aging

Are you rubberstamping the cougar narrative?

Posted by Liz on Jul 29, 2011 in aging | 4 comments

[Image: WildEarth Paw Prints]

Time to reprise an oldie but goodie. And a post that remains relevant for millions of women. The cougar narrative. You know, cougar, a woman who preys on ‘unsuspecting’ younger men.

So, are you embracing your inner cougar? Pimping your hide to expand your pride? Or like me, are you running as far away from the notion as you can?!

I’ve been somewhat amused and a wee bit miffed at the double standards placed upon women who “prey” on younger men. While their sugar daddy counterparts get away with endless forays into the dating world without nary a word, these women are dubbed “cougars” and frowned upon. However, have you ever considered that these younger men don’t feel preyed upon at all but prefer the company of a well-rounded, intelligent, sexy woman who can titillate their minds, souls AND bodies?

Perhaps the cougar ‘narrative’ and its fallacies should be put to rest.

If you have even a wee bit of doubt about what I’m saying, I’d like to introduce you to 73-year-old Rio de Janero resident Lina Merceis. Lina is the star of a documentary short entitled “Bye Bye, Cest Fini,” and the ultimate inspiration for any woman who believes that life ends at midlife and beyond. Lina, having suffered early disappointments in marriage and love, is now dedicating herself to herself. Lina deliberately chooses the single life, claiming that men are too much work. ‘Seductress to a slew of 30 somethings,  she enjoys her lovers, acknowledges her occasional loneliness, and confesses to a good friend (as they sit on the beach eying the candy) that sex and fun are her life prescriptions not options. Not surprisingly, the young men who are fortunate to become one of Lina’s lovers are happy to oblige.

Flashes and body composition and age, oh my! What’s the relationship?

Posted by Liz on Jul 22, 2011 in aging, hot flash | 0 comments

For some time now, experts have made the connection between body mass index (BM() and hot flashes during menopause, theorizing that body fat offer protection against hot flashes since androgen hormones are actually converted into estrogens in body fat. On  the flip side? Women with lower BMI should have more frequent hot flashes. However, this hypothesis — formally known as the “thin hypothesis” – has recently been questioned, especially among researchers whose studies have shown the opposite: that a higher BMI leads to more hot flashes because the fat acts to insulate the body and prevent heat dissipation. In the middle of this argument are women, overweight, underweight, normal weight, who may have an opportunity to prevent hot flashes before they worsen or at least ameliorate them.

To more thoroughly tease out the underlying causes of hot flashes as they relate to body composition, researchers evaluated a subset of 52 women participating in the larger Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN, an ongoing trial at seven sites across US that are examining women’s health in middle age). These women were African-American or non-Hispanic Caucasians between the ages of 54 and 63, mostly overweight, in menopause and reported experiencing hot flashes or night sweats. None were taking hormones or antidepressants, and still had their uterus.

In the study, published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, broad measures of central abdominal fat/total percentage of body fat, BMI and waist circumference and blood hormones were taken. Over two, 48-hour periods, participants also wore a monitor to evaluate the frequency and severity of hot flashes and were asked to both complete electronic diaries and press buttons on their monitors that would notate when they were experiencing symptoms.

The result? A higher percentage of body fat, BMI and waist circumference were associated with a reduction in the frequency of hot flashes only in women who were 59 or older. Moreover, this association was restricted to Caucasian women in the study compared to their Black peers.  However, in so far as the interaction between estrogen levels (and sex hormone-binding globulin) and body composition, researchers found that higher levels reduced but did not fully eliminate the distinctions in hot flashes and age.

So, why the differences compared to other studies? Others have looked as self-reported hot flashes via questionnaires while this one actually took physiological measures of hot flashes via the monitors that the women were wearing. The researchers also looked specifically at the link between size, weight and proportions of the women and hot flashes rather than risk factors of any or no hot flashes.

Importantly, data are starting to emerge that show how BMI/adipose fat and the relationship to reproductive hormones varies by age and menopause status, with higher estrogen levels related to older, menopausal women and lower to younger women. What’s more, while body fat may act to produce estrogen in older women to play a role in regulating body heat and dissipation, it seems to play a different role in younger, overweight women, predisposing them to hot flashes. Finally, wellbeing also appears to play a role in symptoms: in this case, women who were anxious reported more hot flashes and hot flashes tended to increase anxiety.

Should you care?

Although the sample size is small, the is first time that researchers have considered how age and race affect the way that obesity may affect hot flash frequency. It’s worthwhile filing it under “useful information,” especially when it comes to perimenopause and preparing to deal with full blown symptoms as you enter menopause.

A special thanks to my pal Ivan Oransky, executive editor of Reuters Health and author of Retraction Watch  for giving me a heads up on this study. Thanks Ivan!

