Never Too Old?

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Age Limits On Exercise?

In Tuesday’s newsletter, we asked you your opinion on whether we should exercise less as we get older, and got the above-depicted, below-described, set of responses:

  • About 42% said “No, we must keep pushing ourselves, to keep our youth“
  • About 29% said “Only to the extent necessary due to chronic conditions etc”
  • About 29% said “Yes, we should keep gently moving but otherwise take it easier”

One subscriber who voted for “No, we must keep pushing ourselves, to keep our youth“ wrote to add:

❝I’m 71 and I push myself. I’m not as fast or strong as I used to be but, I feel great when I push myself instead of going through the motions. I listen to my body!❞

~ 10almonds subscriber

One subscriber who voted for “Only to the extent necessary due to chronic conditions etc” wrote to add:

❝It’s never too late to get stronger. Important to keep your strength and balance. I am a Silver Sneakers instructor and I see first hand how helpful regular exercise is for seniors.❞

~ 10almonds subscriber

One subscriber who voted to say “Yes, we should keep gently moving but otherwise take it easier” wrote to add:

❝Keep moving but be considerate and respectful of your aging body. It’s a time to find balance in life and not put yourself into a positon to damage youself by competing with decades younger folks (unless you want to) – it will take much longer to bounce back.❞

~ 10almonds subscriber

These will be important, because we’ll come back to them at the end.

So what does the science say?

Endurance exercise is for young people only: True or False?

False! With proper training, age is no barrier to serious endurance exercise.

Here’s a study that looked at marathon-runners of various ages, and found that…

  • the majority of middle-aged and elderly athletes have training histories of less than seven years of running
  • there are virtually no relevant running time differences (p<0.01) per age in marathon finishers from 20 to 55 years
  • after 55 years, running times did increase on average, but not consistently (i.e. there were still older runners with comparable times to the younger age bracket)

See: Performance, training and lifestyle parameters of marathon runners aged 20–80 years: results of the PACE-study

The researchers took this as evidence of aging being indeed a biological process that can be sped up or slowed down by various lifestyle factors.

See also:

Age & Aging: What Can (And Can’t) We Do About It?

this covers the many aspects of biological aging (it’s not one number, but many!) and how our various different biological ages are often not in sync with each other, and how we can optimize each of them that can be optimized

Resistance training is for young people only: True or False?

False! In fact, it’s not only possible for older people, but is also associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality.

Specifically, those who reported strength-training at least once per week enjoyed longer lives than those who did not.

You may be thinking “is this just the horse-riding thing again, where correlation is not causation and it’s just that healthier people (for other reasons) were able to do strength-training more, rather than the other way around?“

…which is a good think to think of, so well-spotted if you were thinking that!

But in this case no; the benefits remained when other things were controlled for:

❝Adjusted for demographic variables, health behaviors and health conditions, a statistically significant effect on mortality remained.

Although the effects on cardiac and cancer mortality were no longer statistically significant, the data still pointed to a benefit.

Importantly, after the physical activity level was controlled for, people who reported strength exercises appeared to see a greater mortality benefit than those who reported physical activity alone.❞

~ Dr. Jennifer Kraschnewski

See the study: Is strength training associated with mortality benefits? A 15 year cohort study of US older adults

And a pop-sci article about it: Strength training helps older adults live longer

Closing thoughts

As it happens… All three of the subscribers we quoted all had excellent points!

Because in this case it’s less a matter of “should”, and more a selection of options:

  • We (most of us, at least) can gain/regain/maintain the kind of strength and fitness associated with much younger people, and we need not be afraid of exercising accordingly (assuming having worked up to such, not just going straight from couch to marathon, say).
  • We must nevertheless be mindful of chronic conditions or even passing illnesses/injuries, but that goes for people of any age
  • We also can’t argue against a “safety first” cautious approach to exercise. After all, sure, maybe we can run marathons at any age, but that doesn’t mean we have to. And sure, maybe we can train to lift heavy weights, but if we’re content to be able to carry the groceries or perhaps take our partner’s weight in the dance hall (or the bedroom!), then (if we’re also at least maintaining our bones and muscles at a healthy level) that’s good enough already.

