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!

By Nechama Drillick

Will those stinging booster shots be a thing of the past, fading into oblivion together with walkmans, analog TV and Kodak film? With the advent of a new Band-aid-like painless patch lined with microneedles, our grandchildren may never know the ouch of a needle at an annual checkup.

Scientists have developed a patch that can simply be applied to a patient in place of using hypodermic needles, a big boon to diabetics and others suffering from diseases that require frequent pricks. This was presented at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C.

“If you can move to something that’s as easy to apply as a Band-Aid, you’ve now opened the door for people to self-administer their medicine without special training.” said Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Tech, one of the developers.

This development was enabled by advances in the electronics industry, which has microminimized all forms of technology – opening the door for the creation of needles that are only a few hundred microns long, about the width of a few strands of human hair.

Researchers are hopeful that the patch which will initially be used in a clinical setting could ultimately be self applied at home, replacing many other needle injections – even flu shots!

The irony is quite delicious:  Scientists believe they have indeed found the Fountain of Youth and it is found right at the entry of our mouths- as long as we seriously restrict our calorie intake while maintaining all essential nutrients?

For the first time, researchers have shown that restricting calories in primates maintains their youth and prevents age-related disease.

According to a  long-running study by  Richard Weindruch, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin Madison, and colleagues running study of rhesus macaques, suggest that a similar effect might occur in humans and open the door to drugs that would mimic so-called caloric restriction, “We now have proof of efficacy of caloric restriction in primates,” Dr. Weindruch said, and  once the mechanisms are understood, it may be possible to develop “mimetics”– drugs that would have the same effect, but without the need for altering human diets.

Our diet controlled monkeys did extraordinarily well on calorie-restricted diets:

None of the animals on caloric restriction — even those with compromised metabolic function at baseline — had impaired glucose homeostasis.

The incidence of neoplasia was reduced by 50% in the animals on caloric restriction, compared with controls.

The incidence of cardiovascular disease was reduced by half in the diet-controlled monkeys, compared with controls.

They had  significantly slower rates of age-associated brain atrophy in some regions than controls.

The researchers also monitored when age-associated diseases appeared and found that caloric restriction reduced disease onset significantly.

Monkeys on the restricted diet appeared and acted biologically younger than their counterparts in the control arm and physically looked considerably better.

“Not only do the animals stay biologically younger longer, they look younger longer,” Dr. Weindruch said.

Dr. Sierra’s institute is sponsoring a study on calorie restriction in humans — the so-called CALORIE study — but he noted that “you have to be a special type of person to subject yourself to this . . . it’s a self-selected group.” Conducting a calorie restriction study in people in general “would be difficult, let’s put it that way,” he said.

You think?

by Nechama Drillick

You’ve been given fair warning – the more socially active you are, the slower you’ll age. Research data in the June 22 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reveal a direct connection between social activity and physical function.

The study focused on a group of 906 adults who averaged age 66.5 and were free of stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia at the onset.

Everyone’s activity level was scored on a range from 1 to 4.17, with a mean baseline of 2.6.

Participants who volunteered, played bingo, ate out with friends, attended church and partook of other activities with greater frequency had a slower decline in motor function than those who were more socially withdrawn.

“For each point below the mean social activity score at baseline, the average rate or decline in global motor function was 33% more rapid,” they wrote. “In terms of declining motor function, a 1-point decrease on the social activity scale was equivalent to being five years older at baseline.”

And that age difference of five years translated into a 40% increase in the risk of death and more than a 65% increase in the development of a disability.

There you have it. There are significant benefits to being a social butterfly as opposed to a wallflower. Staying socially fit is an essential part of staying young.

Just when you think you’ve got the healthy eating thing down right, some scientific papers come out to upend your sense of equilibrium.

While you’ve been vigilant in pursuing “healthy” options in your food purchases, you and millions of others are being “played” by the less scrupulous in the food industry.

Melinda Beck, in her comprehensive article, “The Fine Print: What’s Really in a Lot of ‘Healthy’ Foods” in the May 5th Wall St. Journal, provides far too many instances of manufacturers determination and success at fooling a well-intentioned but easily misguided public.

Chicken: Roughly one-third of the fresh chicken sold in the U.S. is “plumped” with water, salt and sometimes a seaweed extract called carrageenan that helps it retain the added water- and are allowed by The U.S. Department of Agriculture to label it “all natural” or “100% natural” because those are all natural ingredients, even though they aren’t naturally found in chicken.

