DON'T WORRY-BE HAPPY

Elders with negative attitude about aging may be less resilient to stress Published August 04, 2016.  

Older adults with a positive attitude about aging may be more resilient to stress, according to a new study. "Previous research has generally found the same thing, a more positive attitude is beneficial," said coauthor Jennifer Bellingtier, of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. "People with positive attitudes are less likely to be hospitalized and tend to live longer," she said. The researchers had 43 adults, ages 60 to 96, answer questions about their experience with aging in general, like feeling more or less useful now than when they were younger, or more or less happy. Then, on a daily basis for eight days, participants completed questionnaires that asked about stressful events and negative emotions like fear, irritability or distress. As reported in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, people with more positive attitudes about aging generally tended to report consistent emotional states across the eight-day period, regardless of stressors. But among those with more negative attitudes, emotions fluctuated depending on their stressors. For older adults, stress often centers on relations with family or friends, while for younger people it may more often be related to work, Bellingtier said. Almost all cardiovascular functions tend to be worse in people with more negative reactions to stress, she said. "The media presents a distorted view of aging, making jokes about mental and physical incompetence," Bellingtier said. "The more you're exposed to it the more you're picking up those stereotypes. In fact, she said, older adults are often happier with their lives than people in their 20s or 30s, given their real world life experience and time to develop meaningful relationships. She and her coauthors tried to account for personality in general as well, since people who are generally positive may have more positive attitudes about aging. Becca Levy of the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut, has also studied this question, although she wasn't part of this new study. She said that negative age stereotypes can exacerbate older individuals' stress experience, while positive age stereotypes can buffer their experience of stress. "In a recent intervention study with older individuals, we found that it is possible to bolster positive age stereotypes and reduce negative age stereotypes," Levy said. 

OIB van

Folks,
I believe some of you were meeting next week at WSB. We need to reschedule as the van is being repaired and won't be back until about the 20th. No, Earl or I did not wreck it!!! Apparently it developed a serious lift malfunction which requires sending it away for repair.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Helen will let you know when it is back, operational and we can meet again!

Stay cool!
Dr. Janet

THOSE AMAZING DOGS

? Smart Dog! It's hard to conceive of a more brilliant tool than a canine's nose for sniffing out danger in public places BY JOSHUA LEVINE.  

