Second World War airmen part of study now in its 60th year

A picture of health:

"Murphy didn't realize it on the pivotal day of his RCAF medical, but the records of his height, weight, blood pressure and medical history -- as well as a then-innovative electrocardiogram -- would lead to his inclusion in a landmark medical study.

He was one of nearly 4,000 aircrew recruits who were tracked down after the war by Winnipeg's Dr. F.A.L. Mathewson and asked to have their military physicals become the foundation of the Manitoba Follow-up Study (MFUS).

The study, housed at the University of Manitoba's Bannatyne medical campus, is believed to be the world's longest-running continuous study of health and aging in a specific cohort."

That's Dad, second from the left. What I find really curious, however, is the way the article I had originally cited on Facebook was later politically corrected and then reposted under a different URL on the Winnipeg Free Press site, with the new Picture of Health headline (less factual, more fuzzy and emotional than "study in 60th year") and beyond that, notice how the content has been subtly slanted: In the new article each of the interviewed pilots makes this tagged on as if an afterthought:

With the study now looking at aging, the men are asked how they define successful aging. Analyzing their responses and mortality, Tate has statistically correlated a sense of contentment, feeling useful, staying physically active and having a positive outlook with a higher rate of survival.

Achieving Wellness, Whatever THAT Is

2 Books on Illness and Wellness Give Opposite Advice is a cautionary tale from the NYTimes on the art and science of living:

"Both are practicing physicians who have made second careers interpreting medical principles for a lay audience. Both consider themselves experts not only in illness but also in wellness, that shimmering grail of our time. Both have combed through all the latest studies and are now pleased to provide you, the average healthy adult, with guidelines for staying well.

Both muster science, statistics and a judicious smattering of personal experience to present, with no small fanfare, completely, utterly, diametrically opposite advice."

as the article says,

"You, reader, have undoubtedly already decided which author is a sage and which one a lunatic, which advice is sound, worthy of reading and re-reading, and which is simply misguided."

and therein a fundamental flaw with the whole field of applied learning, the invisibility of The Myth. Believing our myths, inescapably, we take one side or the other the same way we align with baseball teams, rock bands or brands of toothpaste.