Durham Va Medical Center

Durham VA Medical Center and BB&T working together for homeless veterans

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Here’s the press release:

DURHAM – The Durham VA Medical Center and BB&T are teaming up to help area Veterans who are homeless.Employees of BB & T Wilson & Raleigh IT staff purchased a large quantity of goods at home to help veterans furnish their new homes. The estimated value of the gift is $ 8,200.

"This generous donation will provide veterans and their families who have recently been placed in housing, with the bulk necessary to start a family," says Greg Hughes, Chief of Social Work at the Durham VA Medical Center. Tuesday, June 28, 2011, at noon, the staff of both organizations will distribute the articles of Durham VA Medical Center.

“We wanted to work with the Durham VA because of the great support the organization provides in the Raleigh-Durham area,” said Sandra Koch, banking officer. “We’re proud to team up with them and help America’s heroes in any way we can.” The BB&T volunteers are taking part in the company’s third annual Lighthouse Project. The teams have each selected a project to complete during May and June 2011 to assist a non-profit/government agency in making a positive impact on the lives of people in need. BB&T hopes their efforts encourage others in the community to volunteer their time and support organizations such as the Durham VA Medical Center.

During the Lighthouse Project, BB&T employees have donated nearly 100,000 hours to help improve the lives of more than 3 million people in 25 states. Employees overwhelmingly voted to bring back the initiative this year.  For more information about the Lighthouse Project, go to http://www.bbt.com/bbt/lighthouseproject/.

Bariatric Surgeries Will Not Necessarily Extend Lifespan of Obese ...

Recent study claims that bariatric surgery does not guarantee obese people to have an extended lifespan

In accordance to a recent publication in JAMA, it cannot be stated that undergoing a bariatric surgery brings a reduction in mortality, numerous years following the surgery.

Even though evidence shows that weight-loss surgery does bring a reduction in weight as well as decreases diabetes, the seriously obese and aged male patients who were under observation showed no sign to live longer due to such procedures.

The study is supposed to be communicated at the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting.

It is known that for those who suffer from obesity severe, bariatric surgery can prove to be among the most efficient ways to decrease weight. Bariatric surgery is most commonly known as gastric bypass. The latter produces a little stomach pouch, which is responsible to limit the intake of food.

The study was carried out at the Veteran Affairs medical centers. The study comprised of 850 senior citizens who had undergone bariatric surgery during the period of January 2000 to December 2006.

When the authors made a comparison against the raw rates, the mortality rates of patients who had undergone surgery was lower with 6.8% against 15.2% past six years.

However, when a comparison was made between the 850 veterans and 1694 like patients who had not undergone bariatric surgery, they noticed that the surgery was, in fact, not considerably linked to the reduction of mortality.

The conclusion drawn by Matthew Maciejewski from the Durham VA Medical Center as well as his colleagues was that it does not seem that bariatric surgery is linked to an increase in survival. This was the finding established after 6.7 years the subjects had their surgery.

Source: The Chart Blog (CNN)

In 2003 the groups of Howitz and Sinclair reported in the journal Nature that resveratrol significantly extends the lifespan of the test subjects including yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, worm C. elegans and fruit by Drosophila melanogaster. In 2006 Italian scientists were able to increase the lifespan of a vertebrate Nothobranchius furzeri by 56%. Later the same year, Sinclair reported that resveratrol counteracted the detrimental effects of a high-fat diet in mice. Read more about it on Wikipedia .


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Aging and God, spiritual pathways to mental health in midlife and later years

Congressional Record, V. 147, Pt. 8, June 12, 2001 to June 25, 2001

Handbook of Clinical Nutrition and Aging

Geriatric nutrition

The American Psychiatric Publishing textbook of geriatric psychiatry