SE Health Receives National Award for Palliative Care Advocacy: Creating Accessibility and Care Improvements Across Canada

Award praises Nancy Lefebre for unwavering commitment to advancing patient and family access to end-of-life care across the country

TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2020 /CNW/ - For SE Health, care comes first at all stages of life.  End-of-life care is no exception for the not-for-profit, social enterprise and one of Canada's largest health care providers.  Last week, that dedication was highlighted as Nancy Lefebre, Chief Clinical Executive and Senior Vice President of Knowledge and Practice at SE Health received the Sharon Carstairs Award of Excellence in Advocacy from the Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition of Canada (QELCCC).

"The Award of Excellence in Advocacy recognizes an individual who has stepped forward to facilitate partnerships and change the health care system for the betterment of Canadians," said The Honourable Sharon Carstairs, P.C. "Nancy Lefebre is a strong voice speaking for the thousands of families caring for loved ones at end-of-life. Throughout her career, she has been instrumental in helping to strengthen the resources and support in our communities, nationwide. Congratulations, Nancy."

According to the Canadian Foundation for Health Improvement, "70 per cent of Canadians do not have access to palliative care services." There are also significant gaps in care and barriers to ensuring that all Canadians have access to quality end-of-life care, when they need it.  

As an advocate for excellence and quality, Lefebre championed SE Health, Social Enterprise investments – more than $5 million over the last five years – into hospice palliative care programs and residential hospices nationwide. 

Through the Saint Elizabeth Foundation, Lefebre advanced education for healthcare workers, developing an Indigenous end-of-life program that educated over 500 healthcare providers in 145 Indigenous communities throughout Canada last year.  She also serves as the operating partner, alongside Hospice Toronto and Inner-City Health Associates, in Journey Home Hospicefor the homeless in downtown Toronto.

With Lefebre's advocacy, SE Health has developed outstanding palliative care services; and in the last year alone, they have provided more than 10,000 patients across Canada with approximately 226,000 palliative homecare visits.

"I am so grateful for this tremendous honour and I credit the amazing teams for working tirelessly as advocates for all Canadians," said Lefebre.  "At SE Health and the Saint Elizabeth Foundation, we pride ourselves on collaborating and pushing the envelope to create and uncover the highest level of care at every turn.  We continue to forge ahead with palliative care as a priority and we look forward to making a big difference so that care is accessible for everyone."

About SE Health 

SE Health is a not-for-profit social enterprise applying knowledge, vision and drive to impact how people live and age at home, today and into the future. With Canadian roots and 110+ years of expertise, the organization brings quality excellence and innovation to home care, seniors' lifestyle, and family caregiving. Through its team of 9,000 Leaders of Impact, SE Health delivers 21,000 care exchanges daily, totaling 50 million in the last decade alone. Visit us online at sehc.com.

About the Saint Elizabeth Foundation

When Saint Elizabeth was founded 110+ years ago, we were a group of visiting nurses caring for marginalized people in our communities. To honour our heritage, the Saint Elizabeth Foundation is committed to providing end-of-life care for those most in need throughout Canada, with a special focus on homeless, isolated, vulnerable and Indigenous individuals. We believe that health care communities are built through "in-reach," making health services accessible to individuals when and where they need them most. To find out more about how our programs and services are improving the lives of Canadians nationwide, please visit us online at sehc.com/foundation.

SOURCE SE Health

The Corona Virus—1918 All Over Again?

by Jane M. Orient, M.D.

Clusters of a dozen or so deaths may get nonstop “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” press coverage. But the lack of preparedness for the really, really big threats may be met with virtual radio silence—until panic breaks out.

The worst, possibly existential, threat is the stealthy, invisible one that multiplies exponentially—in the accurate sense of the term: 400 cases today, 800 tomorrow, then 1600, 3200, 6400, 128000, 256000, 512000, and 1.024 million after only eight doubling times. Biological threats proliferate—until they run out of susceptible victims.

