Health

Improve your digestion

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Improve your digestionStomach Trouble? 5 Steps Help Prevent Digestive Problems as You Age

Medications, inactivity, poor diet may all play a role

By Digestion Health Team at the Cleveland Clinic, June 13, 2017

“The ‘tummy aches’ you may have had as a child can evolve into a long list of digestive problems as you age. They’re annoying, but the good news is that things like acid reflux and constipation are irritations that you can treat. Often, simple lifestyle changes will do the trick.

‘Many older adults fixate on their gastrointestinal problems,’ says gastroenterologist Maged Rizk, MD. ‘The gastrointestinal tract ages with the rest of us. I tell patients not to get too upset by it.’

Older adults and digestive ailments

Medicine, inactivity and even gravity all can take their toll and contribute to digestive troubles as you get older, Dr. Rizk says.

Here, according to Dr. Rizk, are the main culprits and the symptoms they cause:

  • Multiple medications — These may cause a variety of gastrointestinal issues, including constipation, diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and bleeding ulcers.
  • Inactivity and dehydration — These issues are more common as you age and they can make constipation worse.
  • Gravity — Over time the diaphragm can sink, causing decreased support where the esophagus joins the stomach (a hiatal hernia). And it typically causes heartburn and reflux. Medication often helps, but surgery is sometimes needed.
  • A weakened sphincter muscle, sedentary lifestyle and chronic constipation — These all may contribute to cause hemorrhoids, which are swollen veins in the lower gastrointestinal tract. Hemorrhoids are common in older adults.”

Read 5 steps to improve your digestion and more

Note:  I never thought I would be putting a picture of a toilet on this webpage. 🙂

Are you getting enough protein?

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Protein important to repairing, rebuilding muscle tissue

protein
authoritynutrition.com

By Marnie Walth, Bismarck Tribune

May 24, 2017

“One of my favorite wellness tips from my sister, Sherri, a sports nutrition guru, is to drink chocolate milk after a race or a hard workout. There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about chocolate milk other than it’s a delicious, convenient delivery system for what my body needs to repair and rebuild depleted muscle tissue — carbohydrates and protein.

Lowfat chocolate milk inexpensively delivers what expensive sports recovery drinks try to do — a drinkable four-to-one ratio of carbohydrate and protein grams. The 4:1 punch precisely provides the right dose of carbohydrates needed to transport sugar into muscles, where it becomes glycogen (energy storage) and protein to stimulate muscle repair and growth.

…There is perhaps less understanding around protein and its role in maintaining key body functions. In addition to building and repairing muscle tissue, protein is key to making enzymes, hormones and other body chemicals and is a building block of bones, cartilage, skin and blood.

Warning signs that you’re not getting enough protein include low energy, slow muscle recovery after exercise, hair loss, reduced strength, declining bone density and a weakened immune system.”

Read more about the RDA and protein-rich foods

Vitamin D supplements – Do you need them?

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Vitamin D only strengthens bone in those with significant vit D deficiencyVitamin D supplements

May 16, 2017

“An international study of older adults has found that mass, untargeted provision of vitamin D supplements provides little clinical benefit to many when it comes to the common bone disease,  osteoporosis. Instead, the study recommends targeting vitamin D supplements at individuals whose levels of this vitamin are markedly reduced.

The results of the study – carried out by researchers at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA – were announced today by Professor Ian R. Reid at ECTS 2017, the 44th European Calcified Tissue Society Congress being held in Salzburg, Austria.

Professor Reid said: ‘We know that severe vitamin D deficiency causes osteomalacia, yet trials in the community have not consistently shown that vitamin D supplements improve older adults’ bone density or reduce the risk of fracture. So we set out to determine whether a higher dose of vitamin D influences bone density or whether benefit is dependent on the level of vitamin D already present in the individual.'”

Read more

Osteoporosis is preventable

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Osteoporosis
medicalnewstoday.com

Take steps to improve bone health before osteoporosis becomes problematic

By Dr. Jessica Pennington, Lexington Herald Leader

May 5, 2017

“Osteoporosis is a common bone disease that occurs most often in older adults. It makes bones weak and more likely to fracture due to a deficiency in calcium and vitamin D. Nearly 10 million Americans are currently suffering from osteoporosis. It is important for older adults to take measures to improve bone health and prevent osteoporosis-related injury.

