Healthy aging and longevity Archive

Your doctor will make the call, but you can stay informed about the hospital you're admitted to through patient reviews, independent rankings, and satisfaction surveys.

Repeated nocturnal bathroom calls are bothersome, but self-help steps and targeted treatment offer relief.

With aging, the body and mind change—but it's not all bad.

Aging brings physical changes and a greater risk of health problems—no one needs to tell you that. The mind changes too, and we grumble about things like increased forgetfulness. But the aging mind bestows some gifts, too.

Do the long hours in the hospital, often with little sleep, make doctors in training more prone to making mistakes? Over the past decade, concerns regarding trainee doctors’ sleep loss and the potential for medical errors have brought about limits on the number of consecutive hours a resident can work in the hospital. Do the same concerns apply to fully licensed surgeons? A recent study in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the answer is no. Comparing the data on patients whose surgeons were on call the night before with that of patients whose surgeons were not working the night before showed virtually no difference in how well the patients did after surgery. It is not clear, however, whether these doctors anticipated the effects of being on call and compensated for them, or whether these results would be the same for less-experienced surgeons-in-training.

Caring for an aging parent or a loved one who is ill or disabled is often deeply rewarding. But it can also consume a lot of time, as well as physical and emotional energy. You may feel overwhelmed by myriad responsibilities — home, work, other family needs, and caregiving. But it's just as important to care for yourself before you burn out. Try our five tips below to help rejuvenate yourself.

1. Recruit help: You don't have to "do it all" yourself. In fact, it's best to have more than one person involved in caregiving. Whether it's accompanying your loved one to appointments, helping with housework, or cooking dinner one night a week, ask other family members to lend a hand. And if someone asks if he or she can pitch in, don't be afraid to say yes!

Dog lovers know how much warmth and comfort their canine companions add to their lives. But they might not know that a growing body of evidence suggests that having a dog may help improve heart health.

Pet ownership, especially having a dog, is probably associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. This does not mean that there is a clear cause and effect relationship between the two. But it does mean that pet ownership can be a reasonable part of an overall strategy to lower the risk of heart disease.

When you are caring for someone who is ill, elderly, or disabled, it's important to consider how you'll handle those times when you can't be with your loved one in person. Thankfully, today's technology offers options that can help you keep track of your loved one's safety and well-being.

Most people are familiar with the emergency response system known as Lifeline. Experts call devices and systems like Lifeline "telecare." But there's much more to telecare than emergency assistance. Today, there are a multitude of telecare devices that can help you stay informed of your loved one's activities and needs in real time.

Atrial fibrillation (AF)—in which the upper chambers of the heart contract weakly and rapidly—is associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart failure. Although exercise has been suggested as a preventive strategy, there aren't enough data to indicate whether it prevents AF in women.

To shed more light on the topic, Swedish researchers in 1997 asked about 40,000 women over 50 how much time they had spent exercising throughout their lives. The researchers then tracked the women for 12 years and noted that 2,915 (about 7%) had developed AF. They found that the risk of AF fell steadily with increasing activity. The women who exercised the most—more than four hours a week—were 15% less likely to have developed AF than those who exercised the least (less than one hour a week). Those who walked or biked 40 minutes or more a day had a 20% lower risk than those who rarely did either. The results were reported online by the British journal Heart on May 27, 2015.

Ask the doctor

Q. My wife and I are planning a trip to Europe and we are dreading the jet lag, which hits both of us hard. Is there any evidence that melatonin really helps? Are there any prescription drugs we could ask our doctor about?

A. Jet lag refers to fatigue or a disturbed sleep pattern after travel across multiple time zones. Some small studies have suggested that melatonin is helpful for jet lag if taken a few days before and after travel. Melatonin is a natural substance released by our brain to help with our circadian (day/night) rhythm. This rhythm is disturbed with travel across three or more time zones.

Most men can get the water they need from their usual diet and by drinking when they are thirsty.

Especially in hot weather, we are urged to drink adequate fluids and be on guard for dehydration. That may be why you see people toting bottled water everywhere, propelled by the myth that you need to drink eight glasses of water a day to be healthy.