Aging Well, Sometimes a Personal Choice

"You cannot change your age, and the older you are, the more likely you're going to get ill. And you can't change your genes, but we've identified quite a few things that we have some control over, and it's an optimistic message."

"Certainly we want to help out the people who aren't doing well, but we also want to say, 'hey, what's the secret sauce of people who are thriving'?"

"We looked at reports on what older adults think of as being important. The identify being able to manage in their activities of daily living, feeding themselves, cooking, toileting, walking upstairs, walking -- just daily activities that you need to do, and they wanted to continue to maintain that. And that was our standard."

"We were delighted to see that so many people were doing well. We normally think when you're over 80, it's a downward trajectory. Eventually people are going to get ill, but to see that so many people were doing well gives us a lot of hope."

Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto

"The prevalance of successful aging was significantly higher among Canadian-born older adults compared to immigrant older adults, even though three-quarters of the immigrants in this study had migrated to Canada four or more decades ago."

Study findings, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

 

Studies by researchers at the University of Toronto conclude that people are able to thrive physically, mentally and socially in their 80s and beyond. An Institute for Life Course and Aging team wrote of their discoveries behind the science of aging gracefully, their study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Their findings validated that life isn't necessarily all downhill with old age.

Many positives were identified in aging gracefully and the experience of life satisfaction associated with growing old. Crucially, they found that people have greater influence over the condition of their health than they may realize. Dr. Fuller-Thomson, the director of the university's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, spent over 25 years as a gerontologist, mostly studying people whose slide into their older years was impacted with ill health.

She has now turned her focus around to examine resilience in Canada's aging population. She and her research team conducted a study comparing aging among immigrants and Canadian-born older adults. Over 7,000 middle-aged and older people were followed for roughly three years, identifying factors linked to 'successful' (optimal) aging. Their findings led them to suggest that financial aids, language programs, information and referral services could support immigrant older adults to age well.

 

A new study aimed to uncover the key factors that contribute to successful or optimal aging by following more than 7,000 middle-aged and older Canadians for approximately three years. The researchers found that maintaining excellent health and avoiding disabling cognitive, physical, or emotional problems was more likely among those who were female, married, physically active, not obese, had higher incomes, had never smoked, and did not have insomnia, heart disease, or arthritis.

 

Healthy people, they found, were less likely than others to develop physical, cognitive or emotional problems. Participants selected for the study were in 'excellent' health when the three-year study began. No signs of memory loss, chronic pain or disability were seen. Even though the subjects could be living with a chronic disease or conditions that commonly tend to develop with age, such as high blood pressure. These health challenges were not seen to interfere with the subjects' ability to look after themselves.

Observations of good habits such as weight management, not smoking, physical activity and social connectedness as hugely beneficial, are not surprising; the point being that people have the capacity to stave off mental, cognitive and emotional decline. For Dr. Ganann with the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging, observations by her team underline the importance of understanding perspectives on health directly from older adults.

The reseqrch she conducted through the Aging Community and Health Research Unit focused on community-based interventions to improve health care and health-related quality of life access for older adults. Leading the Embolden study meant to connect older people to peer-to-peer leaning and experiences in community hubs throughout Hamilton targeting neighbourhoods with a high proportion of older adults including those living with low income.

"I think that that's a big driver for me, really understanding what are the issues that people are really facing, and how do we work on them together. There's a lot that we know that can benefit people, but there's a gap between what we know and what actually happens."

"There's a lot that's known in terms of people should be physically active, people should eat well, it's a benefit for them to be socially connected, but we know that that's not easy in particular groups.:

But if they don't have social support, if they're not satisfied with their life, life circumstances, if they're managing pain and mental health conditions, it's a lot harder for them to do this sort of successful aging."

"The thinking was, how do we try to break down some of these barriers, whether they're socio-economic related to ethno-cultural communities or whatever, it's meeting their basic needs."

"So how do we invest in those communities and create better connections?

"People want to connect with others who understand their context. And older adults come with a wealth of knowledge and life experience, so we really need to meet people where they are and celebrate those strengths."

Rebecca Ganann, professor in nursing, McMaster University, Hamilton

Image by Ground Picture via Shutterstock

"I am so pleased to be looking at resilience instead of pathology."

"Admittedly, getting people out of depression and anxiety and improving their physical health are all important, but if we could all be aging and doing well and enjoying life, it's really a dividend. We have this incredible aging society dividend that we want to maximize."

