Senior Sex and Other Antics – What Can We Say – Read On

General Posted by anthony Date September 24, 2014

Rodale Press

Senior Sex and Other Antics – What Can We Say – Read On From The Week – Item One: A 113-year-old woman married her 70-year-old boy toy in a ceremony at their Chinese nursing home. “She takes good care of me, and gives me her portion of meat during meals,” Aimti Ahemti said of his wofe, Azatihan Sawun. Item Two: A 68-year-old woman was charged with having sex in public with her 49-year-old paramour at a senior community that calls itself “Florida’s Friendliest Retirement Hometown.” You bet! Item Three: An elderly Swiss couple began robbing church collection boxes-because, they later told police, they needed some excitement. Prosecutors said the married couple, ages 70 and 73, had a scheme in which the husband kept watch outside the church while the wife went in and grabbed the loot. They didn’t need the cash, and confessed they only stole because they wanted the “adrenaline rush” of committing a crime.

CBS Reports We Have a Way to Go in Financially Preparing for Retirement

General Posted by anthony Date September 22, 2014

CBS Reports Trouble Ahead

CBS Reports We Have a Way to Go in Financially Preparing for Retirement In a special report, Eye on America: Retirement, CBS News is exploring the changing nature of retirement and how to prepare for the future. Here are some of the highlights from their first installment.

Roughly half of all U.S. families have no money set aside for retirement, Federal Reserve data show. Even Americans who work diligently to prepare for their later years are falling behind. Only 18 percent of U.S. workers say they are very confident of having enough money to live comfortably during their retirement years.
High unemployment, stagnant income and spiraling health care costs, eroding labor protections and rising income inequality all contribute. A growing segment of the U.S. population could see their living standards erode as their retirement savings run dry.
As of 2010, only 51 percent of private-sector workers had access to a retirement plan at work. Four of 10 Americans ages 55 to 64 have no money put away for retirement. For those who do, the median balance is $120,000. That amounts to income of only $400 a month.
Overall, the median retirement account balance for all working-age households in the U.S. is $3,000, and $12,000 for near-retirement households, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security.
Most experts say that to maintain their standard of living in retirement, a typical family needs to replace 75 percent to 85 percent of their pre-retirement income. Yet wages for nearly all Americans have been stagnant for more than 30 years.
Health problems further drain retirement assets and can make it hard for seniors to extend their working lives, the standard advice these days for retirees with inadequate savings.
On a positive note, as women have entered the workforce en masse, their earnings have lifted family incomes. It also has allowed more women to accrue Social Security benefits and acquire 401(k) accounts of their own. Meanwhile, people with pensions may be financially secure in retirement even without personal savings.

Source; CBS News

Can Caffeine Fight Alzheimer’s? Possibly.

General Posted by anthony Date September 19, 2014

Can Caffeine Fight Alzheimer’s? Possibly. Tau deposits, along with beta-amyloid plaques, are among the characteristic features of Alzheimer’s disease. These protein deposits disrupt the communication of the nerve cells in the brain and contribute to their degeneration. A team led by Dr. Christa E. MÌ_ller from the University of Bonn and Dr. David Blum from the University of Lille was able to demonstrate for the first time that caffeine has a positive effect on tau deposits in Alzheimer’s disease. The initial results were published in the online edition of the journal Neurobiology of Aging. Caffeine blocks various receptors in the brain, which are activated by adenosine. The adenosine receptor subtype A2A in particular could play an important role in AlzheimerÛªs formation. Prof. MÌ_ller and her colleagues developed an A2A antagonist in ultrapure and water-soluble form. Over several weeks, the researchers then treated genetically altered mice with the A2A antagonist. The mice had an altered tau protein, which, without therapy, leads to the early development of Alzheimer’s symptoms. In comparison to a control group, which only received a placebo, the treated animals achieved significantly better results on memory tests. The A2A antagonist displayed positive effects in particular on spatial memory. “We have taken a good step forward,” says Prof. MÌ_ller. “The results of the study are truly promising, since we were able to show for the first time that A2A adenosine receptor antagonists actually have very positive effects in an animal model simulating hallmark characteristics and progression of the disease. Source: Science Daily

Led an Intellectual Stimulating Life? You Have a Better Chance of Warding Off Alzheimer’s.

General Posted by anthony Date September 17, 2014

Let’s stimulate our brains!

Led an Intellectual Stimulating Life? You Have a Better Chance of Warding Off Alzheimer’s. In a JAMA study researchers suggest that high lifetime intellectual enrichment may delay the onset of cognitive impairment by almost nine years in carriers of the APOE4 genotype, a risk factor for Alzheimer disease, compared with low lifetime intellectual enrichment. What is high lifetime intellectual enrichment you ask? It is a combination of things. Higher intellectual scores take in education (years of school completed) and occupation (based on attributes, complexities of a job), as well as higher levels of mid/late-life cognitive activity (e.g., reading books, participating in social activities and doing computer activities at least three times per week). These were linked to better cognition in older patients. Authors Prashanthi Vemuri, Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinic and Foundation, Rochester, Minn., and colleagues studied 1,995 individuals (ages 70 to 89 years) without dementia (1,718 were cognitively normal and 277 individuals had mild cognitive impairment) in Olmsted County, Minnesota. They analyzed education/occupation scores and mid/late-life cognitive activity based on self-reports. Bottom line: Better education/occupation scores and mid/late-life cognitive activity were associated with better cognitive performance. They concluded that ÛÏLifetime intellectual enrichment might delay the onset of cognitive impairment and be used as a successful preventive intervention to reduce the impending dementia epidemic.Û I assume that if you get half the equation right that there is still some benefit. By that I mean perhaps someone did not complete high school and had jobs that were not intellectually challenging but now find themselves engaged in the activities described – reading books, participating in social activities and doing computer activities at least three times per week. That has to count for something. Perhaps the message is more for younger generations and parents. Keep your kids intellectually stimulated and engaged; continue that through adulthood and then through your older years and you can delay Alzheimer’s onset for nine years! Get busy!

Taking a Statin for Cholesterol? You Still Need to Exercise.

General Posted by anthony Date September 15, 2014

Taking a Statin for Cholesterol? You Still Need to Exercise. Older men who were prescribed statins (the cholesterol-lowering medications associated with muscle pain, fatigue and weakness) engaged in modestly lower physical activity according to a recent JAMA study.

Take these? Still need to exercise.

David S.H. Lee, Pharm.D., of Oregon State University/Oregon Health and Science University College of Pharmacy, Portland, and colleagues examine the relationship between self-reported physical activity and statin use with seven years of follow-up. The average age of the men in the study was nearly 73 years. Of the 3,039 men 727 (24 percent) were statin users and 1,467 (48 percent) never used a statin during the follow-up period. About one-quarter of the men (n=845) first reported using a statin during the follow-up. Scores on a self-reported physical activity questionnaire declined by an average of 2.5 points per year for nonusers and 2.8 points per year for prevalent users, a difference that was not statistically significant. However for new users, annual scores declined at a faster rate than nonusers. A total of 3,071 men (1,542 of them statin users) had engaged in less moderate physical activity with 5.4 fewer minutes per day; less vigorous activity with 0.6 fewer minutes per day and had more sedentary behavior with 7.6 more minutes per day. Physical activity is important for older adults to remain healthy. Muscle pain, fatigue, and weakness are common side effects in patients prescribed statins. But it is no excuse not to continue to exercise.

269 270 271 272 273