Diem Brown Blogs: Will You Be My Valentine?

By Diem Brown

02/14/2013 at 04:45 PM EST

I honestly cannot begin to express the emotions I felt last week. I have never felt so loved and cared for in my life. I actually started feeling guilty because I didn't know how to express my thanks to everyone who has read this blog, commented on here or on Facebook, Tweeted me, etc.

I felt an army of support that was with me through this whole "cancer" time. When you're in the midst of dark, stress-filled moments, it's hard to comprehend how many people out there are either going through the same/similar thing or want to help support you while you are in your fight.

Once last week's blog went up, my heart was overfilled with love and gratitude for y'all. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart, thank you so very much for your sweet congratulations and encouraging words. I don't know how to repay you, but will try to brainstorm and find brilliant ways to do so.

This may seem weird, but I feel a connection with so many people who have left comments or Tweeted me about their own struggles and shared their stories. I feel we have this cool community of people that support one another and it lifts my heart.

Given that it's Valentine's Day, I wish I could drop those cool lil' Valentine's Day cards, the ones that have the lollipop attached, into your tin foiled decorated V-Day shoe boxes ... you remember like the ones we used to make in kindergarten.

So ... Will you be my Valentine?

I feel on Cloud Nine right now! I know I won't get that 100% cancer-free card, but I know I am not going anywhere! The remaining tests/chemo treatments, etc. are just precaution. It feels unreal to have this "Go live your life" card, and I want to live it up to the very fullest!

One of my closest girlfriends, Alicia Quarles, happens to be the New York correspondent for E! News, and we started laughing about how we react so differently with good and bad news.

When I was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in June, I was very stoic during my interview with Alicia. I didn't want to "break" in fear that I couldn't put myself together again. Alicia, on the other hand, whom I have known since college, couldn't help but tear up as she said, "It's just not fair" while she asked questions about my second battle with ovarian cancer.

Cut to last week and Alicia interviewed me this time about my cancer remission news. As soon as I started talking, my voice cracked and all of the emotions I held back in the first interview came out and tears trailed down my face. It was that moment I realized "I am alive and am not going anywhere!"

Diem Brown

Matt Sayles / Invision

I had been so scared that seeing 2014 wasn't going to happen for me that hearing the news that you don't have an "expiration date" makes your whole body release ... happy tears included. Alicia was so excited about my remission news that her smile was beaming as she tilted her head laughing and asked, "Those are happy tears, right?"

I never understood the "happy tears" thing until that moment. I laughed as I begun to dry my wet cheeks saying, "Yeah they are! Now, how do you make these suckers stop flowing?"

I hope everyone experiences a "happy tears" moment, as it's the oddest but most wonderful feeling in the world!

So on this beautiful Valentine's Day I also want you to know that you have an army of people who love you. You might not be able to see it, but you affect more people than you will ever realize. Trust me, put yourself and your heart out there for friends, family, and even for support groups online. Some of the people who can build you up the most could be people online whom you will never meet.

I know this was a cheesy "love blog," but I feel so alive and I feel this overwhelming gratitude and love for y'all! Thank you, thank you, thank you – and
Happy Valentine's Day!

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."

Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.

It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.

Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."

Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.

The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.

Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.

Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.

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Online:

Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html

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Wall Street ends slightly higher, helped by acquisitions

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eked out a small gain for a third straight session on Thursday, helped by a flurry of merger activity, though investors see no catalysts to lift the market further with major averages near multi-year highs.

The market's slowed advance took the S&P 500 to its highest intraday level since November 2007 on Wednesday. While the index notched its third straight day of gains, none was more than 0.2 percent.

Shares of H.J. Heinz Co jumped 20 percent to $72.50 after it said Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital will buy the food company for $72.50 a share, or $28 billion including debt. Berkshire's class B shares rose 1.3 percent to $99.21.

Also supporting the market was data showing the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected in the latest week. The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> fell 2.4 percent, dropping to 12.67.

"While I'm not bearish, I don't see many upside motivations at these levels," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York, who cited the low level of the VIX as a sign the market was overbought.

Equities have struggled to break above current levels where they have been hovering for almost two weeks. The S&P 500 is up more than 6 percent so far this year.

"We need to digest some of our gains to go higher, but people are so eager to buy on the dips that we're not even seeing dips anymore. People are just chasing the market higher," said Selkin, who helps oversee about $3 billion in assets.

