Wise Words That Prove Getting Older Is A Good Thing

Grandparents often offer us important insight into living well and aging gracefully -- all while loving us unconditionally. The wisdom we can gather from those who are older than us is invaluable. Who better to give us advice than those who are scientifically happier? In honor of Grandparents Day this Sunday, Sept. 8, enjoy a few of our favorite quotes on the beauty of aging. What are some of the important lessons you've learned from the older and wiser?

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8 Things Your City Should Be Doing To Help You Age Well

It felt like a bad joke — worse than the one about the chicken. Whenever Ed Aarons tried to cross the road in his New York City neighborhood, he never quite made it to the other side.

As soon as the crosswalk signal said go, the 83-year-old moved quickly. "I trained myself to rush across, to give myself a certain allotted time to make it across," he said. "And I never did it." By the time he made it to the middle, the light would change, the cars would fly, and there Aarons stood in the median — "trapped," he said.

But that was several years ago, before New York — a place famous for its youthful buzz — paused momentarily to come to grips with the fact that its population is growing older. Today roughly 11 percent of the city's 8 million people are over the age of 60. By 2030 it will be closer to 20 percent.

It's not just a New York phenomenon. Pick almost any spot in the world, and the trend's much the same. The graying of the global population is "one of the most significant historic shifts in the history of the world," said Dr. Linda Fried, dean of the School of Public Health at Columbia University. "And we're not planning enough. In fact, we're barely planning."

Barely, but there is progress. These days roughly 100 redesigned intersections mean that Ed Aarons has a few more seconds when he's trying to cross some of the city's streets. The initiative has spent millions on erecting new benches for resting and acquiring more buses for getting around. There are even more recreational and educational courses to help seniors exercise or learn a new skill, like how to use an iPad.

It's thanks in large part to a group called Age-Friendly New York City, created in 2009, when the Office of the Mayor, the New York City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine realized that the city was vastly underprepared for a future — and a very near one, at that — when there will be more elderly adults in the city than school-age children.

The group's efforts aim to make the Big Apple not only more accessible for elderly New Yorkers but to make it more aware of its vast and largely under-utilized potential as customers, volunteers, employees and students.

Doing so, Fried said, would mean more opportunities for everyone. "The 'dirty little secret' on this planet," she told Hari Sreenivasan of PBS NewsHour, "is that anything you design that will facilitate access, engagement, safety, enjoyment and participation by older people turns out to be good for all age groups. So you are not designing just for one age group, but you are insuring the engagement and contributions of all age groups by doing that."

In New York, organizers say much remains to be done. No. 1: Making the notoriously expensive city more affordable for seniors. "How expensive it is to be housed in New York is a challenge," according to Ruth Finkelstein, who leads the group's private-sector efforts.

Following is Age-Friendly New York City's checklist of 8 steps every city should be taking to help its residents age with dignity, mobility and independence.

1. Tap into the expertise of older adults. To build a successful age-friendly city, consultations with older adults are imperative. Older adults are the experts on their own needs and the talents and skills of older adults are assets for your city.

2. Engage multiple sectors. Government cannot do it alone. Encourage public and private partners from multiple sectors to take part in the effort to be more inclusive of older adults, both as a business opportunity and a moral imperative. Museums, theaters, grocery stores, banks, pharmacies, churches and block associations can all be leaders in creating age-friendly cities.

3. Recognize older adults as contributors to the economy. Older adults are consumers, workers and entrepreneurs. Educate businesses about older adult consumer needs. Support employers in recognizing the value of older employees and educate managers in how to create age-friendly work environments. (See this Age Smart Employer Compendium for a guide to age-friendly workplace practices.) And enhance opportunities to better serve older entrepreneurs.

4. Insure that older adults know about existing opportunities and resources. Expand and more widely publicize college and university offerings for older adults to meet the high demand for job training, technology classes and lifelong learning opportunities. Work with public libraries and cultural institutions to create programming that is inclusive, affordable and accessible.