In 1918, the great influenza pandemic killed as many people in 11 months as the medieval Black Death did in 4 years. Ultimately, at least 50 million may have perished. Young healthy people, especially young soldiers headed off to the front in World War I, succumbed quickly. To avoid interfering with the war effort, the U.S. government denied and covered up the threat, preventing the implementation of public health measures.

Since then, the world has gotten smaller. A virus that jumps the species barrier from animals to humans in a meat market in China can cross the Pacific in hours. And despite the expenditure of $80 billion on a National Biologic Defense, the U.S. is arguably no better prepared than it was in 1918, state Steven Hatfill, M.D., and coauthors in their new book Three Seconds until Midnight.

As in1918, we lack a vaccine or wonder drugs, but must rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI), and on public health authorities to track and try to contain the spread of infection.

Accurate information is critical. Can we trust governmental authorities to tell the truth? Travel restrictions, quarantine, closing businesses, and cancelling public events have a huge economic and potential political cost.

There can also be incentives to exaggerate the threat, in order to sell poorly tested vaccines or drugs. The 1976 swine flu epidemic was almost a non-event; more people were probably injured or even died from adverse effects of the heavily promoted vaccine.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far declined to declare the corona virus outbreak a global emergency, although cases have been reported in more than a dozen or so countries. China reported only hundreds of “confirmed” cases—while countless additional cases were not tested because of lack of diagnostic test kits.

The New England Journal of Medicine writes, “Another Decade, Another Coronavirus.” This 2019-nCoV virus is the third zoonotic (animal) coronavirus to infect humans in two decades. The SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) were contained. Other coronaviruses cause mild cold-like syndromes.

This virus has occasioned the quarantine of entire cities, for the first time since medieval times. This could not be done other than in authoritarian China, states virologist Steven Hatfill, but even there is unlikely to be effective—especially if 5 million people had left before the order was implemented.

The People’s Liberation Army has sent 450 medical personnel to Wuhan to help out at local hospitals, which are crammed with patients lying in packed corridors. Construction workers are reportedly trying to build a 1,000-bed hospital in Wuhan in five days. The U.S. and other nations are evacuating their citizens from Wuhan.

A report of 41 hospitalized patients in Wuhan, published in The Lancet, showed that patients were relatively young (median age 49) and fewer than half had an underlying illness. Only 66% had been exposed to the Huanan seafood market, the apparent source of the infection. One patient (2%) had no fever; all had pneumonia; 29% had severe respiratory distress syndrome; and 12% had acute cardiac injury. Most cases may be very mild, facilitating more rapid spread.

The corona virus is transmitted by droplets coming into contact with mucous membranes, including the eye. It can persist on surfaces for days. People without fever or symptoms can transmit the illness during the incubation period, which might be as long as two weeks. At present, definitive diagnostic testing is available only from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In a severe outbreak, people whose job is not critical may need to stay home. Those who do not have a supply of food, essential medications, or other needed supplies would likely end up in a frantic crowd. Personal protective gear, for people who need to be in contact with the public or care for a sick family member, is already out of stock in medical supply houses. This includes gloves, wrap-around eye protection, and N-95 protective masks—regular surgical masks are probably of little help.

Panic is never helpful; staying calm is always good advice. But failure to heed previous warnings of the need for robust disaster planning, and complacency about medical technology and governmental resources, has set the stage for potential unprecedented disaster.

Individuals need to recognize that they themselves, and not 911 or the emergency room or the Federal Emergency Management Agency, may hold the key to their family’s and their community’s survival. Local authorities need to know that they may be on their own.

For now, stock up on supplies; cover those coughs and sneezes; wash hands frequently for at least 20 seconds; avoid crowds; and stay aware, as the situation could change rapidly.