When I first meet a young Labrador named Merry, she is clearing her nostrils with nine or ten sharp snorts before she snuffles along a row of luggage pieces, all different makes and models. They're lined up against the wall of a large hangar on a country road outside Hartford, Connecticut. This is where MSA Security trains what are known in the security trade as explosive detection canines, or EDCs. Most people call them bomb dogs. The luggage pieces joined shrink-wrapped pallets, car-shaped cutouts, and concrete blocks on the campus of MSA's "Bomb Dog U. Dogs don't need to be taught how to smell, of course, but they do need to be taught where to smell-along the seams of a suitcase, say, or underneath a pallet, where the vapors that are heavier than air settle. In the shrouded world of bomb-dog education, MSA is an elite ­academy. Its teams deploy mostly to the country's big cities, and each dog works with one specific handler, ­usually for eight or nine years. MSA also furnishes dogs for what it ­describes only as "a government agency referred to by three initials for use in Middle East conflict zones. Strictly speaking, the dog doesn't smell the bomb. It deconstructs an odor into its components, picking out the culprit chemicals it has been trained to detect. Zane Roberts, MSA's former lead canine trainer and current program manager, uses a cooking analogy: "When you walk into a kitchen where someone is making spaghetti sauce, your nose says, Aha, spaghetti sauce. A dog's nose doesn't say that. Instinctively, it says tomatoes, garlic, rosemary, onion, oregano. It's the handler who says spaghetti sauce or, in this case, bomb. MSA's dogs arrive at headquarters when they are between a year and a year and a half old. They begin building their vocabulary of suspicious odors by working with rows of more than 100 identical cans laid out in a grid. Ingredients from the basic chemical families of explosives are placed in random cans. Merry works eagerly down the row, wagging her tail briskly and pulling slightly on the leash. This is a bomb dog's idea of a good time. Snort, snort, sniff, snort, snort, sniff, snort, snort, sniff. Suddenly, Merry sits down. All bomb dogs are schooled to respond this way when they've found what they're looking for. No one wants a dog pawing and scratching at something that could explode. "Good dog," says Roberts. He reaches into a pouch on his belt for the kibble that is the working dog's wage. It would be tough to conceive of a better smelling machine than a dog. Thirty-five percent of a dog's brain is assigned to smell-related operations, whereas a human brain lends only 5 percent of its cellular resources to the task. In her book Inside of a Dog , Alexandra Horowitz, a psychologist at Barnard College, notes that while a human might smell a teaspoon of sugar in a 'cup' of coffee, a dog could detect a teaspoon in a million gallons of water-nearly enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools. Where bomb dogs have really proved their mettle is on the battlefield. Before joining MSA as vice president of operations, Joe Atherall commanded Company C of the Marines 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in Iraq's Al Anbar province. The unit had three dog teams attached to it. "One day, intel directed us to a school, but we didn't find a lot. Then we brought in the dogs," recalls Atherall. "There were French drains around the outside of the school, and the dogs started hitting on them. When we opened them up, we found an extensive IED cache, small arms weapons, and mortar rounds, along with det cord and other explosive material. Detonation cord is the dog whistle of odors, with nearly unsmellable vapor pressure. "I loved those dogs," says Atherall. "They were lifesavers. It is hard to imagine a more high-hearted warrior than a dog. The canines work for love, they work for praise, they work for food, but mostly they work for the fun of it. "It's all just a big game to them," says Mike Wynn, MSA's director of canine training. "The best bomb dogs are the dogs that really like to play. This doesn't mean that war is a lark for dogs. In 2007, Army veterinarians started seeing dogs that showed signs of canine post-traumatic stress disorder. "We're seeing dogs that are over-responsive to sights and sounds or that become hypervigilant-like ­humans that are shaken up after a car accident," says Walter Burghardt, of the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Caught early enough, says Burghardt, half the affected dogs can be treated and returned to active duty. "The other half just have to find something else to do for a living. Because of the emotional wear on the dogs, scientists have been trying to build a machine that can out-smell the animals. At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, scientists are working on ionization technology to "see" vapors the way a dog does-the same basic technology used by security officers at an airport but far more sensitive. On the other hand, says Robert Ewing, a senior research scientist, dogs have been doing this job for years. "I don't know that you could ever replace them.  

MEDICATIONS, HEAT, THE SUN, AND YOU

7 medications that increase sun and heat sensitivity By Lauren Oster Published August 02, 2016.  

