3 Lies Your Doctor May Tell You About Joint Pain

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'Many people seem to accept as fate that they will become less active as they get older. They unwittingly believe that it’s normal to be plagued by stiffness, soreness and pain as they age. Well, I’m here to tell you that this false belief can cause you to suffer unnecessarily. 

Imagine what your life would be like without joint pain. What if throbbing, aching joints never made you think twice about doing the activities you used to enjoy?'

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5 Good Things About Getting Older

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'Despite what the media would have us believe, there are a lot of good things about getting older.

In today’s world, we’re faced with continual messages about aging. We hear about anti-aging products for your skin and hair just about every day. There are the new exercises to lift and sculpt, cosmetic surgery guaranteed to take 10 years off your face, and supplements to keep you feeling young well into your senior years.

Oh, and don’t forget all the steady reminders of everything that can go wrong the older you get, like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, and dementia.

Is there anywhere we can turn these days that we aren’t being told that getting older is just…well, bad?

We thought it was time to turn the tide a bit. After all, aging is, as the saying goes, a lot better than the alternative!'

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Greater Lifetime Pesticide Use Causes Telomere Shortening

 

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'Researchers from Northwestern University's School of Medicine have determined that the use of certain pesticides over a lifetime produces a shortening of chromosome telomeres.

The researchers tested 1,234 men as part of a study of 57,310 licensed pesticide contractors – from the Agricultural Health Study, orchestrated by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

This particular study was conducted in partnership with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.'

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Strength Training and Yoga—Two Valuable Exercise Components for Aging Americans

By Dr. Mercola

'Exercise is a critical part of a healthy lifestyle, and it can be a part of your life no matter what your age. In fact, staying active becomes increasingly important as you get older, both for your physical and mental health.

Even frail seniors of advanced age can improve strength, agility, and even cognitive ability with exercise.

Loss of bone mass is one of the common signs of aging, because as you age your existing bone is absorbed by your body while new bone is created to replace it.

In the case of osteoporosis, the formation of new bone falls behind the rate of bone absorption, leading to weakened, thinner and more brittle bones.' 

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Why Having 'Normal' or 'High' Bone Density is Bad For Your Health

'Over the past two decades, millions of older women have been pressured into thinking that because their bones are not as dense as a 30-year old that they have a 'medical condition' treatable with bone-targeting drugs and megadose calcium supplements. 

And yet, research indicates that this new definition of 'normal,' which has disingenuously redefined the natural thinning of the bones that comes with age as a disease, is actually a risk factor for breast cancer. 

In other words, having lower, age-appropriate bone mineral density is healthier.'

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Regardless of Life Expectancy, People Today Are Metabolically Less Healthy Than Their Parents

 

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'That’s the conclusion of a large cohort study from the Netherlands which compared generational shifts in a range of well established metabolic risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Assessing the trends, the investigators concluded that “the more recently born generations are doing worse”, and warn “that the prevalence of metabolic risk factors and the lifelong exposure to them have increased and probably will continue to increase”.'

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Physical Exercise Still Beats Mental Workouts For Keeping The Brain In Top Form

'Regular physical exercise appears to trump mental memory games when it comes to protecting the brain from shrinking, an otherwise natural process that occurs with age. Conversely, mentally and socially stimulating activities, long believed to stimulate the brain, had no major effect on preventing brain shrinkage, according to a study published in the journal Neurology.'

(...)

"People in their seventies who participated in more physical exercise, including walking several times a week, had less brain shrinkage and other signs of aging in the brain than those who were less physically active," said lead author Alan J. Gow of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. "On the other hand, our study showed no real benefit to participating in mentally and socially stimulating activities on brain size, as seen on MRI scans, over the three-year time frame."

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Amazing Medical Discovery: Transfusions of Young Blood Appear to Rejuvenate the Elderly

Looks like vampire movies are on to something. So far, it's just mice.


'Human history-altering newsflash: Scientists have demonstrated that injections of youthful blood carry semi-magical, rejuvenating qualities--at least for gray-whiskered mice. The researchers believe that the same might hold true for humans, suggesting that diseases like Alzheimer’s and indeed aging itself might be prevented through the transfusion of the youth’s vigorous lifeblood.'


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The aging brain: Why getting older just might be awesome

Believing in your power


'So is the future bright for the older would-be innovator?
Absolutely, says Taylor, the picture is rosy. But as with any rose, there are thorns.


Debra Dunn, an associate professor at the d.school. was a senior executive at Hewlett-Packard for 22 years.


Steeped in Silicon Valley culture, Dunn says: "Some of the most wonderfully innovative engineers I have known were older-timers."


Ultimately, though, Dunn believes that older people's perceptions of their own ability to contribute become powerful predictors of what they can and cannot achieve.


"What you think, you become," she quotes Buddha.


Small agrees. "The older brain is quite resilient and can be stimulated to innovate, create and contribute in extraordinary ways. We need incentives to encourage older people to continue to be creative because I think ... what they have to offer is tremendous." '




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These Simple Lifestyle Changes Will Add a Decade or More To Your Life

 

'Health prevention strategies to help people achieve their optimal health potential could add a decade or more of healthy years to the average lifespan and save the economy billions of dollars as a result of reduced cardiovascular disease.

Professor of medicine and chief cardiologist at the Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Clyde Yancy stated that "achieving...simple lifestyle factors gives people a 90 per cent chance of living to the age of 90 or 100, free of not only heart disease and stroke but from a number of other chronic illnesses including cancer." '

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Staying Young Forever

'Our culture places great value on staying and looking young and a huge industry is in place to give people the opportunity to live longer. Anti-aging enthusiasts contend that life spans can be prolonged. Advice from the National Institute on Aging is to be a skeptical consumer on guard for possible scams involving purported anti-aging products. 

“Our culture places great value on staying young, but aging is normal,” the Institute says. “Despite claims about pills or treatments that lead to endless youth, no treatments have been proven to slow or reverse the aging process.”' 

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Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – now for humans

'Scientists claim to be a step closer to reversing the ageing process after rejuvenating worn out organs in elderly mice. The experimental treatment developed by researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, turned weak and feeble old mice into healthy animals by regenerating their aged bodies.

The surprise recovery of the animals has raised hopes among scientists that it may be possible to achieve a similar feat in humans – or at least to slow down the ageing process.'

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