Health & Fitness

Boyan Slat, a young Dutch entrepreneur, and his group Ocean Cleanup have invented an ingenious collection barge to clean plastic debris from our oceans. When their barge, called System 001/B, was tested in June 2019 in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — the first plastic-ridden area Slat planned to tackle — it worked successfully.¹

The patch, a trash vortex between the West Coast of North America and Japan,² is twice the size of Texas.³ During its test run in the Garbage Patch, System 001/B captured visible pieces of plastic debris — sometimes called macroplastics — large ghost nets used with commercial fishing and even microplastics in its haul.⁴

On the basis of challenges discovered in its test run, The Ocean Cleanup team will begin to design an improved barge to be known as System 002. And, there is more good news about The Ocean Cleanup's efforts, detailed in the video, "Boyan Slat Unveils the Ocean Cleanup Interceptor."

In October, they rolled out an innovative and workable plan to turbocharge plastic cleanup efforts, pun intended.⁵ The group ascertained that about 80% of ocean plastic pollution comes from the world's rivers and they have developed a plan to target the 1,000 most plastic-polluting rivers with a new invention.⁶

The device, called the Interceptor, can collect 50,000 kilos (110,231 pounds) of plastic trash every day — equivalent to 1 million soda bottles, according to the featured video — and may collect up to 100,000 kg a day under perfect conditions.⁷ Two Interceptors have already been deployed — one in Jakarta, Indonesia, and one in Klang, Malaysia.⁸ Others are in the works.

Which Rivers Need To Be Targeted?

"When it rains, plastic washes from street to creek to river to ocean," Slat points out⁹ — a fact which seems pretty evident. But how can it be determined which specific rivers are the worst culprits and need to be targeted? After all, there are about 100,000 rivers in the world!

The Ocean Cleanup created a monitoring system that can be attached to a bridge, scanning for plastic that floats by. With the use of artificial intelligence, the system allowed The Ocean Cleanup team to automatically measure how much plastic was flowing out of a river.

Based on that information, they were able to create an interactive global map model, the first of its kind, that ranks rivers on the basis of the amount of plastic pollution in them.

It was soon discovered that a small fraction — only 1 percent — was causing most of the pollution, says Slat in his Interceptor presentation. If 100,000 rivers were contributing to plastic pollution, the cleanup task might be overwhelming. But since a relatively small number of rivers are responsible for most of the pollution, those 1,000 plastic-polluting rivers can be targeted with the new device.¹⁰

The Interceptor Is Accepted by Other Countries

Obviously, an ambitious plan to attack plastic river waste on an international scale needs the buy-in from world leaders as well as funding, and The Ocean Cleanup is securing both.

Working with government leaders and private corporations, the team plans to install Interceptors in the 1,000 most-polluted rivers within the next five years.¹¹ Those of us who are concerned about plastic pollution know that time is of the essence.

In addition to the Interceptors already installed in Malaysia and Indonesia, others are planned for the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.¹² Thailand has also agreed to situate an Interceptor near Bangkok.

The Ocean Cleanup has not neglected the U.S., which is clearly one of the world's major producers and disposers of plastic. It is currently in talks with officials in Los Angeles county, according to the video report. Though an Interceptor costs approximately $777,000 right now, The Ocean Cleanup predicts that costs will come down as production increases.¹³

The Challenge of Closing the Plastic Tap

River cleanup is crucial to solving the ocean plastic problem because removing existing plastic in the ocean is not enough, says Slat in the video.¹⁴

"To truly rid the oceans of plastic, what we need to do is two things. One, we need to clean up the legacy pollution, the stuff that has been accumulating for decades and doesn't go away by itself. But, two, we need to close the tap, which means preventing more plastic from reaching the oceans in the first place. Rivers are the arteries that carry the trash from land to sea."

The Ocean Cleanup doesn't want to be "the garbage collector of the oceans," says Slat, though it would be a "pretty sustainable business model." Rather, The Ocean Cleanup's goal "is to put ourselves out of business."¹⁵

Still, judging by current pollution data, it will be quite a while before The Ocean Cleanup runs out of plastic garbage to collect. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a mere 9.1% of the plastic material generated in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream was recycled in 2015, and only about 30% of plastic bottles and jars were recycled.^16,17 That is why The Ocean Cleanup's campaign is so important and urgent.

How Does the Interceptor Work?

According to the "Boyan Slat Unveils The Ocean Cleanup Interceptor" video, the Intercept system is anchored to the riverbed and makes use of the natural flow of the river to collect plastic debris as it floats by.

Its barrier guides the plastic into the mouth of the Interceptor and a conveyer belt scoops the plastic out of the water. (Slat uses scores of little yellow rubber duckies in the video to demonstrate the system's effectiveness.) To prevent clogging, the belt has been made to be permeable and behind it is a flow channel that creates a suction effect.¹⁸

After the plastic has been funneled into the Intercept, the conveyer places the plastic in the "shuttle," a basket on wheels, which distributes the plastic across six dumpsters, sensing which ones are full or empty. Each dumpster can hold 50 cubic meters (1,765 cubic feet) of trash.

When the dumpsters are full, the Interceptor signals through its internet-linked, onboard computer to local operators to bring a boat for towing the full barge so the plastic can be emptied and recycled.¹⁹ While the barge is removed from the river for emptying, the shuttle can still collect plastic, says Slat.

The Interceptor's Environmentally Sensitive Features

When you look at the Interceptor's features, it is clear The Ocean Cleanup team has thought through all the potential problems that could come from such a system including its environmental toll.

For example, even though the Interceptor's floating barrier directs garbage into the system, it will usually only span part of the river so it will not interfere with the movement of wildlife and the safe passage of vessels. The Interceptor is able to do this because The Ocean Cleanup discovered through sensors that at certain points in many rivers, "all the plastic is flowing through this very narrow band," says Slat.

This removes the need for the Interceptor to span the whole width of the river.²⁰ Next, the Interceptor is powered by solar panels and onboard lithium-ion batteries that enable it to operate day and night with no human operator, and without noise or exhaust fumes.²¹

Finally, the nose of the Interceptor has been engineered to deflect large objects like trees that could enter the unit and harm the machinery. And, because the Interceptor is designed like a catamaran sailboat, it has a low center of gravity and is very unlikely to tip over. "It will stay upright no matter what," Slat says.

Is the Interceptor Cost Effective?

The key metric to determine if a plastic cleanup method is practical is the cost per kilogram of plastic collected, says Slat. Because of the Interceptor's effectiveness and the fact that it is a "series produced product," it offers the lowest cost for such removal.

But there is another metric through which the Interceptor's costs should be analyzed, says Slat, and that is the cost to tourism and fisheries in coastal countries of doing nothing about plastic waste.

Countries are "losing money every day" that they do not invest in plastic removal, he says. Dramatic before and after pictures of plastic-polluted and cleaned rivers during his presentation underscore the urgency of tackling plastic waste and the feasibility of deploying the Interceptor.

Plastic pollution take a huge toll on marine life, which often mistake the plastic bits for food. Chemicals used to make plastics disrupt hormones, embryonic development and gene expression, and are linked, in humans, to obesity, heart disease and cancer. It is estimated that humans are now eating, swallowing or breathing in about 2,000 pieces of microplastic a week, equal to the weight of one credit card.²²

What Can You Do About Plastic Pollution?

While technology like the Interceptor is an encouraging step forward, each and every one of us has a responsibility and share the burden for putting an end to plastic pollution. Below is a sampling of strategies that can help:

Don't use plastic bags — use reusable bags

Make sure the items you recycle are recyclable (See this list.)

Use reusable shopping bags for groceries

Take your own leftovers container to restaurants

Bring your own mug for coffee, and bring drinking water from home in glass water bottles instead of buying bottled water

Request no plastic wrap on your newspaper and dry cleaning

Store foods in glass containers or mason jars rather than plastic containers and plastic freezer bags

Avoid disposable utensils and straws and buy foods in bulk when you can

Opt for nondisposable razors, washable feminine hygiene products for women, cloth diapers, handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues, rags in lieu of paper towels and infant toys made of wood rather than plastic

Avoid processed foods (which are stored in plastic bags with chemicals). Buy fresh produce instead, and forgo the plastic bags

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You may know that as you spend time outside on a sunny day, it improves your mood and allows your body to produce vitamin D. Some people enjoy warm weather and others appreciate the winter snow. But regardless of your preference, when the sun is out you may feel better without realizing it.

