Combo Regimen Best to Keep Obese Seniors Going

By Todd Neale, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Exercise and weight loss both appear to help obese older adults maintain function, although combining the two provides the most benefit, a randomized controlled trial showed.

After one year, participants 65 and older who participated in both a diet and exercise program had greater gains in physical performance than those who did either one alone, according to Dennis Villareal, MD, of the New Mexico VA Health Care System in Albuquerque, and colleagues.

The combined strategy also resulted in the most consistent gains on several secondary endpoints, including strength, balance, gait, and quality of life, the researchers reported in the March 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Moderate Exercise May Improve Memory in Older Adults

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A new study in older adults shows that brisk walking can increase the size of a brain region involved in memory formation. The finding suggests that moderate physical exercise can help protect the brain as we age.

The brain region called the hippocampus begins to shrink in older adults as part of the normal aging process. This can contribute to forgetfulness, memory loss and increased risk of dementia. Physical fitness is known to be associated with both increased hippocampus size and improved cognitive ability. However, it was unclear how exercise might affect people who’d already had some hippocampus deterioration as a result of aging.
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Endurance Exercise Prevents Premature Aging: McMaster Study

Endurance exercise may stop you looking and feeling old, it may even help you live longer, a study by McMaster University researchers has found.

"Many people falsely believe that the benefits of exercise will be found in a pill," said Mark Tarnopolsky, principal investigator of the study and a professor of pediatrics and medicine of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. "We have clearly shown that there is no substitute for the "real thing" of exercise when it comes to protection from aging."

The study, published today in the prestigious science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that premature aging in nearly every organ in the body was completely prevented in mice that ran on a treadmill three times a week for five months.

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7 Ways to Ease Into Yoga; Expert Guide to Get Started - AARP Bulletin

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by: Carol Krucoff | from: AARP Bulletin

Have you resolved to exercise and get healthier in the new year? Health and medical experts say you might want to try yoga.

In fact, a 2008 Harris poll of a cross section of 5,000 Americans found that 6.1 percent — which would translate to nearly 14 million adults — say their doctor or therapist recommended yoga to them.

Yoga is an ancient healing practice that has become increasingly popular in our modern, stressful world as a powerful way to stretch and strengthen the body, relax and calm the mind, enhance energy and lift the spirit. Doctors often recommend yoga to people over 50 because it can help lower blood pressure, ease pain and improve balance. But people stick with the ancient practice because they find it improves their mood, reduces stress and, simply put, makes them happier.

Unfortunately, many yoga instructors are not trained to adapt the practice to older bodies. And America's booming interest in yoga has lead to an increase in classes that are called yoga, but are actually "yoga-flavored" exercise classes taught by instructors whose yoga training may be limited to a weekend workshop.

Unless a yoga teacher creates a safe class designed for older adults, this practice meant to heal may cause harm. To safely reap the many benefits of yoga, it's important to understand these seven essential yoga facts: Full Article with Facts & Illustrations

Vitamin D and Exercise May Help Prevent Falls in Elderly

By Christine S. Moyer, amednews staff.

Prescribing a vitamin D supplement and recommending exercise for patients 65 and older could reduce their risk of falling, according to a recent evidence review.

The review, published in the Dec. 21, 2010, issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, was commissioned by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to help the agency update its recommendation for preventing falls in the elderly. Before the guidelines are published, a draft will be posted for public comment online.

The task force does not have recommendations on primary care physicians counseling patients on fall prevention. But in 1996, the task force reviewed the effectiveness of counseling to prevent household and recreational injuries, including falls, by age group.

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Sharpen Your Aging Brain in a Week — This Old Brain

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from This Old Brain blog - Mindfulness and Integrative Body Mind Training

Mindfulness meditation has been around a couple of months longer than forever and is practiced by millions. It is the simple focus on the breath and noticing when we are thinking or, as Thich Nhat Hanh would tell us, lost in thought.

The other – newer – model is called integrative mind body training. See article on integrative body mind training for more details.

Here is the good news. Newer studies now seem to demonstrate a measurable positive effect from either of these within a week. Both studies were based on people doing the respective practice 3x a week for 20 minutes per session.

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Increased Activity Helps in OA from MedPage Today

By Nancy Walsh, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Increasing physical activity over two years can improve function and even walking speed among adults with osteoarthritis of the knee -- regardless of their level of activity, a large prospective study found.
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Health Discovery: Lift Weights for Stronger Muscles, Stronger Brains - AARP Bulletin

by: Candy Sagon | from: AARP Bulletin

For older women, the type of exercise you do may be more important than how often you do it.