This summer's must-reads aren't romances or thrillers; they're the warning labels and package inserts for your drugs and supplements. As Consumer Reports on Health warned in a recent article, "[s]ome widely used medications can make you far more sensitive to summer's sunlight and heat than you'd usually be.  That sensitivity can mean anything from a reduced ability to sweat to an increase in the amount of fluid you lose through your urine. So it's important to revisit whatever safety info you have, and to check in with your doctor, who can let you know about potential risks during the brightest, warmest time of year, said Megan Rech, an emergency medicine clinical pharmacist at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago. "For the major players that interact with the sun and cause what's called phototoxicity, those [effects] should be listed on the bottle or in the patient information," explained Rech. "But there are a lot of medications that can cause interactions with the sun, so lesser-known side effects [that] occur in fewer patients may not always be obvious. Here are some of the better-known substances that may allow summer's sun and heat to hit you harder.  Depends on the Drug Acne treatments "Those can definitely be phototoxic, especially the retinoids," Rech said. "Phototoxic effects are going to appear like a really bad sunburn. The risk is more pronounced for prescription retinoids (such as Retin-A and Tazorac), which are significantly stronger than the products you'll find at drugstores and beauty counters. But OTC acne and anti-aging products with retinol can cause dryness, peeling, and sun sensitivity as well. Products with salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide can also increase your vulnerability. If you're using one and plan to spend significant time outdoors, be sure to sport sunscreen and a broad-brimmed hat. Antibiotics "Antibiotics can cause photosensitivity and phototoxic reactions, meaning that they're going to worsen your sunburn," Rech said. "The one that comes to mind right away is Bactrim, or sulfamethoxozole trimethoprim. Bactrim is prescribed to treat everything from bronchitis to bladder infections. "That's a big offender, and so are tetracyclines and fluoroqinolones. That said, you should never, ever skip an antibiotic for the sake of sunbathing, warned Rech. Your doctor can help you juggle your plans and your meds.  Allergy medications Some users find that oral antihistamines like diphenydramine (found in products like Benadryl and Dramamine) reduce their ability to sweat. In extreme cases, as the Consumer Reports medical advisory board noted, the overheating that can result leads to cramps, exhaustion, and even heat stroke. If you find that your allergy meds make it difficult for you to cool down, plan outdoor activities for the morning and evening, and try to spend the hottest hours of the day indoors. Antidepressants Tricyclic antidepressants may cause problems in hot weather because they "prevent the area in your brain that regulates heat response from knowing you're overheating," Rech explained. "They can also decrease sweating, which leads to a decrease in heat loss. When you're taking a drug that increases the likelihood of overheating, stay alert for warning signs such as headaches, lightheadedness, nausea, and weakness. If you experience any of those symptoms, get out of the sun and reach for water or a sports drink with sodium (which will help your body retain fluid until balance is restored). In the event of a severe reaction such as confusion, fever, or fainting, contact your doctor or call 911.  

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) "The main non-steroidals that cause phototoxicity are probably not ones that we commonly use," Rech said. But still, caution should be used, especially if you're on other medications. "Any time you're taking a non-steroidal and going out in the sun I would recommend barrier protection with sunscreen and avoidance if possible, because any of the non-steroidals can worsen [phototoxicity]," Rech explained. Vitamins and herbs "A lot of over-the-counter herbal medications [can have phototoxic effects]-for example, St. John's Wort is a big inducer of photosensitivity, and that medication in particular has a number of drug interactions. Anyone [interested in taking it] should ask their doctor or pharmacist first," Rech said. Another pill that might put you at risk: Niacin, a form of Vitamin B3 that's used to treat high cholesterol. It can cause skin reactions, Rech said, "so it could potentially cause [sun sensitivity].  Sun exposure can amplify the effect of transdermal patches (such as Fentanyl, a powerful pain reliever, or Clonidine, which lowers blood pressure) that deliver medication directly through the skin. When you get a sunburn, the blood vessels in the surface of your skin dilate, explained Rech, and that can lead to increased absorption of your meds. So if you're wearing a patch, it's a good idea to consider long sleeves. 

THINGS TO MAKE YOU LAUGH

Decluttering.  

I tried that Japanese practice of decluttering. You hold something and if it doesn't bring you joy, you toss it. Hey it really works! So far I've thrown out a bunch of bills, my treadmill and a lot of vegetables! 

Dad Knows 

One of the funniest memories I have of the trials and tribulations of making the journey from childhood to adulthood was our annual summer vacation trek from Chicago to a cabin usually someplace on a lake in Wisconsin or Michigan. Every year, it seems, we would get on a highway a few miles out of the city, and mom would wail, "Oh my goodness! I think left the iron on." And almost every year we would turn around and go back. But as I recall, not once was it was ever plugged in. She often had the same fear that all our earthly possessions would disappear in a fire caused by her forgetfulness. When I was about 14 years old, we were headed out of Chicago for Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and, sure enough, Mom gasped, "I just know I left the iron on." My father didn't say a word, just pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, got out, opened the trunk and handed her the iron. 

Just Asking... 

Cassie was a really good mom. When her children were growing up, her one son gave her more "stop and count to 10" periods than any of the others. Once, after her small son fell into the pond and came home with his good school clothes dripping wet, the exasperated Cassie sent him to his room while she washed and dried his clothes. A little later, Cassie heard a commotion in the back yard. She called out, "Are you out there wetting your pants again!?" There was dead silence for a moment. Then a deep, masculine voice answered meekly, "No, ma'am, I'm just reading the meter." 