Esme Fuller-Thomas, University of Toronto

Modelling Society's Future Alcohol Consumers

"Kids model parental behaviour."
"Parents who drink in front of youngsters make drinking a norm."
Richard Mattick, National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

"Limited cross-sectional studies have indicated that young children have some knowledge of the type of situations in which adults usually consume alcohol. However, it is unclear when and how this knowledge develops over time. This study tests the hypothesis that between the ages of 4 and 8, children become more knowledgeable about common drinking situations (e.g. ‘partying’) and uncommon situations (e.g. ‘driving’)".
"Children aged 4–8 become increasingly knowledgeable about drinking norms in specific situations which implies that they know in what kind of situation alcohol consumption is a common human behavior. This knowledge may put them at risk for early alcohol initiation and frequent drinking later in life."
Study authors: Carmen Voogt, Koen Smit, Marloes Kleinjan, Roy Otten, Tessa Scheffers, Emmanuel Kuntsche, Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht

A family meal, and a toast with adults drinking spirits and children fruit juice.  Getty Images

A Dutch study published in December of 2019 in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism, reached the conclusion that any individual of average intelligence who has children of their own, might have arrived at, given the nature of children's curiosity about anything and everything and their propensity to model themselves after the adults of most importance in their lives, their parents. The study doesn't exactly break new ground in that children who come from families where drinking alcohol is part of daily routines, tend themselves to gravitate to that very same habitual use of spirits.

However, since the conclusion derives from an academic study whose main author has conducted many previous studies revolving around similar situations and circumstances, the findings have the added weight not only of common sense, direct observation and logical conclusion, but that of scientific affirmation. Researchers involved in the study enquired of 75 fathers and 83 mothers their opinion of routine situations where adults take alcohol in a series of situations such as during a party, at work, while watching television or while driving.

Following which 359 unrelated children between the ages of four to eight were asked to identify which situations they might feel it to be commonplace or appropriate for adults to indulge in consuming alcohol. The researchers reported that as children aged they became ever more aware of the social normative around alcohol consumption. They have learned from observation when drinking is appropriate and the number of drinks that seem permissible, resulting from noting how the adults in their lives behave.

A take-away for the researchers, as a result of this study, is that familiarity with alcohol may lead children to be likelier to begin drinking earlier in life, or lead additionally to a casual attitude of more frequent alcohol consumption, included as part of everyday living. The study identified that fathers tend to drink greater amounts of alcohol than mothers, with men consuming roughly 8.6 standardized alcohol units weekly, as compared to 4.4 for women.

One unit, comprised of 10 grams of ethanol or pure alcohol could be seen as the equivalent of one to three drinks relative to the alcohol content in each beverage. Most frequently, drinking by parents was perceived to be common at social events such as parties, at holiday dinners, during dinners taken at restaurants, or home barbecues. Fewer parents described drinking as being common to everyday dinners, while at a picnic, or while watching television, and while driving drinking was seen to be an uncommon event.

According to the parents responding to the study, fewer regarded drinking to be common while reading, working or eating lunch. It was the observation of children, on the other  hand who found drinking more common while watching television or while attending parties. And, similar to the adults in the study, children found drinking to be uncommon while reading, eating lunch or working at an office. Adults, according to children, consumed more alcohol in common situations, leading the study authors to the conclusion that children are learning drinking behaviour from their close observations of adults.

The study authors acknowledged that their study was comprised of a small sample of participants, since very few parents and children agreed to participate in the study when invited to do so. And due to its limited participants the study may not accurately reflect attitudes prevalent in a representative total of Dutch families. Their findings, however, suggest children are aware of social norms respecting alcohol consumption from an early age.

And what is troubling about that is the reality that most Dutch youth begin a lifetime of drinking while in their adolescent years; familiarity through familial exposure having assured the youth that alcohol consumption is a normal component of everyday life. And while in the Netherlands many prevention efforts place their focus on this age demographic, the timing may be too late to be effective in turning young people away from alcohol consumption.

Location! View! Security! Elegance! Prestige ....

"[Doomsday investors sell a] hypermasculine fantasy [that danger is approaching, and they will provide to those who can afford the comfort, the capability of saving their families from disaster -- should they care enough to make the choice]."
"Fear sells even better than sex."
John W. Hoopes, professor of anthropology, University of Kansas

"Our clients are sold on the unique advantage of having a luxury second home that also happens to be a nuclear hardened bunker."

"This aspect allows our clients to invest in an appreciating asset as opposed to an expense."

"Some people are worried about solar flares taking out the power grid. Some are worried about a dirty bomb or a pandemic, but it doesn’t matter what your threat scenario or ranking is, what matters is that this is a one-size-fits-all solution. ... Having a survival facility is certainly in vogue."

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

"If you’re designed to withstand a nuclear explosion, you already get a lot of the other threats you can keep out. You get protection from things like meteors, comets, tornadoes, hurricanes, solar flares, civil unrest, global climate change, earthquakes, tsunamis."

"You can see the activity, you can see the wind turbines in the background on the hill [through CCTV. Psychologically, you don’t feel isolated. For all practical purposes, you couldn’t feel if you were on the surface or if you were 100 feet underground."

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

d more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

Larry Hall, condominium developer, Survivor Condo, Kansas

Courtesy of Survival Condo Project

Prepared to live 61 meters underground? Has Larry Hall got the luxury condominium unit for you! He's got the goods if you've got the lucre. These are condominiums with high ceilings and spacious living rooms. Amenities? a swimming pool, saunas, movie theatre. No worries, really, should the apocalypse ring in the new year -- or for that matter any year. He's got it all covered in his converted nuclear missile vault that is now a luxury condominium, 15 stories in height. Hard to see that height in the landscape, though. It's all underground.

