New research linking bad habits such as smoking and the direct impact on a senior’s health will be presented during the American Geriatrics Society’s Annual Meeting April 29 – May 3 in Chicago, IL.

The study followed more than 2,000 seniors who were current smokers, past smokers and had never smoked. All three groups were compared to show a link between smoking and the speed at which participants walked. After five years, it was discovered that smokers showed a significantly slower pace in their gait than those who had previously smoked. These study results suggest that even at an older age, changing bad habits such as smoking can positively impact a senior’s health later in life.

Eliminating bad habits such as poor food choices and lack of exercise – which can lead to weight gain or poor muscle condition – has been an ongoing struggle for seniors. And, according to Alison Moore, M.D., member of the American Geriatrics Society (AGS), the most important part of successfully changing bad habits is to go into the transformation with a positive attitude.

Dr. Moore offers the following suggestions to help older adults conquer some of the more common bad habits:

Bad Food Choices: Excess weight can cause multiple health problems and complications, including diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Substituting good carbohydrates (sweet potatoes, wheat bread, brown rice) for bad carbohydrates (white potatoes, white bread, white rice) and adding lean proteins, while limiting foods with high fat and sugar contents, will help seniors maintain a healthy weight.

Smoking and Drinking: Smoking and excessive alcohol intake is proven to have negative health effects on a person at any age, but seniors who smoke and drink regularly increase their chances of more advanced medical problems. The effects of many medications are altered when mixed with alcohol, which can pose serious health risks, especially for seniors taking multiple medications.

“Couch Potato Syndrome”: As people age, they often slow down and feel like they can’t do as much as they did when they were young. While physical activity sometimes becomes restricted due to health ailments, that doesn’t mean the brain needs to slow down. There are a variety of activities seniors can do to keep their minds focused and sharp, including word puzzles, interactive games, joining a book club or participating in other social and volunteer activities.

Adjusting Medications: The majority of seniors are on multiple medications and sometimes find it difficult or too bothersome to remember when and which medications to take each day. As a result, some seniors “adjust” their daily medication routine without talking to their physicians. To help keep medications organized and alleviate frustration, seniors should use weekly or monthly pill boxes and have a family member or friend help them fill pill boxes on a regular basis or make a color coded chart to help keep track of their pills and the times they need to be taken.

Lack of Exercise: Keeping physically active is integral to keeping the heart, mind and bones healthy. For some seniors, physical restrictions make exercise a challenge, but there are still small ways to incorporate physical activity into a daily routine, such as parking further away from the store to get in a short walk. And, programs such as yoga, Pilates or Tai Chi can help with balance and weight loss and can be adapted to all levels of physical ability.

From the University of Illinois comes a  new study suggesting that moderate amounts of exercise alone can reduce the inflammation in visceral fat—belly fat, —that has been linked with metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors that predict heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

“In the study, the benefits of exercise were apparent, even without a change in diet. We saw improvements in insulin sensitivity, less fat in the liver, and less inflammation in belly fat,” said Jeffrey Woods, a U of I professor of kinesiology and community health and faculty member in the U of I Division of Nutritional Sciences and the Integrative Immunology and Behavior Program.

Belly fat is particularly dangerous because it produces inflammatory molecules that enter the bloodstream and increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, he said.

“Scientists now know that obesity is associated with a low-grade systemic inflammation. Obese people have higher levels of circulating inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP), which are produced and secreted by fat tissue. This inflammation then triggers the systemic diseases linked with metabolic syndrome, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease,” he said.

In the study, Woods and his colleagues examined the effects of diet and exercise on the inflammation of visceral fat tissue in mice. A high-fat diet was first used to induce obesity in the animals. After 6 weeks, mice were assigned to either a sedentary group, an exercise group, a low-fat diet group, or a group that combined a low-fat diet with exercise for 6 or 12 weeks so the scientists could compare the effects in both the short and long term.

“The surprise was that the combination of diet and exercise didn’t yield dramatically different and better results than diet or exercise alone,” said Vicki Vieira, the lead author of the study.

“Unexpectedly, the only significant increase from 6 to 12 weeks in belly fat—the type of fat that triggers these inflammatory diseases–was in the mice who were sedentary, which suggests that exercise is an effective behavioral approach to reduce the accumulation of visceral fat even when fat in the diet is high,” she said.

Woods says that is a promising finding. “The benefits of exercise were apparent even if the animals were still eating a high-fat diet. That tells me that exercise could decrease or prevent these life-threatening diseases by reducing inflammation even when obesity is still present.”

“The good news is that this was a very modest exercise program. The mice ran on a treadmill only about one-fourth of a mile five days a week. For humans, that would probably translate into walking 30 to 45 minutes a day five days a week,” he noted.

“Even if you struggle with dieting, we believe you can still reduce the likelihood of developing obesity-related inflammatory diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, by adding a modest amount of exercise to your life,” said Woods.

These results were reinforced by the scientists’ study of sedentary older adults published in a recent issue of Brain, Behavior and Immunity (BBI).

In that 10-month study, one group of sedentary older adults participated in three 45- to 60-minute cardiovascular exercise sessions per week, while another group focused on exercises to improve non-cardiovascular flexibility and balance for 75 minutes twice a week.

