Good News! Being Old Keeps Getting Better

Seven recent health breakthroughs from science.

I write about good news to show how skewed the media has become. Yes, we need to report the horrible, miserable, and violent so we can fix it, right?

The world must remain watchful to defeat evil, but we also need daily doses of good news and that sometimes requires digging.

We are living in a rich technological age with daily medical breakthroughs. These seven recent stories offer new solutions to vexing problems associated with aging — including heart disease, memory loss, osteoporosis, hearing loss, diet, osteoarthritis, and stress.

1/ More good news about coffee: it probably helps your heart

Most Americans are addicted to some form of caffeine, and coffee is our favorite hot beverage.

New research rated how daily coffee impacts heart disease, including arrhythmia (problems with heart rhythms) and coronary heart disease, along with strokes. Intuition suggests caffeine might worsen heart rhythms, but researchers found the opposite is true.

Scientists discovered a neutral-to-positive effect on all heart conditions — including erratic heart rhythms, for people drinking two-to-three cups of coffee a day.

Over 300,000 individuals recorded their coffee-drinking habits. Half the subjects were women, and the average age was 57. Participants were healthy individuals at the study’s start, and scientists noted their coffee-drinking habits and tendency to develop heart disease over several years.

They analyzed a subsample of 34,279 people who developed heart disease and noted that coffee-drinkers in this group had a 20 percent lower chance of death from all causes.

2/ Ketogenic diet is a promising Alzheimers treatment.

Research is showing that memory failure in older adults is strongly associated with lack of fuel to the brain— typically supplied by glucose. Doctors and memory-loss experts often refer to Alzheimer’s disease as “diabetes type 3” because the brain cannot use glucose (sugar) for fuel effectively, similar to type 2 diabetes.

In 2018, Russell Swerdlow completed a small study showing a ketogenic diet (high fat, moderate protein, very low to zero carbohydrate) does “an end run around faulty metabolism” and supplies energy to a glucose-starved brain.

Swerdlow found that by using ketogenic fuel (fat, especially in the form of added medium chain triglyceride or MCT oil), people with memory loss showed significant cognitive improvement. Now, this scientist is enrolling subjects for another study, according to reporting by AARP.

Other researchers are examining how adding MCT oil early in the cognitive decline process can impact memory, and finding that even a daily addition of MCT oil (without a full ketogenic diet) improves memory.

Dr. Melanie Fortier and her team published an article in Alzheimers Dement in 2020 that showed increasing blood keto levels provided an alternative fuel for better memory in 73 patients with mild-to-moderate cognitive decline. Half the patients received a ketogenic drink and the other half got a placebo.

The ketogenic diet has been extensively studied as an effective aid to weight-loss, and is well-established as a cure for otherwise intractable epilepsy.

3/ Older women can slow down or defeat osteoporosis with prunes.

If you have a friend with osteoporosis, you may want to gift her some prunes! At the very least, you may want to share recent research about prunes as a way to slow down bone loss.

Osteoporosis is a thinning of the bones through loss of calcium and while it sounds like no big deal, or maybe even a normal part of aging, the disease is devastating. Osteoporosis (literally “porous bones”) afflicts White and Asian women more commonly, and is a major risk factor for early disability. The condition predisposes sufferers to broken bones, including vertebrae in the back which cause stooping and reduced mobility.

The article notes that every year, around 300,000 people suffers a fracture from falling down “at standing height or less.”

Eating prunes regularly leads to better outcomes, and may be an excellent preventive tactic for those in high-risk groups.

4/ We are on the verge of reversing the most common type of hearing loss in older people.

Nearly 40 million Americans suffer from hearing loss as they age, but scientists have discovered how to regenerate inner ear hair, which we tend to lose as time goes by. Loss of this hair is the is a primary cause of hearing problems for older individuals.

Hair cells die when exposed to drugs, loud noises, and other normal life events. Once these tiny hairs are gone, they do not regenerate. This new therapy adds a type of cell to cause the hairs to grow back.

