Harvard professor shares most important thing marriages need to last
Strong relationships are often built on friendships, but according to a Harvard professor, friendship should actually be the primary goal of marriage. According to Arthur Brooks, a PhD social scientist, professor at Harvard University, and bestselling author, friendship is one of the most important things needed for a successful and lasting relationship.
Appearing on The Peter Attia Drive podcast, the expert explained why your partner should be a best friend to you. "One of the most important things for a happy life is a partnership with somebody who will be the last person who you set eyes on as you take your last dying breath…" he said.
"The goal of your marriage is not passion, it's friendship. This is the goal, you must be close friends, ideally best friends, with your spouse." Of course, many people prize traits such as loyalty and kindness in their significant others, and no two relationships are the same.
However, there are often common factors shared between relationships that go the distance, and Arthur said loneliness could be a telltale sign that partners will end up separating.
The expert claimed: "One of the greatest predictors of divorce is partners who are lonely while living together." He said this can lead to some couples not having anything in common, except for their children, but he recommends people take steps to explore interests together.
"There's got to be something bigger than 'Did you change his diaper?' because that's not going to be something you have in common forever and you're going to be lonely in your relationship," he advised.
As the Professor acknowledged, "Loneliness is not the same thing as solitude." He explained that we all need solitude, and people will need different levels of solitude. That said, he emphasised the importance of friendship both for people who are in a relationship and those who are not.
Building strong relationships is not only beneficial for our mental health but also our physical health. NHS England explains: "Social wellbeing evidence shows that having good-quality relationships can help us to live longer and happier lives with fewer mental health problems.
"Having close, positive relationships can give us a purpose and sense of belonging. Loneliness and isolation remain the key predictors for poor psychological and physical health. Having a lack of good relationships and long-term feelings of loneliness have been shown by a range of studies to be associated with higher rates of mortality, poor physical health outcomes and lower life satisfaction."
The NHS offers guidance for anyone dealing with loneliness, explaining that it can affect anyone and there may be no obvious cause. The advice says: "We're all affected by loneliness at times in our lives. We can feel lonely in a busy city or rural location, on social media or spending time on our own or with others. Try not to feel embarrassed or ashamed if you do.
"Sometimes admitting we feel lonely can be hard. It's important to remember that lots of people experience similar feelings of loneliness, and that they can pass. Understanding our own reasons for feeling lonely can help identify and manage these feelings."
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The Independent
15 hours ago
- The Independent
NIH cuts spotlight a hidden crisis facing patients with experimental brain implants
Carol Seeger finally escaped her debilitating depression with an experimental treatment that placed electrodes in her brain and a pacemaker-like device in her chest. But when its batteries stopped working, insurance wouldn't pay to fix the problem and she sank back into a dangerous darkness. She worried for her life, asking herself: 'Why am I putting myself through this?' Seeger's predicament highlights a growing problem for hundreds of people with experimental neural implants, including those for depression, quadriplegia and other conditions. Although these patients take big risks to advance science, there's no guarantee that their devices will be maintained — particularly after they finish participating in clinical trials — and no mechanism requiring companies or insurers to do so. A research project led by Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, a Harvard University scientist, aimed to change that by creating partnerships between players in the burgeoning implant field to overcome barriers to device access and follow-up care. But the cancellation of hundreds of National Institutes of Health grants by the Trump administration this year left the project in limbo, dimming hope for Seeger and others like her who wonder what will happen to their health and progress. An ethical quagmire Unlike medications, implanted devices often require parts, maintenance, batteries and surgeries when changes are needed. Insurance typically covers such expenses for federally approved devices considered medically necessary, but not experimental ones. A procedure to replace a battery alone can cost more than $15,000 without insurance, Lázaro-Muñoz said. While companies stand to profit from research, 'there's really nothing that helps ensure that device manufacturers have to provide any of these parts or cover any kind of maintenance,' said Lázaro-Muñoz. Some companies also move on to newer versions of devices or abandon the research altogether, which can leave patients in an uncertain place. Medtronic, the company that made the deep brain stimulation, or DBS, technology Seeger used, said in a statement that every study is different and that the company puts patient safety first when considering care after studies end. People consider various possibilities when they join a clinical trial. The Food and Drug Administration requires the informed consent process to include a description of 'reasonably foreseeable risks and discomforts to the participant,' a spokesperson said. However, the FDA doesn't require trial plans to include procedures for long-term device follow-up and maintenance, although the spokesperson stated that the agency has requested those in the past. While some informed consent forms say devices will be removed at a study's end, Lázaro-Muñoz said removal is ethically problematic when a device is helping a patient. Plus, he said, some trial participants told him and his colleagues that they didn't remember everything discussed during the consent process, partly because they were so focused on getting better. Brandy Ellis, a 49-year-old in Boynton Beach, Florida, said she was desperate for healing when she joined a trial testing the same treatment Seeger got, which delivers an electrical current into the brain to treat severe depression. She was willing to sign whatever forms were necessary to get help after nothing else had worked. 