7 Ways to Avoid Stress-Related Weight Gain...

How to chill out and keep the pounds off Stressful home situations or working at a job that makes you crazy can lead to weight gain over time, according to a new study from Ohio State University. The study involved 58 women, average age 53, who were questioned about their prior day’s stressful events before being given a high-fat meal of 930 calories and 60 grams of fat (equivalent to a quarter pounder with cheese and bacon plus fries). Afterward, researchers measured the women’s metabolic rates (the time it took for them to burn calories and fat). Blood sugar, insulin, and the stress hormone cortisol were among the parameters measured. The participants who reported one or more stressful situations during the previous 24 hours burned 104 fewer calories than the non-stressed women in the seven hours after eating the high-fat meal. This difference adds up to a potential weight gain of an alarming 11 pounds a year. “Keep in mind, however, we don’t know if differences in activity level might have contributed to the results of this study,” says Dr. Brian Quebbemann, founder of the N.E.W. Program in Newport Beach, Calif., who was not part of the study. “Regardless, stress has been long known to result in a tendency to gain weight. Stress works by increasing the fight-or-flight hormone, cortisol, which makes you hungrier and also stimulates the deposit of fat around your midsection.” The solutions: Stress reduction through activity helps you feel more relaxed and keeps your metabolism from tanking. Plan stress-relieving activities. Stress reduction can be achieved by doing an activity that helps you feel more relaxed or by avoiding stressful situations, says Quebbemann. “Make a list of things you enjoy (a walk, bubble bath, reading) that...

When Should You Push For a Geriatric Assessment?...

Taking a team approach can net the best results for your parents Navigating the maze of eldercare options can be challenging. A geriatric assessment can help you figure out the level of care your loved one needs. “The phrase geriatric assessment is a bit confusing,” says Norbert “Bert” Rahl , director of mental health services at the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging. Sometimes an assessment looks at just one issue that’s causing problems for a loved one. For instance: If you are concerned about your mother’s physical status, the medications she is taking or how she is (or isn’t) managing a chronic condition, a physical assessment may be in order. If your father has mobility issues and you’re worried about how well he is (or isn’t ) getting around on his own, he may need a functional assessment. If you are worried about the psychological and emotional well-being of your loved one, a mental health assessment could be helpful. If your aging relative is displaying issues with memory, decision making and financial management skills, a cognitive assessment should be scheduled. Or, to get the whole-person “picture” of what’s going on, Rahl suggests a comprehensive assessment, which looks at all those things and how they are interacting and overlapping in your older loved one’s life. A comprehensive assessment could be coordinated by your loved one’s primary care physician. However, since these assessments require the skills and expertise of a team of specialists, they are best coordinated by a geriatrician: a physician who has trained and specialized in the care and treatment of older adults. Ask for a referral from the primary care physician or click here to find a geriatrician in your area. Who’s On Your Team? The composition of...

How One Patient Researched Her Own Cure...

She’s cracking her DNA code for answers to a life-threatening problem Kim Goodsell is relentless. An extreme athlete, she kite-surfs, climbs mountains and cycles up to 50 miles a day on a high-performance carbon fiber bicycle. She also happens to be at the epicenter of a growing digital medical revolution. The 56-year-old self-financed and conducted genetic research on her own life-threatening health problem — and discovered a genetic mutation linked to her disease. Goodsell has also invented a device to help others live with debilitating conditions. Her doctor — cardiologist, geneticist and researcher Eric J. Topol, of La Jolla, Calif. — has dubbed her “the patient of the future.” Discovering What Was Wrong A former world-ranked endurance athlete who dropped out of University of California San Diego to live more closely to nature, Goodsell started to notice problems in 1997 while running a triathlon. Something did not feel right. “I began presenting with a particularly lethal cardiac arrhythmia, ARVC,” she says. Goodsell received the most powerful implant on the market, an internal cardiac defibrillator. When it kicks in to correct arrhythmia, the shock it delivers is so violent it “lifts me and my bike off the ground,” Goodsell says. “It’s like a bomb exploding in my chest.” This kind of traumatic shock often results in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that patients experience for months and even years. Goodsell describes her relationship to the medical device in her chest as ambivalent. “On the one hand, it is my lifeline. On the other, it is a terrorist,” she says. DIY Genetic Sequencing Soon after the defibrillator was implanted, Goodsell began to experience motor dysfunction and systemic arthritis, which over more than a decade deteriorated into crippling pain and neurological dysfunction.  ...

What Should You Weigh?

Figuring out what the scale should say, not what you want it to, is worth the trouble You probably have the number in your head right now. Most of us do. It’s the weight you’d like to weigh, if you had your druthers. It may be a long-ago weight — before you had kids, before you were married, even when you were still in school. Or it might be more recent — the number on the scale when you were training for, say, your first marathon in your 30s or when you did aerobics nearly every day. It could be time, though, to put that fantasy number to bed and focus on reaching or maintaining a healthy weight — the figure at which we feel strong, energetic, like our best self. So what is that number? Good question. Figuring it out is not an exact science, says Lisa Young, an adjunct professor at New York University and author of The Portion Teller Plan: The No-Diet Reality Guide to Eating, Cheating, and Losing Weight Permanently. That said, “it’s important to strive for something that’s realistic and healthy, and that’s usually a Body Mass Index [BMI] of 18.5 to 25,” which is considered normal weight, says Young. But BMI Has Its Limits No doubt you’ve heard of BMI, a fairly simple number crunch of weight and height to estimate how much fat a person has. Though widely-used, it’s not a perfect way to measure the link between weight and health, says Dr. Rexford S. Ahima, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Years ago, “the World Health Organization came out with some standards and [said that] if you have a BMI of 30 or higher you...