Many people feel they can identify when the weather is changing. Barometric pressure is one measurement meteorologists use to describe current weather and predict future conditions.¹

Barometric pressure is a measurement of atmospheric pressure, or the weight of the atmosphere above the planet. A barometer is used to measure the pressure, which is stated in units of mercury. At sea level, barometric pressure is measured as 760 mm of mercury. A barometer measures pressure of the atmosphere against the earth, so the measurement changes at different elevations.

A meteorologist then uses a formula to compare barometric pressure against the reading at sea level. High pressure causes the atmosphere to drop toward the earth, reducing cloud cover and creating clear, dry conditions. Low pressure happens when the ground is warm, heating the surface air and causing it to rise.

As the air expands it also cools. Since warmer air holds more water vapor than cooler air, as the air temperature drops the air condenses, leading to rain or storms. When a meteorologist predicts falling barometric pressure it suggests rain is moving into the area.

Falling Barometric Pressure Creates Pressure Difference

As the pressure in the atmosphere rises or falls, the same thing happens to the pressure against your body. When a low barometric pressure front arrives, it may cause areas of your body to swell.² People who suffer with chronic stress may be more attuned to weather changes. Seniors may also be more sensitive to barometric changes, as the ability to combat this challenge declines with age.

So, when your elderly aunt says she can feel a storm coming in her bones, she probably can. The changes in pressure accompanying shifts in weather may have a measurable effect on joint pain and headaches. In answer to a question about headache pain, Dr. Matthew Fink, neurologist in chief at New York Presbyterian Hospital, commented to The New York Times:³

"Differences in air pressure because of the weather or changes in altitude can have noticeable effects on the human body, though some people are more sensitive than others. Low barometric pressure can cause headaches by creating a pressure difference between the surrounding atmosphere and the sinuses, which are filled with air. That leads to distended sinuses, especially if there is any congestion or blockage."

With less pressure against the body, the pressure differences may trigger headaches. As reported in a study published in the journal Internal Medicine,⁴ researchers enrolled 28 patients who suffered migraine headaches. They were asked to keep a diary for the course of a year, recording their headache pain.

Their recordings were compared to barometric pressure data from the local meteorological observatory. The researchers found a correlation between the frequency of headaches and small reductions in atmospheric pressure, which were measured two days before and two days after headache onset.

Participant diary data showed the frequency increased when the barometric pressure dropped from the day the headache occurred to the day after, and the frequency reduced as the barometric pressure rose. They concluded that pressure changes may be an exacerbating factor in migraine headaches.

The authors of a second study⁵ found similar results, when 20 migraine headache sufferers were asked to keep an hourly pain log for 14 days. Whether there is an effect on your blood pressure measurement from the weather is still a subject of study, however. The Mayo Clinic⁶ writes that blood pressure typically increases in the winter months and may go up or down in reaction to abrupt changes in atmospheric pressure in the same way.

In a study of the effect of temperature and barometric pressure in 333 men and women with Stage 1 high blood pressure, researchers discovered no variability associated with barometric pressure changes. They did find variability associated with temperature and concluded that cold weather could increase blood pressure variability, complicating diagnosis and management.⁷

Pressure and Temperature May Affect Your Joint Pain

It is also common to hear people predict the weather based on changes in joint pain. Falling barometric pressure may increase the risk of joint swelling, but to date no clear association has been found to explain an increase.

In one study⁸ of 200 participants who had knee osteoarthritis, researchers recorded daily values for temperature, barometric pressure, dew point, precipitation and relative humidity. The participants were located across the U.S. and the data were recorded for three months. The researchers found a consistent association between barometric pressure changes, ambient temperature and pain severity.

This remained after the data were adjusted for age, gender, body mass index and pain medication use, including opioids. They concluded "barometric pressure and ambient temperature are independently associated with osteoarthritis knee pain severity."

In a second systematic review of observational studies,⁹ researchers looked at the association between weather and joint pain in those suffering with rheumatoid arthritis. An overall analysis of all studies showed nearly no association between temperature, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure and pain.

However, data from two studies showed a minority of patients were influenced by one or more of the criteria. They concluded the information to date had not shown any consistent effect, yet evidence did suggest pain in some individuals was likely affected by the weather.

Citizen Scientists Measure Weather and Pain Relationship

A research team from the University of Manchester¹⁰ undertook a unique data gathering study when they published a smartphone app to recruit participants. During the 12-month recruiting period, it was downloaded by 13,207 people in the U.K.

Participants were asked to record daily pain intensity and GPS locations on their phone, which linked their location to local weather data. At the end of the study, the researchers had 2,658 participants included in the analysis. The data revealed that an increase in relative humidity and wind speed was associated with a higher potential for pain.

The potential for pain reduced with an increase in atmospheric pressure. Temperature did not have a significant association with pain in this study. Based on the data, the effect on pain could not be explained by mood or physical activity. The team wrote the study validated that an individual's perception of their pain was associated with the weather.

Opioids Are Not the Answer to Chronic Pain

Barometric weather changes may influence your joint pain. Turning to opioids for pain management is not the answer. Before the mid-1980s, these pain killers were not frequently prescribed, as physicians feared their patients would become dependent on highly addictive drugs.

By 2017, there were 1.7 million who suffered from a substance abuse problem related to a prescription opioid painkiller. During the same year, 47,600 deaths were recorded from an opioid overdose and at least 130 died every day in 2016 and 2017 from an opioid-related overdose.

Before you accept a prescription for an opioid painkiller, consider if you would use heroin to treat the type of pain you're experiencing. Opioid painkillers are essentially prescription strength, legal heroin drugs with the same addictive properties and potential to destroy your life.

It is important to remember that pain is your body's way of communicating something is wrong. I recommend working with your health care provider to identify the source of it. Often if you're able to relieve the source, it can relieve the pain. Consider the following non-pharmacological options to reduce inflammation and pain long-term.

Nondrug Options Lessen Pain Without Risky Side Effects

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For most people, going to the doctor is usually a bit nerve-racking. But for some, the stress of a medical appointment triggers a temporary rise in blood pressure. If that’s the case for you — and if your blood pressure is normal at home and in other nonmedical settings — you may have what’s known as white-coat hypertension. Now, a large study suggests that people with this condition face a greater threat of heart disease than people whose blood pressure readings are always normal.

According to current guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, normal blood pressure is defined as less than 120/80. High blood pressure is 130/80 and higher.

“If your blood pressure goes up under the relatively nonthreatening situation of seeing a doctor, then what might happen if you’re cut off on the highway, or experience a challenging family or work circumstance?” says Dr. Randall Zusman, a cardiologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

Everyone’s blood pressure fluctuates constantly throughout the day. But people with white-coat hypertension may experience more frequent and higher spikes. About one in five people has the condition, which doctors typically don’t treat with medication.

The white-coat effect

For the study, researchers pooled findings from 27 studies involving more than 64,000 people in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Compared with people whose blood pressure was normal both at the doctor’s office and at home, people with untreated white-coat hypertension had a 36% higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and other heart-related events. They were also twice as likely to die from heart disease.

However, people taking blood pressure medication whose blood pressure still rose at the doctor’s office (a phenomenon known as the white-coat effect) did not have a higher risk of heart disease. The study was published June 10 in Annals of Internal Medicine.

According to Dr. Zusman, the findings lend further support for treating people with white-coat hypertension. Research suggests that the condition nearly always progresses to sustained high blood pressure.

What you can do

Treatment doesn’t necessarily mean taking blood pressure medication, however. “Losing weight, exercising, limiting salt, and not smoking are all associated with better blood pressure control. I certainly encourage people to do all those things, whether they have intermittent or sustained high blood pressure,” says Dr. Zusman.

Sometimes, even determined efforts to make these changes aren’t sufficient. If lifestyle changes aimed at controlling hypertension can’t bring your blood pressure down to a normal range, there are many safe, effective medications that can help.

Dr. Zusman advises all of his patients to use a home blood pressure monitor to make sure their treatment is working. “I also have them bring their device in and watch them take their blood pressure to make sure they’re using the monitor correctly,” he says. Doctors often suggest checking your blood pressure once or twice a day for a week or so right after starting or changing medications. After that, two to three times a week at different times of the day is a good idea, says Dr. Zusman.

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Feeling tired, run down and burnt out, but pushing through until your much-needed holiday?  We’ve all been there. And then once you get time off, you get sick.

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Trainer Sydney Torabi takes you through a complete lower body workout for your next leg day.

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Do you get joy out of volunteering, helping out with your grandkids, or learning new skills in that class you’ve been taking?

