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Study Says Sex is rated "R" for "Retirement"
Maybe with a little coaxing, we could get country music songwriter, Willie Nelson to update the words to one of his songs. "Oh, momma, don't let your babies grow-up to be shy boys." Then we'd have a tune that reflects a new boomer trend. And, that trend is the growing recognition that neither the desire, nor the ability, to have an active sex life disappears with advancing age.
That's right, the Gerontology Society of America (GSA) reports that robust sexuality can continue even into the tenth decade. That's 100 years folks. Nowdays, aging boomers and their elder counterparts don't have to be shy about expressing the desire for an active sex life. Seems this activity is timeless. You might say, science has just given sex an "R" rating, for "Retirement".
Sexual activity and sexual satisfaction among aging males has been underestimated according to a study by researchers from Stanford University, University of California and from Honolulu. The three researchers led by Walter M. Bortz II of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and Stanford University found that many older men show persistently active sexual lifestyles.
Drs. Bortz, Douglas H. Wallace and Diana Wiley administered a 63-item questionnaire to 1,202 elderly men between the ages of 59 and 94. The questions related to present and past, actual and desired sexual practices and attitudes. The study is presented in the May 1999 issue of the
Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
This study is the largest to date on the sexuality of older men. The study group was divided into three groups. The males in the Exemplar group (those with no reported medical conditions, living with a sexual partner, and had a positive perception of her) "exhibited more active levels of sexual functioning across the age relative to their peers."
The study also showed that "age alone does not account for the reported levels of sexual function and sexual satisfaction in the aging male," Bortz and his colleague noted. The analysis indicated that chronological age alone is a good predictor of sexual function. "The presence of negative perceptions of a partner’s sexual receptivity when combined with the presence of illness and drug use, may suppress the level of sexual functioning." Translation. Sex begins in the mind. If you believe you can't, or shouldn't, then you don't.
I think there's another message here that deserves equal attention. Yes, the "possibility" for sexual activity may continue. But let's not invent another stereotype that creates expectations that may frustrate some elders. Afterall, "potential" for sex does not imply "interest" in sex. I remember the story about the old man who finds a frog that can talk. The frog says to the old man, "Kiss me and I will turn into a beautiful woman and we can make love all the time". To which the old man replied, "No thanks, at my age, I'd rather have a frog that talks".
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
Elder Sexuality Keeps Going and Going and Going
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Husband Says Home Chores Lead to Sex
Boomer Couples Cling to Role Stereotypes
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Do Boomers Myth Marijuana? Science Thinks So
"Reefer Madness", the cultural icon of mindless scare tactics was a film many boomers laughed at for decades. The film's attempt to dramatize the mind-altering affects of marijuana went well beyond the bounds of common sense and logic. Well, decades later, the evidence is in. Critics are now armed with hard data, and the news isn't good. You might say the myth about marijuana's harmless impact on one's mental state appears to have "gone up in smoke". And this news comes none too soon. The use of marijuana in America seems just as popular as the belief that the drug is neither addictive nor psychologically harmful. Marijuana is a mythed opportunity for many Americans, especially those in the boomer-age category. Take a look.
People who have smoked marijuana daily for many years display more aggressive behavior when they stop smoking the drug, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School. The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, is further evidence that a withdrawal syndrome is associated with abstinence from long-term marijuana use, and suggests that aggressive behavior is part of this syndrome.
Human and animal studies conducted since the early 1970s have suggested the existence of a marijuana withdrawal syndrome, characterized by insomnia, restlessness, loss of appetite, and irritability. "This syndrome, although less dramatic than the withdrawal syndrome associated with alcohol, opiate, or cocaine withdrawal may contribute to relapse among those dependent on marijuana," says NIDA Director Dr. Alan I. Leshner. "People addicted to marijuana may continue to use the drug at least partly to prevent the onset of withdrawal symptoms. Identifying the exact nature of this syndrome is crucial to developing treatment strategies for those attempting to stop their marijuana use."
"Most of the studies that have been published on marijuana withdrawal symptoms in people have relied on self-report," says Dr. Elena Kouri, lead author of the paper. "In these studies, long-term marijuana users report that they feel irritable when they are abstaining from marijuana use, but these studies generally do not involve measurements of aggressive behavior to verify these self-reports. In our study, we demonstrated that long-term marijuana users do, indeed, exhibit more aggressive behavior during the first week of abstinence, and that this aggressive behavior can be measured."
Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. More than 11 million people have smoked marijuana within the past month, according to the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Long-term marijuana use can lead to addiction in some people. These marijuana-addicted individuals use the drug compulsively, and this use often interferes with family, school, work, and recreational activities. Individuals with cannabis dependence may also persist in using the drug despite knowing that it causes them physical problems, such as a chronic cough related to smoking, or psychological problems, such as excessive sedation due to high doses.
"Although it is difficult to be certain of the exact prevalence of cannabis addiction in the United States, I can tell you anecdotally that we had no difficulty recruiting dozens of people between the ages of 30 and 55 who have smoked marijuana at least 5,000 times," says Dr. Harrison Pope, Jr., principal investigator of the study. "A simple ad in the paper generated hundreds of phone calls from such people."
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
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Aging? Boomers say "Hell no, we won't go"
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Medicare Strangled by Government's Red Tape
The failure of the federal bureaucracy that runs Medicare to adequately define what services the program will pay for is jeopardizing the quality of health care on nearly 40 million older Americans, according to a new analysis by The Heritage Foundation.
The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) frequently denies reimbursements for care it deems "medically unnecessary" but does not provide doctors and patients with sufficient information to determine what services fit that description, says Heritage Foundation's Sandra Mahkorn. Doctors who treat Medicare patients face the dilemma of choosing treatments based on their best professional judgement, and risking fraud and abuse charges if HCFA says the treatments are "unnecessary".
