If you want to age gracefully, you need to choose a healthy diet. A diet that includes foods that fights against the disease. Over the years, research have shown that a healthy diet can dramatic reduce the incidents of a number of diseases such as diabetes, some types of cancers, and heart disease. The list grows as more and more research is done.

Eating a healthy diet is quite simple. First and foremost, avoid excess fat and sugar. Eat more fruits and vegetables. But there is much more than that! You need to educate yourself about vitamins and minerals that are essential for a healthy and long life. You need to understand about calories and proportions. Learn about the food pyramid and you will have a good grasp of what makes for a balanced diet that will be good for your health.

Here is a summary of what to expect in the reading of the food pyramid:

1. Dairy products group – you need two to three servings of dairy products per day. Low-fat dairy products like milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese fall into this food group. A cup of milk, about 8 ounces, equals one serving.

2. Meat group – meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts and beans are grouped together, since they will provide most of the proteins needed in your diet and could also be considered the main dish of any meal. At least two to three servings a day from this group is needed for a balanced diet. Two to three ounces of cooked lean meat, poultry or fish is considered one serving. Two eggs is equivalent to one serving of meat, or 7 ounces of tofu, or 4 tablespoons of peanut butter.

3. Bread and cereals – you need six to eleven servings of whole-grain products. Wholemeal bread, pasta and rice all fall into this group. Try to stay away from white flour products, and choose whole grain bread and cereal instead. Brown rice, wholemeal bread, pasta or whole grains are healthier options. Example of a serving is 1 slice of bread, ½ a bagel or English muffin, or a cup of cold cereal.

4. Vegetables – three to five servings are needed for a balanced diet. The green leafy vegetables are excellent and eaten raw give you the most amount of vitamins and minerals. A serving of vegetable would be 1 cup of raw vegetables or ½ cup of cooked vegetables, or ½ cup of vegetables juice.

5. Fruits – two to four servings are satisfactory for a healthy diet. If you choose packaged or canned fruit, make sure you empty the sugary syrup to avid the empty calories. A whole medium apple or ½ cup of canned fruit is considered one serving.

The color of the food, especially with fruits and vegetables, also provides an indication of how much vitamins and minerals it has. Blueberries and cranberries are rich in certain vitamins and minerals and are super healthy, as are vegetables with dark green leaves. These nutrients are essential in the fight against diseases such as cancer and even heart disease.

Include fiber in a diet by eating plenty of vegetables, fruit and whole grain products. Fiber and plenty of liquids, helps the digestive tract and prevents constipation. Include yogurt in your diet to get the good bacteria that is present. An imbalance in excess of bad bacteria in your digestive system bacteria can lead to illness and disease. Eating yogurt can bring your bacteria level back in balance.

Soy products can help lower cholesterol and fatty fish is rich in essential omega fatty acids, which are important for cardiovascular health. Water keeps you hydrated, helps with digestion and removal of toxin from your body. Not drinking enough water will leave your skin dry and tire looking, and can also lead to a variety of health problems such as constipation.

The good new to a healthy diet is that you do not have to give up all things that are delicious. The key to successfully maintaining a healthy diet is to practice moderation in what you eat. If you totally stop eating a food you really enjoy but that is bad for your health, you could end up with cravings for the food and get distracted from your goal of maintaining a healthy diet. Practice self control and allows yourself a small serving of what we want to eat to quite the craving. In all probability, your craving will be satisfy and be gone, and you can get back on track toward good health in your golden years.

The older you get, the more likely it is that you will loss your balance and take a fall. In fact, in some research studies by the federal government, one in three adults age 65 and older fall in their homes or on slick conditions outside. When a senior adult fractures a bone, the majority of the time it is due to a fall. Fractures resulting from falls can lead to hospital stays, take longer to heal, and steals your independence. For some people, permanent disability can result and even death.

Hip fractures are the most common and leading injuries for seniors as a result of falls. Osteoporosis often contributes to the injury because the disease causes bones to be less dense and weak, and more easily broken in a fall. Half of all seniors never recover well enough to return to their homes to live independently. That is a shocking number! Many seniors are aware of this statistic and are afraid of falling and decide to limit their activities to reduce their chance of getting injured. But the very thing that you should not do is to be inactive! Exercise and physical activity is one of the best things you can do to build up healthy bones; a eating a proper diet is another.

Talk to your doctor about Falling

If you are worried about falling, and you should, talk with your doctor about it. Between the two of you, you can craft a program of physical activities to do that will give you enough exercise while still avoiding possible injuries from a fall. First of all, the doctor might suggest you work with a physical therapist to learn some exercises to work on your balance, strength, endurance and agility. With better balance, your chances of falling decrease.

If you have certain medical conditions, or are taking medication to treat a condition, it may cause problems with your sense of balance which increase the risk of you falling. You and your doctor can evaluate your health and prescriptions to determine if either of them could contribute to you falling. High blood pressure and the medications taken to treat it are common factors that contribute to falls.

Your vision will also be negatively affected as you age; your sight may affect your sense of balance as well as your blood pressure. Have your eyes checked regularly and when you have to get up from a bed or a chair, move slowly. This will keep you from losing your equilibrium and avoid a “spinning” room.

Protect against falls

Besides seeking advice from your doctor about your falling fear, there are other things that you can do to lower your risk of falling and getting injured. First of all, check your home for safety hazards like stacks of newspapers or magazines that could tip over and trip you as you walk by. Carpets without rug grips are slippery and are not safe to walk on. Tile floorings are slippery when they are wet. Keep electrical cords safely out of sight as they are tripping hazards that can trip you causing you to fall.

If you need help with your balance or moving around, don’t feel ashamed of buying physical aids that will help you keep from falling. For instance, a cane or even a rolling walker can keep you upright and mobile. Install a bar in the bathtub and shower area and perhaps even a bench. Handrails for steps are handy for seniors too. Install brighter lighting so that you can see where you are going as well as potential obstacles.

On the whole, prevention is the best cure for that fear of falling. If you adopt a healthy lifestyle and practice sensible fall precautions, you should get through your golden years without fracturing any bones.

Retirement can be a rewarding time in your life where you can focus exclusively on your life pursuits. Nevertheless, at some point in your life, you may find yourself in a situation where you need a medical procedure or your mental capacity diminished. No one wants to think in those terms, of course, but you should be prepared for it if it does happen. In order to avoid having your family fight about your care if you are incapacitated, you need a living will or some type of life directives in place to make clear of your wishes when you cannot express them on your own.

An advance directive is a legal document that you help create with your attorney who states what kind of medical treatment and procedures you want or do not want on the chance that you happen to become incapable to communicate them yourself. Basically, there are two types of these directives you should know about – a durable power of attorney and a living will. These are both legally binding documents that you can either create on your own using a template or you can employ the services of an attorney to handle it. Each state differs slightly in what types of documents will be recognized legally. You have the power to adapt these documents as time goes on or get rid of them all together.

A living will spells out your wishes in terms of your medical care and treatment. Discuss whether you wish to be resuscitated if you stop breathing. Do you want to be kept alive on a respirator and/or with feeding tubes? There are a lot of gray areas you have to consider, so you will need to really think hard about your wishes.

A durable power of attorney authorizes a person you designate to make your medical edicts, should you be unable to voice them yourself. This person with the power of attorney does not always have to be a family member, just someone you trust completely to abide by your wishes.

It is the responsible thing to do to draw up a power of attorney and a living will. That way there are no mistakes or misinterpretations about your health care in the event that something happens to you. Be sure to create specific instructions so there is no doubt in the mind of the surrogate, the person who you give power of attorney to, as to what you would want done. This is especially important for end-of-life decisions.

While you are still of sound mind and sound body, take the time to discuss your wishes of medical treatment, health care and end-of-life wishes with your spouse or significant other as well as close family members, your primary doctor and even your priest. With many people knowing your wishes, it would be easier to decide what to do for those close to you should your suffer a catastrophe accident that incapacitates you before you had a change to draw up the power of attorney or living will.

Don’t put off this necessary step of your life. No one wants to think about dying. But think about the stress your family will go through if you don’t have an advance directive in place and they have to make crucial decisions about whether or not to prolong your life. Don’t force them to make such agonizing decisions; take charge of your life and create those necessary advance directives at the earliest opportunity.

