If you are over age 60 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that you receive the shingles vaccine. Even if you have had shingles before, they still recommend that you be vaccinated. Shingles can recur, but with the vaccine the case of recurrence is lower.

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. Your body may develop immunity to the virus after you have had the chickenpox. However, the virus survives and remains dormant within nerve tissue.
For reasons medicine can’t figure out just yet, the latent virus sometimes gets reactivated years later, causing the painful blistering rash of shingles. Getting the vaccination reduces your risk of reactivating the virus.

However, it’s not 100 percent for sure. Some people develop shingles even thought they’ve been vaccinated. However, those cases are not nearly as severe and don’t last as long as those who did not receive the vaccination.

The most common side effects of the shingles vaccine are redness, pain, tenderness and swelling at the injection site. Many people also complain of a headache.

Because the shingles vaccine is a live vaccine, it isn’t recommended for those with a weakened immune system because of HIV/AIDS or leukemia. It also is not recommended for those receiving radiation, chemotherapy or other immune system suppressing drugs for organ transplants and other autoimmune conditions such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

To date there is no effective medication available on shingles disease. Antiviral medication is effective only if given early.  If shingles pass the early state and is in the advanced stage, people suffering from Shingles develop a painful condition called chronic neuralgia. To avoid this if you think you have shingles contact your physician’s immediately.  If not treated properly shingles can lead to more severe conditions such as developing hearing.
problems, vision loss, and pneumonia.

The best you can do for yourself  if you are over 60 is to get a shingles vaccination.

To your success at healthy aging,

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writer
Copywriter and Content Marketer

Downsizing is part of my plans in the near future. I’d like to simplify my life while still remaining active and productive. I’d like to remove myself from the money-driven, computer controlled constant high pressure climate and work while striving for peace of mind and greater fulfillment.

This is my wonderfully big elephant right now so I am just picking at it a small piece at a time. For instance, one of my first steps is organizing my office which means giving away dozens of books and transferring paper files to online folders.

Making my life simpler makes sense if you think about it. There is less money available in today’s economy so I am naturally spending less money on what I don’t really need. The fact is that as I get older I’m  looking for greater peace of mind and greater fulfillment.

One of my goals is to plan for at least one unscheduled day a week or one unscheduled weeknight or weekend day. I have a box of photos that I would like to go through and sort.

I am also focusing on being grateful for where I am and for what I am doing rather than continue to struggle to control. Burying my self knee deep in a research project no longer satisfies my creative energy.  Interviewing a business person who has a dream and a new product is much more interesting.

I find I am less stressful because I am spending time with people who really matter to me. These are the fFriends and family members who make me feel comfortable and make me smile.

Writing articles and eBooks on topics that I find intriguing and topics that I know will help others.

I am clearing out some of the clutter, giving books to the library, donating clothes I no longer wear, and giving away knick knacks that just gather dust on the shelf.

My goal is to make my life less stressful.  I consider that one of the main ingredients of healthy aging.

If you have thought about doing something like this or have already managed to simplify your life, type your experience in the comment section. We could all learn form your success and mistakes.

To your success at healthy aging,

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writer
Copywriter
http://ruthanbrodsky.com

I feel fine. I don’t need the medication,
I can’t tolerate the side effects.
My prescriptions are too expensive.
I can’t keep track of all my medications.
My medicine isn’t helping me.

The unofficial figure is that one out of three people taking medication in the U.S. do not follow their physicians’ prescription treatment order. You may think you have a legitimate reason for no longer taking a medication. However,    any decision you make to stop taking a drug or skip doses should be made with your physician and pharmacist.

For instance you may think you feel okay but there are medications which need to be taken even when you’re feeling well, which probably means they’re working. Certain medications for asthma, migraine prevention, depression, epilepsy, high blood pressure and some heart conditions are included in that list. If you want to ask something, ask your physician if you can have a lower dose.

If you believe you’re having side effects that are impacting your daily life such as getting drowsy or having the jitters, or staying awake all night, your physician may prescribe a different dosage or a different medicine that’s Just as effective but does not give you those side effects. Everyone’s body responds differently to a prescription and what works for your sister may not work for you. It’s not unusual for a physician to prescribe several different medications before both the patient and she are satisfied. Often times it’s the difference between a brand name and a generic brand.

If you don’t think your medication is helping you …think again. Your medication could be making a difference and you don’t feel it.  When you were first told your blood pressure was high and you needed medication to lower it I am betting you had no clue. And once you were on medication to lower your blood pressure, most of you never felt the difference.