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Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. She is the author of YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Healthcare, and the second through fifth editions of Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis published by Wolters Kluwer. She authored books for schoolchildren, Professor Klugimkopf’s Old-Fashioned English Grammar and Professor Klugimkopf’s Spelling Method, published by Robinson Books, and coauthored two novels published as Kindle books, Neomorts and Moonshine. More than 100 of her papers have been published in the scientific and popular literature on a variety of subjects including risk assessment, natural and technological hazards and nonhazards, and medical economics and ethics. She is the editor of AAPS News, the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Newsletter, and Civil Defense Perspectives, and is the managing editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

FACIT announces follow-on investments in Xpan Inc. and Nanology Labs through Compass Rose Fund

Prospects proof-of-concept funding elevates Ontario companies to seed stage investment

TORONTO, Jan. 28, 2020 /CNW/ - FACIT, a commercialization venture firm focused on advancing Ontario's top-tier oncology innovations, announced new follow-on investments in start-ups Xpan Inc. ("Xpan") and Nanology Labs ("Nanology"). Spun out of the University of Toronto, both start-ups have previously received funding through FACIT's proof-of-concept Prospects Fund that enabled the companies to address key commercialization challenges. Upon successfully achieving initial business targets, these start-ups and their respective technologies have been elevated to an equity-based investment through FACIT's seed stage Compass Rose Fund.

Xpan has developed a patent-pending trocar that is less invasive yet expandable, aiming to reduce risk of serious complications, cost and intraoperative inefficiencies in minimally invasive surgical oncology procedures. Xpan has an aggressive goal to reach the market in under two years, and has garnered considerable KOL support from both north and south of the border. "We are at a pivotal moment in our company's development, and are fortunate to benefit from FACIT's continued support and resources which are fueling Xpan's growth and accelerating our journey to commercialization," said Mr. Zaid Atto, Founder and CEO of Xpan. 

Nanology has developed a first-in-class theranostic agent enabling real-time tumor detection and radio-sensitization. In animal models, this agent is safer and more sensitive than MRI contrast agents currently available. It simultaneously oxygenates the tumor area leading to an improvement in radiation therapy efficacy. "FACIT's follow-on investment is critical in enabling our technology to reach its next inflection point, moving closer to the clinic and positioning our company for further investment," said Dr. Mohammad Ali Amini, Co-Founder and CEO of Nanology.

FACIT's investment programs are a unique source of Ontario First capital for promising early stage oncology innovations, with the goal of enabling further local development and cultivation of local skilled and entrepreneurial talent. The follow-on investments illustrate FACIT's strategy to support early start-ups through Funds matched to the maturity of the company and to help ensure promising companies grow roots and scale up in Ontario.

In addition to being Prospects Fund recipients, both companies were finalists in FACIT's previous Falcons' Fortunes pitch competitions, with Xpan winning the 2019 competition. "We are pleased to support any promising technology that will impact patients with cancer. Here however, having both companies advance through all three of FACIT's funding initiatives is both rewarding and exciting, as it shows these teams' commitment and ability to execute," remarked Dr. David O'Neill, President of FACIT. "We are grateful for our strategic partner, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and the Government of Ontario's support of our investment programs, ensuring great science and strong entrepreneurs have a translational pathway to Ontario patients."

"We are proud to celebrate these made-in-Ontario scientific discoveries and support their commercialization," said Ross Romano, Ontario's Minister of Colleges and Universities. "These investments will help drive further innovation in the province's growing biotech ecosystem, and ultimately, benefit Ontarians who are fighting cancer."

About FACIT
FACIT is a commercialization venture firm that builds companies with entrepreneurs to accelerate oncology innovation, with a portfolio that has attracted over $850 million in investment to Ontario. Blending industry experience, capital and the unsurpassed clinician-scientist network of its strategic partner the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), FACIT capitalizes on the province's investment in research and healthcare to the benefit of the local economy and patients worldwide. FACIT's commercialization portfolio includes Turnstone Biologics, Fusion Pharmaceuticals, Triphase Accelerator and other biotechnology organizations. Cancer Breakthroughs. Realized. facit.ca.

About Xpan Inc. 
Xpan Inc., a spin-out from the University of Toronto, has developed a patent-pending trocar that is less invasive yet expandable which promises to reduce risk of complications, cost and inefficiencies associated with the use of these devices in minimally invasive surgeries.

