Regional Director Lily Griego from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services discusses recent initiatives impacting adults in Colorado, including the HHS's mission to address maternal care, mental health destigmatization, and rural health care accessibility, along with the Inflation Reduction Act's role in reducing health care costs for older adults.

Further reading:

• Strengthening Maternal Health
• SAMSHA Announces $39.4 Million in Funding Opportunities for Grants to Help Advance the President’s Unity Agenda
• Biden-Harris Administration taking actions to improve the health of rural communities
• Fact Sheet: One Year In, President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act
• Fact Sheet: Advancing Health Equity Across HHS
• SAMSHA Announces $36.9 Million in Behavioral Health Funding Opportunities 
• ASPE Office of Health Policy: Insulin Affordability and the Inflation Reduction Act

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Meara Faw explores the complexities of caregiving, including statistics on its prevalence, the challenges faced by care partners, and the unique needs they encounter. Faw shares insights from her research on improving caregiver and care-recipient well-being, including interventions like B-Sharp and the performing arts. Also discussed is the 2023 Surgeon General's report on loneliness and its impacts on health.

Dr. Greg Gahm – a geriatrician, Corporate Medical Director for Vivage Senior Living, and an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine at CU Anschutz – discusses the long-term care industry over the decades, including the different types of long-term care available, standards of care provided, and the impact of the pandemic on cost dynamics and staffing structures. If you're just getting introduced to long-term care, this is the episode for you.

Amidst the ongoing debate over whether Presidents Biden and Trump are "too old" to run for president again, our season 4 premiere offers a compelling panel discussion. At the crossroads of healthy aging, anti-ageism, political science, and principles of democracy, this episode revisits a thought-provoking conversation originally aired on President's Day 2024. Explore with us the the extent to which age should impact your decision-making at the 2024 ballot box. Perspectives by:

• Karrin Anderson, moderator and Professor of Communication Studies.
• Manfred Diehl, University Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Studies.
• Christine Fruhauf, Professor of Human Development and Family Studies.
• Lucas Brady Woods, State Capitol Reporter at KUNC.
• Nick DeSalvo, ASCSU president and political science student.

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View the PDF containing our public opinion survey data.

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Today's episode revisits every guest from season 3 of living healthy longer and their answers to the S3 standing question: Can you identify a major challenge in your field that must be overcome to see real improvements in healthspan or healthy aging research?

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Fill out the podcast feedback form! Your response will help our host plan future episodes.

Sign up here to participate in healthy aging studies at CSU.

Join CSU's Columbine Health Systems Center for Healthy Aging newsletter listserv.

Dr. Kate E. Creevy is a board-certified small animal veterinary internist at Texas A&M University with a primary research interest in canine longevity and healthspan. Creevy – a founder of the Dog Aging Project – shares some interesting findings about diet, cognitive function and physical activity from the first data release of 27,000 pet dogs enrolled in DAP.

According to the CDC, health disparities are "preventable differences in the burden of disease...that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations."

Ronica Rooks, a professor of health and behavioral sciences at CU-Denver, joins to discuss racial and ethnic health disparities affecting older adults. Gentrification and social determinants of health are explored, as well as Rooks' studies on working and volunteering as strategies to stave off dementia risk.

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"Key Data on Health and Health Care by Race and Ethnicity" by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"Minority Population Profiles" from HHS Office of Minority Health.

2023 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures from the AA.

Learn about the 3-30-300 rule on Wild Ideas Worth Living.

Ava Segal is the founder and CEO of Steadi Systems, a health-tech startup out of Golden, CO that is providing solutions for better balance health and awareness. In this episode, Segal discusses the importance of balance fitness and introduces us to Steadiplay: an engaging balance training tool she invented for her doctoral research at Colorado School of Mines.

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Find Segal on LinkedIn or email her at ava@steadisystems.com. 

Watch Steadiplay in action here.

Is it possible that researchers can find signs of future cognitive decline in muscles before the brain ever shows a deficit? Shelby Osburn, a postdoctoral researcher in CSU's Healthspan Biology Lab, thinks yes. In this episode, Osburn describes her recent proposal to examine the fascinating relationship between skeletal muscle and Alzheimer's disease.

Greg Ebel, a professor and director of CSU's Center for Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, discusses his lab’s history of surveillance and prevention strategies for arboviruses (West Nile, dengue and Zika viruses), and how that work poised his team to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic early in 2020.

