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6A Daily News – Tuesday, September 10, 2013 Vitality health & fitness You're not too old to throw a javelin By Tara Bahrampour and Carol Morello The Washington Post WASHINGTON — To 63-year-old Greg Cooke, seeing Diana Nyad become the first person to complete a 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida on Monday was nothing short of awesome. Nyad is, after all, just a year older than Cooke, and she reminded him of what is possible. "I saw that, and I thought, 'Man, this is a total inspiration,'" he said. "It made me feel like I need to get up and get out there and do stuff." Unlike Nyad, Cooke, a government attorney who lives in Garrett Park, Md., was not much of an athlete for most of his adult life. But when he was 48, he changed his ways. "I had little kids and I was fat," he said. "I had a six-year-old and I didn't want to be an old slug dad who couldn't keep up with the kids." Cooke began running, and now completes marathons with finish times in the three-and-a-half hour range. Most people do less physical activity the older they get. Only one in five American adults overall exercises enough, as defined by guidelines established by the federal Department of Health — at least 150 minutes per week of moderate aerobic activity, plus muscle-building activity at least twice a week. By their mid-50s it is around one in six, and only one in seven after age 65, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But while only a small share of people are exercising enough, the percentage of those exercising after age 65 has been rising. As recently as 1998, only 6 percent of Americans over 65 routinely exercised up to federal levels, according to the CDC. Over the next decade, it doubled. In the most recent study, done in 2011, 16 percent got enough exercise. The upswing marks a change in attitude since the middle of the century. In 1954, Jack LaLanne, a fitness and nutrition buff who had an exercise program on television, marked his 40th birthday by swimming the length of the Golden Gate bridge, underwater, carrying 140 pounds of equipment. He did it to prove a point, said his widow, Elaine. "In those days, people thought anyone over 40 was over the hill." Recent research suggests By Amanda Mascarelli Special to the Washington Post Washington Post photo by Amanda Voisard Bernhard Stamm, 74, throws a javelin in this photo taken at Steuart Weller Elementary School in Ashburn, Va. He has 25 gold medals in senior competitions for track and field. that this is far from the case. A 2010 study of muscle tissue from lifelong competitive runners in their 60s showed their leg muscles had almost as many motor units, a measure of strength, as those of active 25-yearolds. But starting exercise regimens at any age can be beneficial, according to the National Institute on Aging, which runs a website to encourage exercise among older people. Nyad's accomplishment shows that state of mind can be as important as physical prowess, say experts on the physiology of aging. "It's more a testament to her spirit than her body," said Gayle Doll, director of Kansas State University's Center on Aging. "She is relentless. Diana Nyad's message is, you can do incredible things when you're older. We've just been told that we can't. A lot of people have the body to do it, but they don't have her indomitable spirit." The human body loses protein with age, and with it goes muscle mass. In socalled power sports, such as gymnastics or the 100meter sprint, people hit their peak in their 20s. But in endurance sports like swimming or long-distance cycling, athletes don't peak until their 30s, after many years of training. "Every time we say there are limits to the human body, someone like Diana Nyad breaks it," said Frank Wyatt, who teaches exercise physiology at Midwestern State University in Texas. "In most studies on aging, the line goes in one direction, and it's generally down. Not a lot gets better. But if you look at Diana Nyad, you can say maybe our resolve does." Doll said women often are better at endurance sports than men are, because their bodies have more fat that helps fuel their activity. "You have to work harder, but you can maintain a lot of muscle mass," said Doll, citing a study in the 1990s in which nursing home residents who did quadriceps training almost tripled their strength. Carol Mackela, 62, of Arlington, Va., was a competititve diver in college, but didn't dive for 33 years until 2006, when she heard an old teammate from college was still doing it. "Her dives looked better than in college," she said. Looking around in the local area, she initially had a hard time finding a coach who would take her on. One coach "didn't have time for adults; he wanted to fill his slots with kids who are going to the Olympics." But Mackela, a retired government attorney, eventually