Which prompts the question, what do you want to be able to do, now and years from now? What’s important to you?

For inspiration, check out: Train For The Event Of Your Life!

Take care!

Don’t Forget…

Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

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    • Are you over 75? Here’s what you need to know about vitamin D

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      Vitamin D is essential for bone health, immune function and overall wellbeing. And it becomes even more crucial as we age.

      New guidelines from the international Endocrine Society recommend people aged 75 and over should consider taking vitamin D supplements.

      But why is vitamin D so important for older adults? And how much should they take?

      OPPO Find X5 Pro/Unsplash

      Young people get most vitamin D from the sun

      In Australia, it is possible for most people under 75 to get enough vitamin D from the sun throughout the year. For those who live in the top half of Australia – and for all of us during summer – we only need to have skin exposed to the sun for a few minutes on most days.

      The body can only produce a certain amount of vitamin D at a time. So staying in the sun any longer than needed is not going to help increase your vitamin D levels, while it will increase your risk of skin cancer.

      But it’s difficult for people aged over 75 to get enough vitamin D from a few minutes of sunshine, so the Endocrine Society recommends people get 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D a day from food or supplements.

      Why you need more as you age

      This is higher than the recommendation for younger adults, reflecting the increased needs and reduced ability of older bodies to produce and absorb vitamin D.

      Overall, older adults also tend to have less exposure to sunlight, which is the primary source of natural vitamin D production. Older adults may spend more time indoors and wear more clothing when outdoors.

      As we age, our skin also becomes less efficient at synthesising vitamin D from sunlight.

      The kidneys and the liver, which help convert vitamin D into its active form, also lose some of their efficiency with age. This makes it harder for the body to maintain adequate levels of the vitamin.

      All of this combined means older adults need more vitamin D.

      Deficiency is common in older adults

      Despite their higher needs for vitamin D, people over 75 may not get enough of it.

      Studies have shown one in five older adults in Australia have vitamin D deficiency.

      In higher-latitude parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, almost half don’t reach sufficient levels.

      This increased risk of deficiency is partly due to lifestyle factors, such as spending less time outdoors and insufficient dietary intakes of vitamin D.

      It’s difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone. Oily fish, eggs and some mushrooms are good sources of vitamin D, but few other foods contain much of the vitamin. While foods can be fortified with the vitamin D (margarine, some milk and cereals), these may not be readily available or be consumed in sufficient amounts to make a difference.

      In some countries such as the United States, most of the dietary vitamin D comes from fortified products. However, in Australia, dietary intakes of vitamin D are typically very low because only a few foods are fortified with it.

      Why vitamin D is so important as we age

      Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for maintaining bone density and strength. As we age, our bones become more fragile, increasing the risk of fractures and conditions like osteoporosis.

      Keeping bones healthy is crucial. Studies have shown older people hospitalised with hip fractures are 3.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months compared to people who aren’t injured.

      Older woman sits with a friend
      People over 75 often have less exposure to sunlight. Aila Images/Shutterstock

      Vitamin D may also help lower the risk of respiratory infections, which can be more serious in this age group.

      There is also emerging evidence for other potential benefits, including better brain health. However, this requires more research.

      According to the society’s systematic review, which summarises evidence from randomised controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in humans, there is moderate evidence to suggest vitamin D supplementation can lower the risk of premature death.

      The society estimates supplements can prevent six deaths per 1,000 people. When considering the uncertainty in the available evidence, the actual number could range from as many as 11 fewer deaths to no benefit at all.

      Should we get our vitamin D levels tested?

      The Endocrine Society’s guidelines suggest routine blood tests to measure vitamin D levels are not necessary for most healthy people over 75.

      There is no clear evidence that regular testing provides significant benefits, unless the person has a specific medical condition that affects vitamin D metabolism, such as kidney disease or certain bone disorders.