About five years ago, some patients in Denver were suffering from a stubborn lung disease that, despite ongoing treatments, was not responding to antibiotics. Patients' symptoms kept worsening, and Drs. Alan Schenkel and Ed Chan were curious.

Tune in to hear them describe NTM infection, a lung disease that is becoming more common in adults over the age of 50. What are nontuberculous mycobacteria, and what is it about certain people’s immune responses that make them more susceptible to NTM infection than others?

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Read more about NTM from the American Lung Association.

Associate Professor of Pathobiology Candace Mathiason introduces us to the weird ways of prions and how they can be used as models for Alzheimer’s disease in humans. Mathiason describes her past research in retroviruses and the approach her lab is taking to develop tests that can detect Alzheimer’s earlier in the disease’s progression.

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Learn more about prions from the NIH and the CDC.

Read about CSU's history in chronic wasting disease research from The Coloradoan.

Dr. Stephen Aichele, a quantitative psychologist at CSU, describes the relationship between depression and cognitive decline, and how data science methods can be used to determine predictors of cognitive changes. We briefly discuss the effects of air pollution and lead exposure on cognitive development, and Aichele shares what his research reveals about three key predictors of depression risk following middle age: social isolation, poor health and mobility issues.

Zhijie Wang, an assistant professor in CSU’s School of Biomedical Engineering, discusses the anatomy of the heart and why the right ventricle has historically been viewed as the “forgotten chamber" in research. We also discuss tissue engineering as a therapy for heart failure and disease.

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Read about the world's first 3D-printed heart using human cells, created by Israeli scientists in 2019.

Visit Wang's CardioVascular Biomechanics Laboratory.

Josiane Broussard – an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science and the director of the Sleep and Metabolism Lab at CSU – explains the importance of sleep and why this essential behavior is key to every process in the body. How do our sleeping patterns change with age, and what can you do to build a better sleep schedule?

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Find tips for healthy sleep from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society.

Sara LoTemplio – a new assistant professor in CSU’s Human Dimensions of Natural Resources department – is here to talk about the restorative effects of nature on the brain. From indigenous teachings, to how the heart and brain respond to being outdoors, LoTemplio shares her preliminary ideas on how interactions with nature might slow cognitive decline in older adults and boost mood and attention span.

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Find the RAAIN Lab here.

Read "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Learn about the University of Washington's Indigenous Wellness Research Institute here.

Today's episode revisits every guest from Season 2 of living healthy longer and what makes them most excited for the future of aging studies. Where is aging research going and what makes CHA affiliate faculty hopeful?

Our show will return for Season 3 in January 2023! Sign up for our newsletter at healthyaging.colostate.edu for updates in the meantime.

Today's show is a special two-part episode with the Health and Human Science Matters podcast, hosted by the College of Health and Human Sciences' Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, Matt Hickey, and the college’s Digital Media Strategist, Avery Martin.

We teamed up to speak with Dean Lise Youngblade and Dr. Nicole Ehrhart, the former interim and current directors of the Center for Healthy Aging, to have a conversation about women as leaders in science.

Listen to part 1 over at the HHSM podcast, where Ehrhart and Youngblade discuss their trajectories, hobbies, and roles as female leaders in STEM.

Then, come back here for part 2 to learn why CSU is uniquely positioned to study models of aging because of its land-grant mission. Dr. Ehrhart describes the Center’s Longitudinal COVID-19 Screening Study in Nursing Facilities, and Dean Youngblade shares about CSU’s role in responding to the mental health crisis in Colorado, both locally and in rural areas across the state.

Lisa Morgan, an instructor in CSU’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, discusses how it feels physically and emotionally to connect with others through the art of dance. Morgan shares the cognitive benefits of movement through dance and introduces her Moving Through Parkinson's program, a dance class for people living with Parkinson's disease.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Moving Through Parkinson's
• Community dance classes at CSU
• Parkinson's Support Group of Larimer County
• Parkinson's Association of the Rockies
• Friends of Traditional Dance in Fort Collins
• Aspen Club
• Fort Collins Senior Center

Jaclyn Stephens and Arlene Schmid, faculty in CSU’s Department of Occupational Therapy, join to share an update about a study that aims to build support for yoga therapy as a treatment for disability and chronic brain injury.

Read more on CSU's SOURCE or from the Boettcher Foundation.