Prime Time: A New Look At Aging

You're already a winner

In order to read what I'm writing here, you have mastered a set of tools (computer, mouse, internet, finding an address, etc.) that give you an advantage in staying self-reliant and independent.

A 2006 article titled 'Factors predicting the use of technology: Findings from the center for research and education on aging and technology enhancement (create)' and published in Psychology and Aging reports on a study of 1,204 individuals. "The successful adoption of technology is becoming increasingly important to functional independence. The present article reports findings from the Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE) on the use of technology among community-dwelling adults."

This makes sense to me--learning anything new helps keep you flexible. Assuming you choose to learn something relevant to you, it should help you in concrete ways. Learning technology keeps you close to the present, and the tools themselves provide ways to communicate, solve problems and stay part of the world. Which means I will probably have to learn how (and even why) to use Twitter...

The article goes on to say, "All participants completed a battery that included measures of demographic characteristics, self-rated health, experience with technology, attitudes toward computers, and component cognitive abilities. Findings indicate that the older adults were less likely than younger adults to use technology in general, computers, and the World Wide Web. The results also indicate that computer anxiety, fluid intelligence, and crystallized intelligence were important predictors of the use of technology. The relationship between age and adoption of technology was mediated by cognitive abilities, computer self-efficacy, and computer anxiety."

So, yes, it's tougher to stay on top of things as we get older. But it's obviously worth it. So, I'll give you about 30 seconds to feel good about yourselves.... ready? Now go teach someone else how to do what you have learned. Pass it on.

Seniors need more and better hugs

Years ago, experts said a person needed four hugs a day for optimum emotional and physical health. Today, some say 12 per day is ideal.

Helen Colton says a lot of Americans are too inhibited to be good huggers, or to hug at all. As evidence, she describes the popular “A-frame” stance, clasping only heads and chests when engaging in a hug.

She’s also critical of the “Baby Burp,” in which the person pats you as though you needed burping. Then there’s the “Chimpanzee,” an alternate flapping of the hands on the back, which is the custom of chimps. A person employing the “Drumbeat Tattoo” beats a rat-a-tat-tat on your back.

When someone hugs Colton in these ways, “His hand talk says to me, ‘I’m not comfortable doing this.’ But when a hugger presses his palms with fingers closed on my back or rubs his hands up and down caressing my back, this makes me feel good. It says, ‘I like you. . .’”

In her book, The Gift of Touch, she maintains that hugs and touches are crucial in childhood and remain important as the years go by, helping us enjoy life, improving communication, and making us feel better when we’re ill or feeling blue or grief-stricken. We all have a hunger for tactile contact with one another, and many people suffer from malnutrition of the senses, she says.

Some people remain discomfited by “the still-powerful Puritan heritage that taught us to equate touching with sexuality,” she adds. An incest taboo causes them to stop cuddling their children or other relatives. “The closeness most of us yearn for in family life is not sexual,” says Colton, a family counselor and teacher of family relations. 

As we age, our skin changes, our palms lose some of their sensitivity. “However, tactile needs do not seem to change with aging—if anything they seem to increase,” says Ashley Montague, an anthropologist and the author of Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin.

“Because we are unwilling to face the fact of aging, we behave as if it isn't there,” he says, and this a main reason we do not understand the needs of the aged.

Tactile stimulation is the most important and neglected of these needs, Montague says. “One only has to observe the responses of older people to a caress, an embrace, a hand pat or clasp, to appreciate how vitally necessary such experiences are for their well-being.” These actions sometimes make the difference between life and death, he believes.

Massage also can make a difference. Studies show that it speeds the healing of wounds, reduces pain and improves the functioning of the immune system. At the Miami Touch Institute, 28 people each received a 20-minute massage twice a week. They returned to work more alert and completed math problems in half the time with 50 percent fewer errors. 

Paraplegics can walk with new device

A wheelchair-bound Israeli inventor, Amit Goffer, has invented an exoskeleton that paraplegics can use to move about. His 44-pound ReWalk prototype enables users to walk, sit and climb or descend stairs with the help of crutches, according to a June 2009 Popular Science magazine article.

The inventor sought a safe design that was energy-efficient enough to last for a full day. This meant a choice that prevented him from using it, because he’s paralyzed from the chest down and unable to use the energy-saving crutches.