      Routine testing can also be expensive and inconvenient.

      In most cases, the recommended approach to over-75s is to consider a daily supplement, without the need for testing.

      You can also try to boost your vitamin D by adding fortified foods to your diet, which might lower the dose you need from supplementation.

      Even if you’re getting a few minutes of sunlight a day, a daily vitamin D is still recommended.

      Elina Hypponen, Professor of Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia and Joshua Sutherland, PhD Candidate – Nutrition and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia

      This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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    • With Medical Debt Burdening Millions, a Financial Regulator Steps In to Help

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      When President Barack Obama signed legislation in 2010 to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he said the new agency had one priority: “looking out for people, not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses.”

      Since then, the CFPB has done its share of policing mortgage brokers, student loan companies, and banks. But as the U.S. health care system turns tens of millions of Americans into debtors, this financial watchdog is increasingly working to protect beleaguered patients, adding hospitals, nursing homes, and patient financing companies to the list of institutions that regulators are probing.

      In the past two years, the CFPB has penalized medical debt collectors, issued stern warnings to health care providers and lenders that target patients, and published reams of reports on how the health care system is undermining the financial security of Americans.

      In its most ambitious move to date, the agency is developing rules to bar medical debt from consumer credit reports, a sweeping change that could make it easier for Americans burdened by medical debt to rent a home, buy a car, even get a job. Those rules are expected to be unveiled later this year.

      “Everywhere we travel, we hear about individuals who are just trying to get by when it comes to medical bills,” said Rohit Chopra, the director of the CFPB whom President Joe Biden tapped to head the watchdog agency in 2021.

      “American families should not have their financial lives ruined by medical bills,” Chopra continued.

      The CFPB’s turn toward medical debt has stirred opposition from collection industry officials, who say the agency’s efforts are misguided. “There’s some concern with a financial regulator coming in and saying, ‘Oh, we’re going to sweep this problem under the rug so that people can’t see that there’s this medical debt out there,’” said Jack Brown III, a longtime collector and member of the industry trade group ACA International.

      Brown and others question whether the agency has gone too far on medical billing. ACA International has suggested collectors could go to court to fight any rules barring medical debt from credit reports.

      At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a broader legal challenge to the agency’s funding that some conservative critics and financial industry officials hope will lead to the dissolution of the agency.

      But CFPB’s defenders say its move to address medical debt simply reflects the scale of a crisis that now touches some 100 million Americans and that a divided Congress seems unlikely to address soon.

      “The fact that the CFPB is involved in what seems like a health care issue is because our system is so dysfunctional that when people get sick and they can’t afford all their medical bills, even with insurance, it ends up affecting every aspect of their financial lives,” said Chi Chi Wu, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

      CFPB researchers documented that unpaid medical bills were historically the most common form of debt on consumers’ credit reports, representing more than half of all debts on these reports. But the agency found that medical debt is typically a poor predictor of whether someone is likely to pay off other bills and loans.

      Medical debts on credit reports are also frequently riddled with errors, according to CFPB analyses of consumer complaints, which the agency found most often cite issues with bills that are the wrong amount, have already been paid, or should be billed to someone else.

      “There really is such high levels of inaccuracy,” Chopra said in an interview with KFF Health News. “We do not want to see the credit reporting system being weaponized to get people to pay bills they may not even owe.”

      The aggressive posture reflects Chopra, who cut his teeth helping to stand up the CFPB almost 15 years ago and made a name for himself going after the student loan industry.

      Targeting for-profit colleges and lenders, Chopra said he was troubled by an increasingly corporate higher-education system that was turning millions of students into debtors. Now, he said, he sees the health care system doing the same thing, shuttling patients into loans and credit cards and reporting them to credit bureaus. “If we were to rewind decades ago,” Chopra said, “we saw a lot less reliance on tools that banks used to get people to pay.”

      The push to remove medical bills from consumer credit reports culminates two years of intensive work by the CFPB on the medical debt issue.

