Study: Alcohol more dangerous than heroin, cocaine

LONDON — Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.

Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.

Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamines, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects and harm to others, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.

Devastating consequences

The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet.

Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them.

"Just think about what happens (with alcohol) at every football game," said Wim van den Brink, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Amsterdam. He was not linked to the study and co-authored a commentary in the Lancet.

When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin. But experts said it would be impractical and incorrect to outlaw alcohol.

"We cannot return to the days of prohibition," said Leslie King, an adviser to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and one of the study's authors. "Alcohol is too embedded in our culture and it won't go away."

King said countries should target problem drinkers, not the vast majority of people who indulge in a drink or two. He said governments should consider more education programs and raising the price of alcohol so it isn't as widely available.

Experts said the study should prompt countries to reconsider how they classify drugs. For example, last year in Britain, the government increased its penalties for the possession of marijuana. One of its senior advisers,

David Nutt — the lead author on the Lancet study — was fired after he criticized the British decision.

"What governments decide is illegal is not always based on science," said van den Brink. He said considerations about revenue and taxation, like those garnered from the alcohol and tobacco industries, may influence decisions about which substances to regulate or outlaw.

"Drugs that are legal cause at least as much damage, if not more, than drugs that are illicit," he said.

(artical from msn.msnbc.com)

Jack Canfield: The Success Principles

When Jack Canfield talks about perseverance, he speaks from experience. His best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series was rejected by over 144 publishers before going on to sell over 100 million copies. He's been a teacher, facilitator, and psychotherapist. His seminars and trainings have touched millions of individuals from welfare recipients to corporate leaders.
How what you think makes you weak or strong
Seven key areas in creating a personal vision
Two simple questions that accelerate the achievement of your goals
How to change the outcome of any event, simply by changing your response to it
The Rule of Five for achieving your "breakthrough goal"
Jack canfield is uniquely qualified to coach you on success. He's devoted more than 30 years to uncovering universal principles for achieving extraordinary outcomes. In this fast-paced, entertaining and powerful program, Jack will share his latest breakthrough principles and detail how you, too, can use them to rapidly achieve your goals in your career, your finances and your personal life.

Success Is a Choice

Ten Steps to Overachieving in Business and Life (ISBN 0-7679-0132-0) is a motivational self-help book and audio recording by Rick Pitino, the basketball coach. It was published in 1998 by Broadway Books. His tips include strategies to overachieving and deserving success.

In the book, a ten-step plan is given intended to help the reader:

1. Build your self-esteem
2. Set demanding goals
3. Always be positive
4. Establish good habits
5. Master the art of communication
6. Learn from good role models
7. Thrive on pressure
8. Be ferociously persistent
9. Learn from adversity
10. Survive your own success

(artical from wikipedia)

7 Habits of Business Success

The elusive dream of business success captures the imagination of aspiring and existing business owners everywhere. A vision of flowing profits, industry respect, thrilled customers, and a balanced life. This vision is only possible by developing habits that drive business success. Take the time to learn the 7 habits of business success.


The 7 Habits of Business Success


Habit 1. Cultivate Inner Networks: Entrepreneurs practicing the art of business success know the power of networks. They take the time to identify and build relationships with key peers, mentors, and advisors. This inner network provides support, direction, and an increased number of people to assist. Having an inner network of five people who have a network of five more, grows the network exponentially.


Habit 2. Customer Centric: Business success requires an unwavering commitment to the customer. This commitment encompasses a mindset of understanding the customers' world. Understanding the customers wants and needs provides the business with a greater opportunity to earn a loyal customer base. Focus away from business and profits, and toward what you can do to improve the life of your customers.

Habit 3. Humble Honesty: Business success requires the ability to know your strengths and weaknesses. Being open and honest about yourself and your business creates growth as an individual and as a company. Don't spend time developing weaknesses. Find help for weak areas, enabling you to focus on strengths. In the book, "Now, Discover Your Strengths", Gallup Organization reveals that building our strengths instead of fixing our weakness is the path to mastery and success. Take the time to know yourself and business.


Habit 4. Adaptability: Business success requires the ability to adapt to changing situations. Nothing ever goes as planned. The world of business is full of surprises and unforeseen events. Using the habit of adaptability allows business owners to respond to circumstances with the ability to change course and act
without complete information. Being flexible allows us to respond to changes without being paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.


