Health Maintenance class at Lakeside

Although I don't think I heard anything new about the importance of a colonoscopy, screening for osteoporosis or the value of exercise, Dr. John Weigand's talk was informative and entertaining. He noted that by 2025 over 62,000,000 persons in the U.S. will be over 65. The risk of osteoporosis is high, particularly for white women, so screening should start around age 60. Dr. Weigand recommends 1000-1500 mg/day of calcium--not sure I get that much, and also Vitamin D, perhaps 1000-2000 units a day. He also said 10-15 minutes a day in the sun would help without being a skin cancer danger (without sun screen, which blocks vitamin D). A t-score of a negative 2.5 is osteoporosis. He suggested we go to FRAX to get a 10 year risk of a hip fracture or major osteoporotic event. The good news about exercise is that even the oldest of the old benefit from a supervised program of high-intensity resistance training and weights; that aeroblic exercise helps brain synapses and possibly promotes the development of new neurons from adult stem cells.

And in the Sonnets class earlier in the day we looked at Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, which certainly seems to fit:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.