1 . The US government just hired a researcher who thinks we can beat aging with fresh cloned bodies and brain updates. Jean Hébert, a new hire with the US Advanced Projects Agency for Health, is expected to lead a major new initiative around “functional brain tissue replacement”, the idea of adding youthful tissue to people’s brains.

The brain renewal concept could have applications such as treating stroke (中风) victims, who lose areas of brain function. But Hébert, a biologist at the Albert Einstein school of medicine, has most often proposed total brain replacement, along with replacing other parts of our body, as the only reasonable means of avoiding death from old age.

The idea sounds practical since there are already organ transplants. The trickiest part is your brain. That ages, too, shrinking dramatically in old age. But you don’t want to replace it with another—because it is you.

And that’s where Hébert’s research comes in. He’s been exploring ways to “progressively” replace a brain by adding bits of youthful tissue made in a lab. The process would have to be done slowly enough. in steps, that your brain could adapt, relocating memories and your self-identity.

Hébert has been carrying out initial experiments with mice, removing small sections of their brains and injecting slurries of embryonic cells (胚胎细胞). It’s a step toward proving whether such youthful tissue can survive and take over important functions.

To be sure, the strategy is not widely accepted, even among researchers in the aging field. “On the surface it sounds completely crazy, but I was surprised how good a case he could make for it,” says Matthew Scholz, CEO of aging research company Oisin Biotechnologies, who met with Hébert this year. Scholz is still doubtful though. “A new brain is not going to be a popular item,” he says. “The surgical element of it is going to be very severe, no matter how you slice it” Now, though, Hébert’s ideas appear to have gotten support from the US government.

2 . The text came at 4:30 P. M., when my husband, Martin, was at his hockey game. “I don’t feel well. John’s driving me to the hospital.” I called him and he told me his arm hurt. Then I _________ his teammate John calling Martin’s name over and over, but my super-fit husband didn’t _________.

Later, I learned that John, a nurse, drove Martin to the hospital when he saw Martin dropped to his _________ on the ice, struggling to catch his breath. When Martin stopped breathing in the car, John reacted _________, driving calmly with one hand and pounding his chest with the other to help keep blood flowing. As my son and I raced to the hospital, we waited until the medical team yelled, “We have a _________!”

Once Martin was finally stable, I learned that the _________ of surviving cardiac arrest (心脏停搏) outside a hospital was only around 10 percent, and that most survivors have some degree of brain injury. My 52-year-old husband was a _________ one. He made a miraculous and full _________.

_________, perhaps the scariest part was that after dozens of tests nobody could find a single thing wrong with him. If doctors couldn’t explain why his heart had stopped, couldn’t this happen again? And if it did, how to save him was totally __________ us.

Then I read about Katrysha, a woman in our community who had gone into cardiac arrest several years earlier, whose story __________ Martin’s so closely. Her colleagues had saved her by calling 911 and performing CPR, and now Katrysha gave CPR classes. I knew she was__________ to be our teacher. During the course, Katrysha taught us a lot. When the class ended, I was excited. For the first time since my husband’s release from the hospital, I wasn’t__________. Learning CPR was the most empowering thing we’ve ever done. Taking the CPR course gave us more than first-aid training. It became a __________ point in our family’s healing journey. Finally, we were no longer __________.

4 . What is Ozempic face? A term you probably shouldn’t use.

The medication (药) Ozempic has taken the world by storm—largely due to rumored use by some celebrities and the wealthy thanks to its weight loss effects.

But some physicians want to shift this narrative.

Ozempic was originally developed for the treatment of Type-2 diabetes (糖尿病), but it has also been shown to cause weight loss—which led to the approval of Wegovy. It’s the same medication as Ozempic, but is taken and administered only for the purpose of weight loss.

These medications have the potential to improve the health and lives of many people. While they can have some side effects, they do not cause “Ozempic face” — a term that’s been increasing in popularity but experts say is unfounded.

Ozempic face is not a medical term and is generally not a problem for people who have taken the medication appropriately. It is a term that has been used by some people to describe the appearance of sagging (下垂的) skin after weight loss.

Does Ozempic change your face? No. Ozempic itself does not cause over loss of weight in the face. But, if someone loses a lot of weight in a short amount of time, most often when they weren’t overweight or obese to begin with, they may have a gaunt (憔悴的) appearance.

Dr. Judy Korner, a Professor of Medicine at Columbia University, says the negative remarks about what one’s face looks like after weight loss is part of a pattern of abuse against obese patients.