Habit 5. Opportunity Focused: Problems are a regular part of business life. Staff issues, customer misunderstandings, cash crunches- the list is endless. To achieve business success, look at both sides of the coin. Every problem has an opportunity. Being opportunity focused makes the game of business fun and energizing.


Habit 6. Finding A Better Way: Productivity is the cornerstone of business success. Formulate the habit of finding a better way to make your business more productive. This will create more time to focus on the
critical issues that drive sales and profit. Productivity can be enhanced by technology, automation, outsourcing, and improving business processes.


Habit 7. Balanced Lifestyle Management: A business can consume an owner's time and energy. It's easy to allow the business to take control of your life. Business success requires the habit of balancing all aspects of your life. Separating time for daily business tasks, profit driven tasks, and free time is a habit that will make your business and life more enjoyable. Take the time to plan each week.


Learning and instilling new habits in your daily business life can have a dramatic effect on your level of success. Review each of the 7 habits. Choose one habit to focus on for a month or until you achieve mastery. Gradually incorporate each of the 7 habits of business success into your life and attain your business dreams.

(artical from about.com written by Darrell Zahorsky)

Carmen Ulrich on Building Wealth

The day I took control of my income was the day I quit my job. Of course, my timing was perfect, as my husband had just gotten laid off the week before. Two missing incomes, one mortgage and a lot of bills. But it pushed us to talk seriously about our potential to make it on our own, to build our own business and open the doors to even more success.
 
We both knew it was a huge risk and put plans B, C and D into place, but we also both knew that our happiness with our careers would determine much of the happiness of our lives. I realized that I needed to take a big risk to find the success I was looking for.
 
So much of success and wealth is about not only risktaking, but also planning and putting one very important person in charge: you. If you’re not taking classes, stretching your mind and possibilities, keeping up with social networking and blogs in your industry, making yourself better and worth more to not only your

employer, but to your own future, you’re missing out on what could be your income and what could be your wealth.
 
Granted, if you’ve been laid off in a dying industry (as my husband and I had been), you may feel very little control. But these are the times to shake things up and decide if you’re going to remain within that industry and possibly accept a much smaller way of life and paycheck, or if you’re going to take time to shift, adapt and open up possibilities that lead you toward the success you crave.
 
When and if you go out on your own:

• Make sure to protect yourself and manage your money well by incorporating and keeping your personal and business finances separate. That means putting some pros on your team: a great lawyer, a tax specialist, and, when the big bucks roll in, a trusted and well-screened certified financial planner or advisor.

• Spend a little on building an attractive and interactive Web site, a vital ingredient in success these days. To start, pool together Web sites that have the look and user-friendliness you’d want on your own. Ask around for referrals for a Web pro, or click through your favorite sites and contact those designers.

• Don’t be afraid of self-promotion. Look up old contacts and let them know what your plans are, and network not only with the people you know, but also through everything from your local parenting message boards to Facebook to flyers at community hot spots.

If you’re on the fast track at the office or looking to jump on, always think like a freelancer. Never get comfortable or assume that you’re completely aware of what’s going on in the corner office. Keep those classes going and diversify your skills. Become a member of an affinity group to build up your roster of contacts and meet others who share the same goals. Search out mentors; after all, it’s rare for a mentor to choose you. It can be as easy as a frank discussion of your goals and a simple question: Will you mentor me?

And make sure to have lunch or coffee with someone new nearly every day. Part of my success going out on my own was the relationships that I had formed in a corporate environment. Sustain them, and they will help sustain you.
 
In the end, no matter how much money is coming in, true wealth comes along only when you make the right decisions with your money. One schoolteacher who called into my show and made $65,000 a year had four times as much money in the bank as a banker of the same age who made four times as much money in one year. Getting the income you want is one thing; transforming that income into wealth is another. Take control of your money; take control of your life.


Carmen Wong Ulrich is a broadcast journalist and personal finance expert at CNBC, where she hosts On the Money. She is the author of the best-selling Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money—A How-To Guide.

(artical from successmagazine.com written by Carmen Wong Ulrich )

Dave Ramsey on Marriage and Money

Marriage counselors and statistics tell us that if we can agree on four things before we marry someone, we have a much higher probability of a successful marriage. The big four are religion, in-laws, parenting and money.