If you said yes, it could help you live longer. As it turns out, being inspired by things in your life doesn’t just help your emotional well-being — it may keep you healthier.

A 2019 JAMA Network Open study found that among a group of nearly 7,000 adults over age 50, those who scored highest on a scale that measured “life purpose” were less likely to die during the four-year study period. They were also less likely to die during the same period from heart, circulatory, or blood conditions, compared with those who scored lower.

“There have been a number of studies suggesting that a higher sense of purpose in life is associated with reduced risk of early death,” says Eric S. Kim, PhD, a research scientist in the department of social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “However, this study showed for the first time that sense of purpose in life is associated with specific causes of death, and that’s an interesting advancement of knowledge.”

Defining a purposeful life

So, what exactly is life purpose? Life purpose is defined differently by different people. But in general it indicates that you have an aim in life and goals. This purpose, the study authors said, helps make it more likely that you will engage in behaviors that are good for your health. Some studies have simply asked people what gives them a sense of purpose in life, says Kim. People listed such factors as

• family and relationships
• community
• helping others
• learning new skills
• taking part in leisure activities or hobbies.

“I define it as the extent to which people experience their lives as being directed and motivated by valued life goals,” says Kim.

In this study, having more life purpose was associated with a lower rate of death during the study period overall, from cardiovascular disease and blood conditions, and also from digestive conditions.

However, stronger life purpose didn’t appear to insulate study participants from all health conditions. Researchers did not find an effect on death rates from cancer, tumors, or conditions that affected the respiratory tract. It’s also important to note that the study didn’t prove that having a life purpose resulted in the lower death rates seen in the study.

“This was a well-done observational study. But there are limitations from studies with this kind of design, as they can’t pinpoint causality,” says Kim.

How does life purpose keep you healthy?

There are a few theoretical reasons why having a life purpose might help improve your health. “We’re currently working on a review article about this topic and we found literature suggesting that purpose in life works through three main pathways,” says Kim.

These include the following:

• It makes you more likely to protect your health. For example, you might eat healthier, sleep better, exercise more, or increase your use of preventive health services.
• It could reduce stress. “There’s some evidence from lab studies and studies that track people over time that suggests that people with a higher sense of purpose in life are less perturbed by various stressors, and also recover more quickly when they are more stressed out,” says Kim.
• It could reduce inflammation. Researchers have linked inflammation in the body to cardiovascular disease and other health conditions. Stress is known to prompt inflammation in the body, so reducing stress might help to reduce inflammation.

Ultimately, activities that provide life purpose may be prompted by an overarching outlook in which life itself is greatly valued, says Kim. “One caveat is that there are important studies that show no association between a sense of purpose in life and some of these factors, so this is still an active field of research.”

Lacking purpose? Strategies to help

If you feel like you are lacking purpose, seeking out new opportunities may help. Look for activities and roles that will provide a compelling reason to get up every morning. Some research has found that volunteering is a valuable option for many people.

But if you’re feeling stuck, don’t be afraid to reach out for help.

“There’s some evidence to suggest that specialized cognitive behavioral therapy can improve a sense of purpose in life, as well as meaning in life, which is a conceptually close cousin,” says Kim.

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Focusing on gratitude has become a growing trend in recent years,¹ and for good reason. There’s a lot of stress, illness and unhappiness in the world, and gratitude is an effective remedy for all of these — and it’s free. For example, research shows that gratitude:^2,3,4,5

Alters your brain in a number of beneficial ways — Examples include triggering release of mood-regulating neurotransmitters6 such as dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine and oxytocin; inhibiting the stress hormone cortisol; and stimulating your hypothalamus (a brain area involved in the regulation of stress) and your ventral tegmental area (part of your brain’s reward circuitry that produces pleasurable feelings)7

Increases happiness and life satisfaction8,9

Lowers stress and emotional distress

Improves emotional resiliency10

Reduces symptoms of depression11,12

Reduces pain

Lowers inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines

Lowers blood sugar

Improves immune function13

Lowers blood pressure

Improves heart health,14 reducing the likelihood of sudden death in patients with congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease

Lowers risk for heart disease15,16

Improves general health by encouraging self-care17,18

Improves sleep19

Improves interpersonal relationships20

Boosts productivity21

Reduces materialism22 and increases generosity,23 both of which can increase happiness and life satisfaction

Gratitude Defined

As explained by Harvard Medical School:²⁴

“Gratitude is a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives.

In the process, people usually recognize that the source of that goodness lies at least partially outside themselves. As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals — whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.”

According to one study,²⁵ gratitude is “uniquely important to psychological well-being.” In teenagers, gratitude has been found to correlate with “positive affect, global and domain specific life satisfaction, optimism, social support and prosocial behavior.”²⁶ It’s even been suggested that gratitude practice and cultivation can be used as a psychotherapeutic intervention with positive effect.²⁷

Finding What Works

As psychologist Laurie Santos, who teaches the science of happiness at Yale, told NPR,²⁸ "It's one of the practices that really wins out from the field of positive psychology, because it takes very little time, and the benefits are so powerful."

As noted by Harvard,²⁹ there are many ways to feel and express gratitude, and all are equally valid. You can think back to positive memories, for example, applying gratitude for past blessings.

Feeling and expressing gratitude in the present helps remind you to not take good fortune for granted. Applied to the future, it becomes an expression of hope and optimism that everything will work out for the best, even if you cannot see the road ahead.

For best results, the key is to find a method that feels meaningful to you. For some, writing a gratitude list first thing in the morning might do the trick. For others, quietly contemplating what you’re grateful for — past, present or future — at the end of each day works better.

One particularly potent strategy is to write a letter of gratitude to someone whom you’ve not properly thanked for their kindness, and to hand deliver the letter to them. In one study,^30,31 doing this resulted in an immediate and significant increase in happiness score that lasted for an entire month.

When Gratitude Is a Struggle

Depending on circumstances, gratitude can sometimes be a struggle. Researchers say the best way to overcome this hurdle (which can trigger even more pessimism or guilt) is to find one tiny little thing to be grateful for, and to focus on that one thing.

Maybe you’ve lost your job and your car was repossessed but — thankfully — there’s a bus stop within easy walking distance. Over time, you’ll find it becomes easier to identify additional things to be thankful for.³²

Another way to flex your gratitude muscle when life events leave you uninspired is to identify and express gratitude for seemingly “useless” or insignificant things. It could be a certain smell in the air, the color of a flower, your child’s freckles or the curvature of a stone. Over time, you’ll find that doing this will help home your ability to identify “good” things in your life.

Materialism and Entitlement — Two Common Blocks to Gratitude

According to Robert Emmons, one of the leading scientific experts on gratitude,³³ materialism and entitlement are two common stumbling blocks to gratitude, so if you cannot find anything to be thankful for, consider whether you might have fallen into one of these traps. As explained in a newsletter by Greater Good Science Center:³⁴

“Seen through the lens of buying and selling, relationships as well as things are viewed as disposable, and gratitude cannot survive this … Research has proven that gratitude is essential for happiness, but modern times have regressed gratitude into a mere feeling instead of retaining its historic value, a virtue that leads to action …

[G]ratitude is an action of returning a favor and is not just a sentiment. By the same token, ingratitude is the failure to both acknowledge receiving a favor and refusing to return or repay the favor … If we fail to choose [gratitude], by default we choose ingratitude …

Provision, whether supernatural or natural, becomes so commonplace that it is easily accepted for granted. We believe the universe owes us a living. We do not want to be beholden. Losing sight of protection, favors, benefits and blessings renders a person spiritually and morally bankrupt …

People who are ungrateful tend to be characterized by an excessive sense of self-importance, arrogance, vanity and an unquenchable need for admiration and approval.

Narcissists reject the ties that bind people into relationships of reciprocity. They expect special favors and feel no need to pay back or pay forward … Without empathy, they cannot appreciate an altruistic gift because they cannot identify with the mental state of the gift-giver.”

If entitlement is the hallmark of narcissism, then humility is the antidote and the answer when you struggle with gratitude. As noted by Emmons, “The humble person says that life is a gift to be grateful for, not a right to be claimed. Humility ushers in a grateful response to life.”³⁵

So, gratitude isn’t a response to receiving “your due,” but rather the recognition that life owes you nothing, yet provided you with everything you have anyway — a place to live, family, friends, work, your eyesight, your breath, indeed your very life. When you start seeing everything as a gift, opposed to things you’ve deserved (for better or worse), your sense of gratitude will begin to swell.

