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Back pain can come on slowly or suddenly, but pinpointing the exact cause can be challenging. Here are some surprising culprits that may play a role in your lumbar pain.

If an aching back is starting to feel more like a regular thing — and less like something you randomly pulled at the gym — well, you’re not alone. About 6 million older adults in the U.S. live with chronic lower back pain. In a 2019 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics, almost 46 percent of adults 65 and older said they experienced back pain in the past three months. 

“As we get older, we start to lose fluid in our discs,” explains Gbolahan Okubadejo, M.D., an orthopedic spine surgeon with the Institute for Comprehensive Spine Care. As we lose fluid, the discs tend to collapse, “we get stiffer, and the risk of injury becomes greater,” he says. From there, plenty of lifestyle habits raise your risk. Some of these — hoisting your grandkid or overdoing the gardening — are obvious, but some aren’t.

To learn about 10 surprising culprits that may play a role in the pain in your back, from AARP, CLICK HERE.

Your skin changes with age. It becomes thinner, loses fat, and no longer looks as plump and smooth as it once did. Your veins and bones can be seen more easily. Scratches, cuts, or bumps can take longer to heal. Years of suntanning or being out in the sunlight for a long time may lead to wrinkles, dryness, age spots, and even cancer. But there are things you can do to protect your skin and to make it feel and look better.

Dry skin and itching

Many older people suffer from dry spots on their skin, often on their lower legs, elbows, and lower arms. Dry skin patches feel rough and scaly. There are many possible reasons for dry skin, such as:

• Not drinking enough liquids

• Spending too much time in the sun or suntanning

• Being in very dry air

• Smoking

• Feeling stress

• Losing sweat and oil glands, which is common with age

Dry skin also can be caused by health problems, such as diabetes or kidney disease. Using too much soap, antiperspirant, or perfume and taking hot baths can make dry skin worse.

Some medicines can make skin itchy. Because older people have thinner skin, scratching can cause bleeding that may lead to infection. Talk to your doctor if your skin is very dry and itchy.

To learn how to treat dry, itchy skin, and to learn about other skin conditions including bruises, wrinkles, age spots and skin tags, CLICK HERE.

Fever. Fatigue. Muscle aches. A cough. In the age of COVID-19, it can be hard to know what exactly these symptoms point to.

One major clue that they point directly to the flu: They came on abruptly (while those associated with COVID-19 tend to start out mild and gradually worsen). 

But that’s not to say the flu always announces itself in the regular way — particularly among people over 65. In a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, older patients were less likely than younger ones to report fever, cough and sore throat — arguably the most common flu symptoms — and as a result, weren’t diagnosed as quickly, if at all. That can be problematic if you’re 65 and older, since age alone ups your chances of getting hit much harder by a bout with the flu.

Blame your immune system, which weakens with age, “so all infections are more severe, as are complications from infections,” says infectious disease specialist Purvi Parikh, M.D., a clinical assistant professor in the department of medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Those over 65 may also have other chronic medical problems like heart disease and diabetes that make it even harder to fight off infections.”

To learn more from AARP about flu symptoms that may require a visit to your doctor, especially if you have a medical condition such as heart disease or diabetes, CLICK HERE.

Diabetes is a serious disease, and it affects many older adults. People get diabetes when their blood glucose, also called blood sugar, is too high. The good news is that you can take steps to delay or prevent type 2 diabetes, which is the most common form of the disease to develop in older adults. If you already have diabetes, there are steps you can take to manage the condition and prevent diabetes-related health problems.

What is diabetes?

Our bodies turn a lot of the food we eat into sugar, called glucose, which gives us energy. To use glucose as energy, our body needs insulin, a hormone that helps glucose get into our cells. If you have diabetes, your body may not make enough insulin, may not use insulin in the right way, or both. That can cause too much glucose to stay in the blood, which can cause health problems over time. Your family doctor may refer you to a doctor who specializes in taking care of people with diabetes, called an endocrinologist. Often, your family doctor will work directly with you to manage your diabetes.

To learn more about the different types of diabetes, the symptoms and how to manage diabetes, from the National Institute on Aging, CLICK HERE.

Even if genetics put you at risk for a stroke, you can greatly lower your chances of experiencing one by maintaining a few healthy lifestyle choices. That’s the finding of a recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

People who have maintained good cardiovascular health “could potentially slash that risk [of stroke] by a significant amount,” says Myriam Fornage, an author on the paper and a professor at the Center for Human Genetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

Specifically, the study looked at the effect of following Life’s Simple 7, the American Heart Association’s (AHA) prescription for heart health. To view the list of habits that can help reduce your stroke risk, from AARP, CLICK HERE.