Romauld Lepers and Thomas Cattagni, researchers from Inserm Unit 1093 “Cognition, Action and Sensorimotor Plasticity” at the Université de Bourgogone, have analysed changes in participation and performance of runners aged 20 to 80 in the New York marathon over the last 30 years. The results are largely unexpected: the best male marathon runners over 65 and the best female marathon runners over 45 have consistently improved their performance over the last 30 years. At the same time, the researchers also observed a strong increase in athletes over 40 participating in the New York marathon: from 36% of the total masculine runners between 1980-1989, to 53% between 2000-2009; and from 24 to 40% during the same periods for female runners.

Details of these descriptive analyses were published in the AGE review, The Official Journal of the American Aging Association.

Seniors Running Marathons

Inserm researchers analysed the chronometric performances of competitors in the New York marathon in accordance with age and sex over the 1980-2009 period. They classified runners who successfully completed he race into 10 separate age categories (20-29; 30-39; then every 5 years from between 40 and 79).

Although the average times achieved by the 10 best male and female athletes in age categories below 60-64 have not changed over the last 30 years, there was a sharp decrease in times for the senior age categories: for an average marathon time achieved of 3 hours and 50 minutes, men in the 65-69 age category improved by 8 minutes between 1980-1989 and 1990-1999, and 7 minutes between 1990-1999 and 2000-2009. Similarly, the average time achieved by women in age categories above 45-49 fell significantly. For example, the average performance for the 55-59 age category improved by 33 minutes between 1980-1989 and 1990-1999 (for an average race time of 4 hours and 20 minutes), and by 8 minutes between 1990-1999 and 2000-2009.

The researchers have thus concluded that, over the last two decades, the performances of the best male marathon runners over 65 and the best female marathon runners over 45 have particularly improved, whereas their younger counterparts have remained stable.

Stress is terrible if you can reduce stress you will live a much happier life. We all live life as best we can but almost always there are conflicting priorities and way to much to do in a day. Over time we will find that there are things that just never get done until they become a big priority.

I fight with this all the time just like I am sure you are. And I just want to give you a few tips that I hope will help you to lower your stress level, get more done, and be more happy with your life.

Reduce Stress by Uncluttering

I have had some experience with this great method to reduce stress. It takes just five steps to drop your stress level and you can make a big difference today although it may take a couple of weeks to straighten out your schedule completely. So if you are interesting in doing this to change your life then here are the five steps.

1. Assess your current situation – The first thing to do is to see what it is holding your thoughts and getting in your way. Do you have too many clothes that don’t fit? Do you have a spare room or storage room that is a mess? Do you have paperwork that you need to file. There are lots and lots of problems that people have that are not a big problem (like outstanding credit cards, or lack of cash) and it takes a day or two to clean up.

2. Use the “Getting Things Done” method of Processing – This means that all of those things, items, thoughts, junk, and undone tasks can all be written down and available to be done. This may seem redundant to the actual doing and the previous step as well but don’t worry. Just get each of these things and write them down on a piece of paper each by themselves.

3. Setup an action schedule for just the next 7 days – This means that out of all of those things outstanding what can you complete in the next 7 days completely. Try to get some tough things and some easy things so that you can have victories that you can build on. Some of these may be one step like “Take old clothes to Goodwill” or “Organise the Garage” but it is amazing to feel the stress lift once these stupid little jobs are finally out of your head and out of the way.

4. Run through the next 7 days and act, act, act! – Action is the only important thing at this point. The planning and schedule are done and now you can get some stuff completed. Make sure that you make a big deal in your own mind of each and every task completed.

5. Celebrate and Re-assess – After the week of action you can sit down again and reassess what you have completed, how much you have been able to reduce stress in all parts of your life, and what is still outstanding. This exercise should have led to a much better frame of mind and most importantly a realization that through action you can make a lot of changes in your life. You can now see if these are more things that you can complete or if you can cut back on what may have been a hectic week.

The Results of this Uncluttering Stress Reduction Process

I find that I do this kind of thing at home as well as completely separately at work. There are many parts and places in our life that become stress points for us and by reducing stress in one spot will help you live a much more calm and fulfilling life in another part of your home, marriage, or worklife.