How to Build and Strengthen Gratitude

While keeping a daily gratitude journal is highly recommended, there are many other ways to practice gratitude. I’ve compiled suggestions from various experts below. The key is to stay consistent. Find a way to incorporate your chosen method into each week, and stick with it.

Write thank-you notes36 — When thanking someone, be specific and acknowledge the effort and/or cost involved.

Say grace at each meal — Adopting the ritual of saying grace at each meal is a great way to flex your gratitude muscle on a daily basis,37 and will also foster a deeper connection to your food. While this can be a perfect opportunity to honor a spiritual connection with the divine, you don’t have to turn it into a religious speech if you don’t want to. You could simply say, “I am grateful for this food, and appreciate all the time and hard work that went into its production, transportation and preparation.”

Change your perception — Disappointment can be a major source of stress, which is known to have far-reaching effects on your health and longevity. In fact, centenarians overwhelmingly cite stress as the most important thing to avoid if you want to live a long and healthy life. Since stress is virtually unavoidable, the key is to develop and strengthen your ability to manage your stress so that it doesn’t wear you down over time. Rather than dwelling on negative events, most centenarians figured out how to let things go, and you can do that too. It takes practice, though. It’s a skill that must be honed daily, or however often you’re triggered. A foundational principle to let go of negativity is the realization that the way you feel has little to do with the event itself, and everything to do with your perception of it. Wisdom of the ancients dictate that events are neither good nor bad in and of themselves. It is your belief about the event that upsets you, not the fact that it happened. As noted by Ryan Holiday, author of “The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art of Living,”38 “The Stoics are saying, ‘This happened to me,’ is not the same as, ‘This happened to me and that’s bad.’ They’re saying if you stop at the first part, you will be much more resilient and much more able to make some good out of anything that happens.” And, once you can see the good, you’re more apt to feel gratitude.

Be mindful of your nonverbal actions — Smiling and hugging are both ways of expressing gratitude, encouragement, excitement, empathy and support. These physical actions also help strengthen your inner experience of positive emotions of all kinds.

Give praise — Research39 shows using “other-praising” phrases are far more effective than “self-beneficial” phrases. For example, praising a partner saying, “thank you for going out of your way to do this,” is more powerful than a compliment framed in terms of how you benefited, such as “it makes me happy when you do that.” The former resulted in the partner feeling happier and more loving toward the person giving the praise. Also, be mindful of your delivery — say it like you mean it. Establishing eye contact is another tactic that helps you show your sincerity.

Prayer and/or mindfulness meditation — Expressing thanks during prayer or meditation is another way to cultivate gratitude. Practicing "mindfulness" means that you're actively paying attention to the moment you're in right now. A mantra is sometimes used to help maintain focus, but you can also focus on something that you're grateful for, such as a pleasant smell, a cool breeze or a lovely memory.

Create a nightly gratitude ritual — One suggestion is to create a gratitude jar,40 into which the entire family can add notes of gratitude on a daily basis. Any jar or container will do. Simply write a quick note on a small slip of paper and put it into the jar. Some make an annual (or biannual or even monthly) event out of going through the whole jar, reading each slip out loud.

Spend money on activities instead of things — According to research,41 spending money on experiences not only generates more gratitude than material consumption, it also motivates greater generosity. As noted by co-author Amit Kumar, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Chicago, “People feel fortunate, and because it’s a diffuse, untargeted type of gratitude, they’re motivated to give back to people in general.”42

Embrace the idea of having “enough” — According to many who have embraced a more minimalist lifestyle, the key to happiness is learning to appreciate and be grateful for having “enough.” Financial hardship and work stress are two significant contributors to depression and anxiety. The answer is to buy less and appreciate more. Instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses, practice being grateful for the things you already have, and release yourself from the iron grip of advertising, which tells you there’s lack in your life. Many who have adopted the minimalist lifestyle claim they’ve been able to reduce the amount of time they have to work to pay their bills, freeing up time for volunteer work, creative pursuits and taking care of their personal health, thereby dramatically raising their happiness and life satisfaction. The key here is deciding what “enough” is. Consumption itself is not the problem; unchecked and unnecessary shopping is. Many times, accumulation of material goods is a symptom that you may be trying to fill a void in your life, yet that void can never be filled by material things. More often than not, the void is silently asking for more love, personal connection, or experiences that bring purpose and passionate engagement. So, make an effort to identify your real, authentic emotional and spiritual needs, and then focus on fulfilling them in ways that does not involve shopping.

Tapping — The Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a helpful tool for a number of emotional challenges, including lack of gratitude. EFT is a form of psychological acupressure based on the energy meridians used in acupuncture that can quickly restore inner balance and healing, and helps rid your mind of negative thoughts and emotions. In the video below, EFT practitioner Julie Schiffman demonstrates how to tap for gratitude.

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This is often the time of year when healthy living takes a back seat - replaced by bigger portions, more regular liquor consumption and less workouts. Sam Wood's nutritionist of choice, Steph Geddes, shares her clever tips for avoiding the silly season trap of overindulging and under-exercising. 

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Calming presents to promote positive vibes and clarity. 

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From Jesinta Franklin’s “miracle” news to Jennifer Hawkins' incredible pregnancy, we’ve rounded up all the exciting baby news of 2019.

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Some of the same mutations allowing humans to fend off deadly infections also make us more prone to certain inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, such as Crohn's disease. Researchers describe how ancestral origins impact the likelihood that people of African or Eurasian descent might develop immune-related diseases. The authors also share evidence that the human immune system is still evolving.

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A study shows stem cell therapy helps hearts recover from a heart attack, although not for the biological reasons originally proposed two decades ago that today are the basis of ongoing clinical trials. The study reports that injecting living or even dead heart stem cells into the injured hearts of mice triggers an acute inflammatory process, which in turn generates a wound healing-like response to enhance the mechanical properties of the injured area.

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Alyssa shares 7 tips on how to feel more at home in your own body. 

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Downing kombucha by the litre? Love Apple Cider Vinegar? According to dentist Angie Lang, your ‘healthy’ habits might be doing more damage than you think. Here’s how to fix it.

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Are you worried about Alzheimer’s disease? Does one of your parents or siblings have the disease? If so, your risks are between two and four times that of the general public. What about people without a family history of the disease? Unfortunately, everyone is at risk for it. By age 85, half of you reading this article today will have developed Alzheimer’s disease, with or without a family history.

Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it?

I’m writing today to give you some good news. A new study from the lab of Harvard researcher Yakeel Quiroz, PhD, has suggested a new target for drugs that might have the potential to slow down or even stop Alzheimer’s disease in its tracks.

A family with early-onset disease — and one exception

Dr. Quiroz, her longtime colleague Dr. Francisco Lopera, and first author Dr. Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez have been studying a large family in Colombia, South America, some of whom have a mutation in the presenilin 1 gene that causes early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Over 1,000 people in this family are affected by the mutation. Among these family members, early symptoms of Alzheimer’s, such as memory loss and word-finding difficulties, almost always develop around age 44, and dementia follows at around age 49. Sometimes individuals may develop these symptoms or dementia one, two, or even three years later. But not 10 or 20 years later — and certainly not 30 years later. Yet one individual — a woman in her 70s with this genetic mutation — is only now starting to show symptoms.

The study, reported in the November 2019 issue of Nature Medicine, is a case report and extensive analysis of this one woman.

The APOE gene can modify your risk of Alzheimer’s

Many people have read or heard about variations in the APOE gene as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Interestingly, in their inquiry into why this woman with a mutation for early-onset Alzheimer’s had not yet developed dementia, the researchers found that she had an additional mutation in her APOE gene.

APOE has been linked to ordinary, late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and comes in three common forms. Most people, about 70% to 75%, have APOE3. About 15% to 20% of people have an APOE4 gene, and about 5% to 10% of people have an APOE2 gene.

• If you have one APOE4 gene, your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is three to four times more likely than if you only have APOE3 genes.
• If you have one APOE2 gene, your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease is somewhat less than if you only have APOE3 genes.

This woman’s mutation of her APOE gene is an unusual variant called APOE3Christchurch (APOE3ch), named after the New Zealand city where it was first discovered. Even more unusual is the fact that she had two versions of this mutation, meaning that both her father and her mother gave it to her. The researchers wondered if this APOE3ch mutation could be the cause of her resistance to Alzheimer’s disease.

