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.

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   But with data from 402,260 participants, the results are “very powerful” and unlikely to be superseded by another coffee study anytime soon.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!

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.

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.”

Non-pill solutions for erectile dysfunction

The Food and Drug Administration just approved the first new pill for ED in a decade.   But Stendra, also known as Avanafil, works the same way and is likely to work for the same men as previous pills.

Stendra does have one new selling point: “It acts a little quicker,” often in about 15 minutes, says Wayne Hellstrom, a professor of urology at Tulane University in New Orleans. He worked on clinical studies for drugmaker Vivus Inc.  The other drugs typically take effect in 30 to 60 minutes.  The drugs all increase blood flow to the penis, and men who take any of them can get side effects such as facial flushing, headaches, upset stomachs and stuffy noses.

Still, these heavily marketed pills are not the whole answer to a problem estimated to affect 30 million American men and their partners.

For one thing, they don’t work for everyone: The 40% to 60% of men who get results are likely to have milder ED (they can still get some spontaneous erections), are in stable relationships and do not have a long list of other health problems.   Those health problems — including heart disease, diabetes and obesity.  But many cases of ED could be prevented or improved with the same lifestyle choices that improve overall health, especially heart health.

Experts are developing ED prevention guidelines based on studies showing links with risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and poor diets.  Those links are so strong that doctors now know that a man in his 40s who arrives in a doctor’s office with ED is at high risk for an eventual heart attack and/or stroke, says Stephen Kopecky, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology.

“These are different manifestations of the same disease process,” he says. “What causes heart attacks?  A decrease in blood flow to the heart.  What causes erectile dysfunction?  It’s a decrease of blood flow to the penis.” But the effects on the penis show up sooner, he says.

Sometimes, there are other factors.  ED can be caused by certain medications, including drugs for high blood pressure and depression.   Many patients have had surgery for prostate, colon or bladder cancer, and for those men, pills often are less effective than other options, including penile injections and pumping devices.  Blood vessel surgery is an option for some young men with ED caused by pelvic injuries.

Whatever the cause, ED can be made worse by “conflict in the marriage, hurt and anger, depression and performance anxiety,” says Ruth Hutcheson, clinical director of North Shore Center for Marital Therapy in Oakbrook, Ill., and a certified sex therapist with the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists.  Sometimes sessions with a therapist may help.

“It’s very important to improve communication,” she says.  When couples do that, they often find that everything works better in the marriage.

How do we get hooked?

There was a wonderfully informative segment on addiction last night on CBS 60 Minutes.  Go see it now!

Or I can give you the highlights here:

First of all, we all need to finally accept that all addictions are medical chronic diseases, and NOT character defects. Any type of addiction (sex, food, drugs, Internet) changes our brains and can be seen in an MRI, even AFTER the addiction has resolved itself.

Addiction is all about dopamine and how it regulates the pleasure centers of our brains.  Without these interactions the human race would not have survived.  We need to react to and remember things like food and sex which give us pleasure.

Our brains react even to images of delicious foods, sex, drugs and alcoholic drinks, which we are now completely surrounded by everyday.   These pictures drive behavior, as all advertisers know, even though much of this behavior is unconscious.  And if we continue to seek out these sources of pleasure, the dopamine receptors in our brains wear out and pleasure decreases.  So then we need ever higher levels of pleasure sources just to feel “Normal.”

Most drugs damage the brain’s ability to resist addictions, so our desire for drugs just keeps increasing resulting in such statistics as:

There were 210 million prescriptions written for opioids in the U.S. last year, leading to over 15,000 deaths from painkiller overdoses!

Increase alcohol consumption to increase your good cholesterol!

I’ve been working on increasing my good cholesterol or HDL levels by losing weight (50 pounds!) and increasing my daily exercise.  Now I find out that I should also be drinking wine!

Heart disease risk is directly associated with elevated total cholesterol, but more specifically with low levels of “good” cholesterol, or HDL, coupled with high levels of “bad” cholesterol, or LDL.

High levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL) reduces your overall risk of heart disease, and according to some studies, alcohol consumption helps to raise these levels in your blood.

The exact mechanism by which this happens is a point of debate, and the benefit of raising HDL via alcohol consumption comes with some negative impact.  With apologies to the American Heart Association, which discourages doctors from telling their patients about the advantages of alcohol: one or two drinks per day can significantly increase HDL levels.   However, more than one or two drinks per day can lead to substantial health problems including heart failure.

Also remember, alcohol contributes a lot of sugar and “empty calories” to your daily diet!

Lifestyle choices and Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease already affects 4.5 million Americans, more than twice the number that were affected in 1980–but that number is expected to grow significantly. By the year 2050, it’s estimated that 11.3 million to 16 million Americans may develop the disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.

Alzheimer’s disease affects the brain, progressively destroying a person’s ability to learn and reason, make judgments and carry out daily activities. The majority of people with Alzheimer’s are over the age of 65 — an age after which the chances of developing the disease double every five years.  But, of course, just because you age does not mean that you will develop Alzheimer’s, and there are, in fact, known methods to prevent this epidemic disease.

Eat healthy. Your best defense against this disease appears to be in the food you eat.  A recent study published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association found that people who eat the recommended amount of folate have a much lower risk of developing the disease.  Folates are B-vitamins found in leafy green vegetables, oranges, legumes and bananas.

But, “Although folates appear to be more beneficial than other nutrients, the primary message is that an overall healthy diets seems to have an impact on limiting Alzheimer’s disease risk.  Antioxidant-rich foods are also extremely important.

Lead a healthy lifestyle. Things like avoiding tobacco and excess alcohol, exercising and staying socially active all are linked to a healthy brain, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.  “The major way we’ve reduced the death rate from heart disease is through lifestyle changes: eating better, exercising more, smoking less,” said David A. Bennett of Rush University in Chicago. “It would require a lot of people to change the way they live, but there’s no reason to think we can’t have the same impact on Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.”

Exercise your body. As mentioned above, regular exercise is important for your brain health.   “Walking 45 minutes three times a week for six months significantly improved mental ability of older adults with no dementia; a randomly selected control group that did stretching and toning had no change,” says Arthur Kramer, a psychologist at the University of Illinois.

Exercise your mind. “Just keeping busy seems to tune the brain,” says neuropsychologist Yaakov Stern of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.   In a seven-year study of 1,800 older adults, Stern found that the more “leisure pursuits” a person had, the lower their risk of developing Alzheimer’s.  Leisure pursuits included visiting friends, playing cards and going to the movies

The key is to keep your brain engaged as you age.   Try crossword puzzles, games like chess and checkers,reading, attending a lecture, volunteering or taking a class that interests you.

Avoid head injuries. Research has uncovered a strong link between serious head injury and Alzheimer’s.  You can reduce your risk of head injury by always wearing a seat belt while driving, wearing a helmet on a motorcycle or bicycle and making sure to remove tripping hazards around your home.

Try to relax and stay positive. According to the Center for Healthy Minds, elderly people who experience a lot of psychological distress (worrying, feeling insecure or nervous) are more likely to show signs of mental decline.   In fact, one study found that people prone to high levels of distress were twice as likely to develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease after five years than those who were prone to low levels of distress.