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Jimi's Daily Health Articles

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
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Jim,

This morning, CBS Sunday Morning ran an article focusing on rising suicide rates and suicide prevention (I promise this will relate to vaping). One of the key points made in the article was all about just how far a simple gesture can go toward preventing tragedy; like asking if someone is okay or acknowledging the pain they might be feeling. We may often take for granted these tiny moments of outreach, but for those on the receiving end of compassion and concern these interactions can literally be the difference between life and death. I immediately made the connection between the significance of these brief connections that can prevent suicied and similar maybe even smaller moments that we experience in vape shops every day.

As many state legislatures begin their 2020 session this month, we are seeing an all-out assault on access to the diverse range of flavored vapor products. These policy assaults directly affect our access to vape shops too. Specifically, we are tracking at least 50 bills across 18 states that would prohibit the sale of vapor products in flavors other than tobacco and menthol (a few states are going as far as banning menthol too). A flavor ban doesn’t just make it more difficult for people to switch to vaping, it means that dedicated vapor retailers will be forced out of business. Shutting down vape shops is a direct assault on our community and the informal support system that we have built.

When CASAA issues a call to action, we provide suggested talking points to help our members make personalized and compelling arguments to officials. While we can’t tell you word-for-word what to write, I believe that one of the most compelling (but underrated) points is the free support that many of us have experienced by talking with other customers in a vape shop. Even if it’s something as simple as hearing “you can do this and I’m happy to share what worked for me.” If we lose the vape shop, we lose this peer-to-peer support.

New York, Washington, Florida, and New Hampshire are at the top of the list this weekend for states needing engagement from advocates. In your comments to officials, please take a moment to recount any experiences you’ve had in your local vape shop (or even in online forums and Facebook) where you received or provided support from a fellow vaper/someone who used to smoke. Our lawmakers still need to hear that vaping is a harm reduction movement driven by the PEOPLE who benefit from these products the most: Consumers.


Stay Safer,
Alex Clark
CEO CASAA

P.S., Do you have your CASAA I Vape, I Vote State Shirt yet? Check out our New Store!


@CASAAmedia (twitter) | CASAAmedia (Facebook) | casaamedia (Instagram)
Related:
Take Action:

Highlights: (Jan. 8) (Jan. 9) (Jan. 16)

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Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Good Genes Are Nice But LOVE Is Better
Ever since the unravelling of the human genome, the mechanistic scientists have had a field day proclaiming we are just a bunch of “stuff”, made from an accidental molecule called DNA.

It’s all genes is their cry.

In fact it’s now proven that genes have very little to do with anything. They switch on and off so much, you could say we control them, rather than they control us. I sent a case of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (a genetic disorder, supposedly) into complete reversal just by changing his diet! The boy could not climb stairs when he came to me (characteristically, the patient has to go upstairs on their butt, using hands and arms for movement).

Within a month he was jogging alongside his friend’s bicycle and had climbed the Walter Scott monument in the High Street of Edinburgh (287 steps) and got a certificate to prove it!

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The Scott Monument in Edinburgh, Scotland

But the hardcore mechanistic scientists are not going to be blinded by mere facts. They have a wife and dogma to support!!

How long you will live is not controlled by your genes. The clearest illustration of this is the case of Walter Breuner, who lived to be 114, yet his parents both died in their 50s! Walter looked a bit like a prune but he was very together mentally, right till the end:

World's Oldest Man

The thing is—and it’s obvious—genes do not really control our health. They want to get rid of heart disease by re-engineering genes (gene “editing” as it’s called). But diet and lifestyle will lower your risk by more than half. If you have “good heart” genes and eat crap, you’ll die! So where should you put your attention, diet and lifestyle, or genes?

It’s really a no brainer.

There is one PROVEN factor that is w-a-a-y-y more important than genes and that’s what I am reporting on today. I’m talking about love and happiness.

Loneliness is a killer. People who don’t have others to share and love them and get them over the sticky patches in life die younger. The risk is about the same as obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

One of the most significant health studies ever is the so-called Harvard Study of Adult Development. It began tracking the health of 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 during the Great Depression and continues, even today, with the children of these men.

Of the original Harvard cohort recruited for the study, only 19 are still alive, all in their mid-90s. Incidentally, President John F. Kennedy was one of them. (Women weren’t in the original study because the College was then all male.)

By 2017, scientists had expanded their research to include the men’s offspring, who now number 1,300 and are in their 50s and 60s, to find out how early-life experiences affect health and aging over time. Some participants went on to become successful businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and others ended up as schizophrenics or alcoholics.

