True it seems, but worth the effort?

I have been known in these postings to pour scorn on, or at least be sceptical about, the idea that ageing can be defeated or delayed by applying various creams to our hard earned wrinkles. I may be less right than I thought. A B.B.C. documentary a few weeks ago endorsed an anti-ageing cream produced by Boots, the chemists found on every British high street. As a result of this the shelves were soon emptied of the retailer’s ‘No 7 Protect and Perfect anti-wrinkle serum’, containing a pro-retinol complex’.

Since then a study published in a U.S. medical journal has found that a lotion containing just 0.4% of retinol or vitamin A (or pro-retinal compounds from which the vitamin is derived) fights the signs of ageing. This was proved by the ‘significant rejuvenating’ effect on a group of volunteers. They were smothered with retinol cream on one arm and an inert lotion on the other. Wrinkles, roughness and severity of ageing were markedly lower on the treated arms. Analysis of tissue samples afterwards showed apparently that retinol increased the production of two structural components of the skin which reduce wrinkles.

Dr. Nick Lowe, consultant dermatologist at the Cranley Clinic in London, has said of the experiment that it provides the first scientific evidence that retinol vitamin A cream can have an impact on wrinkles. He added a cautionary note, ‘ creams do take time to work’. The treatment however has to be used with care it seems, because it can cause redness and irritation, and sensitise the skin to sunlight whilst in pregnant women, excessive vitamin A has been associated with birth defects. Which means I suppose that if your are expecting a baby, live with your wrinkles, and if you are older and take the treatment, don’t go out in the sunshine.

I found out this information on the front page of a freebie newspaper and have merely repeated the information it conveys. But it does make we wonder if it’s all worth the effort, this fight to defy the signs of ageing. Never mind the signs, it doesn’t affect the fact that ageing exists!

B.R.

Still Bothering

I am reading Sebastian Faulks novel ‘Human Traces’, a fascinating story of two friends who as psychiatric doctors explore the human mind and treat mental illness. One of them, Thomas, says to a medical colleague, ‘there are mysteries which no man can know. But there is something of Don Quixote in me, I suppose. When I see a windmill, I will take my lance and saddle up. I dread getting older because one day I will think that I can no longer be bothered.’

My mother, in her latter years could no longer cope with watching the news on TV, it was too persistently trivial or tragic and in both cases caused her an anxiety she was unable to assuage by any sort of response or action. Now near to her age, I can understand how she felt. There are times when anyone, and not just older people, have to switch off or ignore the media because we find it too distressing, or we can't keep up with modern discoveries because its all too complicated. But it’s important to reconnect, and I hope I will always want to do that, and be able to.

Continuing to bother about things means, I hope, that you haven’t got lost in a closed world of your own, that you haven’t mentally resigned from life but are in touch with the human condition which, though sometimes wonderful, sometimes fascinating, is often unspeakably awful. It becomes almost unbearable to remain aware of the world around us and especially when there is so little we can do about the pain, distress, and downright wickedness that surrounds us. People of faith pray about it, from our limited resources we can send money to charities that relieve suffering, there are campaigns to join which fight injustice. If only we could do more.

I find it infinitely sad that human beings still seem unable to live in peace and justice, and shameful too that new knowledge is used for private gain rather than the common good. I am not a masochist. I would like to blot it all out of my mind and learn to stop caring. But that would be a denial of my humanity and an escape which leads to nowhere but to my lonely self. So I think the ‘bothering’ has to continue, however old I get.

Not bothering could be a worse dread than old age itself.

B.R.

The Residential Frog

I saw my doctor and mentioned to him when other matters had been dealt with, that I kept on needing to clear my throat, which was irritating to others and embarrassing to me. Was there anything that could be done about it, this ‘frog in my throat’? He smiled and shook his head. ‘To do with old age?’ I asked. ‘ I am afraid so’, was his answer. It made me realise afresh that I am now in the period of life when all sorts of ‘frogs’ are going to pop up, and one has to grin and bear them rather than expecting they can be cured. Or at least that may be the doctor’s reaction and one that I must respect. Doctors are not miracle workers.

This is the first time - though my doctor is a kindly man – that I have met the road- block at the end of all health problems, namely Age. I may now be subject to a hidden medical agenda, like ‘I have more important things to attend to than someone whose body is wearing out’. Which I am sure must be true, and the limited resources of our National Health Service mustn’t be swallowed up so that older people can be propped up. Well, I am looking around, and there may be some herbal remedies which could ease what is less a problem than an inconvenience. Alternative medicine isn’t a panacea for all ills, but nor of course is surgery and drugs. People have been healing themselves long before the advent of modern medicine.

‘I can’t do what I used to do’ is a recurring comment amongst the cardiac rehabilitation group I belong to. The strange thing is not that it’s true, but we are so surprised by it! Of course it must be so. Energy and capacity are finite. The ability to do just what you want to do reduces as limbs grow stiff, muscles weaken, and minds slow down. And yet there we are, twenty or so mainly men – five of us over eighty- running around and working on machines as if we were the young lions we hope we once were. ‘I feel better for it’ we say as we stagger back home; and it’s true. Ignoring our aches and anxieties for an hour, we surrender to the idea that the road-block is not as impenetrable as we often fear.

No doubt there will be other ‘frogs’, some of them dispatched with medical help, some not. All of them signs that we are ageing. Mostly they can be lived with. Ageing is a nuisance, but as we move into new experiences there is an irony about it too, and we can smile back to the sympathetic grin of our doctors.

B.R.