Get More Protein from.... Fruit?

 

When we think of high protein foods, we are usually imagining a big juicy steak, poultry, fish and dairy products like cheese or Greek yogurt. The more woke among us might conjure up beans or nuts. Probably the last thing you would think of, if you thought of them at all, were fruits.

Fruits are certainly not protein powerhouses but some fruits have a good deal of protein content and if you are watching every gram they can certainly make a contribution to your daily intake. And it comes with the added benefit of fruit’s more abundant components like fiber, vitamins and antioxidants.

Which fruits contain the most protein? Apricots, blackberries, avocados and citrus fruits - especially oranges and grapefruits - all make the top ten. Want the whole list? Its right here.

Caffeine and Aging

 

Caffeine is a staple in many people’s daily routines. However, as we age, our bodies undergo changes that can affect how we process and respond to caffeine. Whether it’s coffee, tea or other caffeinated beverages, billions (yes, billions) of people throughout the world love caffeine for the lift it gives. Recent data estimate that 85% of adults in the United States consume caffeine in some form each and every day. However, there has been a long-standing debate about the potential negative effects of caffeine, especially for older adults.

There are many common misconceptions surrounding the consumption of caffeine by older adults. One prevalent belief is that caffeine is inherently harmful and should be completely avoided as one ages. But while excessive consumption of caffeine can lead to adverse effects, moderate intake can actually have some benefits for older adults.

So what is the real story?

Contrary to popular belief, caffeine can offer several benefits for older adults. One of the main advantages is its potential to enhance cognitive function. Studies have shown that caffeine can improve alertness, attention, and memory, which can be particularly beneficial for older adults who may experience age-related cognitive decline. 

Additionally, caffeine has been linked to a reduced risk of certain health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and liver disease. Caffeine has been found to boost mood and alleviate symptoms of depression in some individuals. This can be especially important for older adults who may be more susceptible to mood disorders. By incorporating moderate amounts of caffeine into their daily routine, older adults may experience improved mental well-being.

But it is essential to recognize that older adults may also be more sensitive to its effects. As we age, our bodies metabolize caffeine at a slower and slower rate, meaning it stays in our system for longer and longer periods. This can lead to increased sensitivity to caffeine’s stimulating effects, such as jitteriness, anxiety, and insomnia.

It is important for older adults to understand the recommended daily intake. The general guideline is to limit caffeine intake to no more than 400 mg per day and that over 600mg is too much. Four hundred milligrams is equivalent to about four cups of home brewed coffee, although that 20 oz cup you get from Starbucks will contain your entire quota. 

Individual tolerance may vary though, and some older adults may need to consume less caffeine to avoid any adverse effects. It is also important to note that caffeine can have a cumulative effect, especially if consumed throughout the day. Older adults should consider spreading out their caffeine intake and avoiding consuming it too close to bedtime to prevent sleep disturbances. How close is too close? Most experts recommend avoiding caffeine for 6 hours before going to bed.

When it comes to incorporating caffeine into a healthy aging lifestyle, moderation and mindful consumption are key. Here are a few tips for older adults:

1. Be aware of your own caffeine sensitivity and adjust your intake accordingly. Pay attention to how caffeine affects your energy levels, sleep patterns, and overall well-being.
2. Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water alongside your caffeine consumption. This can help mitigate any potential diuretic effects.
3. Avoid consuming caffeine too close to bedtime to prevent difficulty in falling and staying asleep.
4. Consult with your healthcare provider to ensure caffeine does not interact with any medications you are taking. This is especially important for older adults who may be on multiple medications. 

For older adults who enjoy caffeine but want to manage their intake one approach is to switch to decaffeinated versions of beverages. Decaffeinated coffee and tea still offer the familiar taste and the comforting ritual of your morning coffee without the stimulating effects of caffeine. I know that probably sounds heretical to many people but it has worked really well for me.

But in general, there is no reason for us to consume less and less caffeine as we age.

Centenarian Shares Her Healthy Aging "Secrets"

 

JoCleta Wilson gets out of bed at 4:30am two mornings every week and drives to her job as a cashier at a Home Depot store in Louisville, Kentucky. There is nothing especially remarkable about that except that she was 100 years old in October of last year.

Her life has not been free of health challenges. She’s a breast cancer survivor, has emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and has a pacemaker. But at 100 years old she says that she feels "like 39 having to go into 40 years old."

Shockingly, her successful aging secrets include such unexpected things as staying active and moving (she used to be a dancer and still dances), eating a healthy diet (she prepares most of her meals herself), having a purpose and being socially engaged. Who would have thought it?

She shares her take on staying healthy while getting older here.