A wristband controller enables the user to select the action mode. He or she “plants one of the crutches and leans forward in the walk mode, for example, and a tilt sensor in the ReWalk’s shoulder harness registers the motion,” the article said. “A computer in a backpack interprets this data and instructs electric motors in the hip and knee of one leg to move it forward. Another plant of the crutches and another lean, and the motors on the side swing the second leg ahead.” The unit stops when the user stands up straight.

The inventor says his next version will weigh about 30 pounds.

A bit more on Aubrey de Grey

Some time back, a reporter from MIT Review paid Aubrey de Grey, the man who thinks he can defeat aging, at his home in Cambridge. The longish article that resulted from that visit is well worth a read and can be found here.

Mr. de Grey thinks that aging consists of lots of little breakdowns that accumulate over time and cause the body's mechanism to deteriorate. He is optimistic that addressing each individual breakdown can stop aging--he thinks like an engineer, not a visionary.

For now, here's a summary of how he thinks aging can be addressed.

"De Grey calls his program Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, which permits him to say that it makes SENS to embark upon it. Here, in no particular order, follow his seven horsemen of death and the formulations for the breaking of each animal and its rider. (Those seeking more detailed information might wish to consult de Grey's website: www.gen.cam.ac.uk/sens/index.html.)

1. Loss and atrophy or degeneration of cells. This element of aging is particularly important in tissues where cells cannot replace themselves as they die, such as the heart and brain. De Grey would treat it primarily by the introduction of growth factors to stimulate cell division or by periodic transfusion of stem cells specifically engineered to replace the types that have been lost.

2. Accumulation of cells that are not wanted. These are (a) fat cells, which tend to proliferate and not only replace muscle but also lead to diabetes by diminishing the body's ability to respond to the pancreatic hormone insulin, and (b) cells that have become senescent, which accumulate in the cartilage of our joints. Receptors on the surface of such cells are susceptible to immune bodies that de Grey believes scientists will in time learn how to generate, or to other compounds that may make the cells destroy themselves without affecting others that do not have those distinctive receptors.

3. Mutations in chromosomes. The most damaging consequence of cell mutation is the development of cancer. The immortality of cancer cells is related to the behavior of the telomere, the caplike structure found on the end of every chromosome, which decreases in length each time the cell divides and therefore seems to be involved with the cell's mortality. If we could eliminate the gene that makes telomerase -- the enzyme that maintains and lengthens telomeres -- the cancer cell would die. De Grey's solution for this problem is to replace a person's stem cells every 10 or so years with ones engineered not to carry that gene.

4. Mutations in mitochondria. Mitochondria are the micromachines that produce energy for the cell's activities. They contain small amounts of DNA, which are particularly susceptible to mutations since they are not housed in the chromosomes of the nucleus. De Grey proposes copying the genes (of which there are 13) from the mitochondrial DNA and then putting those copies into the DNA of the nucleus, where they will be far safer from mutation-causing influences.

5. The accumulation of "junk" within the cell. The junk in question is a collection of complex material that results from the cell's breakdown of large molecules. Intracellular structures called lysosomes are the primary microchambers for such breakdown; the junk tends to collect in them, causing problems in the function of certain types of cells. Atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries, is the biggest manifestation of these complications. To solve this difficulty, de Grey proposes to provide the lysosomes with genes to produce the extra enzymes required to digest the unwelcome material. The source of these genes will be certain soil bacteria, an innovation based on the observation that ground that contains buried animal flesh does not show accumulation of degraded junk.

6. The accumulation of "junk" outside the cell. The fluid in which all cells are bathed -- called extracellular fluid -- may come to contain aggregates of protein material that it is incapable of breaking down. The result is the formation of a substance called amyloid, which is the material found in the brains of people with Alz heimer's disease. To counter this, de Grey proposes vaccination with an as-yet undeveloped substance that might stimulate the immune system to produce cells to engulf and eat the offending material.