Wednesday Bubble: Are you invisible?

Posted by Liz on Jul 20, 2011 in aging, Inspiration | 6 comments

Early last year, I wrote a post for Women Grow Business based on an interview I had conducted with the incredible Author/Chef Mollie Katzen. Entitled “The Incredible Disappearing Woman: Lessons on Dealing with Ageism,” the post focused on ageism in our culture and the fact that as women age, they often undergo a culturally-driven disappearing act in both their personal and professional lives.

During our interview, Mollie discussed a five-step strategy to insure that women continue to matter, a strategy that is self-respectful, empowering and focuses on playing up one’s strengths without resorting to smoke and mirrors. Hence, I was a bit dismayed to run across a post on Talent Zoo the other day that addresses a similar theme but in less empowering vein. Mind you, I was not dismayed because of the topic but rather, because of the content, which for the most part, encourages women to play up their sexy and physical appearance while mostly ignoring their inner core. A few examples:

1) Expand your group of friends…by hanging out with people who with different perspectives.

That’s great advice, right? However, the author offers “because different perspectives will make you a more interesting person, and that’s sexy, which always gets noticed.” Hmmm, “sexy always gets noticed.”

2) Become friends “with a bit of lycra in your fabrics and dresses that need nothing more than a cool scarf to be a complete outfit.”

While you’re at it, since 40+ is obviously old and over the hill and subject to gravity, why not grab that Spanx and corset? Just sayin’.

3) “Innocently flirt.”

Flirting, the author says, makes others feel good about themselves and you should practice this even on people you don’t find especially attractive.

4) Be a real grownup in order to embrace “cool confidence.”

Okay, admittedly, I don’t even know what this one means.

5) “Work out with weights,” and, “lift a lot more than you think you can” since “nothing will get you fit faster and give you more body confidence than some muscle tone, and that means lifting real weights way past your comfort level.”

Wow. Just wow!

Let’s try this one again, shall we? Mollie-style:

From a social perspective:

• Posture! The first sign of “older” is often stooped shoulders. Standing tall conveys confidence and strength. “Anyone who is not attracted to that is someone you don’t need in your life.”
• Keep a focused gaze. “Looking sharp sharpens, Mollie explains. “Glazing over glazes you over.”
• “A smile is the best and cheapest face lift. Especially when it is genuine; your smile, not theirs.”
• Breathe deeply. Then speak. “When you do speak, let your voice come from your abdomen and be fueled by that deep breath.” (This isn’t easy, btw.)
• “Don’t ask your sentences unless they are questions.” (Remember Valley Girl by Frank Zappa?)
• “Try to find the love in all situations.” Mollie explains that in most cases, this needs to come from within. “Recognize that sometimes that love can take the form of putting up a boundary. Recognize also, that putting up that boundary can be cloaked in warmth and humor, even while you are being assertive.”  She adds that “true personal power can be a warming and loving representation.
• Develop your own centeredness and use that for balance.

And, in business:

• Stay centered in your “standard,” meaning you should anticipate what other’s need and provide it. The customer matters as much as you do.
• Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Buck societal aversion to age by avoiding dogma and overcoming prejudice. Rather than giving in, evolve your business in ways that positions you for longevity.
• Leverage your power to empower. The more that women are able to embrace and not tear down, play up one another’s strengths and share wisdom, the likelier the total universe of women is to be empowered and enabled.
• Look in the mirror…often. This is what you look like at 40, 50, 60 and that image is not based on preconceived notions. In other words, the buck stops at your insecurity and no one elses’.

At the age of 40, I felt better than ever — more self assured, comfortable in my own skin and comfortable in my career. I hardly felt invisible. At the age of 50, I am realizing that I don’t care as much anymore, that I’ve worked hard to earn my rite of passage. And that in some ways, I look and feel better than ever.

Trust me, you don’t need the tricks to stay in the any game. Use your knowledge, self-worth and inner beauty to solidify, maintain and stay visible.

Meditation in motion: Tai Chi and the ‘pause

Posted by Liz on Jul 11, 2011 in aging, heart disease, mind-body therapy | 0 comments

I’ve written about yoga and meditation/mindfulness training and how both may help with menopausal symptoms in terms of alleviating stress and improving overall wellbeing. However, what about Tai Chi?

Tai Chi is an ancient Chinese martial arts practice that uses a self-paced system of soft flowing movements to improve respiration and deep relaxation. It has also been shown to boost muscle strength, coordination and physical condition, improve balance and like yoga and mindfulness training, benefit overall wellbeing. On the health side, it’s been linked with better sleep quality and duration, enhanced circulation and in fact, is considered a weight-bearing exercise akin to aerobic exercise of moderate intensity. As such, it may even help prevent osteoporosis. Yet, unlike regular strength training Tai Chi appears to offer an important means by which risk of metabolic heart disease during menopause may be reduced.

