Hyvin
A Natural Health and Wellness Blog

Hyvin will be on break for the holidays. Best wishes for a blessed Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year!!

Dr. Stephanie Studenski, a member of the American Geriatrics Society who helped organize a recent conference on “cognitive vitality”, opines that building your brain early in life may also protect against age-related cognitive decline. That building process comes through exercise of mind and body and a healthy lifestyle. Specifically, Dr. Studenski mentions exercise, getting enough sleep, eliminating stress, socializing, thinking challenges for your brain, and nutrition, including B Vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids and a multi-vitamin. Also, a diet low in saturated fat and rich in fruits and veggies. You can read more detail about her “tips for keeping the aging mind sharp” in this Reuters Health report.

The author of a recent study in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that “efforts are needed to balance the dietary choices and social messages” sent by locating fast food restaurants in children’s hospitals. Oh, yeah.

Many hospitals, including children’s hospitals, house fast food outlets. The Reuters Health report on this study highlighted the belief that this encourages people “to view the fare as healthier than it probably is”. And with fast food being linked to the growing childhood obesity epidemic, it becomes one of those things that should make us step back and say “what’s wrong with this picture?”. Does the picture seem fuzzy, though, due to the fact that McDonalds, the main children’s hospital fast food vendor, provides financial support to some of the hospitals?

I’m glad to see this phenomenon being studied and reported. What does it take to move from this to action, I wonder?

What does affect our health as we age?

In short, graceful aging varies by genetics, diet, and lifestyle.

We typically think that aging is about 80% dependent on genetics. So there isn’t much we can do about it, right?

Well, the exact opposite is now understood to be the reality. From various sources, I’ve estimated that the concensus is more like genetics making up about 20% of how gracefully we age, and the other 80% of our long term health being a function of diet and lifestyle!

And even our diet and lifestyle as a child can affect that aging process decades later! (If you’re interested in resources for starting a child’s health down the right path, click here)

And if you’re already in the aging cycle of life, this recently published statement from the Journal of the American Medical Association is especially important:

People over the age of 60 absorb certain vitamins and minerals better from a supplement than from food.

Those diet and lifestyle pieces of the aging equation have to include a multi-vitamin/mineral. For one particularly designed for those fifty and older, click here.

I just saw the news report that New York City has banned the use of trans fats in its restaurants! Wow – that is huge!! Apparently, a number of chains have already been experimenting with alternative oil sources. Maybe if the New York City fast food places have to use non-trans fats, the other fast food retailers around the country will follow their lead. I’d certainly like to see healthier fast food options! The move is applauded by most health groups (trans fats being linked to heart disease).