Resistance to tau

Another piece of the puzzle relates to an abnormal protein called tau. Tau is associated with the destruction of brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease. Tau is thought to accumulate in the brain after amyloid protein — the pathologic hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease — forms plaques. Although her brain was full of abnormal amyloid plaques — even more so than most people with full-blown Alzheimer’s dementia — she had relatively little tau.

Now the question was, could the APOE3ch mutation be related to the small amounts of tau protein? Although the answer is far from settled, the researchers did uncover some clues through laboratory experiments. Their findings suggest that the APOE3ch mutation may reduce the uptake of tau in brain cells. In addition, they were able to produce similar beneficial results using a special protein they created in the laboratory to try to mimic the effects of the APOE3ch mutation.

Where we are now

In brief, these Harvard researchers have a viable hypothesis to explain why this woman has been highly resistant to developing Alzheimer’s disease dementia. Moreover, their work suggests a possible path to a treatment that could be beneficial for all forms of Alzheimer’s disease.

We are still years away from a human treatment. The next step will be to try to treat laboratory models of Alzheimer’s disease in rodents, and then clinical trials in people with the disease after that. But in my view, this paper has provided the scientific community with a clue that may lead us to an eventual cure for Alzheimer’s disease.

The post A clue to a cure for Alzheimer’s disease appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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Researchers are lending support to Arnold Palmer's famous assertion that golf is predominantly played in 'the six inches between the ears'.

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Three-year trial comparing three treatment strategies for tooth decay in children's teeth finds no evidence to suggest that conventional fillings are more successful than sealing decay into teeth, or using preventive methods alone. 43% of those participating in the study experienced toothache or dental infection regardless of the treatment received.

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In a recent study using mice, lab-grown human retinal cells and patient samples, scientists say they found evidence of a new pathway that may contribute to degeneration of the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.

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These findings indicate that stable short-term memory information exists within a population of neurons with dynamic activity.

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Google, by far one of the greatest monopolies that ever existed, and poses a unique threat to anyone concerned about health, supplements, food and your ability to obtain truthful information about these and other issues.

This year, we’ve seen an unprecedented push to implement censorship across all online platforms, making obtaining and sharing crucial information about holistic health increasingly difficult.

As detailed in “Stark Evidence Showing How Google Censors Health News,” Google’s June 2019 update, which took effect June 3, effectively removed Mercola.com and hundreds of other natural health sites from Google search results. Google is also building a specific search tool for medical and health-related searches.¹

And, while not the sole threat to privacy, Google is definitely one of the greatest. Over time, Google has positioned itself in such a way that it’s become deeply embedded in your day-to-day life, including your health.

In recent years, the internet and medicine have become increasingly intertwined, giving rise to “virtual medicine” and self-diagnosing — a trend that largely favors drugs and costly, invasive treatments — and Google has its proverbial fingers in multiple slices of this pie.

Health Data Mining Poses Unique Privacy Risks

For example, in 2016, Google partnered with WebMD, launching an app allowing users to ask medical questions.² The following year, Google partnered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness, launching a depression self-assessment quiz which turned out to be little more than stealth marketing for antidepressants.^3,4

Google and various tech startups have also been investigating the possibility of assessing mental health problems using a combination of electronic medical records and tracking your internet and social media use.

In 2018, Google researchers announced they’d created an artificial intelligence-equipped retinal scanner that can appraise your risk for a heart attack.⁵

According to a recent Financial Times report,⁶ Google, Amazon and Microsoft collect data entered into health and diagnostic sites, which is then shared with hundreds of third parties — and this data is not anonymized, meaning it’s tied to specifically to you, without your knowledge or consent.

What this means is DoubleClick, Google’s ad service, will know which prescriptions you’ve searched for on Drugs.com, thus providing you with personalized drug ads. Meanwhile, Facebook receives information about what you’ve searched for in WebMD’s symptom checker.

“There is a whole system that will seek to take advantage of you because you’re in a compromised state,” Tim Lebert, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University told Financial Times.⁷ “I find that morally repugnant.”

While some find these kinds of technological advancements enticing, others see a future lined with red warning flags. As noted by Wolfie Christl, a technologist and researcher interviewed by Financial Times:⁸

“These findings are quite remarkable, and very concerning. From my perspective, this kind of data are clearly sensitive, has special protections

The following graphic, created by Financial Times, illustrates the flow of data from BabyCenter.com, a site that focuses on pregnancy, children’s health and parenting, to third parties, and the types of advertising these third parties then generate.

Tech Companies Are Accessing Your Medical Records

As described in the featured Wall Street Journal video,⁹ a number of tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and the startup Xealth, are diving into people’s personal electronic medical records to expand their businesses.

Xealth has developed an application that is embedded in your electronic health records. Doctors who use the Xealth application — which aims to serve most health care sectors and is being rapidly adopted as a preferred “digital formulary”¹⁰ — give the company vast access to market products to their patients. The app includes lists of products and services a doctor believes might be beneficial for certain categories of patients.

When seeing a patient, the doctor will select the products and services he or she wants the patient to get, generating an electronic shopping list that is then sent to the patient. The shopping links direct the patient to purchase these items from Xealth’s third-party shopping sites, such as Amazon.

As noted in the video, “Some privacy experts worry that certain Xealth vendors can see when a patient purchased a product through Xealth, and therefore through their electronic health record.” In the video, Jennifer Miller, assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine says:

”In theory, it could boost adherence to physician recommendations, which is a huge challenge in the U.S. health care system. On the other side, there are real worries about what type of information Amazon in particular is getting access to.

So, from what I understand, when a patient clicks on that Xealth app and is taken to Amazon, the data are coded as Xealth data, which means Amazon likely knows that you purchased these products through your electronic health records.”

Amazon Is Mining Health Records

Amazon, in turn, has developed software, called Amazon Comprehend Medical, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to mine people’s electronic health records. This software has been sold to hospitals, pharmacies, researchers and various other health care providers.

The software reveals medical and health trends that might otherwise go unnoticed. As one example, given in the video, a researcher can use this software to mine tens of thousands of health records to identify candidates for a specific research study.

While this can certainly be helpful, it can also be quite risky, due to potential inaccuracies. Doctors may enter inaccurate data for a patient, for example, data that, were it accurate, would render that patient a poor test subject.

Apple is also getting in on the action through its health app. It facilitates access to electronic medical records by importing all your records directly from your health care provider. The app is meant to be “helpful” by allowing you to pull up your medical records on your iPhone and present them to any doctor, anywhere in the world.

What Does This Mean for Your Privacy

While tech companies like Amazon and Apple claim your data are encrypted (to protect it from hacking) and that they cannot view your records directly, data breaches have become so common that such “guarantees” are next to worthless.

As noted in the video by Dudley Adams, a data use expert at the University of California, San Francisco, “No encryption is perfect. All it takes is time for that encryption to be broken.” One very real concern about having your medical records hacked into is that your information may be sold to insurance companies and your employer, which they can then use against you, either by raising your rates or denying employment.

After all, sick people cost insurance companies and employers more money, so both have a vested interest in avoiding chronically ill individuals. So, were your medical records to get out, you could potentially become uninsurable or unemployable.

Google Collects Health Data on Millions of Americans

Getting back to Google, a whistleblower recently revealed the company amassed health data from millions of Americans in 21 states through its Project Nightingale,^11,12 and patients have not been informed of this data mining. As reported by The Guardian:¹³

“A whistleblower who works in Project Nightingale … has expressed anger to the Guardian that patients are being kept in the dark about the massive deal.

The anonymous whistleblower has posted a video on the social media platform Daily Motion that contains a document dump of hundreds of images of confidential files relating to Project Nightingale.

The secret scheme … involves the transfer to Google of healthcare data held by Ascension, the second-largest healthcare provider in the U.S. The data is being transferred with full personal details including name and medical history and can be accessed by Google staff. Unlike other similar efforts it has not been made anonymous though a process of removing personal information known as de-identification …

Among the documents are the notes of a private meeting held by Ascension operatives involved in Project Nightingale. In it, they raise serious concerns about the way patients’ personal health information will be used by Google to build new artificial intelligence and other tools.”

The anonymous whistleblower told The Guardian:

“Most Americans would feel uncomfortable if they knew their data was being haphazardly transferred to Google without proper safeguards and security in place. This is a totally new way of doing things. Do you want your most personal information transferred to Google? I think a lot of people would say no.”

On a side note, the video the whistleblower uploaded to Daily Motion has since been taken down, with a note saying the “video has been removed due to a breach of the Terms of Use.”

