Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Sally Duplantier

This Halloween, we’re taking the fear out of aging and shining a light on how to age vibrantly and intentionally. 

In this episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm speaks with Sally Duplainter,  gerontologist, researcher, educator, advocate, and founder of Zing, a mission-driven organization helping older adults extend their health span. 

Sally explores the intersection of aging and health, emphasizing the importance of lifestyle choices, nutrition, and proactive healthcare. She advocates for an integrated approach to well-being as we age.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website.

Publication number QI-103125-GK

Transcript

Welcome to "Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights," the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care. 

In each episode, Quality Insights’ Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys. 

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

 Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm. I am Dr. Jean Storm, the medical director at Quality Insights, and I am very excited to talk to today's guest. We are speaking with Sally Duplantier, a gerontologist. Researcher, educator and passionate advocate for healthier aging.

Sally is the founder of Zing, a mission-driven organization helping older adults extend their health span. This is the number of years lived in good health. Free of chronic disease and disability. So think about picking up your grandchildren until you are well into your eighties and nineties, or carrying your luggage through the airport.

All of these things that we all want to be able to do as we get older. Sally earned her masters. Science in gerontology from the USC Leonard Davis School in her sixties, and she hasn't stopped learning or leading since. She also holds a certificate in nutrition science from Stanford and is currently pursuing a doctor of public health degree with a focus on community based solutions to aging.

 Sally is. Right where she should be at this point in time in the United States, I will say through Zing, her Wellness Wednesday's webinars have reached over 10,000 participants in nearly 60 countries, tackling topics like sleep, cognition, chronic pain, and joyful movement, all things that keep us young.

So we're gonna be talking about what it means to truly age well. How lifestyle medicine can support both physical and mental wellbeing in older adults, and how we can create a more inclusive and equitable vision for healthy aging in America. Sally's work is backed by science. It's fueled by purpose, and it's centered on empowering people to live their best lives longer.

Sally, thank you so very much for joining us. I am. So excited to start our conversation, Jean. I am so excited to be here and to talk with you and your guests today. Thank you.  So your journey into gerontology and lifestyle medicine began later in life. What inspired you to pursue a master's degree in your sixties and launch Zing to support healthy aging?

 Jean, that, that is such a great question because no kid when they're growing up says  gee  when I'm an adult, I wanna be a gerontologist.  And for your listeners who don't know what a gerontologist is, it's someone who studies. Aging really through this kind of holistic lens. So we look at the biology, the psychology, sociology policies around aging.

 And I had no background in this work. I'd started my first company, my first startup was in my late twenties. That was technology training and business process change. I sold it. I retired. I said, I'm never gonna work again. And then I did about eight more years of work in leadership development and then I retired for a second time and then I was really done.

But about 16 months after that retirement. I just, I was 66 at the time and I started to notice how people around me were aging and I felt pretty good and pretty active, but there was such a discrepancy even though people were my same age. And so I got very curious about it. And of course, being that entrepreneur, I decided to start another company, zing.

But the challenge was I had no education or background in this. So that's what launched me to go back to school in my mid sixties I earned my master's degree 25 years after earning my bachelor's degree. Wow.  That's amazing inspiring.  I know  I, I kid that in my graduating class at USCI I was the only kid in my class who was also on Medicare.

But it really speaks to my belief that it is never too late. We are never too old. And  why not get a graduate degree in your sixties or seventies? Why not? Yeah, I agree. So I mentioned health span in the introduction. You talk a lot about increasing health span rather than lifespan, and I have seen a lot of this in the long-term care space with older adults who just wanna do everything just to almost, to stay alive,  and maybe they're not really living a quality life, but they are alive. So can you explain what health span is and why it's such a critical concept for how we think about aging? Yes, Jean I think it's a great question.  So, It's different than longevity. Longevity is how long we live and health span is really how long we live well. You mentioned you know, health span is how long we live without chronic disease disability, but it's really how long we can continue to do the things we love. And unfortunately here in the US we've. We've more than doubled life expectancy since 1900. We are living a lot longer.  We can check off the box in terms of longevity, but we're not necessarily living better because most adults, over 65, have two or more chronic diseases.

And unfortunately then these diseases impact how well they live, how much they can enjoy life. How much they can be with other people and get outside and travel. And so I started zing with this mission to help older adults live their best lives longer. It's a wonderful mission. So this might be a tough question, but in your view, what are the most pressing health concerns facing older adults today?