That's the message of a surprising new study by Canadian researchers that found that women who started a once-a-week strength-training program were more likely to stick with it — and reap the physical and mental benefits — than those who started a twice-a-week program.

More importantly, older women who built muscle strength through biceps curls, leg lifts, squats and the like showed much greater improvement in mental focus and ability to make decisions and resolve conflicts than women who did only balance and toning exercises.
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6 Cs : Healthy Aging Brain — This Old Brain

by Mike Kirkeberg

I was once going to start a website and call it ‘Braintenance‘ because of my interest in staying sharp with an aging brain. I couldn’t remember for sure why I didn’t. I now realize it was because the name was already taken. So this article will have to do for the moment. Here’s a primer on brain maintenance.

6 Cs for a Successful Aging Brain

You’ll notice that your brain is attached to your neck and then to your body. That’s important because neither the body or the brain exist in a vacuum. What happens to one happens to the other.

Conditioning.
I am writing from the US and I learned this morning that citizens of the United States lag behind a number of other countries in exercise. We walk about 5000 steps a day on average. Australia, Switzerland, and Japan are stepping much better than we. They eek up near 10,000 steps a day. Walking is an aerobic exercise so it streams oxygen throughout the bloodstream and aids in the production of new brain cells, the maintenance of old, and even lifts the mood. As we become fitter and more conditioned, so do our brains.

By the way, 10,000 steps is about 5 miles.

Connection.
One of the many ‘intelligences’ that has been written about over the past few years is social intelligence. We crave connection with others. Looking at this through the eyes of evolution, it makes a lot of sense. Over the millennia, survival itself often depended on the support of the group. The group, the community, the tribe helps us through troubled times. When we connect with other people, at the risk of seeming corny -

“You go from being a stranger to including this person in the self, so you suddenly have all of these social roles and identities you didn’t have before,” explains Dr. Aron, who co-authored the research. “When people fall in love that happens rapidly, and it’s very exhilarating.” The Happy Marriage is the Me Marriage

Connection means a lot. There is more to it than that, though, which brings us to the next C.

Conversation.
The article cited above also mentions the idea of learning through relationships. We get into them, it goes on, to expand ourselves, to grow, and to flourish. This happens through conversation. Conversations make more of ourselves, and in the interim, grow new brain connections.

Challenge.
Challenge takes on two meanings here. First, studies of people who lived to, and stayed mentally sharp until they were 100 tended to take the problems of life as challenges. They saw the glass as half full. The second, and I believe most important meaning I am giving challenge here may have more to do with brain health. I invite you to challenge yourself.

Contemplation.
Mindfulness, Integrative Body Mind Training, Tai Chi, or communing with nature (another form of meditation) all help to grow brain, help us slow things down a bit, and also help us be more response-able – we react less. Here’s the simple bonus of at least two of these – mindfulness and Integrative Body Mind Training – produce measurable effects within a week.

Choices.
Whatever becomes of our brains is based significantly on the choices we make. These choices may be around the food we eat, what we drink or smoke, and how many and much of the Cs listed above we choose to do.

Walking Correlates With Brain Volume, Cognitive Ability from MedPage Today

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today

Seniors committed to walking had larger gray-matter volume and less cognitive impairment years later than those with more sedentary habits, researchers said.

Among 299 cognitively normal participants in the large Cardiovascular Health Study, those in the top quartile of distance walked each week at baseline had markedly higher gray-matter volumes when measured by MRI nine years later compared with participants in the lower three quartiles, according to Kirk Erickson, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues.
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Calling All Couch Potatoes! Walking Boosts Brain Connectivity, Function

A group of "professional couch potatoes," as one researcher described them, has proven that even moderate exercise - in this case walking at one's own pace for 40 minutes three times a week - can enhance the connectivity of important brain circuits, combat declines in brain function associated with aging and increase performance on cognitive tasks.

The study, in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, followed 65 adults, aged 59 to 80, who joined a walking group or stretching and toning group for a year. All of the participants were sedentary before the study, reporting less than two episodes of physical activity lasting 30 minutes or more in the previous six months. The researchers also measured brain activity in 32 younger (18- to 35-year-old) adults.

Rather than focusing on specific brain structures, the study looked at activity in brain regions that function together as networks.

"Almost nothing in the brain gets done by one area - it's more of a circuit," said University of Illinois psychology professor and Beckman Institute Director Art Kramer, who led the study with kinesiology and community health professor Edward McAuley and doctoral student Michelle Voss. "These networks can become more or less connected. In general, as we get older, they become less connected, so we were interested in the effects of fitness on connectivity of brain networks that show the most dysfunction with age."

