Health & Fitness

Nutrition scientist Kathleen Alleaume shares the major reasons why you're finding yourself staring into the fridge more than usual, and how you can break your mindless snacking cycle. 

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In just a few short weeks the world has changed. The SARS-CoV-2 virus that triggers the infection commonly known as COVID-19 was officially called a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization on January 30, 2020.¹ Concern over the spread of the virus has triggered a cascade of events with far-reaching consequences.

A two-week unilateral truce has been called in Yemen² to prevent viral spread, stores are closing; and there is a quiet spread of fear created by daily news headlines claiming more deaths, more infections and more change. While store closings and job layoffs are real, it’s hard to tell the truth from fiction in some reports.

Many are worried about their job security and the stress of isolation from family and friends. There have not been many other periods in history when the whole world has waited to see what the next day would bring.

The Difference Between Being Scared and Being Fearful

During this time some are feeling fearful, which is not surprising considering the barrage of bad news. Each report seems worse than the last as the various media compete for an audience. Understanding the difference between being scared and fearful is a good place to start, since one makes life more difficult and the other heightens alertness and makes senses become sharper.³

Many people enjoy the feeling of being scared in a controlled environment. It can be invigorating when more oxygen reaches your brain and your pulse rate rises. Think about watching a thriller or riding a roller coaster: The reason people enjoy those activities is because they have a controlled feeling of being scared.⁴

Under controlled circumstances, people simultaneously experience stress and pleasure. In one study, researchers measured cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure, emotional state and immunoreactivity before and after 12 novice bungee jumpers took the plunge.⁵

They found what you probably have experienced if you enjoy theme parks was that anxiety and cortisol were high before the jump, while immunoreactivity and euphoria were high after the jump. But, those feelings are far different from fear that generates anxiety and worry.

Instead of the natural fight-or-flight reaction that may save your life if you’re being attacked, fear paralyzes your mind and your body. The fear response during the COVID-19 pandemic is not new to society. In 2015, the headline in the American Psychological Association⁶ could have referenced 2020 — "An Epidemic of Fear." The writer was talking about the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

Although there were only a small number of confirmed cases in the U.S., the fear of infection leveraged a disproportionate response in some people. Parents in three states pulled their children out of school and a teacher in Maine was put on leave.

Fear Response to a New Threat Is Expected

Paul Slovic, Ph.D., is president of Decision Research, a nonprofit organization dedicated to studying human judgment. He was not surprised by the reaction to Ebola. His comments in 2015 are as true now as they were then:⁷

"What happened was quite consistent with what we know about risk perception. The minute the Ebola threat was communicated, it hit all of the hot buttons: It can be fatal, it's invisible and hard to protect against, exposure is involuntary and it's not clear that the authorities are in control of the situation."

New and different threats raise a person's level of anxiety higher than threats with the same or similar consequences, but which are familiar. This may be related to the response in your amygdala in the brain, which helps the brain process emotions.

The authors of one study⁸ found that the activity in the amygdala rose when participants were shown repeated images of unfamiliar flowers and snakes, while repeated images of familiar images of those same categories of natural objects did not raise the activity. As Ryan Holiday writes:⁹

“Being afraid? That’s not fight or flight. That’s paralysis. That only makes things worse. Especially right now. Especially in a world that requires solutions to the many problems we face. They’re certainly not going to solve themselves. And inaction (or the wrong action) may make them worse, it might put you in even more danger. An inability to learn, adapt, to embrace change will too.”

Preparation and Knowledge Reduce Fear

While fleeting feelings of concern are expected when faced with new experiences, continued feelings of anxiety and paralysis interfere with daily life. Those feelings are detrimental to your mental health. Holiday writes it is¹⁰ "Training. Courage. Discipline. Commitment. Calm." That reduces the panic and fear induced by hyperbolic media headlines often used to drive revenue.

Training, education and preparation are the foundation of courage. The difference between being fearful and being scared is that fear paralyzes your ability to evaluate what's happening and make decisions. But preparation and information help you to make decisions and act, even when you're scared. This is the definition of courage — taking action despite being scared.

