While calcium supplements are considered effective for bone health, there have been reports linking potential adverse effects between calcium supplements and the risk of heart disease. This information has led many seniors to question the safety of calcium supplements and whether they should take them. As lead author of a recent study completed by a team of researchers at the Institute for Aging Research (IFAR) at Hebrew SeniorLife, I can offer reassuring insight into these concerns. 

What is so scary about hearing loss? Everyone gets a little hearing problem as they age, right? Well….yes. Most people do acquire age-related hearing loss, or presbycusis, as they get older. Untreated hearing loss, however, can be a scary thing! Its onset is usually slow and gets worse gradually, making it easy to ignore until much damage is already done.

Research out of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, presents us with evidence of some frightening correlations between hearing loss and its subsequent effect on cognitive brain function.

There are plenty of genetic traits that we can thank our parents for—could weak bones be one of them?

My fellow researchers at the Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife (IFAR) believe they’ve discovered links between 56 different genetics variants and subsequent bone loss.

After examining a wide scope of osteoporosis studies as part of the largest analysis of genome-studies ever conducted, our researchers were able to pinpoint 56 different genetic variants that negatively affect bone mineral density (BMD).

Twenty years ago, if a 70-year-old man visited the emergency room after falling, he would be said to have fallen accidentally. He might have been treated for a broken bone and sent home. We’re now realizing that the things we used to blame on aging, like falling, actually have an underlying reason and a cause – an understanding that motivates everything we do at the Institute for Aging Research.