He's a doomsday capitalist, like other new real estate developers who have realized that the thrill of knowing something very, very bad is in the future for humankind and short of establishing a colony on Mars which would take some time and some doing, the alternative would be to burrow underground, like a mole. The concept is not particularly new. Generations of Americans have built fallout shelters. Remember the Cold War? And the fears surrounding Y2K and basement supply caches?

Living room includes a live video feed of the world outside. K,Burgess The Wichita Eagle

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

Well, now we have these wonderful new Doomsday Paradise sites. Want to be ahead of the game in this multimillion-dollar business? Feel like escaping from the inevitable-seeming potential of climate change, terrorism and other threats to human health and longevity? The choice is yours -- grab for it!

The military in its wisdom spent billions of dollars in the construction of nuclear warheads, hiding them in underground lairs in one site after another during the Cold War. Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and New Mexico were favoured sites. They've since been decommissioned. The Cold War fizzled. Of course it's returned and so have many other unfavourable-to-peace-and-life situations. Which is the point, after all; evading them entirely, as a  practical and attractive alternative to becoming a victim of 'circumstances'.

In the Survival Condo where apartments begin at $1.3 million, there is a dozen apartments to choose from. Oh, and a monthly fee of roughly $2,600. In this place where visitors enter the complex through a concrete dome. The apartments sit below, stacked, fifteen stories of them. Add to that the additional lifestyle conveniences such as digital screens in place of windows, to emulate the 'outside'. There's a dog park, where dogs can be dogs.

Full floor units cost $3 million, half floor units $1.5 million. K. Burgess The Wichita Eagle

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

There are storerooms for food storage. A swimming pool, did we mention the swimming pool? The building has been outfitted with five air filters, a well has been drilled to the nearby aquifer. Diesel generators are in play, alongside a wind turbine and a battery bank for backup power. No worries, none whatever.

Originally the site was outfitted to house an Atlas-F missile. Its warhead infinitely more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Oh, not to worry, it's no longer there. Apartments are, condominium apartments. Nifty, huh? The U.S. military spend millions to build this vault, and when it was sold in 1967 the new owners paid just over $3,000 for it. And then there was a succession of handovers to other owners, with the price steadily rising, until Mr. Hall bought it. And spent $20 million remodelling it.

If the facility ever went on lockdown, children would have to attend classes four hours each day in this classroom in the Survival Condo facility. Katherine Burgess The Wichita Eagle

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

Larry Hall is an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, a man excited by possibilities, and willing to take risks because he so enjoys the opportunity to enhance and enrich peoples' lives. What could be more enhancing and attractive than selling not only a home, a lifestyle, but an assurance of avoiding disaster where others cannot? All it takes is some forethought and lots of money. The money is a piffling consideration, since after all, what's a life worth?

So excited is he over future prospects that he is busy building another, larger condominium project. A second Kansas vault, three times larger as the first experimental one keeps him busy, very busy.
The 'end' could arrive at any time, and there is so, so much to get done, to be able to offer assurances and luxury and leisure -- peace of mind! -- to people deserving of it. Evidently every time North Korea explodes another missile, enquiries about new condos come pouring in....

An armed security guard stands by an armored Pit-Bull VX outside the Survival Condo complex. Katherine Burgess The Wichita Eagle

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article134892379.html#storylink=cpy

The New Nuclear Family

‘The burden of raising a tiny human is losing its appeal for commitment-phobic, cash-strapped, travel-obsessed or simply career-prioritising millennials.’ Photograph: Jeffrey Kaphan/Getty Images

"I would see the raising up of pets and plants to the status of children as a reflection of this generation's widespread rejection of that traditionalist view [e.g. home ownership and marriage]."
"Many millennials would say that what makes any kind of caring relationship special is not the fact that it meets some objective criteria ... but because of the level of emotional commitment or depth the carer feels inside."
"Meaning-making for young people today has to do fundamentally with relationship -- cultivating, protecting and nurturing relationships with other living beings."
Galen Watts, Ph.D.candidate, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario

"[This very millennial spiritual outlook] takes the relationship between parents and children and family members as a model of how we're meant to care for each other."
"I think when we see people, whether they're millennials or not, thinking of themselves as having a parental relationship with pets or plants, they're applying that ethic of care to a cultivation of the spirit."
Elizabeth Drescher, professor of religious studies, Santa Clara University

"It's a completely different relationship [now than with her pets growing up on a farm]."
"We loved our pets ... but Marlowe sleeps in our bed."
"After I got Marlowe, and her filling that need for me to take care of something, she changed my life. And I felt that I didn't need to have kids because I had so much love for her."
Sarah Ahmad, 38, HR professional

Pexels.com

Millennials, that generation of  young adults born between the years of 1981 and 1996 have cultivated a different type of intimacy and stable relationship for themselves than did their predecessors. The life-goal in earlier eras for young adults related to the customary social expectation that young adults would find a life partner, marry and eventually have children. This new era with its own culture and idea of family and what it should be comprised of, gives status to companion pets as children; young adults now viewing their own role as that of 'parents' to pets and even valued household plants.

