grow older better

Tag: Framingham Study

  • 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,

  • Friends and weight

    One reason I like longitudinal studies [long term/same people] is that researchers can mine the data and find much over the years…even when it wasn’t the original idea of the study.

    The Framingham study is one such a research project. This project followed people in Framingham, Mass for decades beginning in 1948 as the Framingham Heart Study. The health and social data collected is still being analyzed today.

    One of the very recent findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine is based on the large social networks of many the persons who have been part of the study for decades.

    Social and weight data from 1971 to 2003 was analyzed by Harvard researchers who found that you are more likely to become obese if your friends are obese. As one who heard “birds of a feather flock together” from my mother [when she did not like what my friends were doing] this is not a surprise.

    The question was raised as to whether we’d lose weight or be thin if we hung around with skinnier people…the researchers said yes – but they found on the average that most people were gaining as they aged. some think this is inevitable but I do not. I still think it is a myth – we gain if we do not change our eating to stay in balance with our metabolism – and that changes as we age…

    You can be lean at any point in your lifespan…but I guess not if you hang around with obese people.

    Next question? If you choose to get leaner – will that affect your best friend’s weight? I think yes…but you have to do your thing and not get caught up in theirs..and we are social creatures…

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