2024 Health Guide

HEALTH GUIDE

Your dog will have an anti-aging drug before you do

BY F.D. FLAM, BLooMBerg opinion i photo BY tnS

»Before we have an anti-aging drug for humans, we’re likely to have one for dogs. Multiple clinical trials are currently underway to test potential anti-aging compounds on dogs, since our best friends have become a popular animal model for human aging. Fido also represents a potentially huge market.

The science could benefit both species, but premature claims are already causing a credibility problem.

Recently, Harvard University biologist David Sinclair started marketing life-extension supplements for dogs, touting unpublished, clinical-trial data that others in the field found completely unconvincing. In March, Sinclair, who didn’t respond to requests for an interview, changed the wording of a press release, which originally prom ised the chewy treats would “reverse aging.” Now, it says they reverse the effects of age-related decline.

Sinclair’s trial used dog owners’ subjective assessments of cognitive changes in their older pets — and other scientists say the trials don’t show a consistent enough effect even for this more modest claim. (Sinclair became famous in the 1990s for some highly publicized papers tying aging to proteins called sirtuins — an idea that led to the now widely disputed belief that red wine has anti-aging properties.)

While the FDA is authorized to regulate veterinary drugs, it doesn’t approve supplements for pets or people, so these can be sold without going through tests for safety and efficacy.

Whether anti-aging supplements for dogs work or not, there’s likely to be demand, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of ethics at New York University. In the past, desperate dog owners have had their dead or dying dogs cloned — hoping the clone would be essentially a reincarnation of their dead pet.

an animal’s aging rate is controlled by certain genes. Other experts cite the shrinking of the caps on the end of or chromosomes, called telomers. Others blame the degeneration of the packaging around our DNA — so-called epigenetic markers, which can activate or suppress certain genes. Some scholars blame damage caused by chronic inflammation. Still others, the buildup of cellular waste products.

Some of these possible mechanisms of aging can be altered with drugs in a way that endows worms, fruit flies and mice with longer lives. Which drugs should be tried in humans? Clinical trials to test their effects on longevity in people could take decades — long enough for the study subjects to live out the rest of their lives. One way to identify the more promising candidates would be to see which ones also work in dogs. Dogs are long-lived enough to serve as a better model for human aging than mice, but shortlived enough that treatment can be tested in a few years.

Matt Kaeberlein, CEO of Optispan and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, was among the most vocal critics of Sinclair’s dog longevity claims. He’s also in competition as co-director of The Dog Aging Project. That project involves collecting data on thousands of dogs as well as conducting a dog clinical trial with a drug called Rapamycin. It’s currently approved for people who’ve had organ transplants. At high doses, it causes mouth sores and other nasty side effects, he admits, but can extend the lives of mice and — at low doses — might do the same in dogs or humans.

A group of biohacker types is already taking Rapamycin off-label in the hope of life-extension, he said. He’s trying to get data from them, messy as it is, because there might be useable information there. (Caplan, the NYU ethicist, says he thinks it’s unethical for doctors to prescribe this drug off-label for longevity.)

Some researchers who study aging fear that the spectacle of a high-level professor hawking dog longevity supplements will further tarnish the reputation of a field already dragged down by self-proclaimed experts pushing fad diets and unproven anti-aging treatments for people.

There’s a lot to gain from a better scientific understanding of aging. Getting older is a risk factor for all the major killer diseases — heart disease, cancer and even severe Covid. And in the U.S., the ranks of people over 70 will swell within the coming years, creating a vast increase in the number of people suffering from dementia or other age-related problems.

But scientists don’t yet agree on what causes aging or what approach would work best to slow it down. While wear and tear will eventually affect all living things, some organisms live many times longer than others, even among closely related species. Some researchers think

Kaeberlein said the biological data they’re collecting from all those thousands of dogs could lead to an explanation for the fact that big dogs don’t live as long as small ones. “If you compare a Great Dane to a chihuahua on average, it’s at least a twofold difference in life expectancy,” he said.