The shift in sensibilities gives a hint of what it's all about. It is unbecomingly insensitive to state that one 'owns' pets and plants. Now they are viewed as having come into one's life requiring 'parenting', and that shift in relationship is quite serious. Whether for economic or other personal reasons, young adults now delay "traditional markers of adulthood", in favour of substituting marriage for living singly or together casually, and agreeing to parent companion animals to fulfill emotional needs both for the young adults and for the adopted pet.

Functionally, emotionally, that pet becomes a 'child'. A sociological survey of American young adults urged people to identify the greatest spiritually significant activity in their lives. The emerging themes appeared to be "the four Fs of contemporary spirituality": spending time with friends and family, preparing and sharing food, and being with "Fido" -- the beloved animals that fulfill our emotional requirements for intimate warmth and caring responsibility.

A dog holds a watering can in a garden. Millennials have begun to treat their plants and pets as children. Getty Images

In fact the caring ethic appears to have supplanted organized religion as a one-time source of meaningful connection for millennials. Religion is at a low ebb of recognized functionality as an emotional, spiritual tool of fulfillment in the wake of scandals in the Catholic Church, of fundamentalist churches like the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, of views of Islamist theocratic violence; all rejected and ready for replacement.

Religion became antithetical to caring principles held dear for society. Moral energy was redirected toward what would replace reliance on the church in the past. Like, for example, Sarah Ahmad living with her partner and sharing the love and companionship of two-year-old yellow Lab Marlowe whom both young adults love as though the Lab was a child. And to the Lab's new 'parents', she is their child.

Oh well, while we're at it, let's be fair about this. Older, mature and very mature adults who have gone through the traditional mode of life fulfillment; were married, had children, raised them, and became empty-nesters are not all that different in the later phase of their lives than these young millennials. Their children gone, there is a vacuum and that gap is often filled by the acquisition of a household pet or two.

And those pets take the place, as it were, of the grown, independent children off on their own. These welcomed and emotionally valued animals become the new 'children' whom empty-nesters 'parent' and lavish their attention and love upon.

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Dedicated Healthful Lifestyles : The Nordic Diet

"The Nordic diet, much like the Mediterranean diet, promotes lifestyle habits that focus on choosing fresh and local ingredients that are sustainably sourced."
"Staple foods that are traditionally sourced in the colder-climate Nordic countries surrounding the Baltic Sea include fatty fish like herring, salmon and mackerel; berries and other fruits; legumes, root vegetables and cabbage; and whole-grain cereals like barley, oats and rye."
"While some of these foods may be accessible, they may be heavy for those who reside in warmer climates or during hot summer months when we crave lighter salads, local corn and seasonal melons."
Layne Lieberman, author: Beyond the Mediterranean Diet

"The Nordic diet focuses on what people in Nordic countries have access to today, instead of looking back at historical diets and food availability."
Jennifer Bruning, registered dietitian, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

9Coach

Based on whole foods and minimally processed foods, the Nordic diet includes high-fibre vegetables, whole grains, fruit, dense breads, fish, low-fat dairy foods, lean meat, beans and lentils, tofu and poultry. In short, all the ingredients of a varied, healthy, whole-food diet. It is the Nordic twin so to speak, of the more frequently referenced Mediterranean diet. Also included are fermented fish, vegetables and dairy. Herbs and spices come into frequent use. Passed over are highly processed foods and sugar; wherever possible kept to a minimum.

Scientists, nutritionists and chefs collaborated in the design of this diet for the Nordic countries, emphasizing seasonal Nordic ingredients reflecting the kinds of food common to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. It is designed to provide a daily diet where fifty percent of calories is derived from carbohydrates, twenty-five percent from protein and the last quarter from fat intake. It is, in fact, a combination that is fairly universally prescribed for healthy eating. The emphasis on foods available in Nordic countries in the diet qualifying it as a Nordic specialty.

Because the Mediterranean diet has been around for so much longer, it has received more recognition as a healthy diet, backed up by research attesting to its health benefits. The Nordic diet has not yet gone under the nutritional-health microscope through focused research as has its sister-diet. Both tout a strong seafood focus. Food writer Layne Lieberman cautions that it is wise to keep cured fish -- a staple in the Nordic diet -- to a minimum, given its  high salt, sugar and nitrate content.

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She also recommends the substitution of extra virgin olive oil rather than the canola oil popularly used in Nordic cuisine since canola though high in heart-healthy monounsaturated fats is missing the polyphenols with their antioxidant benefits that characterize olive oil. What is emphasized is that the Nordic diet is readily translated anywhere in the world with the use of similar alternatives.

