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Source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tinybuddha/~3/CfWpB4ng8Dg/

I grew up in a family of high-functioning addicts. We looked like the perfect family, but as we all know, looks can be deceiving. No one was addicted to drugs, so that obviously meant that we had no problems. Cigarettes, alcohol, food, and work don’t count, right?

I have come to realize that what we are addicted to is nowhere near as important as the admission that we’re addicted to something. When we try to make ourselves feel better by telling ourselves that gambling or porn or beer is nowhere near as bad as crack or heroin, we are merely lying to ourselves. In the recovery movement, we call this denial.

Denial was the foundation my life was built on. We did not speak of my grandfather’s abusive behavior and alcoholism. We did not question my grandmother’s chain-smoking habit. We di…

Source https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2019/11/cardiac-amyloid-buildup-correlates-with-risk-of-atrial-fibrillation/

Amyloids are misfolded proteins that become insoluble in their incorrect configuration, forming structures that encourage other molecules of the same protein to also misfold in the same way. These structures spread, grow, and clump together into solid deposits in and around cells. Only a handful of proteins can form amyloid, and many are associated with age-related disease. Consider the amyloid-β characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, for example. The better understood forms of amyloid are known to be accompanied by a surrounding halo of toxic biochemistry that harms cells and cell function.

Setting aside genetic diseases in which proteins are created in a damaged form, more prone to amyloid formation, there are a couple of forms of am…

Source https://seniorplanet.org/a-new-way-to-age-in-place-digitally/

A new digital platform launched in Connecticut helps seniors age in place with free services….

Source https://www.foodpolitics.com/2019/11/weekend-reading-history-of-american-cuisine/

Paul Freedman.  American Cuisine: And How it Got that Way.  Liveright Publishing, 2019.

Paul Freedman is an historian at Yale who in recent years has taken on food history.  His previous book, Ten Restaurants that Changed America, was on my weekend reading list in 2016.

This one covers the history of cuisine in America, addressing basic questions such as “is there such a thing as American cuisine?,” “What happened to it?,” and “What is likely to happen to it?”

The chapters cover such things as culinary nostalgia, community cookbooks, industrial food, ethnic restaurants, and the food revolution.  My f…

Source https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2019/11/reporting-on-the-aging-research-and-drug-discovery-meeting-held-at-basal-life-2019/

Earlier this year the Aging Research and Drug Discovery meeting was organized as a part of the broader BASAL LIFE scientific conference. As is traditional for such events, the organizers put together a paper reviewing the proceedings. A few of the early highlights are noted below, but many more presentations are briefly discussed in the open access paper. It is a representative selection of the present distribution of projects and research goals in the scientific community focused on intervention in the aging process.

Aging poses profound health-related challenges that need to be tackled to reduce the social and economic burden on our aging society. Multidisciplinary perspectives will be of tremendous importance to understand the underlying molecular processes of aging and to accelerate the discovery and development of effective aging interventions. It is therefore indispensable that industry and academia deve…