Since there’s no drug to treat sarcopenia, odds are you haven’t heard much about it.

But don’t wait for the ad campaign that will accompany the meds when they do inevitably come out–if you’re a senior, or just hope to become one someday, learn more about this muscle-robbing condition now, while you can still lower your own risk.

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle that can accompany old age, and a recent report in the New York Times estimates that about 10 percent of those over 60 years old have it.

And the older you get, the higher your risk.

Since the condition is believed to be caused at least in part by sedentary lifestyles and a lack of exercise, you can expect the numbers to grow rather dramatically in the coming years.

“In the future, sarcopenia will be known as much as osteoporosis is now,” Dr. Bruno Vellas, president of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, told the newspaper.

Researchers believe we slowly begin to lose muscle from the age of 30. By 50, we’ve lost about 10 percent of our muscle mass… and by 70, many people have lost as much as 40 percent.

That’s not just an inconvenience that will make it more difficult to open a jar of sauce… it’s a debilitating change in the body that can dramatically increase your risk of disability, and even cause you to lose your independence.

In fact, a study published a few years ago in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that sarcopenic women have 3.6 times the risk of disability, while men have 4.1 times the rate, of those without the condition.

And all that is costing us a ton of money. One estimate cited by the Times finds that sarcopenia-related disabilities cost $18.5 billion a year–or 1.5 percent of our total health care spending.

You know Big Pharma can’t let a dollar sign with that many zeros pass by–so they’re putting big money into developing meds aimed at sarcopenia. But you don’t have to wait for those drugs–or suffer their side effects when they do become available–to fight this condition.

All you really need is the willingness to get a little more movement back into your life.

That means some regular walking or light jogging, and some basic resistance training. Use weights heavy enough to work the muscle, but not so heavy that you might hurt yourself.

Talk to your doctor or a physical therapist to find out what your limits may be.

The really good news here is that you don’t have to join a gym, run endless miles on those hamster wheels they call “treadmills,” or be able to bench press a Buick.

While the fitness freaks keep pounding the pavement and pumping iron, just fluffing the sofa cushions could be your best exercise. In fact, one MD says that the best way to maintain muscle is to do nothing at all! To find out more about his program, click here.

Remember, preserving that muscle could be the key to preserving your lifestyle.

Waking up to wee? Some people will tell you it’s a part of aging–but it doesn’t have to be.

Frequent middle-of-the-night bathroom visits are part of a condition called nocturia, and it’s more than just an annoyance–it can ruin your sleep, put a cramp on your lifestyle and even come with medical risks.

But you don’t need meds to control your midnight runs– because a new study proves that simple lifestyle changes can help you sleep better without all those urgent interruptions.

Researchers in Japan instructed 56 nocturia patients with an average age of 75 on four lifestyle changes–and those who stuck with the plan achieved significant relief, according to the study in the Journal of Urology.

The patients were told to get a little more exercise each day, avoid spending too much time in bed, keep warm during the night and drink fewer fluids–with less in the evenings.

For these patients, the researchers recommended cutting back on fluids to 2 percent of body weight, or roughly a quart and a half a day for a 165-pound person.

After four weeks, the participants had fewer trips to the bathroom each night, and produced less total urine. More than half the patients saw an improvement of more than one fewer bathroom trip each night.

This is great news for anyone looking for a safe way to limit those irritating nighttime toilet runs–because, as I mentioned recently, people who wake up to use the bathroom the most have the highest risk of premature death. (Read more here.)

Just don’t look for the answer in a pill bottle. Big Pharma’s nocturia drugs are synthetic hormones–drugs with ugly side effects such as dry mouth, constipation and heartburn.

These drugs are so bad, people would rather live with the condition–because researchers estimate that up to 70 percent of the seniors who try them quit within six months.

Luckily, you don’t have to be among them.

As the new study shows, simple lifestyle changes once again succeed where drugs fail–and if you’re willing to make those changes, you can go to bed knowing that you won’t wake up until you want to.

They keep trying–and they keep failing.

Big Pharma has spent billions trying to create its dream drug: A pill that can help people safely lose a lot of weight.

