Cocoa Pods
Podcast - Cocoa Pods Series: A feature of the Birth Center Foundation.
We discuss all things' women, all things' pregnancy, all things' after. Reasons why women fall very sick ( morbidity) or die (mortality) before pregnancy (adolescent girls and young adults),during pregnancy and after are discussed in this maternal morbidity and mortality reduction academy; especially with an emphasis on minority women, all over the world; and ways for all involved in care to work together collaboratively and mitigate and or eliminate risks in women’s health.
Cocoa Pods
Aging Tip 101:Ditch Connections That Do Not Bring You Joy or Relevance
Explore the keys to aging gracefully with Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu, a distinguished expert in aging from Abuja, Nigeria. Immerse yourself in the essentials of longevity, as Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu unveils the impact of a plant-based diet, restorative sleep, and meaningful social connections on our physical and mental well-being. This episode serves as your comprehensive guide to maintaining vitality, emphasizing the critical role of regular health checks in early detection and prevention. Discover how engaging in physical social connectivity over digital reliance can enhance life quality, and delve into the promising realm of senolytics, which targets aging cells to potentially rejuvenate cell function.
Older adults often face unique mental health challenges, and Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu sheds light on fostering a supportive environment to combat anxiety and depression. The discussion emphasizes the importance of maintaining a sense of purpose, especially during life's transitions, and highlights the significant role of social support and prayer. As we navigate these topics, listeners will gain invaluable insights into managing chronic conditions and enhancing overall quality of life. This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for cultivating a fulfilled life, even as the years add up.
nterventions that are being looked at, being able to increase some kind of genetic reprogramming that can increase the level of more youthful cells and reduce the number of cells that have aged and you're able to then rejuvenate younger cells, so almost going back to more youthful function. Younger cells, so almost going back to more youthful function, so skin would not wrinkle as much. Your heart cells, your heart, become a little stronger as a pump. Joint degeneration is regressed and people don't have to deal with aches and pains as they age.
Dr Bola Sogade:Hello and welcome to CocoaPods, a podcast of the Birth Center for Natural Deliveries Foundation. My name is Dr Bola Sogade. I'm a women's health specialist. On this podcast, we talk about all the issues relating to women's health and identify the problems and talk about ways in which we can mitigate the problems. In this new series, we explore the fascinating journey of actually growing to an old age with vitality. We'll uncover the secrets behind longevity. We'll explore how lifestyle richness in social connections, a good, healthy diet, regular physical activity and a relaxed approach to life contribute to remarkable health and happiness. We'll hear from an expert who is also an inspiring individual who shares her insights and experiences, on how we can incorporate some of these principles into our lives, no matter where we live. Today, we gain valuable insights from Dr Ogugua , from Abuja, nigeria, an expert in aging. We gained valuable insights from Dr Ogugua from Abuja, Nigeria, an expert in aging.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:So part of the advocacy that I do with other stakeholders is shining light on these aging issues to ensure that we curb what we describe as ageism, which is a prejudice or discrimination purely based on age.
Dr Bola Sogade:Yeah, thank you so very much for that. You know, I was very privileged to be part of a conference, a powerful conference that you gave to a group of doctors in Kigali, rwanda, and also to the Ministry of Health there. And you know, while aging is inevitable, there are steps that one can take to age gracefully and maintain a healthy and vibrant lifestyle. So, you know, I want us to talk about some of the cutting edge tips to help everybody women, men, everybody feel and look their best as they age. And I know we can talk about some of this in depth as we go. But can you touch on some of these?
