That Feeling You Have When You Follow Doctor's Orders...

Having returned home from your light evening walk, you drink your second glass of nutritional milk supplement for the day.

The delicious vanilla-flavored Ensure^® Gold^™ goes down in a matter of gulps; you smack your lips in satisfaction. Just what the doctor ordered.

With each breath, your 50-year-old muscles become more relaxed and your neck and back are free of their usual aches.

You realise with pride that you’ve been taking the supplement and leading a healthier lifestyle consistently for the last two months, since getting discharged from the hospital.

And are you getting stronger? You wonder if this euphoria you feel is attributable to real health recovery, or just a temporary feeling that may be just an illusion.

In Elderly Patients Post-Discharge, Ensure^® Gold^™ Helps Build Strength

Worried about losing strength as you age? You may already be aware that healthy adults could start to lose up to 8% muscle mass every 10 years after age 40. But the loss of muscle mass is even more pronounced in inactive (bedridden), hospitalised patients.

If you have been ill, or hospitalised for surgery, stressful demands and inflammations triggered on your body can lead the body to turn to muscle as a source of energy⁶. 10 days of hospitalisation can result in loss of muscle mass close to or even more than that lost by a healthy individual over 10 years⁷.

Did you know, the more muscle mass is lost, the higher the risk of complications that may delay or complicate your recovery time post-hospitalisation? The science says that 10% muscle mass loss could impair immunity. 20% muscle mass loss could give you infections, thinning skin, decreased healing, and overall weakness. With 30% muscle mass loss, you could develop pneumonia and/or pressure sores, or be too weak to sit⁸.

That’s why, if you’re an elderly patient who has just been hospitalised for major surgery, your doctor would have recommended Ensure^® Gold^™ as a nutritional supplement to you. Your doctor will tell you to consume it twice a day and pair it with light exercise. Ensure^® Gold^™ is specifically-designed to protect and build muscle mass to strengthen your muscle quality and immunity.

New and improved Ensure^® Gold^™ has a unique combination of HMB , helps support building of muscle tissues, and Triple Protein Blend, which provides sustained delivery of amino acids to support muscle synthesis¹⁰. Along with calcium, omega-3 and 28 vitamins and minerals, Ensure^® Gold^™ is scientifically proven complete nutrition to improve physical movement and provide you everything you need for everyday strength¹¹.

4 Physical Strength Improvements After 8 Weeks of Ensure^® Gold^™

• Stronger legs at 8 weeks: If you experience knee pain, lower quadriceps strength, or loss of muscles in your thigh areas, you may find simple things like lifting your legs, bending and straightening your knees, and moving your hips difficult ¹² . Apart from walking, these muscles are important when you’re bearing any amount of weight or squatting ¹³ . Studies show that elderly patients who drink Ensure ^® Gold ^™ have stronger legs after eight weeks and therefore have greater freedom of mobility ¹⁴ .

• Improved walking distance at 8 weeks: With six-minute walking tests administered on Ensure and control groups of patients, it was demonstrated that you can see strength improvements from greater distance covered after 8 weeks of Ensure ^® Gold ^™15 . Walking is a simple day-to-day activity and this six-minute test shows you can have a greater capacity to endure exercise, which also means you are recovering faster ¹⁶ .

• Increased forearm muscle density at 8 weeks: Your forearm muscles (commonly known as extensors) allow you to extend and move your wrist and fingers. You activate them whenever you type a text message to your caretaker, carry groceries, grip the railing to go up and down the stairs, or hold your grandchild’s hand ¹⁷ .Measured with radial muscle density changes, it is shown that after 8 weeks of Ensure ^® Gold ^™ , you can have more strength to perform forearm manoeuvres as required by household errands, familial duties, or the pursuit of your hobbies, more independently ¹⁸ .

• Increased handgrip endurance at 8 weeks: On a daily basis, you push, pull, and pick up various objects using muscles, nerves and bones in your hand ¹⁹ . Grip strength is actually a key measure in the diagnosis of sarcopenia (muscle loss disease) and has been proposed as a useful marker of physical frailty and biological ageing ²⁰ . Elderly patients who drink Ensure ^® Gold ^™ for 8 weeks, coupled with light exercises, achieve up to a 25% improvement in handgrip endurance compared to those who don’t ²¹ .