The “plumped” chicken has between 200 and 400 mgs of sodium per serving, almost as much as a serving of fast-food french fries. And marketers attest to blind taste tests to underline the reality that more consumers prefer these “enhanced” versions.

Salt substitutes: Many contain potassium chloride, which can exacerbate kidney problems and interact badly with some heart and liver medications- not exactly the direction you wanted to take when looking for the alternative to salt.

Artificial Sweeteners: Many brands of Sugar-free gum, mint and candy contain sorbitol, a plant extract that isn’t completely absorbed by the body and works as a natural laxative. That’s why you often experience bloating, flatulence, stomach pains and diarrhea after consuming only one pack of gum, or sucking on a few sugar-free candies. Some diabetics and others who are sensitive to the effect, find that sugar alcohols, i.e maltitol and xylitol can raise their blood sugar.

Trans fat, Cholesterol- Free, Calories-Free: Manufacturers are allowed to “round down” their numbers when it comes to trans fat, “sugar-free,” “calorie free” and “cholesterol-free” labels….! Products labeled zero grams of trans fat can have up to 0.49 gram of fat per serving. You could still be consuming significant amounts of trans fat: if the ingredients include partially hydrogenated oil, hydrogenated oil or shortening, a product isn’t completely trans-fat free. And it may have considerable saturated fat as well. And foods that have trace calories and up to 0.49 gram of fat and carbohydrates per serving- can, yes, be labeled “free” of those properties!

Super Water: The Center for Science in the Public Interest states that drinks — with names like “defense,” “rescue,” “energy” and “endurance” — are mainly sugar water with 125 calories per bottle…

Government surveys show that most Americans aren’t deficient in many of the vitamins supplied in these drinks, and the excess gets excreted anyway. Coca-Cola Co. was sued earlier this year over claims on its Vitamin Water beverages.

Consumers had better be armed with a “HEALTHY” DOSE OF REALISM WHEN SEARCHING FOR THAT PERFECT HEALTHY FOOD.

By Nancy Smith

Today’s medical announcement would be astounding if it wasn’t almost intuitive; the results clearly demonstrate that lifestyle behaviors do contribute to stroke risk independently of the intermediate risk factors.

We are all aware that the following four behaviors are beneficial to one’s health. Physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption, no smoking, and the daily consumption of five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day can only have a positive impact. The strength of that impact was recently bolstered by a defining EPIC (European Prospective Investigation of Cancer) study conducted in England.

20,040 men and women ages 40 to 79 had a physical exam and completed a detailed health and lifestyle questionnaire upon enrolling in the study. This data determined which participants smoked, drank, were physically active, and whether they ate their fruits and vegetables. The risk of stroke for those who did not practice any of the above mentioned behaviors increased twofold compared with individuals who adopted all four.

“These results provide further incentive and support for the notion that small differences in lifestyle can have a substantial potential impact on risk,” the authors concluded.

Barely half the hospitals in the USA have palliative care programs.

If you aren’t sure what palliative care is, that’s part of the problem.

Palliative care is a care program that includes management of pain and other debilitating symptoms and increased communication and care coordination between physician and family. Palliative care increases the quality of life for patients with complex prognoses . . . Greater palliative care has been linked to lower death rates, fewer intensive care admissions during a patient’s final months, and lower overall expense per patient.

The statistics speak, and palliative care has been increasing around the nation, but it is still almost unavailable in many rural hospitals and the south. The trend is upward, but the problem is still widespread.

The best way to receive palliative care is via hospice care, delivered in specialized institutions, such as nursing or assisted living facilities. Such facilities are smaller, more specialized, and less hectic than hospitals, permitting them greater latitude in customizing the service their patients receive.

Palliative care utilizes a broad range of services for one goal: relieve suffering and increase quality of life. When paired with standard medical treatment, the results is a more comfortable treatment and faster recovery.

Amyloid beta plaque on the brain has long been associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and often considered the cause of mental decline.

Apparently, this is not true.

A British study used an immune response to almost completely remove the plaque from subjects’ brains, but this did not have any affect on the progression of their dementia.

This stymies the idea of an anti-amyloid approach to fighting Alzheimer’s disease. Even if amyloid beta plaque has something to do with the onset of the disease, it clearly doesn’t have an ongoing affect. Researchers must look for another mechanism triggered concurrently that could be affecting cognition.