Is Fasting Safe for Seniors?
Home Care Indianapolis
You may drop some weight by just not feeding your body. Despite its apparent simplicity, intermittent fasting is trending because scientists believe it may have profound effects on health. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the right steps for your senior loved one.
Often, seniors stop eating. However, it’s not because they’re focused on fasting, weight, or even health. But doing so can be dire for them. Limiting bad foods can be great for seniors. However, a doctor should determine whether your senior should be fasting.
If a senior needs help getting to and from doctors appointments, it is time to look for the right home care provider to help them. Home care providers can do a lot more than provide rides. They can also help a senior cook and meal prep. This ensures a senior is eating correctly or following doctors’ orders. If a doctor gives a senior the okay, here are the benefits a senior may get from fasting.
It Can Help Keep Off the Extra Weight
Hormonal and metabolic changes make it simpler for the elderly to acquire weight and harder for them to lose it. Healthy, active seniors stuck on losing a few pounds might benefit from intermittent fasting. Having insulin levels drop when fasting delivers the body the message to avoid storing excess calories as fat. As an added bonus, abdominal fat is where intermittent fasting focuses its efforts.
Fasting Can Help Reset Circadian Rhythms
There is evidence that eating a lot of sugar and refined carbs may impair memory and raise the probability of developing dementia. The digestion of sugars and carbohydrates produces glucose. Having high blood sugar impairs your mental performance. Intermittent fasting may help avoid this. Not eating allows the liver and blood to burn off glucose stores. The liver, which converts fat into ketones, is therefore called upon as an alternative energy source. Ketones are more preferable to glucose as brain fuel, because they generate less reactive oxygen species, which are toxic.
It Helps Boost a Senior’s Brain Power
Intermittent fasting enhances several risk factors associated with heart health. Reducing the likelihood of heart disease. Losing weight, controlling blood pressure, and decreasing insulin resistance are all aided by intermittent fasting. Overall cholesterol improvement can happen from low-density lipoprotein, generally known as “bad” cholesterol, lowering. Like the brain, the heart can run more efficiently on ketones. Ketones can prevent cardiac damage and inflammation.
Researchers continue to explore the many health advantages of intermittent fasting for seniors. It’s crucial to remember that the practice isn’t appropriate for all elderly people. Those who are underweight, have a chronic health condition, or eating disorders should not try intermittent fasting. Your senior deserves all the help they can get when it comes to staying healthy. If a doctor says a senior can benefit from intermittent fasting, it’s time to take it seriously.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Home Care in Indianapolis, IN, please call the caring staff at Home Services Unlimited. Serving the Greater Indianapolis Area. Call for Immediate Info & Assistance: (317) 471-0760.
As a practicing Registered Nurse, Etelka was keenly aware of a void in quality patient care that could be provided in the home. She embarked upon a journey to develop a home health care agency that would exceed all expectations and become a trusted partner to physicians and patients.
A Distinguished Career From Nurse to Director of Nursing to President of Home Services Unlimited
Etelka’s distinguished career followed a logical progression to her position as President of Home Services Unlimited. She graduated as a nurse practitioner with a Bachelor of Nursing (RN) in 1972 from Meshgorya University in the Ukraine, close to where she lived with her family. She married her husband Phil in 1973 and decided in 1977 that they would relocate to the United States to be closer to family and to come to this land of opportunity. With an eagerness to continue her budding career, Etelka sat for and passed her Boards in the U.S. in 1979.
A Love and Talent for Working with the Elderly
Etelka began her nursing career in the U.S. at Colonial Crest, now part of Golden Living, where she was the In-service Coordinator, the Director of Training and Education and Director of Nursing, a position she occupied for several years.
With a group of partners, she co-founded Adept Corporation, which operated group homes for the mentally challenged. The business was successful and in 1996, Etelka sold her share to return to her roots, caring for the elderly.
In January of 1997, Etelka opened Home Services Unlimited as a fully licensed business to provide home health care. In her quest to learn to do better for her patients, she had already obtained a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA) in May of 1990 from the College of St. Francis. As President of Home Services Unlimited, Inc., Etelka guides the trusted, experienced care model Home Services Unlimited uses to continue providing excellent home health care.
Giving Back to the Community of Indianapolis
Volunteering for community services is a high priority for Etelka. Her memberships include the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Executive Women in Health Care and the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care, where she is a member of the Board of Directors.
Etelka has also served on the Board of Directors with Hooverwood Home, a highly regarded geriatric facility, since 1997 and as the President for 2005-2006. Through her community work, she has received several awards and accolades, including the Nora McFarland award in 2002, from the Indiana Association of Home and Hospice Care.
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