Category Archives for Health & Wellness

Some Simple Resolutions Can Better Your Life

Published in Pawtucket Times, January 4, 2014

Every year we see the Times Square ball swiftly drop as a million or so revelers loudly count down to one at the stroke of midnight. Also, we traditionally make New Year Resolutions to accomplish in the coming year to perform acts of kindness and for self-improvement.

Making a resolution for positive change goes back for eons. According to Wikipedia, the act of making a resolution can be documented in Mesopotamia (the territory of modern-day Iraq). Babylonians made promises to their stone deities to start off a new year by returning borrowed goods and paying off debts.

The free internet encyclopedia also notes that the Romans even carried out this tradition by making promises to Janus, the God of beginnings and transitions (for whom the month January is named). Knights during the Medieval era, from the 5th to 15th century, took a “peacock vow” after the Christmas season to re-affirm their commitment to knightly virtues of honor, courtesy love and courtesy.

Wikipedia also reports that even “watch services” held late on New Year’s Eve, also provided an opportunity for Christian parishioners to review the past year and make confessions and prepare for the New Year by prayer. Even Judaism’s High Holidays, from Rosh Hashanah ending with Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, gives worshipers an opportunity to reflect on their wrongdoings over the year to seek forgiveness and to prepare for the upcoming year, adds the internet website.

Memorable New Year Resolutions

Zoe Mintz, of the International Business Times, posted her thoughts about New Year Resolutions just hours before 2014, on the New York-based digital global publication’s web. Like clockwork, many of the nation’s newspapers and magazines, including Mintz, printed articles detailing interesting, inspirational and unusual resolutions from prominent people, from movies stars (they usually tweet) artists, politicians, writers, and corporate leaders.

Mintz details some well-thought out New Year Resolutions from people who you may well know.

“Let our New Year’s resolution be this: We will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.” — Goran Persson, served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1996 to 2006

“New Year’s resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.” — James Agate, British diarist and critic.

“I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.” — Anaïs Nin, an American author, ‘

“One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: to rise above the little things.” — John Burroughs, an American naturalist and essayist important in the evolution of the U.S conservation movement.

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the years.” — Henry Moore, an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art

“What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year.” — Vern McLellan, author of Wise Words and Quote.

“Follow your passions, believe in karma, and you won’t have to chase your dreams; they will come to you.” — Randy Pausch, American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is author of the “Last Lecture.”

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” — Mother Teresa, an Albanian-born, Indian Roman Catholic Religious Sister who founded the Missionaries of Charity which in 2012 consisted of over 4,500 sisters in 133 countries.

“If you asked me for my New Year resolution, it would be to find out who I am.” — Cyril Cusack, an Irish actor, who appeared in numerous films and television productions in a career lasting more than 70 years.

Everyday Resolutions

Resolutions may inspire or be a little bit ethereal, as detailed in the above listing compiled by Mintz. Simply put, our personal New Year’s resolutions help us cope with daily challenges to improve health, personal finances and relationships, that is to enhance our quality of life.

Many of your family and friends will be making their 2014 New Year’s resolutions to improve their health by eating healthy foods, losing weight or ratcheting up their exercise regimen. Everyone knows someone whose has made a resolution to either drink or smoke less, or not at all.

As the New Year approaches a person may say “Life’s too short,” when they begin to craft their personal resolutions. Attitude adjustments may well occur, when the person resolves to see “a glass half full rather than half empty,” making a commitment for the coming year to become a more positive person, one who looks forward to living life to the fullest. Even some may explore ways to reduce the stress in their lives.

A 2014 New Year resolution for others may just be to dig themselves out of credit card debt (cut those cards in half), regularly put money away for retirement, invest in the stock market or even to find a more satisfying job that pays better than their current one.

You might even see college students making their 2014 resolution to study harder to get that “A.” Some baby boomers and seniors may even chose to make this year the time to enroll at a local College or University to get a bachelor’s or graduate degree, or go to just learn new or sharpen up their existing skills.

