Tag: aging

“Live a healthy life, then die quickly at 90”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥  @HeartSisters

woman funny oldYou’d hardly expect a physician who spends his life trying to cure cancer to suddenly shift gears and suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should “stop trying”. But it turns out that New Jersey oncologist Dr. James Salwitz agrees with a review of data published in the September 2012 issue of Lancet Oncology, entitled “First Do No Harm: Counting the Cost of Chasing Drug Efficacy.” *

An accompanying Lancet editorial suggests that during the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, “many new cancer drugs produced marginal extensions in survival and simultaneously increased risk of treatment-associated death and side effects.”  This compelled Dr. Salwitz to write:    Continue reading ““Live a healthy life, then die quickly at 90”” →

Live to 100? No thanks!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥  @HeartSisters

Today’s guest post comes to you from the engaging blog called PinkUnderBelly, written by Nancy Hicks, “a sassy Texas girl dealing with breast cancer and its messy aftermath.”  Her messy aftermath is substantial: diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer in April 2010 at age 40, a bilateral mastectomy within three weeks of diagnosis, a nasty infection three weeks post-op, which led to four more hospitalizations and two more surgeries.

While Nancy’s blog focuses on breast cancer, her message on living until age 100 will ring true for many of us heart patients, too – republished here with her kind permission:    Continue reading “Live to 100? No thanks!” →

Does getting older mean getting happier?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

It is inevitable. The muscles weaken. Hearing and vision fade. We get wrinkled and stooped. We can’t run, or even walk, as fast as we used to. We have aches and pains in parts of our bodies we never even noticed before.  We develop chronic, progressive illnesses like heart disease.  We get old.

It sounds miserable, but apparently it is not. According to the New York Times, a large U.S. survey of over 340,000 people aged 18-85 has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why.

The Times reported that in the study’s global measure of well-being, people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves.  But then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.  Continue reading “Does getting older mean getting happier?” →