“What’s been going on (with Ozempic) is the focus on people who are using it inappropriately. And it’s making a mockery out of obesity, which is a disease,” she says. “We now are finally having medications that can effectively target this disease, and the focus is completely on the wrong thing instead of focusing on the people who are taking the medication correctly and whose health has been improved because of that.”

5 . Drugs that could save tens of thousands of lives in Britain should be prescribed (开药) to three times as many patients as at present, medical experts recommended after a study showed these drugs have great effects on heart disease and stroke (中风).

British research has shown that statins, a class of drug that lowers cholesterol (胆固醇), can prevent a third of all cases of heart disease or stroke in patients at highest risk. If statins were given to 10 million high-risk patients, they could save at least 50,000 lives a year worldwide. In Britain, where heart disease is the leading cause of death, statins could save up to 10,000 lives a year.

Studies have found that safety issues surrounding statins were so tiny that they were significant. The risk of muscle problems was only about one in ten thousand. Fears that statins could increase deaths from other diseases, such as cancer, were assuaged by the study. At present, only people with high cholesterol are prescribed statins, but the eight-year study found that anyone at risk of heart disease or stroke could benefit. Statins are now given to fewer than one in twenty people aged over 40, mostly men with heart disease or high cholesterol. Under the recommendation, this would increase to one in eight.

A total of 20,000 volunteers aged 40 to 80 took part in the study, which looked at the effects of statins on patients for whom the benefits were uncertain. The guidelines previously said that female patients aged over 65 would not benefit from the drug, but the five years of monitoring all types of patients at high risk of heart attacks and stroke showed that everyone benefited as much from statins. The new recommendations will be easy to put into practice because statins are readily available and the patients who benefit from them most are already known to doctors.

7 . The Heimlich Maneuver Guideline

In the early 1970s, Henry J. Heimlich, MD, developed a first aid technique for choking, known as the Heimlich maneuver.     1     He was shocked to learn that choking was a leading cause of death, especially in children under 3 years of age.

Knowing when to use the Heimlich maneuver can be vital in emergency situations. If a person appears unable to speak or starts motioning toward their throat, they are likely choking.     2    

The National Safety Council provides the following steps to help a person who is choking, if they are still conscious. First of all, stand behind the person with one leg forward between the person’s legs. And then, put your arms around the person and locate their belly button. Place the thumb side of one fist against the stomach just above their belly button.     3     Once the object is expelled out, the choking victim will get more time to wait for the medical staff to arrive.

Avoid giving small kids hard candy, ice cubes, and popcorn. Cut foods that kids can easily choke on into tiny pieces. This can include grapes and other fruit, raw carrots, hot dogs, and chunks of cheese. Avoid laughing or talking while chewing and swallowing.

    5     It happens so suddenly and immediate help is needed. Learning how to perform the Heimlich maneuver correctly can help save a life. After the choking event resolves, be sure to seek medical attention for the person who chokes.

10 . An experimental treatment rejuvenates (使...恢复活力) the immune (免疫的) systems of older mice, improving their ability to fight infections. If it works in humans, the treatment could reverse (逆转) age-related decreases in immunity that leave older adults susceptible to disease.

These decreases may be due to changes in our blood stem cells which can develop into any type of blood cell—including key parts that make up the immune system. As we age, a larger proportion (比例) of these stem cells tend to produce some immune cells over others, says Jason Ross at Stanford University in California. This imbalance damages the immune system’s defenses.

Ross and his colleagues have developed a treatment using antibodies (抗体), which are proteins that recognize and attack certain cells to target these abnormal stem cells. They tested the treatment in six mice between 18 and 24 months old, which is roughly equal to an age of 56 to 70 years in humans.

A week after receiving an antibody injection, the mice had about 38 percent fewer of these abnormal stem cells than six mice of the same age that didn’t receive the treatment. “You can think of it as kind of turning back the clock,” says Ross. “We’re making the proportion of these immune cells more similar to those of a younger adult mouse.”

To test if the changes resulted in a stronger immune system, the researchers vaccinated (打疫苗) 17 older mice against a mouse virus. Nine of these mice had received the antibody treatment eight weeks earlier. The researchers then infected (感染) the mice with the virus. Two weeks later, they measured the number of infected cells in the animals and found that nearly half of the treated mice had cleared the infection, compared with only one of the eight untreated mice.

The findings indicate that the antibody treatment rejuvenates the mouse immune system. “Since humans, like mice, also see abnormal blood stem cells increase with age, a similar antibody treatment may rejuvenate our immune systems,” says Ross.