In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt stood outside the East Wing of the U.S. Capitol building¹¹ to give his inaugural address after having been elected President of the U.S. Within the first few minutes, he said the line that has been repeated for generations, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself …”

However, this is just the middle of one sentence and it doesn’t communicate the full thought. As you read these words, you’ll see he was telling the people that fear was a choice and it was the real enemy of recovery. His description of fear — a “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror” — rings as true now as in 1933:¹²

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Fear is frequently fed by misinformation and emotionally laden news headlines, among other things. In fact, reading the news when there isn’t a pandemic may be just as fear-inspiring. As Psychology Today¹³ points out, it’s rarely the good news that makes the headlines and attracts readers. Instead, it’s violence, unrest, deaths and destruction.

There Is No Problem so Bad That You Can’t Make It Worse

Yet, as Holiday writes, it’s preparation and information that make it easier to set fear aside, evaluate the headlines with a clear mind and discern when things aren’t adding up. He uses a story about Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to illustrate this point:

“’It’s not like astronauts are braver than other people,’ he says. ‘We’re just, you know, meticulously prepared …’ Think about someone like John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, whose heart rate never went above a 100 beats per minute the entire mission. That’s what preparation does for you.

Astronauts face all sorts of difficult, high stakes situations in space—where the margin for error is tiny. In fact, on Chris’ first spacewalk his left eye went blind. Then his other eye teared up and went blind too. In complete darkness, he had to find his way back if he wanted to survive.

He would later say that the key in such situations is to remind oneself that ‘there are six things that I could do right now, all of which will help make things better. And it’s worth remembering, too, there’s no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse also.’”

Ben Okri, novelist and poet, has some of the same thoughts about fear and the damage it does to the human mind and body. Writing in The Guardian, he works to define the difference between awareness of a problem and panic in the midst of it. He writes:¹⁴

“One can be aware of the coronavirus, aware of what needs to be done to minimise its spread — and we must do those things. But one should not make the situation worse with the negative imagination that is fear. For, like fire, imagination can create or it can destroy. It can make us act from our worst selves.

That is what panic does. Panic is fear on steroids. With panic, sanity is lost. Ever since the virus entered our mental culture, it has become omnipresent. We have been engulfed in its world, in its fearsome power.”

Long-Term Fear Damages Your Health

Preparation begins with understanding the long-term consequences of fear and panic to your health — and realizing these health conditions are neither inevitable nor necessary to your survival. Fear triggers the release of cortisol, part of the fight or flight response, and chronic stress.¹⁵ As you’ll discover in this short video, it has far-reaching consequences.

It’s time to take control of your physical and mental health by controlling the fear and stress that the media seems bent on serving up to the public. These skills will be important throughout your whole life. You can recognize the physical response to fear and chronic stress even if you don’t recognize the feelings. Many of these symptoms include:^16,17,18,19

Headaches	Muscle tension or pain	Anxiety
Chest Pain	Fatigue	Stomach upset
Sleep disturbances	Restlessness	Lack of motivation
Feeling overwhelmed	Irritability or anger	Sadness or depression
Angry outbursts	Ulcers	Social withdrawal
Change in eating habits	Weight gain or loss	Slower healing
Increased use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs	Back, neck and shoulder pain	Worsening of chronic health conditions
Immune system suppression resulting in viral illness (colds)	Increased wheezing in people with asthma	Suppression of natural killer cells and tumor development

Strategies to Reduce Fear and Remain Focused

There are several strategies you can use to reduce your feelings of fear. It is important to begin with the understanding that feelings do not have a life of their own. In other words, feelings are generated. Your feelings change depending upon your circumstances and your thoughts. Watching a funny movie may trigger laughter and feelings of happiness. Watching a sad movie brings many to tears.

Reading the headlines during an epidemic or pandemic can trigger fear. There’s an unknown factor in the situation. You may not have control over the news media, but the good news is you have control over your thoughts and your health. When you feel sad watching a particular movie the feelings are generated by what you see as well as your thoughts in response to that.

In other words, your thoughts engender feelings. One of the strategies you can use to reduce or eliminate feelings of fear is to change your thoughts. Psychology Today²⁰ recommends reducing anxiety by limiting your exposure to the news and trying to consume positive news stories while you’re keeping up with what’s going in the world.

It’s important to pay careful attention to “vague or loaded terms, cited statistics, and unstated assumptions.” In other words, don’t accept at face value what’s in the news but, rather, consider the information and ask questions about what you’re being told.

