Sunday is my favorite day of the week - I love putting my feet up on the ottoman and digging into the big local Sunday paper. Yesterday, an article in the editorial section caught my eye. It was written by Jennie Chin Hansen, CEO of the American Geriatrics Society. According to Hansen, our first priority, as seniors seeking an active retirement, should be taking care of our health. Now, her advice seemed very centered within Standard American Medicine, and most of her suggestions involved soliciting advice from healthcare professionals, pharmacists, and even geriatrics specialists. Too, I got the impression that she assumes we’re all taking a boat load of medicines. I did, though, find myself in agreement with her main premise.
Hansen’s article points out that there are 77 million baby boomers out there, over half of them sedentary or overweight or both. I have to admit to the overweight part... sigh... though I’m not sedentary. What this means, though, is that many of us are at increased risk of diabetes, heart trouble and a lot of other diseases that we think of as characteristic of old age. And it’s hard to have an active retirement, let alone to live well, if you’re chronically ill. Not impossible, but much harder. Plus, even with Medicare and good insurance, medical care and prescription drugs can suck up a huge amount of your savings. Buh bye vacation!
Fortunately, according to Hansen, there is a lot we can do to improve our health. She suggests seeing your doctor every year for a checkup, and helpfully points out that Medicare now provides an annual “wellness visit.” She notes that you need to be sure that all those medicines you’re surely taking don’t cause harmful interactions with one another or with your over-the-counter medicines and vitamin supplements. And then there's more advice to consult with your various medical specialists to design a beneficial healthcare, diet, and exercise program for you. Really? Ms. Hansen seems to be living in a different universe from mine. I can’t imagine the harried, rushed doctors I’ve seen most recently taking the time to do all of that in any kind of comprehensive way.
But one of Hansen’s suggestions is brilliant, and though I think we’ve all heard it before, it bears repeating. She wants each of us to become an active participant in our own health care. I totally agree with that. We can no longer depend blindly on our doctors and the pharmaceutical industry to keep us in good health. The way things are going in this country, I’m not confident those of us who retire on a modest income can depend on even mediocre health care being reliably available to us in coming years.
I feel like the best thing I can do for myself is to take responsibility for my health into my own hands. Statistics suggest that at some point I’ll have to deal with a serious illness. But before then, there is a great deal I can learn to do for myself to maintain my health and to correct relatively minor problems, including those things that can lead to serious illness down the road. I don’t want to be one of those oldsters who goes to the doctor every week, takes a zillion pills, and has a mind closed to any health advice not coming from their doctors. I know people like that and they are really pathetic.
In fact, I have a close relative by marriage who exemplifies this attitude. A few years ago she was employed, walking a lot, happy and active. Then she was laid off, and seems to have taken up going to the doctor as a new hobby. First they gave her antidepressants because she was a little unhappy about losing her job. Then, because her cholesterol was a bit high, she was put on a statin drug. Predictably, her capacity to exercise declined and her blood sugar levels rose (both documented side effects of statins), so she stopped walking as much and was put on another prescription for her pre-diabetic condition. Over the last few years, she has continued to see the doctors more and more often, has been given more and more prescription drugs, and has seen her health and level of well-being continue to decline. She remains completely closed to suggestions about lifestyle changes - diet, exercise, natural remedies - and although she’d probably listen to her doctors, they just seem to give her more appointments and more prescriptions.
Personally, I have found it quite valuable to search and use the enormous amount of healthcare information available for free these days via the internet. The problem is that some of it is excellent, and some of it is ridiculously bad, and it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. I think I’ve gotten a lot better at sorting the wheat from the chaff, but still there is a lot of good but conflicting information on the web. This is particularly true when it comes to identifying an optimal diet. And that's too bad, because improving our diet may be one of the most important things we can do to improve and maintain our health. Different sources insist on low carbohydrate, or no gluten, or low fat, or no animal-sourced foods, each recommended by a different medical doctor, each doctor with good credentials, and all accompanied by lots of glowing testimonials from real people who got great results.
This lack of uniformity in recommendations causes “information paralysis” in many people, so that they finally give up and go on doing what they’ve always done, which usually is to eat a poor-quality (but tasty) diet and to not exercise any more than they have to. I don’t think all the answers are in yet in the so-called “diet wars,” but if you look at all the recommendations, you find some common threads:
The jury still seems to be out as to the proportions of fat, carbohydrate and protein I should be eating. I need to continue to research and do some trial-and-error self-experimentation to figure that part out. But I think these are recommendations I can rely on and that will continue to support my health as I age.
