The pandemic – the global spread of infectious diseases – appears to be making a comeback. In the Middle Ages we had the Black Death (plague) and after World War I, the Spanish flu. Tens of tens of millions of individuals he died of those diseases.

Then the science began working gain the advantageand vaccination almost completely eliminated smallpox and polio. Antibiotics have change into available to treat bacterial infections, and more recently, antiviral drugs have also change into available.

But lately and many years, pandemics they appear to be coming back. In the Nineteen Eighties we had HIV/AIDS, then several flu pandemics, SARS, and now Covid (no, it’s not over yet).

So why is that this happening and is there anything we can do to prevent future pandemics?

Unsustainable ecosystems

Healthy, stable ecosystems provide services that keep us healthy, resembling providing food and clean water, producing oxygen, and providing green spaces for our residents. relaxation and well-being.

Another key service provided by ecosystems is disease regulation. When nature is in balance – predators control herbivore populations and herbivores control plant growth – it is more difficult for pathogens to emerge in a way that causes pandemics.

But when human activity disrupt and disturb the balance of ecosystems – for instance as a results of climate change and biodiversity loss – things are going fallacious.

For example, climate change affects the number and distribution of plants and animals. As the planet warms, disease-carrying mosquitoes may migrate from the tropics to once temperate climates and should infect more people during months that are typically disease-free.

We investigated the relationship between weather and dengue transmission in China our findings confirm the same conclusion he reached many other studies: Climate change is probably going to put more people prone to dengue.

Biodiversity loss can have similar effects by disrupting food chains. When farmers cut down forests South America to graze cattle in the first half of the twentieth century, tiny, forest-dwelling, blood-eating vampire bats suddenly had a smörgåsbord of huge, sessile animals to feed on.

While vampire bats were previously kept in check by limited food availability and the presence of predators in the balance forest ecosystemthe species’ numbers have exploded in South America.

These bats carry the rabies virus that causes rabies fatal brain infections in bitten people. Although deaths from bat-borne rabies have now fallen dramatically as a results of vaccination programs in South America, rabies from bites from other animals still stays. poses a global threat.

As urban and agricultural development impact natural ecosystems, there’s an increasing risk of humans and pets becoming infected with pathogens that may normally only be present in wild animals, especially when humans hunt and eat wild animals.

HIV virus e.g. first entered the human population from apes that were killed in Africa for food after which spread around the world through travel and trade.

Meanwhile, it is believed that bats original tank for the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed over 7 million people up to now.

Ultimately, until we effectively address the unsustainable impact we have on our planet, pandemics will proceed to occur.

Targeting the ultimate causes

Factors resembling climate change, biodiversity loss and other global challenges are the ultimate (high-ranking) explanation for the pandemic. Meanwhile, the direct (immediate) cause is increased contact between people, pets and wildlife.

In the case of HIV, although the direct cause was direct contact with infected monkey blood, the monkeys were only killed because large numbers of very poor people were hungry – which was the ultimate cause.

The distinction between ultimate causes and proximate causes is vital because we often only deal with proximate causes. For example, people may smoke due to stress or social pressure (the ultimate explanation for lung cancer), but it is the toxins in the smoke that cause the cancer (the proximate cause).

Generally speaking, the health service is anxious only with stopping people from smoking and treating the diseases that result from it, not with removing drivers who encourage people to smoke.

We respond to pandemics similarly, with lockdowns, mask-wearing, social distancing and vaccinations – all measures to stop the spread of the virus. However, we have paid less attention to addressing the ultimate causes of the pandemic – perhaps until recently.

A planetary approach to health

There is growing awareness of the importance of adopting a “health of the planet” approach to improving human health. This concept relies on the understanding that human health and human civilization depend on the flourishing of natural systems and on the clever management of those systems.

With this approach, key drivers resembling climate change and biodiversity loss shall be prioritized in stopping future pandemics, while working with experts from a wide selection of fields to address the immediate causes, thereby reducing overall risk.

A planetary health approach has the advantage of concurrently improving environmental health and human health. We are encouraged by the increased use of teaching planetary health concepts in the environmental sciences, humanities and health sciences at many universities.

As climate change, biodiversity loss, population displacement, travel and trade proceed to increase the risk of disease outbreaks, it is critical that future planetary stewards higher understand how to address the ultimate causes that cause pandemics.

James Earl Jones died earlier this month on the age of 93. The reason for his death stays unknown, and details of his type 2 diabetes diagnosis are emerging.

The EGOT recipient lived with diabetes for a few years before he died on September 9. Jones opened about his late diagnosis of diabetes during a 2016 appearance. He was already over 60 years old when he came upon that he had been affected by a chronic disease for years.

“I fell asleep on a bench in the middle of the gym one day,” Jones explained. “And the doctor who was there said, ‘This isn’t normal,’ and encouraged me to get checked out.”

After visiting the doctor, a laboratory test confirmed that Jones had type 2 diabetes. He admits that the diagnosis was a shock for him and “struck me like a lightning bolt.” he said then. But it ultimately led to an entire lifestyle change for Jones and his entire family.

