Healthy Ageing – Natalie Parletta, PhD

Emotional support for aged care residents

Going into aged care can be fraught with grief and other crippling emotions as people leave the homes and people they love, lose their independence and grapple with fading health.

Conjuring protein from thin air

It sounds like science fiction, but it’s true: scientists have worked out how to make protein from air – with the help of teeny, microscopic bacteria called hydrogenotrophs.

Junk food in aged care

While malnutrition is an insidious problem in aged care, simply giving residents more biscuits and cake is not the answer. Yet that is what many residential facilities are doing, according to research.

Farmacy – food as medicine

Prescribing food could be as cost-effective – if not more so – than common drug treatments while delivering significant health benefits, according to research published in PLOS Medicine.

Pharma’s influence on healthcare must stop, experts say

An international group of experts, policy makers, clinicians and citizen representatives are tackling the pervasive financial conflicts of interest in health research, education and clinical practice, proposing a better way forward.

Health equality for Indigenous Australians still lagging dismally

Despite the government’s “Closing the Gap Strategy”, healthy equality for Indigenous Australians has not improved.

When bones and muscles both break down with aging

The diseases osteoporosis and sarcopenia are on the rise, creating a new syndrome: osteosarcopenia.

Psychiatrists could start prescribing diet

If you visit a psychiatrist one day in the not-too-distant future, you may be surprised to find that you are given dietary advice.

Food waste in health care

While multitudes of people around the world face food insecurity, a whopping third of food is lost or wasted. This equates to more than a billion tonnes of food valued at nearly $940 billion every year.

Maturing gracefully in an aging population

Globally, for the first time, there are more people over 65 than under five years of age. In Australia, the percentage of older people has tripled in less than a century and continues to grow.

National Palliative Care Week – on death and dying

“What matters most?” This is the theme for Australia’s National Palliative Care week from 19-25 May. It aims to encourage people to plan ahead as their life is nearing its end.

It’s a no-brainer: diet affects mental health

Recognition of links between diet and mental health has snowballed in recent years. This includes the impact of nutrition on risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

A pregnancy protein could help geriatric diseases

A powerful protein that protects women from the biological onslaught of pregnancy could be harnessed to prevent and treat a range of geriatric diseases, a recent study suggests.

Printing prosthetic arms from plastic bottle tops

Proportion Food staff have joined a movement to collect plastic bottle tops.

Adding bugs to the menu

Fancy some termites with your vegies for dinner? They taste rather minty, apparently. Or how about some grasshoppers – the Mexicans enjoy them roasted in chilli and garlic.

Australia falling in healthy nation rankings

While Mediterranean regions are fighting it out for top healthy nation ranking, Australia is slipping.

Autophagy: the body’s spring cleaning

With aging, the body’s inbuilt mechanisms for sweeping out and recycling cellular metabolic waste products starts to wane. Kick-starting this inbuilt cleaning up process, known as “autophagy”, could be a key anti-aging target to slow the degenerative impacts of growing older.

Category: Healthy Ageing