For women specifically, hormonal changes – namely a steeply progressive increase in testosterone — can contribute to a risk of developing metabolic syndrome (i.e. the cluster of risk factors — abdominal fat, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels and insulin resistance –that increases the likelihood of developing heart disease and diabetes). Moreover, as women age, the ability to effectively metabolize blood fats and maintain ample antioxidant defenses in their bodies requires higher maximal aerobic capacities (which inherently decline with age). Conversely, being sedentary deteriorates the efficiency by which fats are burned or utilized by the body and also negatively affects antioxidant defense lines and their ability to adapt to sudden or chronic exposure to oxidative imbalances in our bodies that can wreak havoc on cells and lead to build up of plaques and heart disease.

Where does Tai Chi fit in?

Yogic pranayma breathing has been linked to improvements in antioxidant capacity and in lower oxidative stress markers. Moreover, it may also improve cardiorespiratory function. Tai Chi combines postures with slow, deep breathing (i.e. 6 breaths per minute) and may also convey the same benefits. In a recent study published in the Journal of Aging Research, 8 premenopausal and 7 post menopausal sedentary women were asked to participate in an 8-week Tai Chi program that involved the following:

• 75 minute training sessions twice weekly consisting of  a 5 minute check in, 10 minutes of stretching/warm-up, and 60 minutes of a modified 18-posture Tai Chi and Tai Chi fan style. The Tai Chi routines coupled breathing to music, took a minute to a minute and a half per motion. The women learned five to 10 postures per week and the complete set was practiced for two weeks. Instructors were also sure to monitor and correct postures during each class.
• Twice-weekly, 60 minute at-home practice that also included completion of a log that detailed the practice (to insure compliance).
• Measures of body weight, diet, physical fitness, balance, flexibility, muscle strength, maximal aerobic capacity and blood samples.

Not only did 8 weeks of Tai Chi practice significantly improve balance, muscle strength and flexibility in both groups, but also produced as much as an 18% decline in a major marker for heart disease risk (i.e. plasma total homocysteine). Additionally, Tai Chi combined with measured, slow deep breathing improved the activities of antioxidant markers in the bloodstream that play a role in defending cells against damage from oxidative stress.

Although this study is quite small and bears repeating with significantly higher numbers of women, the findings do imply that Tai Chi and slow deep breathing have the potential to play an important role in improving functional/physical declines that occur during menopause and equally if not more importantly, improve antioxidant defenses against metabolic diseases, especially heart disease. Tai Chi is not only low impact, low-velocity and safe, but within the framework of menopause, it may prove to be a golden ring amongst alternatives to prevent disease. Meditation in motion, indeed.

An age-old problem: public relations as science. Guest post by Dr. Brian Hughes

Posted by Liz on Jul 8, 2011 in aging, women's health | 2 comments

When I saw this post by Dr. Brian Hughes, an academic psychologist at the National University of Ireland in Galway, I knew that I needed to run it on Flashfree. In it, Brian discusses how ageism has become the advocacy project of the month, a hook to attract attention to a specific cause by feeding into the fears and anxiety that often accompany aging. Not only are women a primary target for these campaigns, but by couching the propaganda within a scientific context, it can be difficult to discern truth from fiction.

Although this post is a bit more verbose than what I typically run, I felt it was important to include it in its entirety. I hope that you’ll show Brian some love and spread the word, not only about the post but also his work on The Science Bit Blog. Many thanks Brian, for lending me your prose this week.

There is no doubt that in our increasingly image-conscious and superficially focused times, age discrimination presents a creeping civil rights problem. The tendency to judge the professional and social worth of a person on the basis of his or her apparent age can present artificial barriers to employment and respect. Moreover, age discrimination can dramatically compound sex discrimination, as such problems are often felt more acutely by older women. Therefore, it is no surprise to see recurring campaigns to promote positive attitudes towards people right across the age-spectrum, run by charitable organizations such as Age UK as well as by publications such as Mature Times.

As with any advocacy campaign, new research that provides insights into age discrimination must be seen as important. Scientifically gathered empirical evidence can be crucial in debunking negative stereotypes and in bolstering positive claims. But, alas, not all research is the same – some is little more than advertising propaganda promulgated by capitalists who see vulnerable social groups as lucrative target markets, whose concerns about social exclusion simply make them more likely to spend their money on a solution.

Unfortunately, it appears that advocacy groups are often ill-equipped to identify the difference.

