Aging, senior fitness, the Oprah Effect and Jane Fonda all wrapped into one.  That’s what you got on Oprah’s show earlier this week when Jane Fonda appeared to pitch her Prime Time workout videos.  The videos, set to be released on November 30, are titled “Walkout” and “Fit & Strong”.  At 72, the spry looking Fonda, opined on fitness, love and plastic surgery during the journey through the last twenty years of her life and talked about a new book she is writing, entitled “Prime Time:  Creating a Great Third Act”.

For the full text of the interview, click here .

The number of Americans with diabetes will nearly double over the next 25 years, while the cost of care will almost triple, as patients live longer and develop more of the disease’s long-term complications, a new analysis said.

The projections estimate that the population will rise to 44.1 million in 2034, from 23.7 million now, with medical spending increasing to $336 billion from $113 billion. The calculations were published in the December issue of the journal Diabetes Care.

The many benefits of exercise may be why some call it the fountain of youth. There are many studies that have proven that seniors who exercise benefit from increased strength, endurance, balance, cognitive abilities,and cardiovascular health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seniors should get at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise (such as brisk walking) per week, or 1.25 hours of vigorous aerobic activity (like swimming or running) each week, in addition to strength training two times per week. There are a variety of fitness programs available to seniors today. Many community centers and fitness clubs offer senior fitness classes, including dance, tai chi, and yoga classes. For seniors who are less mobile, there are many types of exercises that can be done from a sitting or reclining position utilizing light weights or weighted balls,
ankle or wrist weights, elastic bands, and stretching.

A recent study found that forty percent of U.S. adults physically inactive. That’s 82.5 million people!

That’s why a nationwide effort is underway to get Americans moving. Launched by the American College of Sports Medicine in partnership with The Coca-Cola Company, the program is called Exercise is Medicine (EIM) and the focus is to urge doctors to write prescriptions for exercise for their patients.

ACSM and Coca-Cola recently announced the availability of EIM’s Public Toolkit to help consumers stick with doctor’s orders for physical activity. The toolkit includes step-by-step instructions for consumers to work with a doctor to determine the right dose of exercise.

A recent study done by the CDC shows that 70% of Americans need to decrease their salt intake. The data showed that the average U.S. adult consumes one-and-a-half teaspoons of salt every day. That’s a half teaspoon more than the basic daily recommendation of one teaspoon. This recommendation is much lower for people with high blood pressure, people over 40, and all African-American adults. These groups should be eating no more than two-thirds of a teaspoon of salt per day.

According to a recent study,seniors who perform simple ankle and foot exercises a few times per week can noticeably improve their strength and balance.

Researchers at the University of Porto, Portugal, divided 48 facility-dwelling seniors into a control group and an exercise group. The exercise group performed a series of simple ankle and foot flexing exercises in 15-minute sessions three times a week for six weeks. At the end of the trial, researchers tested the two groups and found a marked improvement in the exercise group’s mobility and balance. The control group, on the other hand, showed no significant increases in strength, flexibility or mobility.

Meet Wendy:

Wendy is an Athletic Specialist for Fit Seniors. Wendy is a certified yoga teacher (200 RYT) with Yoga Alliance and is dedicating her energy towards ensuring our aging members of society remain physically fit and agile and are living as full lives as possible.

Wendy calls upon her foundation as a yoga teacher in her senior fitness classes. Wendy has a master’s degree in urban planning, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and social behavior that emphasized coursework in gerontology.

Elderly women who suffer a broken upper arm are five times more likely than normal to break a hip within a year after the arm fracture, a finding from a new study that might help in efforts to prevent both types of fractures. The study was published in the March issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

Healthy older people shouldn’t bother spending money on computer games and websites promising to ward off mental decline, the author of a review of scientific evidence for the benefits of these “brain exercise” programs says. “These marketed products don’t confer any additional benefit over and above being socially and intellectually active in one’s normal daily life,” Dr. Peter J. Snyder of Lifespan Affiliated Hospitals in Providence, Rhode Island, told Reuters Health. “There are some things that we could be doing that have much more rigorous data to support their application.”

Researchers find no evidence that multivitamin use helps older women ward off heart disease and cancer, the top two killers of women, respectively. This yet another huge blow to the supplement industry.

Other recent studies have suggested that supplement forms of vitamins B, C, D and E, along with folic acid and beta carotene, don’t seem to have cancer-fighting abilities, especially in women.

And just last week, other researchers reported that many healthy U.S. children and teenagers may be popping vitamins and mineral supplements they don’t need, even while children who may actually need the supplements aren’t getting them.