What is important is to keep your physician informed about your health and any medication side effects. Let your health care provider know of any physical changes such as depression, or sedation, confusion, slowed breathing, restlessness.

Above all, don’t let prescription drug dependence happen to you. If you have a chronic disease or health disorder, medication is most likely part of your treatment. Unfortunately, drugs such as painkillers and anti-anxiety drugs can be misused or abused. When you use prescription drugs incorrectly over too long a period, you run the risk of becoming dependent or addicted. A major reason to follow your physician’s and pharmacist’s instructions about when and how to take your medication.

To your success at healthy aging.

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writer
Copywriter & Product Marketer

Safe ways to raise your metabolism include:

• Doing 30 minutes of aerobic activity four or five times a week.

• Strength training three times a week;

• Eating breakfast;

• Not skipping meals.

If you are looking for a pill to raise your metabolism you need to be careful. Many supplements claim to boost metabolism. However,  even though they may consist of natural ingredients the ingredients may not be safe or they may interfere with the medications you’re taking.

Caffeine
A stimulant. Its increased metabolic effect lasts about 3 hours. It works through the proteins in fat tissue and receptors in your brain. It is less effective in raising metabolism in very overweight people.

Green Tea/EGCG
An antioxidant extracted from green tea increases the metabolic effects of caffeine; It may work via the effect on enzymes and fat absorption;

Yerba Mate
A stimulant similar to caffeine. It does increase blood pressure and safety is uncertain if large amounts are taken or if combined with caffeine or bitter orange.

Bitter Orange/Synephrine
Extract of Seville oranges. It is a stimulant and works on receptors in fat tissue. It’s safety if uncertain and it is similar chemically to ephedrine.

Ephedrine/Ma Huang.
Now banned in U.S. diet supplements. It’s a stimulant that increases heart rate and blood pressure. Works on brain and proteins in body fat.

Cayenne/Capsaicin
Used in Ayurvedic medicine. May decrease body gat by increasing oxygen consumption.

Notice I didn’t say anything about any particular ingredient being a sure thing. Most of your weight loss will take place depending upon how much you cut calories and how much exercise you do.  Stimulants to raise your metabolism or special diets that change the percentage of carbohydrates, protein and fat in your diet are unlikely to be your magic wand.

Make up your mind that losing weight takes effort and then go for it.

To your success at weight loss.
Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health and Business Writing
Creating Information Products

No magic pills to help you lose weight no matter who many ads there are touting that this or that natural product will increase your metabolism.  They may have natural ingredients but what they will contain are stimulants like caffeine, guarana, yerba mate or bitter orange.

These stimulants do speed up your metabolism but they also increase your heart rate. They may be natural but they can also cause side effects such as insomnia, anxiety, heart palpitations and increased blood pressure.

Green tea products clamor that drinking 3-5 cups will also boost your metabolism. Some even claim that their green tea product burns fat with epigallocatechin gallate  (EGCG)a natural extract of green tea blended together with chromium and B vitamins. Research to back up claims like these is scarce.

On the other hand, substituting green tea for coffee may be helpful because it prevents your body from producing extra insulin. Insulin slows down your metabolism.

On the other hand you can use supplements to help build your muscles.  A pound of muscles burn 3 times the amount of calories as a pound of fat. Two of the supplements most mentioned are DMAE and conjugated linoleic acid or CLA which may increase muscle tissue without steroid use.

Keep in mind, however, that nothing substitutes for a healthy diet and exercise. Also keep in mind that just because a vitamin is a natural product it can still cause a negative interaction and can impact other medications.

Your metabolism is based on how fast and efficiently your body burns the calories you eat every day. Other factors influencing your metabolism are your health, your body weight, how much sugar and fat you take in daily, how much you exercise, and some medical conditions.

In my next post I’ll list some supplements that may boost your metabolism. Until then, eat breakfast to wake up your metabolism and get it moving after a night’s sleep. Having breakfast gives you energy and helps prevent overeating at your next meal.

To your success at  healthy aging.
Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writer
Content Marketer and Copywriter

Struggling with your weight gain is characteristic of the baby boomer generation and seniors. We eat less, do some exercise regularly, and remain flabby. The stay-slim formula that used to work, daily walks and avoiding milk chocolate candy, isn’t working anymore.

The problem is with age our muscle mass diminishes and our metabolic rate slows down. Not to worry. There isn’t any magic bullet but there are things you can do to boost your metabolism. Just read my last 2 posts to learn more about what you can do.