Men and women are different. When it comes to money, men tend to take more risks and don’t save for emergencies. Men use money as a scorecard and can struggle with self-esteem when there are financial problems. Women tend to see money more as a security issue, so they will gravitate toward savings. Because of their need for security, women can have a level of fear—my wife, Sharon, calls it terror—when there are financial problems.

Despite the differences in how you and your spouse view money, it is crucial for couples dealing with their finances to have unity. Unity is one of the character qualities of people who win at wealth building. However, you have to understand each other before there is unity.

Usually one spouse is more creative and spontaneous. That mate is a little, or even a lot, less organized and tends to see budgeting as a form of torture, a method for the other mate to control them. That describes Sharon.

The other mate has more administrative skills and more of a bent toward numbers. There lives deep inside of this mate a nerd. That describes me. The nerd can be the spender or the saver. Normally, if one of you has all of the budgeting responsibility it is the spouse with the administrative bent. The nerds get the budget because they are the only one who cares, and they can’t trust anyone else anyway, since they are so smart. An unauthorized flow of money upsets the nerd, and further controls are implemented. At this point the free spirit will dig her heels in and the budget wars are on. I have just described how most couples “manage” money.

There is a better way! First the nerds should prepare the budget, because we love to; it is our life. Instead of making the budget kingly law, we should submit it to the budget committee. The budget committee is the two of you. Nerds, when you submit your masterpiece budget to the committee, you must remember to shut up and listen. Listen and accept the fact that your mate has valid input, and then agree to most of the requested changes. You are doing this to bribe them into the process of managing money, and believe me, your concessions are a small price to pay for unity.

Free spirits, you must show up for the budget committee meeting. This activity is important to your marriage and your children’s future, and the only way you can defend your position is to come to the meeting. You must be a grown-up and realize you cannot spend more than you make and have financial security or build wealth.

Although men and women are different, and opposites attract, common sense and a success mentality tell us we have to work together. Two horses pulling a wagon can haul a huge load up a hill if they work together. Pulling apart will simply turn the wagon into firewood. Working together is the only way to survive bad times and prosper in good ones. This means, when it comes to marriage, you are no longer two individuals, but one couple.


Dave Ramsey is a syndicated radio talk show host, best-selling author and the creator of EntreLeadership Master Series and EntreLeadership One Day.

(artical from successmagazine.com written by Dave Ramsey )

When Daniel Craig stepped out of the surf on a Bahamas beach, he melted women around the
world and spiked browser searches from guys looking for that incredible James Bond physique.

What dose he do?

Let's take a look how to shape the physique.



Wanna try an easier way?

Fitness digest: Steve Harvey's detox, running pains, energy drink banned

Every Friday, we'll give a Web shout-out to interesting, quirky or bizarre diet-and-fitness items. Tell us your suggestions for interesting stories, posts or websites that caught your eye.


If you want to win, suck it up.


Writing about the art of pain, New York Times’ Gina Kolata finds superathletes are able to manage and push through pain. That mental tenacity and pain coping separates "the mortals and immortals in running.”


Several accomplished athletes told the Times they were willing to endure the worst pain and do “whatever it takes to win the race.”
21 pounds in 21 days


TV and radio personality Steve Harvey turned to a diet of veggie and berry drinks to shed weight. This detox diet, dubbed the Martha's Vineyard Detox Diet, also requires digestive enzyme pills and coffee enema.
The mere sacrifices according to diet book "21 Pounds in 21 Days'" website is that you may experience "acne, rashes, nausea, headaches, sleepiness, fatigue, constipation, diarrhea, runny nose, ear problems, and body aches." Sounds pleasant.


Doctors have long slammed detox diets as being junk science and even carrying risks. Harvey appears pleased with his results, writing, "A more than successful week on my detox I feel great especially after stepping on the scale started @ 238.4 now 228."


Math helps marathons

 The way to prevent "hitting"the wall" during a marathon is calculating how much carbs a runner needs to run 26.2 miles.


Ben Rapoport, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, designed a model published in the Oct. 21 issue of PLoS Computational Biology, that allows runners to calculate their pace and carbs.


“In order to avoid it [hitting the wall], you need to know what your capabilities are," he told MIT News. "You need to set a target pace that will get you to the finish without hitting the wall. Once you do that, you need to make sure you appropriately carbo-load.”