But his project might be a victim of the field’s wider credibility problem. It had been funded by the National Institutes of Health, but he and his colleagues learned recently that a five-year grant established in 2018 and extended one year probably won’t be renewed. He’s now working to get private money.

Charles Brenner, a biochemist at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, is another vocal critic of Sinclair’s claims regarding dogs and humans. (Like most researchers on the forefront of aging, he has his own supplement ties as chief scientific advisor of a

More patients are losing their doctors — and trust in the primary-care system

BY LYnn ArDiti, the pUBLiC’S rADio/KFF heALth newS

FFirst, her favorite doctor in Providence, Rhode Island, retired. Then her other doctor at a health center a few miles away left the practice. Now, Piedad Fred has developed a new chronic condition: distrust in the American medical system.

“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “To go to a doctor that doesn’t know who you are? That doesn’t know what allergies you have, the medicines that make you feel bad? It’s difficult.”

At 71, Fred has never been vaccinated against COVID-19. She no longer gets an annual flu shot, and she hasn’t considered whether to be vaccinated against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, even though her age and an asthma condition put her at higher risk of severe infection.

“It’s not that I don’t believe in vaccines,” Fred, a Colombian immigrant, said in Spanish at her home last fall. “It’s just that I don’t have faith in doctors.”

The loss of a trusted doctor is never easy, and it’s an experience that is increasingly common.

The stress of the pandemic drove a lot of health care workers to retire or quit. Now, a nationwide shortage of doctors and others who provide primary care is making it hard to find replacements. And as patients are shuffled from one provider to the next, it’s eroding their trust in the health system.

The American Medical Association’s president, Jesse Ehrenfeld, recently called the physician shortage a “public health crisis.”

“It’s an urgent crisis, hitting every corner of this country, urban and rural, with the most direct impact hitting families with high needs and limited means,” Ehrenfeld told reporters in October.

In Fred’s home state of Rhode Island, the percentage of people without a regular source of routine health care increased from 2021 to 2022, though the state’s residents still do better than most Americans.

Hispanic residents and those with less than a high school education are less likely to have a source of routine health care, according to the nonprofit organization Rhode Island Foundation.

The community health centers known as federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs, are the safety net of last resort, serving the uninsured, the underinsured, and other vulnerable people. There are more than 1,400 community health centers nationwide, and about two-thirds of them lost between 5% and a quarter of their workforce during a six-month period in 2022, according to a report by the National Association of Community Health Centers.

Another 15% of FQHCs reported losing between a quarter and half of their staff. And it’s not just doctors: The most severe shortage, the survey found, was among nurses.

In a domino effect, the shortage of clinicians has placed additional burdens on support staff members such as medical assistants and

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other unlicensed workers.

Their extra tasks include “sterilizing equipment, keeping more logs, keeping more paperwork, working with larger patient loads,” said Jesse Martin, executive vice president of District 1199 NE of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 29,000 health care workers in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

“When you add that work to the same eight hours’ worth of a day’s work you can’t get everything done,” Martin said.

Last October, scores of SEIU members who work at Providence Community Health Centers, Rhode Island’s largest FQHC, held an informational picket outside the clinics, demanding improvements in staffing, work schedules and wages.

The marketing and communications director for PCHC, Brett Davey, declined to comment.

Staff discontent has rippled through community health care centers across the country. In Chicago, workers at three health clinics held a two-day strike in November, demanding higher pay, better benefits and a smaller workload.

Then just before Thanksgiving at Unity Health Care, the largest federally qualified health center in Washington, D.C., doctors and other medical providers voted to unionize. They said they were being pressed to prioritize patient volume over quality of care, leading to job burnout and more staff turnover.

The staffing shortages come as community health centers are caring for more patients. The number of people served by the centers between 2015 and 2022 increased by 24% nationally, and by 32.6% in Rhode Island, according to the Rhode Island Health Center Association, or RIHCA.

Continued on Page 8

Piedad Fred discusses her medical care at her home in Providence, Rhode Island.

“As private practices close or get smaller, we are seeing patient demand go up at the health centers,” said Elena Nicolella, RIHCA’s president and CEO. “Now with the workforce challenges, it’s very difficult to meet that patient demand.”

