Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

What does your HDL reading really mean?

It is widely believed that raising “good” cholesterol levels lowers heart attack risk, but surprising new research finds evidence that this may not be the case.

In the newly reported study, investigators from Harvard Medical School used a relatively new research technique that tests connections between genes and disease to examine whether HDL has a direct impact on heart attack risk.   These genetic studies failed to show a link between higher concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and lower heart attack risk.

Millions of people take statin drugs like Crestor, Lipitor, Pravachol, and Zocor to lower their low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, because studies have shown that high LDL levels can be linked to an increase in heart attack risk.  But the benefits of increasing HDL have been less clear, and studies of HDL-raising drugs have been largely disappointing.

Learn more about this emerging controversy over at WebMD.

A new evaluation of statins

Thousands of heart attacks and strokes could be prevented if the cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, were more widely prescribed, research suggests.   The study of 175,000 patients, in the Lancet, said even very low-risk patients benefited from the medication.  The Oxford researchers says the NHS should consider giving statins to healthy people. The NHS drugs watchdog, NICE, is reviewing the evidence.  However, statins have been linked to side-effects such as kidney failure.

Statins are among the most widely prescribed drugs in the US and have long been known to help people at high risk of heart attack and stroke.  However, there has been considerable debate over medicating healthy people – both whether it works at all and if it would be socially acceptable.

Researchers at the University of Oxford say they have investigated the issue in “unparalleled” detail.  Their review of 27 trials concluded that statins significantly reduced the risk of heart attack and stroke for everyone.

Read more about this study over at the BBC.

Drink that cup of Joe and live longer!

It’s the news that coffee lovers have been waiting for:

Drinking several cups of coffee every day may help you live longer.

A study of more than 400,000 people finds that drinking coffee reduces the risk of death from heart disease, stroke and even infections, researchers report in the May 17th New England Journal of Medicine.

Since the study volunteers weren’t randomly assigned to drink coffee or not, the research has the limitations of being observational in nature.   But with data from 402,260 participants, the results are “very powerful” and unlikely to be superseded by another coffee study anytime soon. Roy Ziegelstein, a Johns Hopkins Medical Center cardiologist said, “This might be as good as it gets.”

Learn more about this new research here.

Can too much sugar cause depression?

Too much sugar is bad for you in so many ways!  I know from personal experience with Candida!

But why believe me, when you can go read this excellent article over at

Forbes Magazine: What Eating Too Much Sugar Does To Your Brain.

Please help out with your vote!

Have you heard about Midlife Collage yet?  I think it’s a great idea!   It’s a website where anyone in midlife is encouraged to submit their best stories for everyone to read and vote on.

One of my stories has come up for a vote this week.   The story chosen to be the best each week (the one with the most stars) wins the author $50 and a place in the winner’s circle.

My specific contest runs from Monday, May 14th through Sunday May 20th and YOU MUST REGISTER to vote.  But then you are all set to submit your own story!

PLEASE DO ME A GREAT FAVOR AND GO READ AND THEN VOTE FOR MY STORY:     “AMBUSHED BY LOVE!”  RIGHT NOW!

How to AVOID food poisoning

If you know the horrors of food poisoning than you know it is well worth avoiding at all costs!   And it can be much more difficult for us as we age.  I’ve only gotten it from eating out myself!

Each year, food-borne illnesses result in 5,700 deaths, 371,000 hospitalizations and 87 million cases of illness in the United States alone, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These numbers come from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which collects data from 10 states, including their 18,499 laboratory-confirmed cases of food-borne illnesses.

According to CDC data, the 9 main food-borne illnesses are:

Salmonella: 7,444 cases (foods typically affected include raw or contaminated meat, poultry, milk or egg yolks), Campylobacter: 5,825 cases (meat and poultry), Shigella: 3,029 cases (raw, ready-to-eat produce), Cryptosporidium: 1,036, cases (water, fruit and salad vegetables), E. coli: 0157: 718 cases (beef contaminated during slaughter. Spread mainly by undercooked ground beef), Yersinia: 164 cases (raw or undercooked pork products), Listeria: 135 cases (Hot dogs, luncheon meats, unpasteurized milk and cheeses, and unwashed raw produce), Vibrio: 131 cases (oysters and other shellfish), Cyclospora: 17 cases (imported fresh produce)

Overall, the rates have remained steady since 2004, leading public health experts and American consumers to wonder what else can be done to improve the safety of the food supply.

Signs and Symptoms of Food Poisoning

If you’ve eaten a contaminated food, symptoms may start within hours or hold off until days later.  Symptoms, which generally last from one to 10 days, and can include: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, abdominal pain, fatigue, fever and a complete lack of appetite.