Other stress-reducing techniques include getting enough exercise, eating whole foods, limiting sugar and getting quality sleep. When you’re tired and your body doesn’t have adequate nutrition to function, you’re more apt to fall into the trap of becoming fearful. Another strategy is the use of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

In the video below Julie Schiffman demonstrates a tapping strategy specifically for this pandemic. If you aren’t familiar with EFT you’ll find a library of demonstrations at “Basic Steps to Your Emotional Freedom.” For more about stress see “Documentary Reveals How Stress Kills.”

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The U.S. unemployment rate may skyrocket to 32.1% in the second quarter of 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.¹ Previously, the highest rate of unemployment in U.S. history was 24.9%, which occurred in 1933 during the Great Depression.²

The figure comes from "back-of-the-envelope" estimates, in which the St. Louis Fed attempted to quantify the financial fallout from social distancing measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the economy crippled, and layoffs ensuing, an unprecedented number of Americans have had their livelihoods suspended, which could cause poverty rates to climb while triggering a subsequent mental health crisis.

What is even more shocking is how great the stock market is doing as it has rallied for the fourth successive week in a row, despite record numbers losing their jobs. It makes you think that if everyone loses their job the stock market might double.

This is an egregious example of fatally flawed federal and government policies that will inevitably blow up in their faces. Yes, we are having a stock market rally for now, but nearly every insightful economist I review is predicting a crash far bigger than the Great Depression because of the harm their actions are causing on top of an already inflated bubble.

Fed Predicts 52.8 Million Americans Could Be Unemployed

As a starting point to reach this staggering statistic, the St. Louis Fed used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which noted an unemployment rate of 3.5% in February 2020, amounting to about 5.76 million unemployed Americans.

They then used BLS data cited by St. Louis Fed regional economist Charles Gascon,³ who classified 808 occupations to estimate how many employees are at high risk of layoff due to social distancing, using criteria such as whether the occupations involve work that can be completed off-site and are considered essential to public health and safety.

Occupations in sales, production, food preparation and services and others were deemed to be at high risk of layoff, potentially affecting 66.8 million people.

Other St. Louis Fed economists — Fernando Leibovici and Ana Maria Santacreu — and research associate Matthew Famiglietti suggested "nonessential occupations that require a high degree of face-to-face and close physical interaction are particularly likely to be hit hard, as consumers reduce their demand for them in pursuit of social distancing."⁴

These occupations include barbers, hairstylists, food and beverage serving workers, flight attendants and others, amounting to another 27.3 million workers who may be out of work. To calculate the second quarter 2020 unemployment rate, the economists took the average of these two estimates, which resulted in 47.05 Americans being laid off. They further noted:⁵

"Summing to the initial number of unemployed in February, this resulted in a total number of unemployed persons of 52.81 million. Given the assumption of a constant labor force, this resulted in an unemployment rate of 32.1%."

Given that this is a rough estimate, St. Louis Fed economist Miguel Faria-e-Castro suggested that actual second-quarter unemployment rates could be anywhere between 10.5% and 40.6%. For comparison, during the Great Recession, unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009.⁶

Unemployment Could Skyrocket From 3.5% to 32%

If you follow the numbers, the unemployment rate went from 3.5% in February 2020 to 4.4% in March — and is predicted to rise to over 32% when the April data are in, which won't be until the first week of May. The small rise in unemployment cases in March isn't a useful indicator, since it includes data from early in the month, before the bulk of the layoffs took place.

"April, however, will be the cruelest month," Vox reported, "capturing the bulk of the layoffs and furloughs undertaken due to coronavirus," and adding, "you should not be shocked if the April number is in the double digits, at the very least. This is not inevitable, but it is quite plausible. These are truly unprecedented times. Expect unprecedented numbers."⁷

In fact, a real-time labor market estimate found the U.S. unemployment rate had already increased to 20.2% as of April 15, 2020.⁸ Meanwhile, unemployment claims surpassed the 22-million mark in the last month, which, as noted by ZeroHedge, "is over 10 times the prior worst four-week period in the last 50-plus years." Further, in the last four weeks, "more Americans have filed for unemployment than jobs gained during the last decade since the end of the Great Recession."⁹

Will This Bring a Return to Depression-Era Food Rations?