Have a look at this recent lead story on the Mature Times website: “Women feel ‘invisible’ at the age of 46, a study has revealed“. The story describes new research conducted in the UK that pinpoints 46 as the age when women’s confidence begins to “plummet“. According to the research, this is how women begin to feel after they reach that age:

…two thirds beginning to hate what they see in the mirror – most blaming the fact that they now start to have grey hair, feel uncomfortable in their clothes and have to wear numerous pairs of glasses…

…more than a quarter of women feel embarrassed at having to pull out their reading glasses in restaurants and supermarkets as they feel it’s a clear sign they are older, knocking their confidence, and adding to their ‘invisibility’…

The survey also revealed that men no longer hold doors open for four in ten, and two thirds say that they never get offered a seat in public transport. A third of women surveyed said their partners were ageing better than they were which annoyed them.

According to the Daily Mail, which covered the study in their Femail section, the research was based data gathered from more than 2,000 British women aged 40 or older. By any standards this is a very large sample. The Mail were also able to describe more of the findings:

Grey hairs, failing vision and putting on weight all make some women feel increasingly less confident as they grown older…

The researchers found that women in their mid-40s also begin to fret that their views and opinions are no longer valid…by the time they reach their mid-50s, the majority of women say they no longer receive admiring glances from strangers or compliments from the opposite sex…

…This coupled with the steady increase of over 50s requiring glasses for reading, shopping and driving add to that feeling of being older and more “invisible”…

And just in case we were having difficulty visualising a woman over the age of 46, the Mail also provide a photograph of this nice lady to illustrate what they are talking about:

Hmmm. So what’s the problem with all of this then? Surely such findings can be seen as a reasonable depiction of the experiences of British women, given that over 2,000 of them were surveyed for the study? And do they not convey many of the subtle ways in which women (and presumably men also) can become ostracized by mainstream society once they reach a certain age?

The big problem is that this is not an orthodox research study. It was not presented for publication in the scientific literature, or — as far as we can reasonably surmise — peer-reviewed prior to dissemination by independent editors (or even by a research ethics review committee). In fact, this is nothing more than market research, which means its findings are likely to be skewed by the motivations of its sponsors. And in this case, the group who commissioned the research – Clarivu – have a hugely conspicuous conflict of interest.

Clarivu are a commercial company that specialize in vision correction. They perform refractive lens exchange procedures in which the eye’s natural lens is replaced with a synthetic alternative in order to improve failing vision. Their method offers an alternative to laser eye surgery, and is effective for both short- or long-sightedness. In other words, Clarivu are in the business of offering people an alternative to wearing glasses. Yes, glasses! Those things that are repeatedly described by British women as part of the reason they feel “invisible“. And guess what — Clarivu’s services are aimed specifically at people over the age of 50. Just the age at which women begin to realise the extent to which wearing glasses is ruining their lives!

Of course, Clarivu are not a charitable organization — they do all this in return for cash. In fact, in return for UK£3,395 (around US$5,400). And that’s just forone eye. Assuming you’d like to be able to see out of both eyes rather than just the one, the full treatment will set you back the bones of £7,000/$11,000.

One amusing feature of how these results were promulgated in the media can be inferred from Clarivu’s own website. Have a look at the testimonialpresented on their website’s front page:

Look! It’s the SAME LADY as was in the Daily Mail! So, in other words, not only did Clarivu’s PR department circulate copy for publication in newspapers such as the Daily Mail, but they also provided the illustrative photographs. And, by all appearances, the Mail just transferred the lot into their own newspaper without much questioning or analysis.

What we have here is a clear case of a conflict of interest. Can we rely on the media to be an effective gatekeeper in promoting objective reporting on newly claimed research findings? Can we really rely on these findings from Clarivuthat the aging process is an emotionally negative psychological experience? Is it merely a coincidence that this large-scale survey confirms Clarivu’s marketing stance that women over 46 should seek alternatives to wearing glasses? Unfortunately, given that Clarivu have a financial interest in particular research outcomes, we simply cannot rule out the possibility of bias in their execution, analysis, or reporting of these results.

This isn’t to say that we cannot rely on Clarivu to display impeccable moral integrity. We have no evidence that they are anything other than honest in their activities. It’s just that human nature itself will create the possibility of bias whenever conflicts of interest arise. This is why the scientific method promotes principles like objectivity and replication, as well as associated practices, such as blinding and peer-review.

It is disappointing that the study was reported as actual news in the mainstream media. It is particularly ironic that it was reported as news in outlets that would ordinarily see themselves as championing the cause of, on the one hand, older adults, and on the other hand, women. This is because these so-called research findings do little to advance the cause of marginalized groups. In fact, they help maintain the social exclusion of older adults, and older women in particular, by perpetuating negative stereotypes about the aging process.

So when Mature Times report this as news, they are essentially promoting age-discrimination; and when the Daily Mail’s Femail section do so, they are encouraging readers to judge the value of women based on superficialattributes, such as whether they wear glasses after they turn 46.

Age-old problems indeed…