OverSixty January 2023 Issue

14 LIVEWELL ISSUE 3 | JANUARY 2023 | OVERSIXTY.COM.AU HELEN FOSTER LIVE WELL I n the last two years, at least five different studies have been published that show the simple act of stretching can help reduce stiffness in the arteries, improve blood flow and lower blood pressure. In fact, in one tri- al at Canada’s University of Saskatchewan, 30 minutes of stretching five times a week even reduced blood pressure more effective- ly than the same time spent walking. “When you stretch a muscle, you also stretch the blood vessels around it which makes those vessels less stiff and allows blood to flow more easily through them,” explains exercise physiologist Professor Phil Chilibeck, who worked on the Saskatchewan study. “This reduced resistance then reduces the amount of work your heart needs to do to push blood through the vessels.” And that’s what reduces blood pressure. To get these results in Professor’s Chi- libeck’s trial took just eight weeks of practice, and that’s long enough to develop a stretch- inghabit that couldbenefit yourbody inother ways too. “Regularly stretching increases the range of motion of the muscles – and, when you have a better range of motion it’s much easier for you to become generally more ac- tive throughout the day – which again helps the heart,” says Dr Alex Hopwood, owner of Stretch Studio, which has branches in Aus- tralia, New Zealand and the Middle East. He also points out that stretching is quite amed- itative exercise. To do it effectively, you must focus internally on what’s happening to your body, how it feels and what it can do next. No wonder, therefore, that when a team of Australian and Japanese researchers looked at what happened in the body when people stretched they found it switched on the calm- ing part of the body’s nervous system which also caused a drop in blood pressure and heart rate. Toget theseeffects though, weneed to treat stretching a little differently than we do now. “Most of us think of stretching as something we do for 10-15 seconds after our ‘proper’ ex- ercise – but to get these kind of whole body effects, you need to also think of stretching as exercise,” says Dr Hopwood. “Aim for 30 minutes of gently stretching the whole body at least three times a week. Really focus on the muscle and gently challenge it to extend – you should feel a stretch, but don’t try and push through pain, that’s the biggest mistake people make when stretching.” If you’re quite tight, as many of us who lead sedentary lives are, you’re not going to be touching your toes in an instant, “but, you’ll help improve your progress faster if you work with your breath as you stretch. Slowly breathing in and out helps switch on the parasympathetic nervous system, relax- ing the muscles so they will go further,” says Dr Hopwood. The positive effects of stretching are great news for the less mobile as it’s a way to keep the heart healthy without stressing the body, but the rest of us shouldn’t be hanging up our trainers. “That’s the last thingwewant people to take away from our study,” says Professor Chilibeck. “Aerobic exercises like walking protect the heart in other ways, for example, using fat within the bloodstream for fuel, helping prevent it coating and damaging the arteries, so they should still be part of your lifestyle. But, when you’re relaxing in the evening, instead of just sitting on the couch, why not get down on the floor and stretch?” Stretch your way to a healthier heart LIVE WELL Developing a regular stretching routine can have far greater health benefits than simply improved flexibility Photo: Getty Images You’d think exercising your cardiovascular systemwould require your heart to race – but it turns out you can get benefits in a calmer way, by simply stretching your muscles Medical mystery files LIVE WELL Bizarre sounds and sensations were the start of a terrifying medical journey for Lauren Wells Illustration: Victor Wong LUC RINALDI LIVE WELL I n June 2020, Lauren Wells set out for a fun weekend away with friends. She had rea- son to celebrate. At just 25, she’d been hired as the head administrator of a nursing home. But the trip wasn’t as carefree as Wells had hoped. On the first night, she felt a shooting pain in her left side, and she had to urinate much more often than usual. Still, she tried to enjoy herself. The following week, howev- er, the pain was still present. Plus, her hands started to feel as if they had a slimy film on them. A friend guessed Wells might be stressed from the new work. “But that didn’t feel right to me,” she