The Top 6 Healthy Foods to Put In Your Shopping Cart...

Experts pick their favorite superfoods. Are these on your list? As far as good-for-you foods go, the mind-boggling mix of advice directed to fiftysomething eaters is enough to make anyone’s head spin. Do you eat whole grains because the latest nutrition headlines say they prevent cancer? Become a vegan aromatase inhibitoror vegetarian to help the heart? Honestly, the advice changes depending on whatever research is making news. That made us wonder: Are there good-for-you food staples that make it onto the weekly grocery list of health experts regardless of headlines or hype about superfoods? From doctors to scientists to dietitians, here’s a quick look at what six of the country’s top health experts are stashing in their shopping carts. You’ll notice the short list centers on whole foods, particularly a wide variety of colorful fruits and vegetables. Keep building them into your weekly shopping list, experts say, and you’ll stay on the road to good health. Mushrooms Dr. Dana Simpler, a primary care physician at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., places special focus in her practice on using diet and lifestyle to prevent and reverse medical problems. “One food I definitely eat each week is mushrooms, because mushrooms have strong anti-cancer properties and are also a great meat substitute in spaghetti sauce and soups,” Simpler says. “Mushrooms have an effect, which reduces breast cancer occurrence and recurrence.” Dried Plums “There’s some fascinating research on dried plums — prunes — and bone health,” says Leslie J. Bonci, director of sports nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for Sports Medicine and a nutrition consultant to the Pittsburgh Steelers. “Dried plums are high in boron, a mineral that is important for bone structure, and high in polyphenols, plant nutrients...

Tai Chi: The Healing Art That Will Empower You...

Tai Chi can enhance your second half of life in so many ways It is an ancient Chinese martial art form, and loosely translated it means “ultimate life force”. Using a series of movements that increase flexibility, build strength, and restore balance, Tai Chi helps a person reach a heightened sense of being. Many people tend to slow down, as they get older. Exercise can become more strenuous with age, taking its toll on the body. One of the many reasons Tai Chi has a big following in the mature community is because it is gentle, requiring little strain on the body. As you enter this part of life, it can help empower you by letting you connect to the strength inside of you, balancing your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. No longer does growing older have to mean growing weaker. Doctors and other Western medicine practitioners have recommended Tai Chi for years. There are more and more studies proving the beneficial nature of its practice. We’ve listed some of the benefits Tai Chi has to offer below. Fall Prevention and Balance Building Falling is the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries. One of Tai Chi’s biggest benefits (and the one backed by the most evidence) is that it increases your balance, thus reducing the risk of falling. It strengthens leg muscles and increases flexibility in the ankles, which helps you balance on uneven surfaces. Tai Chi also builds core strength, a vital part of maintaining your balance. Connect socially What a better thing to connect over than a shared interest in an engaging, beneficial exercise such as Tai Chi. Check out your local community center or senior citizens center to find out when are where classes...

Help Parents Avoid Unwanted Medical Treatment...

A study shows older adults aren’t getting the care they want at life’s end A new poll shows that almost one in four older Americans — approximately 25 million people — experience excessive or unwanted medical treatment. This is especially true in the last year and very last days of life. During their final 24 to 48 hours, many terminally ill patients go to the hospital and receive treatments that don’t improve quality of life, says Daniel Wilson, national and federal programs director for Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit end-of-life advocacy organization. In fact, a person’s last days in the hospital are often “more traumatic than peaceful,” he says. Why, when 70 percent of us say we want to die at home, are we so often dying in the hospital? Several factors are driving the trend. A main issue is cultural discomfort with death and dying. “In America, we avoid these conversations,” says Wilson. A Need to Start Talking A 2012 survey  conducted by the California HealthCare Foundation found that 60 percent of respondents feel it is “extremely important” that their families not be burdened by tough decisions about their end of life care. Yet, 56 percent of those surveyed had not communicated their end-of-life wishes with their families. Anxiety about death also keeps people from talking openly with their doctors, leaving patients with incomplete or false information about many palliative care and end-of-life alternatives that would keep them out of the hospital in their last days. “This is your body, your health,” says Wilson. “You need to have the comfort level with your doctor.” If you don’t feel comfortable asking questions and having these types of conversations with your healthcare practitioner, he says, it might be time to...

What Everyone 50+ Should Know About Their Thyroid...

