Centenarians a Happy Lot, Survey Says

FRIDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- Centenarians are more likely to be content with their lives than aging baby boomers are, and these oldest Americans tend to put more stock in healthy eating habits and exercise as keys to happiness, a new survey finds.

Half of Americans aged 100 and older wouldn't change a thing about the way they lived their lives, while only 29 percent of Baby Boomers (aged 60 to 65) would leave their pasts untouched and 26 percent wished they had made more money. Baby boomers were also more than twice as likely as centenarians to wish they had taken more risks in their lives, 12 percent vs. 5 percent.

The average American today lives to be about 80, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When asked what could have made their extra 20 or more years even better, 33 percent of the centenarians said nothing, while 33 percent wished for more time with their spouse or loved ones, 13 percent wished for better health and only 6 percent wished they had more money, according to the UnitedHealthcare's eighth annual 100@100 survey.

Nearly all centenarians (98 percent) said that keeping their mind active is a secret to healthy aging, and 100 percent of baby boomers agreed. Staying mobile and exercising is also important, according to 96 percent of centenarians and 98 percent of the baby boomers.

Both age groups also agree that physical health is more difficult to maintain as they age, compared with mental health, emotional/spiritual health, social connections and independence.

Many centenarians try to remain active. More than half said they walk or hike weekly, more than one-third said they do strength training exercises at least once a week, and nearly 20 percent do a cardiovascular workout indoors one or more times a week.

Centenarians and baby boomers do differ on other healthy habits. Centenarians are more likely than the boomers to eat nutritiously balanced meals regularly (86 percent vs. 77 percent), to get more than eight hours of sleep per night (66 percent vs. 54 percent), and to attend a social event every day (37 percent vs. 28 percent).

Only 31 percent of centenarians said that maintaining one's sex life is important for healthy aging, compared with 80 percent of the boomers. Centenarians were also less likely than the boomers to believe that it's very important to continue to look forward to each day (72 percent vs. 88 percent) and to maintain a sense of purpose (57 percent vs. 79 percent).

While 29 percent of centenarians said they expected to live to 100, only 21 percent of the boomers said they expect to reach the same milestone. But a good number of them might make that goal. The centenarian population in the United States is expected to grow to more than 600,000 by 2050, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"The centenarians in this year's 100@100 survey show that maintaining a positive outlook isn't all about focusing on what the future holds," Dr. Rhonda Randall, chief medical officer of UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement, said in a company news release.

"Reflecting fondly and confidently on the choices they've made throughout their lives helps the longest-living Americans maintain a sense of satisfaction and well-being that's vital to healthy aging," she said.

Young adulthood was the most fondly remembered time in centenarians' lives (45 percent), despite challenges such as balancing the demands of work and family. The second most fondly remembered time in centenarians' lives was approaching their 100th birthday (12 percent).

There were notable differences between the two groups in their view of marriage or life partnership. Thirty-one percent of centenarians and 19 percent of the boomers said that sharing the same political views as your partner is very important, 40 percent of centenarians and 22 percent of boomers said having the same hobbies as your partner is very important, and 56 percent of centenarians and 46 percent of boomers said sharing the same religious faith as your partner is very important.

Only 49 percent of boomers said that it's very important to maintain the traditional roles of husband and wife, compared with 67 percent of centenarians.

Both groups said that friends and family have the biggest impact on their lives and provide them with the most support. Staying close to friends and family is a secret to healthy aging for 97 percent of centenarians and 99 percent of boomers, and more than one-third of centenarians said they've maintained a friendship for more than 75 years.

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: UnitedHealthcare, news release, May 2, 2013

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Over-Exercising

Lately I have been obsessing about exercising, especially this past week. I try to stay as active as possible, and almost never let myself sit down or participate in sedentary activities like watching TV or using the computer. When I eat breakfast, I stand and walk around my yard and read simultaneously. This week, I started running again, and have been doing many other exercises. Here's what my week's looked like:

Monday: Running-25 minutes, yoga-15 minutes, and cleaning for 1 hour, 200 bicycle crunches 

Tuesday: yoga/aerobics-35 minutes, gymnastics- 1 hour, 200 bicycle crunches

Wednesday: running-27 minutes,walking-3 minutes yoga/aerobics- 35 minutes, swimming-10 minutes, 200 bicycle crunches, 

Thursday: running-32 minutes, walking-3 minutes, cleaning counters and cabinets for 2 hours, 320 bicycle crunches, 90 girl pushups, 4 1-minute planks, 100 hip raises

Friday: running- 45 minutes, walking- 25 minutes, gymnastics- 1 hour

Each day this week I've eaten 1800 calories. I just can not get myself to eat more than 1800 calories! And now my brain always tells me I need to exercise as much as possible, and I feel terribly guilty if I ever sit down or am resting. Even though my body is tired, and I feel like I have almost no energy, My brain continues to tell me to exercise exercise exercise! Tonight, while I was babysitting after gymnastics practice, my chest and rib bones had this terrible achey pain, and it was hard to even play dolls with the girl I was babysitting.