Stocks fell earlier after a report the euro zone's gross domestic product contracted by the steepest amount since the first quarter of 2009. In addition, Japan's GDP shrank 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, crushing expectations of a modest return to growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.52 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,973.39. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.05 points, or 0.07 percent, at 1,521.38. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 1.78 points, or 0.06 percent, at 3,198.66.

Constellation Brands soared 37 percent to $43.75 after AB InBev's deal to take over Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo was revised to grant Constellation perpetual rights to distribute Corona and other Modelo brands in the United States. U.S. shares of AB InBev gained 5.1 percent to $92.77.

American Airlines and US Airways Group said they plan to merge in a deal that will form the world's biggest air carrier, with an equity valuation of about $11 billion. US Airways shares fell 4.6 percent to $13.99.

Weakness in Europe contributed to a 5 percent drop in revenue from the region for Cisco Systems , which nonetheless beat estimates as it reported its results late Wednesday. The company's shares dipped 0.7 percent to $20.99.

General Motors Co reported a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, also citing bigger losses in Europe alongside lower prices in its core North American market. The stock was off 3.3 percent to $27.73.

Only five more stocks rose than fell on the New York Stock Exchange, while 51 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed higher.

Volume was light, with about 6.36 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)

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Kerry Says He Is Preparing Proposals on Syria Crisis

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that he had ideas about how to persuade President Bashar al-Assad to agree to a political transition in Syria and planned to raise them on his first foreign trip this month.

“We need to address the question of President Assad’s calculation currently,” Mr. Kerry said after a meeting with Jordan’s foreign minister, Nasser Judeh. “I believe there are additional things that can be done to change his current perception. I’ve got a good sense of what I think we might propose.”

Mr. Kerry did not say what proposals he had in mind. He is expected to travel to the Middle East and Europe, but the trip has not been formally announced.

“I can assure you my goal is to see us change his calculation, my goal is to see us have a negotiated outcome and minimize the violence,” Mr. Kerry said. “It may not be possible. I am not going to stand here and tell you that’s automatic or easily achievable. There are a lot of forces that have been unleashed here over the course of the last months.”

Mr. Kerry made a similar statement during his Senate confirmation hearing last month. Despite his caution that progress might not be possible, the effect of Mr. Kerry’s comments was to heighten expectations for his trip. Mr. Kerry is also expected to try to make headway on the issues dividing the Palestinians and the Israelis and set the stage for President Obama’s trip to Israel next month.

Mr. Kerry’s comment on Syria came a day after Mr. Obama said little about the Syria crisis in his State of the Union address. In that speech, Mr. Obama said he would keep pressure on the Syrian regime, but he did not voice confidence, as he had in his 2012 address, that Mr. Assad would soon be forced to relinquish power.

Mr. Kerry said that Mr. Obama would begin by listening to Israeli and Arab leaders and would not be bringing a major new proposal.

“The president is not prepared at this point in time to do more than listen to the parties, which is why he has announced he is going to go to Israel,” he said.

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Carly Rae Jepsen Reveals Why She's Heartbroken on New Single 'Tonight I'm Getting Over You'

Only on People.com

By Dahvi Shira

02/13/2013 at 04:45 PM EST

Heartbreak was far from the theme of Carly Rae Jepsen's catchy, career-launching Grammy-nominated radio hit, "Call Me Maybe" – but in her latest single, the starlet touches on romance gone wrong.

Reliving the past failed relationship that inspired "Tonight I'm Getting Over You," Jepsen, 27, recently explained at PEOPLE's pre-Grammy soiree at Sayers Club in Hollywood, "As an artist, it's fun to explore [my] many sides and sort of go through my experience with love in a more personal way. I hope you haven't experienced it, but I certainly have had that relationship that is on-again, off-again and good and bad."

The singer – who has most recently been dating fellow musician Matthew Koma – goes on to say, "With this particular song, it was sort of that decision that even though [the relationship] is hot and cold, sometimes you've got to move on."

Jepsen, who performed a soulful, acoustic version of the typically upbeat song at the party, sings in the lyrics, "We're not lovers, but more than friends. Put a flame to every single word you ever said. No more crying to get me through. I'll keep dancing 'til the morning with somebody new. Tonight I'm getting over you."

Says Jepsen of the Max Martin-produced tune: "I think it's important to have a bit of a connection to a song that you sing, and there's going to be some grittiness behind it, because otherwise it doesn't come across as sincere. So I do think I tap into those memories in a certain way, but it doesn't make me feel sad. It just makes me feel a little contemplative and in the moment."

The man behind the music has not been revealed – and Jepsen says with a laugh, "It's probably for the best" that he doesn't know it's about him.

