Bernadette Keefe

MD; Focus: Aging, Mobility, AgingTech, AgeTech, HealthyAging, AssistiveDevices, AssistiveTech

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

The Good People of Gander, Canada.

[Hillbilly @JamesHu27192912]

Delta Flight 15 takes off from Frankfurt at dawn.

On board: 218 passengers. Families. Business travelers. A pregnant woman. Shirley Brooks-Jones, 65 years old, heading home to Columbus, Ohio.

Five hours into the flight, a note reaches the cockpit.

All U.S. airspace is closed. Land immediately.

The captain says nothing about why. He tells passengers it's a minor instrument problem. Privately, the crew already knows about the World Trade Center.

Gander International Airport. Newfoundland, Canada. Midday.

The plane touches down 400 miles off its route. Out the window, passengers count 38 other jumbo jets already parked on the tarmac.

By nightfall, 53 international flights sit grounded here. Nearly 6,600 people are stuck, with nowhere to go.

Nobody is allowed off.

For 28 hours, 218 people sit inside that plane. No real answers. No word on what's happening back home.

Here's what makes it worse: most of them don't yet know if their own families are safe.

Word finally spreads through the cabin. Two hijacked planes. The towers. The Pentagon. A field in Pennsylvania.

The plane goes silent.

Gander. Day two.

Passengers finally step off the aircraft. They're bused 45 kilometers to a town called Lewisporte.

Population: just over 3,300 people.

Lewisporte has no idea 218 strangers are about to double its guest capacity overnight. It doesn't matter.

The mayor puts out one call for bedding and food.

The whole town answers.

Schools close. Churches open. The Lions Club clears its hall and sets up cots by hand. High schoolers skip class to serve meals and translate for confused travelers.

The pregnant passenger is placed in a home across the street from urgent care.

Elderly passengers are welcomed into private houses, not shelters.

Phone lines are opened for free, unlimited, day and night.

When passengers try to pay shopkeepers back, the answer is always no.

Nobody in Lewisporte will take a dollar.

Local volunteers even bring out screech, the region's famous rum, and host a mock "screeching-in" ceremony to make the exhausted travelers laugh.

For three days, this town of fishermen and loggers cares for people it has never met and will likely never see again.

Brooks-Jones later calls it something simple.

She says: "the most beautiful experience I have ever had in my life."

Gander Airport. Three days later. Departure.

Flight 15 is finally cleared to fly home.

Before takeoff, Brooks-Jones asks the captain for one thing: permission to speak on the intercom.

He hands her the microphone.

She reminds everyone what Lewisporte just did for them. Then she asks for something back.

Pledge sheets start moving up the aisle.

Business travelers write checks. Strangers pass around pens. By the time wheels touch down in Atlanta, passengers have pledged $15,000.

Brooks-Jones doesn't stop there.

Back in Columbus, she calls the Columbus Foundation. An anonymous donor hears the story and matches it instantly, doubling it to $30,000.

In 2002, the fund gets a name: the Lewisporte Area Flight 15 Scholarship Fund.

It's built for one purpose. Send local kids to college.

More than two decades later.

The fund is still active.

It has sent more than 300 students from the Lewisporte area to college and trade school. Doctors. Nurses. Engineers. Teachers.

Some of them weren't born yet when Flight 15 landed.

Brooks-Jones has flown back to Newfoundland more than two dozen times since 2001. She still shows up for graduation ceremonies.

The friendships that started on cots in a high school gym are still going, more than 20 years on.

Most people who know this story didn't hear it from a history book.

They heard it from a Broadway stage. Lewisporte and Gander's kindness became a musical called "Come From Away." It has since played in cities across the world.

Few people watching that show realize the scholarship fund behind it is still cutting checks to real students, every single year.

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

Photoessay of 9/11 https://t.co/chYZsipf8D

[Ted Ryce @ted_ryce]

The longevity exercise no one over 40 is doing:

Plyometrics.

You lose your power to jump faster than you lose strength or muscle.

And almost no one knows how to rebuild it.

Here are 7 beginner plyometric exercises to get you jumping again (without injuries):

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

Jump for life! via @hjluks

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

You should jump…
You should practice landing…
You should perturb the system with subtle directional changes too.

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

Difficult rotational training is pictured. You may not use heavy balls, but do incorporate challenging rotational exercise in your weekly regimen. Life comes at you in all directions. Be ready!

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

if you're not slamming med balls... You should. The catch adds a deceleration component.
Adding some rotational power components to your training will protect you when life tests you in various directions.

[Gregg Bell @gbellseattle]

“USA!” chants roaring through Lumen Field 15 minutes before kickoff of #USMNT v #Socceroos here in Seattle.

This, right after “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” roars from behind the south goal.

Wild in here.

@thenewstribune @933KJR

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

Most gym training happens in a straight line. Squats, deadlifts, rows, presses. Forward and backward, up and down, all in the sagittal plane.