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:for us Right. So it's really. I mean, we might talk about it as cutting edge, but there are things that have always been talked about, but I guess, as humans, changing behavior is difficult. So there are six pillars that we look at for healthy lifestyle or healthy aging. One of them is ensuring that we eat healthy. Studies are living longer and they found that their diet is mostly plant-based very low calories from meat, so plant-based vegetables, grains, whole grains and proteins. So that's one major pillar that we're eating right. Second pillar is adequate, restorative sleep, and in the world today we're all trying to meet goals, targets. We're not pacing in ourselves, so we end up with three, four hours of sleep.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:We know CEOs who are. You know they're flying day and night. So, again, studies have shown us that sleep deprivation has been linked to things like dementia, which will give you. Even if you don't die, you'll have very poor quality life because you become dependent on others, you can't engage and all of that is like diabetes and hypertension. So restorative sleep what do we expect? That people get Seven to eight hours of restful sleep per night.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:The other pillar social connection. Being able to have groups that you engage in or that you're a part of, where you have a feeling of relevance. You have a lot of joy when you're in the midst of these people and so you keep looking forward to being able to engage with this group. So meaningful social connection, people who have the same values as you, as you live in life, and you know the studies that have shown this link with social connection and longevity. You know have put forward things like. You know the fact when you belong to a group, even when you have a chronic medical condition, someone there is going to ask you oh, your diabetes, how well is it controlled, your blood pressure? Or somebody is going to say you know what? I met my doctor and now my diabetes that wasn't so well controlled. They have made changes. That also will be a reminder to other members in the group. It also makes you feel free to be able to discuss your medical issues, because sometimes people feel they are walking this journey alone and they are shy, they have a lot of anxiety to even discuss it. But when you are in a group where you have that freedom to express yourself, you're more likely to comply with the interventions and recommendations of your clinical practitioners or your care providers. So social connection really important and been linked significantly. In fact, some studies are saying it's not about the diabetes control or the hypertension control, but it's about a lot more that people get from being in these social groups. Studies were also done here in Nigeria where we looked at women who participated weekly in church programs who tended to have, you know, less expression of anxiety or not enjoying life compared to those who didn't. So lots of benefits from that.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:The other pillar is being able to avoid toxins like excessive alcohol, tobacco we all know tobacco has been linked to so many chronic conditions. So if you develop chlamydia, if you develop a heart attack or stroke, those conditions could shorten your life. So, and if it didn't shorten your life again. You might have morbidity that makes quality of life for you really poor, so you're not going to live as long as you should or as healthy as you should. The other pillar is being able to identify you know conditions early. So prevention and early detection. And that means we have to get into the habit of an annual check. That's sometimes what is uncommon in this part of the world People wait until they're feeling well before they walk into a doctor's office. But those well checks are really important. To pick up the numbers, we talk about people knowing their numbers. So that's another major thing.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:As we're aging, we know our numbers. And what are these numbers? Numbers for blood pressure, numbers for blood sugar, numbers for cholesterol, your body mass index. And when we come to specifics like the prostate specific antigen, the PSA, for men, for us to be able to detect prostate cancer early. And it also brings me to the issue of screening that you know we have age and gender appropriate screenings that must be done Colonoscopy, for instance, to detect colon cancer. We used to say for the general population, we do this at the age of 50, but many more studies are now showing us that we need to do this earlier. So a lot of guidelines are now recommending that we start screening from 45. And for those who have family members who have had colon cancer, that they start screening 10 years earlier than when their loved one or their significant family member actually was diagnosed with colon cancer. So there's also mammogram for women, pap smear also for the women. So it's important that as we're going through life, this age and gender, appropriate screenings are done so that we can detect any disease conditions early and comply with interventions.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:Again back to the human behavior. There are times when we tell people around here that, oh, we've diagnosed you with high blood pressure and they don't want to accept it. And because they come to no acceptance, they don't follow up with recommendations, they don't follow up with clinic visits, they don't follow up with treatment and unfortunately for some they end up at the emergency room with complications because of the poor compliance. So that acceptance and the discipline to follow up really important because then we can manage those conditions and you don't have to develop the complications that could shorten your life from them. But I mentioned the six. Say anyone that I'm missing Exercise? Oh my God, how could I forget that Very important Physical activity has been found to be maybe the most important lifestyle attribute that we must must all imbibe across the life course.