Encouraging Health

Know those little aches and pains you feel in the morning? You could do something right now to keep them from getting worse when you’re older.

Just jump to it. Okay, you don’t have to literally jump. But do be active. People who pick up their feet and commit to regular aerobic exercise have much less muscle and joint pain as they age.

How Much Less?
A 14-year study that followed a healthy over-60 crowd found that consistent exercise — be it running, biking, swimming, dancing, or brisk walking — led to as much as 25 percent less musculoskeletal pain down the road. Yes, even with the high-impact runners. Researchers aren’t sure why, but they suspect that exercise’s endorphin release may play a role.

Looking Ahead
Less pain when you’re older means a more active and independent life. Here are a few other ways to lower your risk of chronic future aches:
Hit the mat. Yoga boosts endorphins and improves flexibility and joint-supporting strength.

Cross-train. Mixing up your activities helps keep your back in good shape.

Have a cup or two . . . of green tea.

Bone loss, back pain, high cholesterol . . . very different problems. But there’s a single solution.

It’s cross-training. Research shows that increasing the variety of exercises you do increases the range of benefits you get. The triple reward for consistently mixing it up: stronger bones, a limber back, and a healthier cholesterol profile.

When women who went through menopause early combined a number of different physical activities — from strength training to jumping rope — the results were clear: broadening their fitness menu expanded their physical benefits. After 2 years of doing cross-training workouts at varying speeds and intensities, the women had increased their bone mass, boosted their muscle strength, reduced their back pain, and improved their cholesterol profiles.

The lesson for everyone: The more you mix up your workouts, the more rewards you’re likely to reap. And adding variety helps keep your interest up, too. Doing yoga or Pilates, jogging, hiking, lifting weights, biking, playing racquetball or golf, jumping rope, dancing, walking, swimming . . . it’s hard to get bored when you have so many get-moving options.

Check out Watching Simpsonsand find out what blogger Richard Ristow means when he writes ‘x-files meets simpsons’.

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Half-million quit pills for serious conditions in 2007 when faced with cost

Many people in Medicare with diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions stop taking their medicine when faced with picking up the entire cost of their prescriptions, researchers say.

About 3.4 million older and disabled people hit a gap, known as the doughnut hole, in their Medicare drug coverage in 2007. When that happened, they had to pay the entire costs of their medicine until they spent $3,850 out of pocket. Then, insurance coverage would kick in again.

About 15 percent of those hitting the coverage gap stopped their treatment regimen. That rate varied depending upon illness. For example, about 10 percent of diabetes patients stopped buying the medicine, as did 16 percent of patients with high blood pressure and 18 percent of patients with osteoporosis.

The drug benefit, which began in 2006, has come in under budget. Most participants report they are satisfied with the program. But many lawmakers and health analysts say improvements could be made.

“If a new president and Congress consider changes to the drug benefit, it will be important to keep in mind that the coverage gap has consequences for some patients with serious health conditions,” said Drew Altman, the chief executive officer and president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation conducted the study with researchers at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago.

2003 Congress crafted the hole
The Republican-led Congress in 2003 crafted the doughnut hole as a way to make the drug benefit more affordable for the federal government.

The researchers based their findings on pharmacy claims data provided by IMS Health, a company specializing in collecting health care data. They excluded people who get extra help in paying for their drug coverage because of their income; they do not pay the full cost of medicine even when in the doughnut hole.

Browse Healthy bpm and the “vacation state of mind”

Experimental shot stopped plaque, but not dementia, researchers say

Some doctors have long suspected that if the plaque that builds up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease could be removed, they could be saved. But a new vaccine that did just that suggests the theory is wrong.

British researchers gave 64 patients with moderate Alzheimer’s disease an experimental vaccine designed to eliminate plaque from their brains. Some patients were followed for up to six years.

Autopsies on seven patients who died of Alzheimer’s during the study showed that nearly all of the sticky beta-amyloid protein thought to be dangerous had been removed. But all patients still had severe dementia.

“It may be that these toxic plaques trigger the neurodegeneration, but don’t have an ongoing role,” said Clive Holmes of the University of Southampton, lead author, in a press statement. The study was published Friday in the medical journal, The Lancet.

The study was paid for by the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, a British charity.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and affects about 25 million people worldwide.

Other experts said that the study’s findings pointed to a major gap in our understanding of the disease. Doctors have never been sure whether the brain plaques are the cause of Alzheimer’s disease or just a side effect.

“We still don’t have enough understanding of what we should target,” said Dr. Bengt Winblad, director of the Alzheimer’s Centre at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. Winblad was not connected to the study.

Brain tangles may play a role
Aside from the plaque build-up, scientists also think that tangles of another brain protein called tau play a major role in Alzheimer’s. Because those tangles form later than the plaque, some experts think they should be the focus instead.

“It may be harder to get a response from targeting plaque because that forms years before people actually have Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Simon Lovestone, professor of Old Age Psychiatry at King’s College in London. “By the time you do something, it may be too late.”

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Getting older really gets a bad rap. It turns out you’ll have a lot to smile about.

That’s because you’ll actually be happier, despite gray hairs or wrinkles. A three-decades-long survey confirms it: Your odds of scoring well on a happiness scale increase about 5 percent every decade.

With Age Comes . . .
There’s one major advantage to getting older (at least for most of us!), and that’s maturity. Researchers suspect that it’s maturity that enriched people’s lives and boosted their happy factor in a recent study — even when faced with health concerns or lost relationships. Know what else helped ensure happiness in the study? Education.

Why Wait!

But you don’t have to wait until you’re gray to get happy. Put yourself on the love-your-life path today with some simple life changes:

Sweat it. Yep, working that body of yours turns the fretting volume waaay down.

Train yourself to think good thoughts. Your attitude affects your health.

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