Try to run through this process to reduce stress at least once a month to make sure you are always staying ahead of the game.

Cancer cells are different from normal cells. Every normal cell in your body has programmed into its genetic material, a process called APOPTOSIS, that lets it live and multiply only so long and then it dies. For example, skin cells live 28 days and die; cells lining your mouth live 24-48 hours and die; and red blood cells live up to 120 days. Cancer cells lose their ability to die. They try to live forever and they kill by going from one type of tissue to invade another type of tissue and destroy it. For example, breast cancer cells can eventually spread to your brain or lungs. They replace and destroy these tissues, and you die because your brain or lungs are not able to work properly.

Cancer cells grow and multiply so rapidly that they need huge amounts of the sugar, glucose, to supply them with the energy necessary for growth. Let me explain why cancer cells need so much sugar.

HOW CELLS GET ENERGY: All cells get their energy from two major processes:
• glycolysis, and
• the Krebs Cycle.
Normal cells primarily use the Krebs Cycle for energy since it is more efficient and provides more energy. However, cancer cells do not use the Krebs Cycle well, and therefore must depend on glycolysis. Because they use this inefficient pathway for energy, cancer cells that have forgotten to die have an incredible increase in need for energy from the sugar, glucose. Since insulin drives sugar into cells, insulin and ILGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1) feed cancer cells glucose, encouraging them to grow and multiply.

CANCER CELLS USE GLYCOLYSIS: In the early 1920s, Otto Warburg demonstrated that cancer cells can live without oxygen by getting their energy from glycolysis. Since glycolysis uses the single sugar, glucose, for energy, cancer cells use tremendous amounts of glucose to grow. Since cancer cells depend on glucose for energy, anything that interferes with the body's normal use of glucose supplies more sugar to the growing cancer cells, which will increase growth of an existing cancer and risk for new cancers. This is one of the reasons why diabetes and excess weight increase risk for cancer (see the third report below).

MITOCHONDRIA: In every cell are from a few to hundreds of small areas called mitochondria. They provide energy for cells through the Krebs Cycle, which is far more efficient than glycolysis, the process that supplies energy inside cells but outside the mitochondria. All cells need functioning mitochondria, where the Krebs Cycle occurs, to have apoptosis. Cancer cells have defective mitochondria which forces them to use glycolysis for energy. Since cancer cells have defective mitochondria, and do not use the Krebs cycle effectively, they do not have apoptosis, so they live indefinitely and kill by invading and destroying normal cells.

A CURE FOR CANCER? Researchers today are trying to cure cancer by blocking glycolysis. This could force mitochondria to become active again and use the Krebs Cycle for energy so that the cells can stop being cancerous and regain apoptosis, their programmable cell death. The chemical dichloroacetic acid (DCA), which increases the chemical reactions of the Krebs cycle in mitochondria, has been shown to kill cancer cells in laboratory tests and in animals. Anything that activates or restores mitochondria can restart apoptosis and cause cancer cells to kill themselves. At the University of Alberta, Dr. Evangelos Michelakis is doing research on DCA. Another activator of mitochondria, 3-BrOP, is being studied at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) is being used at Emory University School of Medicine, and lactate dehydrogenase A is being researched at Johns Hopkins University.

DIANA'S FATHER WORKED WITH KREBS: In the 1930's, my wife Diana's father, Donald Purdie, was a professor at Cambridge University in England and spent his career working with Nobel Prize winner, Hans Krebs (1900-1981) whose research group worked out most of the chemical reactions that supply energy for cells. Her father published with Hans Krebs.

In the early 1940s, the Germans bombed England daily. Donald Purdie accepted the professorship and chair of the Department of Chemistry at Raffles College in Singapore, to get away from the war in Europe. Diana was born in Singapore in January 1942. Two weeks later, the Japanese invaded Singapore and her father was taken prisoner. The Japanese killed this great academic, starving him to death while he was forced to do manual labor to build the Burma-Thai railroad.

Diana and her mother and brother escaped on a boat that arrived in Bombay six weeks later. They then came to the United States and her mother didn't learn of Donald's death until three years later.