Nothing Stays the Same

 

I have spent a lot of time here addressing health and wellness issues of all stripes and colors. Weight loss, good nutrition, food, medication, exercise, misleading marketing and on and on.  Its been fun and, I hope, useful to at least some people. But nothing stays the same, including me. 

Its been happening for a long time but I will be 73 in a few days and I have to admit that I am old. Don't get me wrong here. I am not complaining. The alternative to not getting old is not especially attractive to me. And for an old guy I am feeling pretty good. Except for a few wear-and-tear issues related to an active life, I am feeling pretty good. I am right at the weight that I should be for my age and height and I am not bothered by any of the diseases and conditions of, ahem, older folks.

I think that "healthy aging" (or, as I prefer to say, "successful aging") deserves more attention, focus and discussion than it gets. After all, we are all going to keep getting older (until we don't). Right now just over 17% of Americans are over age 65 and that is expected to grow to 22% by 2050. That is up from 8% in 1950 and over 82 million people, nearly double the number we have now.

This is my audience, mi compadres. We will still be "Living Our Way to Healthy" just with a longer view toward getting older successfully. I hope you will stick with me as I refocus going forward on everything about growing older in a healthy and happy way.

Notice - Shift - Rewire

 

Negativity bias. We all have it. It's is a very human thing that we developed hundreds of thousands of years ago to keep us safe. The negativity bias, also known as the negativity effect, is a cognitive bias that, even when positive or neutral things of equal intensity occur, things of a more negative nature have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.So why would be be hardwired to focus on the negative?

Our tendency to pay more attention to bad things and overlook good things is likely a result of evolution. Earlier in human history, paying attention to bad, dangerous, and negative threats in the world was literally a matter of life and death. We had to be alert for rampaging mammoths and stealthy saber-toothed tigers. Those who were more attuned to danger and who paid more attention to the bad things around them were more likely to survive. This meant they were also more likely to hand down the genes that made them more attentive to danger.

Very few of us need to be concerned about being eaten by tigers these days. Yet our negative bias persists. Research suggests that this negativity bias starts to emerge in infancy. Very young infants tend to pay greater attention to positive facial expression and tone of voice, but this begins to shift as they near one year of age. Brain studies indicate that around this time, babies begin to experience greater brain responses to negative stimuli. This suggests that the brain's negative bias emerges during the latter half of a child’s first year of life. There is some evidence that the bias may actually start even earlier in development. 

Research has shown that negative bias can have a wide variety of effects on how people think, respond, and feel, impacting our mood, decision making and relationships in (surprise!) negative ways. Our old protection mechanism no longer serves us well in the modern world. Interestingly, there is a difference between how men and women register negative comments. Dr. Timothy J. Bono, PhD, who teaches a course in the Science of Happiness at Washington University in St. Louis, explains, "The negative-positive asymmetry effect holds for both men and women. The difference, however, is typically found in how the emotions become manifest. Women are much more likely to internalize them (in the form of sadness or depression, for example), and men are more likely to externalize (as with outward anger)."

Fortunately, as the new science of epigenetics shows us, our genes are often predilections and not destiny. Neuroscientists and psychologists say that we can overcome our inherent negative bias and one simple (if not easy) method for doing so is called the Notice - Shift - Rewire approach. Click Here to read more about it.

This is not about transforming into an unfettered optimist or becoming a Pollyanna who sees only the good in everything. But controling our automatic bias toward the negative can help us feel better, be happier, less prone to suffering, act more kindly, to people around us, be more effective at home and work, and have more sense of a kind of inner peace and connectedness with all things. That seems worth a shot to me.

Can You Afford to Live to 100?

 

Today’s life expectancies hover just below eighty years, and if you reach the milestone of seventy they jump to the mid eighties. Due to advances in medicine and healthier lifestyles, reaching your nineties or even 100 is more realistic than ever. That's good news for those of us staring down into our seventh decade. But there is a dark shadow cast over this good news: can we afford to live that long?

According to the Alliance for Lifetime Income's Cyrus Bamji, chief strategy and communications officer, one of their recent studies revealed that almost half of those between sixty-one and sixty-five say that they don’t think that their savings will last their lifetimes. Nearly one third are not confident that they will have enough income to cover basic expenses. Forty percent of Americans rely entirely on Social Security for their retirement income.

There are three basic reasons for this alarming situation.

People simple have not saved enough for retirement. This is not to be dismissed simply as millennials spending money on avocado toast and gourmet coffee. In fact, Gen Xers are saving more for retirement than their predecessors. But many people struggle to pay the rent and buy food, let alone set money aside for their future. And even those who are saving aren't saving enough. The average American retires with just over $65,000 in savings. Many have a significant amount of equity in their homes, which will be a huge help, but not enough to close the gap between what they have and what they will need. And for younger people, home ownership seems increasingly out of reach.

