Full Article…

Today’s state news includes reports from Kansas, Georgia, Minnesota, New York and Michigan.

McClatchy: Abuses In Assisted-Living Facilities Come Under Senate Panel’s Spotlight [A Miami Herald series "Neglected to Death,"]  focused this spring on critical breakdowns in Florida’s enforcement system, including failures by the state’s Agency on Health Care Administration to fully investigate deaths or to shut down some of the worst offenders among Florida’s 2,850 assisted-living facilities. …

Full Article…

Nokia and Sesame Street have been working on a Windows Phone app starring Elmo

If UK startup Mindshapes’ £3.1m funding round was one sign of the burgeoning market for smartphone and tablet apps aimed at children, the activities of big brands like Sesame Street and LeapFrog is another.

Sesame Street has been working with Nokia’s Research Centre in California on an educational app for the new Lumia Windows Phones. It’s called Nokia Interactive Rich Reading, and stars well-loved character Elmo.

“Children learn to read best when they are sitting down reading a story with their parents or grandparents.

Full Article…

An Israeli man who brokered black- market sales of human kidneys in the U.S. arranged transplant surgeries at medical centers, including Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to five people familiar with the case. Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 60, pleaded guilty yesterday to three counts of organ trafficking and one count of conspiracy, becoming the first person convicted in the U.S. of organ trafficking. A 1984 U.S. law bans the sale of human organs. He said in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, that three ailing people paid him a total $410,000 to arrange the sale of kidneys from healthy donors, and an undercover FBI agent paid him $10,000.

Why are some people youthful long after middle age? Why are some 50-year-olds able to hang out as equals, physically and mentally, with people who are in their 20s and 30s?

It isnt a matter of age denial; its a technique of age prevention. Learning the basics of keeping age away comes down to some simple tips, according to Jim Walker, the sports science director at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Murray, Utah.

You cant stop aging, but you can slow it down, says Walker, who has a doctoral degree in physiology.

The internationally known scientist offers these tips for staying more youthful as you get older:

• Stay strong: As we age, we lose muscle mass. This also causes a loss in cardiac function, so your aerobic capacity goes down as well. A routine of physical activity, especially something that increases the heart rate and works up a sweat, will help slow down the loss of muscle mass.

• Stand up straight: Posture change is a common symptom of age; the torso bends forward. Because we spend so much time sitting, muscles that support the upper body weaken, so we sag forward at the hips. Concentrate on walking with your pelvis out and shoulders back; it will make you look and feel younger.

• Stretch: Its important for warding off a lot of issues, including muscle atrophy. Put together a 10-minute stretching routine and do it every evening before going to bed.

• Laugh: A lot of people stop laughing as they age. Continue to see the funny side of life, to enjoy a good joke or a comedy. Dont let the years make you too serious.

•  Eat well: Do your own cooking and enjoy the taste of home-cooked food. Sit down and eat your meals rather than gulping them down so youre not just putting calories in your body.

• Stay balanced: Falls are one of the biggest causes of disability as we get older. Often, its because our balance has deteriorated. While physical activity helps maintain balance, you also can do regular balance-specific exercises, like standing on one leg, then the other; or closing your eyes and turning in a circle, trying to stop at the exact place you started.

• Be social: Being around people not only keeps your social skills sharp, it makes you better at communicating with others. Spending too much time alone, reading or watching TV, can become a habit that leads to isolation.

• Keep learning: Sign up for a community college course or research a new subject. This forces your brain to make new pathways, maintaining or even increasing your mental sharpness.

• Stay useful: Volunteer to help at cultural or sporting events. Tutor a child. Run for local office. Be visible, so that everyone knows youre a valuable member of your community.

A new study warns that many young adults have undetected thickening of the arteries — or atherosclerosis — which can lead to heart disease, stroke and death. even if they’re young and apparently healthy — and can benefit from preventive changes in lifestyle.

“We know obesity is a bad thing but we’re dropping the ball on a large proportion of young adults who don’t meet traditional measures of obesity such as weight and BMI,” Larose said.

He noted that assessing visceral fat levels is easy to do in a doctor’s office. It’s just a matter of measuring waist circumference.

“My message to young adults is that you are not superhuman, you’re not immune to risk factors,” Dr.

Full Article…

The authors also suggest a slightly increased rate of non-AIDS-related illnesses when the CD4 cell count is above 500, notably when the viral load is very high, though it was not possible to entirely rule out confoundershealth risks not accounted for in the study.

U.S. treatment guidelines recommend antiretroviral (ARV) therapy for all people living with HIV with CD4s below 500 cells. This recommendation, along with the suggestion by some HIV experts that ARV treatment should be started even earlier, is based on preliminary research indicating that uncontrolled viral replication leads to immune activation and inflammation that can drive up the risk of certain AIDS and non-AIDS illnesses.

Full Article…