_ Osteoporosis Fracture Risk Tool Is Flawed By article If you’re between the ages of 40 and 65, or if you’ve ever broken a single bone, the World Health Organization's tool for assessing the likelihood of breaks would underestimate your risk of “fragility fractures” resulting from falls. That is the conclusion of a study done at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada and published in April 2014 published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).
Vision Health Protect Your Eyes During Exercise By Jane Farrell article For many of us, the warmer seasons mean more exercise. And you’re probably taking several safety factors into account: how to protect yourself from dehydration or the sun’s damaging and even deadly rays. We should think about our sight as well. According to the National Institutes of Health, emergency room doctors treated an estimated 42,000 sports-related eye injuries each year. And 90 percent of them, the NIH says, could have been prevented with protective eyewear.
_ Sleep Health Cherry Juice Promotes Better Sleep By article A morning and evening ritual of tart cherry juice may help you sleep better at night. That’s the finding of a study presented on April 28th at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nutrition, which is being held in conjunction with the Experimental Biology 2014 meeting in San Diego Researchers from Louisiana State University found that drinking Montmorency tart cherry juice twice a day for two weeks helped increase sleep time by nearly 90 minutes among older adults with insomnia. The study has been submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
_ Exercise How to Stick With Your Fitness Program By Jane Farrell article By Ken Blanchard and Tim Kearin
_ Heart Health Six Tips to Turn Back the Clock on Your Heart By article By Steven Masley, MD, CNS The first step to avoiding cardiovascular disease, which is the #1 killer of Americans, including women—is understanding how your heart and arteries age. The traditional approach to evaluating heart disease does not address what’s actually happening within your arteries. The single factor that causes most heart problems is not cholesterol per se, but the growth of plaque in your arteries. This is what determine your heart’s true age.
_ Pets End-of-Life Pet Care By Jane Farrell article As any pet owner can tell you, companion animals are part of your family. You love them, you take care of them, you play with them. Someday, though, the inevitable will come: your pet will become seriously ill and pass away. Most pets don’t die suddenly; they usually become ill and linger for a while. How can you make your companion’s last days good ones, and when is it time for him or her to go? The experts at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) have some answers.
_ Targeting Blood Vessels That Keep Cancer Alive By article Researchers from at the University of Pennsylvania are using a DNA vaccine to kill cancer, not by attacking tumor cells but targeting the blood vessels that keep them alive. The vaccine also indirectly creates an immune response to the tumor itself, which amplifies the attack because of a phenomenon called epitope spreading. The results of the study were published in April 2014 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
_ Yoga to Help Control Incontinence By article If you’re prone to bladder accidents, practicing a form of yoga may be the answer to regaining control. That’s the conclusion of a study published on April 25th 2014 in Female Pelvic Medicine & Reconstructive Surgery, the official journal of the American Urogynecologic Society. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco report that a yoga training program designed to improve pelvic health can help women gain more control over their urination and avoid accidental urine leakage.
_ Eating And Exercising: 5 Top Tips By Jane Farrell article Anyone who’s ever had a high-fat meal knows how sluggish it can make you feel. (Thanksgiving dinner, anyone?) To get the most from your exercise routine, you need to eat healthy and nourishing foods. Here, from the Mayo Clinic, are some suggestions: 1. Eat a healthy breakfast
_ CoQ10: How Reliable Is It? By Jane Farrell article Editor’s Note: CoQ10 is a popular supplement that’s said to be effective in fighting everything from congestive heart failure to gum disease. But is it safe, and is there reliable evidence to support these claims? Before you reach for a bottle of CoQ10 on your next trip to the drugstore, read this information from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the federal National Institutes of Health:
_ The Body's Anti-Cancer Weapon By Jane Farrell article Researchers have identified a pathway that works to prevent new cells from getting too many or too few chromosomes. That presence of abnormal numbers of chromosomes has been directly linked to cancer and other serious illnesses. Mark Hall, associate professor of biochemistry, Purdue University, discovered that when cells are nearly finished dividing, the enzyme Cdc14 activates Yen1, another enzyme. Yen1 helps repair the DNA breaks that lead to cancer in cells.
_ Support Group Weight Loss Helps Diabetics By article Weight loss and control of blood sugar can reduce the risk of complications in patients with diabetes but paring off the pounds is difficult for many people. Now a randomized controlled trial of obese adults with type 2 diabetes done at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis suggests that participants enrolled in a community-based structured weight loss program are able to shed more of their excess avoir dupois, improve blood sugar control, and reduce or even eliminate insulin use.
Aging Well We Feel Younger Than Our Years! By Sondra Forsyth article Good news about Boomers and Beyond! The ninth annual 100@100 survey by UnitedHealthcare reported that Americans at age 65 say they feel 55 on average. Not only that, but our hardy centenarians say they feel as though they are 83 “years young” on average, and more than half live independently without the support of a caregiver to help them with their daily activities.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Anxiety Medications as You Age By article Anxiety medications can affect you differently as you age. The National Institutes for Health Senior Health Portal alerts you in to possible problems: The research on treating anxiety disorders in older adults is limited. However, most disorders can be treated with medication or psychotherapy. For some people, a combination of medication and psychotherapy may be the best treatment approach. Antidepressants
Alzheimer's Disease and the Early-Onset Colombian Connection By blog I’m a huge fan of the CBS news show Sunday Morning. It’s 90 minutes of quality programming that I look forward to every week.
Love Your Gums! By article One in every two adults age 30 and older suffers from periodontal disease, commonly referred to as gum disease. The American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) is calling for Americans to Love the Gums You’re With and take better care of their gums. To learn more, take a brief quiz on perio.org/loveyourgumsto evaluate the current state of your gum health, learn the signs and symptoms of periodontal disease, and receive tips on how to properly care for their gums.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Childhood Bullying Still Hurts at 50+ By article Were you bullied as a child? You may still be feeling the negative social, physical and mental health effects. A studydone at King's College London and published in April 2014 in the American Journal of Psychiatry is the first to look at the effects of bullying beyond early adulthood. The findings come from the British National Child Development Study that includes data on all children born in England, Scotland, and Wales during one week in 1958. The 7,771participants were then followed up until the age of 50.
_ Pain Management Relief from Chemo Pain By article Scientists have identified new pain relief targets that could be used to provide relief from chemotherapy-induced pain. Researchers at King's College London made the discovery when investigating how pain occurs in nerves in the periphery of the body. A release from the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council quotes Dr Marzia Malcangio a saying, "We have been investigating and identifying mechanisms underlying pain generation and our findings could help chemotherapy patients who suffer pain related side effects."