Health
Fitness Legend Denise Austin Shares Her Passion for Pickleball: “I’m Totally Obsessed!”

For decades, fitness legend Denise Austin, who has sold more than 24 million exercise videos, has been inspiring women to find enjoyable ways to keep their bodies moving. At age 66, she knows firsthand that staying active can help keep people feeling young and energized. One of her ever-present mantras: “If you rest, you rust! We need to bring the fun back to fitness.”
That being said, it’s no surprise that Denise has embraced the fastest growing sport in America — pickleball! “I love pickleball,” Denise tells WomansWorld.com. “It’s something everyone can do. It’s social, fun and a great workout all in one!” She adds, “It’s easy to pick up and learn, whether you’re athletic or not. Anyone can join in!”
Read on to find out more about Denise’s passion for pickleball, her secrets for playing your best game and info about the release of her Easy Spirit pickleball shoes.
How did Denise Austin catch the pickleball bug?
“My family and I started playing pickleball several Thanksgivings ago,” she shares. It seemed like a natural thing for her tennis-loving family to try, as Denise, who was a collegiate gymnast, married into tennis royalty.
She shared, “My husband Jeff played professional tennis and my sister-in-law, Tracy Austin, is a two-time US Open Winner!” On top of that, Denise’s two children earned athletic scholarships to play lacrosse in college — so they are always game for, well, learning a new game.
Regardless of her family’s athletic ability, Denise loves that you don’t have to be a champ — or even in great shape — to enjoy pickleball. “Tennis is very skill-oriented, where pickleball is more social and low-impact,” she says. “My husband, Jeff, and I love to play mixed doubles with other couples. It is so fun!”
Denise also routinely plays pickleball with her girlfriends and daughters, Kelly Austin and fitness influencer Katie Austin. Talk about following in her mother’s footsteps.
How popular is pickleball?
Pickleball fans are called “pickleheads,” and there are about 36.5 million of them in the US, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals. In fact, the sport has grown an astounding 158.6 percent over the past 3 years, according to the 2023 Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s (SFIA) Topline Participation Report.
Finding a place to play pickleball has never been easier. There are currently more than 10,000 pickleball courts in the United States, according to Pickleheads.com, a site that covers all things pickleball related.
Denise lives in California, which currently has more pickleball courts than any other state, followed by Florida and Texas. Seattle, the birthplace of pickleball, is believed to have the most courts of any US city, followed by Denver.
Do I have to be athletic to play pickleball?
One of the main reasons this activity has such a surging interest is because of how easy it is to learn and get started. “I love the fact that there’s such a small learning curve so anyone can just jump in. They will get the hang of it very quickly,” explains Denise. “You really don’t even have to have a partner. Just show up to a public court and I bet there will be someone around you that loves to play! I find that it’s a fun workout for women over 50.”
For people who are thinking about trying this activity for the first time, there’s no need to feel nervous. In a classic Denise Austin peptalk, the fitness pioneer says, “You can do it! Get up and give it a try. Have the confidence and you can make it happen. Go out with a girlfriend and just start. Don’t be afraid. It’s so fun!”
Learning the pickleball rules
The sport was invented around 1965 and has been gaining momentum ever since. It is described as a combination of tennis, ping-pong and badminton. Players use solid racquet-like paddles with balls that resemble lightweight whiffle balls.
The game is played on a modified (smaller) tennis court that measures 44’ x 20’, with a net that is two inches shorter than a standard tennis divider.
Learning how to play pickleball is pretty straightforward: Serves are underhand and on the first serve, the ball must bounce before being returned. Only the serving team can win points. The first side to earn 11 points wins the game. And like ping-pong and tennis you must win by at least 2 points. The game can be played as singles (2 players) or doubles (4 players).
How does Denise Austin prepare to play pickleball?
Denise knows the perfect way to prime the body for this activity in order to feel great and avoid injuries. “Stretch your hamstrings, quads and groin area before you play and strength-train off the court,” she advises.
“Wall sits and walking lunges are my go-to stretches, and squats and lunges will help to strengthen your lower body.”
How should you dress for pickleball?
Players tend to wear athletic clothing or athleisure wear for a game of pickleball. As for footwear, Denise took her love of this sport to the next level by designing a line of pickleball shoes for Easy Spirit, available in stores July 18, 2023.