About Nanology Labs 
Nanology Labs has developed a low toxicity MRI contrast agent which circumvents the limitations of other agents currently available. The agent, Manganescan™, uses nanoparticles containing the element manganese to illuminate early stage tumors, including those in the brain. Improved detection provides clinicians with the information to make better treatment plans and potentially improve patient outcomes. 

SOURCE FACIT Inc.

What Triathletes Need to Know About Nutrition Planning

Whether you’re training for your first triathlon or you’ve been among the elite club of triathlon participants for decades, nutrition planning has to be an important part of your life to ensure success across the miles. Just like the race itself is always on your mind, the proper nutrition to help you plan for that race must always be on your mind, as well. Otherwise, you risk having setbacks that could render you unable to reach your goal. To help you increase your focus, here are a few things that triathletes need to know about nutrition planning.

Don’t Overdo It

Training for a triathlon can be a grueling process. Especially if you’ve never competed in a triathlon, the physical exertion you feel during training can be quite overwhelming. As a result, after your more intense workouts, you may be tempted to overload on calories to try and make up for what your body has lost. Typically, though, this leads to eating calories in excess of what you burned during your workout. This can cause unwanted weight gain and a crash in blood sugar, later on, that will lead to more unhealthy snacking. Therefore, it’s important to carefully track your post-workout calories so you know exactly what you’re putting into your body.

Plan Ahead

The road to your first triathlon doesn’t end after a day or a week of training. In most cases, proper training can take months or even years, depending on your personal motivation. When you’re at the starting line of this training, then, it’s crucial that you plan ahead to achieve success. Nutrition plansare a big part of this formula, as they provide guidance on different nutrients your body needs as well as guidelines for your daily caloric intake. If you stick to a solid nutrition plan alongside your other training goals, you will be ready when race day comes.

Avoid Celebrating the Wrong Way

When you reach various milestones along the path to race day, it can be tempting to go all-out in celebration. While celebrating success is certainly okay and can actually lead to further success, you must be sure to celebrate without backtracking on the progress you’ve made. Specifically, this means avoiding excess sweets such as cake, soda, candy, and a whole host of other bad-for-you treats. While sweets are okay in limited moderation, too many can cause your blood sugar to spike and then crash, which is not only bad for your health but also can lead to further sweet-eating that will cause a huge delay in progress.

Don’t Forget Water

In the midst of your careful nutrition planning, it can be easy to overlook one of the most essential elements of a good training plan: adequate hydration. Without enough water, your body won’t be able to properly digest the foods you intake, and you’re likely to eat too much food since water can help you feel full by occupying room in your stomach. On top of that, your circulatory, musculoskeletal, digestive, and other body systems rely on adequate water intake to function properly.

Don’t Give Up

Training for a triathlon is a long process. As such, there will be days when you won’t meet your goals or you’ll make a mistake that causes you to backtrack. When that happens, though, the most important thing is that you pick back up tomorrow and continue your progress. This is ultimately what will help you achieve your overarching goal of participating in and completing a t

Heroic American Surgeon Dr. Tom Catena Earns Top Medical Missionary Award for Saving Lives in Africa’s Forgotten War Zone

Catena to receive annual prestigious AMH Gerson L’Chaim Prize for ‘outstanding
Christian medical missionary service’ from African Mission Healthcare

DELAND, Fla. – An American surgeon hailed as “the world’s most important doctor”— to more than a million patients—is being honored with a top international medical award. Today, Florida-based African Mission Healthcare (AMH) announced that Dr. Tom Catena is the recipient of the nonprofit’s 2019 Gerson L’Chaim Prize for “Outstanding Christian Medical Missionary Service,”sponsored by Jewish philanthropists Rabbi Erica and Mark Gerson. 

“Perhaps the primary Jewish responsibility is to love the stranger, and to do so meaningfully — in action, where real people materially experience this love,” said Mark Gerson, co-founder of AMH and benefactor of the Gerson L’Chaim Prize. “We are so grateful to Tom for providing us with the opportunity to fulfill this Jewish obligation so effectively.” 