Age is inevitable. Aging isn't.

—Marv Levy, Hall of Fame National Football League coach of the Buffalo Bills (92 years old)

All Those Things You Can Do When Your Strength Returns...

Every day you return from your six minute walk-about the neighbourhood covering more and more ground.

You breathe easy as you reach the gates of your house. You push the gate open with vigour and carry the trash out without any difficulty.

A glance over at the garage makes you take out the hose to give your car a quick wash. Tasks that seemed so burdensome months ago now seem completely do-able.

You realise that your legs are stronger, you are covering more distance, your forearm looks bigger, and your handgrip has improved. You haven’t fallen once.

Satisfied with the strength gains you’ve made, you resolve to continue drinking Ensure^® Gold^™ and to keep up your newfound habits of exercising, sleeping well, and maintaining a healthy diet.

REFERENCES:

¹ Grimby G, Saltin B.Clin Physiol . 1983;3:209-218.
² Flakoll P, et al. Nutrition. 2004;20:445-451.
³ Baier S, et al. JPEN J Parenter Enteral Nutr. 2009;33:71-82.
⁴ Janssen I, et al. J Appl Physiol. 2000;89:81-88.
⁵ References: 1. Berton, et al. 2015. PLoS ONE 10(11):e01417757. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757; 2. Cramer JT et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2016 Nov 1;17(11):1044-1055.
⁶ 1. Argilés HM, et al. JAMDA. 2016;17:789-796. 2. Xi P, et al. Frontiers in Bioscience. 2011;16:578-597. 3. Demling RH. ePlasty. 2009;9:65-94. 4. Wolfe RR. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006;84:475-82.
⁷ The study results were based on Lean Body Mass (LBM) measurements; LBM is made up of 75% muscle. References: 1. English KL et al. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2010;13(1):34-39. 2. Kortebein P, et al. JAMA. 2007;297(16):1772-1774. 3. Paddon-Jones D, et al. J Clin Endocrin Metab. 2004;89(9):4351-8. 4. Paddon-Jones D, et al. J Clin Endocrin Metab. 2006;91(12):4836-4841. 5. Puthucheary ZA, et al. JAMA. 2013;310:1591-1600. 6. Deutz NE, et al. Clin Nutr. 2013 Oct;32(5):704-12. doi: 10.1016/j.cl- nu.2013.02.011. Epub 2013 Mar 4.
⁸ References: 1. Argilés HM, et al. JAMDA. 2016;17:789-796. 2. Demling RH. ePlasty. 2009;9:65-94.
⁹ HMB: ß-Hydroxy ß-Methylbutyrate.
¹⁰ References: 1. Argilés HM, et al. JAMDA. 2016;17:789-796. 2. Deutz NE et al. Clin Nutr. 2016 Feb;35(1):18-26. 3. Borack MS, et al. J Nutr. 2016;146:2468–75. 4. Cruz-Jentoft AJ. Curr Protein Pept Sci. 2017;18:1-5. 5. Abbott. Data on file.
¹¹ (Note: when taken twice daily and consumed with exercise) References: 1. Berton, et al. 2015. PLoS ONE 10(11):e01417757. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757; 2. Cramer JT et al. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2016 Nov 1;17(11):1044-1055.
¹² https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047243/
¹³ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047243/
¹⁴ References: 1. Berton L, et al. PLoS One. 2015;10(11):DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757.
¹⁵ References: 1. Berton L, et al. PLoS One. 2015;10(11):DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757.
¹⁶ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954611108001698
¹⁷ References: 1. Berton L, et al. PLoS One. 2015;10(11):DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757.
¹⁸ https://www.healthambition.com/top-5-hand-grip-exercises/
¹⁹ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8425220_Handgrip_strength_and_endurance_as_a_predictor_of_postoperative_morbidity_in_surgical_patients_Can_it_serve_as_a_simple_bedside_test
²⁰ References: 1. Berton L, et al. PLoS One. 2015;10(11):DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0141757.

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