In Rhode Island, community health centers in 2022 served about 1 in 5 residents, which is more than twice the national average of 1 in 11 people, according to RIHCA.

Job vacancy rates at Rhode Island’s community health centers are 21% for physicians, 18% for physician assistants and nurse practitioners, and 10% for registered nurses, according to six of the state’s eight health centers that responded to a survey conducted by RIHCA for The Public’s Radio, NPR, and KFF Health News.

Pediatricians are also in short supply. Last year, 15 pediatricians left staff positions at the Rhode Island health centers, and seven of them have yet to be replaced.

Research shows that some of the biggest drivers of burnout are workload and job demands.

Community health centers tend to attract clinicians who are mission-driven, said Nelly Burdette, who spent years working in health centers before becoming a senior leader of the nonprofit Care Transformation Collaborative of Rhode Island.

These clinicians often want to give back to the community, she said, and are motivated to practice “a kind of medicine that is maybe less corporate,” and through which they can they develop close relationships with patients and within multigenerational families.

So when workplace pressures make it harder for these clinicians to meet their patients’ needs, they are more likely to burn out, Burdette said.

When a doctor quits or retires, Carla Martin, a pediatrician and an internist, often gets asked to help. The week before Thanksgiving, she was filling in at two urgent care clinics in Providence.

“We’re seeing a lot of people coming in for things that are really primary care issues, not

urgent care issues, just because it’s really hard to get appointments,” Martin said.

One patient recently visited urgent care asking for a refill of her asthma medication. “She said, ‘I ran out of my asthma medicine, I can’t get a hold of my PCP for refill, I keep calling, I can’t get through,’” Martin said.

Stories like that worry Christopher Koller, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a nonprofit philanthropy focused on health policy. “When people say, ‘I can’t get an appointment with my doctor,’ that means they don’t have a usual source of care anymore,” Koller said.

Koller points to research showing that having a consistent relationship with a doctor or other primary care clinician is associated with improvements in overall health and fewer emergency room visits.

When that relationship is broken, patients can lose trust in their health care providers.

That’s how it felt to Piedad Fred, the Colombian immigrant who stopped getting vaccinated. Fred used to go to a community health center in Rhode Island, but then accessing care there began to frustrate her.

She described making repeated phone calls for a same-day appointment, only to be told that none were available and that she should try again tomorrow. After one visit, she said, one of her prescriptions never made it to the pharmacy.

And there was another time when she waited 40 minutes in the exam room to consult with a physician assistant — who then said she couldn’t give her a cortisone shot for her knee, as her doctor used to do.

Fred said that she won’t be going back.

So what will she do the next time she gets sick or injured and needs medical care?

“Well, I’ll be going to a hospital,” she said in Spanish.

But experts warn that more people crowding into hospital emergency rooms will only further strain the health system and the people who work there.

Unionized workers picket outside the Providence Community Health Centers on Oct. 12, 2023.

Voted the Southsides Best choice for Pain Management!

SHOULD I SEE A PAIN MANAGEMENT DOCTOR?

Chronic pain is a condition that persistently affects one’s well-being and daily activities to the point where it lowers their quality of life. Once someone reaches that point, the decision to seek specialized care that can help manage that pain can be pivotal. A pain management doctor, also known as a pain specialist, plays a crucial role in diagnosing, treating, and managing pain stemming from a variety of causes. Injuries, surgeries, nerve damage, and chronic conditions such as arthritis and cancer can all contribute to chronic pain. This article explores several key considerations to help you determine whether consulting a pain management doctor is a suitable course of action for your situation.

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF A PAIN MANAGEMENT DOCTOR

Pain management doctors are medical practitioners who have undergone specialized training in the diagnosis and treatment of pain. Their expertise encompasses a wide array of conditions, giving them insight into what causes specific types of pain. They can help treat these conditions through various treatments that range from medication management to advanced procedures such as nerve blocks, spinal injections and device implementations that help control pain. They work within a multidisciplinary framework which allows them to provide comprehensive care that is tailored to each patient’s individual needs.