You Know It's Summer in Florida When... 

• Your car is overheating before you drive it.
• Hot air balloons can't go up, because the air outside is hotter than the heated air in the balloon
• Airplanes can't land because the asphalt runways are too soft.
• The ducks in the park are designated "original recipe" and "extra crispy."
• More hot water comes from the cold water tap than the hot one.
• The hotdogs sold outside the Home Depot are actually hot.
• You cover the leather seats in the car with cloth or sit on towels.
• It's noon in August, the kids are on summer vacation, and no one is moving on the streets.
• You burn your hand opening the car door.
• You notice the best parking place is determined by the shade under trees instead of the distance to the door.
• All picnics feature hot food, like it or not.
• The politicians have to take their hands out of your pockets to fan 

MORE INFORMATION THAT SHOULD INCREASE APPLE'S POPULARITY

Microsoft is updating Windows 10 again, in its latest bid to win you back The company is following through on its commitment to regularly refine its Windows 10 software. Now it needs to get you to care.  by Ian Sherr @ / July 31, 2016.  

Microsoft is updating Windows 10 again, in its latest bid to win you back.  Microsoft's Surface Book PC includes a pen the company says will be even more useful after the Windows Anniversary Update.  A new update to Microsoft's Windows 10 is coming, but you're forgiven if you didn't know. It turns out not many people are going to tell you. Admittedly, there's not much to talk about. The list of refinements for Microsoft's free paper-anniversary update to Win 10 can fit on a small sheet with less than a dozen bullet points . The changes boil down to features like making the digital pen more useful, new technology to detect hacking attacks and the ability to log into a computer with a wearable device instead of a password. The company's Cortana voice-activated assistant will gain new features too , each of which was designed to bring the technology closer to, as Microsoft spokeswoman Laura Jones put it, "the same features of a real-life personal assistant. With this in mind, Microsoft and the PC industry are largely treating the August 2 launch as just another Tuesday. That's just fine to Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates, who said Microsoft is better off focusing its efforts on convincing businesses to upgrade than teaching consumers -- who largely don't know what version of Windows they're running anyway -- about an incremental upgrade. "People are probably not very excited by it," he said. This is not the Microsoft you might remember from days of old, when the company and its partners would plow considerable resources into informing the world that a new version of Windows has arrived. In the years since Windows 8's debut in 2012, when the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars spent telling the world about it , Microsoft has signaled change. Satya Nadella took the reins as Microsoft's new CEO two years ago, the Windows leadership team has changed, and the company is now releasing its widely used Word, Excel and PowerPoint Office software for phones and tablets , not just PCs. It's even begun releasing new pet projects first, like a computer intelligence-powered camera app for Apple's iPhone . Windows is changing as well. The software behemoth is making good on its promise to run Windows "as a service," meaning it will send refinements and new features to PCs a couple of times a year. The result is our PCs get new features quicker, and regular refinements of existing ones. Microsoft also offered its latest Windows 10 software for free to nearly everyone who bought a PC in the past decade, a break with its tradition of charging hundreds of dollars for upgrades. That offer ended Friday . Close Major Windows 10 update coming August 2 Drag Learning from the past The PC makers say they're changing too. No longer focused on the computer-equivalent of talking about horsepower all the time, companies have settled on discussing the "experience" of using a computer. The new software, called "Windows 10 Anniversary Update," it just a part of the overall puzzle. BRINGING SEXY BACK -- TO PCS 15 things to look forward to in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update How to upgrade to Windows 10 for free after July 29 Microsoft needs you to fall in love with Windows. Soon Windows 10 to miss 1B devices deadline. Blame lousy Windows Phone sales Dell has opted to market its computers in two ways: ads showcasing how good they look, and others about what people do with them ( like making the Ghostbusters reboot ). After all, why spend time marketing Windows features every other computer maker offers? "HP has Cortana too," said Allison Dew, head of marketing for Dell's PCs. HP has also chosen not to directly market Windows or its features. "Our job is testing the new PCs shipping with the anniversary release and testing existing PCs," said Mike Nash, VP of customer experience and portfolio strategy at HP. To be sure, that's not a small job. In recent years, HP has stepped up its communication with Microsoft in an effort to make sure its computers offer the best experience running the latest Windows 10 features, not merely support them. As part of that effort, Nash, who used to work at Microsoft before leaving for Amazon and eventually HP, identified the most frustrating problems with computers and sought to fix them one-by-one. Among the changes, PCs start up faster these days and battery life is getting better too. . Dell, for its part, is continuing its efforts to break with the perception that it makes bare-bones ugly workhorse PCs. "The perception of Dell as innovative is starting to turn around," Dew said. . It's unclear whether that's enough at a time when Microsoft and the PC industry are clawing back respect from customers wooed by tablets, impressed by Apple's Mac laptops, or frustrated by Windows 8. . 