Alcohol-and-caffeine concoction crashes students




Trouble rumbles in Jersey stemming from young people and booze - and this time, it has nothing to do with Snooki.






A New Jersey college banned Four Loko, an energy drink containing caffeine and alcohol that has earned the distinctive nickname “blackout in a can.” Ramapo College this month banned the carbonated drink after 23 people were hospitalized for alcohol intoxication in the fall semester, the Record reports.


The drink at the center of the controversy comes in a 23.5 ounce can and contains either 6 or 12 percent alcohol content depending on the state. It also packs a punch of caffeine, taurine, guarana, and alcohol, and comes in eight candy-like flavors: blue raspberry, cranberry lemonade, fruit punch, lemon-lime, lemonade, orange-blend, grape and watermelon. They taste like liquefied candy or just windshield wiper fluid– depending on whom you ask.


Credit cards say yes to cake


Not only do they get you into debt, credit cards mount calories, too.


A study tracking grocery shopping habits of 1,000 households, found that people who used debit or credit cards were significantly more likely to make unplanned, impulsive food choices such as cookies, cakes and other unhealthy treats, as reported by our partners at Time: Time: Paying cash at the grocery store leads to healthier food choices


Fat freezes


A newly approved FDA device is now in doctors’ offices that freezes fat cells, causing them to die and then reabsorb into the skin. Zeltiq, the company behind the “CoolSculpting” touts the procedure for its lack of needles or surgery, and says it can produce a “20 percent reduction of fat in the treated area.”


"No matter what you do, you can't get rid of that extra bulge," Jessica Sanders, mother of two, who is trying to get rid of post-pregnancy weight told CNN affiliate KXAN in Austin speaks to a patient. However, there is some skepticism about whether freezing effectively reduces fat.




(artical from CNN)

video-Men's Health cover shoot featuring Piolo Pascual

Men's Health cover shoot featuring Piolo Pascual

HE HAS A GOOD SHAPE. LET'S TAKE A LOOK!

Men's Health (MH) magazine welcomes 2010 with a Fight Club-inspired cover featuring multi-awarded actor and singer, Piolo Pascual. The clean-cut heartthrob admits that the shoot intimidated him: "It's hard to do something so different; also, for us boys, Fight Club is so iconic." He had about three weeks to prepare for the shoot, but being in the habit of working out almost every day certainly came in handy.

It's Pascual's first time on the cover of MH but editor-in-chief Agu Paiso says the actor had been on their short list for quite some time, it was just that conflicting schedules got in the way. "Piolo was wonderful to work with. It was a really smooth shoot, no complaints whatsoever. The day we shot him, he had four shoots and we were lucky enough to be the first one. Pinagod namin siya, pinahirapan namin siya before the rest of his shoots. (laughs)"

Good Health Doesn’t Have to Taste Bad

“It’s HEALTHY! Hold your nose and drink it!”

We have this notion that if something is good for health, it probably tastes something awful! Thankfully, this no longer holds true! Some innovative manufacturers have succeeded in adding healthy ingredients to great taste! For instance, CocoPure is a cocoa tea that tastes wonderfully delicious and also contains the right combination of antioxidants that are beneficial to health in a number of ways.

Cocoa tea helps to support arterial and cardiovascular health. If you’re on a diet, cocoa tea can provide you with the rich chocolate flavor you often crave for on diets through just 30 calories a serving. Cocoa tea is doubly good for health since the ingredients help promote healthy blood sugar levels already within a normal

range, as well as support heart health.

Cocoa tea contains pure cocoa, green tea concentrate and resveratrol. Each of these ingredients support good health and great taste.

Pure Cocoa

CocoPure delivers on great chocolate taste with defatted cocoa! Defatted cocoa has a very high antioxidant value. This is measured in ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) units, which in the of unsweetened cocoa powder is 55,653 units per 100 grams. The antioxidants in defatted cocoa may:

• Help to support cardiovascular health
• Help to support healthy circulation of blood
• Help promote healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels already within normal ranges
• Help to promote immune health
• Help to promote good moods since supports production of serotonin, the feel-good hormone.