Bones are living, growing tissues that are constantly regenerating. They are structured like a honeycomb, with intricate gaps and spaces. With osteoporosis, the spaces in the bone structure are much larger than in a healthy bone. These bones become porous and less dense, so they weaken and are more likely to fracture.

Osteoporosis often has no symptoms. People with this disease cannot feel their bones getting weaker, and many people do not know they have osteoporosis until they experience a fracture, which most often occurs in the hip, spine or wrist. These can be caused by falling or bumping into an object, or in severe cases, from simple movements like sneezing or hugging.”

Nearly one in two women and one in four men over the age of 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis.

Read more about improving bone health

When should antidepressants be prescribed?

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Research Snapshot: Depression screening in older adultsantidepressants

Erin McHenry
April 24, 2017

“The number of antidepressants prescribed in the U.S. is skyrocketing as more primary care providers give antidepressants to patients even though many of them don’t have a psychiatric diagnosis.

A group of University of Minnesota researchers set out to study how that trend might be affecting older adults.

‘We found that physicians were less likely to prescribe unnecessary antidepressants when they screened their patients for depression,’ said Greg Rhee, Ph.D., M.S.W., primary author of the study affiliated with the College of Pharmacy.

The study looked at adults age 65 or older.

The study, recently published in Preventive Medicine, utilized data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. It surveyed primary care physicians to randomly sample over 9,000 visits made among older adults in 2010-2012.”

Out of 9,313 visits analyzed in Rhee’s study, only 209 included a depression screening.

Find out more

BRiTE Program aids adults with mild memory loss

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BRiTE ProgramInnovative program aids older adults with mild memory loss

By Tony Dearing, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

April 24, 2017

“Two days a week, Jennie Dorris raises her baton to help an unlikely group of musicians melodize their way to better brain health.

Few of her students have previous musical training. Their concern is more medical. They’ve been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, and the marimba lessons she leads on Mondays and Fridays are part of an innovative wellness program designed to help slow their memory loss.

Research has shown music can be instrumental (pun intended) in keeping our mind sharp as we age.

So when scientists at the University of Pittsburgh set out to create a program aimed specifically at people with MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment), the idea of including a marimba class struck the right chord.

‘We chose these types of instruments because they are very visual, and you can sort of feel like you’re playing a game while you’re learning a melody,’ Dorris says. ‘This is a really unique way to connect with people who want to work on their memory.'”

Read more and view video demonstration

Do you take an afternoon nap?

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afternoon nap
end-your-sleep-deprivation.com

Afternoon Naps May Help Preserve Memory for Older Adults, Study Says

By Fran Kritz, Neurology News

April 11, 2017

“For people 65 and older, a daytime nap just after lunch and for at least an hour may be just the thing to preserve memory and cognition. That’s according to a new study published online in the December 20, 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Previous studies found cognitive declines in some people 65 and older, as well as an increase in afternoon napping among some older people. Researchers at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and School of Nursing wondered if there was a relationship between the two, says Junxin Li, RN, PhD, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral research fellow at the center.

Dr. Li says earlier studies showed that 22 to 69 percent of older adults take daytime naps, a much higher rate than younger people, and that in China a post-lunch nap is considered part of a healthy lifestyle.

Nap-Cognition Link

After accounting for differences in age, education, and general health, researchers found a correlation between naps and performances on cognitive assessments. Participants who took an hour nap after lunch did better on the cognitive tests compared to the people who did not nap or who took either shorter or longer naps. Significantly, people who took no naps, short naps, or longer naps had decreases in their mental ability that were four-to-six times greater than those who took one-hour naps. Those decreases in ability were about the same as would be expected for someone about five years older than each participants’ actual age, according to the researchers.

Dr. Li calls the results ‘intriguing’ but acknowledges that the results show an association between napping and cognitive ability rather than a causal effect. The team plans more studies to see if a causal relationship exists.”

Read more about afternoon naps