7 Common Drugs That Are Toxic for Your Brain...

These widely used medications can be especially harmful for older adults Want to keep your brain — or the brain of someone you love — as healthy as possible? Of course you do. So you’ve been learning about what to do: what kind of physical exercise to try, what kind of brain games to play, what kinds of foods to eat, what kinds of supplements to take, what kind of sleep to get. But you should also be learning what not to do. Specifically, you should learn what kinds of toxins to avoid to protect your brain’s health. And even if you are super-fit and never take any medications, it’s good to know what to help your friends and family avoid. As a doctor specialized in aging, I have noticed that even health-conscious people rarely know that many commonly used medications are bad for brain health. And I’m not just talking about habit-forming sedatives. Drugs like Valium do indeed harm the brain, but they’re much less often used than another class of brain-toxic drugs: the “anticholinergic” drugs. Warning Label Needed? These drugs are in everything from allergy medicines to muscle relaxants to painkillers. They are in many over-the-counter (OTC) medications, and they are often prescribed for a variety of common health complaints. I’ve never quite understood why there isn’t more of a brain health warning on these drugs. They block acetylcholine, a key neurotransmitter in the body. This leads to lower brain function, which people often experience as sedation. Sometimes, that drowsiness is why people take the drugs, and a little sedation might sound benign. But if your brain is older, or otherwise vulnerable, don’t underestimate these drugs. Research has linked them to increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and...

4 Things You Can Fix About Your Aging Body...

You can’t turn back time, but you can undo some of the damage done Most of the time, we should hold on to our wallets (and our dignity) when someone tells us we can look and feel younger — unless that someone is Dr. Daniel Neides, medical director of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. Neides says “absolutely” we can undo some of the damage done to our bodies by neglect and the passage of time, and not just in the abstract terms of reducing disease risk. Neides believes we can shake off some of the very real ways that we feel age creeping up on us day to day. Here are his answers to four common fiftysomething questions: I used to be able to eat anything. Now I can’t have (onions/garlic/tomatoes/fill in the blank) or acid reflux kicks in and even wakes me up at night. Can I get back to enjoying any kind of food at any time of day? We can absolutely reverse the symptoms that you just described by changing lifestyle. The answer is not taking a proton pump inhibitor, like Prilosec, or an H2 blocker, like Zantac. That’s only minimizing the symptoms. We want to get to the root cause. The major problem that we see with what we call the SAD, the Standard American Diet, is that it’s incredibly pro-inflammatory. We eat food that increases inflammation in the body and causes us to develop diseases — heart disease, vascular disease, dementia, depression. It’s just a recipe for disaster. Our immune system is always on and always fighting. There’s collateral damage associated with this. Over time, we damage the lining of our arteries, the lining of our intestinal tract. The first thing I...

Stretches and Exercises for Tired, Achy Legs...

4 ways to ease leg and knee pain caused by overdoing it Whether you took a longer walk than usual, tried a new exercise or simply spent all day on your feet, achy legs can make your whole body hurt. If the achiness stems from exercise, blame it on micro-tears in the muscle cells themselves, says Irv Rubenstein, an exercise physiologist and founder of S.T.E.P.S., in Nashville, Tenn. The little tears spark an inflammatory process that’s necessary for healing. “It occurs and enables proper reconstruction of the damaged tissue,” Rubenstein says. Another cause of achy legs and knees is the normal aging process. We experience changes in connective tissue (cartilage), which can cause tightness, according to John Fenger, manager of outpatient rehabilitation at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley, Calif. However, if your legs cramp up when you’re walking down the street for no obvious reason, it’s time to schedule a doctor’s appointment, Fenger says. “The pain may be due to an occlusion (blockage) or it may be neurological,” he notes. Try hair of the dog. Perform a lower intensity, lower volume (reps, sets) version of the activity that made you sore, suggests Rubenstein. If you usually walk vigorously, slow down your pace and cut down the distance. If your soreness is due to lifting weights, cut the weight or do the move without weight and go with fewer sets and repetitions. In addition, extend your warm-up, suggests Rubenstein, since muscles are not just sore but stiff. “This way, you can be sure you’re pushing blood (and its accompaniment, oxygen) into muscles to speed healing,” he says, while helping the lymphatic system remove the “damaged” tissue and toxins. Break up your workouts throughout the day. To strengthen...

How to Go Gray Naturally...

It’s not easy, but it is possible. These tips can break your cycle of monthly dye jobs. My friends tell me I should consider myself blessed, because at nearly 52 years of age, I’m just beginning to show my gray. And while it doesn’t bother me — yet — I’m starting to think about color for the first time in my life. The odds are, though, that I won’t go there, for a variety of practical reasons: the chemicals, the cost and the hassle of upkeep. But mostly I just don’t want to mess with Mother Nature. I came close to coloring my hair last year, when my father passed away. My sisters and I contemplated dyeing our brunette hair red in solidarity: My father went into the great beyond at 84 with the same gorgeous copper-red hair with which he came into the world. How Women Used to Grapple with Gray Until recently, women fell into two basic camps: those who colored and set their hair until it didn’t, or couldn’t, move (think “helmet head”) and those who went gray naturally. “Several decades ago, when women decided not to color their hair, they just grew it longer and pulled it back,” says Elizabeth Cunnane Phillips, a trichologist at Philip Kingsley salon in New York City. “You got away with having gray hair because that’s what the norm was — it was either done and colored or it wasn’t.” Today, women who want to hide their grays have many options. There are demi- and semi-permanent hair color options that are ammonia-free, and therefore less damaging, as well as permanent color, a stronger cocktail of chemicals that keeps the color longer. (Semi-permanent color typically fades in about a dozen shampoos,...