Centre for Vital Elders

Harvard gerontologist tells group of seniors about their value to the community

There’s a reason humans live twice as long as our nearest biological cousins, says a Harvard-trained gerontologist who visited Medford Thursday.

Old people are “the glue that holds us together,” Dr. Bill Thomas told a crowd of nearly 400 seniors gathered at Medford’s Red Lion Inn. He said humans passed on their accumulated wisdom through elders for thousands of years before there was writing.

“You cannot have a healthy human community that does not have the voice of elders in it,” he said. “You cannot teach young people how to live without elders.”

Thomas spoke during a seniors’ health and wellness conference organized by Sen. Gordon Smith and at least a dozen local sponsors. Thomas writes and speaks widely on the role of seniors in modern society and the need to create a new elderhood that fits the way we live now. He’s also a visiting scholar at AARP.

Smith chairs the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Kimberly Collins, committee spokesperson, said Smith plans to make the senior wellness conference an annual event that will be scheduled in a different city every year.
Other speakers have seniors tips for keeping the brain young and encouraged them to share the stories of their lives with family members.

Thomas illustrated the intergenerational role of grandparenting by asking his audience how many of them had a close relationship with a grandparent. When at least half the elders in the room raised a hand, he observed “Those men and women long gone are still in this room. Their influence is with you even now in this room.”

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It has already been nicknamed the “Homer Simpson effect” - and now research suggests being overweight could affect your intelligence.

A five-year study of more than 2000 middle-aged people has found a possible link between weight and brain function.
Research published in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found people with a higher Body Mass Index (BMI) scored lower on average in cognitive tests within a sample.

Meanwhile, a separate paper, published in the same journal by Scots researchers, suggests a link between physical and mental fitness.

The findings came in the week that the UK was named the “fat man of Europe” following publication of new figures. The research into the impact of weight upon intelligence was led by Dr Maxime Cournot, of Toulouse University Hospital in France.

Researchers studied 2223 healthy people, aged 32 to 62, who sat four cognitive tests including word learning in 1996 and again in 2001.

Results from a word memory test showed that people with a BMI of 20 - considered to be a healthy level - remembered an average of nine out of 16 words. But people with a BMI of 30 - inside the obese range - remembered an average of just seven out of 16 words.

While those whose BMI changed over the five years did not appear to see any change in their cognitive function, those who started out with a higher BMI did appear to show higher levels of “cognitive decline”, Dr Cournot said. “The findings may be due to a host of factors including the thickening and hardening of cerebral vessels because of obesity or possibly the development of insulin resistance,” said Dr Cournot.

The apparent phenomenon has already been dubbed the “Homer Simpson effect” by some media in North America.
BMI is calculated by setting a person’s weight against their height to produce a single figure.

A link between physical and mental fitness has also been suggested in a Scots study after 460 people who took part in a mental health survey in 1932 when they were 11 years old were re-tested at the age of 79.

Report author Professor Ian Deary, of Edinburgh University, said: “Fitness contributes to better cognitive ability in old age.
“Thus, two people starting out with the same IQ at age 11, the fitter person at age 79 will, on average, have better cognitive function.”

Further research published today shows that overweight workers are often regarded by colleagues as lazy. Many of those questioned by Benenden Healthcare said they knew someone who had been turned down for a job or promotion because of their size.

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“A lot of people, in the face of serious illness, look for hope and find their way through religion or spirituality or meditation or reiki or whatever helps them,” said Suzanne Swan, director of education at To Life. 

  
“We have asked speakers to touch on peoples’ idea of spirituality and what it is,” Swan said.

Each person’s definition of spirituality varies.

“Spirituality doesn’t have to be religious,” said Dr. Beth Netter of the Center for Integrative Health and Healing in Albany, one of the panelists. “The core is about finding the connection with their inner spirit.” She practices physiology, along with faith and healing.

For Rabbi Rena Kieval, the leader of Congregation Ohav Shalom, the connection between healing of the body and healing of the spirit is about being a “whole person.”

“It is part of the Jewish prayer,” said Kieval, another participant.

Mary Beth Toomey Dunne, 52, will provide insight from the perspective of a cancer survivor. She had “stage four colon cancer that had gone to her liver” when doctors gave her six months to live. That was five years ago.

