Cause for Celebration.

A hefty promotion.

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1. A rare bit of good news on the retirement front: Record contribution rates for 401(k) accounts continued in 2023. The average percent of salary funneled into plans maintained 2022’s record pace of 11.7%, when combining contributions from both employees and employers, according to Vanguard Group. Employees alone contributed an estimated average of 7.4%, and an unprecedented 43% of savers either hiked their contribution rate themselves or had it bumped up through auto-escalation features. (Source: bloomberg.com)

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2. Technically, while Ozempic is a diabetes drug, people can, and do, take it to drop weight. But the drug — and others in its class, such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound — is about much more. Scientists believe the drugs are about to revolutionize several fields of medicine, such as cardiology and endocrinology. Researchers are also running dozens of trials to see whether they might help with Alzheimer’s, liver disease, polycystic ovary syndrome and even skin conditions. If these trials prove successful, the drugs may extend many lives by years, save billions in medical costs and divide public health into before-and-after epochs. A researcher studying these drugs told me he felt like the scientist who first discovered antibiotics. (Source: Dani Blum, nytimes.com)

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3. What if you could delay menopause and all the health risks associated with it? The question comes from a field of research that has started to draw attention over the last few years, as scientists who study longevity and women’s health have come to realize that the female reproductive system is far more than just a baby-maker. The ovaries, in particular, appear to be connected to virtually every aspect of a woman’s health. They also abruptly stop performing their primary role in midlife. Once that happens, a woman enters menopause, which accelerates her aging and the decline of other organ systems, like the heart and the brain. While women, on average, live longer than men, they spend more time living with diseases or disabilities. It is the ovaries’ truncated life span that also makes them such a promising site for experimentation. Researchers think that prolonging their function, better aligning the length of their viability with that of other organs, could potentially alter the course of a woman’s health — and longevity research overall. (Source: nytimes.com)

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