SIGNS YOU SHOULD FOR CONSULTING A PAIN MANAGEMENT DOCTOR

If you are dealing with any of the following issues, you should consider reaching out to a pain management doctor in order to get the care you need:

Chronic Pain: If you experience pain that has persisted for three months or longer, despite initial treatments or therapies, it may be time to see a pain management specialist. Chronic pain can be debilitating, affecting physical capabilities, emotional well- being, and overall quality of life.

Complex Pain Conditions: Certain conditions, such as neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, or complex regional pain syndrome, may not respond well to standard medical treatments. Pain management doctors have the necessary knowledge and tools needed to help tackle these complex pain conditions.

Pain Interfering with Daily Life: When pain starts to hamper or prevent your ability to perform daily activities, such as work or leisure activities, consulting a pain specialist can help you find effective treatment options to improve your functionality and reduce the impact pain has on your daily life.

Managing Medication Side Effects or Seeking Alternatives: For patients concerned about the long-term use of pain medications, particularly opioids, or those experiencing significant side effects, a pain management specialist can offer alternative therapies and strategies to manage pain effectively without undue reliance on medications.

5 Convenient locations! Batesville, Bloomington, Columbus, Terre Haute and our newest location, Greenwood 747 E County Line Rd Suite J, Greenwood, IN 46143 (317) 886-1529

Our goal is to understand your pain and provide a treatment plan customized to you and your goals. With the care of our compassionate physicians and advanced practice providers, we will work to reduce your pain and improve your quality of life at every single appointment.

Community Health Network performs first pulsed field ablation in Indiana

SUBMitteD ArtiCLe AnD photoS BY BoBBie BrooKS

A new procedure offers safer, quicker treatment for atrial fibrillation patients

A Community Health Network patient became the first in Indiana to receive pulsed field ablation (PFA), the newest treatment available for the growing problem of atrial fibrillation (AFib), a heart rhythm disorder that is the leading cause of stroke.

AFib contributes to about 158,000 deaths each year, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). It is estimated that more than 12 million people will have AFib in 2030.

Community invested in the latest state-of-the-art technology to treat AFib with a safer, quicker and more efficient procedure called pulsed field ablation. “We were not only first in the state of Indiana but amongst the first ten hospitals in the country to utilize this technology,” said Dr. Sandeep Dube, cardiologist and physician executive at Community Heart and Vascular Hospital.

Medtronic PulseSelect™ PFA system uses short bursts of high-energy electrical fields to create heart tissue scars. Traditional ablation procedures use thermal energy, which can increase the risk of collateral damage due to excessive heat affecting surrounding tissues.

Dr. Krishna Malineni, medical director of electrophysiology at Community, who performed the first PFA in Indiana, is excited about this innovative technology. He says, “Twenty years ago, in the infancy of ablation, procedures took up to seven hours and carried significant risk. Now, with PFA, the procedure can take less than hour, with patients able to be up in five to six hours and often going home the same day.” The hospital averages up to twenty ablation procedures each week.

Community Health Network has also invested in Farapulse by Boston Scientific, the only other FDA-approved PFA system, to ensure a better outcome for patients.

For more information on cardiovascular care, go to eCommunity.com/heart

About Community Health Network

Headquartered in Indianapolis, Community Health Network has been deeply committed to the communities it serves since opening its first hospital, Community Hospital East, in 1956. Community Health Network puts patients first while offering a full continuum of health care services, world-class innovations and a new focus on population health management. Exceptional care, simply delivered, is what sets Community Health Network apart and what makes it a leading not-for-profit health care destination in central Indiana. For more information about Community Health Network, visit eCommunity. com.

