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Monday, February 21, 2011

97 Yr Old Physician's Formula For Life


Doctor Shigeaki Hinohara



JUDIT KAWAGUCHI PHOTO



By Judit Kawaguchi

At the age of 97 years and 4 months, Shigeaki Hinohara is one of the world's longest-serving physicians and educators. Hinohara's magic touch is legendary: Since 1941 he has been healing patients at St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo and teaching at St. Luke's College of Nursing. After World War II, he envisioned a world-class hospital and college springing from the ruins of Tokyo; thanks to his pioneering spirit and business savvy, the doctor turned these institutions into the nation's top medical facility and nursing school. Today he serves as chairman of the board of trustees at both organizations. Always willing to try new things, he has published around 150 books since his 75th birthday, including one "Living Long, Living Good" that has sold more than 1.2 million copies. As the founder of the New Elderly Movement, Hinohara encourages others to live a long and happy life, a quest in which no role model is better than the doctor himself.


Energy comes from feeling good, not from eating well or sleeping a lot. We all remember how as children, when we were having fun, we often forgot to eat or sleep. I believe that we can keep that attitude as adults, too. It's best not to tire the body with too many rules such as lunchtime and bedtime.

All people who live long - regardless of nationality, race or gender - share one thing in common: None are overweight. For breakfast I drink coffee, a glass of milk and some orange juice with a tablespoon of olive oil in it. Olive oil is great for the arteries and keeps my skin healthy. Lunch is milk and a few cookies, or nothing when I am too busy to eat. I never get hungry because I focus on my work. Dinner is veggies, a bit of fish and rice, and, twice a week, 100 grams of lean meat.

Always plan ahead. My schedule book is already full until 2014, with lectures and my usual hospital work. In 2016 I'll have some fun, though: I plan to attend the Tokyo Olympics!

There is no need to ever retire, but if one must, it should be a lot later than 65. The current retirement age was set at 65 half a century ago, when the average life-expectancy in Japan was 68 years and only 125 Japanese were over 100 years old. Today, Japanese women live to be around 86 and men 80, and we have 36,000 centenarians in our country. In 20 years we will have about 50,000 people over the age of 100.

Share what you know. I give 150 lectures a year, some for 100 elementary-school children, others for 4,500 business people. I usually speak for 60 to 90 minutes, standing, to stay strong.

When a doctor recommends you take a test or have some surgery, ask whether the doctor would suggest that his or her spouse or children go through such a procedure. Contrary to popular belief, doctors can't cure everyone. So why cause unnecessary pain with surgery? I think music and animal therapy can help more than most doctors imagine.

To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.

My inspiration is Robert Browning's poem "Abt Vogler." My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke's we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

Don't be crazy about amassing material things. Remember: You don't know when your number is up, and you can't take it with you to the next place.

Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St. Luke's so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.

Science alone can't cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.

Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40- degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.



Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina. He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the problem.



It's wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one's family and to achieve one's goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.



Judit Kawaguchi loves to listen. he is a volunteer counselor and a TV reporter on NHK's "Out & About." Learn more at: http:// juditfan.blog58.fc2.com



Monday, February 14, 2011

GeoVax Launches a Second Clinical Site to Test the Therapeutic Benefit of its HIV Vaccine




GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX), a biotechnology company that creates, develops and tests innovative HIV/AIDS vaccines, announced today the opening of a second clinical trial site at the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic (AVRC) of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to expand the company's HIV therapeutic vaccine trial. Although the GeoVax vaccines are currently being tested clinically for HIV prevention, this is the first clinical trial using the same products for treatment of persons who already have HIV infection. UAB joins the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta (ARCA) as the second site used for this trial.



"We are very pleased to be expanding this important clinical trial to include the AVRC, a group with which we have worked successfully for several years," noted Mark Newman, PhD, Vice President of Research and Development at GeoVax.


Sonya Heath, MD, the medical director for the study at UAB, said, "New approaches to HIV treatment are critically needed, and an effective therapeutic vaccine would be an important tool in our ongoing efforts to treat people with HIV infection. A vaccine that enhances the body's ability to control HIV and decreases the dependence on antiretroviral drugs would be a major breakthrough."


To be eligible for the study, potential volunteers need to be diagnosed within the first year of HIV infection and they must have started antiretroviral drug therapy within six months of diagnosis. The study will last up to 77 weeks for each participant. All patients will be followed closely to assess vaccine safety and for the ability of the vaccine to induce therapeutic immune responses. Only 10 to 12 persons will be selected to participate.


About The Alabama Vaccine Research Center

The AVRC, established in 1994, is one of 10 National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored HIV Vaccine Trials Units in the US. The medical staff of the AVRC conducts Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 clinical trials of experimental HIV vaccines. The goals of these clinical research studies are to evaluate the safety and the ability of new vaccines to induce immune responses capable of protecting individuals from HIV infection and/or controlling disease. The AVRC has contributed to the clinical testing of the GeoVax HIV vaccines in HIV uninfected individuals.


