Sea Crest Health Care Center

According to Jarett Berry, a cardiologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, one must be vigilant about keeping physically active. Yes, in what they used to call “Middle Age.”  Wasn’t that the time we thought would be a little slower, a tad less “vigorous,” an entitlement to ease up a bit? Not if you want to hit 85 says the good Dr. “If you are fit in mid-life, you double your chance of surviving to 85.”

Dr. Berry’s findings, presented last week in San Francisco at the American Heart Association’s Annual Epidemiology and Prevention Conference, are based on an analysis of 1,765 men and women who had physical examinations performed during the 1970’s and 1980’s at the Cooper Institute, the Dallas-based birthplace of the aerobics movement. Put another way: If you’re not fit in your 50’s, your projected life span “is eight years shorter than if you are fit,” Dr. Berry says.

So regular exercise is the most cogent weapon we have to ward off illness and fight disease- as it results in lower blood pressure, healthier cholesterol, and lower blood sugar.

Rest assured… there is a silver lining to all this before you start jogging, digging ditches, or playing singles tennis:  Studies also indicate that exercise’s greatest impact occurs when individuals move from a sedentary lifestyle to embarking on regular moderate exercise regimens.

That’s encouraging. You go, Girl!

So we gals thought we had an inherent biological superiority when it came to longevity. It now appears that women, though likely to live longer than men, are are up to two and a half times more likely to suffer from disabilities

Researchers at the Duke University Medical Center found that women, 65 and over, are more likely to suffer arthritis and obesity which account for up to 48% of the gender gap in disability, and most often, loss of their independence in their old age.

“The reason for this discrepancy in disability has not been well understood, but we found that chronic health conditions that women experience in greater numbers than men may explain part of that gap,” says Harvey Jay Cohen, MD, senior author of the study and director of Duke’s Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.

Women have a natural tendency to gain more weight than men over their life span, but they may be more motivated to work harder to maintain a healthy weight “if they realize that those extra pounds make it more likely that they will be disabled in later years, potentially becoming a burden to their children or requiring a nursing home.”

The staff sat expectantly around the conference table as I pressed the YouTube link to Britain’s Got Talent. “What’s Ruthy doing now?” was surely the predominant cognitive thread… Obvious emotion filled the room as they watched Susan Boyle upend the world with her other-wordly voice… And as outraged as they were at the sneers and cynicism evinced by smug audience members at the sight of the plain-Jane, ungainly elderly woman (was she really only in her forties?), they could not honestly separate their pre-conceived negative expectations, and later, amazement , upon hearing the beatific voice emerge.

We may not be proud of it, but all of us are subject to a whole host of factors influencing our responses to people and the objects we introduce to our lives. Scientists have long categorized the elements of universally perceived beauty, and libraries are filled with our less than laudable embrace of the visually pleasing over the simple and unattractive.

And what happens when a remarkable sensation explodes on the zeitgeist of millions of people around the world-probably one of the most prolific viral emails ever? Does she remain as visually unremarkable and we, as a society learn to love her- gray, frizzy hair and all?

Not a chance! Marketers got a hold of her real quickly, and cognizant that her future was linked to her marketability, launched the new and repackaged talent—new hairdo, clothes and all- to an adoring, receptive world!

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By: Ruth Folger Weiss

My brother’s early morning email message was cryptic: “Bobbo, see Page 1 of The Wall St. Journal.” Not known for spouting endearments,and having received more than my share of ribbing for the moniker I chose when my children were delivering their’s,  I was curious to see what he was alluding to.

I still couldn’t understand why  friends and family had  seemed enormously tickled  by my creative appellation; winking at my proclivity for the ostensibly hip even when it came to my  morphing into grandparenthood.

So I indulged in what was a frisson of delight reading Anne Zimmerman’s Page 1 feature in the WSJ:
“A Grandma or Grandpa by Any Other Name is Just as Old”,  Boomers Want to Pick What Grandkids Call Them: Meet Glamma and Pap Doc

Here’s the affirmation I  needed that it wasn’t just a marketer’s need to brand myself, but a representative trend of Boomers to attempt to defy the gravitational pull of  aging and to put our imprimatur on everything related to our lives.  We’re deciding what fifty today looks like, and if that means being more physically fit and well-coiffed than anyone else in history, so be it.  We’re grateful and delighted our kids are having some more of the same, and love every moment of interaction with each amazing prodigy that is gifted our way  but we’ve  got to calibrate the perspective…and “Bobbo” is who’ve I’ve chosen to be to these wonderful children who happen to be our wonderful grandchildren.

Experts in the field of aging are not surprised that baby boomers are seeking creative ways to avoid wrinkly sounding labels. “That whole generation is reinventing old age,” says Tom Nelson, chief operating officer of AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.

AARP’s marketing department has had to devise new ways of talking to boomers so as not to alienate them by making them feel old. The association’s magazine was called Modern Maturity for decades and two years ago was renamed AARP The Magazine. “We have put some iconic boomers on the cover, and their take on aging and all the great work they are doing reflects how aging isn’t something that has to be dreaded,” Mr. Nelson says.

