Forgetting to floss? If the answer is yes, trouble awaits. Periodontal infection may lead to heart disease, reports the American Academy of Periodontology. You can learn more by calling toll-free 1-800-FLOSS-EM or try an interactive website (www.perio.org), according to Seniority magazine.
So you feel like the morning after—and you haven’t even been partying. You have company. Older adults reported experiencing an average of five minor health problems during a two-week period, in a study by the Non-prescription Drug Manufacturers Association. The most frequent complaints: arthritis, sleeping difficulties, muscle aches and pains, upset stomach, being overweight, headaches, colds, and bunions/corns/calluses. In 28 percent of the cases, the seniors gained relief from over-the-counter medicines, says the United Seniors Health Report. The other 72 percent? They evidently saw their doctors for a prescription or toughed it out.
Don’t dawdle when you make a left turn. Seniors rack up a high accident rate during the maneuver because they take too much time, reports the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The longer a driver takes, the greater the risk of a crash with a car coming toward you or from right or left.
Constant worry about memory can actually impair it, says Dr. Barry Gordon of Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Neurology. Fear of dementia can deplete your self-confidence and depress you. For the majority of healthy people, lapses of memory after age 50 are simply part of the normal aging process. Memory problems can occur from stress, depression, fatigue, changes in hearing or vision, medications, a poor diet, excessive drinking, and illness unrelated to Alzheimer’s—all of which are treatable conditions, says the UC-Berkeley Wellness Letter.
An age-related drop in estrogen impacts men as well as women when it comes to osteoporosis, based on studies described at a San Francisco meeting of the International Bone and Mineral Society as reported in the New York Times. Until now, the general view was that low testosterone levels led to the condition, thus suggesting that osteoporosis is under-reported for men. So, gentlemen, as most women could inform you, here are the guidelines to avoid it: Stop smoking, limit the amount of alcohol and get off your duff and work out now and then. Take 1,500 mg of calcium per day (1,000 mg is O.K. to age 65). Get out in the sun at least 10 minutes a day or take 400 IU of vitamin D. For exercising, try walking, jogging, racquet sports or stair climbing. Pump some iron too.
For muscle soreness or arthritis, use one-half to one teaspoon of dry or fresh ginger cooked into recipes or in boiling water as tea. This is the advice of Dr. Neal Barnard, author of Foods that Fight Pain. Also eat green leafy vegetables and beans. Avoid foods such as eggs, citrus fruits, meat, poultry and fish, wheat, dairy products, and chocolate (especially bad for migraine), he is quoted as saying in the Bottom Line newsletter.
Between 10 and 20 percent of seniors suffer from depression, according to a four-year study by the National Institute on Aging. Women are about twice as likely as men to develop depression, but are more likely to get treatment, says Seniority magazine. Men may mask their despondency by drinking; otherwise, depression rates among men and women would be closer. Doctors fail to diagnose the problem in half their patients who have depression. The good news is that psychotherapy, anti-depressants or a combination of both are successful in 80 percent of the clinical depression cases, the magazine says.
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