Uncle Li is sixty-seven years old this year, and he has always refused to accept old age, but he has surprisingly asked his son if he is really old these days. Uncle Li's question made Xiao Li a little overwhelmed, and he thought that Uncle Li was uncomfortable with something, so he hurriedly asked his father what was going on.
After continuous questioning, Uncle Li finally said his recent troubles, Uncle Li has always thought that his body is still very strong, so his favorite thing to do every day is to walk outside and meet old friends for a walk.
But recently, Uncle Li found that his legs were becoming more and more weak. At first, when going up the stairs, the legs appeared to be sore, and once after walking for a long time, when I went home and went upstairs, I even wanted to fall, and then slowly walked on the flat ground for a little longer, and there would be obvious weak legs, and I couldn't make it hard, Uncle Li heard an old saying that "people's old legs decline first", and Uncle Li thought that this was a sign that he was really aging.
Xiao Li listened to his father's words for a while and didn't know what to say, the elderly do not walk smoothly, often swaying, this is a very common situation in life, leg inconvenience seems to have become the label of the elderly, so why do the elderly have this situation?
"People old legs decay first", why do the elderly always have leg weakness?
"The old legs of people decline first" is a sentence that many elderly people have heard, which refers to the fact that with the increase of age, the legs are one of the first organs to degenerate. It is common knowledge in life for the elderly to have inconvenient legs and feet, but have you ever wondered why this happens?
First of all, muscle atrophy, our human body's various movements such as walking, running, etc. mostly rely on the skeletal muscles in the human muscles, there are a large number of thick muscle filaments and thin muscle filaments in the muscles, these two muscle filaments overlap each other through the cross bridge and are linked, under normal circumstances, after receiving the motor signal, the fine muscle filaments will increase the degree of overlap with the thick muscle filaments under the urging of actin.
A large number of thick and thin muscle filaments can contract or relax the entire muscle, helping the body to complete the action it wants to do. However, for the elderly, due to the aging of the body, the functions of leg muscle cells have also degenerated accordingly, the number of intracellular actin has decreased, the muscle filaments have become shorter and thinner, and the strength generated is naturally smaller.
In addition, the blood circulation of the elderly will also have a greater degree of weakness than that of young people, the heart pumping function is weakened, and even many elderly people still have cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, at this time, the body in order to give priority to the supply of blood to the brain, heart and other important organs, the blood flow of the limbs will be reduced accordingly, which will accelerate the atrophy of the leg muscles to a large extent.
The second is neurodegeneration, the movement of muscles needs the regulation of corresponding nerves, once the neurodegeneration reaches a certain point, muscle activity will inevitably be out of balance.
For example, Parkinson's disease, a common disease in the elderly, which is very familiar, is caused by degenerative lesions of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra of the brain.
Because of this, Parkinson's disease is also known as geriatric disease, and some scholars even say that when people age to a certain point, they will inevitably suffer from Parkinson's disease. Typical features of Parkinson's disease include muscle disorders in the legs, unsteady walking, swaying, and even the inability to stand on their own.
Finally, the degeneration of bones, in addition to the need for muscles, exercise also needs the bone and bone connections inside the muscles to support, and for the elderly, osteoporosis, cartilage ossification, joint wear and other degenerative changes will significantly affect the exercise process.
And like muscles, due to the influence of blood supply, the bones of the lower limbs degenerate faster, which is why the elderly often appear the first to have leg weakness and lack of strength when aging.
Doctors remind the elderly to supplement these two nutrients to protect their legs and strengthen their bodies
Of course, not all elderly people in life will have leg inconvenience, we can often see some gray hair but still walk like a fly, so why can these elderly people maintain such healthy legs and feet?
Doctors have observed that this is because these elderly people have enough of these two nutrients: the first is protein.
The importance of protein to the human body is self-evident, as one of the three major nutrients, protein performs many functions in the body, as mentioned above, muscle cells want to perform functions are indispensable to actin.