“At the end of the study, the ‘cardio’ group had lower levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), less belly fat, and improved general fitness than the ‘flex’ group,” said Ph.D. candidate Vieira.

“The lower CRP levels were partially mediated by the reduction in trunk fat,” she explained.

Here’s a quiz from Jennifer Wilson, Kansas State University Research and Extension county director in Riley County, Kan.

True or false? Packaging materials account for 32 percent of the nation’s household waste.

If you answer true, you’re right, Jennifer said, who said that fact would seem reason enough to “take stock and step up to reduce environmental waste.”

“Much of the waste comes from grocery packaging materials,” said Wilson, who has teamed with Virginia “Ginny” Barnard, Riley County Extension nutrition educator, to help the public learn more about reducing environmental waste.

To illustrate the issue, the two educators shopped for food products a typical family of any size might choose: a box of corn flakes; box of pre-packaged packets of instant oatmeal; bagged corn muffin mix; box of pre-packaged fruit snacks; noodles; and boxed macaroni and cheese mix.

A package of each was enough to fill the grocery sack, said Barnard, who reported that once back at the Extension office, they emptied the full grocery sack, opened the packages and dumped the actual food (contained within the packaging) into a separate sack.

“The full sack of groceries yielded about one-third of a sack of food,” Wilson said.
And, using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s thrifty food plan to shop for a family of four, Barnard estimated an annual cost of about $600 for grocery packaging materials that end up in the trash.

“Reducing waste is an environmental issue; doing so also can reduce the health risks associated with processed foods, which often are high in sodium, and save money,” said Barnard, who offered this example: Mixing a comparable, homemade version of taco seasoning mix can yield the equivalent of six more costly pre-packaged mixes, and reduce the calories, carbohydrates and sodium (30 .6 mg per serving vs. 2,328.7 mg) per serving,” Barnard said.

Other environmentally-friendly shopping tips that also can offer health-promoting and/or cost-saving ideas from the family and consumer science Extension agents include:
— Invest in reusable grocery bags – and use them.
— Weigh cost vs. convenience. Compute the cost of buying six or eight individually wrapped 100-calorie snack packs compared with buying a box of crackers, measuring 100-calorie servings and placing them in reusable or disposable food-storage containers.
— Do it yourself: Cutting up vegetables, rather than buying cut celery, carrot or pepper strips, or grating cheese, rather than buying grated cheese, yields fresh flavor and a cost savings of up to 45 percent.
— Buy in bulk to reduce packaging and, if you or your family use the product within its use-by dates, to save on cost per serving.
— Opt for seasonal foods such as fruits and vegetables that typically cost less when peak supplies are available. Buying at local farmers’ markets often means shoppers will find fresh, locally grown produce.
— Choose products with less packaging, such as a waxed or cellophane bag, rather than a box of cereal, or refillable liquid hand soap or dishwashing detergent.
— Choose multi-purpose products, such as cleaners rather than a product for each job.
— Keep a running grocery list; buy what you need and use what you have.
— Cover and refrigerate perishable leftovers promptly, and, if leftovers cannot be used within a day or two, wrap, label, date and freeze for future meals.
— Invest in a reusable water bottle for each member of the household. In 2005, estimates suggest that 40 billion of the 50 billion plastic water bottles sold in the U.S. ended up in a landfill, said Wilson, who recommended checking with local recycling centers for a list of locally recycled packaging and other materials.

Thinking your memory will get worse as you get older may actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That’s according to researchers at North Carolina State University who have found that senior citizens who think older people should perform poorly on tests of memory actually score much worse than seniors who do not buy in to negative stereotypes about aging and memory loss.

In a study published earlier this month, psychology professor Dr. Tom Hess and a team of researchers from NC State show that older adults’ ability to remember suffers when negative stereotypes are “activated” in a given situation.

“For example, older adults will perform more poorly on a memory test if they are told that older folks do poorly on that particular type of memory test,” Hess says. Memory also suffers if senior citizens believe they are being “stigmatized,” meaning that others are looking down on them because of their age.

“Such situations may be a part of older adults’ everyday experience,” Hess says, “such as being concerned about what others think of them at work having a negative effect on their performance – and thus potentially reinforcing the negative stereotypes.” However, Hess adds, “The positive flip side of this is that those who do not feel stigmatized, or those in situations where more positive views of aging are activated, exhibit significantly higher levels of memory performance.” In other words, if you are confident that aging will not ravage your memory, you are more likely to perform well on memory-related tasks.

The study also found a couple of factors that influenced the extent to which negative stereotypes influence older adults. For example, the researchers found that adults between the ages of 60 and 70 suffered more when these negative stereotypes were activated than seniors who were between the ages of 71 and 82. However, the 71-82 age group performed worse when they felt stigmatized.

Finally, the study found that negative effects were strongest for those older adults with the highest levels of education. “We interpret this as being consistent with the idea that those who value their ability to remember things most are the most likely to be sensitive to the negative implications of stereotypes, and thus are most likely to exhibit the problems associated with the stereotype.”

“The take-home message,” Hess says, “is that social factors may have a negative effect on older adults’ memory performance.”