And how can lifestyle medicine help address them? Okay, so this is a great question and there is such a laundry list of what we could go through, but I'm gonna give you an answer that you might not expect. I'm gonna say that the most pressing health concern facing older adults. Is our attitude about aging.

 It's attitude. And by this I mean that, I think because of the prevalence of external ageism and then our internal ageist beliefs, we start buying this. There's, there can be this attitude that I can't because I can't exercise because I can't really get out and travel because, And this is disempowering and it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And what I love about lifestyle medicine, it's focus on you know, healthy eating and movement and sleep and how to deal with stress. And having, being engaged socially and avoiding risky substances is that it's never too late. To begin to apply that learning to improve our lives. I talk about lifestyle medicine being a little bit like a 401k plan.

Yeah. Like the earlier we start, the better. But it is never too late. And yet I think what older adults need to do and what we as professionals need to help them with is resetting our own attitude about what is possible. I agree. That's where it starts. Most definitely. You've emphasized the importance of mental wellbeing for older adults, and I think this is sometimes overlooked.

Why is it overlooked and how can we better support emotional resilience as people age?   Yeah I think one reason it's overlooked, if we look at the older adults today, many of us are the aging baby boomers, and I put myself in that category.  There was stigma around mental health.  You know, It was other people who went to see, and I'm putting quotes here your listeners, can't.

A shrink.  It was that. It was that attitude that, oh, something's wrong with Betty if she needs to see someone. So some of it is the attitudes that we've had as we've been growing up, but I think some of it is that we just need to broaden our understanding about mental health, It's closely related, quite honestly, to internalized ageism.

The negative self-talk we tell ourselves, and it's also linked to social isolation.    I'm working on a paper now about social isolation in older adults, and it affects like. One in four people and probably more so this idea of mental health is more than just having  some kind of a disorder.

It's looking at what we can do to improve our mental wellbeing through social connections and even shifting our own beliefs. I will say, you've talked a lot about shifting beliefs and you're speaking my language.  That's really, that's essential.  I mean, That's where it starts and I think people don't understand that enough.

And we probably could have another whole podcast on shifting beliefs.  I would agree.  And you know, I think, you know, you said, what can we do about. I think that we can't put everything on the healthcare system.  You know, We can complain about the healthcare system, and we can say the healthcare system, this and that.

It is what it is.  I'm a big believer in partnering with community providers to help solve or address some of these challenges, especially with respect to healthy aging, like the healthcare system can't do it alone. Yeah. Yes, most definitely. It can't. So you've done important work to bring on bringing lifestyle medicine to vulnerable and underserved populations.

How can the field evolve to be more inclusive, culturally affirming, and equitable? So this is a topic, Jean, that I'm very, very, passionate about.  When we think about lifestyle medicine, I think there's a danger that we look at, okay  you need to eat better, move more and these mitigate stress and, and drink less whatever. It's possible that without some intentionality we can just focus on people who have access to healthy food, to safe places to walk to gyms or Pilate memberships. And I think we need to have an inclusive attitude that  when a doctor says, Hey, you need to eat better and move more. That can be a prescription to nowhere for a lot of vulnerable populations.

People who are negatively impacted by social determinants of health, who live in poverty, who live in unsafe areas, who live in food deserts or food swamps, and who can't even go outside. Without the risk of, of danger or violence. So one of the things I'm doing with respect to that is partnering with community-based organizations like Open Source Wellness.

So this is a nonprofit and we are here in California. We're serving people in Alameda County, which is one of the poorest counties here in California where food insecurity is high.  High population of Hispanics and blacks. English as a second language, and we are working to bring culturally affirmative trauma informed.

Community-based behavioral health coaching to this population. And a couple of the research papers that I've written talk about the positive impact not only in terms of better health behaviors, but lower levels of anxiety and depression and social isolation. Yes.  That's a, that's just a, dream world and I hope you get your wish someday, Sally.

Most definitely.  You talked a little bit about movement and that is one of the six pillars of lifestyle medicine. So we talk about older adults, sometimes they're a little bit fearful to move and I think they tend to  sit, be very sedentary. So what are some of the most effective and accessible forms of exercise for older adults, especially those with limited mobility or chronic conditions?

Yeah, this is a, it's a great question.  So one thing I'll say is that the pandemic and our access to Zoom has made many things, including exercise more accessible. So if people have mobility issues and simply cannot get out.   There are classes that they can take online, and safe classes would include anything that's chair based.