says. “I was loving my job.” A few days later, as Wells was trying to fall asleep, she started hearing music – a faint el- evator-type song that seemed to be coming from outside or the apartment upstairs. She looked out the window but found nothing, so she went back to bed and tuned it out. But the next night, themusic returned. And again the evening after that. Then things got weirder. The same music seemed to be playing at work and at a bar, and she heard it in the hum of an air condi- tioner. An audiologist she knew said people sometimes hear melodies in mundane nois- es. That comforted Wells – but not for long. About a week after the music began, Wells was clearing out her old apartment when she heard seagulls squawking outside. She immediately knew something was wrong – there were no seagulls in that area. Wells drove herself to the emergency room. The nurses ran tests, but everything came back normal, so they sent her home with lorazepam, an anti-anxiety medication, and a referral to a psychiatrist. During a work meeting that week, Wells suddenly became confused and unable to speak. Concerned, her colleagues called an ambulance. By the time she arrived at the lo- cal hospital, she was back to normal but dou- bly sure something was wrong. She called her father, Brad, then voluntarily admitted herself into the psychiatric ward, where doc- tors put her on several medications, includ- ing lithium and ziprasidone, an antipsychot- ic used to treat schizophrenia. When Brad arrived, his daughter wasn’t herself. One moment she was aggressive with hernurses; thenext, shewasflirtingwith them. She was calling her relatives hundreds of times a day, and wouldn’t sit still during MRIs and EEGs. Then she had a seizure. Her doctors rushed her to the ICU, where she was placed on anti-seizure medications. Brad called a family friend who was a psy- chiatrist and explained the situation. “It’s really rare,” the psychiatrist advised, “but have them look into anti-NMDA recep- tor encephalitis.” The neurological disease, which causes inflammation in the brain, affects only about one in 1.5 million people and wasn’t even identified until 2007. Brad pushed the hos- pital to test for it and Wells’s doctors pushed back. The condition is so uncommon they’d never even seen a patient with it before. But Brad wouldn’t relent. By the following day, they started to believe him. Wells’s team referred her to the neuro in- tensive care section of a nearby hospital, where Dr Joao Gomes, the head of the de- partment, suspected anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis might indeed be the culprit. But he had a hunch it wasn’t the whole story. The condition usually has an underlying cause, often testicular or ovarian cancer, so he or- dered an ultrasound. It proved Dr Gomes right: Wells had a tumour on her ovaries. Dr Gomes began piecing together an intri- cate puzzle. To start, the pain in Wells’s side and frequent urination were a result of the tumour. Furthermore, her body had started producing antibodies to fight the cancer. “Unfortunately, in Lauren’s case,” says Dr Gomes, “the antibody not only tried to attack the cancer, but it had some cross-reactivity with her NMDA receptors.” NMDA receptors are channels in the brain that affect memory and behaviour – and that happen to have similar structures to the can- cerous cells Wells’s body was trying to fight. “That’s what produced her symptoms,” says Dr Gomes. The music, the seagulls, and the filmy hands were all hallucinations. A spinal tap confirmedDr Gomes’ hypoth- esis. But that wasn’t the end of Wells’s ordeal. In order to suppress her immune system and remove the antibodies, the clinical team had to give Wells several treatments, remove her tumour, and put her through chemotherapy. Wells’s body was ravaged. When she woke up after roughly two weeks in a coma, she couldn’t walk, she struggled to find her words, and she was often confused. “I didn’t even know I had undergone surgery until I saw the scars on my stomach,” she says. Eventually, over the course of months and with the help of physical, occupational, and speech therapy, she improved. ByApril 2021, about half a year after leaving hospital, Wells was cancer-free. Among anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis patients, there is a 10 to 25 per cent chance of relapse within two years, so Wells is keeping a close eye on her health. She remains thankful for her father’s advocacy as well as the recovery support of her mother and friends. Seagull squawks and elevator music led to a shocking diagnosis BONUS SECTION