What's now being termed "The Great Lockdown" may turn out to be worse than the Great Depression. The International Monetary Fund predicted the global economy would contract by 3% in 2020 as economies shut down.¹⁰

And Carmen Reinhart, a professor of economics and finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, told The Associated Press, "We will see higher default rates and business failures. It could be like the 1930s."¹¹

During the Great Depression, both money and food were in short supply, breadlines were long and soup kitchens became mainstream. The average U.S. family lived by the motto "Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without."¹²

Women stretched their food budgets by creating casseroles and churches organized potlucks to share food, while community "thrift gardens" were created for residents to grow their own food.

During World War II, the Emergency Price Control Act was put in place, allowing the government to set price limits and ration food and other commodities, like tires, gasoline and oil, so scarce resources could be evenly distributed and hoarding would be limited. According to History.com:¹³

"By the spring [1942], Americans were unable to purchase sugar without government-issued food coupons. Vouchers for coffee were introduced in November, and by March of 1943, meat, cheese, fats, canned fish, canned milk and other processed foods were added to the list of rationed provisions."

Americans were given ration books that contained stamps, and the government set a point system to foods based on availability. History.com continued:¹⁴

“[C]ustomers were allowed to use 48 ‘blue points’ to buy canned, bottled or dried foods, and 64 ‘red points’ to buy meat, fish and dairy each month — that is, if the items were in stock at the market.

Due to changes in the supply and demand of various goods, the OPA [Office of Price Administration] periodically adjusted point values, which often further complicated an already complex system that required home cooks to plan well in advance to prepare meals.”

During this time, many Americans also planted "victory gardens" to supply their own fruits and vegetables. Returning to an era of food rations and scarcity may have seemed unthinkable to most Americans in early March 2020 — but is far more believable today. Already, people are waiting in long lines to get into stores, where they're allowed to purchase only certain allotments of high-demand items like eggs and toilet paper.

The process gets more orderly by the day, with Americans now being instructed to stand at set 6-foot intervals and the purchase of certain items deemed "nonessential" being restricted entirely. If you've ever thought about growing your own food, but perhaps haven't felt motivated to actually do it, now is a perfect time to get started growing your own vegetable garden.

Half a Billion in Poverty, Entire Industries Destroyed

In a dire warning issued by Oxfam, a conglomerate of 19 organizations working to end global poverty, it's estimated that the COVID-19 crisis could send half a billion more people into poverty.¹⁵ The analysis suggests that 6% to 8% of the global population may be forced into poverty by the economic shutdowns being imposed to stop the spread of COVID-19.

In some regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, the fight against poverty could be set back by three decades, and the hardest hit will be "poor people in poor countries who are already struggling to survive" and have no safety nets to bail them out. Oxfam reported:¹⁶

"The poorest workers in rich and poor nations are less likely to be in formal employment, enjoy labour protections such as sick pay, or be able to work from home. Globally, just one out of every five unemployed people have access to unemployment benefits.

Two billion people work in the informal sector with no access to sick pay — the majority in poor countries where 90 percent of jobs are informal compared to just 18 percent in rich nations."

In Bangladesh, for instance, more than 1 million garment workers, most of whom are women, have been laid off without pay because of cancellations of orders from Western clothing brands.

In Africa, meanwhile, it's estimated that close to half of jobs could disappear. One taxi driver and father told Oxfam he had not received a fare since the lockdown closed the airport and restaurants, stating "this virus will starve us before it makes us sick."¹⁷

Entire industries have also been destroyed. Dairy farmers are being forced to dump milk as demand from restaurants and schools plummets. The dairy industry could lose $5 billion to $10 billion in sales in the next six months, and the seafood industry is also reeling, facing an 85% drop in revenue.¹⁸ Declines in consumer spending is also forcing down prices for other farm products, putting farmers at risk.

Tim Gibbons, communications director at the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, told the Columbia Daily Tribune, "It can't be highlighted enough that it was really bad out here [for farmers] before COVID-19, and COVID has only made it worse. It's shining a spotlight on the rigidity and lack of resilience for the corporate model of [farm production], which does not pay farmers fairly and is not good for consumers."¹⁹

How Many Will Die From the Mental Health Fallout?

The U.S. was already on the brink of a mental health crisis prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the associated stresses, which run the gamut from isolation and anxiety to unemployment and illness, are now threatening to create a mental health emergency among Americans.