LIFE AND DEATH-LET'S GET MOVING

Blood clot deaths tied to hours of daily TV time Published July 27, 2016.  

People who watch television for five or more hours a day have more than twice the risk of those who watch half as much TV to die of a blood clot in the lung, a large Japanese study suggests. There are more than 200,000 cases of pulmonary embolism, which usually begins as a blood clot in the leg that travels to the lung, in the U.S. each year, according to the National Library of Medicine. It can permanently damage lung tissue, other organs, or cause death, but many people who have it have no symptoms. Pulmonary embolism is less common in Japan than in Western countries, said study coauthor Dr. Hiroyasu Iso, professor of public health at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, but Japanese people are becoming increasingly sedentary. "We were surprised about the strength of the effect of television watching compared with the effects of advancing age, history of hypertension and diabetes mellitus, or body mass index in this study," Iso said.  "We speculated that leg immobility during television watching had increased their risk of fatal pulmonary embolism. In a number of studies of long haul travelers, the association between prolonged sitting and increased risk of pulmonary embolism did not vary by ethnicity, Iso said. Other past studies have looked back at the lifestyle factors common to pulmonary embolism cases, but none had followed people over time to see if there was a link between their TV-watching time and their risk for embolisms, the study team writes in Circulation. Between 1988 and 1990 Iso and colleagues asked more than 85,000 adults 40 to 79 years old in Japan how many hours they spent watching TV, then followed them for the next 19 years looking for deaths from pulmonary embolism. They also collected information on obesity, diabetes, cigarette smoking and high blood pressure, and tried to rule these factors out in the relationship between TV and blood clots. Only 59 people in the sample died of pulmonary embolism, but compared to people who watched two and a half hours of TV or less per day, those who watched five or more hours were 2.5 times as likely to die of a clot. Researchers calculated that among people who watched less than two and a half hours of TV, the rate of deaths from pulmonary embolism were 2.8 per 100,000 people per year, compared to a rate of 8.2 deaths per 100,000 per year for those who watched five or more hours daily. Risk of pulmonary embolism death increased by 40 percent for each additional two hours of daily TV watching, they found. "Time spent watching TV is a pretty reliable way to measure how much time people spend sedentary, or inactive," said Dr. Christopher Kabrhel, an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston who was not part of the new study. "If being sedentary puts you at risk for pulmonary embolism, and I believe it does, then it likely also puts you at risk of death from pulmonary embolism, as this study showed. After TV watching time, obesity was the next most important factor predicting risk of death from pulmonary embolism, the authors found. Since U.S. adults watch more TV than Japanese adults, the results may be even more important to Americans, the authors said in a statement accompanying the study. "Nowadays, with online video streaming, the term 'binge-watching' to describe viewing multiple episodes of television programs in one sitting has become popular," lead author Dr. Toru Shirakawa, a research fellow in public health at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, wrote. Travelers on long plane flights and people watching TV for long periods of time can stand up, stretch, walk around, or tense and relax their leg muscles for five minutes to reduce the risk of blood clots, they wrote. "The results do not seem to be country-specific," Kabrhel said.  "Being sedentary is bad for you wherever you live.