There are also foods you can eat to increase your metabolism. That’s what the research says.

The debate between carbs versus proteins is the first thing that comes to mind. In the Atkins Diet and South Beach Diet maintain that low-carbohydrate diets are better than low fat diets because they burn up more energy.

High protein has a very slight advantage in these diets. Weight loss seen in these diets is the result of high protein rather than low carb. Protein also keeps you full longer so you can stick with your low caloric diet. Even so, says the research, most of the weight loss is due to more exercise and less eating.

Spicing Up Meals
There is some research that reports adding hot sauce or chili peppers to meals may speed metabolism. Capsaicin the compound that makes peppers hot is suppose to boost your heart rate and speed metabolism by 23 percent for an hour and a half after a spicy meal.  You can add hot sauce, chili peppers or hot pepper flakes to meals such as soups or pasta dishes.

Fiber Burns Fat
There was a study published a few years back in the Journal of Nutrition which reported that women who eat foods high in fiber about 3 hours before they worked out burned more fat during the workouts. Fiber rich foods include whole grains, sweet potatoes, oats, berries, apples and pears with skin.

In my next post I’ll write about whether supplements can also boost your metabolism.

This is probably a great time to tell your friends and family about this blog and report on these last few posts to boost your metabolism. It’s a good way to stay in touch and give those you care for some useful information.
The link is http://secretstohealthandaging.com it’s as simple as that for them to sign on.   Thanks. Let me know how I can help you.

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Business & Health Writer
Information Products Writer

By now you have a good understanding that you need to burn more calories than you consume by eating less or exercising more. You can also improve your battle to lose weight by boosting your metabolism and raising your BMR or Basal Metabolism Rate. Here are 4 simple tips that will make your metabolism more efficient.

Eat a healthy breakfast.
Many people skip breakfast to reduce their daily calorific count. We now know that when your body’s caloric requirements are lower than what you needs to carry out daily activities, your BMR slows down. This is how your body protects itself because it assumes your starving.

In other words, when you skip breakfast, the already long time between meals is made even longer, and your body responds by slowing down your metabolic rate. So to boost your metabolism or at least keep it on even keel, eat a healthy breakfast.

Exercise regularly
People who exercise regularly have more muscle mass and burn more calories than those who are less active. Brisk walking and swimming burns calories. Strength training slows the rate at which you lose muscles as you age.

There are journal articles written that describe research showing that resistance exercise not only increases metabolism while you’re exercising, but also 7 hours later. It’s not a long-termed gained in metabolism but there is discussion about whether high intensity resistance training may have the best impact on metabolic rate after exercise.

Eat Smaller Meals More Frequently
Eating smaller meals more frequently during the day prevents the BMR from slowing down. Besides, when you eat smaller meals more frequently, you are less likely to come across any hunger spells where you raid the frig and cracker shelf.

Get Enough Sleep
How long you sleep may affect the hormones that regulate your appetitive and body weight. Results from the ongoing Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study show that people who sleep less tend to weigh more. Apparently sleeping 4 or 5 hours instead of 7 or 8 hours alters levels of the appetitive regulating hormones, leptin and ghincrease your appetite. These changes plus more time to eat and feeling too tired to exercise all contribute to gaining more weight.

More tips in my next post.  What do you think of these? Will they work for you?

To your successful healthy aging,

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Copywriter & Content Marketer
Business & Health Writer

Products claiming to boost your metabolism you can lose weight take up rows of shelves in health food shops. Before you purchase any products, make sure you have a good understanding about metabolism and how it impacts your middle aged spread. Otherwise you are simply throwing away your money and you won’t get the results you want.

Metabolism refers to the way your body uses energy. Calories are used to measure that energy. How many calories did you use for a moderate 15 minute walk?

Your body uses calories 3 different ways:

• To maintain your vital body functions such as breathing, cell growth and repair, heart rate, and waste removal. You will be surprised to know that 75% of the calories you burn are used to maintain your vital functions.

• To give your energy for physical activities;

• To digest and absorb your food which uses another 10% of your calories.

The speed at which your body burns the calories when you’re resting is called resting metabolic rate RMR and sometimes the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Everyone’s RMR differs and may be genetically inclined. For instance, it’s true: some people are lucky and have a higher metabolic rate and burn more calories than others.

You can’t measure your own RMR accurately. You need a health or fitness professional to measure it, usually with a hand held device that measures how much oxygen you consumed when you’re resting. Those are the calories your body needs to sustain your vital functions.