Dr. Tom Catena

Dr. Tom Catena, a 55-year-old Catholic medical missionary from upstate New York, has served in Africa for 20 years.  He is the only surgeon for 1.3 million people in a region nearly twice the size of Massachusetts. As a medical missionary, he put his life on the lineliving in the middle of the war-torn and besieged Nuba Mountains, a territory fiercely contested by its inhabitants and the former government of Sudan. 

In 2011, when the capital started bombing its own people in this southernmost state in Sudan, most expatriate workers fled, but Dr. Catena insisted on staying and said, “The source of most of our conflicts is the idea that one person’s life is more valuable than someone else’s. We have forgotten that we are all children of God and therefore somewhat related.”

Since 2008, Catena, a graduate of Duke University Medical School and former U.S. Navy doctor, has been the Medical Director at Gidel Mother of Mercy Hospital. The 435-bed Catholic hospital is the only major medical facility in the Nuba Mountains. Catena is on call 24/7, and sometimes sees as many as 350 or more patients in a single day. 

The World’s Most Important Doctor

Dr. Peter Attia, host of the popular podcast The Drive, has called Dr. Catena “the world’s most important doctor.” Additionally, Time Magazine named Dr. Catena “One of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World,” and he was the subject of a 2015 Nicholas Kristof New York Times opinion piece titled, “He’s Jesus Christ.”

“Dr. Tom Catena has given up everything that we in the U.S. take for granted in order to bring healthcare to more than a million people who, without him, would otherwise not have access to any medical care,” added Mark Gerson.

AMH Gerson L’Chaim Prize 

AMH has been supporting mission hospitals in Africa since 2010. It launched the L’Chaim (Hebrew for “to life”) Prize in 2016, which comes with a $500,000 award, the world’s largest annual award of its kind dedicated to direct patient care in Africa. The $500,000 award will go towards the Nuba 2020 campaign to raise $7.5 million to keep the only major hospital in Sudan’s war-torn Nuba Mountains fully operational for the next two decades. Catena is leading the Nuba 2020 campaign.

Mark Gerson commented on Dr. Catena’s endless commitment. “The sheer amount of good he does — as measured in clinic visits, surgeries, deliveries, community clinic patients treated, and children vaccinated — with the amount of resources he has is completely stunning. It is simply incredible to even think about how many lives Tom and the team he has built can save and transform with the money that he is provided.”

“The people of the Nuba Mountains are the bravest and most resilient people I know,” said Catena. “I am honored to receive this award that will help enormously with our plans to strengthen and expand the Gidel Mother of Mercy Hospital and our network of clinics in this largely forgotten region of the world.”

“It’s an incredible honor for AMH to recognize Dr. Catena’s unparalleled commitment,” said Rabbi Erica Gerson, an AMH board member and prize co-sponsor, who will present the award with her philanthropist husband Mark Gerson. “For more than a decade, Tom has endured bombings, epidemics, rainy seasons and flooding, loss of power, lack of equipment and staff, and very little connection with the outside world, all because of his dedication to the Nuba people. He exemplifies what it means to ‘walk in all God’s ways and to love Him,’ and we are honored to be his partner in his sacred work.”

The prestigious Rabbi Erica and Mark Gerson L’Chaim prize will be presented to Catena April 14 at an awards dinner in New York City. 

About African Mission Healthcare 

African Mission Healthcare (AMH), a Florida-based nonprofit organization, strengthens African mission hospital to aid those in greatest need. AMH strategically partners with mission hospitals to support and advance their commitment to provide compassionate, quality medical care to the forgotten and hurting people of Africa, and to improve the health system in sub-Saharan Africa. AMH was co-founded in 2010 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Mark Gerson and medical missionary Dr. Jon Fielder, who were college roommates. 
 

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PHOTO CUTLINE: Dr. Tom Catena, an American surgeon and medical missionary, who has voluntarily stayed in war-torn Nuba Mountains to save thousands of lives in conflict-torn Sudan, has been honored with a top medical missionary award, African Mission Healthcare (AMH) announced today. Catena will be presented with the Gerson L'Chaim Prize for Outstanding Christian Medical Missionary Se

PEOPLE MAY LIE TO APPEAR HONEST

Efforts to avoid appearing dishonest may actually lead to lying, study finds

WASHINGTON – People may lie to appear honest if events that turned out in their favor seem too good to be true, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. 