Green Tea

The antioxidant potency of cocoa tea is powered up by the combination of concentrated green tea extracts. Green tea has special antioxidants called epigallocatechin gallate (ECGC). These antioxidants may:

• Help to support cellular health
• Help promote healthy blood pressure and cholesterol levels already within normal ranges
• Help to protect skin health
• Help to aid weight loss. Since green tea is a natural thermogenic, it can enhance any weight loss regimen by helping the body to burn more calories.

Resveratrol

The addition of resveratrol combines more antioxidant value to cocoa tea. Resveratrol is a phyto-nutrient that grows under the skin of red grapes. It may:

• Help support cardiovascular
• Helps to support arterial health.

Red wine contains a good amount of Resveratrol. But you would need to drink many glasses of red wine on an ongoing basis to get the amount of resveratrol that is needed to support the above healthy functions. Obviously, this is not advisable, so getting a beneficial intake of resveratrol from sources like CocoPure is practical.

Cocoa tea has the great taste of delicious chocolate, the sweetness of stevia and all the antioxidant health benefits of pure cocoa, green tea and resveratrol. It can be drunk hot or cold, or mixed in a smoothie! It can be used in brownie recipes or made into chocolate pudding. Whatever form you choose to have it, you know you are getting great taste with a good dose of healthy ingredients!

(artical from fitness.com)

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Alcohol, flu may be potential stroke triggers

Downing a few drinks or contracting an infection such as the flu seem to be connected to a short-term spike in the risk of stroke, a new research review finds.

The findings, reported in the journal Stroke, do not prove that alcohol and infections act as stroke "triggers" in some people, but they "strongly support" the notion that they do, the researchers say.

On the other hand, there is insufficient evidence on whether other suspected triggers -- like extreme stress or physical exertion -- do in fact contribute to stroke, lead researcher Dr. Vincent Guiraud, of Hopital Sainte-Anne in Paris, told Reuters Health in an email.

Triggers refer to behaviors or exposures that set off a temporary increase in a person's risk of a disease. A number of studies, for example, have suggested that factors like heavy physical exertion, extreme stress and infections may trigger heart attacks in some people.

The question of whether there are stroke triggers, however, has been less studied.

The new review attempted to pull together what is known about potential triggers of ischemic stroke -- the most common form of stroke, in which a blood clot disrupts blood flow to the brain.

Guiraud and his colleagues found 26 studies conducted since the 1980s that identified a dozen factors related to a short-term increase in stroke risk. Most of those studies focused on the potential roles of alcohol and infections in triggering a stroke over the following hours to weeks.

Overall, the review found, people who downed 40

to 60 grams of alcohol -- equivalent to three or four standard drinks in the U.S. -- showed a near-tripling in the risk of stroke over the next 24 hours.

A similar increase was linked to having more than 150 grams of alcohol, or about 10 standard drinks, in the past week.

Meanwhile, contracting any type of infection, such as a cold or flu, was linked to a two- to three-fold increase of suffering a stroke over the next week to one month.

Only a few studies looked at other potential stroke triggers. One UK study of 200 stroke patients did find associations between "negative emotion," anger and exposure to a "startling event" and an increased risk of stroke in the next two hours. Another study linked psychological distress to a heightened stroke risk over the next three days, while a third -- of more than 40,000 Canadian stroke patients -- found that people had a higher risk on their birthdays compared with other days.

If alcohol, infections or other factors do serve as stroke triggers, the absolute risk of any one person suffering a stroke because of such an exposure would likely be small, according to Guiraud.

In theory, triggers would have a greater impact on people already at increased risk of stroke, due to factors like established heart disease, smoking, diabetes or high blood pressure. However, Guiraud said his team lacked the data to study that issue.

The study is important in that it offers an appraisal of the current knowledge on potential stroke triggers, according to Dr. Craig Anderson of the George Institute for Global Health in Australia, who was not involved in the research.

"There have been substantial anecdotal case reports and case series suggesting certain triggers for ischemic stroke, but until recently there has been a paucity of good epidemiological studies and sensible (physiological) explanations for the link," Anderson, who is also a professor of stroke medicine and clinical neuroscience at the Sydney Medical School, told Reuters Health in an email.

Even many of the studies in the current review had limitations that made them prone to error or biased results, Anderson noted.

Among the weaknesses is the fact that most of the studies were so-called case-control studies, where people who had suffered a stroke were interviewed about various exposures before their stroke, and compared with "control" individuals who were asked about those same exposures.