Disorders of this small gland are common, especially in older women Catherine Horvath, 51, was feeling no symptoms five years ago when her doctor ordered a routine blood test to check, among other things, how her thyroid was doing. (Your thyroid is the butterfly-shaped gland low in your neck that influences metabolism, growth and development and body temperature.) The results showed astoundingly low levels of thyroid hormone — a sign her thyroid function was, as she puts it, “pretty close to being nonexistent.” If untreated, she was at risk not only for bothersome symptoms but for other serious diseases as well. The fix was simple: One pill a day to replace the thyroid hormone she wasn’t making. Within a year, Horvath’s levels were back to normal. “It doesn’t really affect my life,” says Horvath, who lives in Santa Cruz, Calif. “I manage it by taking a pill every day.” A Common Disease Horvath is one of the estimated 24 to 28 million Americans who likely have some form of thyroid disease, many of whom develop the disorder later in life. Yet according to American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, nearly half of those with thyroid disease don’t know they have it or are misdiagnosed. That’s because thyroid disease — particularly among older adults, when the disorders can become more common — often masquerades as other ailments. Hypothyroidism, an underperforming thyroid and the most common of thyroid diseases, may be overlooked by older people who dismiss its symptoms of fatigue, constipation, dizziness or weight gain as simply the price of getting older. An overactive thyroid, or hyperthyroidism, can look like heart rhythm problems, muscle weakness, anxiety or age-related osteoporosis. Thyroid lumps are much more common among older people, yet often can’t...

Retirement Health Costs: Planning for the Wild Card...

What you might owe and 8 ways to prepare Be honest, now: When you do your retirement planning, do you factor in potential health care costs and long-term care costs? Odds are, you don’t, figuring there’s no way to know what they might be — not to mention the subject is depressing and the numbers could be scary. But ignoring what Ken Dychtwald, CEO of the aging consultancy Age Wave agewave.com, calls “the retirement wild card” could be the biggest retirement planning mistake you’ll ever make. And you actually can plan for health and long-term care costs; I’ll give you eight ways shortly. Age Wave and Merrill Lynch today released a fascinating, if disconcerting report (Health and Retirement: Planning for the Great Unknown) based on a comprehensive survey of 3,303 adults. They call health care expenses “the missing link in retirement planning.” The Survey Says… Five of the survey’s striking findings: Health care expenses are the top financial concern for retirement among Americans age 50+, regardless of their wealth level Only 15 percent of pre-retirees have tried estimating how much money they might need for health care and long-term care in retirement Just 7 percent of those 55 to 64 feel very knowledgeable about Medicare options; a mere 19 percent of Medicare recipients do 71 percent of couples age 50+ haven’t discussed how much they need to save to pay for health care during retirement Health problems were the No. 1 reason people retired earlier than expected Nationwide Insurance has also polled boomers about retirement health care costs. “The one word that comes up is ‘terrified,’” says Kevin McGarry, director of the Nationwide Financial Retirement Institute. The danger of not penciling out health- and long-term care costs, and taking...

Training Youth Back into Your Body...

Taking care of your fascia can bring back ‘bounce’ and ease chronic pain Say the word “fascia” a few years ago and many people would have given you a blank stare, as apt to think you were referring to a houseplant as to your body’s critical connective tissue. Fascia refers to the extensive web of connective tissue underneath the skin. Historically ignored and assumed to play a passive role in daily movement and functioning, it’s now having a renaissance. Some researchers, progressive physical therapists and fitness professionals are beginning to think of fascia as a bigger player in the human movement system — and in overall health and well-being. Clinical studies are racing to catch up with what these progressive thinkers have learned. Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence supports the idea that knowing more about your fascia and how to take care of it — especially in middle age when it begins to lose elasticity — may help alleviate chronic pain, prevent injury and “keep the body young by keeping elasticity in your tissue,” says Thomas Myers, an anatomy expert and author of Anatomy Trains: Myofascial Meridians for Manual and Movement Therapists. Says Myers: “We can train ourselves to be younger.” Here’s what you need to know about your fascia and how to care for it: What is fascia? Myers refers to fascia as “biological fabric.” If you cut away the top layer of skin, you would see fascia as a white sheath encasing your muscles. It looks a lot like the thin layer of tissue you find on chicken breasts in the supermarket. Fascia is comprised of collagen fibers and other proteins, says Dr. Partap Khalsa, deputy director of the Division of Extramural Research at NCCAM. “It’s composed of roughly...