'I was facing death,' she said. 'So it was most definitely consent at the barrel of a gun, which is true for a lot of people who are in a terminal condition.' Patients risk losing a treatment of last resort Ellis and Seeger, 64, both turned to DBS as a last resort after trying many approved medications and treatments. 'I got in the trial fully expecting it not to work because nothing else had. So I was kind of surprised when it did,' said Ellis, whose device was implanted in 2011 at Emory University in Atlanta. 'I am celebrating every single milestone because I'm like: This is all bonus life for me.' She's now on her third battery. She needed surgery to replace two single-use ones, and the one she has now is rechargeable. She's lucky her insurance has covered the procedures, she said, but she worries it may not in the future. 'I can't count on any coverage because there's nothing that says even though I've had this and it works, that it has to be covered under my commercial or any other insurance,' said Ellis, who advocates for other former trial participants. Even if companies still make replacement parts for older devices, she added, 'availability and accessibility are entirely different things,' given most people can't afford continued care without insurance coverage. Seeger, whose device was implanted in 2012 at Emory, said she went without a working device for around four months when the insurance coverage her wife's job at Emory provided wouldn't pay for battery replacement surgery. Neither would Medicare, which generally only covers DBS for FDA-approved uses. With her research team at Emory advocating for her, Seeger ultimately got financial help from the hospital's indigent care program and paid a few thousand dollars out of pocket. She now has a rechargeable battery, and the device has been working well. But at any point, she said, that could change. Federal cuts stall solutions Lázaro-Muñoz hoped his work would protect people like Seeger and Ellis. 'We should do whatever we can as a society to be able to help them maintain their health,' he said. Lázaro-Muñoz's project received about $987,800 from the National Institute of Mental Health in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years and was already underway when he was notified of the NIH funding cut in May. He declined to answer questions about it. Ellis said any delay in addressing the thorny issues around experimental brain devices hurts patients. Planning at the beginning of a clinical trial about how to continue treatment and maintain devices, she said, would be much better than depending on the kindness of researchers and the whims of insurers. 'If this turns off, I get sick again. Like, I'm not cured,' she said. 'This is a treatment that absolutely works, but only as long as I've got a working device.' ____ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Glasgow Times
2 days ago
- Glasgow Times
How much have I cost the NHS? Find out your health costs
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South Wales Argus
2 days ago
- South Wales Argus
Streeting: We are doing everything we can to minimise patient harm during strike
A five-day walkout by resident doctors in England is under way, with members of the British Medical Association (BMA) manning picket lines across the country. The Health Secretary condemned the strike as 'reckless' and said the Government would not allow the BMA to 'hold the country to ransom'. Asked about the risk of patient harm during a visit to NHS England HQ in London, he told the PA news agency on Friday: 'I'm really proud of the way that NHS leaders and frontline staff have prepared and mobilised to minimise the disruption and minimise the risk of harm to patients. 'We've seen an extraordinary response, including people cancelling their leave, turning up for work, and resident doctors themselves ignoring their union to be there for patients. I'm extremely grateful to all of them. 'What I can't do today is guarantee that there will be no disruption and that there is no risk of harm to patients. 'We are doing everything we can to minimise it, but the risk is there, and that is why the BMA's action is so irresponsible. 'They had a 28.9% pay award from this Government in our first year, there was also an offer to work with them on other things that affect resident doctors – working lives – and that's why I think this is such reckless action. 'This Government will not allow the BMA to hold the country to ransom, and we will continue to make progress on NHS improvement, as we've done in our first year.' Asked about next steps and the continued threat of doctor strikes, given the BMA has a six-month mandate to call more industrial action, Mr Streeting said: 'When the BMA asks, 'what's the difference between a Labour government and a Conservative government?', I would say a 28.9% pay rise and a willingness to work together to improve the working conditions and lives of doctors. Resident doctors are beginning a five-day strike (James Manning/PA) 'That is why the public and other NHS staff cannot understand why the BMA have chosen to embark on this totally unnecessary, reckless strike action.' It comes as NHS chief executive Sir Jim Mackey told broadcasters on Friday about his different approach to managing the strike, including keeping as much pre-planned care going as possible rather than just focusing on emergency care. 'So the difference this time is the NHS has put a huge effort in to try and get back on its feet,' he said at NHS England HQ in London. 