Dementia in Aging Tracked to High Cholesterol

People as young as 40 with borderline or high cholesterol levels are at increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease or vascular dementia when they grow old and feeble

Researchers tracked nearly 10,000 people for four decades, starting when the participants were between 40 and 45. After controlling for weight, hypertension and diabetes, researchers discovered a significant link between borderline-high cholesterol and dementia, according to the study.

Participants in the study who had high cholesterol, or a value of 240 or more, had a 66 percent greater risk of developing dementia later in life. People with borderline-high cholesterol, between 200 and 239, had a 25 percent spike in risk.

Dementia workers and assisted living homes are preparing now for the influx of Boomers to arrive soon! More than 106 million Americans have borderline-high cholesterol levels, according to the American Heart Association. That’s big business for residential care facilities.

The first step to lowering high cholesterol is to use a three-pronged approach of daily exercise, stress reduction and nutrition – or take the easy way and head to the doctor and get a prescription for statin drugs. A diet rich in olive oil, nuts, whole grains, fiber, fresh fruit, vegetables is best. Limit your red meat intake to almost none. Maybe none is better.

Supplements such as plant sterols and red yeast rice are also effective when taken in conjunction with a healthy diet. A recent study showed that red yeast rice decreased the body's production of cholesterol and lowered a person's LDL, or bad, cholesterol by 27 percent over a three-month period.

So if you want to avoid some stranger making wiping your butt and spooning your food in your old age, the time is now to start eating tons of yummy food like red yeast rice, or oat bran, oatmeal and fish oil. hmmm sounds real good huh?.

Click here to find out more about symptoms of dementia.

Boomers Should Attend High School Reunions

Many times as we grow old and grumpy we’re tempted by attempts to reconnect us with our past. And, fearing that they’ll find us old, ugly and uninteresting, we avoid the like the plague. We stay home, carefully wrapped in our cozy warm lives, and tell ourselves we don’t need to see those old friends and acquaintances. But we do, we really do. Let me try and tell you why.

We’re grown up now. What people we knew in high school think of us now doesn’t really matter. We now have the ability to be our grown-up selves amongst them. We don’t need their approval. If they think we’re weird, it doesn’t matter, because chances are, we’re not going to see them again anyway.

High school reunions give you an opportunity to go outside your comfort zone and spend an evening with people who were special, and maybe not so special, in your life during high school. It’s a time to make amends and ask for forgiveness. It’s a time to ask that old high school girlfriend to dance.

That’s right! Get out there and shake your booty! Every woman will dance with you now, not a chance of getting turned down. And if you do get turned down, chances are someone new will ask you to dance. It’s all about opening yourself to your past, to the world, and to new experiences.

Nothing is more fun and liberating than dancing at these events.

Doing the Dirty Dog, the Frug, the Jerk, the Popeye, the Hitchhike -- and all those ancient dances that appeared on Hullabaloo, or American Bandstand. Let yourself go and you’ll be surprised how easy it becomes to overcome all the rigid high school taboos, and liberate yourself. In doing so, you’ll liberate others around you who’ll want to join in on the fun. They may be tied up in the high school rigidity they associate most of the high school attendees with. Seeing you making an ass of yourself will free them – and you’ll have done your good deed.

Every truly good semi-religious high school reunion experience comes with a caveat. Here are a few that have worked for me:

1. Don’t take your spouse. You’ll spend the evening worrying about whether they’re happy or bored, and they’ll pull you away from your main goal of totally connecting with your past – the people, the feelings and the memories.
   

2. Don’t drink too much. This is a chance to be the person you are now while facing the people you knew in your past. If you depend on alcohol you’ll miss out on half of what goes on and that defeats the whole purpose. Limit yourself to one drink, or two.
   

3. Don’t hold any grudges. This is a time for forgiveness, and just as you’d like others to forgive you for mistakes you made in your past, it’s equally important for you to forgive them. If they still hold a grudge against you. Forgive them and move on to better things.
   

4. Don’t rely on being with a group of friends you knew in high school. Staying with your old group is really fun and comfortable. But it’s also really limiting. This event may only last an evening. You’ve got to make the most of the time by allowing yourself to meet as many people as possible. You may and probably won’t ever see them again.
   

So if you have a chance to shake your booty at a high school reunion -- don’t let it go by. Don’t be shy. Take a chance on yourself and experience something outside your comfort zone. You may just have the time of your life.

Hernia Attack!

Son and I had decided to go surfing on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Feeling old and feeble I figured chugging four large cups of green tea would help generate the energy to paddle pass the breakers.

So there we were on the ocean. The water warm and glassy, and the sun heading down. Me in a full wetsuit with four large cups of green tea inside my bladder -- wanting to merge with the sea. Life was good. Sometimes there is nothing better than laying on your board in the ocean, peeing freely in your wetsuit. Feeling warmth radiating from within and held by the confines of a rubber membrane.

Waves came. Large humping shapes appeared on the horizon, blocking the sun and stirring activity and adrenaline. As we positioned for our paddle glides down their long faces we noticed sun shining through the backs of the waves spreading warm light on our boards.

Then there was pain. I had a feeling like my intestines were sliding through my stomach wall. Crap. It felt like a blow-out of an old hernia from childhood.

The next day I can barely walk as it feels like my guts are hanging out, yet nothing shows in the mirror.

What is a hernia? According to http://hernia.com the most common location for hernia is the abdomen. The abdominal wall - a sheet of tough muscle and tendon that runs down from the ribs to the legs at the groins - acts as 'nature's corset to hold your guts in.

If a weakness should open up in that abdominal wall, and all kinds of things can make this happen (in my case peeing and surfing), then the 'corset effect' is lost and your intestines simply push through the 'window' like green tea meeting the ocean. The ensuing bulge, which is often quite visible against the skin, is the hernia.

These 'windows of weakness' commonly occur where there are natural weaknesses in our abdominal wall Examples of these are the canals (inguinal and femoral) which allow passage of vessels down to the scrotum and the legs, respectively. The umbilical area (navel) is another area of natural weakness frequently prone to hernia. Another area of potential weakness can be the site of any previous abdominal surgery. Sounds delightful huh?

So next I’m at the doctor’s office turning my head and coughing while he’s jabbing a finger in my groin to feel for something unusual.

I’ve just received my referral slip for a visit with the surgeon.

For more stupid stories like this one, please visit http://www.boomer-books.com/boomertales.html

To be continued . . . .

Welcome to the boomer-booksblog.

Hopefully you'll find worthwhile posts to help you solve and enjoy the mysteries of aging and enjoying life as you turn the corner past 50.

I'll try and post all the yucky experiences we get to share as we grow ungracefully into what others might refer to as senior citizens. I still can't figure out who that old geezer is in the mirror. He looks scary as hell.