Survival tip: Start at normal weight and slowly add pounds
Study finds those who gradually get overweight live longest
Jeff Grabmeier
People who start adulthood with a body mass index (BMI) in the normal range and move later in life to being overweight – but never obese – tend to live the longest, a new study suggests.
Adults in this category lived longer than even those whose BMI stayed in the normal range throughout their life. Those who started adulthood as obese and continued to add weight had the highest mortality rate.
“The impact of weight gain on mortality is complex. It depends on both the timing and the magnitude of weight gain and where BMI started,” said Hui Zheng, lead author of the study and associate professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.
At first glance, the results reported on Friday from the long-awaited trial of Johnson & Johnson s Covid-19 vaccine might have seemed disappointing. Its overall efficacy - the ability to prevent moderate and severe disease - was reported at 72 percent in the United States, 66 percent in Latin American countries and 57 percent in South Africa.
Those figures appear far below the high bar set by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the first two vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States, which reported overall efficacy from 94 to 95 percent.
But Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation s leading infectious disease expert, said that the more crucial measure was the ability to prevent severe disease, which translates to keeping people out of the hospital and preventing deaths. And that result, for Johnson & Johnson, was 85 percent in all of the countries where it was tested, including South Africa, where a rapidly spreading variant of the virus had shown some ability to elude vaccines.
Galveston County launches wait list to sign up for vaccine
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Galveston County Judge Mark Henry speaks during a press conference about mass vaccination efforts for Galveston County as Dr. Philip Keiser, the local health authority, listens Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, at Walter Hall Park in League City.Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less
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Galveston County Judge Mark Henry, center, speaks during a press conference about mass vaccination efforts for Galveston County as Dr. Philip Keiser, left, the local health authority, and Dr. Janak Patel, right, co-chair of the Vaccine Preparedness Task Force, listen Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021, at Walter Hall Park in League City.Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less
Galveston s Island Jet Center looks to the seas for needed boost
Jim Magill, Correspondent
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Jon Tucker, general manager of Island Jet Center, poses for a photograph Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021, at Scholes International Airport in Galveston. Tucker is reaching out to the major air carriers that fly into Houston airports carrying passengers bound for Galveston cruise ships, to establish an air shuttle service to the island.Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less
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Jon Tucker, general manager of Island Jet Center. is reaching out to the major air carriers that fly into Houston airports carrying passengers bound for Galveston cruise ships, to establish an air shuttle service to the island.Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographerShow MoreShow Less
SARS-CoV-2 suppresses host innate immunity
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, blocks the processes of innate immune activation that normally direct the production and/or signaling of type I interferon (IFN-I) by the infected cell and tissues. IFN-I is a key component of host innate immunity that is responsible for eliminating the virus at the early stage of infection, as summarized in a recent review article in
Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research (JICR). By suppressing innate immunity, the virus replicates and spreads in the body unchecked, leading to the disease known as COVID-19.
SARS-CoV-2 utilizes various approaches to evade host IFN-I response, including suppression of IFN-I production and IFN-I signaling. Viruses defective in antagonizing IFN-I response, in combination with replication-defective mutations, could potentially be developed as live attenuated vaccine candidates.