The After-Dinner Activities You Don’t Want

A quick note first: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies here, and we are not here to diagnose you or treat you; we are not doctors, let alone your doctors. Do see yours if you have any reason to believe there may be cause for concern.

Coughing and/or wheezing after eating is more common the younger or older someone is. Lest that seem contradictory: it’s a U-shaped bell-curve.

It can happen at any age and for any of a number of reasons, but there are patterns to the distribution:

Mostly affects younger people:

Allergies, asthma

Young people are less likely to have a body that’s fully adapted to all foods yet, and asthma can be triggered by certain foods (for example sulfites, a common preservative additive):

Adverse reactions to the sulphite additives

Foods/drinks that commonly contain sulfites include soft drinks, wines and beers, and dried fruit

As for the allergies side of things, you probably know the usual list of allergens to watch out for, e.g: dairy, fish, crustaceans, eggs, soy, wheat, nuts.

However, that’s far from an exhaustive list, so it’s good to see an allergist if you suspect it may be an allergic reaction.

Affects young and old people equally:

Again, there’s a dip in the middle where this doesn’t tend to affect younger adults so much, but for young and old people:

Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing)

For children, this can be a case of not having fully got used to eating yet if very small, and when growing, can be a case of “this body is constantly changing and that makes things difficult”.

For older people, this can can come from a variety of reasons, but common culprits include neurological disorders (including stroke and/or dementia), or a change in saliva quality and quantity—a side-effect of many medications:

Hyposalivation in Elderly Patients

(particularly useful in the article above is the table of drugs that are associated with this problem, and the various ways they may affect it)

Managing this may be different depending on what is causing your dysphagia (as it could be anything from antidepressants to cancer), so this is definitely one to see your doctor about. For some pointers, though:

NHS Inform | Dysphagia (swallowing problems)

Affects older people more:

Gastroesophagal reflux disease (GERD)

This is a kind of acid reflux, but chronic, and often with a slightly different set of symptoms.

GERD has no known cure once established, but its symptoms can be managed (or avoided in the first place) by:

• Healthy eating (Mediterranean diet is, as usual, great)
• Weight loss (if and only if obese)
• Avoiding trigger foods
• Eating smaller meals
• Practicing mindful eating
• Staying upright for 3–4 hours after eating

And of course, don’t smoke, and ideally don’t drink alcohol.

You can read more about this (and the different ways it can go from there), here:

NICE | Gastro-oesophageal reflux disease

Note: this above page refers to it as “GORD”, because of the British English spelling of “oesophagus” rather than “esophagus”. It’s the exact same organ and condition, just a different spelling.

Take care!

Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune)

Dementia affects increasingly many people, and unlike a lot of diseases, it disproportionately affects people in wealthy industrialized nations.

There are two main reasons for this:

• Longevity (in poorer countries, more people die of other things sooner; can’t get age-related cognitive decline if you don’t age)
• Lifestyle (in the age of convenience, it has never been easier to live an unhealthy lifestyle)

The former is obviously no bad thing for those of us lucky enough to be in wealthier countries (though even in such places, good healthcare access is of course sadly not a given for all).

The latter, however, is less systemic and more epidemic. But it does cut both ways:

• An unhealthy lifestyle is much easier here, yes
• A healthier lifestyle is much easier here, too!

This then comes down to two factors in turn:

• Information: knowing about dementia, what things lead to it, what to look out for, what to do
• Motivation: priorities, and how much attention we choose to give this matter

So, let’s get some information, and then give it our attention!

More than just memory

It’s easy to focus on memory loss, but the four key disabilities directly caused by dementia (each person may not get all four), can be remembered by the mnemonic: “AAAA!”

No, somebody didn’t just murder your writer. It’s:

• Amnesia: memory loss, in one or more of its many forms
  • e.g. short term memory loss, and/or inability to make new memories
• Aphasia: loss of ability to express oneself, and/or understand what is expressed
  • e.g. “More people have been to Berlin than I have”
  • Or even less communication-friendly, Broca’s (Expressive) Aphasia and Wernicke’s (Receptive) Aphasia
• Apraxia: loss of ability to do things, through no obvious physical disability
  • e.g. staring at the bathroom mirror wondering how to brush one’s teeth
• Agnosia: loss of ability to recognize things
  • e.g. prosopagnosia, also called face-blindness.

If any of those seem worryingly familiar, be aware that while yes, it could be a red flag, what’s most important is patterns of these things.

Another difference between having a momentary brainlapse and having dementia might be, for example, the difference between forgetting your keys, and forgetting what keys do or how to use one.

That said, some are neurological deficits that may show up quite unrelated to dementia, including most of those given as examples above. So if you have just one, then that’s probably worthy of note, but probably not dementia.

Writer’s anecdote: I have had prosopagnosia all my life. To give an example of what that is like and how it’s rather more than just “bad with faces”…

Recently I saw my neighbor, and I could tell something was wrong with her face, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then some moments later, I realized I had mistaken her hat for her face. It was a large beanie with a panda design on it, and that was facelike enough for me to find myself looking at the wrong face.

Subjective memory matters as much as objective

Objective memory tests are great indicators of potential cognitive decline (or improvement!), but even a subjective idea of having memory problems, that one’s memory is “not as good as it used to be”, can be an important indicator too:

Subjective memory may be marker for cognitive decline

And more recently:

If your memory feels like it’s not what it once was, it could point to a future dementia risk

If you’d like an objective test of memory and other cognitive impairments, here’s the industry’s gold standard test (it’s free):

SAGE: A Test to Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s and Dementia

(The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments)

There are things that can look like dementia that aren’t

A person with dementia may be unable to recognize their partner, but hey, this writer knows that feeling very well too. So what sets things apart?

More than we have room for today, but here’s a good overview:

What are the early signs of dementia, and how does it differ from normal aging?

Want to read more?

You might like our previous article more specifically about reducing Alzheimer’s risk:

Reducing Alzheimer’s Risk Early!

Take care!