Good morning and welcome to agebuzz… Headlining today’s topics:

-Food For Thought: Making Thoughtful Choices For Your Diet

-Gray Matter: Accepting Your Natural Hair Color

-Hip Check: The Rising Rates Of Hip Fractures

-Put To The Test: A New Blood Test For Cancer Detection

-Listen To This: The Impact Of Hearing Loss On The Provision Of Health Care

-Write On: Is It Time To Put Your Story Into Written Form?

-The Last Word

Food For Thought: Making Thoughtful Choices For Your Diet: For many of us, it’s a never-ending conversation with ourselves: How to maintain a healthy diet but not feel guilty over every last calorie or less than healthy occasional treat. Most nutrition experts emphasize moderation over obsession. For some of the latest advice, consider the following: The Harvard Men’s Health Watch underscores the value of a plant-based diet, but warns that actual plant-based choices you select make a difference. Longevity points out that a vegan or vegetarian diet may make sense, but you need to take note of the essential nutrients you may be missing if you restrict your diet in this way. One area where there is growing scientific evidence: processed meats seem to be correlated with an uptick in colorectal cancer. While this doesn’t mean you need to banish bacon from your life, it does underscore the need for balance and moderation. And if all of these suggestions are making you confused or cranky, sit back and watch 69-year-old nutritionist (and model) Maye Musk give you nutritional advice as she walks you through the Union Square Green Market in New York City!

Gray Matter: Accepting Your Natural Hair Color: To paraphrase Nora Ephron: There’s a reason today why older women often do not look their age, and it has nothing to do with diet or beauty secrets: it’s that women (and, now, often men) dye their hair. Allowing your gray (or silver or white) natural hair color to see the light of day is often a very individual and conflicted choice. Many women believe that their natural gray may lead to ageism in the workplace or other aspects of their lives, and some advisors even encourage women to consider dyeing their hair for that purpose. But for anyone who has committed to hair coloring, you know it’s an expensive and time consuming process. Recently, The Fine Line interviewed several older women who made the decision to let the gray shine through. Read about their decisions, and lack of regrets, Here. And if you’re looking for a guide on how to go through this process yourself, try picking up Going Gray Beauty Guide: 50 Gray8 Going Gray Stories. Finally, for those of you who think worrying about gray hair is just a matter of vanity, consider this: there is now research that correlates the amount of gray hair in men with increased risk of heart disease. Take a look at the research results Here.

Hip Check: The Rising Rates Of Hip Fractures: The risk is real: As we age, and as many of us develop osteoporosis, the potential for fracturing a bone increases, often with devastating consequences. And now a review of the recent data confirms a worrying trend: Hip fractures in older women, previously on the decline, have now begun to tick up again, with significant costs to both individuals as well as our larger health care system. The reasons for this rise are not altogether clear, though there seems to be a decline in the number of women receiving bone density scans, which allow for early detection of risk for osteoporosis. Anyone with a family history of bone fractures, rheumatoid arthritis or other behaviors that can cause bone weakening should avail themselves of assessments to determine their risk. Read more about such testing from the National Institutes of Health Here. And there are, of course, exercises that maintain and strengthen your musculoskeletal health, so that you can limit or reduce your risk of such fractures in the first place. So pull out your mat and take a look at some beneficial exercises Here.

Put To The Test: A New Blood Test For Cancer Detection: For many of the most lethal types of cancer, there are few ways to detect the disease early enough for meaningful intervention. But that prognosis may be giving way to a new era. Researchers from Johns Hopkinshave just published the results of new work in the journal Science that may usher in a revolutionary new cancer detection blood test. Called CancerSEEK, this newly developed test will be able to detect 8 different types of common cancers that account for nearly 60% of all cancer deaths, including ovarian, liver and pancreatic cancer. For these types of cancer, early detection is critical, and this new blood test, while not perfect, seems to detect these cancers at an early stage, where at present they are undetected by current diagnostic methods. The blood test is now undergoing additional research to confirm its effectiveness, with the goal of creating a test that primary care physicians will be able to someday utilize in their offices. Read more about this exciting research development Here. And speaking of diagnostic blood tests, Read Here about the Israeli research firm that’s utilizing data analysis and machine learning to create a new blood test as an alternative to a colonoscopy for colon cancer detection.

Listen To This: The Impact Of Hearing Loss On The Provision Of Health Care: Raise your hand if you, too, have trouble hearing your dining companions in a restaurant or understanding the actors at your local theater. Working hard to comprehend dialogue and to hear what’s going on is an all too common effort for many of us once we reach a certain age. For Dr. Jan Blustein of NYU, hearing loss has been a personal problem for several decades and it’s become the focus of her research as well. Dr Blustein realized that health care settings are often noisy places and thus pose challenges for older patients who need to follow care directions. Her analysis has just been published in the British Medical Journal, and she recently sat down with an editor from that journal to discuss the prevalence of hearing loss and the need to pay attention to noise levels. So turn up the volume and listen to Dr. Blustein Here. And do the noise levels of some public places worry you, either because you fear the impact on your hearing or are afraid you’ll miss out on conversation? Well, apparently, there’s an app for that! Check out the latest tech devices to help you measure noise levels by Reading Here.

Write On: Is It Time To Put Your Story Into Written Form?: After we reach a certain age, it’s certainly common to look back over the life we’ve led and wonder: what has it all added up to, and are there lessons here, for myself or others? That’s often the impetus for people to write memoirs- as a way to make sense of your life, come to terms with the challenges you’ve faced, or impart your experiential wisdom on others. You may not realize it, but there’s a National Association of Memoir Writers that can help you figure out if you’ve got a story to tell. As well, there are many books and guides available to help you once you’ve made the decision to start. Check out this list of the most valuable titles Here. For a specific example of someone who recently penned a well-received book reflecting back on his life, take a look at essayist Bob Brody’s book, Playing Catch With Strangers: A Family Guy (Reluctantly) Comes of Age. Finally, for inspiration, you may want to take a glance at predictions of some of the best memoirs being published in 2018- Check out the contenders Here.

THE LAST WORD: “I’m a great believer in common sense, and the older I get, I see that common sense is not that common.” Iris Apfel