For many, life may have become too routine and predictable, pushing them to schedule a trip to exotic places in the New Year. Some may choose to watch less television, committing to put their leisure time to a better use in 2014. One might resolve to become a volunteer at the local food kitchen, or helping the homeless, or even joining civic groups, like the Pawtucket Rotary Club or Lions club, or the Masons, to reach out to their community. Spending time helping those in need can also be a benefit for those volunteering – learning new skills, meeting new friends, advancing your career, or even improving mental and physical health.

New Year’s resolutions even help a person focus where their time, money and energy is directed. Everyone knows someone who is resolving to spend quality time in 2014 with family members. Some may even make resolutions to get engaged or married their long-time partner or to even begin a family.

With Christmas becoming so commercial, some may well make New Year resolutions that will push them away from materialistic pleasures, to exploring their spirituality.

Using Technology to Keep Resolutions

New technology can help keep us on track with keeping our 2014 New Year’s Resolutions. With the growing popularity of cell phones (iPhone and Android) thousands of self-help apps are now becoming available on app stores for IOS and Android cell phones, reports Business Reporter Victor Luckerson, in an article published on New Year’s Day on Time.com.

Luckerson details apps that will keep you on track with keeping your 2014 New Years resolutions. Here is a small sampling:

For learning the basics of a foreign language to prepare for a vacation, Duolingo helps you to quickly learn the basics. Users can easily review lessons in vocabulary, pronunciation, and basic grammar. Currently Duolingo offers lessons in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German and Italian. Available for iPhone and Android.

MyQuitCoach was created to help you keep cigarettes at arms length. The app uses data to help people curb their bad habit by allowing users to input how often they smoke and when they have their cravings. This information allows short and long-term goals to be set, enabling the smoker to reduce their daily cigarette use. Tying results to both Facebook and Twitter can increase support from social media friends. Available for iPhone.

For those who require motivation to go to their neighborhood gym, MapMyFitness is just the app for you. The app tracks 600 different fitness activities, from running, to ballroom dancing, to even walking the dog. With this app you can even map out effective jogging routes. It even offers a social component that allows your friends to motivate you to exercise from within the app. Available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.

For resolutions to tighten your belt to improve your personal finances, check out DailyCost. The app easily allows you to closely check in going and outgoing money in all you bank accounts. Moreover, you can easily log in all your daily expenses, too, categorizing them within seconds. Weekly and monthly spending charts allow you to closely review where you spend your money. Available for iPhone.

Finally here’s an app to help you accomplish your resolution goals. Simply put, Lift helps you track how often you complete your tasks that you resolve to complete and rewards you with virtual check marks for achieving. Tasks can be drinking more water, praying, and other habits you want to change. App users who pursue the same goals can support each other via discussion groups. Available for iPhone and Android.

For this columnist, my 2014 New Year’s Resolutions (like many) revolve around health, financial and family. I resolve to become healthier by losing weight, eating healthier foods, and increasing my visits to the local YMCA; to get my financial house in order; and to spend more time with family and good friends. Maybe I might even write a book. As to my success, I will keep my fingers crossed.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket-based writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Poll Says Americans Shy Away from Wanting to Live to Age 120

Published in Pawtucket Times, August 16, 2013

What if new biomedical advances could slow the aging process and allow people to live into their 12th decade (to age 120), would you want to have these new medical treatments? Although you might take this opportunity to keep death at bay for decades, a new research survey by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project finds most Americans (56%) say “no” – they, personally, would not want treatments to enable dramatically longer life spans. But roughly two-thirds (68%) think that most other people would choose to live to 120 and beyond.

Released last week, the ten page report, “Living to 120 and Beyond: American’s Views on Aging, Medical Advances and Radical Life Extension,” notes that “some futurists think that even more radical changes are coming, including medical treatments that could slow, stop or reverse the aging process and allow humans to remain healthy and productive to the age of 120 or m ore. The possibility that extraordinary life spans could become ordinary life spaces no longer seems far-fetched.”

