http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:55:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/reports/older-adults-who-burn-calories-daily-increase-their-chances-of-living-longer/ http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/reports/older-adults-who-burn-calories-daily-increase-their-chances-of-living-longer/#comments Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:37:38 +0000 Troy Krebs, L.Ac. http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/?p=650 Here is more good news for older adults who get regular exercise in the course of liv­ing. Persons who include calorie-burning activities in their daily life reduce their risk of death over those who chose a more sedentary life style.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health recently sponsored a study that involved 302 older adults aged 70 to 82 years old. Researchers worked extensively with this group for 2 weeks to determine how many calories they burned in the course of conducting their daily activities. This calorie-burning activity was dubbed “free-living energy expenditure.”

Some six years after the original test, the researchers got back into contact with partici­pants while collecting mortality figures at the same time. While 58 of the original partici­pants tested in 1998 were no longer living, the rest were still available to provide results in 2006. The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The best news to come out of this study was that death rate decreased as daily energy expenditure increased. For purpose of analysis, it was found that the persons in the highest third of the study in terms of calories burned had a 69 percent lower risk of death than those in the lowest third of the group in terms of energy expended. Specifically, it was esti­mated that for every 287 calories burned per day, an individual reduced their mortality risk by 30 percent.

It was interesting, according to researchers, that no single activity was sited as most significant in terms of results. Doing any kind of activity-be it walking, climbing stairs, engaging in high-intensity exercise or doing house work – all helped to burn calories and reduce mortality.

“Our study suggests that any activity energy expenditure in older adults can help lower mortality risks,” said the study authors. “Efforts to increase or maintain free-living activity energy expenditure will likely improve the health of older adults.”

Therefore, persons who have no strong interest or ability to participate in an exercise program can still benefit from the activity of moving about in the course of living. This may be bad news for health clubs trying to sell memberships to seniors, but it’s good news for anyone who has a willingness to get up and about in the course of daily living. Any exercise that burns calories can be beneficial.

Source: The National Institutes of Health Weight Control Information Network “Young and Old Alike Benefit from Exercise and Physical Activity”. Winter 2006. http://win.niddk.nih.gov/notes/winter07/winnotes_winter07.htm#res-not2 and the Journal of American Medicine. Press Release. “Higher Levels of Common Daily
Activity Associated with Lower Risk of Death”. http://pubs.ama-assn.org/media/2006j/0711.dtl#higher

]]> http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/reports/older-adults-who-burn-calories-daily-increase-their-chances-of-living-longer/feed/ 0 http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/reports/medications-cause-slowness-need-for-more-care-in-older-adults/ http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/reports/medications-cause-slowness-need-for-more-care-in-older-adults/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:37:40 +0000 Rick Woodward, L.Ac. http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/?p=456 Doctors are being warned that the drugs they select for their older patients could result in slower physical function and even increased dependency on a caregiver to perform otherwise rou­tine functions. The drugs that are causing this slowed physical action to occur are commonly pre­scribed for high blood pressure, depression, allergies and incontinence.

A variety of drugs that doctors prescribe for these problems fall into a class known as anti­cholinergic medications. These drugs work to block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This sub­stance affects the way nerve impulses are transmitted, thus producing such effects as reduced blood pressure or lesser symptoms of depression. Some are used to control allergies or stomach acid and others to reduce incontinence.

A recent study found that these medications are producing undesirable effects on older per­sons. One of the very noticeable changes is that older people taking these medications are walk­ing more slowly. In essence, many are behaving in a way that would be characteristic of a person who is several years older than their current chronological age.

“These results were true even in older adults who have normal memory and thinking abili­ties,” said Kaycee M. Sink, M.D., lead author of the study recently completed at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. “For older adults taking a moderately anticholinergic medication, or two or more mildly anticholinergic medications, their function was similar to that of someone three to four years older.”

Generally, blood pressure medications have a mild level of anticholinergic properties. Antacids would have a higher amount, and incontinence medications would be very high in the blocker. In the study of more than 3,000 persons with an average age of 78 years, 40 percent of the partici­pants were taking more than one anticholinergic drug.

In another study, researchers found that patients who received dementia drugs and medica­tion for incontinence at the same time had a 50 percent faster decline in their functions than did persons who were being treated only for dementia. “Over a year’s time, the decline we observed would represent a resident going from requiring only limited assistance in an activity to being completely dependent, or from requiring only supervision to requiring extensive assistance in an activity,” said Dr. Sink.

The two most common medical conditions in nursing homes for which drugs are given have to do with dementia and urinary incontinence. Caregivers who are responsible for aging parents or loved ones in a nursing home would be wise to check with the person’s physician regarding prescriptions for these two conditions. If anticholinergic medications and dementia medicines are both being prescribed, there is a very good chance that the aging process of the patient will be rapidly accelerated, according to the results of this study.

Source: Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Press Release. “Dual Treatment of Incontinence and Dementia Associated with Functional Decline” May 2008. http://wwwl.wfubmc.edu/News/NewsARticle.htm?ArticlelD=2359 and Science Daily. Press Release. “Commonly Used Medications Associated with Impaired Physical Function in Older Adults?’ May 2008. ttp://www.sciencedaily.com:80/releases/2008/05/080504095641.htm

]]> http://www.wholehealthcenters.com/blog/reports/medications-cause-slowness-need-for-more-care-in-older-adults/feed/ 0