So going to Harvard is not an automatic ticket to wealth and happiness!

Over the years, researchers have studied the participants’ health trajectories and their broader lives, including their triumphs and failures in careers and marriage, and the finding have produced startling lessons, and not only for the researchers.

“The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” said Robert Waldinger, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and the present director of the study. “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.”

What Is The Real Secret Of Happiness And Health?

Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life’s mishaps, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants.

Researchers who have pored through data, including vast medical records and hundreds of in-person interviews and questionnaires, found a strong correlation between men’s flourishing lives and their relationships with family, friends, and community. Several studies found that people’s level of satisfaction with their relationships at age 50 was a better predictor of physical health than their cholesterol levels were.

The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.

The researchers also found that marital satisfaction has a protective effect on people’s mental health. Part of a study found that people who had happy marriages in their 80s reported that their moods didn’t suffer even on the days when they had more physical pain. Those who had unhappy marriages felt both more emotional and physical pain.

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Those who kept warm relationships got to live longer and happier, said Waldinger, and the loners often died earlier. “Loneliness kills,” he said. “It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.”

Researchers also found that those with strong social support experienced less mental deterioration as they aged.“

When we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” said Waldinger in a popular TED Talk. “It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”

In part of a recent study, researchers found that women who felt securely attached to their partners were less depressed and more happy in their relationships two-and-a-half years later, and also had better memory functions than those with frequent marital conflicts.

In other words, good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains. Moreover those good relationships don’t have to be smooth all the time. Some octogenarian couples could bicker with each other from time to time but as long as they felt that they could really count on the other when the going got tough, those quarrels didn’t take a toll.

(I have written elsewhere that a relationship that never has any storms is more of a graveyard of love than a happy relationship).

The Shifting History Of Issues

Under the first director, Clark Heath, who stayed from 1938 until 1954, the study mirrored the era’s dominant view of genetics and biological determinism. Early researchers believed that physical constitution, intellectual ability, and personality traits determined adult development. They made detailed anthropometric measurements of skulls, brow bridges, and moles, wrote in-depth notes on the functioning of major organs, examined brain activity through electroencephalograms, and even analyzed the men’s handwriting.

Sounds a bit like the ethnic “research” the Nazis were doing!

These days, researchers draw blood for DNA testing and put them into MRI scanners to examine organs and tissues in their bodies, procedures that would have sounded like science fiction back in 1938. In that sense, the study itself represents a history of the changes that life brings.

Psychiatrist George Vaillant, who led the study from 1972 until 2004, went further. He emphasized the role of relationships, and came to recognize the crucial role they played in people living long and pleasant lives.
 

Rhianne

Diamond Contributor
Member For 2 Years
ECF Refugee
I Want to Tell You Why I Decided to Become the Alternative Doctor
Hi, it's Dr. Keith here again!

I'd like to tell you a little but more about myself, my philosophy and writings at Alternative-Doctor.com

For one thing, I'm a stickler for science--real science, not the phoney nonsense paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. Science (done properly) is a way we find out about our world; how we separate truth from delusion. Science is really a method, not a bunch of facts.

I'm saying this because most holistic practitioners are light on science; they seem to think their own opinions are just as valuable as the facts. I don't think so!

Of course, anyone can have opinions. I have them too! But I'm generally pretty consistent at stating when it's an opinion, so as not to fool you.

There is also another big difference between me and many other health writers: I've been at the leading edge as a clinician. I've been there, spent many hours with each individual patient, learned what really works and, naturally, got criticized by mainstream colleagues for sticking my neck out.

I've been attacked by so-called "holistic" practitioners too, for things like suggesting a cancer patient be allowed to make their own choice, whether to have chemo or not. To listen to the rantings of some of these self-appointed thought police, you'd think it was a deadly crime to go for chemo (I don't think it's the best choice but it is the patient's choice and nobody else's business).

When I read some books supposed to be about "alternative health", I shake my head. As someone who knows, from clinical experience, it's easy for me to spot those fakes whose "research" is just Googling other people's (incorrect) opinions and putting them on a blog or in an eBook.

In my day, I used to hear it said that people can't be allergic to foods. It was nonsense, of course. Just orthodox medicine and ignorance.

But there is just as much ignorance and bigotry among holistic fashion-followers: for example, those who declare that "raw milk is safe" and that nobody can possibly react to it or be made ill by it; it's "Nature's gift" and so on.