The parishioner at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Albany asked people to pray “not for a cure, but for me to accept whatever God had in mind for me and that I would go to the right doctors and that they would be instrumental in providing whatever is meant for me.”

She was treated locally at St. Peter’s Hospital and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. She underwent two surgeries and chemotherapy, and had healing prayer services at her church and a home Mass with healing prayers.

Today, Dunne attributes her improved health to both the medical treatment and prayers. “I think that prayer and positive attitude puts you in the optimal situation for medical care,” she said.

When people do healing work, they look for what is lacking, said Netter. “I often think of disease as ‘dis-ease.’ When they connect to their inner spirit, people realize they have found what they lacked in their lives. That helps their immune system and gives them positivity,” she said, explaining that she does reiki — a Japanese form of alternative healing — to help people “re-recognize” they have energy with the world around them.

When people go through trauma, like breast cancer, “they are able to appreciate that the trauma has brought them closer to themselves and to their families,” said Netter, adding that the idea of oneness is at the core of every religion.

Other panelists include Robert L. Miller Jr., a professor at the University at Albany School of Social Welfare; Leslie Neustadt, a volunteer chaplain and cancer survivor; and Sister Mary Anne Rodgers of Mission Integration.

Kieval believes people are more comfortable with the spiritual approach to healing these days. “I also find that people who don’t identify themselves as religious find great comfort in prayer when they are ill,” she said. “They have a sense that there is someone larger than themselves.”

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Prevention’s Anti-Aging Guide: How To Take Off 10 Years Or More And Look And Feel Better

Research is unlocking the secrets to living longer and better. And 70 percent of the factors influencing life expectancy are due to good choices and good luck — not good genes. In part-two of our story, scientists studying aging, exercise, nutrition, and related fields offer more moves to peel off the years. Picks so powerful, the researchers have adopted them in their own lives.

EAT A RAINBOW
A rainbow made of vegetables, says Peter Greenwald, MD, director of the division of cancer prevention at the National Cancer Institute. Their cancer-preventing abilities are unparalleled. Remember: Aim for nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

SUP FROM THE SEA
Don’t just slap anything with fins onto your plate: You want fatty fish, such as salmon, sardines, and lake trout. They contain the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, which many studies show help prevent sudden death from heart attack. Omega-3s may also help ward off depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness — and maybe some cancers, although evidence is mixed.

To get more of the benefits of good fats, snack on an ounce — a handful — of walnuts a day. Use less corn oil, and more canola and olive oils. Greg Cole, Ph.D., a professor of medicine and neurology at UCLA, also avoids cookies, margarine, and snack foods such as chips, which are loaded with unhealthy trans fats. On his menu: two tuna sandwiches plus a couple of DHA-enriched eggs a week. He takes 2 grams of fish oil daily.

BELT OUT A TUNE
Exposing yourself to music might help boost your immune system: In a study done by Robert Beck, Ph.D., a professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, levels of an infection-fighting antibody called IgA increased 240 percent in the saliva of choral members performing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

DRINK A CUPPA
Intrigued by studies — of mice, cells in lab dishes, and people — that say tea may fight prostate and breast cancer and heart disease, researcher Anna Wu, Ph.D., a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, downs at least 3 cups daily. Green is best, although black tea confers some benefits, too.

WHITTLE YOUR WAIST
To determine if your body is staying young, the tape measure is better than the bathroom scale: Your weight can remain the same while you lose muscle and pack on fat, including visceral fat, the culprit behind a thick waist. It’s linked to a heightened risk of age-related ills such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. If your waist measures more than 35 inches for a woman, or 40 inches for a man, you probably have too much belly fat.

The best way to shed that inner load: exercise, says Kerry Stewart, director of clinical and research exercise physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In a 6-month study of 69 men and women, he found a 20 percent reduction in visceral fat, though participants lost only 5 pounds. Stewart’s program was brisk but not too arduous: 45 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobics three times a week and 20 minutes of moderate-intensity weight training, also three times weekly.

DOUBLE UP ON D
If there’s one vitamin supplement you should take, this is it, experts say. Vitamin D is made in the skin when sun hits it — but as people get older, the D factory doesn’t work as well. About half of Americans fall short. Research suggests that a lack of D raises the risk of osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis and various cancers.