Growing old is a gradual process. Each person is different and will show their age in various ways. A large part of how you age depends on your genetic history. However, in this day and age of technology, you can make some important lifestyle decisions which can control some of the aging process to a certain extent.

Below are some of the most common signs of aging that are normal. Keep in mind that due to lifestyle choices and genetics, some of these signs may or may not apply to your. And always remember, regardless of your DNA, healthy lifestyle choices can make a difference in how you age.

1. Hair – Is there any wonder why older adults typically turn gray-headed? As you age, your hair loses its pigmentation and it can also change in texture too. Also, with age comes thinning hair all over your body. Your pubic area, arm pits, head and even arms and legs will have less hair growth.

2. Hearing – With age, you lose the ability to recognize high frequency sound changes. Inflections of tone and speech are also harder to detect.

3. Skin – Your largest body organ, the skin, shows the most signs of aging. As you age, your skin loses elasticity which creates wrinkles and lines. You will notice that your fingernails take longer to grow too. Those oil glands that created quite a ruckus in the teen years slow down production and as a result, you may experience dry skin. By always applying sunscreen as well as moisturizer, you can slow down the signs of aging. Be sure to keep hydrated too as your fluid intake also affects the skin.

4. Height – Compression of discs in the spine as well as compression of joints and even bone loss and density can all play a part in losing as much as two inches in height by the time you are in your 80’s. By taking care to get plenty of calcium and vitamin D for strong bones, you can retard the process.

5. Bones – As mentioned above about height, vitamin D and calcium play a big role in bone density and health. In menopause, women can experience bone loss so a diet rich in the essential vitamins as well as weight training exercises can help can bone density at normal levels. Medications and avoiding caffeinated beverages can also help with bone health.

6. Vision – It is part of the natural aging process to have some trouble with seeing at night or to have a sharp focus. Therefore, glasses are needed to make those necessary vision adjustments. Glare is also a problem.

7. Metabolism – Your metabolism slows down as you age as well. As your body does not burn up calories as efficiently as before, you should adjust your diet to fewer calories while increasing your level of physical activity to maintain you weight.

There are a whole host of aging issues you can expect such as slower brain and reflex processes. These changes can be greatly enhanced by keeping your brain engaged with mental exercises such as crosswords and puzzles. Heart, kidneys and lungs start to slow down too, so you have to make appropriate lifestyle choices such as no smoking or alcohol to keep them as healthy as possible.

That old saying, “the day you are born is the day you start to die” is rather apt. The best defense against the aging process is clean living, avoid bad habits and get plenty of exercise. The rest is up to your DNA.

For some people, retirement is something that they literally work and plan for their entire adult life. They usually know exactly what they will do with their time. For others, retirement turns out to be nothing like they had imagined. In fact, some seniors become bored and depressed, which can eventually affect their health in retirement. Whether you recognize the symptoms of depression in yourself or you are a family member who is concerned about a retired loved one, you should know about the warning signs.

Like many other mental disorders, there are many causes of depression. It may be reaction to medication or treatment; it could be stress-related because of personal or work issues; or it might be in responds to emotional stress, such as bereavement. Depression may also be the result underlying illnesses that affect the central nervous system or areas of the brain that control emotion, such as Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor

Depression in seniors is different from depression that afflicts younger people. Seniors are also better than people of younger generations at hiding their depression from people around them. Friends, family and health care professionals also have their own views and expectations of what depression is. In order to be able to distinguish the behavior of someone developing depression, you have to know what behavior is normal for that person before depression set in. Unfortunately, most senior retirees may not be aware that they are suffering from depression.

Some signs to look for if you suspect a retiree is suffering from depression include constant sad mood or mood swings, increased lethargy, lack of energy, increased agitation or violence, loss of interest and appetite, sudden unexplained weight loss, change in sleeping habits, lack of concentration, and thoughts or talk of death or suicide.

In addition, signs of depression are often misdiagnosed or mistaken for something else. Everyone assumes that appetite, sleep troubles and forgetfulness is a part of growing older. However, many older adults experience no symptoms whatsoever. Therefore, you have to think back to whether these problems were ever present before retirement.

Retirees who are experiencing depression tend to stop doing some of the things they use to do before the depression. For instance, they may stop meeting friends for coffee or listening to music. They may put off going to church or socializing with neighbors and family. They may also develop uncharacteristic behaviors for the first time. Embarrassment or shame may prevent someone from dealing with depression and seeking help.

If left untreated, depression can weaken the body’s immune system and left you more susceptible to illness. Additionally, other mental disorders can occur as well. Suicide is a problem among depressed seniors. Of course, depression could be as simple as a chemical imbalance that occurs as one’s body ages. In all of these instances, depression can be treated. However, sometimes it takes the initiative and caring of friends and family to help the retired senior seek treatment and to deal with his depression.

Retirement is not a death sentence, although some seniors may feel that it is. Some seniors feel that their day of being useful is over and they don’t have anything else to live for. Overcoming depression in seniors can be achieved by finding meaningful activity to fill idle time. By having goals and plans in place, retirement does not have to become a depressing time for seniors. Here are some ideas of how to live those golden years:

1. Take up a new hobby. If you have a goal of learning something new, your mind is kept engaged and depression has a much harder time to take hold.

2. Indulge in some continuing education courses. Learning new things like the internet or creating web pages could open a whole new avenue.

3. Volunteer. By giving your time to a worthy cause, you feel useful and your time is making a difference for someone less fortunate. There are plenty of ways to volunteer whether it is through a church, social organization or even through a school. Recent studies indicate that volunteering may lowers your stress level.

4. Find a part time job. Earning a few extra bucks during the golden years allows you to not only feel useful and earn a wage, but you also get to keep in touch with people and to meet new people.

A healthy diet is certainly important for a healthy retirement, but exercise, or any form of physical activity, is possibly the most important way to keep healthy. It’s been scientifically proven that exercise can prevent disease and greatly slow down some signs of aging. But as you get older, your strength and sense of balance is not the same as when you were younger and you have to take certain precautions to lessen the chance of you getting injured.

By keeping to a physically active lifestyle, you can improve and increase joint and muscle suppleness. Physically active strengthen bones while reducing your risks of stroke and heart attack. All things considered, exercise is a rather easy way to stay healthy. However, if you are an older adult, it is important to use some safety guidelines, especially if you have not been physically active for some time. While it is never too late to start exercising, you have to prepare your body for exercise to prevent injuries.

• Stretch and warm up for at least 10 minutes before any type of physical activity. If you just jump into an activity, your cold muscles will stiff and you risk pulling a muscle or injuring joints. Walking or jogging on the treadmill is a good warm-up, as are biking on a stationary cycle, or even doing easy jumping jacks. Five to ten minutes of this warm-up is good followed up by some appropriate stretching exercises.

• Make sure you get some type of exercise in every day or at least four to five times a week. It is not healthy or smart to only set aside the weekends for physical activity. Set aside 30 minutes a day to walk or jog on the treadmill or go biking. Remember, physical activities could include routine chores such as gardening, raking leaves, using the stairs instead of the elevator at work, or even walking your dog.

• Choose a low impact sport or physical activity that you enjoy doing and get the appropriate equipments for safety sake. If you enjoy power walking or jogging, your most important accessory would be your shoes. Choose a pair of shoes that is comfortable and design for your particular sport – be it walking or running. Find a location that keeps you motivated and interested, and that will accommodate your increasing improvement in the sport.

• Take cues from your body. Listen to what it tells you. If an activity hurts any part of your body, stop doing it and consult with a trainer or doctor. Don’t “suck it up” as you could damage a joint or tear a muscle. Your older body is not as flexible and elastic as it was when you were younger.

• Follow a regular workout that improves your balance, endurance, flexibility and strength. Balance is important as you grow older to lower your risk of falling. In addition, having a varied workout regimen helps keep you from becoming bored and less prone to skip out on exercise sessions all together. Boredom is the biggest problem in continuing with physical activity.

• Use caution and common sense with starting any new sport or activity. If you have any pre-existing conditions like heart disease, diabetes or arthritis, consult with your doctor to decide the best physical activities that will provide you a great workout while avoiding possible injury or exacerbating existing health problems.

The main thing is that some physical activity is better than no physical activity at all. For that reason, it makes sense to find time for some type of exercise in your daily routine. Whether it is toe lifts or leg lifts while waiting in line at the bank or walking the mall in the early morning hours, opportunities abound to fit some form of exercise into your day.