“My Dilli Pickleball Shoes are wonderful! Since I already have an amazing partnership with Easy Spirit, this collab was a no-brainer,” she cheers. “We worked hard to make them the most comfortable shoes you will wear on the court — great support for lateral movements, cushion for your feet and great traction for safety. You will love them.”
Denise already has a line of walking sneakers with the brand, and one look at her Instagram feed will tell you that there’s no doubt she wears Easy Spirit walking sneakers when she’s off the pickleball court. “I have the best walking shoes. Those really are my ones I wear every day.”
Denise Austin shares the health benefits of pickleball
Pickleball can be a great cardio and weight-loss activity — experts estimate you can burn 600 or more calories an hour playing pickleball — and it builds muscle with functional movements like bending, reaching, stepping and jumping. But women have also said they use it as a depression cure.
“I never regret getting moving or going for a walk,” says Denise. “Movement — even 10 minutes — helps your metabolism and provides benefits for your mental and physical health, which are so important.” She adds, “It’s the little things that kind of make you feel young again!”
Denise Austin isn’t the only famous “picklehead”
Lots of stars are following Denise’s footsteps and getting in on the action of this popular sport. Other celebrities who are known to enjoy a game of pickleball include Emma Watson, Jenna Bush Hager, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney and tennis greats Andre Agassi and Serena Williams.
Pickleball is more than just a game, it’s becoming a lifestyle. Integrative nutrition health coach Sherri Holzer recently released a cookbook for pickleball fans called Everything But The Kitchen Dink, referencing the pickleball term “dink,” meaning a short shot. Her community-driven cookbook provides simple, fun, and nutritious recipes sure to help pickleball players maintain a healthy lifestyle off the court.
Regardless of whether you’re a pro or just getting started, pickleball is a fun way to get your body moving!
Want more of Denise Austin’s healthy tips?
Pick up the July 17th issue of Woman’s World for Denise’s stress tips, nutrition secrets and more, or check out her newest special issue lifestyle magazine, Denise Austin’s Fit Over 50! For our online story on her walking tips, click through Walking to Lose Weight? Try Denise Austin’s Simple Fat-Burning Routine.


Lisa Maxbauer is an award-winning health and nutrition writer at First for Women and Woman’s World magazines. She is a former guest blogger with The New York Times and author of the award-winning independent children’s book Squash Boom Beet. Learn more at SquashBoomBeet.com and follow on Instagram @lisamaxbauer.

Health
Why Older People May Not Need to Watch Blood Sugar So Closely

By now, Ora Larson recognizes what’s happening. “It feels like you’re shaking inside,” she said. “I’m speeded up. I’m anxious.” If someone asks whether she would like a salad for lunch, she doesn’t know how to respond.
She has had several such episodes this year, and they seem to be coming more frequently.
“She stares and gets a gray color and then she gets confused,” her daughter, Susan Larson, 61, said. “It’s really scary.”
Hypoglycemia occurs when levels of blood sugar, or glucose, fall too low; a reading below 70 milligrams per deciliter is an accepted definition. It can afflict anyone using glucose-lowering medications to control the condition.
But it occurs more frequently at advanced ages. “If you’ve been a diabetic for years, it’s likely you’ve experienced an episode,” said Dr. Sei Lee, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, who researches diabetes in older adults.
The elder Ms. Larson, 85, has had Type 2 diabetes for decades. Now her endocrinologist and her primary care doctor worry that hypoglycemia may cause falls, broken bones, heart arrhythmias and cognitive damage.
Both have advised her to let her hemoglobin A1c, a measure of average blood glucose over several months, rise past 7 percent. “They say, ‘Don’t worry too much about the highs — we want to prevent the lows,’” the younger Ms. Larson said.
But her mother has spent 35 years working to maintain an A1c below 7 percent — a common recommendation, the goal people sing and dance about in pharma commercials.
She faithfully injects her prescribed drug, Victoza, about three times a week and watches her diet. She’s the oldest member of the Aqua for Arthritis class at a local pool in St. Paul, Minn.
So when her doctors recommended a higher A1c, she resisted. “I think it’s a bunch of hooey,” she said. “It didn’t make sense to me.”
“She got a lot of encouragement and recognition from her physicians for controlling her diabetes, staying on top of it,” her daughter explained. “They always praised her ‘tight control.’”
“For someone who’s been so compliant all these years, it’s like they changed the rules.”
In fact, they have.