If you’re healthy, food poisoning can be self-limiting and may go away on its own.  However, it can be potentially life-threatening for young children, pregnant women and their fetuses, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems.   If you’re unable to keep liquids down for 24 hours, you should see a doctor right away to prevent total dehydration.

The Mayo Clinic recommends the following six tips to help prevent food poisoning:

1. Wash your hands, cooking utensils and food surfaces often.
2. Keep raw foods separate from ready-to-eat foods when shopping, preparing food or storing food.
3. Cook foods to a safe temperature.  You can kill harmful organisms in most foods by cooking them to temperatures between 145 F (62.8 C) and 165 F (73.9 C).
4. Refrigerate or freeze perishable foods promptly (within two hours of purchasing or preparing them).
5. Defrost food safely.   Do not thaw foods at room temperature.    The safest way to thaw foods is to defrost foods in the refrigerator or to microwave the food using the “defrost” or “50 percent power” setting.   Running cold water over the food also safely thaws the food.
6. Throw out old food whenever in doubt.  If you aren’t sure if a food has been prepared, served or stored safely, discard it.

Bisphosphonates and fractures

As I mentioned before, the FDA has been looking into the long-term safety of taking drugs like Actonel, Boniva, and Fosamax.

Their new findings are that these drugs are quite effective in the short-term (3-5 years), but can lead to fractures in the long-term.

Learn more here in this New York Times article.

New drawing test may help to predict stroke risk

A simple drawing test may help predict the risk of older men dying after a first stroke, so says a study in the journal BMJ Open.  Taken while healthy, the test involves drawing lines between numbers in ascending order as fast as possible.  Men who scored in the bottom third were about three times as likely to die after a stroke compared with those who were in the highest third.

The study looked at 1,000 men between the ages of 67 and 75 over 14 years.  Of the 155 men who had a stroke, 22 died within a month and more than half within an average of two- and-a-half years.  The researchers think that tests are able to pick up hidden damage to brain blood vessels when there are no other obvious signs or symptoms.

Dr Clare Walton, from the British Stroke Association said: “This is an interesting study because it suggests there may be early changes in the brain that puts someone at a greater risk of having a fatal stroke.

“This is a small study and the causes of poor ability on the drawing task is not known.  Although much more research is needed, this task has the potential to screen for those most at risk of a severe or fatal stroke before it occurs so that they can benefit from preventative treatments.”

Dr Bernice Wiberg, lead author from Uppsala University in Sweden, said: “As the tests are very simple, cheap and easily accessible for clinical use, they could be a valuable tool – alongside traditional methods like measuring blood pressure (and) asking about smoking – for identifying risk of stroke, but also as a possible important predictor of post-stroke mortality.”

She also suggested it could help improve information given to patients and their family.

Zinc may help to shorten common colds

For many years, laboratory research has suggested that zinc can stop cold viruses from multiplying, but it has not been clear whether this means taking zinc can prevent or ease the effects of the common cold.

To examine this issue, scientists pulled together all relevant studies of zinc as a cold treatment and conducted a thorough range of analysis of their overall findings.  They found that zinc lozenges may shorten the length of a cold by one or two days more than taking a dummy placebo treatment, but that taking zinc was also associated with some side effects.

This conclusion is not new. A previous systematic review published in 2011 also found that zinc reduced the duration and severity of cold symptoms, although the trials it included varied considerably in methods, study populations and dosage timing.  Overall, this variation made the results less reliable.

The common cold is generally a mild illness. Given that zinc carries the potential for side effects such as nausea and an unpleasant taste, zinc supplements are probably not suitable as a treatment for most people.  Furthermore, large high-quality trials to assess the effectiveness and safety of zinc for the common cold would be needed before any recommendations could be made.

Most of us get all the daily zinc we need from a normal balanced diet.

I get total metal mouth from taking any sort of mineral supplement!

Weight loss and testoterone levels in men

Testosterone replacement may promote weight loss in older obese men who have low levels of this male sex hormone, a new study shows. But before men try to lose weight by bumping up their testosterone, experts agree that more studies are needed to show that the treatment is both safe and effective.

Researchers followed a group of mostly older, overweight men receiving injections of the hormone for up to five years to treat erectile dysfunction and other symptoms associated with low testosterone.  Their findings were presented at the 19th European Congress on Obesity in Lyon, France.

The men who were treated the longest lost more than 30 pounds on average over the course of the study, and also showed improvements in blood pressure, blood glucose, and LDL (bad) cholesterol.

Researcher Farid Saad, DVM, says the dramatic weight loss came as a surprise.  “This study was not performed for the purpose of promoting weight loss.  This was an incidental finding that was entirely unexpected.”