The Pew Research Center Report’s findings are tabulated from data compiled from a new nationwide telephone survey, conducted March 21-April 8, 2013, on cell phones and landlines, among a nationally representative sample of 2,012 adults. The overall margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Is Living Longer Better?

The Pew Research Center’s survey explores the public’s attitudes toward aging, medical advances and what some biomedical researchers call “radical life extension” – the possibility that scientific breakthroughs someday could allow people to live much longer than is possible today. The findings indicated that overall, more Americans think dramatically longer life spans would be bad (51%) than good (41%) for society.

The researchers asked adult recipients how long they ideally would like to live, more than two-thirds (69%) cite an age between ages 79 and 100. (For this writer, eighty-nine years old is just the ripe old age to shed my mortal coil in this world.). The median desired life span of the survey respondents is 90 years – about 11 years longer than the current average U.S. life expectancy, which is 78.7 years. Just 9% of Americans say they want to live more than 100 years.

According to the researchers, because most people say they have heard little or nothing about the possibility of radically extended lifetimes, and because the scientific breakthroughs are far from certain, the wording of the survey questions focus on the result – much longer life spans – and are deliberately vague about how this would be achieved or how healthy an average person would be at 120 and beyond.

The survey also seeks to put the forward-looking questions about radical life extension into perspective by asking the respondents about their views on aging, health care, medical advances in general, personal life satisfaction and bioethical issues.

According to the researchers, the study’s findings indicate that the U.S. public is not particularly concerned about the gradual rise in the percentage of Americans who are 65 and older. Nearly nine-in-ten adults surveyed stated that “having more elderly people in the population” either is a good thing for society (41%) or doesn’t make much difference (47%). Just 10% see the graying of America as a bad thing.

A Cure for Most Cancers, a Possibility

The findings indicate that the public also tends to view medical advances in general as good thing (63%) rather than as interfering with the natural cycle of life (32%). Moreover, the public is optimistic that some extraordinary breakthroughs will occur in the next few decades. For instance, about seven-in-ten adult Americans think that by the year 2050 there will be a cure for most forms of cancer (69%) and that artificial arms and legs will perform better than natural ones (71%).

Survey respondents expressed skepticism that radical life extension will be possible anytime soon. Only a quarter think that by 2050 the average American will live to be 120 years old; nearly three-quarters (73%) say this either “probably” or “definitely” will not happen. And, if it does happen, many Americans foresee both positive and negative consequences for society.

While forty-four percent of the respondents, for example, say that radical life extension would make the economy more productive because people could work longer, fifty-three percent disagree. Two-thirds say they think that dramatically longer life spans “would strain our natural resources” and that medical scientists would offer life-extending treatments before they fully understood the health effects. And although a solid majority of respondents (79%) think that life-extending treatments should be available to everyone who wants them, most (66%) also think that, in practice, only the wealthy would have access to the new technology.

The researchers found that there some differences among religious groups when it comes to their attitudes about medical treatments that would slow the aging process and extend life by decades. Black Protestants are among the most likely to say radical life extension would be a good thing for society (54%). By contrast, fewer white evangelical Protestants (34%) and white Catholics (31%) say the same. Hispanic Catholics (44%) are more likely than white Catholics (31%) to think these treatments would be a good thing for society.

Ideal Life Span for Some Rhode Islanders

But what do Rhode Islander’s think about living longer, say into their 12th decade.

Kasey Johnson, development associate at Slater Mill Museum, will not seek out advanced medical technologies to extend her life. “Aging is viewed negatively in our culture,” the East Greenwich resident says, noting that those reaching very old age are often times seen by many as a drain on the nation’s economy and resources.

Johnson notes, Americans were not raised to honor or revere their elderly like they do in other cultures. “We end up resenting them for the time and energy it takes us to care for them. I wouldn’t want to live longer, only to be seen as a burden by everyone else,” says the 26 year old.

Graphic designer Neville Lassotovitch, 69, who lives with her retired husband, Peter, 70, and Daisy, their 17-year old beagle, in Barrington, would not mind extending her the years of her life by decades, but only if she was surrounded by her husband, good friends and children. “I would not want to be alone with out them,” she said.