“No other nutrient is so widely deficient in the United States,” says Meir Stampfer, MD, chair of the department of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Unless you eat a lot of fish, you have to supplement.” Stampfer takes 1,800 IU daily in the winter and 800 to 1,200 IU a day the rest of the year. Make sure your supplement contains vitamin D3, the form the skin makes.

DINE ON CURRY
Turmeric, the spice that makes curry yellow, is loaded with curcumin, a chemical with potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. In India, it’s smeared on bandages to help heal wounds. East Asians also eat it, of course, which might explain why they have lower rates than we do of various cancers and Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Animal research is promising. Cole, of UCLA, makes sure he gets a good dose of Indian food with “lots of yellow stuff” three times weekly. Don’t like the taste? Try a daily curcumin supplement of 500 to 1,000 milligrams.

DONATE BLOOD
The life you save may be your own. Many researchers think that we take in too much iron, mostly from eating red meat. Excess iron is thought to create free radicals in the body, speeding aging and raising risk of heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. Until menopause, women are naturally protected from iron overload, but after that the danger of overdose climbs.

Preliminary studies suggest you can lower your risk of heart disease by regularly giving blood. Thomas Perls, MD, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University who leads the New England Centenarian Study, donates a unit every 2 months. He has a rare blood type, so he’s helping others — and he may get something out of it, too. If you’re scared of needles, at least go easy on red meat: no more than a daily serving the size of a pack of cards.

LOOK OUT FOR YOUR EYES
Getting plenty of omega-3s in food or supplements may help ward off age-related macular degeneration. Plant antioxidants such as lutein and zeaxanthin — found in leafy green vegetables like kale and collards — are helpful, too. People who have drusen — tiny deposits within the retina that can be early signs of macular degeneration — can reduce their risk of blindness in both eyes by 25 percent if they take a supplement, says John Paul SanGiovanni, a staff scientist at the National Eye Institute. What to take, according to his study: 500 milligrams of vitamin C, 400 IU of vitamin E, 80 milligrams of zinc, 15 milligrams of beta-carotene, and 2 milligrams of copper.

TAKE FERN EXTRACT FOR YOUR SKIN
Studies suggest that the antioxidant-rich extract of the South American fern Polypodium leucotomos may help keep your skin youthful by protecting against free radicals and reducing inflammation. Until clinical trials find proof, “it’s like chicken soup — it can’t hurt and it might help a bit,” says dermatologist Mary Lupo, MD, a Prevention advisor and a clinical professor of dermatology at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Lupo takes 240 milligrams every morning in a supplement called Heliocare, made by Ivax Dermatologicals. She also slaps on broad-spectrum sunscreen and Retin-A daily and eats a diet loaded with colorful fruits and vegetables — blueberries, raspberries, grapefruit, broccoli, spinach. It may also help to drink green tea and nibble flavonoid-rich dark chocolate, she adds. What you must do: Avoid excessive sun exposure and don’t smoke.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH
Strife at work, bumper-to-bumper traffic, little Will’s report card: Stress increases the concentration of the hormones cortisol and norepinephrine in our bloodstream, kicking up blood pressure and suppressing the immune system. Chronic stress delays wound healing, promotes atherosclerosis, and possibly shrinks parts of the brain involved in learning, memory, and mood.

“The key is lowering the concentration of those stress hormones,” says Bruce Rabin, MD, Ph.D., medical director of the Healthy Lifestyle program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

He’s devised a research-based program that mutes the hormone flow: It includes meditation, deep breathing, writing, chanting, and guided imagery. Check it out at http://healthylifestyle.upmc.com/.

Deep breathing is the top anti-stress pick of Prevention advisor Andrew Weil, MD: He makes time for it at least twice a day.

“It only takes 2 minutes,” he says. “I do it in the morning, when I’m falling asleep in the evening, and any time I feel upset.”

Technique: Exhale strongly through the mouth, making a whoosh sound. Breathe in quietly through the nose for a count of 4. Hold your breath for a count of 7; then exhale with the whoosh sound for a count of 8. Repeat the cycle three more times.

HEY — TURN IT DOWN!
Exposure to noise damages the delicate hair cells of your inner ears. So when you’re around loud noise, wear earplugs — the cheap type you can buy at the drugstore, or pricier ones that preserve sound quality. Andy Vermiglio, a research audiologist at the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, offers free hearing tests at trade shows for audio engineers. He can always tell which 40-year-old engineer was religious about ear protection and which one was careless: The latter typically has the hearing of a 70-year-old.