But… life doesn't stress you in a straight line. You step off a curb at an angle, shuffle sideways on a crowded sidewalk, pivot in the kitchen with a heavy pot of water in hand, or a dog that pulls you mid-walk. Every one of these is a test of rotational or lateral strength, power, and quickness.

Preventing falls in our 70s and 80s starts in our 40s and 50s.

This week's Saturday session is a lateral and rotational training plan with videos, coaching cues, and an Enough, Better, and Optimal tier for every exercise.

https://t.co/pWubchWqEL

[The Desk Athlete @the_deskathlete]

Exercise selection should not change according to your age.

Good exercise selection depends on whether the exercise works a specific muscle group efficiently through a range of motion. Nothing else. The same exercises that were good when you were 20 will be good when you’re 50.

Train for your body, not your birthday.

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

Midlife and Master's Athlete Training:
The Biological Realities We Face
For the better part of 15 years, I have been training in the gym, running, cycling, climbing, and more. But the biology of aging and the physiological changes that come with it are real. We cannot outrun them, and we should not pretend they aren't happening. What we can do is adapt to them.
My experience watching patients in my office for nearly 30 years, combined with my own curiosity about why some people thrive, and others don't, has shaped how I train now at 62. I use that clinical wisdom to change my approach, to work with the biology of aging rather than against it. This post and the long article below is the result...

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

In 1946 the British government introduced free school milk for every child in the country. One third of a pint, every school day, from the age of five to the age of fifteen.

The milk was whole. Full-fat. From British dairy herds. It was delivered to the school gate in small glass bottles with foil caps and left on the doorstep in metal crates, where it sat in the sun until morning break if the weather was warm and developed a slightly suspect taste that an entire generation of British adults can still describe with uncomfortable precision.

The generation that grew up on school milk was, by every anthropometric measure, the healthiest generation of British children ever recorded.

Average height increased. Bone density improved. Dental health, despite the sugar in everything else, improved. Iron deficiency rates among school-age children dropped. The growth charts that the Ministry of Health had been keeping since the war showed a consistent, measurable, year-on-year improvement that tracked precisely onto the introduction of the milk programme.

In 1971 Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary, cut free school milk for children over seven. The tabloids called her Thatcher the Milk Snatcher. She was vilified. She kept the policy.

The next generation of British children, the ones who grew up without the daily third of a pint, were measurably less healthy than the one before.

The growth charts show it. The dental records show it. The conscription medicals, while they lasted, showed it. The thing the milk had been providing, the calcium, the vitamin D, the vitamin A, the complete amino acid profile, the conjugated linoleic acid, the fat-soluble nutrients that a growing skeleton requires in order to reach its genetic potential, was no longer arriving at morning break in a glass bottle with a foil cap.

It was replaced, eventually, by nothing. Or by a carton of fruit juice. Or by a packet of crisps from the vending machine that appeared in the school corridor in the 1990s.

The generation that drank the milk is now in its seventies and eighties. They are, on average, taller, stronger-boned, and longer-lived than the generation that came after them.

The milk was not magic.

The milk was milk.

It was the thing the body needed, delivered at the time the body needed it, at a cost the government considered acceptable until it didn't.

The cost of not providing it has been rather higher.

[Reid Wiseman @astro_reid]

On the helicopter leaving the ship right now. This planet is impossibly beautiful from every altitude I’ve seen it…surface to 250,000 miles

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

@dogwoodblooms Cc @Cjaques4

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

Load Management:

When I talk about load management in the office, I can see the moment it lands the wrong way. People often hear “don’t do too much.” They hear restriction, caution, and many hear weakness. That is not what I intended.

Load management is not about doing less. It is about doing the right amount — and then building from there.

Tendons do not heal because we protect them indefinitely. They adapt because we challenge them. But they adapt on their timeline, not ours. When the load exceeds the capacity, they breakdown and become painful. When load is too low for too long, their capacity shrinks and they’re more susceptible to overuse injury. The sweet spot lives in between.

That middle ground is not avoidance. It is progressive exposure.

If your Achilles hurts, the answer is rarely “stop moving.” It is also rarely “push through it.” It should almost never be put in a boot! The answer is to adjust the load so the tendon can tolerate it, then gradually increase that demand. That might mean temporarily reducing volume, slowing down tempo work, or modifying range.

Think of it like strength training. You do not walk into a gym and deadlift your lifetime goal on day one. You pick a weight you can manage, stress the system, recover, and come back slightly stronger. Tendons are no different. The stimulus has to be enough to matter, but not so much that it overwhelms your ability to recover.

What I am trying to teach when I talk about load management is durability. It is the skill of matching stress to capacity and then expanding capacity over time. That requires honesty about where you are today, not where you were ten years ago or where you wish you were.

In midlife, especially, recovery becomes the governor. Aging is associated with a higher price for intensity and longer recovery time frames.

Cardiovascular systems adapt quickly. Connective tissues adapt slowly. If we ignore that reality, pain becomes the teacher instead.

Load management is not about shrinking your world. It is about expanding it safely. It is the difference between repeatedly flaring the same tendon for years and building the kind of resilience that lets you run, lift, hike, and play for decades.