As someone who has seen tens of thousands of people made sick by milk, I know that statements like these are made by dreamers and fools, not knowledgeable health practitioners. They have an answer to that: it wasn't raw milk and if the sufferer had drunk raw milk, they wouldn't have been made sick. And I have an answer to that too, which is: B*S*!

Trust me, I tested only with organic, raw, non-pasteurized milk in my clinic and LOTS of people found it was causing their arthritis, eczema, migraines or whatever. Even infertility.

Cow's milk is NOT and never was a gift from Nature to human offspring. It's for calves, with a totally different 4-stomach digestive system!

In fact I can quote you something the raw milk lobby doesn't even know, because they don't want their cherished opinions threatened by mere facts. Back in the 17th century, a man called Robert Burton (1577-1640) wrote a book called The Anatomy Of Melancholy. It's still in print at some universities. Burton described, quite capably, the bad effects of milk on health and realized it made many people sick and depressed.

That's back in the days when there was ONLY raw un-pasteurized milk. Today the awful effects of milk are being missed, because everybody drinks it or cooks with it, all the time!

You see, that's where I differ from the herd. I know quite a lot more than they do, about quite a lot of things. Why? Because I have made it my lifelong business to be informed, armed with real information, and not just follow along with fads and silly fashions, even "holistic" silly fashions!

You get the point. If you want good, informative stuff, told with a certain sense of humor, you'll enjoy what I send out (maybe not everything; but who can please all of the people all of the time?)

To Your Health!

I didn’t buy milk or cheese this week. Yay!
 

Rhianne

Diamond Contributor
Member For 2 Years
ECF Refugee
Top Oil Consumed in US Linked to Anxiety, Depression, Alzheimer's, More

Soybean oil is the top oil consumed in the United States.

It is used extensively in premade and processed foods found in grocery stores and used by restaurants.

And it may cause significant negative genetic changes in the brain, affecting conditions like Alzheimer's, anxiety, depression, and autism.

This is according to a new study out of the University of California, Riverside published January 8 in Endocrinology.

This is the same research team who, in 2015, found that soybean oil may induce obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver.

In this study, the researchers looked at the brains of mice fed either regular soybean oil, genetically-modified low-linoleic acid soybean oil, or coconut oil.

The soybean oil, regardless of linoleic-acid levels, had a pronounced effect on the hypothalamus, which strongly suggests a similar negative effect in humans.

Your hypothalamus is key to your nervous system and hormones, regulating emotions and your response to stress, regulating body weight, maintaining temperature, and more.

Hypothalamus issues are linked to Alzheimer's and other brain disorders.

Furthermore, the researchers discovered the soybean oil affected over 100 genes.

This includes the gene responsible for creating oxytocin, the hormone responsible for feelings of empathy, for keeping anxiety and depression at bay, and more.

The researchers note that these findings only apply to soybean oil -- not to other soybean products.

"If there's one message I want people to take away," said Poonamjot Deol, lead author of the study, "it's this: reduce consumption of soybean oil."

He forgot to mention soy is a huge GMO/glyphosate crop!
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
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Part 1




I remember the first time I heard about vitamin D and the scary disease rickets. I was in elementary school, and I think we were studying Christopher Columbus and the early American settlers.


Either my teacher or one of the students talked about vitamin D and a disease with a very childish name to it.


Rickets.


When I was younger, it almost sounded like a boy's name. And so I never forgot it, because it felt so...personal. I also never forgot to drink my milk. Everyday.


Just so we're clear before I get too far into this article, having enough vitamin D is not going to work like a magical cure for you if you're already having health conditions related to a lack of it.


Things like heart problems, or autoimmune disorders like alopecia don’t go away overnight.


If your body has begun to show the symptoms not having enough vitamin D in your diet, it's going to take time to get yourself looking and feeling great again.


So, if you are worried that you are lacking enough vitamin D on a daily basis, check your body against what I'm about to share with you, and be sure to get a doctor's advice so you don’t accidentally make matters worse.

Why is Vitamin D So Important?
Like magnesium, vitamin D is really important for our health and well-being. It's very hard to get all the vitamin D you need from your food, and your body doesn't make it naturally...so you have to be intentional about your vitamin D intake.


People with more melanin in their skin make less of the vitamin, so people of African, Hispanic, Asian etc. descent will struggle more.


If you look at some of the problems that come as a result of not having enough vitamin D in your diet, you can kind of figure out what it does for your body.


A deficiency in this nutrient has been linked to all kinds of serious health conditions like heart disease, autoimmune disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and bone and joint problems.


Children need Vitamin D so their muscles and bones grow and develop the way they're supposed to.


In the past, children who didn't have enough vitamin D in their diet developed rickets.


Now, we don't see manifestations of the disease like we used to in years past, but the health conditions are usually still there.


At the very least take a look at this list..and if it’s warranted, ask your doctor if there’s anything to be concerned about.


According to a study done in Scientific American, at least 40% of Americans still don't get enough vitamin D.


On top of that, around a billion people internationally suffer from vitamin D deficiency. this is according to a study in the Oxford Journals on Age and Aging.

Here Are The Main Signs Your Body Doesn’t Have Enough Vitamin D…

  1. Your muscles and joints are regularly weak. This is actually one of the earliest signs, and though it's very obvious, it's also one of the easiest ones to ignore because the weakness comes and goes - at least in the beginning.

    You might assume it's just a regular part of working out, or it's something normal that your joints and muscles are experiencing. You may even just assume it's a part of getting older.

    When it comes to vitamin D, all of these assumptions would be wrong. In fact, what usually happens when you don't have enough vitamin D is the weakness gets worse over time. So don't ignore it! Get your blood checked, and ask your doctor if your vitamin D happens to be low.


  2. You have chronic pain. Now, this one can be a little more difficult to figure out, because the pain can be anywhere. It doesn't matter if it's a bad back, a migraine, or sore muscles in your neck.

    Pain is considered chronic if it has lasted more than 3 months. if there is any pain in your body that has lasted 12 weeks or longer, it is possible you have a vitamin D deficiency.


  3. You never feel well rested, even when you slept a full 8 hours. I mentioned magnesium earlier, because it's the master mineral, and it helps make sure your other chemical pathways work in your body. Magnesium makes sure you feel energized during the day. So does vitamin D... and if you don't have enough of it, you're going to feel exhausted no matter how much sleep you had during the night.

    Normal levels of vitamin D in your blood are between 20-50 nanograms per milliliter. 20-50 ng/mL. If your levels are below 20 nanograms, there's no question you are deficient in vitamin D.


  4. You get depressed easily. People who don't go out in the sunlight a lot tend to experience higher levels of depression and people who get regular sun exposure. You often see this in populations that live in the North.

    The further north you go, the more depression you see. Sunlight is associated with happiness. So it makes sense that a lack of sunlight would be associated with sadness and depression.

    There are two very quick cures for this. Either go outside into the sunlight for at least 30 minutes, or stay inside and get in front of a window where you can be in front of the Sun.

    This will raise your natural levels of Serotonin, and you should notice your mood improving after doing this for a few days.

    And just in case you don't think this is a serious thing, in Alaska, there are alerts for low-sunshine days.

    The Alaskan government understands that a vitamin D deficiency can directly lead to suicide.

    They track suicides in the colder months and even encourage residents to buy light boxes for the winter.

    These wearable boxes increase vitamin D levels in their bodies.


  5. Your wounds take a long time to heal. Your body needs vitamin D in order to heal wounds quickly. If you notice that you bruise easily, or when you do get a cut or other wound it takes forever to heal, there's a strong probability you've got a vitamin D deficiency.


  6. You have high blood pressure. Stress and depression open anyone in a bad mood. And if you keep a bad mood long enough, it's definitely going to raise your blood pressure.

    This symptom of high blood pressure is usually not a standalone symptom. It comes in conjunction with and because of other symptoms like depression, anxiety, crankiness, etc.

    This symptom is a little different than the other ones, because if you've been experiencing it for a while, you will notice that you can't just fix it by putting vitamin D back into your diet.

    After you had high blood pressure for a while, it has to be treated by a doctor with prescription medication. There's no way around this. So watch your blood pressure!


  7. You catch colds easily or can’t get rid of them easily. This symptom is often easiest to spot. People who don't have enough Vitamin D in their diet are always at risk of having respiratory problems like cough and colds.

    This one is easy to spot because the common cold last anywhere from seven to 10 days. People with vitamin D deficiency will have colds for a month or three, and it often turns into bronchitis or pneumonia.

    When people start to supplement, they noticed their colds begin to go away, and their lungs clear up in a week to 10 days. And finally...this last symptom is a biggie. But it gets people paying attention like nothing else.


  8. Your hair is falling out. Now, this one is a big one, but it is not one that people ever miss.

    Let me tell you a quick story about one of my clients. Her mother was having a lot of pain in her back and hip. After vacation last year, her mother's pain level went through the roof, and her hair started falling out.

    We all thought the hairloss was as a result of the pain - and it was. But the pain was as a result of Vitamin D deficiency.

    Yep. Eventually, we discovered that her nerves and muscles were all confused because she didn't have enough vitamin D in her diet. They were inflamed, hurting, and causing problems throughout her body.

    And worst of all...it made her hair start falling out in clumps.

    It took the better part of a year and back surgery to fix all the problems caused by her vitamin D deficiency. And her hair is just now starting to grow back - a year later!

    Just imagine how much stress she felt every day when she sat up and looked at all the hair on her pillow,

    She was terrified to wash her hair in the bath because her drain was full of shed hair.

    It was absolutely miserable...and if you have been experiencing any of these symptoms (or even all of them at the same time!), you know how she felt.

These are all the symptoms you might experience if you have a vitamin D deficiency, but they are the biggest symptoms, and they are the ones you’ll remember when you're at the doctor.
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Part 2


Final Thoughts And Next Steps If Your Body Lacks Enough Vitamin D

I'm really not sure why the medical industry thought it was a good idea to stop labeling vitamin D deficiency as rickets. It seems like rickets is still out here, going strong, messing up people's lives every day.


It would be great if we still had a name to call it since we have a name for everything else…


...but the most important thing is for you to know what happens to your body when you don't have enough vitamin D.


For many people, all they have to do spend more time outdoors, turn on the light box a little more, or supplement.


But for others, like my client’s mother, it takes a little more time and medical intervention to overcome the effects of a vitamin D deficiency.


Additionally, they might not be able to get outside or maneuver themselves in front of a window where they can get more sunlight.


Make sure you add in more vitamin D rich foods, and talk to your doctor to get a good game plan in place that will ensure you won't become deficient in vitamin D again.


Have you ever been diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency? What were your symptoms, and how did you treat it? Did I miss anything?
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years

Hey There,

Dr. C here.

We all want to eat in the best way to make us healthier. So what do you do when you hear conflicting advice? One option is that you can go to the nth degree of research and follow up on every reference or citation. I’ve done that but I can’t expect everyone to take my word for all things.

The other way is to sort out how experts come to their conclusions. There are more and less accurate ways to sort through the data and it is actually pretty easy to see which approach someone takes. If there is a conflict, you can put more weight in someone who did it right than in someone who did not.

Doing it right means putting the most weight on objective evidence. All of us are horribly prone to bias. As counter intuitive as it seems, our personal experiences are among the least reliable sources of information.

It also means paying the closest attention to real events that happen to real people. Things that happen in test tubes or animals can give us the wrong impression. We can also be led astray by things we measure in people. A pill can lower the measurement of cholesterol but not lower the risk of the event of heart attacks.

Finally, it means looking at the whole body of evidence. Consensus in science does not mean that every scientist or every paper says the same thing. It means that the vast majority of people in a given field have come to a common understanding. It would be misleading to draw conclusions about a field based on a few dissenting scientists or a few studies whose results were not typical of most studies.

In human affairs this is normal. Atypical results are not evidence for an opposing model or proof that the main model is flawed. It is just how things play out in the world of imperfect humans. The process of science helps make biases and errors visible over time by comparing studies against more studies, but it does not make them vanish.

With that in mind, please enjoy the first in a three-part series of interviews about the role of grains on human health.

Should you go out of your way to include them? Should you avoid them? Do they cause celiac disease or autoimmunity?

I talked to three people each with different views on this topic. Please listen with a critical ear for how the conclusions were formed. I did ask a few challenging questions but wanted to be respectful. Even though I don’t feel everyone is equally right, everyone’s experiences are real. The trick is how well we interpret our experiences in the light of objective evidence.

Please enjoy this time I had with my friend Dr. Peter Osborne the gluten warrior.

Click Here for Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify & YouTube.

To your best health,

Dr. C
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
Keeping It Going!

74-next and Lovin’ Life to The Max!

I was interviewed and the inteviewer asked a good question: what THREE THINGS do you consider really important, to beat aging and senescence and stay forever young?

First and Second Place were no brainers. I’ll share those another time. But this was one of those escalating lists: you know, where they count down from 3 to 2 to 1! Keep them in suspense for your top choice!Here’s my number three…

Posture and Movement.

Posture is critical. As I told the interviewer, it’s the only one of the three where you can see from 1,000 feet that a person is aged. That characteristic stooped posture is deadly. It compresses your chest and breathing. But it also compresses your mind and spirit. It’s a shrivelling posture and that’s no good. Stand up straight!

And by the way, I pointed out that cell-phone and tablet users adopt the stopped “old person” posture frequently when looking at their screens. Don’t!

Chiropracters even have a name for this new “deformity”: texting neck or anterior head system!

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Movement is important too. I’m going to surprise you in a minute with what is THE NUMBER ONE activity that beats dementia (hint: it’s not jogging or golf!).

Daily exercise is important. It stimulates and tones up both body and mind. You know the old saying “healthy body equals healthy mind” (Mens sana in corpore sano). I couldn’t agree more. Exercise releases endorphins, increases circulation and therefore oxygen supply to the brain. Endorphins are natural feel-good substances in our bodies. But don’t just think in terms of swimming, jogging or cycling. Walking is very good and non-stressful.

Dancing is even better, since it has the added joy element, which reminds us we are young at heart and that life after all is great!

A 2003 study from Stamford University showed that dancing especially was valuable for beating signs of dementia! Dancing can lower stress and increase serotonin levels, with an accompanying sense of well-being.

Now it seems dancing can also make us smarter, or at least block the deteriorating brain function of aging, according to a study that was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.[1]

Here are the findings in a nutshell:

It followed senior citizens (75 and older) for a period of 21 years, looking at whether any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mind function. Researchers discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect on rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. Other activities had none.

Activities studied were reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind.

However, there was one important exception: frequent dancing offered protection against dementia. Here are the comparative results:

  • Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia
  • Bicycling and swimming - 0%
  • Doing crossword puzzles at least four days a week - 47%
  • Playing golf - 0%
  • Dancing frequently – risk reduction of 76%.
That’s a huge lowering of risk!

Why Dancing?

Why is dancing better than other activities for improving mental capabilities? Because typical ballroom dancing, where steps and coordination count (sorry boppers!), means a lot of snap decisions, especially for the woman or “follower”, who gets very little warning of what’s coming next.

But men, you can also match her degree of decision-making if you choose to do so.

Here's how:

  1. Really pay attention to your partner and what works best for her. Notice what is comfortable for her, where she is already going, which signals are successful with her and which aren't, and constantly adapt your dancing to these observations. That's rapid-fire split-second decision making.
  2. Don't lead the same old patterns the same way each time. Challenge yourself to try new things each time you dance. Make more decisions more often. Intelligence: use it or lose it.
Those who fully utilize their intelligence in dancing, at all levels, love the way it feels. Spontaneous leading and following both involve entering a flow state. Both leading and following benefit from a highly active attention to possibilities.

The essence of intelligence is making decisions. The best advice, when it comes to improving your mental acuity, is to involve yourself in activities which require split-second rapid-fire decision making, as opposed to rote memory (retracing the same well-worn paths), or just working on your physical style.

One way to do that is to learn something new. Not just dancing, but anything new. Take a class to challenge your mind. It will stimulate the connectivity of your brain by generating the need for new pathways. Difficult classes are better for you, as they will create a greater need for new neural pathways.

Quick Thinking Is Crucial

Healthy, well-functioning seniors who undertake a type of computerized cognitive training that targets processing speed have a 29% reduced risk for dementia after 10 years, with those completing the most training sessions having the greatest benefit, new results suggest.

Cognitive training that focused on memory or reasoning alone did not significantly reduce the risk for dementia; only speed of reaction (note again what I said above about quick decision making in dancing).

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three types of cognitive training — memory, reasoning, or speed of processing — or to a control group that received no cognitive training.

This was a long study: 10 years, and followed 2785 original participants. Testing and re-testing was carried out at 1,2,3,5 and 10-year intervals. During the decade-long follow-up, 260 participants developed dementia.

Compared with the control group, the risk for dementia was 29% lower in the speed training group. But memory training made no difference to whether an individual developed dementia or not.[2]

What’s the take home? Fast gaming is probably the way to go. Online computer games specifically targeting seniors and getting them to interact, will probably come on stream during the life of my super-long-life book Growing Old Without Aging.
 

Jimi

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
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Regenerate Yourself Masterclass
Encoded within every tissue of your body is the ability to regenerate; mechanisms that provide you with the right to a life of joy and vitality. In this masterclass, Sayer will help you unlock "radical resiliency" with cutting-edge scientific findings, ancestral wisdom and health-promoting practices -- with these tools you'll optimize your diet, maximize exercise results, reduce stress and cultivate a thriving environment. All reasons not to miss The Regenerate Yourself Masterclass, online and free from February 24 - March 1, 2020!

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