7. Cross-links in proteins outside the cell. The extracellular fluid contains many flexible protein molecules that exist unchanged for long periods of time, whose function is to give certain tissues such qualities as elasticity, transparence, or high tensile strength. Over a lifetime, occasional chemical reactions gradually affect these molecules in ways that change their physical and/or chemical qualities. Among these changes is the development of chemical bonds called cross-links between molecules that had previously moved independently of one another. The result is a loss of elasticity or a thickening of the involved tissue. If the tissue is the wall of an artery, for example, the loss of distensibility may lead to high blood pressure. De Grey's solution to this problem is to attempt to identify chemicals or enzymes capable of breaking cross-links without injuring anything else.

It must be obvious that, even condensed and simplified as they are here, these seven factors are enormously complex biological problems with even more complex proposed solutions. At least some of those solutions may prove inadequate, and others may be impossible to implement. Moreover, de Grey's descriptions are sprinkled with such vague phrases as "growth factors" and "stimulate the immune system," which might prove to be little more than slogans, as when he invokes yet-to-be-discovered "chemicals or enzymes capable of breaking cross-links without injuring anything else." In addition, it must be emphasized that researchers have not come close to solving a single one of the seven problems. In the case of several, there have been promising results. Indeed, research on extracellular cross-links has already yielded several drug candidates: a company called Alteon, in Parsippany, NY, has begun clinical trials of molecules that it says can reverse the effects of some conditions associated with age. In the cases of some of the other problems de Grey identifies, however -- such as the prevention of telomere lengthening or the transfer of mitochondrial DNA to the nucleus -- it is fair to say that molecular biologists can only speculate about the day, if ever, when these attempts will come to fruition."

How seniors can alleviate arthritis pain

You’ve read about the health benefits of Omega 3. Here’s one more, according to Dr. Andrew Wiel: it helps reduce pain caused by arthritis, he states in the July 2009 issue of Prevention magazine.

Some of the best Omega 3 sources include wild Alaska salmon and other coldwater fish, freshly ground flaxseed, Omega 3-fortified eggs, and walnuts. He also recommends seasoning meals as often as possible with ginger and turmeric. Try to eat up to nine fruits and vegetables a day.

You’ll benefit, too, by eliminating polyunsaturated vegetable oils (especially corn and soy oils) and partially hydrogenated oils found in much margarine, vegetable shortenings, and processed foods with fats that promote inflammation.

If you suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, Dr. Weil notes that people who switched to a vegetarian diet noted a modest improvement in joint swelling.

Aubrey de Grey--the man who wants to defeat aging

Here's an introduction for a man you will see appear often in this weblog. His name is Aubrey de Grey. First, I really want to say that I like his beard very much. Second, his continuing focus on overcoming the separate processes that combine to cause aging and the decay of physical processes is certain to be a significant contribution to whatever progress is made in advancing longevity. I'll keep this short--here's what Wikipedia has to say about him.

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Aubrey de Grey
Aubrey de Grey, 2008
Born	April 20, 1963 (age 46) London, England
Residence	Cambridge, England
Nationality	British
Ethnicity	England
Fields	Biogerontology
Institutions	University of Cambridge
Alma mater	University of Cambridge
Known for	SENS, Methuselah Mouse Prize

Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey (born 20 April 1963 in London, England) is an English biomedical gerontologist.

De Grey is the author of the mitochondrial free-radical theory of aging, and the general-audience book Ending Aging, a detailed description of how regenerative medicine may be able to thwart the aging process altogether within a few decades. He works on the development of what he has termed "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence" (SENS) - a tissue-repair strategy intended torejuvenate the human body and thereby allow an indefinite lifespan. To this end, he has identified seven types of molecular and cellular "damage" caused by essential metabolic processes; SENS is a proposed panel of therapies to repair this damage.^[1]

De Grey has been interviewed in recent years in many news sources, including CBS 60 Minutes, BBC, the New York Times, Fortune Magazine, the Washington Post, TED, Popular Science and The Colbert Report. His main activities at present are as Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation^[2] and editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research.

Seniors know the knack of napping

Since retiring, Peggy Blake enjoys a daily 20-minute siesta after lunch. “I love naps,” she says. “I put a small pillow under my neck, cross my arms on my chest and stretch out. It’s a light sleep; I guess that’s why they call it a cat nap.”

This is the type of nap consistency and appreciation William Anthony extols in The Art of Napping (Larson Publications). It offers some “naptitudes”—skills and techniques that stand nappers in good stead. Which rhymes with bed, but the bed isn’t at all necessary for nappers.