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:So from as young as possible we must imbibe the habit of exercise or physical activity. So we're all expected to get at least 150 minutes of quick paced walk, so you don't really have to go and spend time or money in a gym. Again, this also could be done in a social group, so you're walking with your group of four or five or six, whatever, and this translates to about 30 minutes of walking minimum five times a week. The other target for physical activity is 10,000 steps a day, and what that means is that we can't be sitting for a prolonged period of time. What I tend to advise my clients to do is after every hour to make sure they get up and move, and I've also recommended to some of them to get you know the fit bits to be able to track their steps.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:And really when people can take ownership, you know. So that's one of the thing that you know that I enjoy in geriatrics, or in geriatric practice, we come to decision-making with the client and their family members. We do not impose anything, so we make them understand why this is important, have them take ownership. And I've had clients who come to me. This man was only taking maybe 500 steps a day, but once he started counting and he could now do a thousand and after, you know, after a few weeks, he was able to do three thousand. He was so excited. That was the first thing he was reporting to me once he walked through my consultation room. So having people take ownership really helps. But I guess also they must be motivated and that motivation might require you counseling, you know, over and over and over. And having them also get social support, so family support that is meaningful Also helps them to be able to take ownership of these issues. That gives them, you know, better health. So physical activity really really important.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:So if one is able to follow this lifestyle, practices or habit across a life course, because aging doesn't begin at 60. That's usually the first question I ask at you know, presentations. We know that it begins from birth, but actually now newer evidence is showing us that it begins from conception. So the milieu, the environment in which the fetus grows, it's very important. If the mother is an alcoholic, being battered by a husband who engages in domestic violence, the mother is a chronic smoker, all of that affect that environment in which the fetus grows. And such people have been said not to age, as well as those who grow in an environment that is free of all of those negative conditions.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:So it's a life-cost approach. For us to actually live long and healthy, we have to imbibe those attributes. So children must have appropriate vaccination. They must be prevented from those early life diseases cholera, malaria, pneumonia that could shorten their lives. The same thing, the next band, the adolescents, must also have appropriate education on prevention of unnecessary pregnancies. That can affect, you know, not just physically but psychologically, and you know such a young girl does not grow up free of psychological burden, because we know health is not just physical but it's social, it's psychological. So it's a life course approach. Do you live in an environment that is free of violence and the wars? We know, if we look at the world today, there's a lot of displacement from the wars and that brings on a lot of psychological issues, lots of social issues. People are now dependent on the state or others for their livelihood, and those are some of the things that also affect how this individual's age going forward.
Dr Bola Sogade:Well, thank you. I like the fact that you linked aging to when the sperm and the egg connect with each other, the environment under which the sperm and the egg connect with each other at conception, so even before we are born, we are aging.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:Very interesting.
Dr Bola Sogade:Yes, and I'm glad that you made that connection. Another thing you said was this social connectivity as one of the pillars, and I wanted to tie that to just to clarify that it doesn't mean that as an older person, you are sitting down with your phone and connecting to social media with no activity and talking to your friends on social media. So when you talk about social connectivity, you are talking about physical engagement with other people. I have, you know, personally had family members that you know. You know I missed that loneliness developing in them. A lot of older people now they all have a smartphone, they're on Facebook, they are on Instagram, they're on social media. So you are talking about actually getting out of your house and being with a group of people doing physical activities. Is that correct?
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:Right, that's absolutely correct Because, remember I said, the benefits are so many. You're out there, you might even be walking with them, you're having conversations about your children, grandchildren, you're sharing experiences. Yes, because on the social media, in fact, that's something that is risky for older people, because we've seen older people being defrauded financially from the social media connection. So it's often not so meaningful to just sit there, because then you are at risk of being preyed on by some of the cyber crime fraudsters. So we need you to be in the space with other people. It encourages movement, it encourages brain tasking exercises you might be playing Sudoku, you might be playing Ludo, like one of the games that we play around here. So it encourages so many other pillars. So the social connection is tied to so many of the other lifestyle habits that are really strong pillars for healthy eating. So, yes, I know COVID sort of prevented that, and then people now are forced to connect on social media, but really, now that we have the freedom to engage physically, many more people should do that.
Dr Bola Sogade:Thank you, you know. So that brings me to what some people might consider cutting edge facts about actually slowing down the aging process, and it makes me wonder can, scientifically, you know, can we really slow down the pace of aging? And I know there's some new class of medications that are under research that they think might eliminate aging cells. Can you talk to us about, you know, this cutting edge senolytics, these drugs that might slow down the aging process?