Hansen’s article points out that there are 77 million baby boomers out there, over half of them sedentary or overweight or both. I have to admit to the overweight part... sigh... though I’m not sedentary. What this means, though, is that many of us are at increased risk of diabetes, heart trouble and a lot of other diseases that we think of as characteristic of old age. And it’s hard to have an active retirement, let alone to live well, if you’re chronically ill. Not impossible, but much harder. Plus, even with Medicare and good insurance, medical care and prescription drugs can suck up a huge amount of your savings. Buh bye vacation!
Fortunately, according to Hansen, there is a lot we can do to improve our health. She suggests seeing your doctor every year for a checkup, and helpfully points out that Medicare now provides an annual “wellness visit.” She notes that you need to be sure that all those medicines you’re surely taking don’t cause harmful interactions with one another or with your over-the-counter medicines and vitamin supplements. And then there's more advice to consult with your various medical specialists to design a beneficial healthcare, diet, and exercise program for you. Really? Ms. Hansen seems to be living in a different universe from mine. I can’t imagine the harried, rushed doctors I’ve seen most recently taking the time to do all of that in any kind of comprehensive way.
But one of Hansen’s suggestions is brilliant, and though I think we’ve all heard it before, it bears repeating. She wants each of us to become an active participant in our own health care. I totally agree with that. We can no longer depend blindly on our doctors and the pharmaceutical industry to keep us in good health. The way things are going in this country, I’m not confident those of us who retire on a modest income can depend on even mediocre health care being reliably available to us in coming years.
I feel like the best thing I can do for myself is to take responsibility for my health into my own hands. Statistics suggest that at some point I’ll have to deal with a serious illness. But before then, there is a great deal I can learn to do for myself to maintain my health and to correct relatively minor problems, including those things that can lead to serious illness down the road. I don’t want to be one of those oldsters who goes to the doctor every week, takes a zillion pills, and has a mind closed to any health advice not coming from their doctors. I know people like that and they are really pathetic.
In fact, I have a close relative by marriage who exemplifies this attitude. A few years ago she was employed, walking a lot, happy and active. Then she was laid off, and seems to have taken up going to the doctor as a new hobby. First they gave her antidepressants because she was a little unhappy about losing her job. Then, because her cholesterol was a bit high, she was put on a statin drug. Predictably, her capacity to exercise declined and her blood sugar levels rose (both documented side effects of statins), so she stopped walking as much and was put on another prescription for her pre-diabetic condition. Over the last few years, she has continued to see the doctors more and more often, has been given more and more prescription drugs, and has seen her health and level of well-being continue to decline. She remains completely closed to suggestions about lifestyle changes - diet, exercise, natural remedies - and although she’d probably listen to her doctors, they just seem to give her more appointments and more prescriptions.
Personally, I have found it quite valuable to search and use the enormous amount of healthcare information available for free these days via the internet. The problem is that some of it is excellent, and some of it is ridiculously bad, and it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference. I think I’ve gotten a lot better at sorting the wheat from the chaff, but still there is a lot of good but conflicting information on the web. This is particularly true when it comes to identifying an optimal diet. And that's too bad, because improving our diet may be one of the most important things we can do to improve and maintain our health. Different sources insist on low carbohydrate, or no gluten, or low fat, or no animal-sourced foods, each recommended by a different medical doctor, each doctor with good credentials, and all accompanied by lots of glowing testimonials from real people who got great results.
This lack of uniformity in recommendations causes “information paralysis” in many people, so that they finally give up and go on doing what they’ve always done, which usually is to eat a poor-quality (but tasty) diet and to not exercise any more than they have to. I don’t think all the answers are in yet in the so-called “diet wars,” but if you look at all the recommendations, you find some common threads:
- Eat plenty of fresh vegetables, both raw and cooked. Vegetables, especially the green or highly-colored and low-starch ones, have the highest ratio of micronutrients to calories and are an important part of virtually every expert's diet recommendations.
- Include fresh fruit in your diet, too, but not too much. If you have weight problems or are diabetic, you may do better concentrating on lower-sugar fruits like berries and melons. Fruit should be eaten whole, as grown, and not as juice.
- Eliminate as much processed food as possible. Eat foods as they are grown, in natural, minimally processed form. Sugar, refined grains, and packaged and chemical-laden foods should be avoided.
- Get some daily exercise, but don’t overdo. Include some aerobic exercise that gets you breathing deeply, such as brisk walking. Also do some resistance exercise and stretching. Resistance exercise, such as lifting weights, helps you retain your muscle, which often atrophies in older, inactive people. Stretching, such as yoga, maintains flexibility and helps avoid injuries. Most of important of all, though, is to do these at your own level and to not over-exercise. Trying to walk long distances or jog when you are not ready, lifting weights that are too heavy, or forcing a stretch, all may cause injury and actually delay your progress in the long run.
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