Do you think I'm over exercising? Has anyone experienced something similar, and what is the best thing to do? I'm in anorexia recovery, for those who do not know.

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Multi-purpose Primer

Blue-ray Activating Face Primer, £23, CARGO available from Debenhams (May 6th) and http://www.beautybay.com/

A face primer that reduces shine, refines pores and minimises fine lines and imperfections. Sound like a dream? It's a reality. CARGO's blue-ray Activating Face Primer guarantees that your skin will look better after 28 days of using the product. The wondrous primer acts as a "dual-purpose skin treatment with instant flawless results and long-term benefits."

The primer leaves skin feeling smooth and flawless, not only that, it is a silicone-free/paraben-free formula which makes it suitable for all skin types. Hooray!

By Lisa JC

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Multiple Sclerosis and Diet: Vitamin D, Swank and Wahls Diets, and More

SOURCES:

Ellen Mowry, MD, assistant professor, department of neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.

National MS Society: "Nutrition and Diet."

Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD, medical director, Multiple Sclerosis Service, Colorado Neurological Institute; clinical associate professor of neurology, University of Colorado-Denver and Health Sciences Center; author, Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis; co-author, The Everything Health Guide to Multiple Sclerosis.

Yale News: "Yale Researchers Identify Salt as a Trigger of Autoimmune Diseases."

Jagannath, V. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2010.

Terry Wahls, MD: "Eating the Wahls Way."

National Multiple Sclerosis Society: "Vitamins, Minerals, & Herbs in MS: An Introduction."

Multiple Sclerosis Foundation: "Multiple Sclerosis FAQs."

Wergeland, S. Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 2012.

Swank MS Foundation: "About the Swank Low-Fat Diet for the Treatment of MS."

National Multiple Sclerosis Society: "The Omega-3 Factor."

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Longer Wait for Mammogram After Benign Breast Biopsy May Be Warranted

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Quicker Infant Growth Tied to Higher IQ Later

But difference in scores was fairly small in study of full-term babies

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 21 (HealthDay News) -- Babies who gained weight and head circumference more rapidly during the first month of life scored slightly higher on intelligence tests when they were 6 years old, according to a large new study.

But a baby's early rate of growth didn't influence the child's behavior later in life, according to the study.

"We found that faster growth in the first four weeks following birth was linked to a small increase in intelligence quotient scores at 6.5 years, but there were no clear effects on children's behavior," said the study's lead author, Lisa Smithers, a postdoctoral research fellow in early life nutrition at the University of Adelaide, in Australia.

She added that these findings suggest that "it is important that parents seek help for any concerns they might have about their baby's growth or feeding quite quickly so that any problems can be addressed early."

"[However], we cannot say that faster growth causes a higher IQ," Smithers said. "It is possible that a phenomenon called 'reverse causality' may be at play, for example, if children with lower IQs had poorer growth."

The study results appeared online June 17 and in the July print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The study included about 17,000 mothers and their babies from Belarus. Only mothers who delivered a single, healthy baby were included in the study. In addition, the babies were all born at or after 37 weeks of gestation.

Researchers measured the babies' weights and head circumferences over the first four weeks of life. Intelligence was measured using several IQ scales that were combined to yield a full-scale IQ score at 6.5 years. The full-scale IQ scores can range from 50 to 150, Smithers said, and the average score is 100. To assess behavior, parents and teachers completed behavior questionnaires.

Babies with the highest growth in weight and head circumference scored 1.5 points higher on the IQ scale compared to babies with the lowest growth. The researchers found no statistically significant differences in children's later behavior based on early growth.

"Our study involved thousands of healthy babies, so our findings reflect a wide range of growth patterns that might be expected within a healthy population," Smithers said.

Researchers accounted for other important factors, such as family income and parental education, in their analysis.

"The size of the effect we found on children's IQ would not be noticeable to individuals," Smithers said.

But the results may be important in the bigger picture, a U.S. expert said.

"A 1.5-point difference would be meaningless in an individual child and that child's success in life, but on a population level, such a difference may matter," said Dr. Lisa Thornton, medical director of pediatric rehabilitation at LaRabida Children's Hospital in Chicago.

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Health Tip: Got Power?

(HealthDay News) -- When the power goes out, don't forget about your refrigerator and freezer packed with food that can spoil.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics offers these guidelines for keeping your food after you lose power:

Don't open your refrigerator and freezer doors, if possible. Food will stay longer this way.If you don't open your refrigerator, the appropriate temperature may be maintained for at least four hours.A fully packed freezer can remain frozen for about two days if the door hasn't been opened. A partially full freezer may stay frozen for one day.

-- Diana Kohnle
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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