“Many people care greatly about their reputation and how they will be judged by others, and a concern about appearing honest may outweigh our desire to actually be honest, even in situations where it will cost us money to lie,” said lead researcher Shoham Choshen-Hillel, PhD, a senior lecturer at the School of Business Administration and Center for the Study of Rationality at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Our findings suggest that when people obtain extremely favorable outcomes, they anticipate other people’s suspicious reactions and prefer lying and appearing honest over telling the truth and appearing as selfish liars.” 

The study found similar findings about lying to appear honest in a series of experiments conducted with lawyers and college students in Israel, as well as online participants in the United States and United Kingdom. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 

In one experiment with 115 lawyers in Israel, the participants were told to imagine a scenario where they told a client that a case would cost between 60 and 90 billable hours. The lawyer would be working in an office where the client wouldn’t know how many hours were truly spent on the case. Half of the participants were told they had worked 60 hours on the case while the other half were told they worked 90 hours. Then they were asked how many hours they would bill the client. In the 60-hour group, the lawyers reported an average of 62.5 hours, with 17% of the group lying to inflate their hours. In the 90-hour group, the lawyers reported an average of 88 hours, with 18% of the group lying to report fewer hours than they had actually worked. 
  
When asked for an explanation for the hours they billed, some lawyers in the 90-hour group said they worried that the client would think he had been cheated because the lawyer had lied about the number of billable hours. 

In another experiment, 149 undergraduate students at an Israeli university played online dice-rolling and coin-flipping games in private and then reported their scores to a researcher. The participants received approximately 15 cents for each successful coin flip or dice roll they reported. The computer program was manipulated for half of the students so they received perfect scores in the games, while the other group had random outcomes based on chance. In the perfect-score group, 24% underreported their number of wins even though it cost them money, compared with 4% in the random-outcome group.  

“Some participants overcame their aversion toward lying and the monetary costs involved just to appear honest to a single person who was conducting the experiment,” Choshen-Hillel said. 

In another online experiment with 201 adults from the United States, participants were told to imagine a scenario where they drove on many work trips for a company that had a maximum monthly compensation of 400 miles. They were told that most employees reported 280 to 320 miles per month. 
 
Half of the participants were told they had driven 300 miles in a month while the other half were told they drove 400 miles. When the participants were asked how many miles they would report, the 300-mile group told the truth and reported an average of 301 miles. For the 400-mile group, the participants reported an average of 384 miles, with 12% lying and underreporting their mileage. There were similar findings in another online experiment with 544 participants in the United Kingdom. 
  
Choshen-Hillel said she believes the study findings would apply in the real world, but there could be situations where the amount of money or other high stakes would lead people to tell the truth even if they might appear dishonest. 

“While our findings may seem ironic or counterintuitive, I think most people will recognize a time in their lives when they were motivated to tell a lie to appear honest,” she said. 

Article: “Lying to Appear Honest,” by Shoham Choshen-Hillel, PhD, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Alex Shaw, PhD, University of Chicago; and Eugene M. Caruso, PhD, University of California-Los Angeles. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Published online Jan. 30, 2020.    

How a Dream of Coming to America Led This Immigrant to a Successful Career in Cannabis. 

VVENERA’s Founder and CEO, Said Alievich entered the cannabis industry after fulfilling his childhood dream of coming to America to become a petroleum engineer took a significant toll on his health. Alievich’s CBD & wellness company, VVENERA, adamantly oversees the entire manufacturing process of their products to cultivate the nation’s premier line of industrial hemp derived Phyto Cannabinoids to use within their products. VVENERA’s products are grown organically to make certain that consumers are not ingesting contaminants such as pesticides, chemical fertilizers, solvents, and heavy metals. 