Fifty-one year old Ken McGill, heading Pawtucket’s Board of Canvassers, sees a bright prospect of living a longer life. He has a lot to check off on his bucket list. “Nobody likes to pass on,” quips McGill, who notes that he plans to retire at age 70. “This would give me a good forty years to do all the things I have wanted to do, like traveling to see the world, even moving to Florida,” says the long-time Pawtucket resident.

Finally, like McGill, Keri Ambrosino, of Design By Keri, would “love” to live to the ripe old age of 120 years as long as her quality of life stayed “youthful” and her thinking remained sharp. “Quality of life overbears on quantity in my book,” says the 33 year old West Warwick resident.

Other Reports Released on Radical Life Extension

There is, at present, no method of slowing the aging process and extending the average life expectancy to 120 years or more. But research aimed at unlocking the secrets of aging is underway at universities and corporate labs, and religious leaders, bioethicists and philosophers have begun to think about the morality of radical life extension.

Together with the survey results, Pew Research Center is releasing two accompanying reports. “To Count Our Days: The Scientific and Ethical Dimensions of Radical Life Extension” presents an overview of the scientific research and the emerging ethical debate. “Religious Leaders’ Views on Radical Life Extension” describes how some clergy, bioethicists, theologians and other scholars think their religious traditions might approach the issue.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket-based writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com

Increasing Your Odds of Living to 100 and Beyond

Published January 18, 2013, Pawtucket Times

Just barely holding onto the record for being the nation’s oldest person for about two weeks, Mamie Rearden, of Edgefield, a 114-year-old South Carolina woman, died on Jan. 2, just three weeks after a fall broke her hip. The amazing thing though, is for how long she was so healthy and living independently. According to recently published research, most people who reach the age of 110 years and beyond, only spend, on average the last 5 years of their incredibly long lives with age-related diseases.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the Gerontology Research Group, an organization verifying age information for the Guinness World Records, noted that Rearden’s Sept. 7, 1898, birth was recorded and therefore verified in the 1900 U.S. Census, making her the nation’s oldest living person after last month’s passing of 115-year-old Dina Manfredini of Iowa. Before Rearden died, she was more than a year younger than the world’s oldest person, 115-year-old Jiroemon Kimura of Japan.

Rearden, married to her husband for 59 years until his death in 1979, raised 11 children, 10 of whom are alive. The former teacher and housewife first learned how to drive a car at age 65. At this time she worked for an Edgefield County program locating children whose parents were keeping them out of school, reported AP.

Studying the Nation’s Oldest Citizens

Dr. Thomas Perls, a geriatrician who heads the Boston University-based New England Centenarian Study (NECS), considers Rearden’s longevity to be a very rare occurrence. She was one of around 70 supercentenarians (people who have reached age 110) living in this country, he says.

Almost 20 years ago, when Perls’ longitudinal study began, about 1 per 10,000 people in the United States survived to age 100. However, he notes that they are now more common at a rate of 1 per 5,000.

“Now most people think that getting to your eighties is expected,” says Dr. Perls. Simply put, more Americans are now living longer today than in previous generations because the high childhood mortality rates in the early 1900s have been slashed due to hugely improved public health measures like clean water, vaccinations and a safe food supply combined with a more educated population and improved socioeconomic conditions, he noted.

Meanwhile, vaccinations for older people, effective antibiotics and medications for what have become chronic rather than acute lethal diseases, as well as curative surgeries are now markedly improving middle-age people’s chances of living to even older ages, adds Dr. Perls.