'As everybody's been aware, we've had a really tough period, and you really feel colleagues on the ground, local clinical leaders, clinical operational colleagues etc, really pulling together to try and get the NHS back on its feet. 'And we also learned from the last few rounds of industrial action that harm to patients and disruption to patients was much broader than the original definitions. So we've decided to say it needs to be a broader definition. We can't just focus on that small subset of care. 'Colleagues in the service have tried to keep as much going as humanly possible as well, and the early signs are that that's been achieved so far, but it is early doors. 'In the end, capacity will have to be constrained by the numbers of people we've actually got who do just turn up for work, and what that means in terms of safe provision, because the thing that colleagues won't compromise is safety in the actual delivery. But it does look like people have really heard that. 'They're really pulling together to maximise the range of services possible.' Asked about further strikes, he said: 'It is possible. I would hope not. I would hope after this, we'll be able to get people in a room and resolve the issue. 'But if we are in this with a six month mandate, we could be doing this once a month for the next next six months, but we've got to organise ourselves accordingly.' The Prime Minister has said the strikes will 'cause real damage' (PA) Asked why he was not willing to bump pay from what the BMA calculates is £18 an hour to £22 per hour, Mr Streeting told broadcasters: 'I think the public can see, and other NHS staff can see the willingness this Government showed from day one coming into office to try and deal with what had been over a decade of failure on behalf of the previous government, working with resident doctors to improve their pay and to improve the NHS. 'That's why resident doctors had a 28.9% pay award, and that's why the disruption they are inflicting on the country is so unnecessary and so irresponsible.' Mr Streeting said 'we know there'll be real challenges over the next five days'. He added that patients, particularly those who end up waiting a long time for care due to strikes, 'do come to harm, and however much the BMA try and sugarcoat it, what they are fundamentally doing today is forgetting the three words that should be at the forefront of every doctor's minds every day, which is, 'do no harm'.' On whether strikes are going to become the 'new normal', he added: 'As I've said before, the BMA have had a 28.9% pay award from this Government, and we were willing to go further to help on some of the working conditions that doctors face. 'That offer of joint working, that partnership approach, that hasn't gone away, but it does take two to tango, and I hope that the BMA will reflect very carefully on the disruption they are inflicting on patients, the pressures they're putting on their colleagues, and the circumstances in which they are doing so – a 28.9% pay rise and a government that was willing to work with them. 'Those are not grounds for strike action.' It comes after Sir Keir Starmer made a last-minute appeal to resident doctors, saying the strikes would 'cause real damage'. He added: 'Most people do not support these strikes. They know they will cause real damage… 'These strikes threaten to turn back the clock on progress we have made in rebuilding the NHS over the last year, choking off the recovery.' The BMA has argued that real-terms pay has fallen by around 20% since 2008, and is pushing for full 'pay restoration'. The union took out national newspaper adverts on Friday, saying it wanted to 'make clear that while a newly qualified doctor's assistant is taking home over £24 per hour, a newly qualified doctor with years of medical school experience is on just £18.62 per hour'. BMA council chairman Dr Tom Dolphin told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the union had been expecting more pay for doctors. He said: 'Where we were last year when we started the pay campaign, we were down a third on our pay compared to 2008. 'So you've got last year's pay offer which did indeed move us towards (pay restoration), but Wes Streeting himself said that pay restoration is a journey, not an event, implying that there would be further pay restoration to come, and we were expecting our pay to be restored in full – that's our campaign's goal. 'We got part way there, but then that came to a halt this year – we've only had an offer that brings us up, just to catch up with inflation.' Asked what it would take for doctors to go back to work, he said the BMA needed to see 'a clear, guaranteed pathway' to pay restoration. He added that 'it's very disappointing to see a Labour Government taking such a hard line against trade unions'. Elsewhere, the Nottingham City Hospital – where Dr Melissa Ryan, co-chairwoman of the BMA's resident doctors' committee works in paediatrics – reached an agreement with the BMA to exempt one doctor from the strike to work on the neonatal intensive care unit. Speaking from a London picket line, Dr Ryan told The Times: 'I do know that we've granted a derogation already. It is actually at my work, with the babies on one of the neonatal units I work on. That is because it is an intensive care unit for babies. 'We don't have enough senior staff to cover the doctors that aren't there, the residents. And actually, it is important to us that those very sick babies get a lot of care. So we have granted a resident doctor to go back.' A derogation was agreed for one doctor in the emergency department and another doctor in the ISGM at the Northern General Hospital. 'We advise resident doctors to return to work if contacted by the Trust to staff these shifts tonight,' the BMA said in an X post on Friday evening. The BMA said it had also agreed a derogation for two anaesthetists to work at University Hospital Lewisham on Saturday to ensure patient safety. Louise Stead, group chief executive of Ashford and St Peter's and Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trusts, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that around 500 appointments were being rescheduled 'but we are continuing to do about 96% of the work we've had planned'.