That’s why reducing calories below your RMR isn’t going to work because your body considers you in starvation mode and slows down your metabolism even more. That’s also why you may find it harder to lose weight even when you’re eating less because your body is fighting to conserve the energy.

Other factors that slow your metabolism are being over weight and aging.

Now that you have a better understanding about your metabolism the bottom line still is that for weight loss to occur, you need to burn more calories than you consume. You can do that by reducing calories and increasing activity.

In my next post I’ll give you tips for boosting your metabolism naturally and stay in good health. If you have any questions about metabolism, type them in the comment box and I’ll answer them so they can benefit everyone.

To your healthy weight loss success,

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writing
Content Marketing & Copywriter

Dieting is a major topic these days, one week after Christmas and New Years. Losing weight is a regular on the majority of our New Years resolutions year after year after year. And each year the moaning about not being able to lose weight gets louder.

You have been watching your diet but you keep gaining a few pounds every few years. You exercise but you still feel flabby. Clothes that once fit you perfectly now feel snug. Your one time formula for exercising 5 times a week and having ice cream three nights a week isn’t working.  You never had problems in your thirties or even in your forties.

What’s going on?

Part of the problem is your metabolism which slows by 5 percent each decade. Compared to when you were age 25 you’ll burn about 100 less calories a day at age 35 and 200 fewer at age 45. If you do nothing you could gain 12 pounds a year.

To add insult to injury your muscle mass diminishes as you get older so you’re burning even less calories because muscles burn more than fat. To make matters worse marketers of weight-loss products capitalize on this thinking that metabolism is the culprit for weight gain by offering ways to boos metabolism and melt away unwanted pounds.

The questions you need to ask yourself are:
Is an increased metabolism the key to weight loss?
And can you really speed up your metabolism?

First a quick answer: There is NO MAGIC BULLET. Sorry.
You can, however, lose weight and prevent weight gain as you age with a good understanding of how metabolism impacts your body so that it makes sense for you to change your lifestyle slightly and prevent middle-aged spread.

More about metabolism in my next post; it’s not that tough. In the meantime, look up your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) and your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate). Wikipedia is a good source.  That’s your homework for my next post.

To middle-aged spread prevention success,

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writer
Copywriter & Content Marketer

You may be at higher risk for heart disease with a sedentary lifestyle than if you had high cholesterol or you smoke. That’s what a few previous studies reported but I for one want more information about the smoking.

It’s not that exercise will make you feel better; it’s that sitting around and not exercising will make you feel worse.  For instance strength training can improve your digestion because it helps move your food through the gut faster. Waste that moves too slowly through the colon increases your risk of constipation, hemorrhoids, and diverticulitis.

What’s more strength training can help relieve your back pain because exercises that strengthen your lower-back, stomach, hip and thigh muscles help support your back and keep it from getting worse.

Of course you can injure yourself while strength training but most of the emergencies I’ve seen are with young men trying to bench press more than they can, or a guy in his 40s trying to work with the weights he used when he was 20 and then hurts his back or pulls a muscle. It doesn’t work like that.

Before you start a strength training routine, with or without a professional trainer, it’s a good idea to see your doctor and get her ok especially if you haven’t seen her in a couple of years.

Choosing the right regimen that works for you is important. For instance, weight machines at a gym are safer than dumbbells and barbells. However, because they’re at the gym it may be more tempting to skip a session. Dumbbells or free weights are relatively inexpensive and they help improve balance and can be used at home. Elastic bands are safe also and easy to use but your progress is more difficult to track. You can do calisthenics and count the number of push ups and sit ups but they place a lot of stress on the lower back.

My recommendation is find a well trained personal trainer who can show you the basics and give you a routine. Go to your community or senior centers and find out what they offer for strength training.

Increase your time training gradually and the amount of weights you’re lifting. Start small and increase gradually.  One rule of thumb is to increase the weight you lift only after you can complete 15 repetitions in good form and without discomfort.

Above all, listen to your body. See your doctor if you feel a sudden pain during strength training that persists later, if you begin losing range of motion in a joint, or if repeating the exercise is painful and lasts longer than 48 hours.

If you have a strength training routine that works for you, I am very interested in learning more about it. Will you outline the routine in the comment section? I won’t use name but it will be interesting to see what our readers are doing to age successfully.

To your healthy aging with exercise,

Ruthan

Ruthan Brodsky
Health & Business Writer
Information products & Content Marketing