Home Coming week: Alpha Delta Pi 75th and Medical Class of '60

Alpha Delta Pi sorority (ADPi) Homecoming 2005 began with a luncheon at the Manitoba Legislative Bldg attended by my wife Margaret (Dolhun) - a member of the Diamond Circle signifying 50 year membership, and our daughter Mary Margaret who arrived from Toronto.

A tour of the Legislative Bldg followed. The formal dinner and dance was held at the Fort Garry Hotel on Saturday (Sept 24th), preceded by a group picture taken on the front steps of the hotel by the one and only Barney Charach. As he took the pictures, he instructed the husbands and escorts that he would let them know when to take pictures as the flash cameras shut his own flash off. At our table all gals were members of the Diamond Circle (50 year members). The orchestra was a music man. I had a couple of dances with my wife and daughter. I was the lucky one to be selected as the Sweetheart by the sorority. All the girls stood around me at the table and sang " Let me call you Sweetheart". In addition, I had the red dot on my place card and was the winner of a beautiful Inuit carving.

On Sunday the members closed their homecoming with a brunch at Elevens restaurant in Lindenwoods. I am not detailing any of the events as I anticipate my daughter Mary Margaret will do this on her blog "haikugirl" I am including a few pictures of this 75th homecoming here.
Incidentally, the Faculty of Medicine had a homecoming breakfast on Saturday for classes 1950, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 85, 90, 95, and 2000 in the Brodie atrium of the Medical College. Four members of my Medical Class of '60 including George Yee from Windsor.

SOUP lecture on Aging

At the monthly SOUP meeting on Sept 01 held at Holy Family Nursing Home I gave a short lecture on Aging. There are 2 ways to estimate the aging process-Chronologically were the ordinary clock is used, and biologically were human biomarkers are used. Research on finding the best biomarkers has become the top priority for the National Institute of aging branch of NIH- for 3 reasons- a) identifying risk factors, b) predicting your remaining life expectancy and c) to determine the functional age of an individual by comparing it to the chronological age especially for those who have embarked on a life extension program to see if the program is working.
Biomarkers fall into 2 classes:1. Those you can do yourself- here i gave 4 examples: elasticity using skin fold test , reaction time -sliding ruler, static balance by standing on one foot with your eyes closed, and visual accomodation by placing a printed page in front and noting how close you can move it to your face before the print becomes blurred.
2. Those your doctor can do or order-Here I briefly discussed 10 different tests- Vital capacity, V02 Max, systolic blood pressure, creatine clearance for kidneys function , glucose tolerance, blood cholesterol, visual accomodation, hearing threshold, auto-antibodies especially for DNA, and finally the blood level of DHEA hormone. Vital Capacity and the concentration of hormone DHEA were best tests for predicting your remaining life expectancy. Mosty of the other tests were measures of potential risk factors
I showed some of my own biomarkers which were done in 1997 by the Life Extension Foundation in Fort Lauderdale Florida - my winter retreat home
After the talk several members fielded a variety of questions fielded extending the 20 minute presentation to over 45 minutes.
An overhead transparency projector aided the presentation. Unfortunately I still have not perfected my keynote software of my iBook for delivering my lectures, hopefully this technique will be perfected in time for my next presentation.