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The Gift of Getting Older

— “It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.” — Jules Renard Conversation topics center on the weather or latest ailments. Getting up elicits grunts and groans. Birthday cards poke fun about impending death. Dinner after 6 p.m. seems tiring. Face it: you are getting older. While the adage that age is just... Read More

Meditation for Health: 7 Scientific Takeaways

— What do the Beatles, Oprah, and Stephen Curry all have in common? Meditation. All found meditation beneficial and helped make it mainstream. Today, meditation is popular, with over 14% of Americans practicing some type of meditation. In 2017, more than 5% of children aged 4 to 17 years were participating in mediation, with some schools... Read More

Understanding Lewy Body Dementia

— It would be understandable to have never heard of—or know much about—Lewy body dementia. It is a form of dementia that has only received global scientific attention in the last few decades. Scientists did not fully understand how common this form of dementia is until the 1990s. October was Lewy Body Dementia Awareness month, a... Read More

6 Ways to Model Good Health for the Grandkids

— During the past decade or so, evolutionary biologists have been looking at an interesting question: Why do humans, unlike almost every other species in the animal kingdom, survive long beyond their reproductive years? Despite the ageist stereotype that older adults are a “burden,” anthropologists agree that living in social groups that included older members was... Read More

Which Foods Are Good for Brain Health?

— A miracle brain power supplement? Superfood capsules? Herbal shakes with mysterious “cognitive health” enzymes? If you watch TV or go on the internet or read magazines, you are likely bombarded with commercials for products claiming to protect the memory and stave off dementia, even to “boost brain power.” Then there are nutrition “experts” who make... Read More

If a Relative Has Alzheimer’s Disease, Am I at Risk?

— Today nearly six million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer’s disease, and more than 16 million others are providing care for them. Most often, these caregivers are close relatives, and they often express concern about whether they, too, will experience memory loss as they grow older. They are right to consider this. Studies... Read More

Controlling High Blood Pressure Is Good for the Brain

— Why do older adults experience memory and thinking problems? For years, the assumption was that most dementia was caused by Alzheimer’s disease. But more recent research using advanced brain imaging and large collections of data has shown that it’s not that simple. A study of 1,100 older adults released by the U.S. Department of Veterans... Read More

Arthritis and Rainy Weather: Is There a Connection?

— April showers bring May flowers…and according to an old belief, they also bring a worsening of arthritis. Some people even claim they can predict rain when their joints ache. But is that true, or a myth? May is National Arthritis Awareness Month, so let’s take a look at some recent research on that topic. “The... Read More

Food Label Facts for Older Adults

— Is your diet made up exclusively of dishes you create from scratch, using fresh ingredients? Most likely not! Most of us use plenty of canned, boxed, frozen or bottled products, and that’s just fine—so long as what’s in those packages is healthy and meets our nutritional needs. If you are an older adult, you probably... Read More

Lifestyle Changes to Lower the Risk of Cancer

— According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, only following heart disease. Each year, almost 1,800,000 people will be diagnosed with cancer, and close to 600,000 people will die of the disease. Just as the CDC’s name implies, “control and prevention”... Read More