Back row: Dr. Michael Thomas, Dr. Chris Healy. Front row: Heidi Harris, Amie Lisby, Lina Jenkins, Dr. Krishna Malineni, Dr. Kevin Trulock

Back row: Tammy Tutwiler, Marla Talley, Nicole Heald, Dr. Chris Healy. Front row: Mandy Kingery, Sierra Jamell, Crystal Le

Franciscan Health Indianapolis rated top in state for interventional coronary care, major cardiac surgery

SUBMitteD ArtiCLe AnD photoS

2024 CareChex ratings

No. 1 in State

Major Cardiac Surgery and Interventional Coronary Care

Top 100 in Nation

Bone marrow transplant

Top 10% in Nation Cardiac care

Top 10% in Market Bariatric

»Franciscan Health Indianapolis has been rated No. 1 in the state for medical excellence in Interventional Coronary Care for the fourth consecutive year, as well as receiving a No. 1 rating in the state for Major Cardiac Surgery by CareChex® Awards, an information service of Quantros, Inc.

In addition, Franciscan Health Indianapolis was rated among the Top 10% in the nation for Cardiac Care and was among the Top 100 hospitals in the nation for Bone Marrow Transplant as well as being No. 1 in the market for Bariatrics.

“The all-encompassing nature of these ratings from CareChex, shines a spotlight on the exceptional services offered across our departments in Indianapolis,” said Lori Price, president and CEO for Franciscan Health Central Indiana. “We are very appreciative of the amazing care that our physicians, surgeons, nurses and staff provide the patients we are honored to serve.”

The ratings from CareChex place Franciscan Health Indianapolis in the upper tier of hospitals nationally for medical excellence and reflect the organization’s commitment to continually delivering the best care possible.

The team at the Franciscan Health Heart Center Indianapolis have consistently been among the first adapters of advanced procedures and devices, including brachial artery approach for cardiac catheterizations, interventional valve replacements, extracellular matrix for heart and valve repairs and the Watchman device for patients with atrial fibrillation. The Heart Center was among the first facilities in the country to pioneer an emergency heart attack response team protocol for heart attack patients.

Franciscan Health participates in several research studies as well, including studies for medications and devices. Members of Franciscan Physician Network Indiana Heart Physicians and Cardiac Surgery Associates provide the foundation of the center’s medical expertise and innovations.

Franciscan Health Indianapolis was among the first hospitals in Indiana to offer same-day outpatient bariatric procedures for weight-loss surgery. Bariatric surgery, often via gastric sleeve or gastric bypass, provides the tool to assist patients in weight loss and has been proven to be the most effective intervention for sustainable results.

The CareChex rating system is designed to assist hospitals and health care systems in improving the quality of inpatient care and promoting clinical excellence to patients, payers and employers.

The Franciscan Alliance healthcare ministry began in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1875. Today, Franciscan Alliance is one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the Midwest with 12 hospital campuses, more than 19,000 employees and a number of nationally recognized Centers of Health Care Excellence. Hospitals include: Franciscan Health Carmel; Franciscan Health Crawfordsville; Franciscan Health Crown Point; Franciscan Health Dyer; Franciscan Health Indianapolis; Franciscan Health Lafayette; Franciscan Health Michigan City; Franciscan Health Mooresville; Franciscan Health Munster; Franciscan Health Olympia Fields (Illinois); Franciscan Health Orthopedic Hospital (Carmel) and Franciscan Health Rensselaer.

BY riCK thieSSe, MAYo CLiniC newS networK | photo BY triBUne newS ServiCe

The typical average adult head weighs approximately 10-12 pounds. But did you know that bending it forward at a 45-degree angle to look at a cellphone or tablet can dramatically increase your chances to have “tech neck?”

“That’s like having an 8-pound bowling ball as your head. Then you have 72 pounds at your elbow and 96 pounds on your shoulder,” said Brian Langenhorst, industrial and ergonomics specialist at Mayo Clinic Health System in La Crosse. “I probably see tech neck on a weekly basis at businesses, schools and industry.”

Tech neck is any form of chronic neck or shoulder pain, soreness, or stiffness caused by poor posture while using technology such as phones or computers. Looking down at electronic devices causes the neck muscles to strain and the shoulders to slump forward.

