5 Old Age Health Freaks
Old age in itself is no barrier to fitness. Many people in their 80s and 90s stay fit with regular exercise, and some put many younger folks to shame! Imagine competitive swimming in your 90s.
92yr old Ladislav Nicek has been competing in the annual Winter Swimming Championships in the Vlatva River for over half a century, and has until this point only missed a few events. Up to 70 ‘otuzilci’ (hardy fellows) brave the icy waters in an event which attracts a huge amount of media coverage, a large percentage due to the efforts of Mr. Nicek. He even organises the event every year before jumping in himself.
Nicek is one of five elderly athletes profiled at Vitabits. Link -Thanks, David!
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How to shave 10 years off your life: Have high cholesterol, be hypertensive, and smoke.
Researchers have taken another look at the famous Whitehall study of over 18,000 middle-aged London men and found that a single measurement of three factors predicted mortality better than any other measures. Those with the three risk factors, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking, had three times the risk of death from cardiovascular problems and a life expectancy that was ten years shorter than those without the three risk factors. The men were examined in 1967-1970 and followed for 38 years. The 4811 surviving subjects were reexamined in 1997.
Dr Robert Clarke (University of Oxford, UK) and colleagues report their findings online September 17, 2009 in BMJ. And when they used more extreme categorization of risk factors, including body-mass index (BMI), diabetes mellitus/glucose intolerance, and employment grade, life expectancy differed by up to 15 years.
Clarke says there has been uncertainty about the limits of life expectancy and the relevance of cardiovascular risk factors for its prediction. “What is unique about this study is the prolonged follow-up; it enables us to put a figure on the life-limiting effects of these risk factors,” he told heartwire.
(image credit: Flickr user Thomas Hawk)
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Smoking Bans Cut Heart Attacks By Up To A Quarter
Many communities have enacted smoking bans in public places, some of which have been in effect for several years. How is that affecting our overall health? According to an analysis of studies, the bans are significantly cutting the rate of heart attacks in those communities.
“By lumping 11 studies together, we have increased the certainty that smoking bans really do reduce the risk of heart attack,” lead author Dr David G Meyers (University of Kansas School of Public Medicine, Kansas City) told heartwire. Meyers and colleagues report their findings online September 21, 2009 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Meyers says there are some additional messages from this review. Although they found, on average, a 17% reduction in AMI, this figure is “deceptive,” he says, because they also showed—in longer-term studies—a 26% decrease in heart attacks per year that the ban had existed. So this proves “the longer a community bans smoking, the greater the effect.” It also appears the people who seem to derive the greatest benefit from the bans are younger and often predominantly female—likely those working in the hospitality and entertainment industry, he says.
(image credit: Flickr user bennylin0724)
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As Waistlines Widen, Brains Shrink
A new study shows that elderly people who are overweight or obese have significantly less brain tissue than those of normal weight. The difference was 4% for overweight people and 8% for the obese in a study of 94 people in their 70s. The volunteers were followed for five years, and anyone who showed cognitive impairment was excluded from the final sample.
“The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than their healthy counterparts while [those of] overweight people looked 8 years older,” said UCLA neuroscientist Paul Thompson, senior author of a study published online in Human Brain Mapping.
Much of the lost tissue was in the frontal and temporal lobe regions of the brain, the seat of decision-making and memory, among other things.
It is not clear whether weight gain caused a reduction in brain tissue, or if a smaller brain contributes to weight gain, or there are other factors contributing to both. Link -via Lifehacker
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Guinness Is Actually Good For You!
The old ad slogan "Guinness is good for you" may actually be true: a study showed that drinking just over a pint of Guinness at mealtimes may help reduce the blood’s ability to form dangerous clots that may lead to heart attacks.
Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from University of Wisconsin told a conference in the US.
Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago – and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink.
The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.
They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager.
Link (Image: spleeney [Flickr])
Previously on Neatorama: Stories Behind 7 Famous Beer Logos
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Full Recovery for Girl with Two Hearts
In 1995, two-year-old Hannah Clark of Mountain Ash, Wales suffered from cardiomyopathy and received a donor heart, which was "piggybacked" onto her original heart and took over its function. For ten years, the donor heart beat in Hannah’s chest, but she was developing tumors and could not continue the immunosuppressive drugs transplant patients must take to counter organ rejection. Since Hannah still had her original heart, doctors decided to disconnect the donor heart. After ten years of not working, her original heart took over pumping blood and functions without medication. Three years later, Hannah is completely recovered.
Professor Peter Weissberg, of the British Heart Foundation, said cardiologists have long wondered whether a heart which is failing because of cardiomyopathy might be able to recover if rested.
