Senior Voice -

What are the physical effects of religious faith? A study tracking 20,000 Americans found that white people who attended church regularly lived an average of seven years longer than their counterparts who didn’t go to church. And churchgoing black...

My youngest cousin, age 50, is the daughter I never had. Now she is dying of liver disease. Laura was here for a visit a few months ago, along with her two brothers and her father — my brother, Douglas. It was a delightful family visit, although...

Millions of Americans are suffering needlessly with chronic pain, according to a new book, A Nation in Pain. The author, Judy Foreman, calls the opioid wars not only medical but psychological, economic, political and cultural. We are suffering...

Doctors often prescribe statins for people with high cholesterol to lower their total cholesterol and reduce their risk of a heart attack or stroke. The dangers of statins often seem to be brushed aside. Most people taking statins will take them for...

New findings in the physiological causes of depression are leading to treatments other than widely used antidepressants, such as Prozac and Zoloft, according to a report in the journal Current Psychiatry. Depression is a problem facing many seniors....

It was in 1945 that the Raytheon Company’s Percy Spencer stood in front of a magnetron (the power tube of radar). He felt a candy bar melt in his pocket. When he put popcorn kernels in front of the magnetron, the kernels exploded all over the...

You can’t watch television for more than an hour without being exposed to pleas to use either Viagra or Cialis to deal with erectile dysfunction. Now testosterone is being pushed. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), however,...

A new study involving several universities indicates that research into the delay of aging would have a better payoff than advances in such fatal diseases as cancer and heart problems. Even modest gains in the scientific comprehension of how to slow...

People who are self-confident, who have power or status, tend to use the word “I” more frequently than those with less power or less sure of themselves. Right? Wrong. A study done at University of Texas at Austin found that people who often say...

Only six percent of centenarians say they wished they had more money. This is indeed surprising because most people don’t expect to live to age 100, so many have run short of retirement savings before reaching this advanced age. This small proporti...

Menopause, or change of life – as women become too old to bear children – can frequently be an agonizing and stressful time. But did you know there is male menopause? It’s one of the “most under-diagnosed” ailments among older men,...

Seniors who attend religious services regularly tend to live longer and enjoy better health. The percentage of Americans who say they go to church is about the same as in 1940, even though you may believe that religion is on the wane in this...

Seniors who list various deductions on their income tax returns are getting a little-known break. It deals with health costs. For 2013 taxes, the claim for health related costs was jacked up from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of Adjusted Gross Income...

Suicide among senior citizens is a major health problem, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Many seniors have depression symptoms that are not properly diagnosed which leaves them vulnerable to suicide attempts. Every...

“I only see clearly what I remember,” as French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau put it. Some of us can’t even remember what we have seen clearly. Many older adults find it hard to recall past events. A Harvard University study examined how...

Direct-care health aide — helping the elderly bathe, dress and eat — is the fastest growing occupation in the U.S. But the labor shortage is dire. As the baby boomers age, this sector of health care faces a dangerous shortage because the work is...