Lunch at the Labs

Healthy Aging

Some recent items about staying healthy while getting older.

• How much physical activity do older adults need?

  Physical Activity is Essential to Healthy Aging.

  Adults aged 65 and older need:
  • At least 150 minutes a week (for example, 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week) of moderate intensity activity such as brisk walking. Or they need 75 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity activity such as hiking, jogging, or running.
  • At least 2 days a week of activities that strengthen muscles.
  • Activities to improve balance such as standing on one foot about 3 days a week.

  And related see: Trends in Nonfatal Falls and Fall-Related Injuries Among Adults Aged ≥65 Years — United States, 2012–2018.

• When Thinner Isn't Better

  Extra pounds may keep some people healthier after a certain age.

  "The BMI curve shifts to the right as you age,” Nicklas explains, “meaning higher weight is better in older age.” Those extra pounds buffer against unintended weight loss due to digestive system conditions (or things like dental issues) that prevent people from eating enough. They can also offer protection from heart failure or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). And extra padding can help prevent life-threatening fractures if an older old person falls.

  What's more, “if you're really thin, then you lose weight in your 80s, you are at risk of becoming frail,” says David Reuben, a specialist in geriatric internal medicine at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif. (Frailty is a clinical syndrome in which three or more of the following criteria are present: unintentional weight loss of 10 pounds in a year; self-reported exhaustion; weakness; slow walking speed; and low physical activity). If you're over 80 and have a BMI below 20, Reuben says, you're in the frailty zone.

• Single brain scan can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease

  A single MRI scan of the brain could be enough to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, according to new research by Imperial College London.

  The research uses machine learning technology to look at structural features within the brain, including in regions not previously associated with Alzheimer’s. The advantage of the technique is its simplicity and the fact that it can identify the disease at an early stage when it can be very difficult to diagnose.

• Oncology's Darwinian Dilemma

  But the rub is that this immunotherapy revolution applies only to a narrow set of patients. Some benefit, but the majority do not. And patients who are cured constitute an even smaller minority. Why is this? How can immunotherapy cure a 65-year-old, newly retired man of Stage IV lung cancer, restoring the promise of his golden years with his family, but do nothing for the 55-year-old woman whose cancer robs her of decades of life? We do not know. A flurry of research is aimed at trying to answer this question. And what it is uncovering is the sheer variety of lung cancer and lung cancer patients. No two patients with lung cancer are the same. Their tumors have different genetic mutations. Their immune systems behave differently. We are even learning that their metabolisms can affect responses to treatment. And, astonishingly, emerging evidence suggests that the billions of bacteria that colonize their skin, lungs, and colons play a role in how they respond to cancer treatment.
  ...
  Variation may be liberating: it can provide hope to patients and families. But that hope could very well be purchased at the cost of undue suffering: the same uncertainty that carries the promise of a cure carries the possibility of suffering.