According to Google and Ascension, the data being shared will be used to build a search tool with machine-learning algorithms that will spit out diagnostic recommendations and suggestions for medications that health professionals can then use to guide them in their treatment.

Google claims only a limited number of individuals will have access to the data, but just how trustworthy is Google these days? Something tells me that since the data includes full personal details, they’ll have no problem figuring out a way to eventually make full use of it.

Google Acquires Fitbit

In November 2019, the company also acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion, giving Google access to the health data of Fitbit’s 25.4 million active users¹⁴ as well. While Google says it won’t sell or use Fitbit data for Google ads, some users have already ditched their devices for fear of privacy breaches.¹⁵ As reported by The Atlantic on November 14, 2019:¹⁶

“Immediately, users voiced concern about Google combining fitness data with the sizeable cache of information it keeps on its users. Google assured detractors that it would follow all relevant privacy laws, but the regulatory-compliance discussion only distracted from the strange future coming into view.

As Google pushes further into health care, it is amassing a trove of data about our shopping habits, the prescriptions we use, and where we live, and few regulations are governing how it uses these data.”

How HIPAA Laws Actually Allow This Data Mining

The HIPAA Security Rule is supposed to protect your medical records, preventing access by third parties — including spouses — unless you specifically give your permission for records to be shared. So, just how is it that Google and other tech companies can mine them at will?

As it turns out, the Google-Ascension partnership that gives Google access to medical data is covered by a “business associate agreement” or BAA. HIPAA allows hospitals and medical providers to share your information with third parties that support clinical activities, and according to Google’s interpretation of the privacy laws and HIPAA regulations, the company is not in breach of these laws because it’s a “business associate.” 

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the legality of this arrangement.¹⁷ As reported by The Atlantic:¹⁸

“If HHS determines that Google and its handling of private information make it something more akin to a health care provider itself (because of its access to sensitive information from multiple sources who aren’t prompted for consent), it may find Google and Ascension in violation of the law and refer the matter to the Department of Justice for potential criminal prosecution.

But whether or not the deal goes through, its very existence points to a larger limitation of health-privacy laws, which were drafted long before tech giants started pouring billions into revolutionizing health care.”

Patients Bear the Risk While Third Parties Benefit

BAA agreements only allow for the disclosure of protected health information to entities that help the medical institution to perform its health care functions. The third party is not permitted to use the data for its own purposes or in any independent way.

I personally find it hard to believe that Google would not find a way to profit from this personal health data, considering its web-like business structure that ties into countless other for-profit parties. Even if they don’t, there does not appear to be any distinct advantages to patients whose records are being shared. As reported by STAT News:¹⁹

“Jennifer Miller, a Yale medical school professor who studies patient privacy issues, said the way health information is being shared, whether legal or not, is far from ideal. Patients — whose data are shared without their knowledge or specific consent — end up with all the risks, she said, while the benefits, financial or otherwise, go to Google, Ascension, and potentially future patients.”

As reported by Health IT Security²⁰ in March 2019, Democratic senator of Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto, has also introduced a data privacy bill “that would require companies not covered by HIPAA to obtain explicit consent from patients before sharing health and genetic data.”

“The bill covers the collecting and storing of sensitive data, such as biometrics, genetics, or location data,” Health IT Security writes.²¹ “The consent form must outline how that data will be used.

And the bill will also let consumers request, dispute the accuracy of their records, and transfer or delete their data “without retribution” around price or services offered.

Further, organizations would need to apply three standards to all data collection, processing, storage, and disclosure. First, collection must be for a legitimate business or operation purpose, without subjecting individuals to unreasonable risks to their privacy.

Further, the data may not be used to discriminate against individuals for protected characteristics, such as religious beliefs. Lastly, companies may not engage in deceptive data practices.”

Google Partnership Spurs Class-Action Lawsuit

The fact that patients don’t want Google to access their medical records is evidenced by a class-action lawsuit filed in the summer of 2019 against the University of Chicago Medical Center which, like Ascension, allowed Google access to identifiable patient data through a partnership with the University of Chicago. As reported by WTTW News June 28, 2019:²²

“All three institutions are named as defendants in the suit, which was filed … by Matt Dinerstein, who received treatment at the medical center during two hospital stays in 2015.

The collaboration between Google and the University of Chicago was launched in 2017 to study electronic health records and develop new machine-learning techniques to create predictive models that could prevent unplanned hospital readmissions, avoid costly complications and save lives …

The tech giant has similar partnerships with Stanford University and the University of California-San Francisco. But that partnership violated federal law protecting patient privacy, according to the lawsuit, by allowing Google to access electronic health records of ‘nearly every patient’ at the medical center from 2009 to 2016.

The suit also claims Google will use the patient data to develop commercial health care technologies … The lawsuit claims the university breached its contracts with patients by ‘failing to keep their medical information private and confidential.’ It also alleges UChicago violated an Illinois law that prohibits companies from engaging in deceptive practices with clients.”

Like Ascension, the University of Chicago claims no confidentiality breaches have been made, since Google is a business associate. However, the lawsuit claims HIPAA was still violated because medical records were shared that “included sufficient information for Google to re-identify patients.”

The lawsuit also points out that Google does indeed have a commercial interest in all of this information, and can use it by combining it with its AI and advanced machine learning.

According to the plaintiffs, Google’s acquisition of DeepMind “has allowed for Google to find connections between electronic health records and Google users’ data.” The news report also points out that:²³

“In 2015, Google and DeepMind obtained patient information from the Royal Free NHS Trust Foundation to conduct a study, which a data protection watchdog organization said ‘failed to comply with data protection law.’”

Health-Tracking Shoes and Other Privacy Abominations

Google is also investing in other wearable technologies aimed at tracking users’ health data, including:²⁴

• Shoes designed to monitor your weight, movement and falls
• “Smart” contact lenses for people with age-related farsightedness and those who have undergone cataract surgery²⁵ (a glucose-sensing contact lens for diabetics was canceled in 2018 after four years of development²⁶)
• A smartwatch to provide information for clinical research²⁷
• An all-in-one insulin patch pump for Type 2 diabetics that is prefilled and connected to the internet²⁸

Google also has big plans for expanding the use of AI in health care. According to CB Insights,²⁹ “The company is applying AI to disease detection, new data infrastructure, and potentially insurance.”

As mentioned earlier, insurance companies can jack up premiums based on your health. So, what could possibly go wrong by having Google’s AI wired into the insurance market?

Google has also partnered with drugmaker Sanofi, which “will leverage Google’s cloud and AI technologies and integrate them into its biological innovations and scientific data which in turn will accelerate the medicine discovery process,” according to a Yahoo! Finance report.³⁰

According to Yahoo! Finance, “the collaboration will aid in the identification of various type of treatments suitable for patients. Additionally, Google’s AI tools are likely to be utilized by Sanofi in improving marketing and supply efforts and in forecasting sales.”

In plain English, this partnership will help Sanofi sell more drugs, which can hardly be said to be for the patients’ best interest, but rather that of Sanofi and Google. As mentioned earlier, Verily, Google’s health care division, is also collaborating with Sanofi, Novartis, Otsuka and Pfizer to help them identify suitable patients for clinical drug trials.³¹

To boost drug sales even further, Verily is working with Walgreens to deploy a “medication adherence” project, in which patients are equipped with devices to ensure they’re taking their medication as prescribed.³²

Amazon also plays a part in the drug adherence scheme with its recent buyout of Pillpack, an online pharmacy that offers prepackaged pill boxes with all the different medications you’re taking.

According to Yahoo! Finance, Amazon is also planning to develop at-home medical testing devices, and is rolling out the option to make medical-related purchases from Amazon using your health savings account. All of these things generate health-related data points that can then be used for other purposes, be it personalized marketing or insurance premium decisions.

Have You Had Enough of Google’s Privacy Intrusions Yet? 

Add to all of this data mining the fact that Google is actively manipulating search results and making decisions about what you’re allowed to see and what you’re not based on its own and third party interests — a topic detailed in a November 15, 2019 Wall Street Journal investigation.³³ The dangers ahead should be self-evident.

Now more than ever we must work together to share health information with others by word-of-mouth, by text and email. We have built in simple sharing tools at the top of each article so you can easily email or text interesting articles to your friends and family.

My information is here because all of you support and share it, and we can do this without Big Tech’s support. It’s time to boycott and share! Here are a few other suggestions:

Become a subscriber to my newsletter and encourage your friends and family to do the same. This is the easiest and safest way to make sure you’ll stay up to date on important health and environmental issues.