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Clues to why most survived China melamine scandal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists wondering why some children and not others survived one of China's worst food safety scandals have uncovered a suspect: germs that live in the gut.

In 2008, at least six babies died and 300,000 became sick after being fed infant formula that had been deliberately and illegally tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. There were some lingering puzzles: How did it cause kidney failure, and why wasn't everyone equally at risk?

A team of researchers from the U.S. and China re-examined those questions in a series of studies in rats. In findings released Wednesday, they reported that certain intestinal bacteria play a crucial role in how the body handles melamine.

The intestines of all mammals teem with different species of bacteria that perform different jobs. To see if one of those activities involves processing melamine, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Shanghai Jiao Tong University gave lab rats antibiotics to kill off some of the germs — and then fed them melamine.

The antibiotic-treated rats excreted twice as much of the melamine as rats that didn't get antibiotics, and they experienced fewer kidney stones and other damage.

A closer look identified why: A particular intestinal germ — named Klebsiella terrigena — was metabolizing melamine to create a more toxic byproduct, the team reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Previous studies have estimated that fewer than 1 percent of healthy people harbor that bacteria species. A similar fraction of melamine-exposed children in China got sick, the researchers wrote. But proving that link would require studying stool samples preserved from affected children, they cautioned.

Still, the research is pretty strong, said microbiologist Jack Gilbert of the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, who wasn't involved in the new study.

More importantly, "this paper adds to a growing body of evidence which suggests that microbes in the body play a significant role in our response to toxicity and in our health in general," Gilbert said.

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Wall Street pauses after rally to five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks drifted in light volume on Wednesday, ending little changed, as investors remained cautious after the S&P 500 index briefly hit its highest intraday level since November 2007.

The S&P 500 was buoyed by General Electric after cable company Comcast Corp said it will buy from GE the the part of NBCUniversal it didn't already own for $16.7 billion.

Comcast's stock hit the highest since 1999 before closing up 3 percent at $40.13 and GE gained 3.6 percent to $23.39.

The S&P 500 is up 6.6 percent so far this year, partly due to stronger-than-expected corporate earnings and a better economic outlook. The Dow industrials is about 1 percent away from an all-time intraday high, reached in October 2007.

Volume has been weak in recent days with the S&P moving sideways around 1,520. The index is about 3 percent away from closing at a record high.

A scarcity of sellers after a consistent string of gains is a positive sign and shows the uptrend is intact, King Lip, chief investment officer at Baker Avenue Asset Management in San Francisco, said.

"Last year we had double-digit returns in the first quarter. It's fairly possible we can move higher from here," he said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 35.79 points or 0.26 percent, to 13,982.91, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 0.9 point or 0.06 percent, to 1,520.33 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 10.38 points or 0.33 percent, to 3,196.88.

The S&P gained 12 percent in the first three months of 2012.

Deere & Co , the world's largest farm equipment maker, forecast a modest increase in sales this year despite the prospect of the biggest corn crop in U.S. history. The forecast fell short of analysts' expectations, sending shares of Deere down 3.5 percent to $90.68.

In extended trading, shares of technology bellwether Cisco Systems fell 2 percent after it posted results.

Dr Pepper Snapple fell 5.8 percent to $42.69 after it forecast profit for the current year below analysts' estimates.

Cliffs Natural Resources lost a fifth of its market value a day after the miner reported a quarterly loss and slashed its dividend by 76 percent. Its shares fell 20 percent to 429.29.

According to the latest Thomson Reuters data, of the 364 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

About 5.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average in February last year of 6.94 billion.

On the NYSE, roughly seven issues rose for every five that fell and on Nasdaq more than six rose for every five decliners.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Bernadette Baum)

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Putin Aims to Limit Officials’ Investments Abroad

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin introduced a draft law on Tuesday that would ban senior Russian officials from holding bank accounts or stocks outside Russia, the latest in a series of recent measures intended to insulate the country’s governance from foreign influences.

The draft law, which requires legislative approval, applies to a wide range of top officials, including lawmakers, ministers, top officials at the Central Bank and other state funds, and those whose work involves “the sovereignty or national security of the Russian Federation,” as well as their spouses and young children.

The change, though appealing to the broad public, would come as a jolt to many in Russia’s ruling class, who are both wealthy and deeply integrated into the West.

