In Brief
By Andy Humm
Coping with Pain Improves After 50
For all the aches and pains that aging can bring, Dr. Carmen Green, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, found that after age 50 we experience less pain, depression, disability, and suffering due to pain than people who are younger, the Medical Post reported.
Green, who studied 5,800 chronic pain patients, said of older people: “They’ve been through enough in their lives [to know] that pain is just another thing they have to deal with, where young people don’t have those experiences and so they tend to have more problems with pain.” She also cited fewer obligations in terms of work, family, and financial pressure.
Dr. Pat Morley-Foster, director of the interdisciplinary pain program at the University of Western Ontario, told the Post, “It’s how you’re doing in comparison to the rest of your peers that sets up different levels of depression and dysfunction.” Moreover, older people see more of their peers coping with pain than younger people do. Older people have chronic forms of pain such as treatable arthritis, which is much less common among younger people.
Zoomers Zoom in on Anti-Aging Products
The over-50 market, dubbed zoomers, “yearns to stay fit, vital, active and young looking throughout their healthy and extended number of years,” the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine in Chicago reported, noting that nearly 90 million U.S. consumers spent $44.6 billion on products or procedures to mitigate signs of aging such as wrinkles and fat. The academy, a nonprofit medical organization with 14,500 members dedicated to research on extending life and its quality, “urges consumers to select a qualified and licensed expert in the field of anti-aging medicine and/or anti-aging cosmetic medicine.”
Along with the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine, the academy will offer two workshops in Las Vegas from May 13-15 for physicians, one on “Endocrinology, Hormone Replacement, and Metabolic Therapy” and the other on “Anesthetic and Cosmetic Techniques for In-Office Procedures.” For more information, call 800-558-1267. Companies interested in promotional and sponsorship opportunities can call 561-392-7791.
We Need Young Blood to Heal
A new study from Stanford University found that injured older muscles have the capacity to heal and regenerate, but that the healing process is inhibited by old blood.
Dr. Thomas Rando, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences at the school, found that when older injured mice shared a blood supply with younger mice, their muscles healed normally. When the older mice were connected to the blood supply of other older mice, the healing proceeded much more slowly.
The study, published in Nature, was not able to isolate the substance or substances in younger blood that contribute to healing. “It’s as big a fishing expedition as you can possibly imagine,” Dr. Rando said, noting the presence of “thousands of proteins, lipids, sugars, and other small molecules in the blood serum.”
Older Workers, Younger Bosses
While the median age in the United States has risen to 35.9 in July 2003 from 35.4 in just three years, corporate leaders are becoming younger and younger, according to the Spencer Stuart recruiting firm, and reported in The New York Times. They say that in 1980, the average age of a CEO at a Standard & Poors 500 company was 59. In 2003, it was down to 56, and last year it was 55.
The study found that banks have the oldest leaders at an average age of 59. Banking CEO’s also tend to last the longest at the top (10 years), and enjoy the longest tenures with their companies at 25 years.
Early Detection is Goal of Brain Center
For $350, experts at the Center for BrainHealth in Dallas will conduct a three-hour screening test that determines whether the problems you experience with brain function are due to normal aging or the effects of neurological conditions, the Kansas City Star reported. Jennifer Zientz, head of diagnostic services, explained that they examine “how people process complex information” and help people who have some degree of dementia figure out what their remaining mental strengths are.”
Diminished mental capacity can be an indicator of strokes, kidney malfunction, stress, or depression. The tests can catch these problems early and give doctors and patients a chance to address them before they get worse.
Dr. Randolph Schiffer, chair of neuropsychiatry and behavioral science at Texas Tech University, told the paper, “The best candidates for screenings are people who have noticed changes in their memory.”
Boomers Seek Younger Cars
Baby boomers who will start turning 65 in just six years, do not want automobiles that “advertise their age,” USA Today reported. People over 60 buy 17.5 percent of all cars sold in America.
“There is a big potential market of people who want to retire but like cars that give a little excitement,” Peter Horbury, chief of design for Ford in North America, told the paper. Thus, General Motors has jettisoned the Oldsmobile line as too stodgy and is trying to recast Cadillac as a “powerful, youthful brand.”
Older consumers want youthful styling and image, yet they also seek cars that are easy to get in and out of, as well as comfortable seating.
Booksellers to Boomers: Oh Say, Can You See?
Paperback publishers are following the aging market of readers by looking at producing books with larger print, the Baltimore Sun reported. “Many people over the ripe age of 40 are starting to have trouble reading, and reading mass market books has become very difficult,” Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins told the paper. Sales of paperbacks have dropped from $600 million in 1999 to $535 million over the last five years.
These larger type books will be one half-inch taller than traditional mass-market paperbacks but the same width to fit into racks at airports and other stores. They will still be smaller than “trade” paperbacks, which are the same size as hardcover copies. “Small print is cited as a primary reason for the mass-market blues,” the story said.
Back to School in Ivy League for Older Unemployed
Columbia University’s new Gateway Workforce Development Program partners the school with Managed Work Services in the Bronx to give 20 unemployed New Yorkers the chance to pick up Web design and other skills at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, The New York Times reported. The program participants then take what they have learned to assist a community group in developing a Web site.
Venus Lee of Brooklyn, laid off from IBM in her 50s, told the paper, “This program is more [about] giving you experience in the real world.”
Frank Silverberg is a 1970 graduate of New York University who worked in the textile industry for 20 years, retrained as a computer programmer, and then got laid off. Silverberg said that the Columbia experience is helping him “increase my skills and get my own business started” while providing “the prestige of attending classes at an Ivy League school.”