If you have any friends or relatives that are seriously interested in their health, please share important articles with them and encourage them to subscribe to our newsletter.

Consider dumping any Android phone the next time you get a phone. Android is a Google operating system and will seek to gather as much data as they can about you for their benefit. iPhone, while not perfect, appears to have better privacy protections.

Use the internal Mercola.com search engine when searching for articles on my site.

Boycott Google by avoiding any and all Google products: Stop using Google search engines and recognize that even engines that honor privacy like Start Page, still use Google as their back end and provide censored results. Alternatives include DuckDuckGo34 and Qwant35 Uninstall Google Chrome and use Brave or Opera browser instead, available for all computers and mobile devices.36 From a security perspective, Opera is far superior to Chrome and offers a free VPN service (virtual private network) to further preserve your privacy If you have a Gmail account, try a non-Google email service such as ProtonMail,37 an encrypted email service based in Switzerland Stop using Google docs. Digital Trends has published an article suggesting a number of alternatives38 If you’re a high school student, do not convert the Google accounts you created as a student into personal accounts

Sign the “Don’t be evil” petition created by Citizens Against Monopoly

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“Unsustainable land use and greenhouse gas emissions are delivering a one-two punch to natural ecosystems that are key to the fight against global climate change.

And without sweeping emissions cuts and transformations to food production and land management, the world stands no chance of staving off catastrophic planetary warming,” HuffPost reported, citing the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.¹

Agave plants (the best known of which are blue agave, used to produce tequila), along with nitrogen-fixing, companion trees such as mesquite, huizache, desert ironwood, wattle and varieties of acacia that readily grow alongside agave, are among the most common and prolific, yet routinely denigrated or ignored plants in the world. As India climate scientist Promode Kant points out:

“Agave is to the drier parts of the world what bamboo is to its wetter zones. Capturing atmospheric CO2 in vegetation is severely limited by the availability of land and water. The best choice would be species that can utilize lands unfit for food production and yet make the dynamics of carbon sequestration faster.

As much as 40% of the land on earth is arid and semi-arid, largely in the tropics but also in the cool temperate zones up north. And on almost half of these lands, with a minimum annual rainfall of about 250 mm and soils that are slightly refractory, the very valuable species of agave grows reasonably well.”²

Agave plants and nitrogen-fixing trees densely intercropped and cultivated together have the capacity to draw down massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and produce more above ground and below ground biomass (and animal fodder) on a continuous year-to-year basis than any other desert and semi-desert species. 

Ideal for arid and hot climates, agaves and their companion trees, once established, require little or no irrigation to survive and thrive, and are basically impervious to rising global temperatures and drought. Agaves alone can draw down and store above ground the dry weight equivalent of 30 to 60 tons of CO2 per hectare (12 to 24 tons per acre) per year. One hectare equals 10,000 square meters or 2.47 acres.

Now, a new, agave-based agroforestry and livestock feeding model developed in Guanajuato, Mexico, promises to revitalize campesino/small farmer livestock production while storing massive amounts of atmospheric carbon above and below ground.

Scaled up on millions of currently degraded and overgrazed rangelands, these agave/agroforestry systems have the potential to not only improve soil and pasture health, but to help mitigate and potentially reverse global warming, aka climate change.

Climate Emergency

As international scientists, activists and our own everyday experience tell us, we are facing a Climate Emergency. A “profit at any cost,” fossil fuel-supercharged economy, coupled with industrial agriculture and factory farms, destructive land use and mindless consumption have pumped a dangerous load of CO2 and greenhouse gas pollution into the sky, bringing on global warming and violent climate change.

Degenerative food, farming, livestock and land use practices have decarbonized and killed off much of the biological life and natural carbon-sequestering capacity of our soils, forests and ecosystems.

This degradation and desertification of global landscapes has oxidized and released billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and eliminated much of the above ground carbon biomass once stored in our forests and landscapes.

This global degeneration has depleted so much of the carbon and biological life in our soils, trees and plants that these natural systems can no longer draw down and sequester (through natural photosynthesis) enough of the excess CO2 and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to maintain the necessary balance between CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the carbon stored in our soils, trees and plants.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) estimates that arid and semi-arid lands make up 41.3% of the earth's land surface, including 15% of Latin America (most of Mexico), 66% of Africa, 40% of Asia and 24% of Europe.

Farmers and herders in these areas face tremendous challenges because of increasing droughts, erratic rainfall, degraded soils, overgrazed pastures and water scarcity. Many areas are in danger of degenerating even further into desert, unable to sustain any crops or livestock whatsoever. 

Most of the world’s drylands are located in the economically underdeveloped regions of the Global South, although there are millions of acres of drylands in the U.S., Australia and Southern Europe as well. Farming, ranching and ecosystem conservation are becoming increasingly problematic in these drylands, especially given the fact that the majority of the farms and ranches in these areas do not have irrigation wells or year-round access to surface water.

Crop and livestock production levels are deteriorating, trees and perennials have typically been removed or seasonally burned, and pastures and rangelands have been overgrazed. Poverty, unemployment and malnutrition in these degraded landscapes are rampant, giving rise to violence, organized crime and forced migration

The good news, however, coming out of Mexico, applicable to many other regions, is that if farmers and ranchers can stop overgrazing pastures and rangelands and eliminate slash and burn practices, and instead reforest, revegetate, rehydrate and recarbonize depleted soils, integrating traditional and indigenous water catchment, agroforestry, livestock and land management practices with agave-based agroforestry, we may well be able to green the drylands and store and sequester massive amounts of carbon.

Via Organica, the ‘Organic Way’

After decades as a food, farm, anti-GMO and climate campaigner for the Organic Consumers Association in the U.S., I now spend a good part of my time managing an organic and regenerative farm and training center, Via Organica, in the high-desert drylands of North Central Mexico.

Our semi-arid, temporal (seasonal rainfall) ecosystem and climate in the state of Guanajuato is similar to what you find in many parts of Mexico, and in fact in 40% of the world. In our valley, we typically get 20 inches or 500 millimeters of precipitation in the “rainy season” (July to October), greening the landscape, followed by eight months with little or no rain whatsoever.

At Rancho Via Organica, we’ve been trying to regenerate our high-desert (6,300 feet elevation) environment, developing farming, livestock and landscape management practices that produce healthy organic food and seeds, sequester carbon in the soil, preserve our monte or natural densely-vegetated areas, slow down and infiltrate rainwater (including runoff coming down the mountains and hillsides) to recharge our water table, and reforest and revegetate our still somewhat degraded corn fields and pasturelands.

Looking across our mountain valley, the most prominent flora are cactus and agave plants (some of which are quite large) along with hundreds of thorny, typically undersized, mesquite, huizache and acacia shrubs/trees.

In order to grow our vegetables and cover crops, maintain our olive, mulberry, citrus and pomegranate trees, and provide water and forage for our animals, we — like most small farmers and ranchers in Mexico — irrigate with only the rainfall that we can collect and store in cisterns, ponds and soils.

Eighty-six percent of Mexican farmers and herders have no source of water other than seasonal rainfall, and therefore have to struggle to maintain their milpas (corn, beans and squash) and raise their animals under increasingly adverse climate conditions.

Greening the Drylands: A New Agroforestry Model

Recently Juan Frias, a retired college professor and scientist, came up to me after attending a workshop at our farm. As we discussed regenerative agriculture practices and climate change, Juan told me about a new system of drylands agroforestry and livestock management (sheep and goats), based upon agave plants and mesquite trees in the nearby community of San Luis de la Paz. They call their agroforestry system Modelo Zamarripa.³

By densely planting, pruning and intercropping high-biomass, high-forage producing, fast-growing species of agaves (1,600 to 2,000 per hectare) amongst preexisting deep-rooted, nitrogen-fixing tree species such as mesquite, or among planted tree seedlings, these farmers are transforming their landscape and their livelihoods.

When the agaves are 3 years old, and for the following five to seven years, farmers can begin pruning the leaves or pencas, chopping them up finely with a machine, and then fermenting the agave in closed containers for 30 days, ideally combining the agave leaves with 20% or more of mesquite pods by volume to give them a higher protein level. In our region mesquite trees start to produce pods that can be harvested in five years.

By Year Seven the mesquite and agaves have grown into a fairly dense forest. In years eight to 10, the root stem or pina (weighing 100 to 200 pounds) of the agave is ready for harvesting to produce a distilled liquor called mescal. Meanwhile the hijuelos or pups put out by the mother agave plants are being continuously transplanted back into the agroforestry system, guaranteeing continuous biomass growth (and carbon storage).