Neuroscientists have identified several distinct brain circuits. Perhaps the most intriguing is the default mode network (DMN), which dominates brain activity when a person is least engaged with the outside world - either passively observing something or simply daydreaming.

Previous studies found that a loss of coordination in the DMN is a common symptom of aging and in extreme cases can be a marker of disease, Voss said.

"For example, people with Alzheimer's disease tend to have less activity in the default mode network and they tend to have less connectivity," she said. Low connectivity means that the different parts of the circuit are not operating in sync. Like poorly trained athletes on a rowing team, the brain regions that make up the circuit lack coordination and so do not function at optimal efficiency or speed, Voss said.

In a healthy young brain, activity in the DMN quickly diminishes when a person engages in an activity that requires focus on the external environment. Older people, people with Alzheimer's disease and those who are schizophrenic have more difficulty "down-regulating" the DMN so that other brain networks can come to the fore, Kramer said.

A recent study by Kramer, Voss and their colleagues found that older adults who are more fit tend to have better connectivity in specific regions of the DMN than their sedentary peers. Those with more connectivity in the DMN also tend to be better at planning, prioritizing, strategizing and multi-tasking.

The new study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine whether aerobic activity increased connectivity in the DMN or other brain networks. The researchers measured participants' brain connectivity and performance on cognitive tasks at the beginning of the study, at six months and after a year of either walking or toning and stretching.

At the end of the year, DMN connectivity was significantly improved in the brains of the older walkers, but not in the stretching and toning group, the researchers report.
The walkers also had increased connectivity in parts of another brain circuit (the fronto-executive network, which aids in the performance of complex tasks) and they did significantly better on cognitive tests than their toning and stretching peers.

Previous studies have found that aerobic exercise can enhance the function of specific brain structures, Kramer said. This study shows that even moderate aerobic exercise also improves the coordination of important brain networks.

"The higher the connectivity, the better the performance on some of these cognitive tasks, especially the ones we call executive control tasks - things like planning, scheduling, dealing with ambiguity, working memory and multitasking," Kramer said. These are the very skills that tend to decline with aging, he said.

This study was supported by the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Get Moving! Exercise can Enhance and Extend Your Life

Regular exercise is essential to healthy aging. It lowers risk factors linked to the development of chronic disease, such as, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and high levels of triglycerides. In turn, physical inactivity has been linked to the development of heart disease and stroke. The American Heart Association (AHA) cites physical inactivity as a major risk factor for developing coronary artery disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlights regular physical activity as one of the most important steps to take to prevent serious health problems that can occur with age.

Different activities lead to different health benefits. Some forms of exercise, such as strengthening exercises, improve flexibility and balance. Aerobic exercise increases cardiovascular fitness and endurance. Examples of aerobic activities include brisk walking, bicycling, jogging and dancing. CDC’s guidelines recommend that older adults 65+ who have no limiting health conditions participate in moderate-intense aerobic activities for at least two and a half hours every week. It also recommends including muscle-strengthening exercises, such as, lifting weights, working with resistance bands, heavy gardening, or yoga on two or more days every week. Strengthening exercises can increase a person’s flexibility and balance, which reduce the likelihood and severity of falls.

Recent Exercise Statistics for Adults 65+

Statistics published by CDC in 2009 indicate that older adults in the age range, 65 to 74 years old, exercise more than those 75+. In addition, the statistics indicate that older men exercise more than older women.
The statistics state that 38.5 percent of men, 65 to 74 years old, exercised regularly and 31.1 percent of women in the same age range exercised regularly. The numbers decrease for adults 75+. 23 percent of men 75+ exercised regularly and 14 percent of women 75+ exercised regularly.

Learn More about the Benefits of Exercise

To learn more about the benefits of exercise and tips for incorporating exercise into your life, visit these resources:

• How much physical activity do older adults need? (CDC)
• Physical Activity (AHA)
• Physical Activity for Older Adults: Exercise for Life! (American Society on Aging)
• Exercise for Seniors (Medline Plus)

Despite health challenge, senior athlete stays in the lineup

By Michael E. RuaneThe big first baseman trudges across the pristine infield, his walker leaving a crooked trail in the dirt. He has bandages on his knees, a bald spot where he hit his head against a door frame and an old shoulder dislocation from a spill at home.

