About: Alan Carpenter

Recent Posts by Alan Carpenter

Frailty Debilitates and Kills

Frailty Debilitates and Kills
While frailty seems obvious enough, science lacks a universally agreed upon method of evaluating frailty. The Frailty Index (FI) is commonly used to evaluating frailty in a clinical setting. Researchers calculate FI as the number of deficits a patient exhibits divided by the total number of deficits considered. For example, if a doctor finds that a patient exhibits five of 20 deficits that older people often commonly have, the FI for that patient would be 5/20 = 0.25. Deficits include symptoms or signs of chronic diseases or disabilities or social problems based on a patient examination or laboratory data.
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Manage Your Blood Sugar

Manage Your Blood Sugar
Your body readily digests sugar and refined gains and quickly turns them into glucose (blood sugar). Fiber slows the digestive process and reduces the spikes in blood sugar that occur after meals, especially when you eat sugary and starchy foods. Where do you get fiber? From fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains.
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Write Yourself to Sleep

Write Yourself to Sleep
A recent study extended the benefit of expressive writing to 111 female college students recruited from an undergraduate psychology class. The students were randomly assigned to either an expressive writing group or a control group. Students in the writing group were instructed to write about their deepest feelings and concerns regarding body image and eating concerns. Students in the control group were instructed to write about their plans over the previous week in a time-management context. Eight weeks later, students in the expressive writing group reported significantly less difficulty sleeping compared to students in the control group. This effect occurred even though the expressive writing didn’t concern sleep. Body image concerns presumably acted as a source of stress for the students. Expressive writing appeared to diminish the effects of the stress.
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Legacy Effects of Physical Training

Legacy Effects of Physical Training
Unsurprisingly, cardiorespiratory fitness, measured as peak oxygen consumption, declined for members of all four groups over 10 years. But the exercisers showed significantly lower decline (4.7 percent) than the control group (9.6 percent). Vigorous exercisers showed even lower decline (3.0 percent). Average waist circumference increased significantly more for the control group (2 inches) than the exercisers (less than one-half inch). Mean arterial blood pressure dropped for all participant groups over 10 years. Curiously, blood pressure for the low moderate exercisers declined the most (5 mm Hg) relative to the control group. Fasting insulin levels decreased significantly (in a healthy direction) for the lower moderate exercisers compared to the control group. Blood glucose increased for all groups over 10 years with no significant differences between the groups. This lack of differences may have reflected the fact that about half of the participants were taking medications that could affect blood sugar levels.
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