healthy living for women + their families
From the Mayo Clinic
If you have a chronic disease — such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, or back or joint pain — exercise can have important health benefits. However, it's crucial to talk to your doctor before starting an exercise routine. He or she might have advice on what exercises are safe and any precautions you might need to take while exercising.
How can exercise improve a chronic condition?
Regular exercise can help you manage symptoms and improve your health. For example:
Scientists have discovered how a lack of oxygen can interact with inflammation to cause memory loss in conditions like stroke and Alzheimer’s disease.
The research, from the University of British Columbia, focused on microglia, part of a newly discovered brain mechanism that contributes to Alzheimer’s.
Chronic inflammation and oxygen deficiency are hallmarks of several brain diseases. But until now, there hasn’t been much known about how they contribute to symptoms such as memory loss.
About 20 percent of older Americans with chronic conditions are taking medicines that work against each other, according to a new study. In other words, the medication being used to treat one condition can make another condition worse.
The problem affects millions of Americans, since three out of four older adults have multiple chronic conditions.
Cases of skin infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) have increased greatly since the early 2000s. Skin abscesses such pus-filled boils or pimples with discharge characterize these infections, according to a March 12th 2014 release from the University of California, Los Angeles written by Rachel Champeau. She reports the more virulent form of the infection can result in potentially lethal conditions including necrotizing pneumonia, fasciitis, and sepsis.
A low-cost program reduced falls in the elderly by 17 percent statewide in Pennsylvania, according to a study done at University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health available online in March 2014 and slated to be published in the May 2014 issue of the American Journal of Public Health The researchers demonstrated the value and effectiveness of using existing aging services such as senior centers in preventing falls.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center have assessed the impact of the 2012 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations against routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) cancer screenings. The 2012 report cited evidence that the risks of screening outweigh the benefits. Results of the current study indicate that the USPSTF recommendations have resulted in a decrease in the number of PSA screenings ordered by doctors, with the greatest decline seen among urologists.
Same-day bilateral knee replacement surgery is safe for select patients with rheumatoid arthritis, according to researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
Here's another addition to our Third Age video collection. Press play to start learning!
By Sherrie Campbell
Is food your “frenemy?” Food can be the best friend and comfort you have when you are down or just want to feel something because you are bored. Yet after you eat, you’re consumed with self-loathing. Suddenly, food is the enemy. This is no way to live or to let something outside of you have this much control over how you feel about yourself.
It’s not a simple issue, but you can start having a better relationship with food – and yourself – if you understand all the complexities involved:
Having a high level of self-esteem in older adulthood can have a positive effect on physical as well as mental health, new research shows.
A study by researchers from Concordia University in Montreal analyzed responses from 147 adults aged 60 and older to measure their self-esteem, stress and symptoms of depression every 24 months over four years. The investigators also measured the levels of cortisol, a hormone that’s released when stress levels are high.
There’s a new clinical design to determine whether medicines designed for cats are actually doing the job.
In designing the new method, researchers from North Carolina State worked to overcome the “placebo effect” in a pain-management study of cats. Evaluating the effectiveness of a medicine is difficult when it comes to cats, who may not reveal the pain they are suffering and who also are resistant to taking medication.
The Magnet Recognition Program operated by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, which recognizes healthcare organizations that provide excellence in nursing.
A team of cardiovascular researchers from at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NewYork and the University of California, San Diego have identified a small but powerful new player in the onset and progression of heart failure. Their findings, published in the journal Nature on March 12th 2014, also show how they successfully blocked the newly discovered culprit to halt the debilitating and chronic life-threatening condition in its tracks.
A large team of experts led by a Johns Hopkins geriatrician reports that efforts to improve the care of older adults and others with complex medical needs will fall short unless public policymakers focus not only on preventing hospital readmission rates, but also on better coordination of community-based "care transitions." Lessons learned from managing such transitions for older patients, they say, may offer a framework for overall improvement.
Having a big belly has consequences beyond trouble squeezing into your jeans, published in the March 2014 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The researchers say that a large waist is detrimental to your health, even if you have a healthy body mass index (BMI). The finding come form a new international collaborative study led by a Mayo Clinic researcher found.
On March 5th 2014, I posted an item on ThirdAge.com that dealt with the misleading title of a press release that went viral: “Meat and cheese may be as bad as smoking”. The study the release referred to actually showed that for people over 65, animal protein is protective.
Women between the ages of 45 and 65 with rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis resulting from an injury are among the patients most likely to experience serious pain following a knee replacement, according to researchers from Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
Many people have fillers injected into their facial tissue to give them “bee-stung lips” or to smooth out their wrinkles. Unfortunately, a lot of cosmetic treatment customers experience unpleasant side effects in the form of tender subcutaneous lumps that are difficult to treat and which – in isolated cases – have led to lesions that simply will not heal.