Finding the Secrets of Longevity

Dr. Perls says his passion for working with the nation’s oldest began when at 16 years old he worked as an orderly in a nursing home. In 1986, he received his medical degree from the University of Rochester, later a Masters from the Harvard School of Public Health. His specialization in geriatrics ultimately would propel him into a life-long interest in finding the secrets as to why people successfully age well and live for more than a century.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Dr. Perls later moved to Colorado and is now residing in Boston. A professor at Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Perls, board certified in internal medicine and geriatric medicine, has coauthored a book for the lay public, entitled, Living to 100, co-edited an academic book, and penned 106 juried articles. He is the author of the online Living to 100 Life Expectancy Calculator. It uses the most current and carefully research medical and scientific data to estimate how old you will live to be (www.livingto100.com) and provides some general advice according to your answers to about 40 questions that take about 7 minutes to complete.

Initially at Harvard University, the NECS later relocated to Boston University School of Medicine, giving his longevity initiative “room to grow,” says Perls, who is NECS’s founding director. Today this demographic initiative, now considered to be the world’s largest study of centenarians and supercentenarians, is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), private foundations and “cherished” individual donors, he says. Study participants and their families fill out health and family history questionnaires, and provide a blood sample for studying their genes.

Along with the NECS, Dr. Perls also directs the Boston-based study center of the multi-center and international Long Life Family Study (LLFS) which is a study of families that have multiple members living to extreme old age. Both initiatives are enabling researchers to find out how and why centenarians and their children, who are in their seventies and eighties, live the vast majority of their lives disability-free.

As to those who participate in his NECS and LLFS initiatives, the youngest is about 45 years old (a very young child of a centenarian) and the oldest ever enrolled was 119 years old, the second oldest person in the world, ever, states Perls. Since he begun the NECS, out of 2,200 participants, 1,200 were age 100 and over, he added. The remaining participants were children of centenarians or in the study’s control group. “Because of their ages, most of these folks have now passed away,” he said, adding that at any one time about 10% of the total centenarians in the study are alive.

Unraveling the Data

During his long career studying centenarians, the research findings indicate that it is common for centenarians to have brothers and sisters who also live to be very old. “Exceptional longevity runs strong in families,” he notes.

Dr. Perls’ research also debunked long-held beliefs that the longer you live, the sicker you get. But even if centenarians were afflicted by multiple age-related diseases in their nineties, on average 90 percent functioned independently at the average age of 93 years, he says. Centenarians living to age 100 were found to have avoided age-related disabilities as well as diseases until, on average, their last 5 years.

While a healthy life style is definitely important to living into ones’ eighties with much of that time spent in good health, Dr. Perls states that having the right genes becomes more and more crucial for living to a much older age.

Research indicates that living to your mid-eighties is 70-80% environmental and habits and 30-20% genes. Seventh Day Adventists were found to have the longest average life expectancy in the United States, that is 88 years. Most of that longevity was likely due to their healthy habits which include being vegetarian, regularly exercising, not smoking or drinking alcohol and also doing things that decrease the effect of stress.

However, many Americans do just the opposite, with unhealthy diets, not exercising and still, many people smoke, notes Dr. Perls. So it is not surprising that on average, Americans die 8-10 years earlier than Seventh Day Adventists, at the average age of about 80 years. (According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in 2010, the U.S. life expectancy was 75 years for males and 80 years for females.)

“We should take advantage of our genes and not fight them,” Perls says, by adopting healthier lifestyles.

Perls believes that DNA research on very old people should for now not focus on identifying genes that predict diseases. Rather the findings in the near future might just offer clues to how some genes slow the aging process and protect people from age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart attacks. Such discoveries could lead to the development of drugs that protect against multiple chronic diseases.

A Final Note…

Make working to create a healthier life style a top priority on your New Year’s resolution list. This effort might just ratchet up your life expectancy into the mid-eighties and if you have longevity in your family, even longer. Why not stop smoking, and watch your drinking, too. Even make exercise, weight training and keeping your mind active as part of your daily routine. Combine these lifestyle changes with better eating habits, meditating or yoga, or even doing low impact exercises like tai chi, and you’re on your way to increased longevity.

Ultimately, a healthier life style along with good genes may well help you increase the odds of living to 100 and beyond.

If you know anyone who is 105 years old or older, please mention the New England Centenarian Study to them and/or their family. The Study can be reached at (888) 333-6327 or you can go online http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian for more information.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.