So you could do chair based yoga, you could do tai chi. Tai Chi is wonderful exercise for not only strength. But mobility. But if you have, the capability to get out of your home and go to a place where Tai Chi is being practiced, that's a wonderful form of exercise for over adults, because it works on mobility and strength and focus, and it's generally practiced in community. And I went to a class recently, this was one of the classes done by open source wellness and we dance in that class 'cause we bring lifestyle medicine principles into the, behavioral health coaching. And we had people dancing in their chairs  I still think though, some of this ties to attitude and so one thing I might ask people to think about is what else you can do?

It's easy to say, oh, my knee hurts, or I'm overweight, or  you know, I don't go out much and have these self-limiting beliefs about what you may or may not be able to do with respect to movement. And I would just challenge that a little bit and encourage people to think about what might be possible and who would be a buddy to do this with me.

Because sometimes we're just overcoming our inertia and our nervousness. Yeah, it's like, rolling a a something up a hill. Like if you were rolling a rock up a hill, just getting it started is the hardest part. Right? Yeah. So I'm very curious about your Wellness Wednesdays series. It has reached thousands across the globe.

What have you learned from those conversations about the habits and mindsets that contribute to a long, healthy and fulfilling life? We've had almost a hundred episodes of Wellness Wednesday, so I'm gonna be drawing on a, a body of knowledge. It's funny when I, started Wellness Wednesdays, it was in the pandemic and, I'd been scheduled to speak at senior living facilities, and of course that dried up and I thought  now what will I do?

So Wellness Wednesdays are Zoom based programs. They're free, they're recorded. And my first, program had six people and the next one had nine. And  since then we've had thousands of people attend Wellness Wednesday. So if I look at that kind of collective body of knowledge from all these experts that I've interviewed or who have presented webinars  I think it still boils down to.

This idea of yes, I can. Versus I can't because  it's still that belief that there is more I can do, that I'm capable of more. And  I just believe that we are never too old to learn, to grow, to contribute and make a difference in the world. And a lot of the things we talk about are, related to lifestyle medicine, but it's also things like.

Having a purpose and helping others. And we did one program on, the power of kindness, how being kind to other people actually improves our health and wellbeing. So it still  comes down to thinking, yes, I can there's still more in me. Yeah, and who knew? Like helping other people helps you.

It helps them, and you know, it's a double win. So, Yeah, it's a double win. Yes. So you are deeply engaged in public health research and coaching. What changes would you most like to see in the US healthcare system when it comes to aging and chronic disease prevention in the coming decade? I am gonna answer that question by tying it to another paper that I just published, and this was in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, and it was qualitative research of 79 patients asking, what do you want from your healthcare provider to age in a healthy way?

Across the lifespan, people age 38 to 88. Two of the key findings were people wanted alternatives to medications, and they wanted prevention, not just treatment. And we as interviewers never said a word about lifestyle medicine. Like they came up with this on their own Jean. So it's kind of like. Patients want what we're serving.

The challenge is there aren't enough lifestyle medicine professionals to treat people. So I think it's a couple of things. I mean, I think at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, we need to get more and more professionals certified. And that's medical doctors, it's nurse practitioners, it's healthcare professionals, allied health professionals.

 I would love to see more. Geriatricians who are also focused on lifestyle medicine.  Geriatricians who, specifically treat people who are older.   they're kind of a dying breed. And then I think the third thing is I wanna see more community partnerships.  Interestingly enough, the people that we interviewed said, Hey, I don't expect my doctor to know it all.

They said, my doctor only has 15 minutes. But point me to evidence-based resources because even though everybody Googled and I swear all 79 people Googled everything, they didn't know what to believe. And so  I think we just, we need to continue doing the work we're doing at the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, but do it more broadly.

I agree. And I think that's where we actually make America healthy again. Right.  That's where, we actually get the work done. That's where we should be focusing. Yes. Yes. Sally Duplantier. Thank you so very much for being with us today. Where can individuals find more about you and your work?

Sure. My website is my zing life.com and I would love for people to visit it. My Zing life.com. I love that name.   it is a great name, very engaging. I really enjoyed this conversation. Sally, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. 

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you found value in what you heard, please consider subscribing to our podcast on your favorite platform.

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, you can reach out to us on our website. We would love to hear from you.

So, until next time, stay curious, stay compassionate, and keep taking healthcare by storm.