found a coach and will compete this Saturday in the Northern Virginia Senior Olympics, along with other divers in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. Some things have changed since college. "Most of us are a little heavier, so in somersaulting dives, if you haven't done it in 30 years, you have to find out where you are," Mackela said. Older adults also need to stretch more — and conquer fears that a younger person might not have. "You understand more as an adult what can happen if you do something wrong," she said. Bernhard Stamm, 74, of Ashburn, Va., learned that lesson three years ago, when he resumed doing field events after a hiatus of more than half a century and got so enthusiastic that he pulled his hamstring after failing to warm up properly. "You've got to listen to your body," said Stamm, a retired architect who was a track and field athlete in high school in Switzerland. With 25 gold medals in senior competitions under his belt, Stamm plans to compete in the Northern Virginia Senior Olympics next week in the standing long jump, running long jump, high jump, javelin, shotput, and softball throw. He'll even be adding some tricks he didn't know in high school. "The Fosbury flop, where you jump over backwards," he said, referring to a move popularized in the 1968 Summer Olympics. "That didn't exist when I was a kid, so two years ago I learned it, and now I'm doing a Fosbury flop." Nyad is a baby boomer — part of the generation born between 1946 and 1964 - and her feat may foreshadow a change in attitudes among a generation that has never liked to think of itself as old. "She just didn't give up, she was determined to do it," Cooke said. "I'm thinking, 'All right, I can't let these little aches and pains hold me back; there's things to do and I'm going to get out there and do them." Sleep deprived? Don't go grocery shopping By Relaxnews Short on sleep? If so, steer clear of supermarkets and food shops, at least according to a new Swedish study that finds sleep deprivation can drive you to spend a lot of money on junk food. It's already been established that even one night of bad sleep can lead to increased blood levels of ghrelin, a hormone that increases hunger the next day. But in findings published Sept. 5 in the journal Obesity, the researchers say that ghrelin levels weren't associated with food purchasing. Rather, they posit that sleep deprivation could trigger other mechanisms, such as impulsive decision- making, which is why that giant bag of cheese puffs seems like such a good idea. "We hypothesized that sleep deprivation's impact on hunger and decision making would make for the 'perfect storm' with regard to shopping and food purchasing -- leaving individuals hungrier and less capable of employing self-control and higher-level decision-making processes to avoid making impulsive, calorie-driven purchases," said first author Colin Chapman of Uppsala University in Sweden. The research team recruited 14 healthy men to participate in two situations: stay awake for one night, then go grocery shopping the next morning, www.redbluff.mercy.org redbluff.mercy.org and secondly, sleep as usual and then go shopping. Having only a fixed budget of 300 SEK (approximately $50), the men were instructed to purchase as much as they could out of a possible 40 items, including 20 junky foods and 20 healthier options. The prices of the fatty, high-caloric foods were then varied to determine if total sleep deprivation affects the flexibility of food purchasing. Before going shopping, the subjects consumed a normal breakfast. Findings showed that the tired men purchased significantly more calories and more food overall than they did after a night of normal sleep. A Retirement Community for the Active Senior Citizens EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY Tehama Estates provides the best living environment available to active seniors in Red Bluff, CA. We will show you ways to stay involved in the care of loved ones, and work with you to maintain the highest quality of life. Childbirth Class (Sept) Debunking parents' stubborn fear of vaccines 6:30pm-8:30pm 9/5, 9/12 Thursday Columba 529-8026 Community Basic Life Support 6pm-10pm 9/10 2nd Tuesday Columba 529-8026 Diabetes Education 6pm-8pm 9/18, 9/25 Wednesday Columba 529-8026 Grief Support Group 3pm-5pm 9/26 Waterbirth Class 6:30pm-8:30pm 9/11 www.redbluff.mercy.org Thursdays Wednesday Coyne Center 528-4207 Columba 529-8026 Summer Special 1/2 OFF first month rent! ◆ Independent Living ◆ Private Apartments ◆ House Keeping Services ◆ Three Nutritious Meals Daily ◆ 24 Hour Secure Environment ◆ Warm & Friendly Staff ◆Recreational Programs ◆Scheduled Transportation ◆Private & Formal Dining Rooms 750 David Avenue, Red Bluff • 527-9193 My introduction to antivaccine thinking came six years ago during a natural birth class. To our