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I knew it.  Eating is bad for you. At least, snakes think so. According to a new study, researchers have found that along with the benefits of eating, there’s a price to pay. This price is oxidative damage—damage caused by an increase in chemically reactive molecules containing oxygen that result in harm to cells and DNA. This harm is severe enough that it’s believed that its accumulation over time contributes to aging. Surprisingly, says Stahlschmidt, this cost of eating has been gravely overlooked. “It seemed like this is a hidden piece of the puzzle that no one had investigated that might be really important, for lots of reasons” Stahlschmidt says at newswise.com. The team worked with the corn snake Pantherophis guttatus, a commonly studied snake that can be fed one mouse every two weeks. Because the corn snake’s digestion and metabolism has been well-studied, the team knew exactly when to draw blood at peak digestion and post-absorption times. This enabled...

What if the way you tasted creme brulee could determine how long you live? Amazingly, a new study has found that, in fruit flies, taste buds appear to help promote a long, healthy life. Of course, we're not fruit flies.  But they actually have a close resemblance to us.  According to the University of North Carolina, fruit flies share 75% of the genes that cause disease in humans." Newswise.com reports that t aste buds "may in fact have a powerful role in a long and healthy life – at least for fruit flies, say two new studies that appear in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  of the United States of America." Researchers from the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland found that suppressing the animal’s ability to taste its food –regardless of how much it actually eats – can significantly increase or decrease its length of life and potentially promote heal...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yes, Kelly Clarkson. Or is it everything that kills me makes me feel alive? Rap Genius. But what if what didn't kill you actually kept you alive?  And living longer? The reality is that it's not the antioxidants that allow us to age more slowly but the toxins.  That's right, toxins. According to newswise.com, "M any people believe that free radicals, the sometimes-toxic molecules produced by our bodies as we process oxygen, are the culprit behind aging. Yet a number of studies in recent years have produced evidence that the opposite may be true." Now a research team has found that  free radicals – also known as oxidants – act on a molecular mechanism that, in other circumstances, tells a cell to kill itself. McGill researchers found that this same mechanism -- which causes cells to die so they don't become cancerous or to kill off viruses that have invaded he cell -- when stimulated in the right way...

At one time, I could do it. Run a 10-minute mile that is.  (Once, in a 5K, I even ran an eight-minute mile!). But today my best is about 11 or 12 minutes, unless I'm running at the gym. Which is bad news, because, according to Gretchen Reynolds at The New York Times, " B ones should be jarred, for their own good. Past experiments have definitively established that subjecting bones to abrupt stress prompts them to add mass or at least reduces their loss of mass as people age." What hasn't been known is just how much force is required.  And the really bad news is that, it's a lot. (I can't help thinking about the resident who told me, when I broke my wrist in December, "If you were younger, you wouldn't have broken it.") Reynolds reports that  research showed that running a 10-minute mile or jumping up onto and down from a box at least 15 inches high was needed to produce forces great enough to rebuild bone. "The significance of these...

I knew it!  I'm not nearing dementia with my inability to remember where my keys are or where I  left my glasses or OMG, I forgot to get Phillip! I just have too much stuff in my brain. Just as toddlers whose parents speak to them a lot tend to talk earlier because of all the words they hear (though I did get some pretty weird looks walking through Lord & Taylor and asking the infant Phillip what I should make for dinner), we folks of a certain age have our heads stuffed with all those words and the billion more of a lifetime. Where is the room in our heads for all those words? The NYT's Benedict Carey postulates that older minds may just be fuller minds. Carey attributes this idea to data mining, of all things.   Based on theories of information processing, researchers in Germany " used advanced learning models to search enormous databases of words and phrases," he writes.  " Since educated older people generally know more words than younger peop...

We all know sleep deprivation  (SD) can lead to fuzzy thinking, traffic accidents, even weight gain.  But did you know scientists are now finding that it can cause us to age, and maybe even develop diabetes and other serious diseases, as well? A new study has looked at how our organs are affected by SD, which sometimes may even lead to Alzheimer's or Parkinson's in the elderly, who often suffer from disrupted sleep.   The findings suggest that " inadequate sleep in the elderly, who normally experience sleep disturbances, could exacerbate an already-impaired protective response to protein misfolding that happens in aging cells," according to newswise.com. Protein misfolding -- a process where proteins get degraded -- and clumping is what is associated with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, along with many other diseases, the Web site reports.  “The combined effect of aging and sleep deprivation resulted in a loss of control of blood sugar reminiscent of pre-...

OK.  So we taught the world about free love and dropping acid and Woodstock.  The Baby Boomers greedily did and bought and changed just about everything in their path in the '60s and '70s. And now we may be getting cancer in a big way, too. A new study says, as people age, a diagnosis of cancer becomes more possible -- some would say probable.  And now the front end of our bragging, boasting, bossy bunch is reaching that age (though I beat them to it when I turned 50!). "As 10,000 baby boomers reach 65 each day, the incidence of cancer is increasing, estimated to increase by 67% between 2010 and 2030," newswise.com reports. Cancer is diagnosed at a higher rate in older adults, accounts for more survivors, and yet, results in more deaths than in younger patients. “The increase in the number of older adults, the association of cancer with aging, the workforce shortage, and the financial stressors across the health care system and family networks all contribute ...