GET MORE SHUTEYE
Some sleep problems raise the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes — maybe even obesity. Everyone’s sleep needs are different; to find out what yours are, sleep experts recommend you turn off the alarm clock when you’re well rested, and see how long you naturally sleep. Most people need 7 to 8 hours. While you’re at it, ask your spouse if you snore. Snorting and honking through the night are signs that you may have sleep apnea, which causes you to stop breathing at least five times an hour; it raises your risk of stroke. An estimated 18 million Americans have the disorder, but many don’t know it, reports the National Sleep Foundation. Doctors are more likely to miss sleep apnea in women, says Joseph Kaplan, MD, co-director of the Mayo Sleep Disorders Center in Jacksonville, Fla. — and women may not want to mention their unladylike habit. Ladylike, schmadylike. Tell your doctor.

DROP THAT HOT POTATO
High-glycemic foods, rich in quick-digesting carbohydrates, can cause blood sugar spikes and crashes and contribute to overeating and diabetes risk — which accelerates aging.

We need to retrain our taste buds, says Willett. What to ditch: sugary drinks. And cut way back on America’s favorite veggie, the potato. It has the highest glycemic index of any vegetable, sending more sugar rushing into the bloodstream faster. Willett’s team at Harvard recently found that over a 20-year period, women who ate more whole grains and fewer spuds had a 20 to 30 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes. His carb picks for his own dinner: brown rice and whole grain bread, and sometimes whole wheat pasta or bulgur.

PUT ON YOUR ROSE-COLORED GLASSES
“Embracing some of the positive aspects of aging is helpful,” says Becca Levy, Ph.D., an associate professor of epidemiology and psychology at Yale. She found more than a 7-year survival advantage for older men and women with a positive attitude toward aging, compared with people who have a negative one.

If you’re a cranky sort, you might also want to tweak your attitude about other things.

“People who have a goal in life — a passion, a purpose, a positive outlook, and humor — live longer,” says Robert Butler, MD, president of the International Longevity Center in New York City.

Embrace life, and the coming of old age — it happens to all of us. If we’re lucky.

THE BIGGEST BANG: THE TOP SEVEN STEPS YOU CAN TAKE TO STAY YOUNG:

Take brisk walks

Keep your waist trim

Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables

Strength-train a few times a week

Get enough sleep — most people need 7 or 8 hours nightly

Manage your stress

Keep a positive outlook
Published October 13, 2006

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Are we happy yet? Suzy Freeman-Greene ponders the wisdom of the ancients in the search for happiness and how our expectations have changed over the centuries.

THE HAPPINESS INDUSTRY is in overdrive. There has been an explosion of books about happiness. There are conferences on happiness, laughter clubs and happy hours. A Harvard academic teaches a course on happiness that is the university’s most popular subject. Happiness is the subtext of most ads, the promise hidden in a shoe or soft drink. Everywhere we go, we’re told to have fun.

For a long time the main way of measuring happiness was to ask people how they felt. It was purely a subjective thing. Today scientists can use brain scans or electrodes to compare reported feelings with brain activity. They’ve found that when people experience positive feelings (say, while looking at smiling baby photos) there’s more activity on the left side of the brain. Some see this as proof of the objective nature of happiness.

Yet while our tools for measuring happiness have grown more precise, the evidence shows most people in the West are no happier today than those surveyed 50 years ago. This is despite average incomes having more than doubled in this time. Many of today’s happiness analysts seek to grapple with this. They ask what are the things that make us happy, and how, as individuals and as a society, can we better pursue them? Writer Alain de Botton has played a big role in the resurgence of literary interest here. He is a stylish and accessible interpreter of our inner yearnings. As he notes in his latest book, The Architecture of Happiness, the search for happiness is the underlying quest of our lives.

But has the contemporary obsession with being happy helped create a new kind of discontent? This is the startling question asked by American historian Darrin McMahon in his book Happiness, a History. McMahon traces ideas of happiness in the West from the ancient Greeks, who saw a person’s fate as largely at the whim of the gods, to contemporary societies, where happiness is viewed as a right. He suggests we now worry we’re not happy enough - which may make us miserable.