Such was the case during the Great Depression, when suicide rates reached an all-time high,²⁰ and again during the Great Recession, when at least 10,000 additional "economic suicides" occurred between 2008 and 2010.²¹

"Job loss, debt and foreclosure increase risks of suicidal thinking," researchers wrote in The British Journal of Psychiatry.²² Another study looking at the association between suicide and unemployment in 63 countries between 2000 and 2011, which notably included the 2008 global economic recession, found the relative risk of suicide associated with unemployment was elevated by 20% to 30% during the study period.

Further, 1 in 5 of an estimated 233,000 annual suicides that took place from 2000 to 2011 were linked to unemployment.²³ A 2014 Gallup Poll also found, "The longer that Americans are unemployed, the more likely they are to report signs of poor psychological well-being."²⁴

Depression is another considerable risk. The poll found that about 1 in 5 Americans who were unemployed for a year or more either had or were being treated for depression, which is double the rate of those who were unemployed for five weeks or less. According to Gallup:²⁵

"Gallup finds that unemployed Americans are more than twice as likely as those with full-time jobs to say they currently have or are being treated for depression — 12.4% vs. 5.6%, respectively. However, the depression rate among the long-term unemployed — which the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines as those who have been seeking work for 27 weeks or more — jumps to 18.0%."

Social isolation and quarantine also take a toll on mental health. A rapid review of the evidence, published in The Lancet in March 2020, looked into the psychological impact of quarantine, finding, not surprisingly, "Most reviewed studies reported negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger."²⁶

Out of 2,760 quarantined people, 34% experienced high levels of psychological distress, which could include anxiety or depression. Long-lasting psychological effects are also possible.²⁷

Take Steps to Protect Your Mental Health

Many are talking about hand washing, wearing masks and other steps to protect your physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally important is tending to your mental health, especially if you're one of the millions being affected by job losses, unemployment and social distancing.

In the video above, Julie Schiffman demonstrates how to use the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to relieve anxiety and other challenging emotions brought on by news and uncertainty about this pandemic and/or self-quarantining. Another option is the Neuro-Emotional Technique's First Aid Stress Tool, or NET FAST,²⁸ which is performed as follows:

1. While thinking about an issue that is bothering you, place your right wrist, palm up, into your left hand. Place three fingers of your left hand onto the area of your right wrist where you can feel your pulse.
2. Place your open right hand on your forehead. Gently breathe in and out several times while concentrating on feeling the issue that bothers you.
3. Switch hands and repeat steps 1 and 2.

As mentioned, now is also an excellent time to dive into organic gardening. Not only can it give you increased food security, but gardening also helps to reduce stress and save money on groceries, both of which will become increasingly important if unemployment levels continue to rise.

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Dietitian Melissa Meier reveals why a daily glass (or two) of wine during social isolation can have some pretty detrimental effects on your health.

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You don't need to spend hours in the kitchen to make the perfect healthy treat. Whip up Jess Sepel's nectarine and macadamia crumble in less than an hour. It's full of healthy fats and plenty of flavour to keep your taste buds satisfied.  

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Nike trainer Phoebe Di Tommaso takes us through a 30-minute 'hustle endurance' workout from the Nike Training Club app, as part of the body+soul LIVE @ home online workout series. Press play to get started!

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Co-owners of Peaches Pilates Tori Clapham and Bec Chidiac takes us through a 30-minute full-body mat Pilates class, as part of the body+soul LIVE @ home online workout series. Press play to get started!

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If you’re desperate to go back to your former gym routine you may need to hold off a bit longer, as experts are predicting that gyms and bootcamps will remain closed until at leat September.

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Founder of Scout Pilates studio Lucy Beaumont shares her top five, no-equipment-needed Pilates exercises to keep your body pain-free while working from home. 

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Recently, bored customers in lockdown are turning their eager eyes to bikes as the perfect way to exercise, and bike retailers are feeling the pressure. 

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The scourge of COVID-19 is spreading. Thousands of Americans are dying.

What can you do to help? Yes, practice social distancing, wash your hands, and donate masks to local hospitals. Also, talk to your loved ones about advance care planning.

What is advance care planning?

Advance care planning means contemplating and deciding the type of medical care you would want if you had a life-threatening illness; you are never too young or too healthy to start these conversations. It involves identifying your goals and values, learning about life-sustaining interventions — such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (measures to restart your heart and breathing), intubation (use of a ventilator to help you breathe), or artificial nutrition (being fed through a tube in your nose or stomach) — and sharing with loved ones and your doctors your preferences. An advance directive is written documentation of these preferences.