More than a decade ago, the American Geriatrics Society called for a hemoglobin A1c of 7.5 to 8 for most older adults with diabetes, and 8 to 9 percent for those contending with multiple chronic illnesses and limited life expectancy. (The elder Ms. Larson has multiple sclerosis and hypertension.)
Other medical societies and advocacy groups, including the American Diabetes Association and the Endocrine Society, have also revised their guidelines upward for older patients.
Relaxing aggressive treatment can involve stopping a drug, lowering a dose or switching to another medication — an approach called de-intensification.
The advent of effective new diabetes drugs — GLP-1 receptor agonists (like Ozempic) and SGLT2 inhibitors (like Jardiance) — has further altered the landscape. Some patients can substitute these safer medications for risky older ones.
But the new drugs can also complicate decisions, because not all older patients can switch — and for those who can, insurance companies may balk at the new medications’ high price tags and deny coverage.
So de-intensification is proceeding, but too gradually.
A 2021 study of Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, for instance, looked at patients who had gone to an emergency room or been hospitalized because of hypoglycemia. Fewer than half had their medication regimens de-intensified within 100 days.
“Nursing-home residents are the ones that get into trouble,” said Dr. Joseph Ouslander, a geriatrician at Florida Atlantic University and the editor in chief of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Another 2021 study, of Ontario nursing homes, found that over half of residents taking drugs for Type 2 diabetes had A1c levels below 7 percent. Those with the greatest cognitive impairment were being treated most aggressively.
Dr. Ouslander has calculated, based on a national study, that roughly 40,000 emergency room visits annually resulted from overtreatment of diabetes in older adults from 2007 to 2011. He thinks the numbers are likely to be much higher now.
A brief primer: Diabetes can cause such grievous complications — heart attacks, stroke, vision and hearing loss, chronic kidney disease, amputations — that so-called strict glycemic control makes sense in young adulthood and middle age.
But tight control, like every medical treatment, involves a period of time before paying off in improved health. With diabetes, it’s a long time, probably eight to 10 years.
Older people already contending with a variety of health problems may not live long enough to benefit from tight control any longer. “It was really important when you were 50,” said Dr. Lee. “Now, it’s less important.”
Older diabetics don’t always welcome this news. “I thought they’d be happy,” Dr. Lee said, but they push back. “It’s almost like I’m trying to take something away from them,” he added.
The risk that tight control will also set off hypoglycemia increases as patients age.
It can make people sweaty, panicky, fatigued. When hypoglycemia is severe, “people can lose consciousness,” said Dr. Scott Pilla, an internist and diabetes researcher at Johns Hopkins. “They can become confused. If they’re driving, they could have an accident.”
Even milder hypoglycemic events “can become a quality-of-life issue if they’re happening frequently,” causing anxiety in patients and possibly leading them to limit their activities, he added.
Experts point to two kinds of older drugs particularly implicated in hypoglycemia: insulin and sulfonylureas like glyburide, glipizide and glimepiride.
For people with Type 1 diabetes, whose bodies cannot produce insulin, injections of the hormone remain essential. But the medication is “widely recognized as a dangerous drug” because of its hypoglycemia risk and should be carefully monitored, Dr. Lee said.
The sulfonylureas, he added, “are becoming less and less used” because, while less risky than insulin, they also cause hypoglycemia.
The great majority of older adults with diabetes have Type 2, which gives them more options. They can supplement the commonly prescribed drug metformin with the newer GLP-1 and SGLT2 drugs, which also have cardiac and kidney benefits. If necessary, they can add insulin to their regimens.
Among the new drugs’ more popular consequences, however, is weight loss.
“For older people, if they’re frail and not very active, we don’t want them losing weight,” Dr. Pilla pointed out. And both metformin and the GLP-1 and SGLT-2 medications can have gastrointestinal or genitourinary side effects.
For 15 years, Dan Marsh, 69, an accountant in Media, Pa., has treated his Type 2 diabetes by injecting two forms of insulin daily. When he takes too much, he said, he wakes up at night with “the damn lows,” and needs to eat and take glucose tablets.
Yet his A1c remains high, and last year doctors amputated part of a toe. Because he takes many other medications for a variety of conditions, he and his doctor have decided not to try different diabetes drugs.
“I know there’s other stuff, but we haven’t gone that way,” Mr. Marsh said.
With all the new options, including continuous glucose monitors, “figuring out the optimal treatment is becoming more and more difficult,” Dr. Pilla said.
