Elderly women do nearly five hours of housework per day on average. Men do closer to three. That difference is bad for women's health, and it's important to think about as baby boomers retire.
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DW: Is housework good for elderly men and women, or is it bad for them?
Nicholas Kofi Adjei: For the men, it's good. And for the women as well - but only to a certain point. Beyond three hours is not beneficial to the health of the women, as compared to the men.
Is it their bodies? Do you have any idea why more than three hours of housework per day is easier for elderly men to tolerate?
Tilman Brand: For women, it was more the repetitive and routine housework. And so we assume that doing this kind of housework has, at a certain point, limits to the health, where it becomes more stressful with no added health benefits.
Would it be helpful for elderly women to spend more time outside doing physical labor in the yard, and having the men do more cooking?
Brand: From a gender equality perspective, we think that it's probably good to have an equal amount of all these activities to be done by men and women ... From the perspective of physical activity and being outside, which is also important and positive for health, doing more gardening and maintenance could be good for women.
With regard to housework, what were the numbers for German and Italian men?
Adjei: For German men, it's 4.2 hours per day. And with Italian men, it's 2.7 hours per day.
So elderly Italian men are doing quite a bit less housework than German men?
Adjei: Absolutely.
In Spain and France, your data shows elderly men and women slept 10 hours per day, whereas in other countries it was 9. This is just strange. Is there a methodological problem with self-reporting?
Brand: We would say that's more of a cultural difference than a methodological problem. When we look at the way the data was collected, it was a diary approach - the participants recorded every activity for 24 hours. The difference could be that in some countries, having a nap in the afternoon is very common, like in Spain, and that this was added to the sleeping time.
If, in the future, we have robots that can do a lot of the housework for us, then your research would suggest that elderly people should devote that time to… other physical activities?
Brand: The important question is, 'What do we do instead of housework?' … There are lots of possibilities to get active physically, but also to get engaged in social activities. We've seen that all these activities, apart from housework, that are associated with physical activity and also social participation are positive for your health. On the other hand, passive leisure that's just sitting in front of the TV or listening to the radio is associated with poor health.
Tilman Brand is a sociologist who heads the social epidemiology unit at the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. Nicholas Kofi Adjei is a doctoral researcher at the same institute. Their article was published in the journal BMC Public Health.
The research was based on self-provided data by roughly 15,000 men and 20,000 women over the age of 65 from Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, UK and US.
How Germans fight colds
With their superior public healthcare system, Germans don't really need to self-medicate. They do it anyway. DW examines the science (and pseudoscience) behind German "remedies."
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Boiled beer
Can a boiled beer defeat the common cold? Generations of German mothers say it can. Though cherry-picked science supports this view - humulones and isohumulones in hops have antiviral properties, for example - even researchers at Japan's third-largest brewery, Sapporo, had to admit: It'd take roughly 20 liters of the stuff for any antiviral "benefit" to apply.
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Don't mind my leg diapers
If you see a bed-ridden German with damp cloths around his calves, it's a sure sign he's battling a fever. And actually beating it back. Since legs have more surface area than the forehead, a damp cloth around the calf reduces temperatures more quickly. Two common caveats from German doctors: Use lukewarm water (not ice!), and remove after 30 minutes.
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Scarf signals
Indoors, a scarf worn loosely is fashion. Cinch it tightly, though, and it's a sign of illness. Germans use scarves to alleviate sore throat symptoms (correctly) and to prevent that virus from becoming tonsillitis (incorrectly). More importantly, that strip of fabric protects one of the most intensely "vulnerable" patches of skin on the German body ...
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Choo, choo!
... the back of a German neck. Germans will tell you that a draft of air, or "Zug," across this fragile skin swathe causes neck pain, headaches, colds or influenza. "Complete nonsense," says German virologist Ortwin Adams. There is neither evidence that an exposed nape can drop one's temperature faster than elsewhere, nor that being cold contributes significantly to catching a cold or flu virus.
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Pretzel sticks, rusk and Coca-Cola
Here's another tip-off to nearby illness: Twice-baked bread biscuits called "Zwieback" or fistfuls of pretzel sticks. Germans consume them en masse after diarrhea or vomiting. They would add that it all goes down best with Coca-Cola classic. But while the foodstuffs are in fact a good idea - particularly the salt on the pretzels - forget the bottle of Coke. Caffeine is a known diuretic.
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Calming chamomile
Cold symptoms - and even aches and pains - seem to evaporate when the German body comes into contact with chamomile salts and bathwater. But this is true for everyone. Chemical extracts from the flower have been shown to reduce inflammation by inhibiting COX-2 enzymes, as steroids do. Bath steam, meanwhile, alleviates coughing and congestion. Just 20 minutes, though, say Germany's doctors.
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Let's make a fever!
But what about zapping a virus entirely? Could a hot sauna session (or scalding bath) create a "fake fever" and thereby nuke the common cold or flu virus? No, says virologist Adams."Fevers are not virus-destroying - they're ineffective." Similarly, saunas are not capable of raising body temperatures to a level that would kill the rhinovirus or influenza.
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Milk and honey
For that dry, nagging cough, how about a warm cup of milk and honey? The science is in on this German old wives' tale ... and the second ingredient actually does work. Separate US studies in 2007 and 2012 showed that moderate doses of honey reduced overnight coughing in children more than honey-flavored placebos.
Onions. Unfounded rumors that this raw vegetable can magically vacuum up airborne viruses have also taken hold in Germany. Here, onion juice - the product of a stovetop boiling - is served to sicklings. Though the beverage does rehydrate, there is no scientific evidence to support the use of onions over ginger root or herbal tea. Anecdotally, onion juice can also cause nausea.
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Gender and pain
Any German woman will tell you: When a man gets sick, he becomes a sniffly little crybaby whose whining makes him insufferable. Are they right? A Stanford study examined 160,000 hospital records in which patients ranked pain on 250 diseases. The result: Women experienced pain more intensely - or at least admitted to it on paper. As for which sex is most vocal about pain, the science is still out.