Longevity Tips From 79-Year-Old Triathlete Who Got Fit in Her 40s
- Cherie Gruenfeld didn’t start her fitness journey until her 40s.
- Now she’s 79 years old and training for her 29th Ironman Triathlon.
- She shared her tips for people who want to be as fit as she is at her age.
In her 40s, Cherie Gruenfeld was active but not fit. But that changed when she watched the Boston Marathon on TV one morning in 1986.
Gruenfeld was working a demanding sales and marketing job in Boston, and didn’t think much about fitness apart from going on the occasional hike and bike ride. But by the time the marathon was over, Gruenfeld had decided she would run the 26.2 miles the next year.
She began training right away, and 6 months later that October, she completed her first marathon in three hours and 26 minutes. She’d fallen in love with running and started doing multiple marathons a year.
Then, in 1991, she picked up a magazine about that year’s Ironman Triathlon in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, which consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile run.
Gruenfeld’s husband, who’d supported her fitness journey since the beginning, encouraged her enter — even though she was by no means a swimmer and didn’t even own a bike.
So, she joined a local pool, bought a bike, and took a six-month leave of absence from her demanding job to train.
In October 1992, at 48 years of age, Gruenfeld crossed the finish line at Kona.
“I had planned on it being a one-and-done thing, but my first words to my husband were ‘I love this, and I know how I can do it better next time,'” she said.
‘A very odd and ugly worldview’: the dark side of fast fashion brand Brandy Melville | Documentary
If you haven’t heard of Brandy Melville, you probably don’t have a teenage girl in your life. The clothing brand – confusingly named for two characters, an American girl named Brandy and an Englishman named Melville who fall in love in Rome – is synonymous with a certain large swath of gen Z, very online and inundated since consciousness with images of very skinny celebrities like Bella Hadid. As one ex-store associate puts it in a new HBO documentary on the brand: Brandy Melville was for the kinda basic but very trend-aware girl.
Over the past decade and a half, the brand built a giant following via Instagram, Tumblr and TikTok posts of and by teenage girls channeling a certain recognizable aesthetic: tiny outfits accentuating pre-adult metabolisms, exposed midriffs so taut they seem to be begging for a tape measure, long hair flowing cheerily in motion, overwhelmingly white. Most of the brand’s pieces sold for less than $40, in “one size fits all”, that size being small. What Abercrombie & Fitch was to millennials at the mall, Brandy Melville was to teenage girls on their phone – organically popular, ubiquitous and reinforcing existing, retrograde ideas of what’s cool and popular. A divisive status symbol spotted on such rail-thin celebrities as Kaia Gerber and Kendall Jenner that many people love to hate, and also secretly want.
More recently, the brand has also become synonymous with the environmental scourge of fast fashion and shady, discriminatory business practices. Brandy Hellville and the Cult of Fast Fashion, which premiered at SXSW and on HBO this week, digs deeper into a 2021 exposé by Business Insider’s Kate Taylor on the company’s murky, outright creepy management – not just the “opaque minefield” of “sustainable” fashion, as the director, Eva Orner, told the Guardian, but allegations
Nunavut sets up mobile tuberculosis clinic in Naujaat as outbreak grows
Nunavut’s Health department has opened a community-wide mobile testing clinic in Naujaat, in the hopes of testing as many people as possible for tuberculosis.
It’s been almost a year since a TB outbreak was first declared in the community of 1,200 people on May 16, 2023.
Kevin Tegumiar, Naujaat’s mayor, said the hamlet has been asking for such a clinic for several months.
“Without accurate numbers, we’re not really sure where we are. This clinic will help clear things up,” Tegumiar said.
Tegumiar said three Naujaat residents have died since the outbreak began in the community. Nunavut’s Health department confirmed those numbers in a recent interview with CBC.
Since January 2023, 21 people in Naujaat have been diagnosed with active TB.
Another 118 others have been diagnosed with latent TB, according to the department, which is almost double the number reported in November last year.
Hundreds of tests
Health officials have set a goal to test 1,000 people in Naujaat for TB by the end of the clinic, on May 30.
“We hope that every one of them are coming and get screened during the time that we are here,” said Ekua Agyemang, Nunavut’s deputy chief public health officer. “When TB is identified early, the disease is very easy to treat in the community.”
The Health department said they will deploy a team of health-care workers, including a doctor, four nurses, an epidemiologist, a radiology technician and laboratory technician.
Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, will also visit Naujaat this week as part of a tour alongside Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. officials and the territory’s health minister. Tam will also visit Pond Inlet and Iqaluit.
“Though TB will be
Peter Attia’s Quest to Live Long and Prosper
Some of my earliest memories are of summers with my grandparents, in New Delhi. I spent long, scorching months drinking lassi, playing cricket, and helping my grandparents find ripe mangoes at roadside markets. Then I’d return to the U.S., my English rusty from disuse, and go months or years without seeing them. At some point, my India trips started to feel like snapshots of loss. My grandfathers died suddenly, probably of heart attacks. My Biji, my father’s mother, fell and broke her hip in her seventies, and she spent her last years moving back and forth between her bed and her couch. My Nani, my mother’s mother, developed excruciating arthritis in both knees; in order for her to leave her fifth-floor walkup, my uncle practically had to carry her down the stairs. I have always wondered whether their fading vitality—the way their worlds contracted and their possibilities vanished—was an inevitability of aging or something that could have been averted.
Many of us have come to expect that our bodies and minds will deteriorate in our final years—that we may die feeble, either dependent or alone. Paradoxically, this outcome is a kind of success. For most of history, humans didn’t live long enough to confront the ailments of old age. In 1900, a baby born in the U.S. could expect to live just forty-seven years, and one in five died before the age of ten. But twentieth-century victories against infectious diseases—in the form of sanitation, antibiotics, and vaccines—dramatically extended life spans, and today the average newborn lives to around seventy-seven. Lately, though, progress has slowed. In the past six decades, medicine has added about seven years to the average life span—less by saving young lives than by extending old ones, and often in states of ill health. In many cases, we’re
$1.3B contract for new hospital that will improve health care in Mississauga and Toronto
A largest-in-Canada, $1.3-billion contract has been awarded to build a new hospital on the Etobicoke-Mississauga border that’s expected to significantly improve health care for people in both cities when it opens in five years.
Mississauga-based EllisDon will build the new Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre in Etobicoke, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced today.
Ford said the $1.3-billion contract represents Canada’s largest health infrastructure renewal project, which is being funded largely by the province via Infrastructure Ontario.
Work began this past February and the new hospital, which is part of the Trillium Health Partners health-care network that also includes Mississauga and Credit Valley hospitals, is expected to open in late 2029, officials said.
The new hospital will serve the rapidly growing needs of fast-growing communities, now and in the future, Ford noted, saying it’s “a critical step in making care more connected and convenient in Etobicoke and neighbouring communities.”
When completed, the 600,000-sq.-ft. Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre will include a new patient tower described as a modern nine-story facility with more than 350 beds and fully private patient rooms to ensure privacy and enhance infection prevention control.
“The expanded space will also allow THP to connect more people to specialized care, including complex continuing care and rehabilitation services,” the province’s deputy health minister, Sylvia Jones, said in a news release.
“With this new hospital expansion, our government is ensuring the needs of Peel Region and Etobicoke will be met for decades to come.”
THP president and CEO Karli Farrow described the undertaking as an “historic project” that will serve the community for many generations to come.
“Once completed, the Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre will…allow us to increase our hospital’s capacity to provide quality health care from Milton to Toronto,” she said. “This milestone
Seizing Opportunities and Revolutionizing Care with Public-Private Partnerships and Government Initiatives
Global Digital Health Market
Dublin, April 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The “Global Digital Health Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Technology (Healthcare Analytics, mHealth), Component (Hardware, Software, Services), Application, End-use, Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2024-2030” report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering.
The global digital health market size is anticipated to reach USD 946.0 billion by 2030 and it is projected to grow at a CAGR of 21.9% from 2024 to 2030
The market growth driven by various factors. These include the proliferation of smartphones, advancements in internet connectivity, the development of IT infrastructure, increasing healthcare IT expenditures, overburdened healthcare facilities, a growing shortage of healthcare providers, rising demand for remote patient monitoring services, escalating medical costs, improved accessibility of virtual care services, and the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases.
This growth is further propelled by the ongoing trend of digitalization in healthcare. This trend finds support in expanding public-private partnerships, emerging startups in the healthcare sector, and favorable initiatives undertaken by governments to promote digital health solutions.
Digital health encompasses diverse technologies such as telehealth services, health information technology, and mobile health (mHealth) to enhance communication within healthcare systems, fostering improved interactions between doctors and patients. The relevance of digital health technology has grown significantly, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These contemporary solutions enhance the patient-doctor relationship and extend preventive disease strategies. Furthermore, they contribute to a shift in healthcare towards value-based treatment, amplifying the accessibility of health information for both patients and healthcare providers.
Furthermore, integrating wearable devices into healthcare reshapes how individuals manage their health. Wearables like fitness trackers and smartwatches enable continuous monitoring of vital signs, physical activity, and other health metrics. This real-time data empowers individuals to take a proactive role in their well-being and allows
Italian Fashion Designer Roberto Cavalli Has Died at 83
Roberto Cavalli, the Italian designer who infused the print-led boho look with sex appeal, has died at 83. His passing was confirmed by the brand. “The Roberto Cavalli company shares condolences with Mr. Cavalli’s family. His legacy remains a constant source of inspiration,” said Roberto Cavalli’s CEO Sergio Azzolari.
By the time shows started to go digital (circa 2000), Cavalli was a well-established golden name in fashion; an elder, even, enjoying a second round of renown. He exuded Hefner vibes (minus the robe) when he took his fall 2001 bow smoking a pipe. (The designer was in fact asked to redesign the Playboy bunny costume in 2005.) By then the leonine Cavalli was living the good life, something that he achieved with braggadocio and brain power—and against the odds. In the context of Cacvalli’s life story, the body worship and forthright sexiness of his work, could be seen more broadly as an affirmation of life itself, which, from a young age he understood to be fragile.
Born in Florence in 1940, Cavalli’s maternal grandfather was a member of the Macchiaioli group of Italian Impressionists. His father, an anti-fascist who is thought to have been a mine surveyor, was shot by the Nazi forces when Cavalli was just three years old. The psychological impact was expressed physically through a stutter. “It was not easy for me to speak, the shock,” the designer told Luke Leitch in a 2011 interview. To support the family, his mother started sewing at home, taking in seamstresses to help her. At 17, a confident Cavalli enrolled at the Academy of Art in Florence to study art and architecture. There he met and fell in love with his first wife and the mother of two of his children, Silvanella Giannoni.
In 1960, after hand-painting some sweaters
UofA medical student champions advocacy committee to talk health care
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When the province’s budget 2024 was announced, Sana Samadi said through the Alberta Medical Association’s “Urgency is Real” campaign she saw how many physicians were talking about the lack of adequate funding for health care across the province.
Seeing how physicians were bringing further awareness to the current failings of primary care was part of what influenced Samadi, a first-year medical student at the University of Alberta, to focus on the work being done at a new student committee she championed in partnership with the AMA.
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Samadi, who is the president of the AMA medical student advocacy committee, launched the group in January 2024. She said the purpose of the committee is to help medical students across the province become more involved in what is happening on the ground in the health care field.
“I viewed this from a medical school perspective — students’ perspective. Even though (my peers) are interested in family medicine and they see the crisis of family medicine, they may not want to choose family medicine because of the current state,” Samadi said.
“Why would you want to join a system that you can see is having a lot of trouble right now? We need to improve this state for the years to come so that when we do enter the workforce in three to four years in our residency years, people want to choose family medicine and not only choose family medicine but choose family medicine in Alberta as opposed to other more competitive provinces like B.C.”
Samadi said while many of her fellow students are aware of the struggles in the field, there remains a gap in how they could provide their input as current students and help advocate for the health care field. On a day-to-day basis, students are
What ‘Nutrition Facts’ Labels Leave Out
The tech industry has a new trend: adopting “transparency labels” modeled after the iconic Nutrition Facts panel found on food packaging. In 2020, Apple introduced “Privacy Labels” aimed at disclosing how apps handle user data. And that was just the beginning. Starting on April 10, the FCC is requiring internet service providers to feature “Broadband Facts” labels detailing pricing, speeds, and data caps. Meanwhile, some policymakers and industry analysts have called for an “AI Nutrition Facts” label to clarify how artificial intelligence systems create content.
This rush to emulate the Nutrition Facts panel underscores the label’s status as the go-to model for consumer transparency. Yet, the history of how it achieved that status reveals the power — and the limitations — of using such labels as a regulatory tool. They can inform consumers, but they may also forestall more serious regulation that is necessary to adequately safeguard the public interest.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) debated the proper way to safeguard consumers from misinformation and fearmongering in health food markets. Initially, officials resisted nutrition labeling on food, seeing it as unnecessary “quackery” or the purview of medical specialists treating the ill.
But increasingly, the FDA had to weigh the growing legitimate medical interest in using diet as a preventative solution to public health, as well as the rise of a new self-improvement culture that made Americans more health conscious. FDA officials were also cognizant of declining public trust in the government’s ability to make decisions for consumers about their private lives after years of scandals. This shifted officials’ thinking and they began to accept that Americans had the right — and perhaps even the need — to seek out health information for food. They saw informative labels as empowering consumers to make choices
How To Organize A Clothing Swap
All you need to get started is clothes you’re willing to part with—and an open mind about what you might find.
Annette Nguyen founded the Shwap Club, a unique clothing-swap members club in Montreal. (Photo: Sylvie Li)
Clothing swaps are not a new concept, but with so many of them popping up all over the country, we took notice. Not only are they fun, they also allow you to give new life to your wardrobe without spending a ton of money (or, in many cases, any money at all). All you need to get started is clothes you’re willing to part with—and an open mind about what you might find.
In Montreal, the Shwap Club is formalizing the swapping process. Members bring in gently used, still-trendy pieces in order to receive store credits to “buy” other pre-loved garments.
Unlike traditional swaps, the club has two bricks-and-mortar locations and charges a per-visit ($22) or yearly fee ($145), which allows people to trade and shop as well as save any unused credits for future shopping trips if they don’t immediately find something to swap their items for. Clothing racks are stocked with brands like Aritzia, Banana Republic, Lululemon and Frank And Oak, which are favourites of the young professional client base.
Founder Annette Nguyen, a former lawyer, opened the club’s first location in 2018, having been inspired by her own attempts to keep her business-casual wardrobe fresh. “I felt like I always needed to have a new blouse and new trousers as well as fun dresses for happy hour,” she says. “Even shopping second-hand, it was getting expensive.”
After becoming a mom and experiencing how quickly children grow out of their clothes, Nguyen expanded her business beyond the nine-to-five crowd and opened a second location dedicated entirely to maternity and kids.
Swapping