Healthy aging and longevity Archive

Find one with a comfortable deck, a strong motor, and features you'll really use.

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If you believe that regular walking, jogging, or running provides enormous health benefits — as you know we do — there are two good reasons to consider a home treadmill, according to Dr. Aaron Baggish, associate director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. First, exercise outdoors can be challenging and even dangerous in bad weather. Second, if the inconvenience and time required to go to a mall or indoor track keeps you from exercising, being able to do it at home makes it much easier. If you have any balance, heart, or lung problems, make sure your doctor clears you for a home treadmill.

Treadmill shopping

Dr. Baggish recommends avoiding nonmotorized treadmills and opting for a motorized model. "You can get a good starter model for about $1,000, but it's easy to exceed that if you want all the bells and whistles," Dr. Baggish says. Before you make the investment, do a little homework first.

For the best results and for your safety, learn what those new pills do and how you should use them.

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Medications play a crucial role in helping us get better or manage chronic disease. But don't sit silently when your doctor prescribes something new. Ask questions about the drug and bring unanswered questions to your pharmacist. "The doctor may not have the time to explain everything that's important, like whether to take a medicine on an empty stomach," says Joanne Doyle Petrongolo, a pharmacist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

The next time your doctor suggests that you take a new pill, jot down answers to the following questions.

News briefs

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Health guidelines advise all of us to spend at least two-and-a-half hours per week in moderate-intensity activity. For many people, that means walking, which requires no special equipment or training. But even if you can't rack up those 150 minutes, establishing a regular walking routine might extend your life, suggests a study published online Oct. 19, 2017, by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Researchers looked at data on nearly 140,000 adults (average age about 70) who answered questionnaires about their exercise habits over 13 years. People who were inactive were 26% more likely to die during the study period compared with people who did some walking (up to two hours per week) as their only form of activity. And people who walked more — at least two hours per week — lowered their risk even more. The study is observational and doesn't prove that walking kept people alive longer during the study. However, we know that walking is associated with a lower risk for developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. If you don't want to walk in cold weather, try walking at a mall or an indoor track at a YMCA, or use a home treadmill.

Research we're watching

Sleeping either too little or too much has been linked to a higher risk of heart disease. But how much do other interconnected factors — namely, activity levels and body weight — affect this observation?

In an effort to find out, researchers studied nearly 240,000 healthy adults ages 51 to 72 who were part of a nationwide health study. The investigators examined the influence of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, television viewing, and body mass index on sleep duration and death rates.

In the journals

People who take prescription drugs do not always know about side effects that could increase their risk of driving accidents, suggests a study published online Oct. 31, 2017, by the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Researchers asked 7,405 drivers about their prescription drug use. Nearly 20% used medication that could affect their driving skills — for example, by causing drowsiness or impairing cognitive or motor function — yet almost all were unaware of these potential side effects. Either they did not receive or remember a warning from their doctor or pharmacist, or they did not recognize or recall a warning on the drug label.

Being vigilant about what you're taking can reduce your risk of a harmful drug reaction.

There's an old expression that the cure is sometimes worse than the disease. That rings true when it comes to a common problem in health care — medication errors.

Medication mix-ups and mistakes sometimes lead to harmful drug reactions, which cause about 700,000 emergency department visits and 100,000 hospital admissions each year, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Ask the doctors

Q. My partner says I snore at night. Does this mean I have sleep apnea?

A. If you snore at night, you're in good company. Some 90 million Americans have the same problem, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association. And luckily, not all of them have sleep apnea. Snoring is typically caused by a narrowing of your upper airway. Tissues in the back of your throat sometimes relax in your sleep and drop down, partially blocking the passageway. Air from your breathing rattles the tissue, creating that distinctive noise as it flows past.

Ask the doctors

Q. What's the best time of day to exercise to get the most benefit?

A. Some people swear by morning workouts, because they squeeze them in before a busy schedule can derail their efforts. Morning exercise sessions may also help them move into their day feeling energized. But others dread the idea of dragging themselves out of bed early to hit the treadmill. Instead, they save their workout until the end of the day, when they feel more limber and can unwind.

Keeping active in the winter months is crucial for wellness.

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Workouts often fall by the wayside in winter. It's cold and snowy, and if you're like a lot of women, all you want to do is curl up under a blanket with a cup of hot tea and snack on some leftover holiday cookies.

"Based on my experience with clients, it seems like people go into hibernation mode from Thanksgiving until March," says Dr. Beth Frates, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School and director of wellness programming for the Stroke Research and Recovery Institute at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

Research we're watching

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A new test might help doctors better treat patients with urinary tract infections, according to a study published in the Oct. 4, 2017, issue of Science Translational Medicine. These infections prompt some eight million doctor visits each year, and doctors often prescribe antibiotics to treat the condition. However, sometimes the bacteria they are attempting to treat are resistant to first-line antibiotics. The delay caused by the ineffective medication can, in some cases, cause the patient's condition to worsen and lead to complications. To eliminate this antibiotic guesswork, researchers developed a new quick-acting antimicrobial susceptibility test that not only tells the doctor within 30 minutes whether the patient has a urinary tract infection, but also what type of bacteria caused it and what drugs will best treat it. The test can also quickly identify cases where antibiotics aren't needed at all, preventing overuse of antibiotics, which can promote resistance. The same type of rapid testing, might eventually be of use in identifying the best anti-biotics for other types of bacterial infections as well.