This leads to the second problem, which is that nearly half of retired Americans are financially supporting children eighteen to twenty-one and 30 percent are supporting adult children twenty-two to thirty, all from their retirement funds.

Finally, there is the cost of healthcare.  Health care costs make up 10% to 15% of the average older household’s spending. But what you will spend on health care costs in retirement could be less or more — potentially a lot more. A 65-year-old woman typically could expect to pay $3,300 to $7,700 annually for premiums and out-of-pocket medical, dental and vision costs, according to a study by Vanguard Research and Mercer Health and Benefits. But her costs could top $22,000 in some scenarios, the researchers found.

Most financial advisors say that a comfortable retirement should aim to sustain an income of about 80% of your pre-retirement income. Most real people are nowhere close to that. The prospect is so dismal that many people are simply ignoring the problem, the worst possible thing they can do.

This is a problem at a societal level and requires a societal solution. How likely is that given our governments bickering and fixation on building walls. Things like universal wellness systems to promote avoiding illness instead of treating it after it occurs, creative housing solutions and practical education are things that must be tackled on a societal level. 

But what can you do as an individual? A few things. And the sooner you get started the more impact your efforts will have.

Adopt a healthier lifestyle. It's obvious advice, but it bears repeating. If you make an effort to stay active and eat healthy, you'll likely spend less on health care than someone who ignores diet and exercise and has other unhealthy habits such as smoking.

Save more.  Generally speaking, the sooner you start saving for retirement, the better off you’ll be. Even small amounts set aside regularly can amount to a large nest egg thanks to the miracle of compound interest. If possible, increase or max out contributions to your employee savings plan. If that is not an option for you, send yourself a bill every month to pay alongside your mortgage. Become familiar with the many ways that you can tap the equity in your property as you age so that you are not rushed into a bad decision when you are faced with a choice.

Start to live like you are already retired. An easy way to boost your savings is to cut back on your spending. Start by envisioning your retirement and look for costs to cut. If that vision involves downsizing your home or cooking healthy meals at home, begin making those changes now. Consider purchasing a more economical car. These changes will save you money right away. They will also make the transition into retirement easier.

Have an honest talk with your children about money. This may be an extremely uncomfortable conversation for both you and your children, making it easy to put off or avoid altogether. Don't.

There are no easy solutions to a problem this big when you are already in the middle of the problem, but not dealing with it only allows it to become bigger and burdens our children and grandchildren. Healthy aging is not only about your physical health but your financial and emotional health as well. It is time we moved this problem out of the shadows and start to address it.

Is It Time to Treat Sugar Like Cigarettes?

 

In 1964, Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a report on smoking and health saying that tobacco causes lung cancer and is a main contributor to bronchitis, emphysema and other lung ailments. Members of the Federal Trade Commission read the report the day it was released and quickly proposed a mandatory cigarette label that warned, "CAUTION: cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health and may cause death from cancer and other diseases." The legislation ultimately passed by Congress required a warning label with less dire language: "CAUTION: CIGARETTE SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH." In 1965, Congress passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act (FCLAA), which required a health warning on all cigarette packs. In 1970, President Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which banned cigarettes ads on the radio or television. It also required an updated warning on the cigarette packages which read: "Warning: The Surgeon General has determined that cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health." 

In the six decades since the release of the Surgeon General's report on health and smoking the percentage of Americans who smoke has continuously fallen from a rate of 42% in 1965 to an all-time low of 11% in 2021. The results of a February 2023 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found that 57% of U.S. adults now support policies that ban the sale of all tobacco products.

People still smoke of course, and smoking still kills far too many people. Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., with tobacco killing more than 480,000 Americans annually and costing more than $240 billion a year in related health care expenses. But the relentless campaign against cigarette smoking ranks as one of the most successful public health campaigns in history.

In comparison, sugar added to sweetened beverages alone kills about 184,000 people every year now. Forty nine percent of the US population is now either diabetic or pre-diabetic and the numbers keep rising. From 2000 through 2020, the US obesity rate increased from 30.5% to 41.9%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%. That's right. Nearly 1 American in 10 is severely obese. Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. These are among the leading causes of preventable, premature death. The estimated annual medical cost of in the United States was nearly $173 billion in 2019 dollars.

The average intake of added sugar in Americans' daily diet is about 19 teaspoons for men and 15 teaspoons for women, vs a recommended intake of 12 teaspoons or less.

There is some data to suggest that since added sugar content was required on nutrition lables in 2016 (after a years long fight with sugar producers) Americans have begun cutting back. Maybe it is time to also require a clear, visible warning lable on food just as we successfully did on cigarettes. We will never get everyone to stop smoking or stop drinking sugary beverages. But if we can reduce consumption as successfully as we have with smoking the benefits in the cost of healthcare, lives saved and the quality of those lives might just be enormous.