Your Health compiled by Franklin Ward Baum

Older drivers less likely than young to cause wrecks

Older drivers are much less dangerous than young drivers and only a little riskier than middle-aged drivers, according to a report by the nonprofit RAND Corporation.
The study found that people 65 and older are about 16 percent likelier to cause an accident than drivers between the ages of 25 and 64. However, drivers from 15 to 24 are 188 percent more likely than adults to cause an accident.
People 65 and older accounted for 15 percent of all drivers in the United States but only 7 percent of all accidents. Drivers 24 and under accounted for 13 percent of drivers and caused 43 percent of all accidents.
By the year 2025, according to the study, 25 percent of drivers will be 65 or older.
The study was done as a result of the movement by states toward mandating stricter licensing requirements for older people.

Even diet soft drinks increase diabetes, heart risks

Drinking more than one soft drink a day, even a diet soft drink, increases the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a study reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Of the nearly 9,000 people who were studied over four years by the Framingham Heart Study, those who drank one or more soft drinks daily—regular or diet—had a 48 percent higher degree of metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors such as higher blood pressure, fat around the abdomen, elevated triglycerides and low levels of “good” cholesterol.
Previous studies have found that regular soft drinks increase metabolic syndrome. This was the first study to see the same connection with diet soft drinks, and the results puzzled the researchers, who had viewed fructose corn syrup found in regular drinks, but absent in diet drinks, as the leading cause of increased metabolic syndrome.

Hip protectors don’t work, study on fractures finds

Hip protector pads that absorb the shock of a fall won’t keep away hip fractures, according to a report from the Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In a study of more than 1,000 nursing home residents who wore hip protectors on one side of their body and none on the other, there was no statistical difference in the number of fractures on a protected or unprotected hip. The fracture rate on protected hips was 3.1 percent, while on unprotected hips it was 2.5 percent. The average age of the study participants was 85.
Researchers attributed the result to the fact that the fall does not fracture the hip. Instead, it’s the unnatural rotation of the hip just before impact that creates the fracture. More than 340,000 elderly people suffer hip fractures in the United States every year.

Arthritis disables Hispanics, blacks more than whites

Researchers from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago who studied more than 7,300 older Americans with arthritis say that blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely as whites to suffer a disability that interferes with daily life.
Reported in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, the six-year study concluded that access to medical care, fewer economic resources and insurance coverage were the major factors in the disparity. The researchers defined disability as being unable to perform at least one necessary daily task, such as dressing, bathing or getting in and out of bed.

The wrong food may lead to losing your eyesight

What you eat may affect what you see, according to a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Researchers from Tufts University in Boston studied more than 4,000 people aged 55 to 80 and found that diets with a high-glycemic index significantly increased the risk of developing age-related macular degeneration. High-glycemic foods have the type of carbohydrates that quickly raise the level of blood sugar.
More than 20 percent of the AMD cases could have been prevented with a low-glycemic diet, according to the study, which called for further investigation into the relationship. AMD is the most common cause of vision loss in older people.

Memory loss, sleep problems may have a common cause

Older women who have memory problems are nearly twice as likely to have trouble staying asleep than those without memory problems, according to a study from the University of California, San Francisco. In addition, those with memory problems are more likely to have trouble falling asleep in the first place.
The 15-year study of almost 2,500 older women was reported in the journal Neurology. Researchers speculated that sleep problems and memory loss may have an underlying cause, or that anxiety and depression brought on by memory loss could affect sleep patterns.

More calories needed for the acutely ill

Elderly people in the hospital could benefit from taking in more calories, according to a new French study reported in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
Researchers from University Hospital, Angers, studied the energy intake and expenditure of 90 acutely ill people between the age of 65 and 99 and found that the intake level was the amount needed by a healthy person, but because sick people expend more energy, it was inadequate to help the person fight the illness.