Although protein cannot be directly used by us after ingestion into the body, it can be decomposed into small molecule peptides and amino acids through the action of enzymes in the body, thus becoming the raw materials and nutrients for the body to synthesize various proteins. Secondly, the content of protein has a great impact on human immunity and the functional activity of various organs.
Normally, our human body needs to consume about 60 grams of protein a day, and at least 30 grams needs to go deep into it to meet the normal balance of nitrogen metabolism. However, for the elderly, due to the bad teeth, the desire for meat for the elderly is much less than that of young people, and even many elderly people almost never consume meat in order to maintain a light diet, so it is very common for the elderly to cause muscle failure due to too little protein intake.
At this time, protein supplementation is very important for the elderly, in addition to taking high-quality protein foods in the diet, you can also choose to supplement by drinking protein powder.
In some regular protein powders for the elderly, oligopolypeptides are also added for easy absorption, which is very beneficial for supplementing amino acids and avoiding muscle degeneration.
However, everyone should pay attention: if you have liver or kidney disease or are prone to allergies, you must consult your doctor before supplementing protein powder, in case the gains outweigh the losses!
The second is vitamin D.
The protein supplementation above is mainly aimed at muscle atrophy, while vitamin D is mainly aimed at bone deterioration. At this time, some friends may ask: Shouldn't the elderly take care of their bones with calcium supplements, and why should they supplement vitamin D?
It is true that the loss of calcium in osteoporosis in the elderly is a very important reason, so when facing osteoporosis in later life, many elderly people will choose various ways to supplement calcium, but they do not know that the efficacy of simply supplementing calcium without following up with vitamin D supplementation will decrease a lot.
Vitamin D is an important endocrine hormone that regulates the growth and development of bones and muscles in our body, and has important physiological significance for maintaining bone calcium balance in the body, reducing bone transformation and bone loss.
Weakness and numbness in the lower limbs should not be careless, it is likely to be a sign of these diseases
Although lower limb weakness is a common symptom of the elderly, the numbness and weakness of the lower limbs are by no means only the result of aging, in fact, the weakness and numbness of the lower limbs may be a symptom before the onset of many diseases, especially for young people.
The first is a herniated disc, and the most typical symptom of patients with a herniated disc is pain in the lower back and the inability to perform large activities such as bending over. However, when the lumbar disc is overloaded or the degenerative changes deepen, it will compress the nerves and blood vessels of the lower limbs, resulting in radiating pain in the lower limbs.
It usually manifests as weakness and numbness in the lower limbs and buttocks, as well as cold in the legs, which is due to the impact of blood circulation in the lower limbs, and if it is not controlled at the beginning, the blood circulation disorder will further deepen the symptoms of weakness in the lower limbs.
The second is cerebrovascular disease, and weakness and numbness of the lower limbs are one of the typical signs of cerebral thrombosis.
When the blood vessels in the brain are narrowed or blocked, the brain tissue will be edema and compressive damage due to ischemia and hypoxia, which will affect the peripheral nervous system and motor function.
It is often manifested as hemilimb movement and sensory impairment, and the legs often feel uncoordinated, unable to use force or even spasm, so if there is no obvious cause of numbness in the lower limbs, it must be paid attention to.
Finally, there are complications of diabetes, due to the high blood sugar concentration and increased blood circulation resistance, the blood supply to the lower limbs and other parts far away from the heart will be particularly difficult, and the lower limbs will have different degrees of deterioration in their sense and motor ability compared with normal people.
For patients with deterioration of diabetes, when blood sugar control is unstable, high concentration of blood sugar will cause permeable lesions of the peripheral nervous system, patients will first feel cold feet, and slowly turn into weakness and numbness in both calves, and feel that their feet are easy to fall on cotton when walking, so diabetic patients can judge whether the disease is well controlled by observing the changes in the sensation of the lower limbs in daily life.
Bibliography:
[1] Xu Xuemeng."Leg weakness downstairs?experts prescribe for you".2020.11.04.
[2] Li Xiaomin."A small vitamin D, the effect is very large".2023.06.01.
[3] Zhou Wenting, "Vitamin D-A Good Helper for Calcium Supplementation".2022.02.15.
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