Herny Riechmann, for example, completed a morning Hawaiian dance class at the Walnut Creek Senior Center, stretched out at home for half an hour on the sofa, then dashed back for her family history writing class. What about lunch? “Oh, I ate a big breakfast, so I wasn’t hungry,” she says. So there’s another possible benefit. You can slim down by napping through an occasional meal.

Six out of ten adults nap at least once a week, says Anthony, who directs Boston University’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation when he isn’t snoozing. Despite this ratio, prejudice exists. Certain nap police rouse people or make them feel guilty even though scientific studies reveal many Americans are “sleep deprived.” He notes that in the Bible it says that “on the seventh day. . .God rested.” What better role model could we ask for?

Arliss Harmon likes “a little nap” of 20 minutes. “Any more than that and I feel groggy,” she says. It refreshes her to the degree that she can recall, while waiting for a class to start, pithy sayings like “The trouble with doing nothing, you don’t know when to stop.”

A little inertia after a nap is nothing to worry about, Anthony says. The grogginess disappears within 15 minutes at the most.

“I zonk out for 20 minutes to a half-hour after lunch,” declares Dean Chapman, a senior who lives in Concord. “Then I get up and have a cup of tea with Elsie and we chat for a bit.” Elsie is Dean’s wife and, since “she’s so much younger,” she doesn’t require daily rest. But if she’s really pooped, she’ll go into a trance-like state for an hour or so. 

In his book, Where Was I When Time Went By?, Chapman’s essay on napping advocates redesigning our schools so children can stretch out for 20 minutes of shut-eye. Businesses could chart the circadian rhythms of employees to ensure the maximum rejuvenation rate of their naps, he suggests. You can help by donating, say, $3,000 for his new organization, Save American Naps. “Donations will be recognized in your dreams,” he adds.

Nappers score the highest points when, for example, they drift off at the dentist’s, even with a hand and several instruments in the mouth. 

Mary Rizzo, naps, but not too often. Her husband, Carmen, rates as a true aficionado. “He’d be lost without his naps,” she declares, then recalls that she dozes while watching TV. “I never see how anything ends,” she confesses. During one interval, her head fell back and her mouth dropped open, and that’s the time a visiting relative snapped her picture. She’s still making weekly payments to keep it out of circulation. Well, that last part is conjecture.

Anthony’s book debunks the view that napping reduces one’s ability to sleep at night. “A good nap and a good night-time sleep can go hand in hand,” he says. Another tip: groups and families should try synchronized napping. And if you’re searching for a gift to give a napper, consider a napsack for napnomic devices such as a pillow, or a tape of sea sounds.

 

'Spectrum' delivers a lifestyle wallop

In his book Spectrum, Dr. Dean Ornish gently takes you be the lapels, shakes you, looks you in the eye, and, in effect, says, “Get with it!” One point he emphasizes: doctors receive payments for surgeries and medicine instead of preventive measures.

His calm, reasoned report ranges from advice to results of three decades of research by his nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute (www.pmri.org) and other study groups. The cumulative impact is noteworthy.

Clint Eastwood, for example, says, “I’ve been following Dr. Dean Ornish’s program for more than a decade, and I feel younger now than I did ten years ago. Dr. Ornish’s style of eating and living is always delicious and never boring.”

You’ve read or heard about the lifestyle changes Dr. Ornish recommends: eat more fruits and veggies and less red meat; exercise; meditate; drink green tea and less booze; use less salt and eat more fiber; alleviate stress; quit smoking; and socialize. What happens? In groups of people with developing heart and stroke problems, high blood pressure, and at-risk prostate cancer candidates, a large majority of them showed dramatic health improvement.

Walnut Creek resident Paul Hed discovered he had prostate cancer nearly a decade ago, and joined a Dr. Ornish study group. He lost 15 pounds and lowered his blood pressure 20 points in the first three months. His lifestyle changes included a low-fat diet, yoga, stress reduction steps, and weekly sessions with others in the test group, in addition to the changes mentioned above.

For the general population, Dr. Ornish suggests two approaches. You can make small, gradual changes. “Over time, small changes add up and are often sustainable,” he says.
Or “make comprehensive lifestyle changes all at once.” The benefit of this is you’ll experience big improvements—and quickly.