Bottom line, though, “older people overestimate the benefit of blood-sugar lowering and underestimate the risk of their medications,” he said. Often, their doctors haven’t explained how the trade-offs shift with older age and accumulating health problems.
Ora Larson, who carries chewable glucose tablets with her in case of hypoglycemia (fruit juice and candy bars are also popular antidotes), intends to talk over her diabetes treatment with her doctors.
It’s a good idea. “The biggest risk factor for severe hypoglycemia is having had hypoglycemia before,” Dr. Lee said.
“If you have one episode, it should be thought of as a warning signal. It’s incumbent on your doctor to figure out, Why did this happen? What can we do so your blood sugar doesn’t go dangerously low?”
Health
Popular frozen drink linked to children’s illness, study finds

Lara Trump on setting a healthy example for her children
Amid the widespread support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement, Lara Trump — mom, wellness advocate and daughter-in-law of President Donald Trump — shared her beliefs in a healthy America with Fox News Digital.
A popular summertime treat could contain hidden dangers to kids’ health, a new study cautions.
Researchers at University College Dublin conducted a review of 21 children who became ill between 2009 and 2024 after consuming a “slush ice drink.”
A vast majority of the children, none of whom had preexisting medical conditions, became ill within an hour of having the drink.
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The patients, who ranged in age from 2 to 6 years old, all received medical treatment in the U.K. and Ireland.
The most prevalent symptoms included acute decrease in consciousness, hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar), metabolic acidosis (lactic acid build up in the bloodstream), pseudohypertriglyceridaemia (falsely elevated triglycerides) and hypokalaemia (low potassium levels), according to the findings, which were published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
A popular summertime treat could contain hidden dangers to kids’ health, a new study cautions. (iStock)
“The children had very low blood sugar levels, were unconscious (one had a seizure) and had high levels of lactate in their blood,” lead study author Ellen Crushell, a pediatrician at Children’s Health Ireland and a clinical professor at University College Dublin, told Fox News Digital.
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“They had high levels of glycerol in their blood and urine when sick, which disappeared when they recovered. They recovered well, but needed hospitalization and intravenous fluids.”
The researchers concluded that consumption of slush ice drinks containing glycerol may cause a syndrome called glycerol intoxication.
The majority of the children (95%) did not have continued symptoms after avoiding the drinks.
What is glycerol?
“Glycerol is used as a sweetener and to maintain the semi-frozen texture of some (not all) slush ice drinks,” Crushell said.
“It is being used more often in recent years as a sugar substitute,” she noted. “Large doses can be harmful to small children.”

The researchers concluded that the consumption of slush ice drinks containing glycerol may cause a syndrome called glycerol intoxication. (iStock)
The effect of sudden illness after consuming a slush drink had never been reported in the medical literature, Crushell noted.
This study did have some limitations, the researchers acknowledged.
“The numbers are small and include only the sickest children who were brought to emergency departments and who were referred on to specialists in inherited metabolic disorders,” Crushell said.
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“They were referred because their symptoms were similar to those of some rare metabolic diseases. We do not know the extent of children who may develop milder symptoms.”
The other limitation is that the amount of glycerol ingested in the various slush drinks is unknown, she added.
Recommendations for parents
Crushell said slush ice drinks “do not convey health benefits at any age” and are not recommended as part of a healthy, balanced diet.
The UK Food Standards Agency and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) have both issued guidance recommending that children age 4 and under avoid consuming slush ice drinks containing glycerol, and that children 5 and up should only drink them in moderation.

The researcher noted that slush ice drinks “do not convey health benefits at any age” and are not recommended as part of a healthy, balanced diet. (iStock)
“The use of slush ice machines by children in the home should be monitored,” Crushell advised. “Parents and guardians should check the ingredients of syrups used to make slush ices in the home for the presence of glycerol and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for use.”
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
The researchers hope this new study could lead to the development of new policies and guidance related to glycerol ingestion.
Fox News Digital reached out to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and to a leading manufacturer of slush drinks requesting comment.
Health
When a Couple’s Drinking Habits Diverge

Casey and Mike Davidson always enjoyed drinking together.
The couple, both 49, met after college while working as consultants at the same firm. Romance blossomed over work happy hours, then time spent lingering over a bottle of wine on long dates.
In their mid-20s, the pair moved to Seattle and made a group of friends who were always up for a drink. Afternoons were for hiking, kayaking and sipping beers on Lake Union; evenings were for rollicking, boozy dinner parties.