About GeoVax Labs, Inc.

Dr. Harriet L. Robinson, Senior Vice President for Research and Development at GeoVax Inc., a biotech company specializing in the development of HIV/AIDS vaccines

GeoVax is a biotechnology company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus – that leads to AIDS) and other infectious agents. Our goals include developing HIV/AIDS vaccines for global markets, overseeing the manufacture and testing of these vaccines under GMP/GLP conditions (FDA guidelines), conducting clinical trials for vaccine safety and effectiveness, and obtaining regulatory approvals to move the product forward. GeoVax's vaccines are unique in expressing virus like particles that display the trimeric membrane bound form of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein. All preventative Phase 1 human clinical trials conducted to date tested various combinations and doses of our DNA and MVA vaccines, their ability to raise anti-HIV humoral (antibody) and cellular (cytotoxic T cell) immune responses, as well as, the vaccines' safety. Successful results from Phase 1 testing supported the initiation of the first Phase 2 testing. GeoVax's Phase 2 human trial began in January 2009 and will ultimately involve 300 participants at sites in the United States and South America. Recently GeoVax began enrolling patients in a Phase 1 therapeutic trial for individuals already infected with HIV.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this document are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors, including whether: GeoVax can develop and manufacture its vaccines with the desired characteristics in a timely manner, GeoVax's vaccines will be safe for human use, GeoVax's vaccines will effectively prevent AIDS in humans, vaccines will receive regulatory approvals necessary to be licensed and marketed, GeoVax raises required capital to complete vaccine development, there is development of competitive products that may be more effective or easier to use than GeoVax's products, GeoVax will be able to enter into favorable manufacturing and distribution agreements, and other factors, over which GeoVax has no control. GeoVax assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, and does not intend to do so. More information about these factors is contained in GeoVax's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including those set forth at "Risk Factors" in GeoVax's Form 10-K.


Contact:
The Investor Relations Group
212-825-3210
Investor Relations:
James Carbonara
or
Public Relations:
Janet Vasquez or Robin O'Malley

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Breaking Brain cell Research~ New Hope for Alzheimer Patients~New Drug helps more baby brain cells survive and grow to become functioning brain cells



A pill to make you smarter? New drug grows brain cells



WASHINGTON, D.C. - Researchers have found a drug that can help the brain grow new cells and said their study may lead to ways to improve experimental Alzheimer's drugs.


ShareThe researchers' work, done on rodents, builds on findings that all mammals, including humans, make brain cells throughout their lives. Most of these die, but this drug helps more of the baby cells survive and grow to become functioning brain cells. "We make new neurons every day in our brain," Andrew Pieper of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview. "What our compound does is allow more of them to survive."


The compound is called P7C3 for now, and the researchers have already started tweaking it to make it more effective. They said it seems safe and appears to work even when taken as a pill.


The compound is similar to Medivation Inc and Pfizer Inc's experimental Alzheimer's drug, Dimebon, and may provide ways to improve its effects, Pieper and colleagues reported in the journal Cell.


It is also similar to some compounds owned by Serono, the researchers said.


Dimebon, originally a Russian-made antihistamine also known as latrepirdine, failed in a clinical trial for Alzheimer's disease in March.


"For the sake of patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, it is hoped that the apparently marginal clinical utility of Dimebon might be enhanced by improvements in both its potency and ceiling of proneurogenic, neuroprotective efficacy," the researchers wrote.


"If so, our work offers concrete assays for the development of improved versions of these neuroprotective drugs."


Alzheimer's gradually destroys the brain and affects 26 million people globally. Drugs, such as Pfizer's Aricept, improve symptoms only minimally.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Relationships and Self Esteem


The loss of Self Esteem is our most profound loss of all!


People in relationships that harm self esteem can end them. People in “one sided relationships” may need to consider what it is doing to their self-esteem. To ignore this erosion is to make a deal with the devil. To face this squarely requires a great deal of courage and self motivation, but it can and often must be done. What do you see when you look in the mirror? Are you in the back seat or driving the bus? Are you second fiddle? Can you answer honestly these questions for yourself?


The benefits of healthy self esteem are many. When we are fulfilled people, we are effective people. We build healthy relationships with others and accomplish our goals.


When we have healthy self esteem, we have the courage to create, to try, to challenge ourselves and improve our positions and lives. We are able to "stand tall" and meet others face-to-face without shame or fear.


Our anxiety lessens, our confidence grows. We take charge of our lives and enjoy them. We are more willing to take sensible risks, to find alternative solutions to problems.


We feel happy and complete, centered and balanced. We feel good about ourselves and good about others. It also becomes much more illogical to let others or situations take away your most presious gift.

It is well worth trying any or all methods to restore and boost self esteem. We only have one life; the quality of that life depends on what we do with it. It only makes sense to have the highest quality of life possible.


One way to enjoy that is through pro active and positive self esteem.