“This seems to be exactly what has happened in Hannah’s case in which the donor heart allowed her own heart to take a rest and recover.
“This is an exciting discovery since it proves that, in some instances, a weakened heart has the capacity to recover – if it can be helped.”
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Calorie Restriction Leads to Longer, Healthier Life
Results from a 20 year study on monkeys and their diets show that eating fewer calories can help you live longer. Animals with a restricted diet of 30% were shown to outlive those that were given the freedom to eat what when and how much they wanted. The monkeys also had improved chances of avoiding age related diseases, cancer, diabetes and brain atrophy.
In terms of overall animal health, Weindruch notes, the restricted diet leads to longer lifespan and improved quality of life in old age. “There is a major effect of caloric restriction in increasing survival if you look at deaths due to the diseases of aging,” he says.
The incidence of cancerous tumors and cardiovascular disease in animals on a restricted diet was less than half that seen in animals permitted to eat freely. Remarkably, while diabetes or impaired glucose regulation is common in monkeys that can eat all they want, it has yet to be observed in any animal on a restricted diet. “So far, we’ve seen the complete prevention of diabetes,” says Weindruch.
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Meditations Can Build a Bigger Brain
Many people who meditate regularly have better focus and control over their emotions, reduced levels of stress, and
bolstered immune systems, but does meditation do anything to the brain structure itself?
Eileen Luders and colleagues at UCLA used MRI to scan the brains of people who meditate to find out. They examined 44 people (22 control subjects and 22 who had practiced
various forms of meditation) who had practiced an average of 24 years. Meditators showed significantly larger volumes in regions known for regulating emotions.
The researchers found significantly larger cerebral measurements in meditators compared with controls, including larger volumes of the right hippocampus and increased gray matter in the right orbito-frontal cortex, the right thalamus and the left inferior temporal lobe. There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators.
Because these areas of the brain are closely linked to emotion, Luders said, “these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’ the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way.”
Link – via holeinthedonut
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19 Reasons to Take a Nap
As if you need that many reasons to take a snooze.
Studies show that not only will you feel better almost immediately, says Sara Mednick, PhD, a sleep medicine researcher at the University of California at San Diego and author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life, but a daily nap of between 20 and 90 minutes before 4:00 pm will also increase your mental performance, reduce your chances of gaining weight, and make you feel a whole lot more like having sex after dinner than you probably do now. What’s more, it won’t affect your nighttime sleep.
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Why Does My Body Do That?
Yawns? Hiccups? Goosebumps? Shivers? They all happen for a reason. Kimberly Fusaro of Woman’s Day spoke with Eric Plasker, author of The 100 Year Lifestyle to find out why our bodies do peculiar things. Take, for example, hiccups:
If you’ve frequently got a case of the hiccups, try slowing down when you eat and drink, suggests Dr. Plasker. Doing either too quickly causes your stomach to swell; this irritates your diaphragm, which contracts and causes hiccups. You may also get hiccups in emotional situations or if your body experiences a sudden temperature change. In both of these cases, the hiccups are a result of a glitch in your nerve pathways, which is why a sudden scare—which might shake up and reset your nerves—can sometimes end an episode.
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Nose Too Cold for Avian Flu
While everyone was talking about the swine flu, researchers at the University of North Carolina have found the reason why its far-scarier cousins, the avian flu strains, didn’t become a full-blown pandemic. Turns out, we have our cold noses to thank:
All and all, 248 humans have died from the H5N1 according to WHO data as of January 2009. H5N1, as a strain, infects more species than any previously known flu virus, is deadlier than previous strains, and continues to evolve becoming both more widespread and more deadly. But even still, fears of a pandemic have yet to be realized. Now, researchers might have found the reason: our noses are too cold for the Avian flu. [...]
The difference in temperature, internally, between a human and a bird isn’t all that different – people maintain an internal temperature of about 37 degrees celcius, whereas birds stay a little warmer, around 40 degrees celcius. Researchers from the University of North Carolina wanted to know how these temperature differences might affect avian influenza viruses. They took a avian virus strain, H4N6, and human flu H3N2, and tried to infect human airway epithelial cells – the cells that line our noses and lungs. Both, they found, could infect and replicate quite quickly human airway epthelial cells at 37 degrees celcius, though the avian ones were a little slower in general than the human ones. But when the temperature was dropped to that of our noses – a bit cooler 32 degrees celcius – the avian virus replication slowed to a snail’s pace, 3-5 log units below the human virus’ speed. They tried a different avian strain – H5N3 – and found the same results. So they tried the deadly virus itself, H5N1 isolated from a dead person, and even it fared poorly. It seems that something about avian flu viruses simply can’t function right in cooler temperatures.