“People will notice some musculoskeletal fatigue,” explained Langenhorst. “They may notice pressure on nerve supply, which then can have some referred pain, and pressure on nerve supply within the neck that can

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How to strengthen your core

BY JoeL StreeD, MAYo CLiniC newS networK

»When you’re starting or recharging a running program, you may be tempted to focus only on leg strength. But there’s another major group of muscles that’s just as important to your overall strength, endurance and power — your core muscles.

These are the muscles around your pelvis, lower back, hips and stomach. They work together to provide stability and balance. To play sports and participate in most physical activities, a strong core is a necessity. A strong core also plays a role in posture and preventing injuries.

Building a strong core

What can you do to build and maintain strong core muscles? Here are some tips:

l When performing core exercises, use a mat or lie on the carpet.

l Take deep, slow breaths and exhale with the effort of the movement to activate your core muscles.

l Try yoga or Pilates. These activities require the use of your core muscles, build strength, and help with balance and flexibility.

l Implement a well-rounded fitness program that includes not only core exercises but also aerobic and plyometric exercises, and strength training.

Basic core-building exercises

These are some basic core-building exercises to work on. Repeat each of these core-strength exercises about five times, building up to 10-24 repetitions. If you have back problems, osteoporosis or other health concerns, talk to someone on your health care team before doing these exercises.

l Bridge

Lie on your back with your knees bent. Breathe out as you raise your hips off the floor.

To check if you’re doing this exercise correctly, make sure your hips are aligned with your knees and shoulders.

Hold this position briefly, lower hips and repeat.

l Bridge with stability ball

Lie on your back with your legs resting on top of the ball. Inhale deeply.

Exhale to tighten your core, lifting your hips and buttocks off the floor into a bridge. Hold steady for three deep breaths. This works your core muscles and the muscles along your backside — the gluteal muscles and hamstrings — as they contract to hold you in place.

Return to the starting position and repeat.

For added challenge, raise your right leg off the ball. Repeat with your left leg.

l Segment rotation

Lie on your back with your knees bent and your back in a neutral position. Keeping your shoulders on the floor, let your knees fall slowly to the left. Go only as far as is comfortable. You should feel a stretch, but not pain. Hold for three deep breaths.

Return to the start position. Repeat the exercise to the right.

l Quadruped

Start on your hands and knees. Place your hands directly below your shoulders, and align your head and neck with your back.

Exhale to engage your core as you raise your right arm off the floor and reach ahead. Hold for three deep breaths. Lower your right arm and repeat with your left arm.

Exhale to engage your core as you raise your right leg off the floor. Tighten your trunk muscles for balance. Hold for three deep breaths. Lower your right leg and repeat with your left leg.

For an added challenge, raise your left arm and your right leg at the same time. Repeat with your right arm and left leg.

l Bent over rows with free weights

With one foot on the ground, bend over and place the other knee on the edge of a chair. Let one arm hang straight down from your shoulder; hold a free weight in that hand. Use the other arm for support.

Exhale as you lift the weight, bending your elbow and keeping the weight parallel to the floor. Keep your shoulder down and back, and away from your ear.

Not only does adding free weights build core strength, but it also gives other muscle groups a workout.

l Weighted arm swings

Stand in a lunge position with your right foot forward. Hold a weight in each hand.

Keeping elbows bent, swing the weights forward and back. This motion mimics pumping your arms when you run.

Change your stance so your left foot is forward and repeat the arms swings.

Beyond core strength

Core strength is key to your running performance, but so is power. These exercises focus on the muscles that generate the power to climb hills and add bursts of speed:

l Jump lunges

Stand in a low lunge position with your right foot forward.

Jump straight upward, switching your leg position and landing back in the lunge position.

Repeat these lunges, alternating your leg position each time. Avoid holding your breath.

l Sideways tape jumps

Place a strip of tape on the floor. Stand on one side of the tape.

With both feet, jump sideways over the tape, landing with slightly bent knees and toes pointing forward.

Repeat, returning to your starting position. Once you’ve mastered the two-footed jump, try it with one leg. You also can add hand weights.

Strong body, strong run

With a strong core, you’re setting yourself up for a successful big run — and overall improved strength, stability, power and endurance.

have referred pain within the arms and hands.”