A stronger design, according to Guiraud and his colleagues, would be the "case-crossover" study. In this type of study, each stroke patient would serve as his or her own control, being asked about a particular exposure during a defined period before the stroke, and during a different time period.

Case-crossover studies are not perfect either, but they make it easier for researchers to account for the many lifestyle habits and other factors that vary from person to person.

Still, despite the limitations of studies done so far, Anderson said that there is an "increasing appreciation" that most research on stroke risk factors has focused on more stable factors like average blood pressure. But, he said, daily fluctuations in heart rate, blood pressure, hormonal activity and muscle function could also create fluctuations in short-term stroke risk.

In theory, drinking could, for example, cause heart-rhythm disturbances that dislodge a blood clot from the heart that then travels into an artery supplying the brain, Guiraud and his colleagues note.

Similarly, infections could also contribute to heart-rhythm disruptions or have inflammatory effects in the blood vessels that might lead to a stroke.

For now, the practical implications of the current findings "are still hypothetical," Guiraud said.

But, he added, it's possible that for people at heightened risk of stroke, avoidance of any established triggers could complement the treatment of traditional stroke risk factors like high blood pressure.

For example, flu vaccination or antibiotic treatment of bacterial infections might help lower the odds of any short-term spike in stroke risk. Some research, Guiraud's team notes, has found a link between flu vaccination and decreased stroke risk.

However, studies are still needed to show whether any steps to avoid potential stroke triggers are actually effective, according to Guiraud.

(artical from REUTERS)

What to Do Now to Feel Better at 100

Many changes take place in physical abilities as we age. Try as I may, I simply can’t swim as fast at 69 as I did at 39, 49 or even 59. Nor am I as steady on my feet. I can only assume my strength has waned as well — I’m finding bottles and jars harder to open and heavy packages harder to lift and carry.

But in August, I hiked in the Grand Canyon, prompting my 10-year-old grandson Stefan to ask, “Grandma, how many 69-year-olds do you think could do this?”

The answer, of course, is “a lot.” And the reason is that we work at it. For my part, I exercise daily, walking three miles or biking 10, then swimming three-quarters of a mile. In spring and summer, heavy-duty gardening strengthens my entire body.

But now that my physically stronger spouse is gone, I see that I need to make some improvements. With no one handy to open those jars or lift those heavy objects, I’ve begun strength training so I can remain as independent as possible as long as possible.
I
n a newly published book, “Treat Me, Not My Age”(Viking), Dr. Mark Lachs, director of geriatrics at the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System, discusses two major influences (among others) on how well older people are able to function.


Delaying Bodily Decline


The first, called physiologic reserve, refers to excess capacity in organs and biological systems; we’re given this reserve at birth, and it tends to decrease over time. In an interview, Dr. Lachs said that as cells deteriorate or die with advancing age, that excess is lost at different rates in different systems.


The effects can sneak up on a person, he said, because even when most of the excess capacity is gone, we may experience little or no decline in function. A secret of successful aging is to slow down the loss of physiologic reserve.


“You can lose up to 90 percent of the kidney function you had as a child and never experience any symptoms whatsoever related to kidney function failure,” Dr. Lachs said. Likewise, we are born with billions of brain cells we’ll never use, and many if not most of them can be lost or diseased before a person experiences undeniable cognitive deficits.


Muscle strength also declines with age, even in the absence of a muscular disease. Most people (bodybuilders excluded) achieve peak muscle strength between 20 and 30, with variations depending on the muscle group. After that, strength slowly declines, eventually resulting in telling symptoms of muscle weakness, like falling, and difficulty with essential daily tasks, like getting up from a chair or in and out of the tub.


Most otherwise healthy people do not become incapacitated by lost muscle strength until they are 80 or 90. But thanks to advances in medicine and overall living conditions, many more people are reaching those ages, Dr. Lachs writes: “Today millions of people have survived long enough to keep a date with immobility.”
The good news is that the age of immobility can be modified. As life expectancy rises and more people live to celebrate their 100th birthday, postponing the time when physical independence can no longer be maintained is a goal worth striving for.