      The agency warned nursing homes against forcing residents’ friends and family to assume responsibility for residents’ debts. An investigation by KFF Health News and NPR documented widespread use of lawsuits by nursing homes in communities to pursue friends and relatives of nursing home residents.

      The CFPB also has highlighted problems with how hospitals provide financial assistance to low-income patients. Regulators last year flagged the dangers of loans and credit cards that health care providers push on patients, often saddling them with more debt.

      And regulators have gone after medical debt collectors. In December, the CFPB shut down a Pennsylvania company for pursuing patients without ensuring the debts were accurate.

      A few months before that, the agency fined an Indiana company working with medical debt for violating collection laws. Regulators said the company had “risked harming consumers by pressuring or inducing them to pay debts they did not owe.”

      With their business in the crosshairs, debt collectors are warning that cracking down on credit reporting and other collection tools may prompt more hospitals and doctors to demand patients pay upfront for care.

      There are some indications this is happening already, as hospitals and clinics push patients to enroll in loans or credit cards to pay their medical bills.

      Scott Purcell, CEO of ACA International, said it would be wiser for the federal government to focus on making medical care more affordable. “Here we’re coming up with a solution that only takes money away from providers,” Purcell said. “If Congress was involved, there could be more robust solutions.”

      Chopra doesn’t dispute the need for bigger efforts to tackle health care costs.

      “Of course, there are broader things that we would probably want to fix about our health care system,” he said, “but this is having a direct financial impact on so many Americans.”

      The CFPB can’t do much about the price of a prescription or a hospital bill, Chopra continued. What the federal agency can do, he said, is protect patients if they can’t pay their bills.

      KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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      KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

      Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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      • Algorithms to Live By – by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths

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        As humans, we subconsciously use heuristics a lot to make many complex decisions based on “fuzzy logic”. For example:

        Do we buy the cheap shoes that may last us a season, or the much more expensive ones that will last us for years? We’ll—without necessarily giving it much conscious thought—quickly weigh up:

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      • Strong At Every Age: 15 Habits To Level Up Your Health & Fitness

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        Not every increase in health and fitness needs to look like a training montage from the “Rocky” movies!

        Making progress every day

        We’ll not keep the 15 habits a secret; they are:

        1. Follow the one-minute rule: commit to just one minute of action—this makes starting easier, and often you’ll end up doing more once you’ve got started.
        2. Make the habit exciting: add fun elements to make the habit more enjoyable, like using new gear or accessories.
        3. Do it first: prioritize new habits by doing them early in the day to ensure they get done.
        4. Share the love: pair new habits with activities you already enjoy, where practical, to do “temptation bundling”.
        5. Embrace the uncomfortable: get used to discomfort daily to grow and build resilience for bigger changes.
        6. Do as little as possible: start small with habits, to minimize resistance and focus on consistency.
        7. Think how to be lazy: simplify processes and use shortcuts; there are no extra prizes for it having been difficult!
        8. Make the appointment: schedule habits with set dates and times, to increase accountability.
        9. Let habits evolve: adapt habits to fit current circumstances; that way you can still stay consistent over time.
        10. Plan ahead: prepare in advance to avoid setbacks—what could stop you from succeeding, and how can you pre-empt that?
        11. Pause to reflect: regularly evaluate what works and what doesn’t, to adjust and improve.
        12. Shut off your brain: avoid overthinking and start taking action now, not later, to build momentum.
        13. Question and learn: stay curious and open to learning, or else you will plateau quickly!
        14. Ask why: understand the deeper reasons behind any resistance, and make clear for yourself the value of the habit.
        15. Love your failures: embrace any setbacks as learning opportunities and, as such, stepping stones to success.

        For more on all of each of these, enjoy:

        Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

        Want to learn more?

        You might also like to read:

        How To Really Pick Up (And Keep!) Those Habits

        Take care!

        Don’t Forget…

        Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

        Learn to Age Gracefully

        Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:

      • Frozen/Thawed/Refrozen Meat: How Much Is Safety, And How Much Is Taste?