“When I was diagnosed with diabetes, I realized my whole family had diabetes,” he said. (*2*)

It was a disease that ran in his family, as his mother and several other other members of the family had type 2 diabetes. Jones also knew that some ethnic groups were at greater risk than others.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 38.1 million American adults had the disease diabetes in 2021. More than a fifth of those people had undiagnosed diabetes. The highest rates of diagnosed diabetes are amongst American Indian or Alaska Native adults, followed by Black, Latino, and Asian adults, with the bottom rates amongst whites.

Jones was diagnosed with diabetes in his 60s, which is a standard age group for brand new diabetes diagnoses.

“As we age, diabetes and other age-related diseases, such as obesity and abnormal cholesterol levels, become more common,” said Noa Tal, M.D., an endocrinologist on the Center for Pituitary Disorders on the Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California.

It is commonly the case that diabetes goes unnoticed before it’s finally diagnosed.

“Unfortunately, (type 2 diabetes) sometimes goes unnoticed,” adds Tal.

When Jones became aware of his diabetes, he needed the assistance of his wife and son to maintain him on the right track and chargeable for his eating habits.

“There have been difficult changes, like not having your favorite strawberry shortcake,” he said. “My wife and son helped me by keeping an eye on everything and being guard dogs. They both helped me stay organized.”

Jones was best known for his roles on and. He was a pioneer in Hollywood and have become one among the primary African-American actors to have a recurring role on a daytime drama in 1965 ().

He enjoyed a profession that lasted well into his 80s and earned him quite a few accolades, including two Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy Award, a National Medal of Arts and a Kennedy Center Honors. He also received an honorary Oscar and a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. In 2022, the Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

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Have you ever considered a sprained ankle as a brain injury? Most people probably would not do this.

However, we’re starting to know how the brain continuously adapts, so-called plasticity.

Although the damage from an ankle sprain takes place within the ankle, there may also be some changes within the brain when it comes to how well it senses pain and movement.

One of our PhD students, Ashley Marchant showed something similar happens when we modify the load (or load) on the muscles of the lower limb. The closer the charge is to Earth’s normal gravity, the more accurate our sense of motion is; the less muscle load, the less accurate we get.

This work means we’d like to rethink how the brain controls and responds to movement.

Solving a crucial puzzle

Historically, exercise science has attempted to enhance muscle function through resistance training, cardiovascular exercises and flexibility.

One of a very powerful issues within the treatment and prevention of sports injuries is that even when the sports medicine team determines that the athlete is able to return, the danger of future injury stays two to eight times higher than in the event that they had never been injured.

This implies that sports doctors missed something.

Our work on the University of Canberra and the Australian Institute of Sport has focused on sensory input to try to resolve this puzzle. The aim was to evaluate the power of sensory reception, i.e. perception, a facet of movement control.

Input (sensory) nerves. they outnumber output (motor) nerves by about ten to 1.

Over 20 years, scientists have developed tools to find out the standard of sensory input reaching the brain, which determines how well we will perceive movement. Evaluating these inputs may very well be useful for everybody from astronauts to athletes and older people susceptible to falls.

We can now measure how well a person receives information from three critical input systems:

• vestibular system (balance organ of the inner ear)
• visual system (students’ response to changes in light intensity)
• position detection system within the lower limbs (mainly from sensors within the muscles and skin of the ankle and foot).

This information allows us to construct a picture of how well a person’s brain collects details about movement. It also indicates which of the three systems may profit from additional rehabilitation or training.

Lessons from space

You could have seen videos of astronauts, for instance on the International Space Station, moving around using only their hands with their legs hanging behind them.

This shows how humans leave Earth’s gravity minimal information for the sensory system from the skin and muscles of the legs.

The brain quickly deactivates the connections it normally uses to manage movement. This is advantageous when an astronaut is in space, but as soon as she or he has to face or walk on the surface of the earth or moon, she or he is at greater risk of falls and injuries.

Similar brain changes can occur in athletes on account of changes in movement patterns after injury.

For example, limping after a leg injury implies that the brain receives movement information that may be very different from the movement patterns of that leg. In the case of plasticity, this will mean that the movement control pattern doesn’t return to its optimal pre-injury state.

As mentioned earlier, injury history is the perfect predictor of future injuries.

This suggests that after injury, there are changes within the athlete’s movement control processes – almost certainly within the brain – that reach outside of time when the damaged tissue heals.

Measures of how well an athlete perceives movement are related to how well she or he performs in various sports. So sensory awareness may be as well a solution to discover sports talents early.

Poor performance on the identical measures of sensory perception may occur in older adults and within the context of fall prevention predict later falls.

This could also be on account of reduced physical activity in some older people. The “use it or lose it” idea may show how brain connections chargeable for perception and movement control can degrade over time.

Precision healthcare

New technologies for tracking sensory abilities are a part of a latest direction in healthcare generally known as precision health.

Precision Health uses technology and artificial intelligence to take note of a range of things (corresponding to their genetic makeup) that affect a person’s health and provide treatments designed specifically for that individual.

Applying a precision health approach to motion control could enable rather more targeted rehabilitation for athletes, training astronauts, and stopping earlier falls in older adults.