list of big decisions, the teacher added another — whether to go along with routine vaccinations, the first of which (hepatitis B) is typically given before the baby leaves the hospital. For my husband and I, the decision was straightforward: We chose the standard, doctor-recommended vaccine schedule for all three of our children. But for some people, childhood vaccination is a fraught issue. At a recent child's birthday party, for example, one father mentioned that he and his wife had opted out of vaccinating their children. They didn't feel comfortable with the mercury in vaccines, apparently referring to suspicion of its link to autism. I was stumped. The preservative thimerosal, which contains a form of mercury called ethyl mercury, was removed from most vaccines (with exception to influenza vaccines) in the United States more than a decade ago and has long since been absolved of causing autism. Thimerosal has been used as a preservative to prevent bacterial and fungal growth in certain multi-dose vaccines and other biological products since the 1930s. In the late 1990s, health officials began to grow increasingly aware of the dangers of mercury in fish and shellfish. The mercury found in fish is an entirely different form than what is in thimerosal. It's called methyl mercury; it grows more concentrated as it moves up the food chain and is neurotoxic in large amounts, especially to developing fetuses. But the seafood contamination issue led to concerns about the possibility of harm from the trace amount of mercury used in vaccines. "At that time — 1999 — there really wasn't sufficient scientific information to know about the differences between how ethyl mercury would act versus methyl mercury," says Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. Still, even then, enough was known about the genetic basis of autism and the unique clinical syndrome caused by mercury poisoning to make any causal link between autism and thimerosal highly unlikely, he adds. As a precaution, the Food and Drug Administration called for a review of the PHYSICIAN REFERRAL A FREE SERVICE PROVIDED FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE 1-888-628-1948 www.redbluff.mercy.org mercury content in food and drugs. Although there was no evidence of harm from the ethyl mercury in vaccines, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public Health Service acted pre-emptively to avoid any potential harm and to protect public trust; in 1999, these agencies issued a ban on the use of thimerosal in routine vaccinations given to infants and children. By the early 2000s, thimerosal had been removed from vaccines such as those for hepatitis B, diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis (DTap), and haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib). The ban did not apply to annual influenza vaccines; U.S. health organizations concluded that the benefits of the influenza vaccine far outweighed the low risk of harm from thimerosal. But in part because the government moved so swiftly to remove the preservative from most vaccines, along with sensationalist media coverage and claims of vaccines being linked to autism — now disproved — the public's distrust of thimerosal grew in some circles, says Roger Baxter, co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, Calif. "There was never actually a problem with thimerosal," Baxter says. "It was all manufactured by rumor." Numerous studies have looked at whether children who received mercury-containing vaccines had poorer outcomes or increased risk of autism or other disorders, and no causal link has been found. Still, the controversy surrounding thimerosal helped buoy the anti-vaccine movement in the late '90s. About the same time, the movement began to focus on the potential links between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, spurred by the publication of a study — which was later retracted — that claimed that the MMR vaccine could cause autism. The paper was subsequently found to be fraudulent, and the author, Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor, lost his medical license. In recent years, anti-vaccine proponents have begun to focus on the timing of vaccines, suggesting that too many vaccines too early in life can overload a child's immune system and cause autism. "The good news here is that these are questions that can be answered by science, and science has answered them," says Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation. Pointing to the many papers that have explored and refuted the links between autism and thimerosal, the MMR vaccine, and vaccine timing, Singer says: "They're all showing the same thing — that vaccines do not result in an increase in the diagnosis rate of autism. The question is, 'Are you as a parent willing to believe what the data clearly say?' And the majority of parents are."