5. Adopt an "age-in-everything" approach to planning. Redesign street intersections with the safety of older adults in mind. Focus on areas near shops and services and on areas with high rates of pedestrian injuries. Add public seating on streets in accordance with location recommendations from older adults. In addition, insure that all municipal emergency plans appropriately address the needs of older adults, who are often disproportionately affected.

6. Advocate for improvements in public transportation. People over 65 make up 54 percent of those who use public transit. Focus on making transportation affordable, accessible and welcoming to older passengers. Good lighting, clear signage and courteous drivers can be just as important as having an appropriate infrastructure in place.

7. Increase accessibility to opportunities that promote health and socialization. Expand efforts to make parks, walking trails, swimming pools, beaches, recreation centers and public events accessible and welcoming to older adults. Offer fitness and recreational programming designed for and of interest to older people. Assure that disease prevention programs are culturally and geographically adapted to better include older people. Chronic-disease prevention in older adults can improve health and reduce health care costs.

8. Work toward affordable, supportive housing solutions. Age-friendly initiatives include offering tax incentives for new affordable senior or mixed-age housing developments, welcoming HUD Section 202 housing, introducing home-share programs, implementing floor captains in high- rise buildings, creating housing that supports grandparents raising grandchildren and adding supportive services to existing housing with high concentrations of older adults. Consider bringing Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) and Aging Improvement Districts to your neighborhood. This toolkit from Age-Friendly New York City can get you started.

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High Blood Pressure In Childhood Could Signal Future Risk

High blood pressure in childhood could triple the risk of developing the condition in adulthood, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine found that 18 percent of adults with high blood pressure also had at least one high blood pressure reading when they were children. Meanwhile, just 8.6 percent of adults with high blood pressure didn't have it as children.

"This study highlights the need for pediatricians to regularly check blood pressure and weight," study researcher Wanzhu Tu, Ph.D., a professor of biostatistics at the university, said in a statement. "An occasional increase in blood pressure does not justify treatment, but it does justify following these children more carefully."

High blood pressure is a known risk factor for heart disease, heart attack and stroke.

The study, presented at the American Heart Association High Blood Pressure Research Scientific Sessions this year, is based on data from 1,117 adolescents in Indianapolis who were followed for 27 years. All the participants had their blood pressure taken during doctor office visits or by a school nurse.

By the end of the study period, when the participants had become adults, 119 had high blood pressure.

Researchers also found links between weight and high blood pressure in adulthood: 59 percent of those with high blood pressure in adulthood were obese or overweight in childhood.

The new findings are especially important, considering high blood pressure is actually increasing among U.S. kids. A recent study in the journal Hypertension showed that between 1999 and 2008, 19.2 percent of kids ages 8 to 17 in the U.S. had high blood pressure. That's an increase from the 1998-to-1994 time period, when 15.8 percent of kids in that age group had hypertension.

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Healthy Lifestyle Changes Could Lengthen Your Telomeres

Eat whole foods. Exercise. Meditate. Rely on supportive family and friends. All of these things have been linked, whether independently or together, with better health. And now, a new study shows it's never too late to start reaping the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

The study, published in the journal The Lancet Oncology, shows that healthy lifestyle changes can have an impact on aging and age-related diseases on a cellular level, by increasing the length of telomeres. Telomeres are the "caps" that protect the ends of chromosomes, similar to how shoelaces have plastic caps to stop them from fraying.

Shorter telomeres have been linked in previous research with cell aging and increased risks of age-related diseases like cancer and dementia, as well as premature death.

"We know from earlier studies that eating an unhealthy diet, smoking cigarettes, being under chronic emotional stress, loneliness and depression may shorten telomeres. But this is the first one we can actually increase the length of them," study researcher Dean Ornish, M.D., told HuffPost. Ornish is the founder and president of the Preventive Medical Research Institute, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and medical editor at HuffPost. He's also conducted extensive research throughout his career evaluating the effects of lifestyle changes on coronary heart disease.

For the study, Ornish and colleagues assigned 35 men with low-risk prostate cancer, who were not being treated for their cancers but were undergoing active surveillance, to one of two groups. One group of 10 men was instructed to make lifestyle changes -- including eating a plant-based, vegan diet of whole foods, exercising moderately, receiving social support, and practicing stress-management strategies such as mindfulness and yoga -- for five years, while the other group of 25 men was not instructed to make any lifestyle changes. All of the study participants' telomeres were measured at the start of the study.

