, the National Cancer Foundation in the US measured the effect of exercise on overall health. They have found that if a person walks for at least 75 minutes a week, they can increase their life expectancy by a year and a half.
If you walk 7.5 hours a week, you can live 4.5 years longer!
Research has also found that by actively exercising for at least two hours a week and maintaining a healthy weight, people can increase their life expectancy by about 7 years.
“Lack of exercise destroys a person's state of good health while movement and exercise protect it.”
Athletes cannot achieve their best results without a good night's sleep. You too.
What will it take to become a famous athlete? You'd think a strict fat-free diet, intense workouts, and intense exercise were necessary. However, there is one important element of exercise that most people forget – and that is a good night's sleep.
Sleep is not only necessary for maintaining a healthy body. Sleep deprivation has been shown to adversely affect the results of top athletes, causing slower reflexes, poor judgment, inability to fully recover and difficulty staying focused.
The impact of sleep was the subject of a study published in 2009 by Christopher Winter, a physician from Virginia who spent ten years observing the performance of baseball players.
In the winter, the teams that are out of time zone when traveling to the venue have slightly worse results than the home team. But when a team crosses three time zones, the chance of winning drops to 50%. Important sleep disrupted by fatigue after a long flight is a big loss for teams that have to move.
It turns out that deep, sufficient and punctual sleep is not only necessary for the performance of athletes. Lack of sleep causes diseases such as obesity, cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
People who suffer from lack of sleep tend to feel cold throughout the year. People who sleep less than six hours a night are four times more likely to catch a cold than those who sleep eight hours.
According to the National Institutes of Health, sleep disorders impair the physical and mental well-being, reflexes, and professional ability of at least 70 million Americans.
A better night's sleep can be one of the most effective solutions to improve human health!
Conclusion
Advances in genetic science are key to the challenges of diseases including cancer, infertility and aging. But while many techniques are still too risky to implement, there are many solutions that are as simple and effective as taking a daily walk and getting enough sleep. Those are the simplest methods that can greatly affect our overall health.
Practical advice
Let yourself collide and be touched.
With the exception of exercise and enough sleep, exposure is essential for a healthy and youthful body. So go out and touch someone! This doesn't mean you have to get too intimate or have sex – simply hugging a close friend is enough to improve your mood and health.