These preferences are not set in stone and can be revised. Doctors will ask you about your care as long as you can communicate. If you are unable to communicate, doctors will ask your loved ones. Advance care planning empowers loved ones to advocate for the type of care you would have wanted and doctors to provide care honoring your wishes.

The urgency of advance care planning in the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 can affect the chronically ill and the healthy, the elderly and the young. Patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia can struggle to breathe and deteriorate rapidly. Decisions regarding CPR, intubation, or transition to comfort care are made quickly. When patients are too sick to respond, their loved ones are asked to speak on their behalf. Protective isolation measures for COVID-19 preclude loved ones from sitting at the bedside for these decisions, making an already challenging discussion more difficult. If a loved one cannot be reached, the breathless patient will be intubated, and resuscitation will be attempted.

In this crisis, where patients are sick, distressed, and isolated, knowing what interventions a patient would want and making these wishes clear is critical.

Key components of advance care planning

While you are home with family during this time of social distancing, do your homework. Discuss these three key components of advanced care planning with your loved ones.

1. Name and document a health care proxy. This is also known as a medical power of attorney or a surrogate decision maker. If you are unable to make medical decisions for yourself, your health care proxy will make decisions on your behalf, based on your wishes and values. After designating a health care proxy, make sure they are comfortable with this role and understand the responsibilities. Document your health care proxy utilizing your state’s form and share this documentation with your doctor.
2. Discuss your values and wishes. If you are unable to communicate, the health care proxy may be asked questions like “Your father has pneumonia and is having a hard time breathing. Would he want a breathing tube?” or “If your father is intubated he may never come off the breathing tube. Would he prioritize living longer with a breathing tube that could be uncomfortable, or would he prioritize comfort, even if it meant having a shorter life?” Knowing your values and beliefs — and communicating them to your health care proxy — empowers your health care proxy to make the best decisions for you. Consider the following questions:

• If time was short, how would you want to spend it?
• Are there any kinds of treatment you want or don’t want (i.e., CPR, ventilator, artificial nutrition)?
• When would it be okay to transition from curative care to comfort care?

Ease into the conversation by utilizing free guides at The Conversation Project and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. It doesn’t have to be morbid; turn the conversation into a game night (over FaceTime or Zoom if needed) by playing Go Wish or a socially-distant Death Over Dinner party.

3. Decide on a do not resuscitate (DNR) order. This is a written instruction to forego CPR, involving chest compressions and ventilator support when a person’s heart or breathing stops. Pursuing or foregoing resuscitation should reflect your goals and values, and should be made in collaboration with your doctor. This order has no bearing on other medical interventions such as antibiotics, dialysis, or fluids, which will be provided or withheld based on a patient’s wishes. Older individuals with chronic illness are more likely to develop severe illness from COVID-19, and it is exactly these individuals who may want a natural death, or for whom there is no expected medical benefit, or for whom quality of life after CPR would be unacceptable.

The bottom line

Advance care planning brings up challenging emotions, and these conversations can be hard. But the day your loved ones are asked what you would want, this planning will make those conversations less distressing, and will enable your doctors to provide the best care for you.

During this pandemic, do your part to help. Get your affairs in order now, because COVID-19 won’t wait.

The post Get your affairs in order, COVID-19 won’t wait appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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The advent of artificial intelligence, machine learning and the internet of things is expected to change modern electronics. The pressing question for many researchers is how to handle this technological revolution. Brain-inspired electronics with organic memristors could offer a functionally promising and cost- effective platform. Since memristors are functionally analogous to the operation of neurons, the computing units in the brain, they are optimal candidates for brain-inspired computing platforms.

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Blood can typically be stored for only six weeks after donation, but a potential solution attempts to dry blood by using a sugar-based preservative. New work in ultrasound technology looks to provide a path to inserting these sugars into human red blood cells, allowing the molecule trehalose to enter the cells and prevent their degradation when dried for preservation.

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In financially challenging times, it's especially important to show your partner love and support, says researchers, who studied what contributes to couples' success in financially stressful times.

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Researchers have designed a cost-effective, plastic canopy system that can help to protect healthcare workers who are at risk of airborne coronavirus infection while delivering noninvasive ventilation or oxygen via high flow nasal canula (HFNC). Noninvasive ventilation or HFNC is often used to support breathing following respiratory failure, which is a common symptom of severe coronavirus disease.