Researchers followed up with the men after the study period, when they again measured their telomeres. They found that telomere length actually increased among the men who were assigned to undergo the lifestyle intervention, by an average of 10 percent. Meanwhile, telomere length decreased by an average of 3 percent among the men not assigned to a lifestyle intervention.

They also found that the amount telomeres lengthened was linked with the degree to which the men implemented the healthy lifestyle changes, with those making more changes experiencing greater lengthening of their telomeres.

Telomere research is still young, and more research is needed to understand what exactly a 10 percent average increase in telomere length translates to in terms of disease and death risk. But the findings do tell us that "our genes are predisposition, but not our fate," Ornish said. "To the extent we're wiling to make changes to diet and lifestyle, we can change things that were once thought to be impossible."

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Does Cracking Your Knuckles Cause Arthritis

There is no compelling scientific evidence that cracking your knuckles causes arthritis. But a long-standing habit could affect joint function down the road.

A joint is the point at which two (or more) bones meet. Ligaments connect the bones to one another, and a joint capsule surrounds the whole thing. It is filled with a natural lubricant called synovial fluid that helps the joint move smoothly. When you make the motion to crack your knuckles, the joint is pulled apart, expanding the capsule. This decreases the pressure inside the capsule, forcing gasses dissolved in the synovial fluid to release into the space to equalize it. That rush of gas causes the pop! sound -- so satisfying to you, so annoying to everyone else in the room. It's like popping the top on a can of soda.

It takes about 30 minutes for the carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen to dissolve back into the synovial fluid. That's why you have to wait a while before you can get a second pop.

Cracking your knuckles feels good because it stretches the joint and stimulates the nerve endings found there. Can it be dangerous? Well, while it's unlikely that knuckle cracking can do the cartilage damage that leads to arthritis, it can lead to instability in the joint and loss of grip strength and hand function.

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An Awesome Massage

Between talking, texting, typing, and cross-training, life can really take a toll on your body. It’s no wonder that prescription pain medication sales have jumped 90 percent since 1997, according to an Associated Press investigation. That’s a lot of pills, especially when massage can be just as effective in some cases, and almost free. Whether it’s your head, shoulders, knees, or feet that need attention, there’s an easy massage you can give yourself, no expensive medical required.

Trouble Spot: Your hands

The Solution: A wrist workout

Sitting at a desk all day long can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, irritation of a nerve in your wrist and fingers, but this series of exercises, ideally done every hour, can prevent pain from creeping into your day.

1. Hold your left hand up, palm facing outward. Using your right hand, pull the fingers back toward your wrist until you feel a stretch, and hold that position for 5 seconds. Repeat the stretch on your right hand.

2. Press the palms of your hands together at chest height. Lower them towards your lap until you feel the stretch in your wrists. Hold for 5 seconds.

3. Spread your fingers wide for 5 seconds.

4. On your left hand, gently pull the thumb back toward your wrist until you feel the stretch. Hold it for 5 seconds, and then repeat the move on your right hand.

5. Curl your fingers into a fist: Start with your pinky finger, and gradually fold the remaining four fingers into a fist. Then curl your wrists inward until you feel the stretch, and hold it for 5 seconds.

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Talk About Pain Killer

Pain relievers are medicines that reduce or relieve headaches, sore muscles, arthritis or any number of other aches and pains. There are many different pain medicines, and each one has advantages and risks. Some types of pain respond better to certain medicines than others. Each person may also have a slightly different response to a pain reliever.

Over-the-counter (OTC) medicines are good for many types of pain. There are two main types of OTC pain medications: acetaminophen (Tylenol) and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Aspirin, naproxen (Aleve) and ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) are examples of OTC NSAIDs. If OTC medicines don't relieve your pain, your doctor may prescribe something stronger. Many NSAIDs are available at prescription doses. The most powerful pain relievers are narcotics. They are very effective, but they can sometimes have serious side effects.
Because of the risks, you must use them only under a doctor's supervision.

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