The regulation of fluid balance is crucial to survival. Approximately 9 L of fluid enters the gastrointestinal tract per day. Of that amount, about 2 L is ingested by mouth. The remaining 7 L consists of fluids secreted by the various gastrointestinal organs. Ninety eight percent of the total amount of fluid that enters the gastrointestinal tract is reabsorbed in the small intestine and the colon. (more…)

It is estimated that about 6 million Americans over 65 suffer from depression in late life. The sad reality is that 10% are looking for and get treatment of late life depression. It is common that many illness and disabilities are accompanying late-life depression. When people reach certain age in this age, your support system begins to collapse. Family and friends, Spouses, siblings and friends die. You are about to retire or move. People with depression are likely to see a decline in quality of life. This can deprive them personal joy and productivity and he hope for the future. (more…)

A decline in glucose tolerance with age is a common finding that leads to an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in the elderly. By age 60, 18.3% of persons have diabetes. Nearly 50% of individuals with T2DM are over the age of 65 years. (more…)

The senses of smell and taste are termed chemical senses because they detect chemical stimuli and encode chemosensory information into neural signals. A variety of diagnostic terms have been used to describe smell and taste disorders. Standard classification terms for olfactory disorders are anosmia (absence of smell), hyposmia (diminished sensitivity of smell), and dysosmia (distortion of normal smell). Phantosmia, a type of dysosmia, refers to perception odor in absence of an odor stimulus, and parosmia refers to distortion of odor perception when an odor is present. For taste, diagnostic terms include ageusia (absence of taste), hypogeusia (diminished sensitivity of taste), and dysgeusia (distortion of normal taste). (more…)

There is truth in the age old advice to do your traveling while you still can. Don’t wait until those legs of yours become so crusty that you can no longer walk a mile even if you have a chauffeured car waiting for you at every turn, the walking is the least of your problems when traveling. There will be the issues of backaches, sore muscles, indigestion and frequent urinating, which can be inconvenient for some of the members of the family. (more…)