Second Wind
Second wind means that when you run very fast, you reach a point where you gasp for breath and your muscles burn so much that you feel like you have to slow down, but you try to keep on pushing. After several seconds, you feel recovered and pick up the pace.
Robbie Coltrane, Rubeus Hagrid
Robbie Coltrane was a Scottish actor and comedian who was famous for portraying Rubeus Hagrid in all of the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011). He also played Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky in the James Bond films GoldenEye (1995) and The World Is Not Enough (1999), along with many other film and television roles. In 1990, he won the Evening Standard British Film Award – Peter Sellers Award for Comedy.
Predicting Longevity
To find out if they could predict how long an older person will continue to live, Duke University researchers used 1507 blood samples and lifestyle data from participants in the D-EPESE study that was conducted in New Haven, CT, in 1992. Participants were at least 71 years old when the study started, and the Duke researchers counted their years to death over the following 27 years
Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter
Loretta Lynn came from severe poverty as the second of eight children of a coal miner in Kentucky, to become arguably America’s most prolific singer and songwriter over a 75-year career in country music. She started her career in 1960 after being married at age 15 and already having had four children. She did have some help on the way: her father played the banjo, her mother played the guitar, and her husband, to whom she remained married for 50 years, encouraged her to sing professionally and helped her get recording contracts with Decca Records and MCA.
Over-The-Counter Hearing Aids
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that by mid-October 2022, adults with mild to moderate hearing impairment will be able to buy hearing aids directly from stores, pharmacies and other retailers without a prescription or health care appointment. That’s good news for the 30 million U.S. adults who could benefit from hearing aids but think they are too expensive or too much trouble.
Keep Your Muscles Strong As You Age
A review of 16 major studies found that just thirty minutes a week of strength training is associated with up to a 20 percent reduced risk for dying from any cause, or from cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Adding aerobic exercise reduced risk for dying by 40 percent. The World Health Organization recommends at least two days a week of muscle-strengthening activities for adults because having larger and stronger muscles appears to help prevent many diseases and prolong lives.
Jackie Gleason’s Colon Cancer
Jackie Gleason was the most famous television actor of his time and he was so hilarious that reruns of his shows and movies are still popular today. At age 33, he became Chester A. Riley in the television production “The Life of Riley”. At age 36, he starred in “The Jackie Gleason Show” as a series of characters who yelled a lot and murdered the English language. One of his most popular characters was Ralph Kramden, a brash, blustering, bumbling bus driver who always bullied his wife, Alice. These sketches became Gleason’s most popular show, “The Honeymooners.”
Being Physically Active Helps to Prevent Heart Attacks and Some Cancers
A prospective study of 78,500 men and women, ages 40-79, used wrist accelerometers to see whether daily step counts and measurements of intensity would predict future heart attacks or cancers. They were followed for an average of seven years, and during that period, there were 10,245 heart attacks, 664 deaths from heart attacks, 2813 cancers and 1325 deaths from cancer.
Sugared Drinks Linked to Type II Diabetes, Obesity, Heart Attacks and Some Cancers
Researchers followed more than 934,000 cancer-free people for 34 years, during which more than 135,000 died from cancer. Those who drank more than two sugar-sweetened beverages per day were at increased risk for death from 20 different cancers. The data showed that sugared drinks are associated with a high rate of obesity which, by itself, is associated with increased risk for cancer and death from cancer.
Harry Truman Probably Had Diabetes
In the year 2000, a C-SPAN Poll ranking all U.S. Presidents was conducted by 58 presidential historians and scholars. Harry S. Truman ranked fifth behind Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Washington and Theodore Roosevelt. I think that Truman and Winston Churchill were the two most influential people of the 20th century. Truman helped to prevent a third world war and to preserve the free world from communist oppression.