grow older better

Author: Lynn Dorman, Ph.D.

  • What do we know about active 90-year-olds?

    Almost nothing!

    This news clip is amazing!

    Knowledge about human health outgrew the size of a single textbook long ago. Today our understanding of prenatal health alone could fill a small library, from fetal wound healing to the effects of air pollution, X-rays, even methamphetamines on fetal growth.

    But if you are over the age of 90, the answers are few and far between.
    Ann Johansson/for The Star-LedgerHal Peoples, 94, lawn bowls at the Laguna Woods Village retirement community in Laguna Woods, Calif.

    The efficacy of dialysis for chronic kidney disease? Unknown.

    Heart surgery outcomes? Unknown.

    Risks from colonoscopy, high cholesterol or chemotherapy?

    No one really knows, even though nonagenarians are the fastest-growing age group around the world.

    Full article:
    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/knowledge_about_human_health_o.html

    Why don’t we know? Because no one knows where to find healthy active 90-year-olds….it seems we only know where to find the sicker ones!

    In the USA, we have generally ignored the “real” aging population – focusing instead on our bias that all “old people” are frail, needing help and afraid of doing anything that may lead to getting hurt. So we only look at the frail, weak and less active among the older generations.

    We need to put a major focus on healthy aging and prevention..we are a country obsessed with disease and “cures” but the old saying about that “ounce of prevention” works for all ages. We say we have a health care system but we have a disease care sytem. We need to stop spending all the time and money on cures and start spending on prevention of the problems as well.

    As the article concludes:

    All the cures in the world…will mean little until we understand how and why we age:

    “Let’s say you cure a 70-year-old woman of breast cancer, but she’s frail, she’s in a nursing home and she has Alzheimer’s. Have you really done anything to increase her quality of life?”

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • An open letter to AARP’s Bill Novelli

    Dear Mr. Novelli

    I have emailed you many times about my displeasure at your support of Medicare Part D and a request for an apology. I have sometimes been emailed back that my mail was forwarded to the appropriate department – or some such message [I think of that department as the “round file cabinet” of old – or today’s trash button.]

    I have not mailed you as I assume I’d also just be wasting my time as well trying that method – but after yet another letter from you filled with petitions and the ever present request to send money – I am posting this as an open letter on my blog. You may never see it – but others will.

    Back when you supported Medicare Part D and I call it part D[umb] many of us predicted that costs for medications would sky rocket as would all health/medical costs. You dismissed our concerns and put the full power and credibility of AARP behind YOUR support of Medicare Part D[umb]. And guess what? We, the concerned non-supporters of that measure, were correct.

    In my emails to you since that time I have asked for an apology. None came – I have not even seen you discuss your role in this – but then I don’t read every page of the AARP materials. I’ve also wondered what, if any, were the financial gains to you personally and to AARP – as it sells it’s “name” to some of the very “health care” companies that are constantly raising their rates.

    You keep sending out letters telling me that medical costs are increasing. Duh! I think we all know this. But it’s when you say that health care must be more affordable that you really anger me. See I blame you for a large part of the increased costs of much of this due to your support of Medicare Part D[umb].

    Your recent scare letter with it’s underlined, bolded, and large letters is yet another in the long line of mail that I get from you – all seemingly calculated into scarring us into sending you more money. This is obviously my personal perspective but one that is shared by many I know. And the petition part, along with the request for money comes filled out with my name and/or my name and address.

    What this means to me is that I need to waste more of my time shredding these forms. And while I am on this train of thought – I need to carefully go through your magazines to pull out and shred all the advertising in it, which also has my name and address pre-printed! I mentioned this a friend and she said she just tosses the magazine without reading – so now she too will have to go through and pull out the ads for shredding.

    Add to this the endless junk mail from your advertisers and alleged “health care” partner – also all filled out for me…. and I wonder why you tell us to be careful about identity theft when you seemingly add to the potential for that problem!

    For all these reasons I am no longer an AARP member. I renewed a while ago as I had signed up for your alleged “heath care” partner’s insurance which required that I be a member. That “partner” misrepresented its monthly costs and got downright nasty when I cancelled. But that’s another issue which I’m sure you will ignore.

    Yours truly,

    Lynn Dorman

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • Today my son turns 30!

    If you are a parent – you are likely familiar with one of the following phrases:

    How can my kid be 30? I remember his birth with vivid detail – it couldn’t have been that long ago!
    or
    How can my kid be 30? I haven’t aged 30 years since he was born!

    Him then:

    Him more recently – but he has added a beard since this photo

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • Silent Strokes

    This news is a bit scary if you are over 65.

    Routine brain scans in a group of middle-aged people showed that 10 percent of them had suffered a stroke without knowing it, raising their risk for further strokes and memory loss, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

    People with atrial fibrillation, the most common type of irregular heart beat in people over 65, had more than twice the rate of these silent strokes, they said.

    Silent cerebral infarctions or SCIs are brain injuries caused by a blood clot that interrupts blood flow to the brain….

    The researchers based their findings on routine magnetic resonance imaging or MRI scans from about 2,000 people with an average age of 62.

    Full news article HERE

    This is yet another finding coming from the Framingham study – a very long study that now includes the children of the original particpants. This finding is from those offspring and the researchers found that 10% had a stroke but HAD NO STROKE SYMPTOMS.

    So how do you protect yourself? The study suggests “the need for early detection and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors in midlife.”

    There are many factors over which we have control in our lives and which can help us avoid or lessen the impact of those risk factors. The report does not go into this – but it is fairly well established that healthy eating and exercise are among those factors.

    This is one good reason I tend to post about obesity, healthy eating, exercise and taking nutritional supplements.

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • More on exercising

    Last week after I wrote what I did – my son suggested that maybe it was a need for a different assortment of exercises.

    I went “duh!” of course….bodies, mine, adapt to doing the same exercise on a regular basis…and I was doing the cycling twice a week for more than two years….and even tho the instructor varies the workout each class, I think I was having sameness burnout….but maybe that’s also a part of aging. The instructors and many of the users of the club do the same classes over and over and seem not to burn out.

    The Silver Sneaker classes are too “tame” for me right now but several people I have come to know go to them daily and do not talk of workout burnout – but most of them were never into sports or strenuous exercise when they were younger. So maybe it’s just me or maybe it’s something to do with one category of “people-who-are-aging.” Who knows? – it’s something that I will continue to think about.

    But for now – I have not been to the club to do cycling…instead I have been doing an hour of yoga a day at home [with videos] and taking my dog for long walks. And for the yoga [it’s Iyengar], I am doing a different set of poses each day and spreading them out throughout the day so this too does not fall into a pattern.

    No surprise – I feel more energized and less wrung out by the exercise. Next week I will return to one cycling class for the cardio workout it provides…and I’ll see if I have the same recovery issues…and maybe I’ll take my squash racket and get back to practicing that sport.

    Stay tuned..as I said – we are all learning about aging….

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,