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Promotion is Bad For Your Health
After putting long hours at work and navigating the treacherous waters of office politics, you’ve finally landed that promotion you’ve been after – but is it good for you?
Not according to this study by economic and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick in England. They found that job promotions can be downright dangerous to your health:
Economics and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick in England found that promotion produces 10% more mental strain and leaves up to 20% less time to visit the doctor in the event of illness.
The team tested the widely held assumption that an improvement in job status leads to better health due to an increased sense of self-worth.
Using data collected in Britain on about 1,000 individual promotions from 1991 to 2005, they found no evidence of improved physical health after promotion. But they did find that people thrust into more senior jobs suffered significantly greater mental strain.
So, would it be an act of compassion for your boss to deny you that promotion? 
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20 of the Strangest Medical Syndromes Ever
Foreign accent syndrome, exploding head syndrome, werewolf syndrome, alien hand syndrome … walking corpse syndrome? Have you heard of any of these baffling (but completely real) medical conditions?
Werewolf Syndrome: Hypertrichosis, or werewolf syndrome, is a medical condition that causes the excessive growth of body hair — typically on the upper body, including the face. There are only 50 or so documented cases, and sufferers generally acquire it through genetic inheritance.
Link Link redirected for some people to a spammy page, which ain’t cool. Too bad, because it was an interesting article.
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Why You May Not Want to Let Your Friends Eat at McDonalds (or Yourself)
Wow … we all knew fast food was bad for us, but really? For starters, their burgers can apparently last for 20 years … longer than the average vehicle. Next up: you would have to walk for seven hours to burn off a Super Sized Coke. Seriously.
Heck, even pet food can be healthier than McDonalds according to a recent study – and the list goes on. So, before you head out for your next set of burger and fries read this and be amazed (or utterly disgusted). Of course you could also watch Supersize Me but this list arguably tops even some of his encounters.
In 2007, the employees of an Orlando-area McDonald’s were caught on camera pouring milk into the milkshake machine out of a bucket labeled “Soiled Towels Only.” That particular restaurant had already been cited for 12 different sanitary violations. Though McDonald’s proudly stands by its safety standards, and not every restaurant has such notorious incidents, the setting of a fast food restaurant staffed with low-paid employees at a high turnover rate arguably encourages bending the rules. (McDonald’s isn’t alone in this, of course – Burger King is actually ranked as the dirtiest of all the fast food chains.)
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How To Lose Belly Fat
To paraphrase Animal Farm, “some fats are more equal than others”.
While putting on weight in general can have negative effects on your health, abdominal weight gain (visceral fat) is particularly unhealthy. Since visceral fat is buried deep in your abdomen, it may seem like a difficult target for spot reduction. But this fat is actually quite sensitive to exercise and calorie reduction.
In addition to diet and exercise for reducing overall fat, eMedExpert Blog has five tips for reducing belly fat in particular. Link -Thanks, Karen!
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14 Habits That Make You Fat
It may be the wrong time of year to think about how fat you are -or maybe it’s the best time of year to change your habits before you put the pounds on! HealthAssist lists 14 habits you want to examine to turn your health around and either lose weight or avoid becoming fat. Some you are familiar with, but others may be news. Who knew the way you dress makes a difference in how active you are? Link -Thanks, Karen!
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"Weight-ism" More Widespread Than Sexism
In America, most of us believe that we shouldn’t discriminate based on characteristics that people can’t control (e.g. race, gender, etc.). However, we also believe that weight is something that people can control, and while that is correct to a certain extent, there are other factors that prevent people from achieving their ideal weight.
A new study from Yale University claims that weight discrimination is more widespread than previously imagined. Some of its findings:
– Men are not at serious risk of discrimination until their BMI reaches 35, while women begin experiencing an increase in discrimination at BMI 27.
- Moderately obese women with a BMI of 30 to 35 are three times more likely than men in the same weight group to experience weight discrimination.
- Compared to other forms of discrimination in the United States, weight discrimination is the third most prevalent cause of perceived discrimination among women (after gender and age) and the fourth most prevalent form of discrimination among all adults (after gender, age and race.)
As for how much control people can exert over their own weight, according to Rebecca Puhl (the study’s author):
We place a lot of emphasis on personal responsibility for body weight. Our billion-dollar diet industry is founded on that premise. Your weight is modifiable. But that does not reflect the current state of science. We know from hundreds of randomized clinically controlled trials that it’s very difficult to sustain weight loss over time with our existing treatment methods. That has compelled a number of expert panels, like the National Institutes of Health, to conclude that we really can’t expect you to lose more than 10 percent of your body weight and be able to keep that off.
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