Over time, this position can deform your shoulder, chest and neck muscles and put pressure on your spine.

“You may have eight to 10 hours at work on a computer. Then you’re home for two to four hours on a computer or on your phone. That’s extremely fatiguing to your neck and body,” Langenhorst said.

“With cellphones, we’re having to bring them closer to maintain visual comfort,” added Langenhorst. “What I find all too often is many people don’t move enough. They are staying in a static position for extremely long periods of time.”

On average, people spend three hours and 15 minutes on their phones each day. Individuals check their phones an average of 58 times each day. Almost half (46%) of Americans believe they spend an average of four to five hours on their smartphones each day. A 2020 study discovered that Americans will spend nearly nine years of their lives using their phone.

“Static positioning is actually more work and more effort than dynamic movement,” Langenhorst said. “Your body is going to ask you do you want to have visual comfort or postural comfort. The key here is that vision

Anti-aging continued

bioscience company called ChromaDex.)

Brenner is also skeptical of those who claim various treatments or drugs can reverse a person’s “biological age” as calculated through proxies measured in blood — including telomeres and epigenetic markers. None of these measure aging as well as walking speed, he said.

When I asked him about the Rapamycin study in dogs, he said it’s “worth a try” because the trial measures actual lifespan rather

improve tech neck

• Place your screen 20-30 inches away from your eyes (about an arm’s length).

• Use a computer monitor or laptop stand to help elevate your screen to the right level (or stack some books or pillows).

• Try to hold the phone at an upright and angled position

• Sit with your head, hips and spine stacked. Eye height should be about 1/2 inch to 1½ inches higher than the screen because we have a 15-degree eye gaze.

• Keep your wrists straight and your elbows bent at about 90-degree angles.

• Keep your knees in line with your hips and your feet flat on the floor.

always wins because we change our posture to accommodate vision.”

Tech neck also can cause issues beyond your neck and shoulders. Extra spinal pressure in your neck can lead to lower back pain, headaches and herniated disks (slipped or bulging disks). Altered neck muscles and poor posture also can strain jaw joints and muscles, creating temporomandibular joint pain.

“Just think about kids and when they’re home. They have their tablet, desktop or phone at home for homework. Just look at their posture and see what their posture looks like. Are they in a pretty good position? If they’re not, they’re probably in all sorts of

than some proxy. But he isn’t betting on this particular drug.

He’s more optimistic about work done by a company called Loyal, profiled in 2021 by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Brenner says while Loyal has been secretive about the drug, he thinks what they’re now testing inhibits the production or action of growth hormone. Growth hormone, he said, is connected to the faster aging they see in larger dogs compared to smaller ones.

There’s promise in studying how and why animals age — not just dogs but clams that

kind of goofy postures,” Langenhorst said. “They can probably get away with it while they’re a little bit younger and invincible. But soon, even in their early 20s, muscle fatigue is going to kick in, and we’re going to notice some more strain and sprain.

“Make sure they’re doing some consistent stretching and movement that we build into our day.

“As we age, the disks of our spine become narrowed, we start to lose some of the cushiness that’s there. That can generate a little bit more pressure on the nerve roots that come out of the level of the neck. As you get older, meaning 45 and older, those disk spaces become narrower. That can put pressure on your nerves within your neck. Some people could notice a level of fatigue and discomfort, then generating into pain. Pain can then generate into disability.”

“The greatest challenge is we’re not working or staying in a neutral or straight posture. I want to be able to have my head in an upright position, ears over shoulders, shoulders over hips,” he says.

Neck pain is the fourth leading cause of disability, with an annual prevalence rate exceeding 30%. Most episodes of acute neck pain will resolve with or without treatment, but nearly 50% of people will continue to experience some degree of pain or frequent occurrences.

can live to 500, rockfish that survive until 200 and whales that reach 80. Once scientists understand the mechanisms of aging, they’ll be much better able to find ways to help us — and our furry friends — live longer and healthier lives.

But first, they need investors and the public to take them seriously.

F.D. Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science. She is host of the “Follow the Science” podcast.