What should also be obvious as a beneficial counterpart to any of these well-balanced diets focusing on whole foods, is the need to be physically active throughout the course of a day. Healthy eating is one very important part of lifestyle and awareness, but the need for exercise of all types can never be overlooked. The two together in unison are what produces a healthy lifestyle.

Although the diet itself is due some focused research, there have been some studies that focus on the diet that have reached interesting conclusions such as the 6-month study in obese people, where it was found that the Nordic diet reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 5.1 and 3.2 mmHg, respectively — compared to a control diet. As well, another 12-week study found a significant reduction in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number of a reading) in participants with metabolic syndrome.

Type 2 Diabetes Risk Reduction

"We found that eating plant-based diets was associated with, on average, 23% reduction in diabetes risk."
"We further showed that individuals who consumed a healthy version of the plant-based diet by emphasizing the intake of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, and minimizing intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and refined carbohydrates, had a further 30% reduction in their risk of developing type 2 diabetes."
"I would describe these risk reductions as being quite significant." 
"Plant-based diets can promote metabolic health and reduce diabetes risk through many pathways, including preventing excess weight gain, improving insulin sensitivity, reducing inflammation and other mechanisms."
"It does matter what veggies people eat and how the veggies are processed. Therefore, consuming healthy plant foods that are not or minimally processed, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains, should be emphasized."
Dr. Qi Sun, associate professor, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston 

Healthy plant-based diets can help prevent type 2 diabetes, new analysis suggests.

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"Plant-based dietary patterns, especially when they are enriched with healthful plant-based foods, may be beneficial for the primary prevention of type 2 diabetes."
"Multiple interventional and observational studies have indicated that increased consumption of plant-based foods can lead to short-term weight loss or prevention of long-term weight gain."
"In turn, it is likely that a considerable proportion of the protective association between plant-based diets and risk of type 2 diabetes can be attributable to weight control."
"Moreover, refined grains, starches, and sugars can also be characterized as plant-based, although they are independently associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes." 
Study report, published in JAMA Internal Medicine

"People truly have to understand that what they put in their mouth affects their health. You’re gonna have to commit to yourselves and acknowledge that your current diet is hurting you."
"What if we had a world without processed food in it?" 
"We wouldn’t have the weight problems we have now if it weren’t for processed food. It would be very difficult to become obese while eating a whole-food, plant-based diet."
"By eating the wrong foods, we increase our insulin levels. Increased insulin levels actually block the production of leptin [a hormone that works to regulate appetite by signalling to the brain that enough has been consumed].”
Mara Schwartz, CDE, RN, coordinator, Diabetes Prevention Program, Self Regional Healthcare, Greenwood, South Carolina

Ms. Schwartz, while well-credentialled as a dietitian, knows the issues of controlling diabetes from the inside-out, since she is herself a Type 1 diabetic; completely insulin-dependent. Her body does not produce insulin and to compensate she must take multiple daily doses of insulin injections to maintain life-saving balance controlling her diabetes, enabling her body to process glucose for energy. Most Type 1 diabetics are diagnosed at a young age; diabetes-onset having a large genetic component. Diet management is critical to the health of people with Type 1 diabetes.

Unless diabetes is under control, avoiding both high- and low-blood-sugars through constant monitoring of blood sugar levels, the potential for acquiring further chronic diseases is high, from neuropathy to blindness; kidney failure to amputations, and not least, heart conditions. In contrast it is not some disturbing event that causes the body's immune system to attack its insulin-producing beta cells that causes Type 2 diabetes. This type of mostly non-insulin-dependent diabetes is viewed largely as a middle-age-overweight-sedentary problem leading to the condition.

Type 2 diabetes is generally controlled by a regimen of lifestyle changes including diet, exercise and medications in pill form meant to enable the efficient use of the insulin the body produces through body cells' uptake. In some instances, insulin must be resorted to as therapy when the drugs fail to work. All of the potential incidence of heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, blindness that can assail Type 1 diabetics, are issues that Type 2 diabetics are also susceptible to, requiring careful blood sugar monitoring as part of therapy.

While Type 1 diabetes cannot be avoided until more is known about its onset-provoking mechanisms, Type 2 diabetes is avoidable with a change of lifestyle. And that, critically, includes diet and weight loss. Researchers have produced a new study that categorically validates plant-based diets as a deterrent to weight gain and Type 2 diabetes onset. It was found that those people who adhered to a vegan, a vegetarian or other kind of plant-based diet were 23 percent less susceptible to developing Type 2 diabetes.

Those people who consume a wide variety of meals based on plants are able to reduce risk of diabetes without being strict vegetarians avoiding meat, poultry and fish. On the other hand, white rice, white bread, pastas and other types of highly processed grains vastly reduce the inherent benefits of including grains alongside fresh fruits and vegetables. Those who took part in the study following this kind of nutritional dietary advice were 30 percent less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than others who ignored the advice.