First presented in discussions on “nationalization of the elite,” the ban has been framed primarily as a way to guarantee officials’ loyalty to Russia, and also as a check on corruption, a topic on which the Kremlin knows that it is politically vulnerable. Commenting on a similar proposal by legislators last fall, a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said officials with investments outside Russia “are not safe, in terms of being firm in defending the state’s interests.”

If the measure becomes law, as expected, officials will have three months to close their foreign accounts and sell their stock, or else face possible dismissal based on “lack of trust.” State auditors can initiate investigations into officials based on information provided by journalists, law enforcement bodies, political organizations and other sources.

The introduction of the draft law met with cheers from lawmakers, who have embraced a series of populist —some say reactionary — measures in the months since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency. An ultranationalist lawmaker, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky, said foreign holdings marked government officials as members of a “fifth column.”

“They’ve bought half of Europe — the real estate, the accounts in all banks, they vacation there, their children study there, their relatives live there, they give birth there, they get medical treatment there,” he told a television reporter. “And it’s easy to influence them. A fifth column is formed here. One has to live at home, vacation at home, work and study. If you don’t like it, do not enter state service.”

A number of legislators said Tuesday that Mr. Putin’s measure could be broadened. Nikolai Levichev, of the party A Just Russia, suggested widening the circle of relatives who would come under scrutiny, noting that there are “multiple cases when a grown son or a niece of some governor or minister is a multimillionaire, in some cases invested in foreign banks.” In their proposal, some legislators had recommended banning Russians from owning real estate overseas as well, but Mr. Putin seems to have set that provision aside.

Foreign bank accounts have traditionally been used by officials as “an instrument for bribetaking,” noted Yevgeny Minchenko, a political analyst, in an interview with the Kommersant FM radio station. But the measure presented Tuesday leaves gaping loopholes, he said, because officials can still keep their money in accounts associated with offshore companies, or under the names of proxies or friends. “It’s clear that any law can be bypassed,” he said.

High-level corruption — and especially lavish spending by Russian officials overseas — has been a perennial theme for Mr. Putin’s critics, and some saw the measure presented on Tuesday as the president’s attempt to claim the issue as his own. Kirill Kabanov, chairman of the National Anticorruption Committee, a watchdog organization, said he believed that Mr. Putin had resolved to wrest control over the financial practices of the elite.

He said officials were being presented with a choice: either leave state service and retain foreign assets, or “stay in the real vertical — but if it becomes clear that in reality you are thinking about how to maintain your life in Côte d’Azur, you will be thrown out of the caste.”

“It’s not a secret to anybody that for many people, the motive for entering state service is to provide for a quiet life beyond the borders of our motherland at the expense of our budget,” he said.

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Christopher Dorner, Fugitive Ex-Cop, in Gun Battle with Police: Report

By Mike Fleeman

02/12/2013 at 04:45 PM EST

Undated photo of Christopher Dorner

LAPD/AP

After an extensive and tense search, authorities believe they found fugitive ex-policeman Christopher Dorner in the Southern California mountains, where a gun battle reportedly broke out Tuesday.

It wasn't immediately known whether Dorner had been apprehended.

Dorner, wanted for allegedly going on a rage-filled vendetta that left three people dead and another wounded, was in a shootout with federal authorities in the Big Bear area, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Two officers have been wounded, a Los Angeles Police Department official tells PEOPLE. Their conditions were not known.

Dorner reportedly broke into a cabin and tied up a couple before stealing their car.

Authorities say Dorner's alleged wave of violence was retribution for having been fired from the LAPD in 2008 after making false statements. Dorner said he would stop the killing when the LAPD publicly proclaimed his innocence and restored his reputation.

Last week, Dorner allegedly fatally shot Monica Quan, 27, and her fiancé, Keith Lawrence in Irvine, Calif., in a vehicle at a parking structure. Quan was the daughter of a former LAPD officer who Dorner claims bungled his termination appeal.

After failing to steal a boat in San Diego, Dorner allegedly attacked more victims – this time, police officers. He allegedly shot at LAPD officers protecting one of his targets, grazing one officer in the head. Dorner was able to escape after shooting up the officers' car.

Thirty minutes later, he allegedly ambushed two officers at an intersection in Riverside, Calif., killing one of them and sending the other to the hospital.

Police then found Dorner's burned-out pickup truck and tracks leading away from the vehicle off a wooded road near Big Bear.

Story developing ...

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.

There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.

"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.

Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.

When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."

One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.

The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."

In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."

"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.

Experts on aging agreed.

"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."

Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.

But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.

"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.

"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.

Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.

In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.

Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.

The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.

Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.

Other leaders who are still working:

—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.

—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.

—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.

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Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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