Winter Blahs

The weather outside may be frightful in most of Canada, but it’s important that everyone, and seniors in particular, get out and socialize.

The number of social activities we enjoy is “significantly related” to good health, says a report from Statistics Canada. No matter our age, income or health status, the more often we socialize, the greater our sense of well-being and lower our odds of feeling lonely or dissatisfied with life.

The report was based on the 2008-09 Canadian Community Health Survey, Healthy Aging, which gathered data from 30,865 people, including 16,369 aged 65 or older.

The right amount of socializing is a very individual preference, but even so, nearly a quarter of seniors don’t get out as often as they’d like. Poor health was the most common obstacle to socializing, yet “people who are not healthy may still benefit from social participation, perhaps more so,” than their healthier counterparts, says the report.

Being too busy was also a common reason, more so for men (28 per cent) than women (16 per cent). About 10 per cent said personal or family responsibilities keep them from socializing outside the home. Women (17 per cent) were more likely than men (nine per cent) to report not wanting to attend activities alone, and they also had more transportation problems (11 per cent versus four per cent). Between four and nine per cent of seniors reported cost, unavailability of activities, poor timing or bad location as barriers.

So, put on your coat and pull on your boots. There are plenty of good reasons for getting out and about—and taking along (or visiting) a friend or acquaintance who’s under the weather or in poor health.

The Scent Of Age

If you’ve ever kissed a newborn’s head you know that special scent that makes adults go all dewy-eyed. But did you ever think that you might also be able to tell an adult’s age by smell alone? U.S. researchers have found that age is one of the bits of information that can be communicated through body odour.

Researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, Pa., collected body odours of adults at three different ages by having them sleep for five nights in t-shirts fitted with underarm pads. Then they had evaluators sniff the odours, rate them by intensity and pleasantness and estimate the age category of individuals who produced the samples.

The (volunteer, one hopes) evaluators were able to discriminate age category by odour and interestingly, found that odours from the old-age group were less intense and more pleasant. “This was surprising given the popular conception of old age odour as disagreeable,” said lead researcher Johan Lundstrom. “However, it is possible that other sources of body odours, such as skin or breath, may have different qualities.”

My take on this is when someone says it stinks to get older, it’s a good bet they’re not talking about odour, anyway.

Odd Body Fact 

It’s as plain as the noses on our faces that the job our olfactory organs do is nothing to sneeze at, even if we can’t see beyond the end of them, often stick them in other people’s business or find ourselves being led around by them.

The inside of the nose is lined with mucous membrane and thousands of tiny hairs to filter, moisturize and warm it to body temperature. Millions of olfactory receptor cells allow us to sniff out tens of thousands of different scents, even, as we’ve seen, old age.

Yet, the nose doesn’t rate high on the sex appeal list. But it wasn’t always so. Ancient Romans considered the philtrum to be erotic (it’s right under your nose, the indent at the centre of the lipline). It’s one explanation for the dip and lift of the upper lip to be dubbed Cupid’s bow.

They didn’t know about the real turn-on, though—two small bean-shaped vomeronasal organs in the nostrils which give mammals (including humans) the ability to sense pheromones—chemicals produced to attract the opposite sex. Now that’s real personal chemistry.