Gerontologists have shown that the rate of decline “can be tweaked to your advantage by a variety of interventions, and it often doesn’t matter whether you’re 50 or 90 when you start tweaking,” Dr. Lachs said. “You just need to get started. The embers of disability begin smoldering long before you’re handed a walker.”


Lifestyle choices made in midlife can have a major impact on your functional ability late in life, he emphasized. If you begin a daily walking program at age 45, he said, you could delay immobility to 90 and beyond. If you become a couch potato at 45 and remain so, immobility can encroach as early as 60.


“It’s not like we’re prescribing chemotherapy — it’s walking,” Dr. Lachs said. “Even the smallest interventions can produce substantial benefits” and “significantly delay your date with disability.”


“It’s never too late for a course correction,” he said.

In a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, elderly men and women who began strengthening exercises after a hip fracture increased their walking speed, balance and muscle strength and reduced their risk of falls and repeat fractures.

“Minor interventions that may seem trivial — like lifting small weights with multiple repetitions — can lead to dramatic improvements in quality of life,” Dr. Lachs said.

Many changes take place in physical abilities as we age. Try as I may, I simply can’t swim as fast at 69 as I did at 39, 49 or even 59. Nor am I as steady on my feet. I can only assume my strength has waned as well — I’m finding bottles and jars harder to open and heavy packages harder to lift and carry.

 But in August, I hiked in the Grand Canyon, prompting my 10-year-old grandson Stefan to ask, “Grandma, how many 69-year-olds do you think could do this?”

The answer, of course, is “a lot.” And the reason is that we work at it. For my part, I exercise daily, walking three miles or biking 10, then swimming three-quarters of a mile. In spring and summer, heavy-duty 
gardening strengthens my entire body.

But now that my physically stronger spouse is gone, I see that I need to make some improvements. With no one handy to open those jars or lift those heavy objects, I’ve begun strength training so I can remain as independent as possible as long as possible.


In a newly published book, “Treat Me, Not My Age”(Viking), Dr. Mark Lachs, director of geriatrics at the NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare System, discusses two major influences (among others) on how well older people are able to function.


Delaying Bodily Decline

 The first, called physiologic reserve, refers to excess capacity in organs and biological systems; we’re given this reserve at birth, and it tends to decrease over time. In an interview, Dr. Lachs said that as cells deteriorate or die with advancing age, that excess is lost at different rates in different systems.


The effects can sneak up on a person, he said, because even when most of the excess capacity is gone, we may experience little or no decline in function. A secret of successful aging is to slow down the loss of physiologic reserve.


“You can lose up to 90 percent of the kidney function you had as a child and never experience any symptoms whatsoever related to kidney function failure,” Dr. Lachs said. Likewise, we are born with billions of brain cells we’ll never use, and many if not most of them can be lost or diseased before a person
experiences undeniable cognitive deficits.


Muscle strength also declines with age, even in the absence of a muscular disease. Most people (bodybuilders excluded) achieve peak muscle strength between 20 and 30, with variations depending on the muscle group. After that, strength slowly declines, eventually resulting in telling symptoms of muscle weakness, like falling, and difficulty with essential daily tasks, like getting up from a chair or in and out of the tub.

Most otherwise healthy people do not become incapacitated by lost muscle strength until they are 80 or 90. But thanks to advances in medicine and overall living conditions, many more people are reaching those ages, Dr. Lachs writes: “Today millions of people have survived long enough to keep a date with immobility.”


The good news is that the age of immobility can be modified. As life expectancy rises and more people live to celebrate their 100th birthday, postponing the time when physical independence can no longer be maintained is a goal worth striving for.
Gerontologists have shown that the rate of decline “can be tweaked to your advantage by a variety of interventions, and it often doesn’t matter whether you’re 50 or 90 when you start tweaking,” Dr. Lachs said. “You just need to get started. The embers of disability begin smoldering long before you’re handed a walker.”


Lifestyle choices made in midlife can have a major impact on your functional ability late in life, he emphasized. If you begin a daily walking program at age 45, he said, you could delay immobility to 90 and beyond. If you become a couch potato at 45 and remain so, immobility can encroach as early as 60.


“It’s not like we’re prescribing chemotherapy — it’s walking,” Dr. Lachs said. “Even the smallest interventions can produce substantial benefits” and “significantly delay your date with disability.”
“It’s never too late for a course correction,” he said.