Spectrum (Ballentine Books) includes recipes and tips by noted chef Art Smith plus a CD on guided meditations.

When Second Prize is Good Enough

When a scientist says something can be done, believe him or her and add about 15 years to the timeline they give you for completion. But when a scientist says something cannot be done--they are (so far) almost always wrong.

So when Massachussetts Institute of Technology writes that it is 'absurd' to think that aging can be 'cured' in the way a disease might be cured, you don't have to be convinced just by their stellar reputation. Although they are probably right, science has a way of getting in through the back door when the front door is locked, and may find a way to prolong lifespans without finding a cure.

What MIT offers as a consolation prize is almost equally as welcome--and startling. Current research is on the way to treatments and technologies that will 'compress morbidity'--that is, shorten the amount of time people are unhealthy prior to their deaths. Or as MIT put it,

"While it is highly unlikely that aging can be permanently halted at the cellular level, antiaging science might allow doctors to "compress the morbidity" of their patients: that is, reduce the amount of time geriatric patients suffer from the chronic diseases of old age like heart disease, macular degeneration, senile diabetes, or dementia. Such therapies would also extend human life -- at least a little bit, anyway. Human beings could live beyond the age of 80 or 90, and in relatively good health. And while that's not immortality, it offers something like happiness on a reasonable, human scale."

That's a second prize I can live with--at least for now.

Technology and seniors--this week

It used to be that companies and innovators concentrated on the young and all but ignored seniors. That no longer seems to be the case. Here's one week in technology for seniors:

June 17, 2009

At the Boomer Venture Summit in Santa Clara, CA, firstSTREET and MyGait today unveiled a "failure-free and fear-free" computer especially conceived for and by seniors over an eight-year period of hands-on research at senior centers and assisted living communities around the country. The "designed for SENIORS GO Computer™" was developed down to the last detail, from its large-letter keyboard to its fool-proof operating system, to accommodate the needs and wishes of a demographic that has traditionally resisted the world of computers or had the hardest time accessing it. "And these are the very people," says Gordon, "who may well benefit most from email and Internet access."

June 17, 2009

Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) and Providence Health and Services (PH&S) have signed a three-year agreement for Varian to provide PH&S treatment centers with advanced radiotherapy technology for treating cancer. The agreement covers Varian's state-of-the-art equipment and software.

June 15, 2009

Remote cardiac monitoring company LifeWatch inked an exclusive carrier agreement with Verizon Wireless for its mobile phone-based service for cardiac patients.

June 15, 2009

MedApps: Remote wireless telemonitoring vendor MedApps received clearance from the FDA this past week for its HealthPAL product. HealthPAL is the small, portable dedicated device that MedApps uses to collect data from connected glucose meters, blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters and weight scales. The data is then sent over a secure server to an online portal like Microsoft’s HealthVault or Google Health for caregivers, physicians or the patient themselves to view.

June 15, 2009

Apple unveiled its latest iPhone model at the annual World Wide Developers Conference last week, the iPhone 3GS, and showed off the new iPhone operating system 3.0. The new OS includes specifications that allow connected medical device makers to pair their devices with the iPhone via Bluetooth. Johnson & Johnson's LifeScan unit demonstrated a concept of just such a product earlier this year with a connected blood glucose monitor that interfaced with an iPhone application for diabetes management. At a WWDC event earlier this week, Apple invited AirStrip Technologies on-stage to demonstrate its cardiac monitoring application for clinicians

June 10, 2009

Rocky Mountain Marketing, after 5 years of marketing, research and development has released to the public, their state-of-the-art rehabilitation aid, the Shoe & Boot Valet(TM). The Shoe & Boot Valet(TM) delivers, in one innovative product, a tool that can put on and take off footwear with just one hand. The Shoe & Boot Valet(TM) is perfect for maintaining an active, healthy and independent lifestyle while providing comfort to those with limited mobility.

Designed for easy use in the home, in outpatient rehabilitation clinics, and in assisted-living settings, this nonprescription breakthrough device represents a significant advance for people with difficulty putting on and taking off their footwear due to either acute or chronic pain conditions that arise from illness, inflammation, injury or surgery or as a result of aging. At last, a product comes along that offers unprecedented flexibility for both the user and the caregiver alike.