But by their 30s, their drinking habits diverged. Ms. Davidson drank a bottle of wine by herself most nights, and felt increasingly uneasy about it, while Mr. Davidson settled into life as a self-described “single-beer-a-night drinker.”
“I was really defensive about my drinking,” Ms. Davidson said, adding, “I didn’t want him watching me every time I poured a third glass of wine.”
Like the Davidsons, many couples have had to grapple with the role alcohol plays in their partnership — even if neither party drinks to the point where it causes clear, consistent problems at home, or takes an obvious toll on their health. Their relationship may still receive a shock when one partner decides to cut back or quit altogether.
“It can drive a wedge between people in terms of how they socialize, how they relax and unwind, their bedroom activities,” said Ruby Warrington, the author of “Sober Curious.” “It can be really uncomfortable.”
We asked couples, and experts on substance use, how to navigate changing tolerances for drinking within a relationship.
Finding New Pathways for Connection
Ms. Davidson, who now lives in Redmond, Wash., never hit the kind of dramatic rock bottom people tend to associate with heavy drinking, but at 40 she quit for good, and now works as a sobriety coach.
She slept better and felt less anxious and foggy, but she also worried that her newfound sobriety might hurt her marriage. “It was scary for me to stop drinking, because I wondered how we would connect,” she said.
Research on alcohol and marital happiness suggests that couples who abstain and couples who drink heavily together tend to report comparable levels of relationship satisfaction.
But problems can arise when one partner drinks regularly and the other doesn’t, said Kenneth Leonard, director of the University at Buffalo’s Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions, who has studied the topic for decades. That lopsided dynamic can lead to relationship dissatisfaction and increased chances of divorce.
The reasons for that are likely to be complex, he said, though at a simple level, couples often drink to unwind and connect, and losing that may come with some cost initially. People often do not realize how ingrained alcohol is in their relationships, experts said, even if neither party has a substance use problem.
Julie Kraft, a licensed marriage and family therapist and co-author of “The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction,” said a major upside of the “sober curious movement” and abstinence challenges like Dry January is that they offer opportunities for self-reflection.
“Am I using alcohol for stress relief?” she said. “Am I using it to feel more connected to my partner? Am I using it to avoid my partner?” One of the first things she discusses with couples looking to make changes is to brainstorm ways they might fill those spaces or needs.
The Davidsons found connection points that didn’t involve alcohol, like going to see live music on Saturday nights at a local cafe, browsing bookstores together and going to the movies.
Arthur Tindsley, 41, from Oxfordshire, England, also feared that sobriety would change his marriage. He grew up steeped in British pub culture, but in recent years, he and his wife have both looked critically at their drinking habits, going through long periods of abstinence.
Sitting down in a nice restaurant together and sharing a bottle of wine used to be one of his most cherished activities. “All of those entrenched, habitual ways that we are partners together have had to change, or are in a process of changing,” he said.
Their go-to date night now? “It’s going to sound really boring,” he said, “but we go on a walk.”
Connecting With Your ‘Why’
When working with couples in which one or both partners wants to moderate or stop drinking, Laura Heck, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Bend, Ore., emphasizes the importance of each individual understanding their own reasons for making the change.
“Each person has to connect with their own ‘why’” Ms. Heck said, adding, “I never want one person to lean into another person’s goal and just tack it on.” She offered her own relationship as an example: Her husband stopped drinking years ago because of a heart condition. Lately, Ms. Heck has been abstaining as well, but not because of him. She simply wants to better understand the ways in which drinking has become a habit for her — and to improve her marathon times.
Experts also emphasize that partners cannot force each other to change.
“One thing we remind everyone is that their journey is their own,” said Andrea Pain, executive director of Moderation Management, a nonprofit that runs peer support groups for those who want to cut back on their drinking. “You can’t expect anyone to change what they’re doing because you’ve set this new intention for yourself.”
The Davidsons acknowledge that they are lucky. Their marriage was fundamentally sound before Ms. Davidson quit drinking, she said, and Mr. Davidson never felt threatened by her decision, nor did he attempt to derail her efforts, something which she has seen happen among her coaching clients.
The pair have found their rhythm: Mr. Davidson continues to drink in moderation, Ms. Davidson remains sober. “The way I think about it is: If I decided to become a vegetarian, that doesn’t mean Mike has to be a vegetarian too,” she said. “But he certainly wouldn’t take me to a steakhouse.”
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