The goal is never to do less. The goal is to build the capacity to do more.

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

Excellent program on controlling/combatting chronic inflammation via ⁦@PeoplesPharmacy⁩ https://t.co/ZqWe201OnB

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

Jumping exercises are invaluable. Key: make controlled and supervised as needed. Wisdom from @hjluks ⬇️

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

I’m seeing a lot of fear in the comments about “blowing out an Achilles” when it comes to jumping.

That fear is understandable. Achilles injuries are real. No one wants one.
But avoiding jumping altogether doesn’t make the Achilles safer. If it becomes weak enough, it'll give out on the stairs or while walking up a curb.

The Achilles tendon was engineered to store and release elastic energy. That's it. That’s its job. Walking, running, hopping, jumping—these aren’t extreme behaviors. They’re human ones.

If you want to avoid an achilles injury, you will:
- train it
- fix your metabolic health
-fix your LDL level
-fix your uric acid levels
-sleep well
- not drink
and more...

When a tendon is never exposed to elastic loading, it doesn’t become protected.
It becomes weaker, stiffer, and less tolerant of force. When the tendon contains cholesterol and urate crystals, it becomes inflamed and weaker.

Disuse increases injury risk. Yes, injuries can occur with exercise. That’s true of strength training, running, and even walking.

Exercise is the risk you take to avoid the consequences of being still.

And the consequences of being still are not subtle:
– loss of tendon capacity
– poorer balance and reaction time
– weaker bones
– higher fracture risk
– injuries from simple, everyday movements

This is especially important as we age.

Avoiding impact and power training doesn’t protect people. It quietly makes them fragile.
But wait... let’s be clear about what jumping doesn’t mean.
It does not mean random, high-volume plyometrics.
It does not mean fatigued, sloppy reps.
It does not mean everyone is doing the same thing.
What it does mean is progressive exposure:
– small jumps
– controlled landings
– appropriate surfaces
– adequate recovery
– supervision and coaching when needed
The research on structured jumping and impact programs—especially in older adults and postmenopausal women—shows extremely low injury rates when these movements are taught and progressed properly.
Fear-based advice sounds cautious, but it has consequences.

Telling people to avoid jumping “to be safe” often sets them up for something far worse: tissues that are never trained to handle real-world forces. That’s how injuries happen from a curb, a misstep, or a slip.

The goal is not zero risk.
The goal is resilience.

We don’t make people safer by telling them to stop moving.
We make them safer by teaching them how to move well, at the right dose, at the right time.

Fear makes people fragile.
Thoughtful training makes them durable.
There's a HUGE difference.

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

#ultraprocessedfood

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

{Ultra}Processed Food:Just Too Sexy {For Health} https://t.co/DygS7CHCHx Dyin' from luvin' food engineered 2 hook us

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

{Ultra}Processed Food:Just Too Sexy {For Health} https://t.co/DygS7CHCHx Dyin' from luvin' food engineered 2 hook us

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

New Pyramid:
10% calories from fat limits top Lt corner (meat, cheese) Fruits & veges still unlimited. The glaring omission is fish (very healthy). Also beans/ legumes ( budget friendly & loaded w/ protein). This is essentially, though, a carb, sugar, salt limiting diet.

[evie @Evie_Magazine]

The US has unveiled an updated food pyramid, and it’s a clear shift toward simpler, more whole-food eating 👏 The new guidelines encourage more protein, fewer added sugars, and less reliance on ultraprocessed foods, while embracing healthy fats and nutrient-dense meals. ⁠
⁠
Officials say the streamlined approach is designed to help prevent chronic disease and make healthy choices easier to understand. ⁠
⁠
At its core, the message is refreshingly straightforward: eat real food, and let food be part of the solution.⁠
⁠
The old food pyramid was never about keeping you healthy. It was about making corporations money. ⁠
⁠
Click to read all about its controversial history 🥦🥣🍞 https://t.co/Z3ofEbsmGI

[Jake Scott, MD @jakescottMD]

Denmark and Japan have universal health care, robust social safety nets, and national registries that track every patient. Denmark has 6 million people. Japan has a homogeneous population with some of the lowest health disparities in the developed world. The U.S. has 330 million people, 27 million uninsured, massive health disparities, and a fragmented system where millions of families move between providers and screening falls through the cracks. Our schedule was designed as a safety net for this reality.

And yes, American children have been at risk. Before the hepatitis B birth dose, 18,000 children a year were infected. Before rotavirus vaccination, 55,000 to 70,000 children were hospitalized annually. Before Hib vaccination, it was the leading cause of bacterial meningitis in American children. These diseases didn’t disappear on their own. Vaccination made them rare. The question isn’t whether American children have been at risk. The question is why we’re abandoning the protections that reduced that risk.

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

Talk to your pediatrician about all the necessary childhood vaccinations to keep your child and other children they come in contact with safe.

[Bernadette Keefe @nxtstop1]

The new CDC vaccine schedule: