Skip to main content

News - Sunshine 'Keeps the Elderly Fit and Healthy' - Healthy Direct (UK)

News - Sunshine 'Keeps the Elderly Fit and Healthy' - Healthy Direct (UK):

"Sunshine 'Keeps the Elderly Fit and Healthy'
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Elderly individuals in the UK should use this week's good weather to top up their vitamin D supplies, if new research is to be believed.

Scientists from Wake Forest University School of Medicine have claimed that older adults who do not get enough vitamin D are at risk of poor physical performance and even disability.

A worrying 25 per cent of those aged 60 or older have low vitamin D levels, the researchers claim. While a subtly altered diet can address this problem to some extent, exposure to sunlight is seen as the only real way to tackle the deficiency.

'With a growing older population, we need to identify better ways to reduce the risk of disability,' said lead author Dr Denise Houston. 'Our study showed a significant relationship between low vitamin D levels in older adults and poorer physical performance.'

Vitamin D is produced naturally when human skin is exposed to the sun's ultraviolet rays but, as a result of modern lifestyles, very few people are actually able to enjoy this luxury. Many have also been put off by warnings about the risks of skin cancer - understandable given the rising prominence of this condition in recent years."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Could Narcolepsy be caused by gluten? :: Kitchen Table Hypothesis

Kitchen Table Hypothesis from www.zombieinstitute.net - Heidi's new site It's commonly known that a severe allergy to peanuts can cause death within minutes. What if there were an allergy that were delayed for hours and caused people to fall asleep instead? That is what I believe is happening in people with Narcolepsy. Celiac disease is an allergy to gliadin, a specific gluten protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. In celiac disease the IgA antigliadin antibody is produced after ingestion of gluten. It attacks the gluten, but also mistakenly binds to and creates an immune reaction in the cells of the small intestine causing severe damage. There is another form of gluten intolerance, Dermatitis Herpetiformis, in which the IgA antigliadin bind to proteins in the skin, causing blisters, itching and pain. This can occur without any signs of intestinal damage. Non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a similar autoimmune reaction to gliadin, however it usually involves the...

Insulin Resistance- cause of ADD, diabetes, narcolepsy, etc etc

Insulin Resistance Insulin Resistance Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression? Heart disease? Type II, or adult, diabetes? Narcolepsy? Are you, or do you think you might be, an alcoholic? Do you gain weight around your middle in spite of faithfully dieting? Are you unable to lose weight? Does your child have ADHD? If you have any one of these symptoms, I wrote this article for you. Believe it or not, the same thing can cause all of the above symptoms. I am not a medical professional. I am not a nutritionist. The conclusions I have drawn from my own experience and observations are not rocket science. A diagnosis of clinical depression is as ordinary as the common cold today. Prescriptions for Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, etc., are written every day. Genuine clinical depression is a very serious condition caused by serotonin levels in the brain. I am not certain, however, that every diagnosis of depression is the real thing. My guess is that about 10 percent of the people taking ...

BBC NEWS | Technology | The ethical dilemmas of robotics

BBC NEWS | Technology | The ethical dilemmas of robotics If robots can feel pain, should they be granted certain rights? If robots develop emotions, as some experts think they will, should they be allowed to marry humans? Should they be allowed to own property? These questions might sound far-fetched, but debates over animal rights would have seemed equally far-fetched to many people just a few decades ago. Now, however, such questions are part of mainstream public debate. And the technology is progressing so fast that it is probably wise to start addressing the issues now. One area of robotics that raises some difficult ethical questions, and which is already developing rapidly, is the field of emotional robotics. More pressing moral questions are already being raised by the increasing use of robots in the military This is the attempt to endow robots with the ability to recognise human expressions of emotion, and to engage in behaviour that humans readily perceive as emotional. Huma...