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:Right. So part of a big umbrella physiological process in aging is inflammation. So when we look at all of the chronic medical conditions that we see there's a recurring process and that's that there is excessive inflammation. So, and we do describe a phenomenon called inflammation aging. So when you look at older people and look at their the level of inflammatory markers, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor, you have higher levels in older people compared to younger people. So it tells us that with aging we have a lot of inflammation going on.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:And so with inflammation we have also an accumulation of what we call senescent cells, or cells that are really now no more able to replicate to have good function. So they accumulate and and so reduce function where they have accumulated. And so the senolytics senolytics, meaning, they're supposed to lyse the senescent cells are being put forward as possible intervention to reduce these senescent cells and function could then be maintained or preserved. And you know one or two of them I think the Sertinib was actually initially being used for cancer treatment and now being further researched as a possible drug to delay aging, if we're able to reduce the accumulation of cynicism cells as we age that are being able to increase some kind of genetic reprogramming that can increase the level of more youthful cells and reduce the number of cells that have aged. So if we're able to have an increased number of pluripotent cells, I guess, which is also the technology for stem cell therapy, then you're able to then rejuvenate younger cells that can give more, so almost going back to more youthful function. So skin would not wrinkle as much, your heart cells, your heart, become a little stronger as a pump Joint degeneration is regressed and people don't have to deal with aches and pains as they age. So those are some of the things that we're looking into now.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:But I must say that if we're, because all those age-related chronic disease conditions diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, osteoarthritis and all that If we imbibe the healthy lifestyle across the life course, we should actually be able to prevent the development of those conditions. There was a study that followed over 200,000 people in the US and they looked at, were able to come up with habits that would prevent the development of diabetes. Exercise was a major one, eating right Again, plant-based diet, no alcohol, no smoking. So it's possible for us to actually live without these conditions as long as we can imbibe the healthy lifestyle habits. But, yes, it's promising that with ongoing research we might actually be able to have people live longer without disability.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:But look into the blue zones is also showing us that and it's all about lifestyle. In those areas they pace themselves. There's no undue stress. I think that was the last pillar that I missed out that we must pace and get into a place of meditation or taking a break, because it's very possible to go your entire 24 hours and go, go, go, go, go without even a minute to so places where they have imbibed practices like meditation, yoga, people have actually tended to also live longer without the visibility.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:So the lifestyle habits are very important. Can we get into imbibing them across the life course? I know a lot of people just prefer let me just take a pill to live longer, let me take a pill to. But really, if we can imbibe those lifestyle habits, we can actually live longer free of those lifestyle related diseases. The attitude we also put forward remember you and I were talking about that earlier before we started this that it's all about putting up a positive attitude and that comes also with certain practices like so spirituality is another pillar that has been linked to healthy lifestyle, longevity being, and I guess that helps us to deal with the stresses of life, you know, if you can unburden to a higher being that you believe in.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:You know what I have.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:I have these issues, but I know I can deal with it.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:Now you know, and you say a prayer believe that that's going to help.
Dr. Ogugua Osi-Ogbu:It is a way of relieving one of undue anxiety and being able to maintain a stable state of mental health. And that's also very important because with increasing age, the losses that people go through put them at risk of some anxiety. Am I going to be next? My spouse has died, my friends have died, I don't have the income that I used to have, some have even lost offsprings. All that contributes to a lot of anxiety, and some even become depressed and can go into suicidal ideation. And studies have shown us that when older people conceive suicide they tend to succeed more. They tend to get it to completion, compared to younger people. So it's important that we provide an environment that keeps them mentally stable so that they are not getting into a state of thinking life is not worth living, and so the chronic disease burden, the chronic painful situation, must be put under great control. They must also have social support, not just from the friends but also family members. That would make them feel relevant and want to continue to live life.
Dr Bola Sogade:Wow, thank you so very much for that. Next episode. You know what are just some of the practical things that family members can do to help their older persons.