McMahon observes that by the end of the fifth century BC, a new, less fatalistic perspective was emerging among Athenian thinkers. It held that humans might hope to influence their lot through their own actions. Happiness was equated with virtue. Through self-control, wrote Plato, the “better elements of the mind” could prevail.
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A High Court challenge to the mandatory retirement age of 65 means there could be trouble ahead for the government.

After months of consultation and wranglings at the highest levels, the new age laws have already been labelled as incompatible with the EU legislation they aim to implement.

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 bring into force the age-related provisions of the European Equal Treatment Directive.

But Heyday, a membership group for baby boomers (people born between 1945 and 1957), has been granted a judicial review of the regulations before the High Court, challenging the mandatory retirement age (MRA), which allows employers to force workers to retire at 65 without giving any reason.

Ailsa Ogilvie, director of Heyday, said the government was sending a stark to over-65s - that “they are not worth having in the workplace”.

“People want the choice to continue to work, but they don’t want to feel they are being given their P45 on the basis of their birth certificate,” she told Personnel Today.
Unprotective

You can see why Heyday is upset. Most people believe the age regulations are designed to protect them against discrimination in their old age. Unfortunately, they are in for a shock. For the first time, employers have a cast-iron excuse to discriminate against those aged 65 and over - and there’s nothing retirees can do about it.

This situation seems to run contrary to the EU legislation, which says “any direct or indirect discrimination based on age… should be prohibited throughout the [EU] community”.

Where the confusion arises is article six of the directive, which adds that EU member states may effectively discriminate on grounds of age if, “within the context of national law, they are objectively and reasonably justifying a legitimate aim… and if the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary”. Then add the fact that “the directive shall be without prejudice to national provisions laying down retirement ages”, and the lawyers have really got something to get their teeth into.

So just what is a legitimate aim, and did the UK already have national retirement ages? And what are the chances the government has mucked it all up?

The Department for Trade and Industry would only say that “the government is confident that the [age] regulations implement the directive correctly”, and points out the MRA will be reviewed in 2011 anyway.

However, the CBI was more than happy to elaborate. Richard Wainer, principal policy officer at the employers’ group, which lobbied hard for a retirement age, said the MRA would create better workplace relations.

“It will encourage dialogue between employers and employees that will lead to a more fruitful and consensual discussion over retirement,” he said. “Abolition [of the MRA] could lead to conflict as companies try to manage people out.”

The CBI believes that having the MRA will help aid workforce planning, adding weight to its assertion that a default retirement age is a legitimate aim. It also argues that the state retirement age already operates as a default retirement age, which the EU directive explicitly recognises as a bona fide reason to discriminate.

Challenged

It’s difficult to predict how the High Court will approach this matter. A judicial review has only ever once successfully forced the government to change a law. That was back in 1999, when it was successfully argued that a two-year qualification period for a claim for unfair dismissal had an adverse impact on women.

Jane Amphlett, a partner at law firm Addleshaw Goddard, said the courts would be reluctant to declare the government acted illegally, as it would “raise arguments over whether the judiciary is more powerful than the government”.

In this case, the High Court does not seem too perturbed - it has taken the unusual step of granting Heyday a ‘rolled-up’ hearing, which means that a judge will consider the application for the case to proceed in an oral hearing, which, if given the green light, will lead straight into a full trial. Usually, judicial reviews have to wait six months to be heard.

However, as Heyday’s solicitor Andrew Lockley points out, the group is not challenging the whole of the regulations, but just one part, which would limit the impact of any constitutional issues.

Ashley Norman, employment partner at law firm Pinsent Masons, said the whole question should be sent back from whence it came.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if this was referred up to the European Court of Justice - that’s the usual route for employment decisions to be challenged,” he said.

If that comes to pass, then employers will be in for the long haul. In the meantime, businesses might have come to recognise that young employees are harder to find, and they might not have much choice when it comes to keeping older workers on the payroll.

What’s the problem?
Heyday claims having a mandatory retirement age in the new age regulations is contrary to the European Equal Treatment Framework Directive (Council Directive 2000/78/EC).
It is challenging articles three and 30 of the UK law, which cover discrimination on grounds of age and the default retirement age respectively.
What is a judicial review?

Judicial reviews are the power of a court to review a law or an official act of a government employee or other public body if it is claimed the law or act is itself illegal. To bring a judicial review, you must show you have ’sufficient interest’ in the decision.

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