When she started wearing hearing aids, journalism instructor Grace Lim discovered the toll her hearing loss had taken on family and friends.

By Grace Lim

Two months after my 44th birthday, I embarked on a series of routine medical checkups that included a hearing test. I told the audiologist how mumblers appeared to have taken over the world: my yoga teacher, my husband, the college students who take my journalism classes. They all mumbled.

Before hearing aids, instructor Grace Lim had trouble hearing students. (Photo by Megan Sheridan)

She listened, nodded, compassion in her eyes, and said, “It’s not them.” Three tiny words, followed by two even more devastating ones. “It’s you.”

That was the day I learned that I had a moderate to severe hearing loss. It should have been obvious to me all these years, but somehow I didn’t notice. I watch TV with subtitles and the volume cranked up. My sons, ages 12 and 9, often say “Never mind” because I have so often asked them to repeat themselves. And for years, I’ve accused my husband of sneaking up on me. “I live here,” he says with exasperation, but has nonetheless learned to announce himself every time he enters a room so he doesn’t startle me. In the large auditorium where I teach one of my classes, I constantly stop my students midsentence so I can run up and down the aisles to get within hearing distance.

My hearing loss appears to be genetic. My mother and grandmother both have hearing loss, but I had always thought it was due to normal aging. But my level of hearing loss at a relatively young age suggests hearing problems run in my family.

After my hearing tests, the audiologist told me that the decibel level at which I am comfortable hearing is twice that of a normal person. When she demonstrated the normal decibel level, I was shocked. It was as if I had been placed into a Charlie Brown TV world where grown-ups spoke in an unintelligible muffled language. Read more…

Many older people feel years younger than they really are. (Chris Maynard for The New York Times)

Seventy is the new 57.

Older people feel, on average, about 13 years younger than they really are, according to a new study of aging from the University of Michigan and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

Researchers surveyed 516 people between the ages of 70 and 104 who were taking part in the ongoing Berlin Aging Study in Germany, asking a series of aging-related questions, including how old they typically feel compared to the age on their birth certificate. Although individual responses varied, the average gap between chronological age and subjective age was 13 years. Among study participants who were particularly healthy and active, Read more…

For years cardiologists and mental health experts have known that depression raises risk for heart attack by 50 percent or more.

But what hasn’t been clear is why depressed people have more heart problems. Does depression cause some biological change that increases risk? Does the inflammatory process that leads to heart disease also trigger depression?

The answer may be far simpler. A new study suggests that people who are depressed are simply less likely to exercise, a finding that explains their dramatically higher risk for heart problems.

Researchers, led by doctors from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco, recruited 1,017 participants with heart disease to track their health and lifestyle habits. As they expected, those patients who had symptoms of depression fared worse. About 10 percent of depressed heart patients had additional heart problems, during the study, compared with 6.7 percent of the other patients. After controlling for other illnesses and the severity of heart disease, the finding translates to a 31 percent higher risk of heart problems among the depressed people, according to the study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

But once the researchers factored in the effect of exercise, the difference in risk among depressed people disappeared. In the same study, patients who didn’t exercise, whether or not they were depressed, had a 44 percent higher risk of heart problems, after controlling for a variety of factors including medication adherence, smoking and other illnesses.

The findings are important because some earlier studies have suggested a link between antidepressant use and lower heart risk. The explanation may be that patients who take antidepressants start to feel better and take care of themselves, adopting healthy behaviors including exercise. In a study of nearly 2,500 heart-attack patients, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in June 2003, behavioral therapy to treat depression didn’t change survival rates compared with patients who received regular care. But among about 20 percent of patients in the study who ended up on antidepressants, the risk of dying or suffering a second nonfatal heart attack was 42 percent lower. Another study, called Sadheart (which stands for Sertraline Antidepressant Heart Attack Randomized Trial) showed the death rate from heart-related problems was 20 percent lower among patients taking the drug, although the data weren’t statistically significant.

The research suggests that doctors treating patients for depression should also talk to them about their lifestyle habits, and encourage them to exercise. The findings, say the researchers, suggest that the heart problems associated with depression “could potentially be preventable.”

The evidence that health behaviors fully explain the link between depression and heart disease in this study is convincing, says Dr. Mary A. Whooley, professor of medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. However, she notes the study is limited to older men with stable coronary disease, and as a result, more study is needed of women and other patients with heart disease.

It remains an open question whether the study findings will change the way doctors counsel their patients. “The clinical practice question is a challenging one,” says Dr. Whooley. “It’s easy for us to tell patients to exercise, take their medicines, and refrain from smoking, but actually changing health behaviors is very difficult.”

“Feast of Saint Joseph” by artist Rose Fontanella. (Photo: Jaime Permuth)

Over at the New Old Age blog, my colleague Jane Gross has put together a wonderful slide show of elder art — paintings, drawings and collages done by elderly men and women at 20 senior centers in New York City.