So maybe you're not fat enough to need bariatric surgery . But it gives those who choose it an unfair advantage over the rest of us.  It just may turn back the clock. According to newswise.com, "Stanford University researchers say surgical weight loss may turn back the effects of aging at a genetic level." Scientists measured the length of patients' telomeres.  Telomeres, or chromosome caps, are genetic biomarkers that play an important role in cellular aging and in the development of disease. "As people age or have chronic disease, their telomeres become shorter," the Web site reports.  But bariatric surgery somehow lengthens them. While patients who underwent this surgery saw their bad cholesterol and high levels of inflammation decrease, they also saw their telomeres grow longer. The length of telomeres is significant, because every time they divide, they get shorter. And the shorter they are, the shorter your life may be.  But that doesn’t mean ...

OK.  I admit it.  I dye my hair.  I exercise like a fiend.  I watch my weight and I tell everyone I have a 12-year-old son.  Most people think I'm in my early 50s.  No one would know I'm closing in on 60.  (I can barely believe it myself.) But a new study has found that denying our age -- yes, you, Baby Boomers -- can have psychological repercussions. "The myth exists that individuals can delay aging as they get older, or even evade it all together, by using measures such as diet, exercise, plastic surgery and Botox," newswise.com reports. As we age, we're bombarded with messages that we can feel, look, and live like we did ten, twenty, even thirty years earlier. (I still see a 25-year-old when I look in the mirror.  It's when someone takes a picture of me that I realize, hey, I'm, gulp, old.  Well, older. And it's been quite some time since I haven't been asked if I'm Phillip's grandma. "“Mortality is a given, but there’s an a...

Imagine this.  Video games are good for something.  A new study says, aging's effects on the brain. According to Brenda Goodman at webmd.com, it's not just any video game, it's a specially designed video game that may help "sharpen mental skills that fade with age, a new study shows." The game, called NeuroRacer, requires players to multitask, or juggle several things that require attention at the same time. (Should we count out men?  Sorry, guys!) "People had to keep a car centered in its lane and moving at a certain speed while they also tried to quickly and correctly identify signs that flashed onto the screen, distracting them from their driving," as Goodman describes the game. She notes that other studies have found that the ability to multitask degrades with age (my husband hasn't been able to tie his sneakers and shut the door at the same time since his 30s!).  But seniors who regularly played NeuroRacer kept up, and could even o...

According to a new study , researchers have identified the mechanism "by which a specific protein operates in the brain to bring about a significant delay in aging and an increase in longevity." But if you don't have the protein?  Both have also been associated with a low-calorie diet, newswise.com reports today. And we're not just learning this now.  The Web site notes that it was Japanese philosopher and scientist Ekiken Kaibara who first described the concept of dietary control as a method to achieve good health and longevity all the way back in 1713. He died the following year at age 84—a long life for someone in the 18th century. Since then, science has proven a link between a low-calorie diet and longevity in a variety of animal models, newswise.com explains. In the new study, researchers showed how this protein "prompts neural activity in specific areas of the hypothalamus of the brain, which triggers dramatic physical changes in skeletal muscle and ...

It's not something I like to think about, even though my father needs one.  But as we Baby Boomers age, there's going to be a growing shortage of caregivers , according to Tara Bahrampour of The Washington Post. And let's face it, much as we do everything we can to retard the activity of Father Time, it's coming for all of us, if we're lucky. "Americans should expect an enormous shortage in caregivers for older people in the coming decades, with a dearth of friends and family members available to care for the baby-boom generation as it ages, according to a report released Monday by AARP," Bahrampour writes. She points out that, by 2030, there will be only four potential caregivers available for each person 80 or older, down from a high of more than seven in 2010. By 2050, when boomers are between 86 and 104, the ratio will drop below 3 to 1. Currently, about 14 percent of potential caregivers — defined as people 45 to 64 — provide care for someone 80...

Forget everything you've heard about sleep.  Eight hours a night helps you fight bugs and viruses.  It will help you lose weight. It can be affected by snoring. But now, in addition to how much you sleep, the quality of your sleep is even more important.  A new study has found how well you sleep can affect your skin "function," and aging. According to a story at newswise.com, the study found that "poor sleepers had increased signs of skin aging and slower recovery from a variety of environmental stressors, such as disruption of the skin barrier or ultraviolet (UV) radiation." Now when I tell you who commissioned the study, you might have a few reservations.  It was Estee Lauder. But you ignore the conclusions at your own risk.  "Our study is the first to conclusively demonstrate that inadequate sleep is correlated with reduced skin health and accelerates skin aging," newswise.com quotes Elma Baron, MD, director of the Skin Study Center at UH C...

Here's something that may shock you.  According to a story at The Atlantic, stars and athletes you see all the time commanding seven-figure salaries may not live as long as you. Lindsay Abrams reports that "people who are famous and successful have shorter lives."  A 2001 study found that Academy Award winners live longer than less famous actors, but a 2009 study discovered that people who were both successful and famous died younger than the rest of us. How did they obtain this information?  By studying who gets an obit in The New York Times, according to Abrams. True, famous people didn't die all that young, at a little over 77 years, but famous people in business lived to 83, higher than the national average of a bit past 78 years. " Philanthropists, academics, and doctors were more likely than others to die of 'old age,' a diagnosis that occurred least often for performers, athletes, and creatives," Abrams notes. Why?  Those who are famou...

Years ago I had a tall, skinny boss who refused to sit at a desk. Instead, he had a desk he could stand at and he conducted all his work -- including meetings -- standing up.  Now I know why.  Apparently too much sitting (for more than four hours at a time, watching TV, working at a computer or just about for any reason) will shave a year off your life.  No joke. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/work-standing-up-lose-weight/9853?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660

Live till 100?  If you're a man, maybe not so much. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/will-you-live-past-100/7778?tag=nl.e660&s_cid=e660