But for patients who’ve taken the diet drugs that have come out so far, that dream has turned into a nightmare– because none of them work as advertised, and a new study links one of the most common weight loss drugs to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

The drug is sibutramine, but you may know it better as the prescription med Meridia. And while it’s been linked to trouble before, the new study offers some of the worst news yet.

Researchers randomly assigned 10,744 overweight or obese people with heart problems or type 2 diabetes to either Meridia or a placebo, and followed them for nearly 3.5 years.

And according to the study in the New England Journal of Medicine, patients taking Meridia had a 36 percent increased risk of a nonfatal stroke and a 28 percent higher risk of a nonfatal heart attack.

But instead of recognizing these dangers, the researchers appeared to downplay them. They practically celebrated the finding that Meridia didn’t seem to increase fatalities, and even said the drug should remain on the market as long as it’s kept away from diabetics and heart patients.

There’s just one catch: Many people who suffer from these conditions don’t know it.

Even if the researchers missed the point of their own study, it wasn’t lost on the journal’s editor. In an editorial published alongside the study, Dr. Gregory D. Curfman called Meridia just “another flawed diet pill” and said it’s time to pull the plug on this bad experiment.

Dr. Curfman wrote that Meridia users have a 1 in 70 chance of heart attack or stroke, and that risk shoots up to 1 in 52 if they’re already suffering from heart problems.

Not exactly comforting numbers.

European regulators were so concerned by those figures that they pulled the med off the market earlier this year based on the preliminary results of the trail–months before the study was even published.

A few steps behind (as always), the FDA will meet this month to consider making its own move on Meridia. And if the heart attack and stroke numbers don’t impress them, maybe the weight loss figures will: The new study found the average patient lost about 9 pounds, or 4.5 percent of their body weight.

That’s even lower than the ridiculous low bar set by the FDA, which considers any drug that reduces weight by 5 percent to be “effective.”

What’s more, sibutramine can also increase your blood pressure and pulse–two things many obese people already struggle to keep under control.

Other side effects include irregular heartbeat, allergic reactions, bleeding problems, restlessness, nervousness, dizziness, dry mouth and more.

But you don’t have to settle for any of those, because basic lifestyle changes will do far more for your body than any drug ever will–and teach you the good habits you’ll need to keep the excess weight off for good.

And that’s diet success by any measure.

Big Pharma isn’t the only one preying on patients–the Big Banks are also getting in on the act.

Complaints are growing over so-called health care credit cards–lines of credit for procedures generally not covered by insurance, like dental work, laser eye surgery or cosmetic surgery.

But those bigger boobs, whiter teeth and stronger eyes could cost a lot more than you realize, because these cards can carry interest rates of more than 25 percent.

And that’s even when they say “interest free,” because these cards come with the same trick you’ll find in a discount electronics chain: It’s only “interest free” for a very short period.

If you don’t pay off the entire loan within that little window, the interest kicks in–and is even backdated to cover the “interest-free” period.

Talk about sticker shock.

What’s more, patients are complaining that they are being charged for their procedures before they’ve even agreed to them. Others are charged the full amount up front for procedures that need weeks or months of treatments–like many dental procedures.

And that means they’re paying high interest on something that hasn’t even happened yet.

The problem is so bad attorneys general from around the nation are launching investigations.

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says one of the biggest health care credit card companies, GE CareCredit, creates a twisted incentive for doctors and dentists to pressure you into these high-interest payment plans by offering the providers “rebates” based on how many patients sign up.

That’s just another way of saying “commission,” turning the doctors and dentists who play ball with this plan into the medical equivalent of used car salesmen.

Better hurry–I can only offer you this price on a new set of teeth today!

GE CreditCare is offered by 130,000 clinics around the country… but it’s not the only one you need to watch out for. Chase, Citi and other banks are competing to get a piece of the pie–and it’s not always obvious that a bank is behind the operation.

Many patients think they’re just signing up for a payment plan that’s between them and their doctor.

But with Americans now putting $45 billion a year in health-care fees on credit cards–an amount expected to rise to $150 billion in just five years–you can expect more pressure, more offers and more scams where you least expect them: In your own doctor’s office.