As you age you may need fewer calories -- but more nutrients

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The world’s oldest magic trick, acetabula et calculi, reportedly dates back to early Rome. Today, it’s known as cups and balls and while there are endless variations, it all comes down to trying to figure out how small balls pop in and out of three upside-down cups unseen.

Making sure you get enough nutrition as you get older also requires a sleight of hand. You need extra nutrients to protect your strength, cognition, immune function and bone, eye and heart health, while you take in fewer calories daily. Here are four nutrients you should pack into every day.

Calcium: For bone health, aim for three servings a day of fat-free dairy, two servings daily of dark leafy greens like kale, spinach and collards. Also good: canned fish, like sardines.

Vitamin D: Get a good daily dose from fish such as salmon, mushrooms and fortified foods. Get your blood level checked: Most folks need a supplement too. It helps with immune function and bone strength.

Vitamin B12: Essential for nerve and blood cell health, it’s in fortified whole-grain cereals, lean meat and fish. A blood test will show if you need a supplement.

Protein: Whole grains and legumes, tofu, fish, nuts and lean poultry can deliver the protein you need to gain and maintain muscle mass and function. A 150- to 160-pound senior might need 65 to 70 grams daily. That could come from 6 ounces of salmon (40 grams), 3 ounces of white meat turkey (24 grams) and 1 cup of brown rice (5 grams).

If you aren’t getting vaccinated for yourself -- do it for your pet!

When John Legend did the ad “This Shot Is Our Shot” to encourage people to get a COVID-19 vaccine and then put his inoculation up online, he was thinking about all the heartache that could be prevented by protecting folks from contracting the sometimes-fatal infection. But we bet John and his wife Chrissy Teigen -- who posted info on her shot on Facebook -- didn’t know what a huge benefit their inoculations would be to their bulldogs Pablo, Penny and Pippa and their poodle named Petey.

It turns out that when a pet owner gets COVID-19, 67% of housecats and 43% of dogs also become infected. That’s the conclusion of researchers from Canada’s University of Guelph, who did a study of 48 cats and 54 dogs from 77 households in which an owner had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Their paper, presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases 2021, found that while most infected pets were asymptomatic, 20% of the dogs experienced lack of energy and loss of appetite, a cough or diarrhea; 27% of cats ended up with a runny nose and difficulty breathing.

The researchers’ advice: If you get COVID-19, stay away from your pet, and don’t allow it to sleep with you. Also smart: If you have COVID-19 in your house, keep your pet away from other people and pets. Once a cat or dog becomes infected, pet-to-pet and pet-to-human transmission cannot be ruled out say the researchers.