Said Alievich, the Founder and CEO of VVENERA, was inspired to craft his own high-quality CBD products that help regulate the physiology of our body’s systems all while eliminating the harmful side effects of using pharmaceutical drugs. With a number of retailers across North Carolina, Georgia, and California carrying its products, VVENERA is rapidly expanding its footprint of hemp-based products sourced from Kentucky, as well as the opportunity for individuals to live a healthier lifestyle, throughout the United States. 

Born in Dagestan, Russia, Alievich grew up near the Caspian Sea until age ten when he moved with his mother and stepfather to Amman, Jordan. “By the time I finished high school in Jordan, I had one dream — to come to America.” Says Alievich. He first arrived in the U.S. in January of 2011 at Palm Desert, CA to attend community college to follow his then dream to become a petroleum engineer. But the stresses of adapting to a new school that teaches in a different language and coinciding circumstances can be draining on the body and mind.

Because of his challenges with the stress of studying to be an engineer in a foreign language and adapting to a new culture, Said struggled with insomnia, body aches, and other health issues. After finding his health benefit from the CBD products, Said started VVENERA to produce first-rate hemp-based products to provide people with natural relief from pain, anxiety, and more. “My mission is to create a healthier, happier life for millions of people that are struggling to make it through a productive day due to debilitating stress and anxiety,” says Alievich. 

VVENERA’s commitment to helping others improve the quality of their lives stems from Alievich’s dream, which he was able to bring to life through dedication, hard work, and most importantly self-care. 

For more information on Said Alievich and VVENERA, please visit www.VVENERA.com.

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Said Alievich was born in Dagestan, Russia and moved to Amman, Jordan as a child. By the time he finished high school in Jordan, Said had one dream — to come to America. Fast-forward to today, Said has a degree in Engineering and is a serial entrepreneur. He’s the owner of Platinum Transport Luxury Car Service in Southern California, as well as the Founder and CEO of a CBD and wellness company, VVENERA. All of VVENERA’s products are sourced from Kentucky and are subject to 3rd-party compliance and quality testing measures. Their finished products are manufactured using GMP, or ISO-certified processes that adhere to CGMP and FDA regulations, ensuring that their products meet the highest quality international food safety standards.

Building Muscle: 4 Ways to Improve Your Training Routine

If your training routine has become stagnant, then it might be time to shake some things up. A stale or boring routine is quickly going to impact your motivation, drain your energy, and slow your progress. If you’re looking to change up your training routine for better results, look at these four areas.

Alter What Time of Day You Train

While most people eventually fall into a strict training routine with their workouts at a certain time each day, there could come a point when it feels as if you are no longer progressing. Often the same routine becomes monotonous, and you might find you don’t have the same amount of energy or motivation as you did. In those types of situations, simply altering what time of day you train could have a huge impact on your energy levels and the intensity of your workouts. Those who usually train first thing in the morning might be able to break through a plateau by working out at night after they have had a few meals or vice versa.

Try Snacking Before and During Your Workouts

New studies continue to show us that fasted workoutscan be very beneficial in some situations, but many people struggle with that type of training. If your blood sugar seems to plummet during longer training sessions, then you should consider snacking before and during your workouts. Having a piece of fruit or a little bit of candy could help you maintain your blood sugar and energy levels.

Focus on Compound Movements

Even though isolation movements will allow you to target specific muscles, most experts agree that compound movements are much better for your overall health. A compound movement targets multiple muscle groups at once, and that is going to build muscle and burn calories at the same time. Some of the most popular compound movements include squats, deadlifts, and bench pressing. At the very least, you should tackle the compound movements early on in your workouts so that you can perform them at maximum intensity.

Work With a Group

Another step that you might want to take is signing up for a new fitness trainingprogram. Over the course of a few months, working out on your own can become very draining, and there may come a point when you completely lose interest in training. Starting a new workout program with an experienced trainer could boost your motivation and help you move past any hurdles that you have run into.

These few changes are a great start, but you must also ensure that you are getting plenty of rest. Chronically under sleeping is going to have a huge impact on your energy levels, metabolism, and your ability to pack on lean muscle.