A company called Frequency is working on technology to regenerate progenitor cells (stem cell descendants) and perfecting a technique to inject small cells into the inner ear. In clinical trials, they’ve noted improved hearing in some subjects after only one injection; several of these individuals haven’t been able to hear for decades.

Progenitor cells could radically change numerous treatments, and Frequency believes that in as little as “10 to 15 years” this therapy could be “as common as Lasik surgery,” which restores vision.

5/ Cooking classes help people of all ages.

Adults in Australia took a seven-week cooking class and ended up much happier at the end. The 657 participants were divided into two groups: the intervention group learned how to prepare healthy meals during a series of in-person classes designed to develop food literacy and encourage preparing home-cooked meals. The control group was put on a wait-list.

The average age for subjects was 44 years, and about half were male. They were able to pick their own schedule of classes, but were otherwise randomly selected for intervention (classes) or control (wait-list).

Participants reported overall better mental and physical health after taking the cooking courses, compared with those who were waitlisted. The improvements were most noticeable one week after the classes ended, but the health improvements persisted at a six-month follow-up. The waitlist group showed no significant improvements.

6/ Promising arthritis treatment in rats may lead to better therapy.

The Salk institute has discovered a potential treatment for osteoarthritis (OA), the most common reason for disability in older people.

Reported in Protein and Cell, rat research indicates two molecules may help repair and regenerate cartilage structure and function in joints. By combining αKLOTHO and sTGFβR2 for cartilage repair, scientists found progression of normal arthritis (induced in otherwise healthy rats) continued to worsen in rats without the injection, while rats who got the treatment showed full recovery of cartilage thickness and structure.

Researchers then explored the two-molecule treatment in human tissue, in vitro (i.e. cell cultures, not people). They discovered the same effect: “a clear improvement in protein expression and cell proliferation.”

The authors concluded that the two molecules together “may prevent OA progression by downregulating the immune response and promoting the joint tissue homeostasis.” They are working on developing injections that can be studied in human subjects.

7/ Optimistic men have better health outcomes.

Having a good attitude pays off in spades.

In men who are habitually optimistic, their superpower may lie in interpreting stressful events — such as arguments or daily disappointments — in a positive way. Optimists are better at generating a positive mood, which improves overall health.

This long-term study concluded that optimistic men don’t experience fewer stressful events, but are able to more effectively downplay negative situations. In other words, they see what might be upsetting to others as no big deal.

For fourteen years, researchers followed 233 older men (average age: 76) and asked questions about their stressful experiences. They also asked about their mood, concluding that they experienced just as many stressors as non-optimistic men but reacted more quickly and positively to the stressors.

Researchers believe these older optimists are better at regulating mood because when they experience an adverse event, they quickly interpret it as nothing to get too upset about, thereby interrupting reactivity. This means their overall mood, on a daily basis, is more positive.

Positive mood is associated with better heart health, whereas being a grumpy old man is not recommended.

Final Thoughts from a Former Health Researcher

We have some control over our health as we age, and staying up to date on research can open doors to more vitality in later years.

Most of the stories above have been released in the last month (mainly reported by Good News Network), but there are more coming out every day.

The takeaways:

— Coffee is probably good for us, so enjoy your daily to-to-three cups.

— A ketogenic diet may help prevent and treat Alzheimers, a disease which pharmaceutical companies have spent millions trying to cure — with no luck so far.

— Prunes help with bone loss (but don’t overdo them if you are tying to eat low-carb keto!)

— We are close to a breakthrough on reversing common hearing loss.

— Feeling isolated or unhappy? Take a cooking class.

— Arthritis (OA) treatment is poised to improve by rebuilding cartilage.

— Learn optimism: find an optimist’s club near you and join.

Since joining Medium in March 2019, I’ve learned so much more about writing and producing readable stories — leading to better written and researched articles. As a former public health researcher, I knew about scientific studies, but continue improving as a health writer. Other health writers have helped me find my voice.

If you are not a member, sign up by clicking the link below. For just $5 a month you’ll find so much terrific content. To get my stories in your inbox, click here.