        10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

        What You Can (And Can’t) Safely Do With Frozen Meat

        Yesterday, we asked you:

        ❝You have meat in the freezer. How long is it really safe to keep it?❞

        …and got a range of answers, mostly indicating to a) follow the instructions (a very safe general policy) and b) do not refreeze if thawed because that would be unsafe. Fewer respondents indicated that meat could be kept for much longer than guidelines say, or conversely, that it should only be kept for weeks or less.

        So, what does the science say?

        Meat can be kept indefinitely (for all intents and purposes) in a freezer; it just might get tougher: True or False?

        False, assuming we are talking about a normal household electrical freezer that bottoms out at about -18℃ / 0℉.

        Fun fact: cryobiologists cryopreserve tissue samples (so basically, meat) at -196℃ / -320℉, and down at those temperatures, the tissues will last a lot longer than you will (and, for all practical purposes: indefinitely). There are other complications with doing so (such as getting the sample through the glass transition point without cracking it during the vitrification process) but those are beyond the scope of this article.

        If you remember back to your physics or perhaps chemistry classes at school, you’ll know that molecules move more quickly at higher temperatures, and more slowly at lower ones, only approaching true stillness as they near absolute zero (-273℃ / -459℉ / 0K ← we’re not saying it’s ok, although it is; rather, that is zero kelvin; no degree sign is used with kelvins)

        That means that when food is frozen, the internal processes aren’t truly paused; it’s just slowed to a point of near imperceptibility.

        So, all the way up at the relatively warm temperatures of a household freezer, a lot of processes are still going on.

        What this means in practical terms: those guidelines saying “keep in the freezer for up to 4 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 9 months”, “keep in the freezer for up to 12 months” etc are being honest with you.

        More or less, anyway! They’ll usually underestimate a little to be on the safe side—but so should you.

        Bad things start happening within weeks at most: True or False?

        False, for all practical purposes. Again, assuming a normal and properly-working household freezer as described above.

        (True, technically but misleadingly: the bad things never stopped; they just slowed down to a near imperceptible pace—again, as described above)

        By “bad” here we should clarify we mean “dangerous”. One subscriber wrote:

        ❝Meat starts losing color and flavor after being in the freezer for too long. I keep meat in the freezer for about 2 months at the most❞

        …and as a matter of taste, that’s fair enough!

        It is unsafe to refreeze meat that has been thawed: True or False?

        False! Assuming it has otherwise been kept chilled, just the same as for fresh meat.

        Food poisoning comes from bacteria, and there is nothing about the meat previously having been frozen that will make it now have more bacteria.

        That means, for example…

        • if it was thawed (but chilled) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been chilled for that period of time (so probably: use it or freeze it, unless it’s been more than a few days)
        • if it was thawed (and at room temperature) for a period of time, treat it like you would any other meat that has been at room temperature for that period of time (so probably: throw it out, unless the period of time is very small indeed)

        The USDA gives for 2 hours max at room temperature before considering it unsalvageable, by the way.

        However! Whenever you freeze meat (or almost anything with cells, really), ice crystals will form in and between cells. How much ice crystallization occurs depends on several variables, with how much water there is present in the food is usually the biggest factor (remember that animal cells are—just like us—mostly water).

        Those ice crystals will damage the cell walls, causing the food to lose structural integrity. When you thaw it out, the ice crystals will disappear but the damage will be left behind (this is what “freezer burn” is).

        So if your food seems a little “squishy” after having been frozen and thawed, that’s why. It’s not rotten; it’s just been stabbed countless times on a microscopic level.

        The more times you freeze and thaw and refreeze food, the more this will happen. Your food will degrade in structural integrity each time, but the safety of it won’t have changed meaningfully.

        Want to know more?

        Further reading:

        You can thaw and refreeze meat: five food safety myths busted

        Take care!

        Don’t Forget…

        Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

        Learn to Age Gracefully

        Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails: