West Newsmagazine 2-7-18

38 I MATURE FOCUS I
February 7, 2018
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
@WESTNEWSMAG
WESTNEWSMAGAZINE.COM
A Lifestyle That Reflects Life Made Simple
Franklin county’s Finest 55+ Villa Living
Union, MO | 636.234.5090
2 Car Garage
GrayHawk Village is a maintenance-free community for active adults 55 and over.
Vaulted rooms of 1,400 sq. ft. with 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths and 2 car garages.
Here are some of the things we do so you’ll have carefree living...
• Lawn Care with inground irrigation
• Snow Removal
• Emergency Call System
• Auto Garage Door with
Remote and Keyless Entry
• Gutter Cleaning
• All Exterior Painting and Repairs
• Cable TV
• Slide-out Trays in Cabinets
• Other Features Offered
News & Notes
By LISA RUSSELL
090
A Lifestyle That Reflects
Life Made Simple
Sandy La Beau - Agent
CALL DOLAN AND START PACKING
www.GrayHawkVillage.com
DolanRealtors@DolanRealtors.com
Conveniently located at Hwy. 50 and Old Hwy.
50 East in Union, MO (1 mile east of East Central College)
DoughertyFerryAssistedLiving.com | (636) 764-3692
2929 Dougherty Ferry Road | St. Louis, MO 63122
DF West News 2 7 18
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• Board Games
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Better heart health
for ‘couch potatoes’
About 25 percent of American adults are
sedentary, spending many hours each day
sitting in a chair at work and then heading
home to hit the couch every evening.
A sedentary lifestyle leads to greater risk
of heart failure in middle age and beyond,
as it eventually causes the heart muscle
to shrink and its vessels to stiffen. But if
inactive middle-aged women and men get
up and get moving with an aerobic workout
routine, they can reduce or even reverse
that risk, a new study shows.
Scientists randomly assigned a group of
more than 50 sedentary people between
the ages of 45 and 64 either to an aerobic
training program, which involved doing
high- and moderate-intensity exercise at
least four days a week, or to a yoga, balance
and strength training program three
days a week. The participants exercised
consistently for two years. The researchers
conducted tests to assess heart function
both before and after the study period.
They found that the participants who did
regular aerobic exercise showed significant
improvements in how their bodies used
oxygen, and also had less cardiac stiffness,
two key indicators of a healthier heart. Cardiac
stiffness and oxygen usage remained
unchanged among those who did the yoga,
balance and strength training program.
“We found what we believe to be the
optimal dose of the right kind of exercise,
which is four to five times a week, and the
‘sweet spot’ in time [late middle age] when
the heart risk from a lifetime of sedentary
behavior can be improved,” said the
study’s lead author Dr. Benjamin Levine, a
cardiologist and director of the Institute for
Exercise and Environmental Medicine at
Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
Although making a two-year commitment
to an aerobic exercise program may be a
The negative effects of a sedentary lifestlyle
on heart health can be overcome by older
adults, a new study shows.
Commercially available tests that claim to
measure the rate of physical aging may not
provide reliable results, a recent analysis
found.
challenge for many, Levine said he recommends
making regular exercise of any type
a priority. The optimal weekly program, he
added, would include at least one hour of
an exercise such as tennis, cycling, running
or brisk walking; one aerobic session
that includes interval training; two or three
days of moderate-intensity exercise; and at
least one strength training session. “That’s
my prescription for life,” he said. The
study was published in the American Heart
Association’s journal Circulation.
No accurate test of aging
Whether it’s by taking a simple online
quiz or spending hundreds of dollars on
chromosome or blood testing, many people
passing through midlife into their senior
years are attempting to find out whether
they are aging faster or slower than their
actual ages would suggest. Unfortunately,
though, a recent analysis of these tests
shows that those tests may not provide
accurate information.
A head-to-head comparison of different
measures of aging in the body, including
blood and chromosome tests like those
being sold commercially, has found that
they significantly disagree on the aging
speed of the person being tested. This comparison
was based on a lifetime study of
about 1,000 Dunedin, New Zealand residents
who have been studied extensively
from birth to age 38. Working with data
from that study, researchers from Duke
University found contradictory results
among biological measures used to predict
the participants’ rate of aging from age 26
to 38.
For comparisons, the researchers looked
at physical markers of aging collected
from the Dunedin study group, including
balance, grip, motor coordination, physical
limitations, cognitive function and decline,
self-reported health and facial aging as
judged by others. The research team also
examined genetic tests of the participants
See NEWS & NOTES, page 40