So not intentionally wishing to brand myself, this marketing executive was keenly aware that  cognitive association is deeply rooted in the names we choose and the mantles we wear.  Just didn’t realize that this Bobbo  was at the forefront of another revolution!

by Jose Sonik
With aging, comes reduced hormone levels. Does reversing the hormone levels reverse aging?
Not exactly, but it might come close.
Human growth hormone is a hormone that predominantly increases height. While doing so, it also increases muscle mass and bone density. HGH is at its highest levels during childhood and puberty. As we mature, the levels decrease, beginning a sharp decline at around age 30. At around that time, bone density declines, muscle mass reduces, and physical disorders like diabetes increase.
Until now, some of the more desperate aging generation have taken HGH in the hope of reversing aging, but research has not corroborated their theory.
But now, something new is in the air. According to Natalie Angier of the NY Times: “In a clinical trial of 21 healthy men ranging in age from 61 to 81, researchers found that after six months of injections of a genetically engineered version of the natural body hormone, the men emerged with bodies that by many measures were almost 20 years younger than the ones they started with.”
Aging was measured only in the distribution of body weight. The men were found to have increased muscle mass and decreased fat. The scientists hypothesize that some bulk went to internal organs, which shrink with age, but aren’t sure. The men’s skin also increased in thickness and youth, and bone density increased.
Of course, the significance of this improvement is debatable. HGH is known to increase muscles mass and reduce fat, but without really increasing strength. And what’s the point of muscle without strength? Similarly, the change in appearance was not correlated to an increase in performance of organs or body.
And as with all drugs, there were the side effects. HGH can cause swelling in the face, arms, and legs; arthritis; diabetes; hardened arteries, high blood pressure, and heart failure; and abnormal growth of bones and organs, among others.

by Ruth Folger Weiss

Add this to your  “it’s nice to know” file:

Physical warmth impacts on how we view other people and, creates a causal scenario where we then treat the other person in a warm or cold fashion.

To ascertain how temperature affects emotions, Lawrence Williams, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and John A. Bargh, PhD, professor of psychology at Yale University conducted a study on undergraduates.

Students were  casually asked to hold  a tester’s  cup of coffee for a moment prior to entering a room;  half the participants were asked to hold a cup of warm coffee and half were asked to hold a cup of iced coffee.

The students were   subsequently given a portfolio of information  on an unknown person described with words like intelligent, skillful, industrious, practical, and cautious. They were then asked to respond to a questionnaire evaluating the person’s personality. Interestingly, those who had held the warm coffee were much more likely to score the  “person in question”  as warmer than those who had held the iced coffee.

“It appears that the effect of physical temperature is not just on how we see others, it affects our own behavior as well,” Bargh says. “Physical warmth can make us see others as warmer people, but also cause us to be warmer — more generous and trusting .”

In the boardroom and in your social life, never underestimate the importance of  an outreached hand, especially when it’s a warm one!

The sandwich generation: the middle aged bunch, predominantly baby boomers these days, who have to care for both their children and their parents on a daily basis.

It doesn’t sound easy… and it isn’t. Juggling the needs of two sets of people is straining and exhausting, and spreads a person thin. It could also lead to lesser quality care for both the parents and the children, as the estimated 20 million Sandwichers in the United States don’t have the time or resources to juggle both as well as they would wish.

A Harris Interactive poll found that Sandwichers themselves feel deficient and a bit guilty about their responsibilities. Results found that 53% of those polled felt that they had to choose between caring for their own children and caring for their parents atleast once a week, while 20% felt this difficult choice occurred on a daily basis. 40% felt deficient, believing that their parents did a better job juggling the generational responsibility than they did.

Of course, Sandwichers have a different lifestyle than their parents did. Double income households are more common these days, and technology has ensured that a person can never really take a break or vacation. But some companies are trying to utilize that same technology to make it easier for Sandwichers to KIT with their parents from a distance. One example is Presto, a printer and mailbox service that permits Sandwichers with email access to send messages and reminders to aging parents without.

The market is only beginning to open, but Sandwich Generation Americans should keep an eye out for ways that technology can help them, instead of hindering them.

By Ruth Folger Weiss

A few months after undergoing routine hip replacements, a number of patients of  a well known LA orthopedic surgeon started suffering from excruciating pains. The surgeon, Dr. Lawrence Dorr, was stymied until he discovered one factor they all had in common; the same replacement joint, manufactured by Zimmer Holdings, was implanted in all of them. Several needed to have their replacement replaced in another bout of surgery. When Zimmer was first contacted about this problem, they just brushed it off. It took a year of more complaints and pressure from doctors until they pulled this device off the market. In the interim many more patients unknowingly had their joints replaced with a faulty Zimmer “Durom Cup” with crippling results.

This upsetting scenario could have been avoided, and many patients could have been spared the agony, if the U.S. would have a Joint Registry in place. A Joint Registry is a national database that tracks the well being of patients with artificial hips and knees. Countries such as Australia, Britain, Norway and Sweden have such a system in place and the benefits are numerous. Tracking the success rates of the different joints available results in the faulty ones being pulled from the market much quicker. The registry data puts pressure on manufacturers to explain why their products perform poorly and the registry alerts surgeon to stop using flawed joints.

Monitoring devices like artificial joints supposedly falls under the domain of the The Food and Drug Administration but they are often overwhelmed by the vast number of products it monitors and because doctors often do not report problems.

Nearly one million hips and knees were replaced in the U.S. alone last year, about half of the world’s total. As the world’s leader in joint replacement, the U.S. should take the initiative and be the leader in follow-up too.  So far all efforts to establish a database here have failed due to the many hurdles, financial and practical, of our fragmented and decentralized health care system, as well as a lack of support from Medicare.