Undertaking the study, the researchers studied data from nine published studies which totalled 307,099 participants, among them 23,544 people who developed Type 2 diabetes. The studies' timelines ranged from two to 28 years and all of the studies made use of food frequency questionnaires in assessing participants' diets.  The conclusion was that those who most carefully followed a vegan, vegetarian or plant-based diet were more successful in protecting themselves from diabetes onset as opposed to those consuming a lesser amount of plant-based meals.

Fresh vegetables are a good choice. Some processed plant-based foods aren’t always the best option. Getty Images

 

Impacting Dread Dementia by Healthy Lifestyle

"The lifestyle factors we chose to study in this project are totally dependent on individuals so they can change them immediately if they want."
"We were expecting to find a protective effect of these factors on dementia risk. But we were surprised by the magnitude of the effect."
Dr. Klodian Dhana, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago

"The core message from these findings is that whatever their genetic risk, people may be able to benefit from a healthy lifestyle."
"It’s really reassuring in a way, since people say, ‘my parents had dementia so I probably inherited bad genes."
"It’s important that people don’t fall into the trap of thinking that depending on your genes, dementia is inevitable. We found it’s not an all or nothing thing. The overall pattern of healthy behaviors and a healthy lifestyle can make a difference."
David Llewellyn, the University of Exeter Medical School, Great Britain

"A healthy lifestyle was protective, even for the people who had a bad luck of the draw with their genetic inheritance."
"[There are a number of theories as to why peoples' risk of dementia has been diminishing in recent years], but big ones are that we’re doing a better job of controlling cardiovascular risks, people have given up smoking and people are better educated at older ages than they used to be."
Dr. John Haaga, U.S. National Institute on Aging

While the number of people at risk of dementia, because of age, is growing rapidly as the population ages, a person's individual odds of getting dementia have been going down. Photo by Getty Images

Two recent studies presented at  an annual Alzheimer's Association International Conference reached very similar conclusions, offering hope to people with regard to a dread disease for which no protocol reaching toward a cure -- much less amelioration of symptoms to break the disease's slow march to death -- gives assurance that despite genetic inheritance weighing toward Alzheimer's onset, people with those genes are still able to offset the chances of having Alzheimer's through altered lifestyle values.

Dr. Dhana's team of researchers followed 2,500 subjects for close to a decade, tracking a number of lifestyle factors inclusive of diet, smoking, leisure physical energy, alcohol consumption and cognitive exercises engaged in. The finding concluded that those who reported a life dedicated to a healthier lifestyle with a low-fat diet, non-smoking, a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise weekly, moderate alcohol use, and cognitive activities engaged in, came with lower levels of Alzheimer's dementia.

The greater attention to a healthy lifestyle had the effect of lowering onset risk, it was established. in comparison to others who maintained none, or only one type of behaviour linked to a healthy lifestyle. Study subjects engaged in two or three healthy lifestyle factors succeeded in reducing their personal risk of developing Alzheimer's dementia by 39 percent; those who routinely engaged in four to five healthy behaviours saw a reduction in risk of 59 percent.

The two studies were published in JAMA Neurology, establishing that it is not inevitable that as people age they will be stricken with dementia. Nor is it inevitable that those whose genes are heavily influenced for Alzheimer's onset will succumb to Alzheimer's. Researchers in Britain followed close to 200,000 people to discover that those with a high genetic risk for dementia yet do not smoke, exercised on a regular basis, drank moderately and ate a Mediterranean-type diet had a full third-lower risk of dementia.

The UK Biobank study was the source of 195,383 study subjects, enabling the researchers to access an extremely large sample. All those included in the study were aged 60 and over, free of dementia at the beginning of the study period. They were genotyped (DNA analyzed for genetic features linking to dementia risk) and assigned a category group according to risk: high, intermediate, or low-risk. Scores were established for individuals, based on four recognized risk factors for dementia onset (smoking, physical activity, diet, alcohol consumption).

How much the study group smoked, how important fish was in their diet, how much red meat was consumed, how many servings of fruits and vegetables eaten daily, and how much alcohol was taken in a typical week, led to the risk-group assignments. Those with an identified high-risk genetically aligned with an unhealthy lifestyle were three times likelier to develop dementia in comparison to those with a low genetic risk and healthy lifestyle habits.

Good lifestyle habits tended to lower the risk of dementia onset irrespective of an individual's genetic predisposition. Those with a high genetic risk saw 1.13 percent with a healthy lifestyle developing dementia after eight years of follow-up versus 1.78 percent of those with less holistic lifestyle habits. Non-smokers, those limiting alcohol consumption (not exceeding one drink per day for women; two per day for men) along with those who ate at least three servings of fruits and vegetables daily and those who consumed relatively little red meat, scored highest on the lifestyle scale.

The study authors emphasized that full benefits of reduced chances of acquiring Alzheimer's dementia depended on adopting all four healthy lifestyle criteria, to protect the brain. Dr. Llewellyn explains the brain as requiring to be well nourished with a rich and constant supply of oxygen and glucose; that disruptions to the blood supply make the brain vulnerable to dementia.

