Healthy Aging: Body, Mind & Spirit

Midlife suicide is on the rise

Have you heard the latest?   It isn’t good news!

Reuters had an article yesterday about the increasing suicide rate, particularly among middle-aged men without a college degree.

“Following a period of stability or decline, suicide rates have climbed since 1988 for males aged 40-49 years, and since 1999 for females aged 40-59 years and males aged 50-59 years.”

Also note that unmarried men in this age group are 3.5 times more likely to kill themselves.

To read my opinion about these sad statistics, go here.

After age 50 annual mammograms offer modest benefit

Mammograms don’t help women over 50 as much as has been believed, new research suggests.  Only a third of the reduced risk of death credited to breast cancer screening is actually deserved — the rest is due to better treatment and greater awareness of the disease, a large study in Norway found.

The research, published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest to show that the benefits of mammography are limited.

The World Health Organization estimates that mammograms reduce the breast cancer death rate by 25 percent in women over 50.  Other groups put the figure at 15 to 23 percent.

The latest Norway study found that while mammograms cut the risk of dying, the benefit was disappointingly low.   Women who were screened had a 10 percent lower risk of death from breast cancer, but only a third of that reduction was due to screening itself.   Some 2,500 women would have to be regularly screened over 10 years to save one life from breast cancer, Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School noted in an accompanying editorial.

In the study, scientists were able to tease out the benefits of mammography by studying Norway’s breast cancer screening program, which began as a pilot in 1996 and later expanded to the entire country.   As part of the national screening program, teams of doctors were set up in every county to treat any breast cancer cases that did occur, whether they were found by mammograms or other ways.

Some 40,000 women with breast cancer were included in the study.   Women ages 50 through 69 were offered screening every two years.

To read one well-educated woman’s opinion about how you can minimize your risk of developing breast cancer, checkout this blog post!

Dementia and physical activity

In a study of 9,344 women over age 65, those who reported being physically active as teens enjoyed the lowest rates of cognitive decline.   This group were 35% less likely to experience early signs of dementia, compared to women who had been sedentary.   Even late starters who didn’t hit the gym until their 30′s, 40′s or 50′s lowered their risk of age-related intellectual decline.

Find a regular exercise routine you enjoy and stick to it!   A major component of maintaining good brain plasticity is physical activity!

Source: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society – 2010

Have you noticed any “mild cognitive impairment” lately?

New research shows that men are a bit more likely than women to notice memory loss as they age, and the deficits may be gender related.

This study showed that mild cognitive impairment was 1.5 times higher in men compared to women.  The researcher, Dr. Ronald Petersen of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester said, “This is the first study conducted among community-dwelling persons to find a higher prevalence of MCI [mild cognitive impairment] in men.   If these results are confirmed in other studies, it may suggest that factors related to gender play a role in the disease.”

For example, “men may experience cognitive decline earlier in life but more gradually, whereas women may transition from normal memory directly to dementia at a later age but more quickly.”

The researchers conducted in-person interviews with 2,050 men and women between the ages of 70 and 89 in Olmstead County, Minn.   Participants were asked about their memories and their medical history.   They were tested on memory and thinking skills.   The results:

• 14% of participants had mild cognitive impairment.
• About 10% had dementia.
• 76% had normal memory and thinking skills.
• 19% of the men had mild cognitive impairment, compared to 14% of the women.
• 3.3% of those interviewed face-to-face had a dementia that had not been detected by records or other methods.

As many of you know, I experienced a traumatic brain injury in a bike accident a couple of years ago.   I’m just now trying out a new treatment for improving my memory.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Top Anti-angiogenesis foods

What are these?   Foods that help you starve your cancerous tumors of the nutrients they need to thrive and grow.

According to Dr. OZ, these are the five top anti-angiogenesis foods available today:

Bokchoy: One-half cup three times a week should do the trick.

Cooked tomatoes: Bring on the marinara sauce 2 to 3 times a week!

Flounder and other fish that contain Omega 3 fatty acids, again 3 times a week!

Strawberries contain ellagic acid.  Eat a cup every day!

Artichokes, the hearts are particularly good for you!

Chocolate: How much is too much?

Have you been putting away the dark chocolate and hoping it’s healthy?

A new study of older Swedish women found that eating high-quality chocolate once or twice a week is good for the heart, but eating it too much is not.   The study is highly relevant as nearly 6 million Americans have heart failure and one in four women will die from heart disease, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The nine-year study of women ages 48 to 83 found that those who ate a small amount of Swedish chocolate once or twice a week had a one-third lower risk of developing heart failure, but those who ate it daily received no protective benefit.   Women who ate chocolate a couple of times a month also showed some benefit, but not as much as the weekly group.

Also significant was the quality of chocolate the women consumed, which had a higher amount of cocoa solids than the average American chocolate.   Swedish milk chocolate contains 30 percent cocoa solids, while dark chocolate contains 35 percent.   By comparison, U.S. standards for dark chocolate require only 15 percent cocoa solids—half that of Swedish milk chocolate.

The study, published online this month in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, was conducted by researchers from Harvard University and Sweden’s Institute of Environmental Medicine.   They looked at the heart failure rates of nearly 32,000 women who had filled out food consumption questionnaires as part of a Swedish mammography study.

The study found that women who ate a small portion—about two-thirds of an ounce to an ounce—of high-quality chocolate once or twice a week had a 32 percent lower risk of developing heart failure.

Altitude and Suicide

According to a brand new study, people living at altitudes of 3,000 feet above sea level or higher were 34 percent more likely to commit suicide than those living below that level in the U.S.

I live above 5,000 feet, but don’t worry.   I won’t be jumping off a cliff anytime soon!   I enjoy blogging and writing too much 

Some useful healthy eating tips

Plan ahead, and don’t wing it!    You will probably end up overeating or eating something unhealthy!

• Always start your day with a good, high-protein, low-sugar breakfast to manage hunger throughout the day. Overeating the night before isn’t an excuse to skip breakfast.

• Skipping a meal can result in overeating later or poor food choices.   Have a late-afternoon snack (fruit, carrot sticks, popcorn) for quick energy.

• Add protein to each meal — such as a hard-boiled egg, tuna or nonfat cottage cheese — to manage hunger and sustain energy.

• Train yourself to stop eating after one serving. If you are particularly hungry, make sure you have one food you can eat as much as you want of, like salad or fresh fruit.

• If you must eat at a fast-food joint, order a salad, or some other low-cal dish.

• Shop for groceries when you aren’t hungry, angry, lonely or tired.  Never bring food home you don’t want to eat.

• Try sugarless gum when you get the urge for something sweet after a meal.

And save alcohol for special occasions….I’m blessed by not really enjoying the effects or the “empty” calories of alcohol, plus it can contribute to the development of breast cancer (see below).

For a real eye-opener, start noticing how much sugar is in everything you consume.   That changed my diet drastically!   Cutting way back on sugars made me a lot less hungry in general.

What really causes breast cancer?

Stress Management for Writers

I have a new creation and creative outlet I want to share with you!   I just started a new blog called Stress Management for Writers.

This isn’t for professionals only.   It’s for all of you who have ever felt the need to express yourself in this way.

Finding the courage to reach out to others with your feelings and your own personal message is what it’s all about!