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A low-cost, easy-to-build non-invasive ventilator aimed at supporting the breathing of patients with respiratory failure performs similarly to conventional commercial devices. Researchers say the prototype ventilator could support treatment of coronavirus and other severe respiratory diseases in low income regions or where ventilator supplies are limited. The research paper provides a free to replicate, open source description for how to build the ventilator.

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Despite significant obstacles presented by COVID-19, Regenstrief Institute Affiliated Scientist Jie Zhang, PhD, Regenstrief Institute Research Scientist Kun Huang, PhD, both Indiana University School of Medicine faculty members, and Jun Cheng, PhD of Shenzhen University conducted a study applying machine learning and image analysis to distinguish a rare subtype of kidney cancer (tRCC) while Dr. Cheng was quarantined in Wuhan.

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Researchers have developed a novel sensor for detecting the new coronavirus. In future, it could be used to measure the concentration of the virus in the environment -- for example, in places where there are many people or in hospital ventilation systems.

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The engineering of specific virus-targeting receptors onto a patient's own immune cells is now being explored by scientists as a potential therapy for controlling infectious diseases, including the COVID-19-causing virus, SARS-CoV-2.

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The fragmentation of water service in the US among thousands of community systems, most of which are small and rely on local funding, leaves many households vulnerable to water contamination or loss of service as droughts become more frequent, a new analysis finds. Households in low-income or predominantly minority neighborhoods face the highest risks. Making sure their taps don't run dry will require a fundamental re-evaluation of how water systems are managed and funded.

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Today, about 1.1 million people in the US are living with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). Every year, almost 40,000 people are diagnosed with HIV. A diagnosis of HIV was once presumed to be fatal, and many lived in fear of transmitting the virus to others. This contributed to decades of stigma for those living with HIV.

What is the U=U campaign?

U=U means “undetectable equals untransmittable.” More specifically, it means that people living with HIV who have an undetectable level of virus in their blood due to treatment are unable to transmit the virus to others.

The U=U campaign hopes to spread awareness that medications for HIV are extremely effective. If you are a person living with HIV and the virus level in your blood is suppressed by effective treatment, you cannot pass on the virus to others.

This campaign was launched after three large studies on sexual transmission of HIV were performed in thousands of serodiscordant couples (meaning one partner was living with HIV and the other was not). Not a single case of HIV was transmitted from someone who was virally suppressed to his or her HIV-negative partner (see here, here, and here for the studies).

Remarkably, this held true for all people living with HIV, including heterosexual women, heterosexual men, and men who have sex with men. It represents a dramatic shift from decades of fear experienced by those living with HIV. Now, people living with HIV can live long, healthy lives with no chance of passing on the virus to others if they are on appropriate treatment.

What does it mean for HIV to be undetectable?

The amount of the virus found in the blood is known as the HIV viral load. Research shows that having high levels of virus in the blood is associated with a greater risk that people will transmit the virus to others.

If you have HIV, taking medication every day as directed by your healthcare provider helps to suppress the HIV viral load and keep it suppressed. Medications to treat HIV can be taken daily for years with few side effects. It is important to work with a primary care provider or infectious disease specialist to make sure the virus is being treated correctly.

If the virus is untransmittable, do I still have HIV?

Yes. For now, there is no cure for HIV. It is a lifelong condition that requires treatment every single day to keep the virus suppressed. As long as the virus is suppressed, you are unlikely to have serious complications or infections and can go on to live a healthy life.

How can you make sure the virus stays untransmittable?

The most important way to prevent virus transmission when living with HIV is by taking HIV medications that are effective for you every day, and working with your HIV provider. The risk that you will transmit HIV goes up substantially if you miss doses of HIV medicines or stop taking them.

It’s important to know that HIV treatment does not keep people from passing on other sexually transmitted infections(STIs). Wearing condoms reduces the risk of passing on other STIs like chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and hepatitis C.

Additionally, for people who are HIV-negative, there are effective medications to help prevent HIV called PreP — you can read more about it here.

If you are living with HIV, it is important to talk with your healthcare provider about what treatment is best for you, and get specific advice. They can also answer questions about your partner or partners, and any questions you might have about living with HIV.

The post U=U: Ending stigma and empowering people living with HIV appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

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