In a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, elderly men and women who began strengthening exercises after a hip fracture increased their walking speed, balance and muscle strength and reduced their risk of falls and repeat fractures.


“Minor interventions that may seem trivial — like lifting small weights with multiple repetitions — can lead to dramatic improvements in quality of life,” Dr. Lachs said.





Supportive Environment

 As with your body, your environment can be tweaked to enhance life in the upper decades. You can make

adjustments at home to anticipate medical problems you are likely to face as you get older — allowing you to

keep your independence, remain in familiar surroundings and minimize the risk of injury.

As Dr. Lachs put it, “It’s not just mold and radon that can make homes sick.” His colleague Rosemary Bakker says that most dwellings and equipment today were designed for 21-year-olds, and she has listed a set of issues that can jeopardize older people’s ability to function safely on their own:

 

¶Windows or doors that are hard to open.


¶Poor lighting, especially in crucial areas like the bathroom and kitchen.


¶ Rugs, irregular floors and other tripping hazards.

¶Tubs and showers that are hard to use if you have arthritis.


¶Stair widths or heights that are difficult to negotiate if you have neurological troubles. 

¶Appliances and utensils that are challenging to handle if you have limited manual dexterity.


¶Poor layout of rooms, like a bathroom far from the bedroom, that can be a problem when you walk slowly.


Ms. Bakker, a certified interior designer with a master’s degree in gerontology, is the author of “AARP

Guide to Revitalizing Your Home: Beautiful Living for the Second Half of Life” (Lark, 2010). The book shows how homes can be modified to promote lifelong safety and independence and still remain stylish. Many ideas can be found on her Web site, environmentalgeriatrics.com.

“These things are underpublicized, underappreciated and underutilized,” Dr. Lachs writes. Most fixes are simple and unobtrusive and “many are dirt-cheap,” he said, adding that if money is tight, it is best spent on improvements in the bathroom.

(By JANE E. BRODY Published: October 25, 2010. From: The New York Time)

News: Number of diabetic Americans could triple by 2050

 As many as 1 in 3 U.S. adults could have diabetes by 2050, federal officials announced Friday in a dramatic new projection that represents a threefold increase.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 1 in 10 have diabetes now, but the number could grow to 1 in 5 or even 1 in 3 by mid-century if current trends continue.

"This is alarming," said Ann Albright, director of the CDC's Division of Diabetes Translation.


The agency's projections have been a work in progress. The last revision put the number at 39 million in 2050. The new estimate takes it to the range of 76 million to 100 million.


An estimated 24 million Americans have diabetes currently.
The new CDC calculation accounts for people who have diabetes but are undiagnosed — a group that wasn't figured into earlier estimates, explained Edward W. Gregg, chief of the CDC branch that handles

diabetes epidemiology and statistics.


Also, the researchers used new population growth estimates for the elderly and minorities, who have higher rates of Type 2 diabetes, he said.


One more factor: Diabetics are living longer, thanks to improvements in medical care, he added.
"Not all of the increase in prevalence is a bad thing," said Dr. Sue Kirkman, the American Diabetes Association's senior vice president of medical affairs and community information.
Diabetes is a disease in which the body has trouble processing sugar. It was the nation's seventh leading cause of death in 2007.

In the classic form of diabetes, traditionally diagnosed in children or young adults, the body does not produce enough of a hormone called insulin to help sugar get into cells. That's Type 1 diabetes.

Another form of diabetes, Type 2, now accounts for about 95 percent of cases. In that kind, the body's cells resist insulin's attempts to transport sugar. Type 2 is most common in people who are overweight and obese, in people 60 and older, and in African-Americans and other minority groups.
The growth in U.S. diabetes cases has been closely tied to escalating obesity rates. Recent CDC data suggests obesity rates may have recently leveled off. But the new estimates should hold up even if obesity rates remain static, CDC officials said.

The CDC is the main source for national disease statistics, and the agency seems to have done a thoughtful job in putting together these latest projections, Kirkman said. Still, she acknowledged being a little startled by the size of the new numbers.
"The magnitude is a bit surprising. But the trend is not" she said.

The new estimates were published online Friday by the journal Population Health Metrics.

New World Is Opening!

Life likes an adventure. We will know many people and experience many things. At the end, we will write down the ending of our story.

Welcome to my story. Welcome to share with me in yours!