Zombie chow!

Out here in the real world, it’s pretty much the same deal (minus the zombies) — because it turns out the slowest walkers have the highest risk of death.

Australian researchers checked the walking speeds of 1,705 senior men and then tracked them for up to 21 years. They found that those who walked at 1.8 miles per hour or less were far more likely to die in that time that those who walked more quickly.

Those who topped 2 miles per hour, on the other hand, were 1.23 times less likely to die than the slowpokes — while those who kept up a brisk 3-mph-pace had the lowest risk of death overall.

That’s in line with a study last year that found that seniors who can walk at 2.2 mph outlive those who only go 1.3 mph or less — with the benefits increasing along with the walking speed. (Read about that study here.)

In that study, researchers found that those who walk the fastest can live between 8 and 10 years longer than those who walk the slowest — which gives you plenty of extra time for walking or whatever else you want to do.

Of course, there’s more than just walking speed on the line here. People who walk slower tend to have other physical problems that can boost the odds of an early death.

Slow walking can be a sign of muscle weakness, which could lead to a fall and a devastating or even deadly bone break. It could also signify a neurological problem, including Parkinson’s disease.

Circulation problems, pain, arthritis — all of these conditions and more can also slow you down, diminish your quality of life, and maybe even allow the Grim Reaper to gain another step or two on you.

And that’s someone you don’t watch catching up.

Don’t be fooled by the apples you’ll find in the supermarket year ’round — most of them are actually months old… and you won’t believe the tricks they use to keep them fresh.

The guy in the produce department will tell you that the secret is cold storage — but those apples aren’t just placed in a giant fridge somewhere.

They’re also given a massive dose of pesticides after they’re harvested in order to prevent mold, blight, rot, and stains during that storage period.

They’re pumped so full of chemicals that a recent study based on government data found at least two pesticides on 92 percent of all apple samples even after they were washed and peeled.

And 98 percent of more than 700 apple samples tested by the USDA had at least one pesticide.

As a result, apples were placed on top of the Environmental Working Group’s “dirty dozen,” a list of fruits and vegetables that contain the highest levels of pesticides.

EWG says apples are followed by celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, imported nectarines, imported grapes, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, domestic blueberries, lettuce, and kale.

If you can’t afford to buy everything organic – and these days, who can? — make sure you at least go organic for those.

While there’s not a lot of research on what a low-but-steady stream of pesticides can do to a person, we do know that higher doses can cause cancer and hormonal problems.

Some studies have found that farm workers exposed to pesticides on the job have a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease. And in pregnant women and children, pesticide exposure has been linked to low birth weight, brain damage, ADHD, and even lower intelligence later in life.

But the news from the produce aisle isn’t all bad. EWG also found a number of fruits and vegetables so low in pesticides that you don’t have to buy organic.

They call them the Clean 15: onions, corn, pineapples, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mangoes, eggplant, domestic cantaloupe, kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit, and mushrooms.

The organization has a helpful guide you can print, clip and bring to the supermarket.

It’s just about the only time you might need to compare apples and grapefruit.

As bad as those are, there’s something that can be even worse: Losing your grip on reality to the hallucinations, confusion, and delusional thinking that often come along for the ride.

It’s a frightening form of psychosis that strikes up to 60 percent of all Parkinson’s patients — and it’s almost always caused by Parkinson’s drugs.

But instead of lowering the dose or changing the med, docs often prescribe powerful antipsychotic drugs — and a new study shows that a full 98 percent of those meds don’t even work.

These are drugs with literally no clinical evidence of effectiveness, period — and some of them are even known to make the Parkinson’s symptoms worse.

Researchers looked at the records of 2,500 patients given meds for Parkinson’s psychosis at VA hospitals in 2008 and
found that half of them were prescribed quetiapine, also known as Seroquel.

That’s the schizophrenia med given off-label for everything from insomnia to dementia — often with disastrous results.

There’s no evidence it works for any of those off-label conditions — and there are no less than four studies that show it does nothing for Parkinson’s psychosis. But some of Big Pharma’s favorite docs won’t let a little science stand in their way — they’re using the drug anyway.

One doctor not involved in the study told Reuters Health that even though there’s no evidence behind Seroquel, many
docs have had at least some anecdotal success using it… so they’ll ignore the research and keep right on dishing it out.

And even the author of the study in the Archives of Neurology admits to prescribing it — and says he plans to continue to do so.

Imagine the uproar if an alternative health doc announced his insistence on using treatments scientifically proven not to work. Heck, the feds would probably shut the guy down for quackery — but somehow, mainstream docs get a free pass.

And believe it or not, Seroquel sounds downright reasonable compared to some of the other meds given for Parkinson’s psychosis.

The researchers say a combined 28 percent of prescriptions were for either risperidone (Risperdal) or olanzapine(Olanzipine) — two drugs that not only do nothing for the psychosis… they’re actually known to make the Parkinson’s disease worse.

That’s not just inexcusable — that’s malpractice.

Parkinson’s patients often don’t have many options for the disease itself — but a new study finds real promise in traditional Chinese medicine.

But gou teng is more than just a folk remedy with a funny name: A new study shows this stuff might have the power to help tame or even beat Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers in Hong Kong gave 115 Parkinson’s patients either a blend of traditional herbs including gou teng, or a placebo, for 13 weeks, and found that those who got the traditional treatment had better sleep, improvements in speech, and a lower risk of depression.

Even better, the patients who took the herbs along with the Parkinson’s drug levodopa suffered fewer of the med’s notorious side effects — including hallucinations and delusional thinking.

The researchers didn’t stop with the clinical trial — they also isolated the compounds in the herb and ran some tests to see if they could figure out what makes it work so well.

And they may have found it.

Hidden inside gou teng is an alkaloid called isorhy, which researchers say may have the power to normalize the cell death process that often goes haywire in the brains of Parkinson’s patients.

That’s the scientific explanation, anyway.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the description gets a little strange. I read one that explained how gou teng increases yin to counterbalance too much yang.

That’s a little “out there” for most of us here in the West — but it’s considered a perfectly reasonable explanation in the world of traditional Chinese medicine, where the balance between yin and yang is believed to play a key role in health.

Those yins and yangs must be pretty busy, too: Gou teng has been used in China to treat high blood pressure, tinnitus, headaches, sleep problems, and more.

The one caveat here is that the research team behind the Parkinson’s study has also applied for a U.S. patent for their herbal blend, and plan to bring it to market here after a second phase of the study ends in 2013.

That’s a big enough conflict that I’d want to see more independent research on this before anyone starts taking gou teng — but if it really works, I’m sure plenty of Parkinson’s patients would be willing to balance their yins and yangs.