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Britain Urges Parties, Volunteering to Accompany Coronation

Britain's King Charles III visits the kitchen inside the headquarters of cereal manufacturer Kellogg's marking its 100th anniversary in Manchester, England, Friday Jan. 20, 2023. (AP)
Britain's King Charles III visits the kitchen inside the headquarters of cereal manufacturer Kellogg's marking its 100th anniversary in Manchester, England, Friday Jan. 20, 2023. (AP)
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Britain Urges Parties, Volunteering to Accompany Coronation

Britain's King Charles III visits the kitchen inside the headquarters of cereal manufacturer Kellogg's marking its 100th anniversary in Manchester, England, Friday Jan. 20, 2023. (AP)
Britain's King Charles III visits the kitchen inside the headquarters of cereal manufacturer Kellogg's marking its 100th anniversary in Manchester, England, Friday Jan. 20, 2023. (AP)

Buckingham Palace plans a weekend of community events and voluntarism to mark the coronation of King Charles III, looking to highlight the monarchy’s links to the nation when Britain crowns a new sovereign for the first time in 70 years.

The plans were revealed Saturday when the palace released the schedule for the three-day coronation weekend, which will begin with the crowning of Charles and Camilla, the queen consort, on Saturday, May 6.

The ceremony at Westminster Abbey will be preceded by a procession from Buckingham Palace to the abbey. It will be followed by another procession, in which Charles and Camilla will be joined by other members of the royal family, and an appearance on the palace balcony.

But there will be more to the weekend than crowns, scepters and ermine robes.

The palace wants the coronation to demonstrate that the monarchy still has a role to play in a multicultural nation struggling to deal with a cost-of-living crisis, budget cuts and a wave of strikes by public-sector workers.

While there was widespread respect for Queen Elizabeth II, as demonstrated by the tens of thousands of people who waited hours to file past her coffin after she died in September, there is no guarantee that reverence will transfer to her eldest son.

The coronation will be a solemn service presided over by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, but the palace also plans a weekend of events that highlight the various communities and cultures that contribute to modern Britain.

The palace is asking neighborhoods around the nation to take part in the “Coronation Big Lunch” on Sunday, May 7 — the latest incarnation of the block parties that have become a staple of big royal celebrations.

That night there will be a concert at Windsor Castle featuring a choir drawn from amateur troupes across the United Kingdom, including refugee choirs, National Health Service choirs, and deaf signing choirs. The “Coronation Choir” will perform alongside another one made up of singers from across the Commonwealth who will appear virtually during the televised concert that will also include as yet undisclosed headliners.

During the concert, locations across the country will be lit up using projections, lasers and drone displays.

The next day, the palace is inviting people around the country to take part in “The Big Help Out,” encouraging them to volunteer in their own communities.

“The Big Help Out will encourage people to try volunteering for themselves and join the work being undertaken to support their local areas,” the palace said in a statement. “The aim of The Big Help Out is to use volunteering to bring communities together and create a lasting volunteering legacy from the coronation weekend.”

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Blood Tests Allow 30-year Estimates of Women's Cardio Risks, New Study Says

A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Blood Tests Allow 30-year Estimates of Women's Cardio Risks, New Study Says

A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A woman jogs in a park in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire near Nantes, France January 19, 2024. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

Women’s heart disease risks and their need to start taking preventive medications should be evaluated when they are in their 30s rather than well after menopause as is now the practice, said researchers who published a study on Saturday.

Presenting the findings at the European Society of Cardiology annual meeting in London, they said the study showed for the first time that simple blood tests make it possible to estimate a woman’s risk of cardiovascular disease over the next three decades.

"This is good for patients first and foremost, but it is also important information for (manufacturers of) cholesterol lowering drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, and lipoprotein(a)lowering drugs - the implications for therapy are broad," said study leader Dr. Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Reuters reported.

Current guidelines “suggest to physicians that women should generally not be considered for preventive therapies until their 60s and 70s. These new data... clearly demonstrate that our guidelines need to change,” Ridker said. “We must move beyond discussions of 5 or 10 year risk."

The 27,939 participants in the long-term Women’s Health Initiative study had blood tests between 1992 and 1995 for low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C or “bad cholesterol”), which are already a part of routine care.

They also had tests for high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) - a marker of blood vessel inflammation - and lipoprotein(a), a genetically determined type of fat.

Compared to risks in women with the lowest levels of each marker, risks for major cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes over the next 30 years were 36% higher in women with the highest levels of LDL-C, 70% higher in women with the highest levels of hsCRP, and 33% higher in those with the highest levels of lipoprotein(a).

Women in whom all three markers were in the highest range were 2.6 times more likely to have a major cardiovascular event and 3.7 times more likely to have a stroke over the next three decades, according to a report of the study in The New England Journal of Medicine published to coincide with the presentation at the meeting.

“The three biomarkers are fully independent of each other and tell us about different biologic issues each individual woman faces,” Ridker said.

“The therapies we might use in response to an elevation in each biomarker are markedly different, and physicians can now specifically target the individual person’s biologic problem.”

While drugs that lower LDL-C and hsCRP are widely available - including statins and certain pills for high blood pressure and heart failure - drugs that reduce lipoprotein(a) levels are still in development by companies, including Novartis , Amgen , Eli Lilly and London-based Silence Therapeutics.

In some cases, lifestyle changes such as exercising and quitting smoking can be helpful.

Most of the women in the study were white Americans, but the findings would likely “have even greater impact among Black and Hispanic women for whom there is even a higher prevalence of undetected and untreated inflammation,” Ridker said.

“This is a global problem,” he added. “We need universal screening for hsCRP ... and for lipoprotein(a), just as we already have universal screening for cholesterol.”