Researchers at the University of Surrey in the UK have discovered that the local biological clock and its control are weakened in aging bladders. The study, which explains how the receptors responsible for contractions in the bladder regulate the body’s clock genes, was published August 21st 2014 in The FASEB Journal. The team found that this clock activity in turn regulates the cycle of all cells in the body.
Author: Sondra Forsyth
Sondra Forsyth is Co-Editor-in-Chief of ThirdAge.com. She is a National Magazine Award winner with scores of major magazine bylines and twelve books to her credit. Her most recent book is “Candida Cleanse: The 21-Day Diet to Beat Yeast and Feel Your Best”. Sondra was Executive Editor at “Ladies’ Home Journal,” Features Editor at “Cosmopolitan,” and Articles Editor at “Bride’s”. A former ballerina, she founded Ballet Ambassadors, an arts-in-education company in New York City, and served as Artistic Director for 16 years.
Pomegranate Tx for AD, PD, & RA
The onset of Alzheimer’s disease can be slowed and some of its symptoms curbed by a natural compound that is found in pomegranates, according to the findings of a two-year project headed by scientist Dr. Olumayokun Olajide, at the University of Huddersfield in the UK. Also, the painful inflammation that accompanies illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and Parkinson’s disease could be reduced by the pomegranate drug. The study was published in August 2014 in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research.
ThirdAge Health Close-Up: “I Felt Like I Was Buried Alive”
As told to Sherry Amatenstein, LCSW
On October 17, 2010 shortly after her 49th birthday Allison O’Reilly didn’t feel like herself. The McLean, Virginia author of Out of Darkness explains, “My left arm hurt all day. I took Advil. That night the room started spinning, my ears were ringing, and I felt really sick.”
Epidemics and the Global Village
By Bill Miller MD
The agitating Ebola emergency has captured headlines. There are some who undoubtedly assume that this kind of epidemic is unusual. However, localized epidemic disease has been a part of the biological system of the planet since the origin of life. Pandemics in which the spread of disease can encompass a continent or the world are just as ancient a process.
Coming Next Week! August 25th to August 29th 2014
Here’s a sneak preview of the articles, slideshows, and blogs we’ll be posting during the coming week on ThirdAge, the biggest and best site for “boomer and beyond” women since 1997. As always, we’ll bring you the latest information from top experts about maintaining a healthy body, mind, and spirit as you navigate both the challenges and the joys of being a ThirdAger.
Smartphone-Loss Anxiety
The smart phone has changed our behavior, sometimes for the better because we are now able to connect and engage with many more people than ever before, but sometimes for the worse in that we may have become over-reliant on the connectivity with the outside world that these devices afford us. Either way, there is no going back for the majority of users who can almost instantaneously connect with hundreds if not thousands of people through the various social media and other applications available on such devices as well as through the humble phone call.
Why the Elderly Have Trouble Sleeping
As people grow older, they often have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, and tend to awaken too early in the morning. In people with Alzheimer’s disease, this common and troubling symptom of aging tends to be especially pronounced, often leading to nighttime confusion and wandering.
Perspectives on Breast Reconstruction
Less than 42 percent of women underwent breast reconstruction following a mastectomy for cancer, and the factors associated with foregoing reconstruction included being black, having a lower education level and being older. That is the finding of Monica Morrow, M.D., of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues who published their results online August 20th 2014 JAMA Surgery.
Staying Smoke Free After Hospital Discharge
Smokers admitted to U.S. hospitals can’t smoke during their stay and could use this time as an opportunity to quit, but few are able to stay smoke-free after returning home. Now a study done at Massachusetts General Hospital and published in the August 20th 2014 issue of JAMA describes a program that increased the proportion of hospitalized smokers who successfully quit smoking after discharge by more than 70 percent.
Seafood Substitutions High In Mercury
New measurements from fish purchased at retail seafood counters in 10 different states show the extent to which mislabeling can expose consumers to unexpectedly high levels of mercury, a harmful pollutant.
Fishery stock “substitutions”—which falsely present a fish of the same species, but from a different geographic origin—are the most dangerous mislabeling offense, according to research by University of Hawai’i at Mānoa scientists and published in August 2014 in PLOS One.
Love Makes Sex Better for Most Women
Love and commitment can make sex physically more satisfying for many women, according to research done by at Penn State Abington, a commonwealth campus of the Pennsylvania State University.
Outpatient Urology Surgery Ups Deaths Risk
As hospitals have shifted an array of common urological surgeries from inpatient procedures to outpatient, potentially preventable deaths have increased following complications.
Those were the primary findings of a study led by Henry Ford Hospital researchers in Detroit. The paper was published online in August 2014 by BJUI, the official journal of the British Association of Urological Surgeons. The investigators initially expected that improved mortality rates recently documented for surgery overall would also translate to commonly performed urologic surgeries.
Daughters, Not Sons, Are the Caregivers
Researchers at Princeton University found women appear to provide as much elderly parent care as they can, while men contribute as little as possible. The study was presented in August 2014 at at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco.
5 Food-Drug Interactions You Want to Avoid
By Leah Shainhouse
You have heard it again and again: Adapt to a healthy lifestyle. If you make sure to eat well, a plethora of diseases can be prevented or managed. However, there are times when you walk into your doctor’s office, either for a routine check-up or for some sort of ache or pain and you have no choice. You walk out with another prescription, whether it is to help lower your cholesterol, control your blood pressure or fight off an infection.
Connection is the Key to Positive Personal Relationships
By Lynne D’Amico, PhD
You can improve communication without improving a relationship, but you can’t create connection without improving a relationship.
Communication has been hailed as a “holy grail” to interpersonal relationships, and is routinely promoted as the way to improve relationships between spouses, children, parents, and work colleagues. As years of research show, communication is definitely an important dimension of any relationship. But communication isn’t the key to fixing relationship problems. Connection is.
Cholesterol Drug Good for Diabetic Women’s Hearts
The cholesterol-lowering drug fenofibrate cuts cardiovascular disease risks by 30 per cent in women with type-2 diabetes, according to a study done at th University of Sydney in Australia and published in August 2014 in Diabetologia.
A release from the university quotes study chairman Professor Tony Keech as saying, “The finding is good news for women. The study shows that fenofibrate reduced the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, or having a stroke or other adverse cardiovascular event by 30 per cent in women and 13 per cent in men.”
Doctors & Patients Making Decisions Together
Shared decision-making is a concept that’s gaining traction in medicine, particularly in areas of health care, where patients are presented with more than one reasonable treatment option. The programs, which feature patient-education tools such as online surveys and videos, have several goals. One is to help people thoroughly understand their choices and assure them that they are making informed decisions.
Those with Not Long to Live Still Get Screenings for Cancer
A substantial number of older patients with limited life expectancy continue to receive routine screenings for prostate, breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer although the procedures are unlikely to benefit them, according to the authors of a study done at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by Trevor J. Royce, M.D., M.S. and colleagues.