The artwork is featured in a new exhibition called “A Long Way Home: Elder Artists in the Neighborhoods of New York.” The exhibition will be on display for a six-week run beginning January 29 at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, at 54th St. and Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

Click here to find a link to the New Old Age slide show.. And for more health-related art, take a look at a previous Well post called “Pain as an Art Form,” that includes a slideshow of art from chronic pain sufferers.

In his victory speech, President-elect Barack Obama framed the remarkable events of America’s recent past through the life of 106-year-old voter Ann Nixon Cooper.

She was “born just a generation past slavery” he noted in the stirring speech. “And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.”

CNN’s Web site profiled Ms. Cooper last month during early voting in Georgia. In a wheelchair and with the help of two caretakers, Ms. Cooper bypassed the long lines of early voters and headed right to the voting machine, CNN reported.

Ms. Cooper danced the electric slide up until the age of 103, but she has recently slowed down after suffering several heart attacks and a fractured hip. Three of her four children have died, and her surviving daughter is 83. She has 14 grandchildren living and many great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchildren, according to CNN.

The cable network asked her about the secret to her longevity.

“I ain’t got time to die,” she said. “I don’t know how it happened, but being cheerful had a lot to do with it. I’ve always been a happy person, a giggling person — a wide-mouthed person!”

After declining for four decades, rheumatoid arthritis is on the rise among women in the United States, according to new research.

From 1955 to 1994, the incidence of rheumatoid arthritis was dropping, but the trends began to shift in the mid-1990s. The disease is now diagnosed in about 54 women out of every 100,000, compared to about 36 women of every 100,000 in earlier decades. The incidence for men remains at about 29 per 100,000.

Overall, the percentage of the entire population with the condition rose from 0.85 percent to 0.95 percent, according to the findings from researchers at the Mayo Clinic, presented recently at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Francisco.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a painful autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the joints. Read more…

After reading a post about YouTube dancing sensation Matt Harding, reader Juliana Sadock Savino posted a simple comment.

“I recently, at the age of 54, took up tap dancing,” she wrote. “I swear it’s good for whatever ails you, though my big toe might disagree. To dance is joy!”

Intrigued, I e-mailed her and learned that she has fibromyalgia, an illness that has forced her to suspend her career as a professional musician. To her surprise, she has found renewal in dance.

But she is not alone. Dance therapy has been used to relieve anxiety, and researchers are studying the tango to help patients with Parkinson’s disease. Dance therapy has been shown to improve the quality of life for breast cancer patients as well.

“There is the fun that comes with feeling free to make a complete fool of myself, one of the consolation prizes of middle-age,” she told me. “I dance for myself and for the fun of being in class. My doc says I am the only tap-dancing fibromyalgia patient he knows of. Do my feet hurt? Sometimes. But as Sammy Davis says in ‘Tap,’ I want to die with my taps on. Actually I’m living with them on.”

To see more of Ms. Savino’s story, watch the video clip, “Coping With Chronic Pain,” and please join the discussion below.

Last week the Well blog featured a special report from the staff of Science Times called “Decoding Your Health,” which focused on how to navigate in a sea of health information.

One of the featured stories was from my colleague Denise Grady, who went on a personal health quest of her own, using the Internet to try to find out the source of her foot pain. That effort, and a visit to a doctor, led to an odd-sounding diagnosis of winkle picker’s disease, which leads to painful, stiff toes.

The story generated a surprising response, resulting in dozens of e-mails from fellow toe-pain sufferers. For the Best of Well podcast this week, I spoke to Ms. Grady about her painful toes and what she learned about researching personal health information.

“The first thing I found out is that it’s really hard to diagnose yourself on the Internet,” Ms. Grady begins.

To hear our conversation, click the podcast link below.

Listen to the Podcast (mp3)

Signs of heart disease are more likely to be blamed on stress when the patient is a woman, new research shows.

In two studies, 230 family doctors and internists were shown sample cases of a 47-year-old man and a 56-year-old woman. The ages of the patients reflect an equal risk for heart disease. Half the vignettes included sentences indicating the patient had recently experienced a stressful life event or appeared anxious. The doctors read the case and offered a diagnosis and treatment recommendations.

When the case study involved standard heart symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath and irregular heart beat, there was no difference in the doctor’s advice for the man or the woman. However, when stress was included as a symptom, gender differences emerged. The presence of stress changed the way doctors interpreted a woman’s symptoms, prompting them to suggest psychological factors rather than physical causes. But the presence of stress didn’t change the way men were assessed. Read more…

A daily dose of the herbal remedy gingko biloba may help prevent brain damage after stroke, new research suggests.

The findings, published online in the medical journal Stroke, have been shown only in mice, but researchers say the studies support theories that ginkgo biloba may be a useful treatment for stroke patients.

A mouse study suggests ginkgo biloba may be a promising treatment for stroke patients. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

“It’s still a large leap from rodent brains to human brains, but these results strongly suggest that further research into the protective effects of ginkgo is warranted,” said lead researcher Sylvain Doré, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, in a press release. “If further work confirms what we’ve seen, we could theoretically recommend a daily regimen of ginkgo to people at high risk of stroke as a preventive measure against brain damage.”

In the series of mouse studies, Read more…

Several older-than-usual athletes were competing this month in Beijing. So how did they do?

For most, just getting to the Olympics was a record-setting accomplishment. But a few of them ended up on the medal stand. Even more amazing, many of them haven’t ruled out repeat performances in London in 2012. Here’s a look at how the oldest athletes of the Olympics performed.

Constantina Tomescu-Dita, 38, of Romania, became the oldest Olympic women’s marathon champion.

American swimmer Dara Torres. (David Gray/Reuters)

Dara Torres, 41, of the United States, became the oldest swimming medalist in Olympic history, winning three silver medals, two in relays and one in the 50-meter freestyle, where she was edged for gold by a mere one one-hundredth of a second. “As I’ve said from the beginning of this, age is just a number,” Ms. Torres said. “When we’re in the water, I know the water doesn’t know what age we are.”

Ian Millar, 61 and competing in his ninth Olympics for Canada’s equestrian team, became the oldest medalist of the Beijing Games, winning silver in the team show jumping. Read more…

(Credit:Benjamin Sklar/Associated Press)

Whether you are single or divorced in midlife appears to influence your risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia as you age.

It’s long been known that social relationships can decrease the risk of developing dementia. In June, Harvard researchers reported how active socializing in old age could delay memory problems.

But most research on social relationships and dementia measures the social life of the very old. The newest study, presented at the 2008 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Chicago, focused on the effect relationships in midlife may have on long-term risk. It tracked 2,000 men and women in Finland beginning at the age of 50 and followed up with them 21 years later. Read more…

Most of us think of Ritalin as a drug used to treat attention-deficit disorder in childhood. But new research suggests Ritalin use in the elderly may lower their risk for serious falls.

In a small study from Israel, researchers evaluated 26 healthy seniors for their risk of falling before giving them Ritalin or a placebo. The subjects were then asked to perform the “Timed Up and Go” test, which requires they stand up from a chair, walk about ten feet, walk back and sit down. The test served as a proxy for falling risk because the longer it takes to accomplish the task, the greater the fall risk, the researchers said.

Those who took Ritalin performed the test more quickly and had less variability in their “stride time,” a common sign of instability, the researchers said. The finding was reported in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Early research on those with Parkinson’s disease also shows that Ritalin may help decrease the risk of falling in those patients.

The data from such a small study are unlikely to lead to widespread prescribing of Ritalin to prevent falls in the elderly. More important, said researchers, is the evidence that walking and stability are complex, and not just about physical ability but about cognitive ability as well.

“Our study suggests that it may be possible to reduce the risk of falls in older adults by treating cognitive deficits associated with aging and disease,” said Jeffrey M. Hausdorff, a lecturer at both Harvard Medical School and the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, in a press release. “This is consistent with a growing body of literature which has demonstrated that walking is not a simple, automated task, as it was once believed. We’ve taken this idea a step further and shown that you can capitalize on this dependence on cognitive function and use it to reduce the risk of falls.”

Still close. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)

The sex lives of senior citizens have improved markedly in the past three decades, according to a new study.

The data, published in The British Medical Journal, have been collected since the 1970s from 1,500 Swedish adults, all of whom were 70 years old at the time of the interview. Although the report is from Sweden, it mirrors recent research in the United States that shows many people continue to have active sex lives well into old age. Read more…

As my colleagues over at the Rings blog point out, there are some oldies but goodies at this year’s Olympics.

French cyclist Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, 49, after winning her 53rd elite-level title last month. (Jeff Pachoud/AFP /Getty Images)

The list includes:

• Dara Torres, 41, American swimmer
• Jeannie Long-Ciprelli, 49, French cyclist
• Haile Satayin, 48 or 53, Israeli marathoner (his age depends on whether you use the age from his papers from Ethiopia, where he was born, or his Israeli passport)
• Luan Jujie, 50, Canadian fencer
• Susan Nattras, 57, Canadian trap shooter
• Laurie Lever, 60, Australian equestrian team
• Ian Millar, 61, Canadian show jumper
• Hiroshi Hoketsu, 67, Japanese dressage rider

Dr. Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic told Canada’s National Post that it’s not just the athletes’ physical strength, but their mental strength, that sets them apart.

“The message that these people tell us, whether it’s Gordie Howe, George Foreman, Dara Torres or any of these people, is that if people become obsessed with what they can’t do as they age, well then they won’t do it,” he told the paper. “These individuals are more interested with what they can do.”

Dr. Joyner notes that the physical capacity of most people is diminished at a rate of about 10 percent per decade after 30 years of age, while that of the extremely fit decreases at a rate of about 3 to 4 percent.

Read more about these amazing athletes on the highly-entertaining Rings blog here.