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

Need dental work?

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dental workGet Dental Work Before You Retire

by Kim Blanton, Squared Away Blog

March 9, 2017

“Caps, gum surgeries, implants, dental exotica – all kinds of things can and do go wrong in retirees’ mouths.

dental workBut dental coverage also drops sharply for older Americans, because when people retire, they give up their employer’s dental insurance. Without it, retirees needing dental work can face an unexpected, mini financial crisis.

Medicare does not cover routine dental procedures, a fact that a majority of working baby boomers are unaware of. But most seniors also aren’t covered through a spouse or under, say, a union dental insurance plan for retirees. The private dental insurance market is their only option for care, and very few purchase it.

Uninsured older Americans shell out $1,126 annually, on average, for dental work, which is $400 more than people with coverage spend. Out-of-pocket costs can be much higher in a year when extensive work is required.

There is also a hidden cost to not being covered.  Failing to deal with dental problems can cause other serious illnesses, from malnutrition to heart trouble.”

Read more about getting dental work

Blueberry supplements provide benefits

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blueberry supplements
naturalnews.com

Concentrated blueberry supplement increases cognitive function in older adults, study finds

March 7, 2017

“Drinking concentrated blueberry juice improves brain function in older people, according to research by the University of Exeter.

In the study, healthy people aged 65-77 who drank concentrated blueberry juice every day showed improvements in cognitive function, blood flow to the brain and activation of the brain while carrying out cognitive tests.

There was also evidence suggesting improvement in working memory.”

Read more

Medication management

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medication management
healthline.com

Preventing medication mismanagement

Canadian Pharmacists Association

March 5, 2017

“Medication management is an important issue for seniors and their families. Failure to properly manage medications can threaten the lives of seniors, highlighting the emphasis families must place on ensuring seniors take their medications in strict adherence to their instructions.

Polypharmacy, or the taking of multiple medications for different conditions, can be a potential health hazard for the thousands of seniors who must manage health conditions with prescription drugs. Harmful drug interactions are a result of the confusion that can arise when seniors take multiple medications at the same time. The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists estimates that more than 34 percent of senior citizens are prescribed medications by more than one physician and 72 percent use medications they were prescribed more than six months prior. Many people also have begun ‘pharmacy shopping’ to save money. According to a study published in 2010 in American Nurse Today, 44 percent of men and 57 percent of women older than age 65 take five or more medications per week, with some taking as many as 10.

Medication confusion is one risk, but older adults also metabolize medications differently than young people. As a result, they may be more susceptible to overdose or other ill effects. Families looking to help seniors effectively manage their medications should consider the following tips.

• Keep a running list of medications. Maintain a list of all medications being taken, noting both prescription and over-the-counter medications and any supplements and herbs. Provide a copy to any new doctors you visit and any new pharmacies you patronize.”

More tips

Build humor into your day

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humor
kaiser health news

Laughing Until You Die

Humor May Be Antidote For Pain Of Death For Patients, Survivors

By Bruce Horovitz, For Kaiser Health News,

“Just weeks before Christmas some years ago, Shirley Rapp and her family faced the devastating news that she had what appeared to be a terminal illness.

But that didn’t stop Rapp from wanting to do one last round of Christmas shopping for her kids. Her daughter, Karyn Buxman, a self-described neurohumorist and RN, went along. When the mother-daughter duo stepped into a St. Louis-area stationery store, Rapp picked up a day planner that she admired, turned to her daughter and quipped: ‘If I make it past Jan. 1, will you buy this one for me?’

That’s when Mom and daughter burst into laughter that attracted every eye in the store.

For some folks, the process of dying comes with less stress when it’s something of a laughing matter. Not a yuk-yuk laughing matter. But, at its simplest, a willingness to occasionally make light of the peculiarities — if not absurdities — that often go hand-in-hand with end-of-life situations.

An aging generation of boomers, the oldest of whom are now 70, grew up to the background sounds of TV laugh tracks and are accustomed to laughing at things that might not always seem so funny. There’s even a non-profit organization funded by donors, conference revenue and membership dues, whose mission is simply reminding people that laughter is a core ingredient of all facets of life — even end of life (emphasis added).

‘Laughter is the best medicine,’ says Mary Kay Morrison, president of the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor, ‘unless you have diarrhea.'”

On its website, the National Cancer Institute urges patients to build humor into their day-to-day lives, in ways as small as buying a funny desk calendar and watching comic films and TV shows.

Read more about building humor into your day

When was the last time you had some outdoor therapy?

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I love the outdoors, especially the Colorado outdoors.  I am blessed to live within an hour of the Rocky Mountain National Park since hiking is one of my favorite hobbies. I feel closer to God when I hike and, besides the exercise and sense of accomplishment, I feel at peace.  The following article may give you a reason to enjoy some outdoor therapy:

…a walk in the country reduced depression in 71 percent of participants…

outdoor therapy
Photo by Dennis Smith / Reporter-Herald

The peace of wild places makes us happier, healthier

By Dennis Smith, Loveland Reporter-Herald
January 4, 2017
“I don’t know how many other outdoor lovers feel it, but I’m sure most do — even if they don’t recognize it for what it is. ‘It’ is the peace of wild places. And, in my opinion, the grandest form of emotional and physical therapy.

The subject came up on a deer hunting trip to the Platte River bottoms in eastern Colorado last month, but invariably, it comes up almost every time the boys and I hit the open road to go hunting, fishing or camping.

And it always comes up just about the time we cross into that zone where the signs of civilization begin to thin and where mountains and trees, deer and elk, or farms and ranches, cattle and coyotes begin to appear and the nerve-grating cacophony of cars, trucks, train horns, shopping malls, traffic signals and city lights vanish in the rear-view mirror.”

Read more about “peace of wild places”

Dennis Smith is a Loveland outdoors writer and photographer, and his freelance work is published nationally. Smith’s Home Waters column appears on the first and third Thursdays of the month.  He can be reached at Dsmith7136@msn.com.  Reprinted by permission.