In their agroforestry system, the Zamarripa farmers integrate rotational grazing of sheep and goats across their ranch, supplementing the pasture forage their animals consume with the fermented agave silage. Modelo Zamarippa has proven in practice to be ideal for sheep and goats, and we are now experimenting at Via Organica with feeding agave silage to our pastured pigs and poultry.

The revolutionary innovation of these Guanajuato farmers has been to turn a heretofore indigestible, but massive and accessible source of biomass — the agave leaves — into a valuable animal feed, using the natural process of fermentation to transform the plants’ indigestible saponin and lectin compounds into digestible carbohydrates and fiber.

To do this they have developed a relatively simple machine, hooked up to a tractor, that can finely chop up the tough leaves of the agave. After chopping the agave, the next step is to anaerobically ferment the biomass in a closed container (we use 5-gallon buckets with lids).

The fermented end-product, after 30 days, provides a nutritious but very inexpensive silage or animal fodder (in comparison to alfalfa, hay or cornstalks) that costs less than 1 Mexican peso (or approximately 5 cents USD) per kilo (2.2 pounds) to produce.

According to Frias, lambs readily convert 10 kilos of this silage into 1 kilo of body weight. At less than 5 cents per kilo (2 cents per pound) agave silage could potentially make the difference between survival and bankruptcy for millions of the world’s small farmers and herders.

Agaves and Carbon Storage and Sequestration

The Zamarripa system of drylands afforestation and silvopasture draws down and stores in the plants large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere. Agronomists have observed that certain varieties of agave can produce up to 43 tons per hectare of dry weight biomass per year, on a continuous basis.⁴

These high biomass varieties of agave will likely thrive in many of the world’s arid ecosystems, wherever any type of agave and nitrogen-fixing trees are already growing.

Nitrogen-fixing trees such as mesquite can be found in most arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Mesquite grows readily not only in Texas and the Southwestern U.S., Mexico, Central America, Argentina, Chile and other Latin American nations, but also “thrives in arid and semi-arid regions of North America, Africa, the Middle East, Tunisia, Algeria, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar (Burma), Russia, Hawaii, West Indies, Puerto Rico and Australia.”⁵

At Via Organica, outside San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato,⁶ we are utilizing moveable, solar-fenced paddocks for our grazing sheep and goats in order to protect our mesquite tree seedlings, to prevent overgrazing or undergrazing, to eliminate dead grasses and invasive species, and to concentrate animal feces and urine across the landscape in a controlled manner.

At the same time that we are rotating and moving our livestock on a daily basis, we are transplanting, pruning, finely chopping and fermenting the heavy biomass leaves or pencas of agave salmiana plants. Some individual agave pencas or leaves can weigh (wet) as much as 20 kilos or 44 pounds.

The bountiful harvest of this regenerative, high-biomass, high carbon-sequestering system will eventually include not only extremely low-cost, nutritious animal silage, but also high-quality organic lamb, mutton, cheese, milk, aquamiel (agave sap), pulque (a mildly alcoholic beverage) and distilled agave liquor (mescal), all produced organically and biodynamically with no synthetic chemicals or pesticides whatsoever, at affordable prices, with excess agave biomass and fiber available for textiles, compost, biochar and construction materials.

Massive Potential Carbon Drawdown

From a climate crisis perspective, the Modelo Zamarripa is a potential game-changer. Forty-three tons of above-ground dry weight biomass production on a continuing basis per hectare per year ranks among the highest rates of drawing down and storing atmospheric carbon in plants in the world, apart from healthy forests.

Imagine the carbon sequestration potential if rural farmers and pastoralists can establish agave-based agroforestry systems over the next decade on just 10% of the worlds 5 billion degraded acres (500 million acres), areas unsuited for crop production, but areas where agave plants and suitable native nitrogen-fixing companion tress (such as acacia varieties in Africa) are already growing.

Conservatively estimating an above-ground biomass carbon storage rate of 10 tons of carbon per acre per year on these 500 million acres, (counting both agave and companion trees, aboveground and below ground biomass) we would then be able to cumulatively sequester 5 billion tons of carbon (18 billion gigatons of CO2e) from the atmosphere every year.

Five billion tons of additional carbon sequestered in the Earth’s soils and biota equals nearly 50% of all human greenhouse gas emissions in 2018.

More Background on Agaves

To better understand the potential of this agroforestry/holistic grazing system, a little more background information on agave plants, and nitrogen-fixing or trees such as mesquite, huizache or other fodder and food producing trees such as inga or moringa may be useful.

Various varieties of agave plants (along with their cactus relatives and companion nitrogen-fixing trees) are found growing on approximately 20% of the earth’s lands, essentially on the half of the world’s drylands where there is a minimum annual rainfall of approximately 10 inches or 250 mm, where the temperature never drops below 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Kant has described the tremendous biomass production and carbon-storage potential of agaves in dry areas:

“Agave can … be used for carbon sequestration projects under CDM [the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Climate Protocol] even though by itself it does not constitute a tree crop and cannot provide the minimum required tree crown cover to create a forest as required under CDM rules.

But if the minimum required crown cover is created by planting an adequate number of suitable tree species in agave plantations then the carbon sequestered in the agave plants will also be eligible for measurement as above ground dry biomass and provide handsome carbon credits …

It causes no threat to food security and places no demand for the scarce water and since it can be harvested annually after a short initial gestation period of establishment, and yields many products that have existing markets, it is also well suited for eradication of poverty …”⁷

Agaves, of which there are 200 or more varieties growing across the world, can thrive even in dry, degraded lands unsuitable for crop production because of their Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) photosynthetic pathway (cacti and other related desert plants also have a CAM pathway) that essentially enables these plants to draw down moisture from the air and store it in their thick tough leaves during the nighttime, while the opening in their leaves (the stomata) close up during daylight hours, drastically reducing evaporation.

Meanwhile, its relatively shallow mycorrhizal fungi-powered roots below the soil surface spread out horizontally, taking in available moisture and nutrients from the topsoil, especially during the rainy season.

In addition, its propagation of baby plants or pups, (up to 50 among some varieties) that grow out of its horizontal roots makes the plant a self-reproducing perennial, able to sustain high biomass growth, and carbon-storage and sequestration on a long-term basis.

Even as a maturing agave plant is pruned beginning in Year Three (to produce fermented silage) and the entire mature agave plant (the pina) is harvested at the end of its life span, in order to make mescal, in our case after eight to 10 years, it leaves behind a family of pups that are carrying out photosynthesis and producing biomass (leaves and stem) at an equal or greater rate than the parent plant.

In other words, a very high level of above-ground carbon storage and below-ground sequestration can be maintained year after year — all with no irrigation and no synthetic fertilizers or chemicals required, if intercropped in conjunction with nitrogen-fixing tree such as mesquite, huizache, inga, moringa or other dryland species such as the acacias that grow in arid or semi-arid areas.

Agaves and a number of their tree companions have been used as sources of food, beverage and fiber by indigenous societies for hundreds, in fact thousands of years. However, until recently farmers had not been able to figure out how to utilize the massive biomass of the agave plant leaves which, unless they are fermented, are basically indigestible and even harmful to livestock.

In fact, this is why, besides the thorns and thick skins of the leaves, animals typically will not, unless starving, eat them. But once their massive leaves (which contain significant amounts of sugar) are chopped up and fermented in closed containers, livestock, after a short period of adjustment, will gobble up this sweet, nutritious forage like candy.

Developing a native species/agroforestry/livestock system on 5 million to 10 million acres of land unsuitable for food crops in a large country like Mexico (which has 357 million acres of cropland and pastureland, much of which is degraded) could literally sequester 37% to 74% of the country’s net current fossil fuel emissions (current net emissions are 492m tons of CO2e).

And, of course, wherever these agave/agroforestry/holistic grazing systems are deployed, farmers and ranchers will also be restoring the fertility and moisture holding capacity of millions of acres of pasturelands and rangelands, thereby promoting rural food self-sufficiency and prosperity.

Scaling up best regenerative practices on the world’s billions of acres of croplands, pasturelands and forest lands — especially those degraded lands no longer suitable for crops or grazing — can play a major role, along with moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, in stopping and reversing climate change.

For more information on the global Regeneration Movement go to Regeneration International. Please sign up for our free newsletter and, if you can afford it, make a tax-deductible donation to help us spread the message of Regenerative Agriculture and Agave Power across the world. “Our house is on fire,” as teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg reminds us, but there is still time to turn things around.

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