Dementia is the only major cause of death in Western countries lacking effective treatment. Over 419,000 Canadians age 65 and more are diagnosed with dementia, women representing two-thirds of the total number. Published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study fails to prove cause and effect since lifestyle factors were self-reported, the follow-up period was only eight years and some dementia cases are not recorded in medical records or death registries.

"We can’t guarantee you’ll never get it. But you’ll delay it, you’ll reduce your likelihood."

"Lifestyle is really, at this point, where the biggest bang for the buck is in terms of prevention. We don’t have good pharmaceutical treatments that can really extend life out or prevent dementia, yet. But I think reducing cases by a third could have considerable impact."

Laura Middleton, associate professor of kinesiology, University of Waterloo, Ontario

Dementia is the only major cause of death in Western countries without an effective treatment.

Recreational Pleasure and Health Benefits

"Walking and running provide an ideal test of the health benefits of moderate-intensity walking and vigorous-intensity running because they involve the same muscle groups and the same activities performed at different intensities."
"The more the runners ran and the walkers walked, the better off they were in health benefits. If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable."
"Walking may be a more sustainable activity for some people when compared to running, however, those who choose running end up exercising twice as much as those that choose walking. This is probably because they can do twice as much in an hour."
"People are always looking for an excuse not to exercise, but now they have a straightforward choice to run or to walk and invest in their future health."
"It takes longer to walk a mile than to run a mile. But if you match them up on the energy expended, they are comparable. If you do the same amount of exercise – if you expend the same number of calories – you get the same benefit."
Paul T. Williams, staff scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Life Science Division in Berkeley, California

• Running significantly reduced risk for first-time hypertension 4.2 percent and walking reduced risk 7.2 percent.
• Running reduced first-time high cholesterol 4.3 percent and walking 7 percent.
• Running reduced first-time diabetes 12.1 percent compared to 12.3 percent for walking.
• Running reduced coronary heart disease 4.5 percent compared to 9.3 percent for walking.

"Walking at any speed costs some energy, but when you're changing the speed, you're pressing the gas pedal, so to speak."
Ohio State research team

Benefits to walking as a leisure time activity that gets you out and about: breathing fresh air, appreciating an outdoor landscape, bringing you closer to nature, allowing you to relax, your mind to wander and your daily concerns to recede into the background as your mood lifts. Walking is known to help in the reduction of anxiety and depression symptoms; as a mood elevator; being in tune with nature, in a green setting has few parallels. According to some researchers, happiness is boosted when walking becomes a regular feature in one's life.

Women in a study reported having greater energy, were more inclined to be socially active, less likely to surrender to out-of-control emotions, and less hounded by depression once they began routinely walking on a regular basis, amounting to 200 minutes weekly. Researchers from Santa Clara University gathered 176 college students, assigning them a walking schedule, because their study goal was to discover if "a simple walk might lead to more free-flowing thoughts and more creativity".

The walkers, it turned out, were more creative once they returned to their desks, compared to those who didn't participate in the experiment. Creativity flourished while the participants were out walking, regardless of whether they walked in fresh air or used a treadmill instead. The end result was more ideas coming to mind while walking in comparison to those who simply remained at their desks.

Yet another, earlier study undertaken in 2013 took 33,060 runners and 15,045 walkers as participants to determine whether the intensity and energy expended in walking serves to produce similar heart health benefits as running. The Berkeley, California researchers reached the conclusion that "If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable". Walking reduced risk of hypertension by 7.2 percent as opposed to a 4.2 percent drop in runners.

Runners' risk of high cholesterol was reduced by 4.3 percent, while walkers' risk dropped by 7 percent. As for diabetes risk, it fell by 12.3 percent for walkers and 12.1 percent in runners, while heart disease was reduced by 9.3 percent for walkers and for runners 4.5 percent. So walking most definitely earns its place in the firmament of good health-achieving initiatives, and it can be done anywhere, at any time.

Another bonus comes by way of speeding up the walk for random periods to achieve an even greater health impact. Moving at an average or brisk pace, walkers benefited from a 20 and 24 percent reduced risk in mortality from all causes, in comparison with those who maintained a more leisurely stroll. For adults aged 21 to 40, moderate intensity in walking equates with 100 steps a minute, while 130 steps per minute is considered fast walking.

According to an Ohio State research team, changing speeds during a walking workout can burn up to a 20 percent greater number of calories, in comparison to remaining stuck at a single speed. Monitor walking speed simply by speeding up until you feel a bit breathless, then slow down to allow breathing to return to normal. As simple as all that.