While cataracts can strike younger people, the problem usually develop in older adults. Cataracts are characterized by clouding of the eye’s lens, which normally is clear and serves to focus images onto the retina at the back of the eye. The lens is mostly made up of water and protein. The protein is arranged in a precise manner that keeps the lens clear and let light pass through it. However, as we age, some of the protein may break down and clump together and start to turn cloudy in parts of the lens, resulting in a cataract. Over time, the clumps may grow larger and cloud more of the lens, making it harder to see by blocking some of the light which would normally pass through the lens.

Cataracts usually start forming in people when they are in their late forties to fifties but the condition won’t affect their vision until they are in their early sixties. A minority of cataracts cases can be linked to diabetes, using certain medications or as a result of trauma to the eye. Some scientists claim that cigarette smoke and prolonged exposure to sunlight can also cause cataracts.

Symptoms of Cataracts

Most cataracts at the beginning stages do not affect your vision. In fact, most people don’t realize they have cataracts unless it is detected during an in-depth eye exam. As the cataracts develop you may start to notice your vision becoming blurry. Double vision is not uncommon nor is the halo effect, a ring that you might see around bright lights. Reduced vibrancy in color and problems with glare are additional symptoms.

Diagnosing cataracts

Most cataracts are detected during an eye exam, some before the condition is at the stage where it affects ones vision, while others are discovered after vision is becoming a problem. For people with diseases that are susceptible to cataracts like diabetes, they are automatically given the vision testing to rule out the condition. The exam usually involves the doctors dilating your pupils as to be able to examine the lens within your eye. Sometimes, the cloudiness of the lens is easily visible on the eye and sometimes not. A vision test is also conducted to determine the extent in which the cataracts affected vision.

Prevention and treatment of cataracts

There is not much that can be done to prevent age related cataracts. The only preventive measure you can take is to have your eyes checked on a regular basis. This is really the only way to detect cataracts before they start to affect your vision. If you have a disease where cataracts are more common like diabetes, then be careful to control your blood sugar and make eye exams a biannual event.

Cataract surgery is the only surefire way to restoring vision and has a very good success rate. Surgery to treat cataracts is the most frequently performed surgery in the United States, with over 3 million Americans having the procedure done each year. Nine out of 10 people who have cataract surgery regain vision somewhere between 20/20 and 20/40. If you are ambivalent about cataract surgery, you will have to weight the benefits and risks of having the surgery and decide if your vision is bad enough to warrant the treatment. There are a few treatments to consider when deciding on surgery to correct your cataracts:

1. Extracapsular cataract extraction – Basically, sound waves are used to break up the cloudy clumps in the eye lens, which are then suctioned out, leaving your own lens intact and free of the clumps of protein.

2. Intracapsular cataract extraction – In this procedure, the natural lens of the eye is removed and a plastic one is put in its place or you can choose to wear special contact lenses or cataract glasses.

The type of treatment for cataracts you decide on will depend on your overall health, risk factors regarding your vision as well as what the doctor deems appropriate for your eye sight. Of course, great strides are being made every day and chances are that when you might need the surgery in the future, there will be additional treatment options available to you.

Don’t let osteoporosis ruin your retirement years. Osteoporosis, or porous bones, is a serious disease where the bones become brittle and more likely to break. The disease can be debilitating or even fatal. Osteoporosis is often though of as an old person’s disease, primarily women in their retirement years because women rapidly lose bone density after menopause. However, men can get this bone thinning disease as well.

As you age, your bones tend to weaken and thin, unless you take steps to prevent it. Unfortunately, many people do not take precautions before osteoporosis develops. The problem is that the disease develops silently without showing any symptoms, until the first bone fracture appears.

The exact cause of osteoporosis is unknown. What is known is that one in two women and one in five men over the age of 50 will fracture a bone, mainly as a result of osteoporosis. According to some studies bone fractures are the number one cause of death in people over 65 years of age.

These are other factors that contribute to the development of osteoporosis:

* Deficiency in calcium and vitamin D.
* Race – Whites and Asians are more prone to osteoporosis.
* Alcohol abuse and chronic smoking contribute to osteoporosis.
* Hereditary – Family history of osteoporosis make you more likely to get the disease.
* Chronic illnesses, diseases and certain medications can cause osteoporosis.

Preventing and Treating Osteoporosis

Long before you think about retirement, you should be taking the preventive steps to prevent osteoporosis from developing. Fortunately, if you have been neglecting the health of your bone and the disease is detected in its early stages, you still can take the necessary steps to stop its development. A change to a healthy and proper diet, supplemented with a regimen of physical activity every day, and regular doctor check-ups and screenings go a long way to preventing the onset of osteoporosis and maintaining your overall health.

Here are some tips to help you prepare for your retirement years:

* Exercise – At lease thirty minutes per day is optimal. Weight and strength training are strengthening bones and are great for preventing osteoporosis, as well as promoting better balance.

* A diet rich in vitamin D and calcium – Include more vitamin D and calcium in your diet to help build strong bones. Milk, dark leafy veggies, yogurt, soy products, certain fish like salmon and low fat dairy are all great sources of vitamin D and calcium. Supplements may also be used to get the minimum daily requirements.

* Regular check-ups – Visit your doctor annually to do screenings for bone density, especially after you reach the age of 50. For women near menopause, the screenings should start even sooner.

* Safeguard your home – Falling and breaking bone can be disastrous to an older person. Make your home save and secure by removing hazards that could cause you to fall. Add handrails to stairs cases or bathrooms, secure carpeting and bath mats by adding non-skid pads, install adequate lighting in and around your home so that obstacles are easier to see, will add some degree of safety to minimize falls.

Regular exercise and a balanced diet can help you avoid many of the problems associated with aging. This is so much truer for osteoporosis because unless we take counter-measures, bones become fragile, increasing the risk of fractures. Lifestyle changes and keeping active can help to keep your bone strong and prevent falls.

Retirement is a luxury that many working adults hope for after a lifetime of working to support a family. Thanks to better nutrition and the advances in medicine, people are living longer after they retire form their working life. People will be spending more years in retirement than they do in childhood and teenage years collectively. For many people, retirement living brings its share of mental and emotional turmoil associated with deciding how to spend all that time.

Some people see retirement as a time for countless new opportunities to redefine their life and reinvent themselves. Others imagine retirement as a time of painful transition that brings lack of purpose and boredom.

Research has shown that people who stay active after retirement with hobbies, social activities or part-time work, live longer, happier and healthier lives than those who are inactive. Therefore, think about the things that made you happiest before you retired and incorporate those things into your new life in retirement. For example:

Keep working. Retirement doesn’t mean you can’t continue to work. It just means you can retire from a 9 to 5, 40-hour work week to a schedule of your choosing. You can continue part-time doing what you know and enjoy or you can take up a new job that you have always wanted to try doing. A part-time job will keep you feeling useful and connect to your past working life, while still allow you plenty of time to pursue new opportunities.

Nourish your hobbies. Retirement is the perfect time to do all those things you didn’t have time to do, like reading more classics, completing a rock collection or fly fish every river in your state. If you didn’t have hobbies during your working life, retirement is your chance to find some.

Stay physical. Studies have shown that people who keep physically active after retirement live longer and have fewer health problems than those who just sit around. Simple activities such as gardening, raking leaves, and playing golf can make a drastic difference for your health and the way you feel physically and mentally.

Be social. Retirement doesn’t mean cutting off contact with friends, family and other people. Now that you no longer have the workplace as your social outlet, you may have to put more effect into keeping in touch with people that you know or to meet new people. Take adult classes at the community college or senior center. Become an active member of a hiking club or bird watching group. You’ll greatly increase your chances of making new friends.

Be a volunteer. Volunteering is a great way to put to use the skills your learned doing your working life to help others. There are many nonprofit organizations such as churches, hospitals, children centers, or soup kitchens that are always in need of volunteers to help keep their activities going. Volunteering your time to help others is a worthy cause that can help you feel useful and give you a chance to give back to your community.

These are just a few suggestions for an active retirement. Remember, when you’re in your golden years, the sky’s the limit! Your retirement is what you will make of it. Do the things that you have always wanted to do, but didn’t have the time for because of work obligations. Retirement is the time to relax with leisure activities and doing things that you enjoy.