He's already bushed because it's late in the day and this is when he starts to fade. Plus, it's 90 degrees. And sweat is staining the dark blue T-shirt with the number 25 on the back and "Mustangs" on the front. But it's game time. The hot afternoon is giving way to the shadows of evening. And Bob Soulen, 69, who has Parkinson's disease, is going to play some ball.
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Sports of The Times - For the Love of Soccer and a Lasting Sisterhood - NYTimes.com

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By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

About 1:45 p.m. Sunday afternoon, a caravan of luxury cars and sport utility vehicles roared into the park where hundreds of supporters had been waiting. President Jacob Zuma had arrived. The president was in this town, about 260 miles northeast of Johannesburg, to commemorate the life of Peter Mokaba, an antiapartheid activist.

Five days before the start of the World Cup, the stars of the celebration were a soccer team — a group of 35 women ages 49 to 84. After the speeches and ceremonies, the team, Vakhegula Vakhegula (Grannies Grannies), would play an exhibition game.

Beka Ntsanwisi founded Vakhegula Vakhegula five years ago as a way of providing inspiration for older women. The team usually plays its league games on Saturdays, but this was a special day with the president coming. And Ntsanwisi wanted to have a word with the president.
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A growing body of evidence links exercise and mental acuity

By Lenny Bernstein

I do some of my best writing on the run. I mean literally. When the words won't come, when the syntax doesn't feel right, when I just can't figure out what angle to take on a column, I'll often go for a good, hard run.

And usually it works. With the sweat pouring and lungs working overtime, the mental fog lifts. I make connections I hadn't seen earlier. How to be clear becomes, well, a little more clear.

If you work out routinely, I bet you've had the same experience. Three researchers I interviewed for this story say they have achieved it regularly, on a treadmill, on outdoor runs and on a bicycle, respectively. A couple of studies seem to confirm it.

The tantalizing question for those of us in middle age and beyond (I am 52) is whether this short-term cognitive benefit can be replicated over the long haul. Can exercise help keep our minds sharp? And if so, can it help delay or prevent the truly terrifying mental deterioration of dementia, most commonly seen as Alzheimer's disease?

Researchers studying both animals and humans increasingly say the answer is yes.
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Fitness Loss No Faster in AD than in Non-Demented from MedPage Today

By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today

Over time, people with mild Alzheimer's disease lose cardiorespiratory fitness -- but no faster than people without dementia, a researcher said here.

The finding, from a longitudinal study of 108 older people, was "somewhat surprising," according to Eric Vidoni, PhD, of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.

But at the same time, a decline in fitness was correlated with more rapid progression of dementia, he said at the annual meeting here of the American Academy of Neurology.
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Computers, Exercise Linked to Lower MCI Risk from MedPage Today

By Michael Smith, North American Correspondent, MedPage Today

Moderate physical exercise, combined with computer use late in life, is associated with a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment, a researcher said here.

In a cross-sectional analysis of participants in an aging study, both elements were separately associated with a lower risk of the impairment, according to Yonas Geda, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

But they also showed a significant additive interaction that created a synergistic effect, Geda reported at the annual meeting here of the American Academy of Neurology.
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MMI Quick Facts - March Issue

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QuickFACTS is a monthly fact sheet produced by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. Its focus is the emerging market of people 50+. It is a compilation of recent news and developments on multi-generational issues that impact business and customers.

The March issue contains articles on: The Growing Grandparent Population; Planning for Phased Retirement; Caregivers: Help Needed; International Ageing and the Multi-Generational Workforce; The Joy of Pumping Iron; Older Workers Staying Put; Changing Landscape of Retirement Destination States; and 100 Year Old Athlete Wins the Gold and Sets a Record!
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Major Grant Puts Wake Forest In Lead Role On Study About Mobility Disability In Older Adults

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(Medical News Today) Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, together with Wake Forest University, will play a key role in a new study that seeks to determine whether a program of structured physical activity can prevent or delay major mobility disabilities in older adults.

The six-year study, called the Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders, or LIFE, will be the largest study to date that looks at ways to prevent mobility disability in seniors. When completed, funding for the project is expected to total more than $60 million from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), including $29.5 million in federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

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Personal Health - Studies Show Further Health Benefits of Exercise - NYTimes.com

By JANE E. BRODY

“I’m 86 and have walked every day of my life. The public needs to wake up and move.”

“I’m 83 going on 84 years! I find that daily aerobics and walking are fine. But these regimens neglect the rest of the body, and I find the older you get the more attention they need.”

These are two of many comments from readers of my Jan. 12 column on the secrets of successful aging. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, a new series of studies prompts me to again review the myriad benefits to body, mind and longevity of regular physical activity for people of all ages.
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