The Joint Affliction of Royalty

"Not for one second did I ever think I had gout because I knew it was for people double my age."
"This year in particular has been quite frustrating. I've had gout three or four times, and I don't really know what from. So for the last four or five weeks I've actually cut out most dairy [from his diet]."
"I think young people just don't really understand or appreciate what we're putting into our bodies."
Harry Tyndall, 28, London, England

A battle against the scourge of men who overindulge. Esquire

"What's not easy to describe is the pain gout inflicts. I remember my first attack as if it were just fifteen minutes ago rather than fifteen years. It was 3:00 a.m. I awoke, to paraphrase the first sentence of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, to a screaming coming across my sky. The big toe on my right foot was cherry-red and as swollen as a clown's nose. It felt as if someone had taken a flat nail and driven it, like a Vulcan, through the toe's midpoint. If a small puff of wind blew over this toe or a sheet so much as grazed it, it was as if a gang of droogs had commandeered Hannibal's elephants and had them each step on that nail, one at a time. I woke small children and large pets with my howls. I whimpered like a baby."
Dwight Garner, 50, New York

Finding himself unable to walk one morning getting out of bed, he somehow made his way to a physiotherapist where the clinician informed him he had gout. And Harry Tyndall began learning a lot about a severe form of inflammatory arthritis -- causing limbs to swell -- called gout. Of course he knew vaguely something about gout; the infamous Henry VIII whose many wives and his disposal of them leading to his schism with the Catholic Church refusing to annul his marriages, famously suffered from gout.

But this was a man whom history records as a glutton in his mid-age, a man who is known to have over-indulged in meats, pasties, alcohol. And so it made perfectly good sense medically to someone with no medical training that old Hank would come down with the excruciating pain of recurring gout. When Harry Tyndall contemplated his future, he shrank in dismay at the very thought that long distance walks might be a thing of the past for him, a young man who thought he took good care of himself through a discriminating diet and who was recreationally action-oriented. 

Rare steaks and alcohol did not, in fact, form part of his normal diet. He was a health-conscious millennial, just like most of his generation who choose to abstain from both. Yet it is among this very group that gout is being seen to rise. And it is linked with sugar consumption and fatty foods making them vulnerable to gout -- and when it presents it is not something that can be tolerated and overlooked as an inconvenience; those arthritic attacks are beyond painful.

Between the years 1997 and 2012, a 64 percent rise in gout diagnoses has taken place. Now, one in 40 people are believed to suffer from the condition and although most gout patients are above sixty years of age, a growing number of 20s and 30s are complaining of symptoms consonant with gout, a 30 percent increase since 2012. Gout is triggered by a build-up of uric acid in the blood, which then progresses to become crystallized in bone joints, usually affecting the big toe which becomes enormously swollen.
 

According to Dr. Alan Silman, medical director of  of Arthritis Research UK, fizzy drinks and genetics play a large role in the onset of this condition; additionally, one in ten patients  end to inherit the condition from their parents. Despite which, experts fail to agree on how influential genetics is in gout onset, and how much is attributable to lifestyle. Dr. Silman describes a gout attack as "probably the most painful form of severe arthritis there is". His patients recount to him their difficulty in even sleeping under a bedsheet, pressing against their toe.

For Harry Tyndall both big toes in both his feet ended up swelling enormously, causing him at various points to be "on his hands and knees" in living agony. Yet what impresses him most is his forced change in entirely converting his diet. It's been two and a half years since he last had red meat or red wine. He did end up with his craving for sweet and fat compelling him to melt ice cream and drink it by the tub-full. But he's under treatment and his condition is now improving. He got married last year and was able to walk up the church aisle.

"The prevalence of gout in the U.S. has risen over the last twenty years and now affects 8.3 million (4%) Americans. Gout is more common in men than in women and more prevalent in African-American men than white men. The chances of having gout rises with age, with a peak age of 75. In women, gout attacks usually occur after menopause. Among the U.S. population, about 21% have elevated blood uric acid levels, a condition known as hyperuricemia. However, only a small portion of those with hyperuricemia will actually develop gout. If your parents have gout, then you have a 20% chance of developing it."
"Maintaining adequate fluid intake helps prevent acute gout attacks and decreases the risk of kidney stone formation in people with gout. Alcohol is known to have diuretic effects that can contribute to dehydration and precipitate acute gout attacks. Alcohol can also affect uric acid metabolism and cause hyperuricemia. It causes gout by slowing down the excretion of uric acid from the kidneys as well as by causing dehydration, which precipitates the crystals in the joints."
"Dietary changes can help reduce uric acid levels in the blood. Since purine chemicals are converted by the body into uric acid, purine-rich foods should be avoided. Foods rich in purines include shellfish and organ meats, such as liver, brains, and kidneys. Researchers have reported that meat or seafood consumption increases the risk of gout attacks, while dairy consumption seemed to reduce this risk. Weight reduction can be helpful in lowering the risk of recurrent attacks of gout."
"Certain medications reduce the pain and inflammation of gout attacks, such as anti-inflammatory drugs (ibuprofen and naproxen), colchicine, and corticosteroids. Other medications decrease the level of uric acid in the blood and prevent the deposit of uric acid in joints (gouty arthritis), the kidneys (stones), and in tissue (tophi), helping to prevent further attacks and complications. These drugs include allopurinol, febuxostat, lesinurad, and probenicid."
Web MD

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