"Doctors and Medicare providers must decipher more than 111,000 pages of rules and regulations to figure out how to treat a Medicare patient," says Mahkorn. "The question of what's "medically necessary" should be answered by patients and medical professionals, but unfortunately it's being dictated by bureaucrats in language only they can understand."
Mahkorn says HCFA gets away with these questionable cost containment practices because there is no viable private alternative to Medicare for America's seniors. The solution, says Mahkorn, is expanding patient choice. That means allowing patients to choose between keeping the current plan, choose a private plan, or bring their private health plan with them into retirement for primary coverage.
Dr. Mahkorn, a family physician from Wisconsin, believes that "HCFA should not be dictating to older Americans what type of medical treatment they need any more than federal bureaucrats should be telling doctors how to care for their patients."
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
HCFA Makes American Healthcare UnAmerican
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New Technology Dominates Healthcare's Future
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Aging of Circadian Clock No Cause for Alarm
Early birds don't just get the worm ... apparently, they're healthier, too. Okay, maybe you aren't interested in getting the worm. But I'm sure you'd like to know the "healthier" part.
A new study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), says that older healthy individuals tend to be "early risers" in the morning. Now, before you go out and buy a new alarm clock, I have to tell you that there's more to a healthy old age than just getting up early. You see, it's all in the reasons why healthy elders get up early. Let me explain.
This new NIH study examined the body's circadian period. That's a fancy name for a natural clock or pacemaker that ticks away inside your body, telling it when to do important things like fall asleep or wake up. Unfortunately, this "clock" does not also remind men that it's their anniversary or wife's birthday. Strangely, the wives' "clock" don't seem to suffer from this memory deficiency. But that's another story. Any way, the NIH study found that for both healthy elders and healthy younger people, the circadian period is the same time length, a little more than 24 hours. "24 hours and 11 minutes" to be exact, says the study's lead author Dr. Charles A. Czeisler of Harvard Medical School.
This means that the circadian clock does not, as previously thought, shorten in duration as one grows older. If only this "shorten" myth were true for all other aspects of aging. For example, with advancing age, people do get shorter. That's why the parents you always "looked up to" seem to shrink later in life.
In humans and many animals, the circadian clock regulates sleep. This natural pacemaker is located deep within the brain's hypothalamus where it helps the body keep time. It controls a number of body functions and interacts with the mechanisms controlling sleep.
For most people, studies show that the pressure to sleep builds up throughout the day and peaks about 9:00 pm or 10:00 pm. At this time, the body's temperature starts to drop and lowers about one degree during sleep. As the body temperature starts to rise, around 4:00am, the likelihood of waking increases.
In addition to the change in body temperature, the pineal gland, located deep within the brain, produces and secretes the chemical melatonin at high levels during the night. A number of factors can affect melatonin secretion, such as medications and light. The sun's appearance each day begins a chemical process that enables a person to shift from sleep to wakefulness.
"This study indicates that changes in the circadian clock are not inevitable with age," says Dr. Andrew A. Monjan, National Institute on Aging. However, Monjan points out that other non-age-related factors can interrupt the elders normal sleep cycle. "A number of factors may all serve to shift the circadian phase. These include activity, exposure to indoor room light, travel, illness and genetics. In older people, the circadian pacemaker may not be any different than that of their younger counterparts, but something, perhaps light exposure, is interrupting sleep and throwing off the sleep-wake cycle." I found this "light" factor role in the circadian clock to be quite interesting. This may explain why elders who depend on a night light due to frequent nocturnal trips to the bathroom may, inadvertently, be disrupting their circadian pacemaker.
The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, leads the Federal government's effort in the support of basic, clinical, epidemiological and social research on aging and the special needs of older people.
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
Fixing Our Bio-Clock Might Buy Us Time
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AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Urinary Tract Study Group "glad they use dial"
Everything from 411 to 911 to toll-free hotlines are the many ways in which the telephone has been enlisted to serve people in need. Well, just when you think we've exhausted the possibilities, along comes another innovation. This time, the telephone is being examined as a link between patients and medical treatment. In this case, women with common urinary tract infection were linked via phone to health service providers. How did the study participants and the supervising researchers find the results? Everyone seems glad they use dial.
Women with common urinary tract infections can safely get the same diagnosis and prescription over the phone as they would from a visit to their doctor, leading to identical relief with far less hassle and cost, says a new study by the University of Michigan and Washington state health systems. The research also concludes, managed care insurance systems that set a single guideline for treating the painful but uncomplicated condition can standardize care, eliminate unnecessary tests and minimize the risk of antibiotic resistance while giving patients quicker treatment.
"If our guideline was widely implemented, millions of women would get faster and equally effective help through a telephone conversation with a nurse and a three-day course of antibiotics, while saving vast amounts of time and money wasted on urine tests and doctor visits," says lead author Dr. Sanjay Saint, University of Michigan.
Uncomplicated urinary tract infection, a bacteria-caused ailment also known as cystitis, plagues up to half of all women during their lives, resulting in an estimated 7 million office visits each year and costing the nation $1 billion a year to treat. Many women are all too familiar with the disease's irritating symptoms---an overwhelming urge to urinate frequently, burning sensations and even bleeding during urination, and accompanying abdominal and back pain.
Many women have also experienced inconsistent treatment of cystitis from doctor to doctor and region to region. Despite its wide prevalence and the availability of inexpensive antibiotic treatments, physicians don't all treat cystitis the same way. The result is unnecessary office visits, excess lab tests including urine cultures, and needless suffering as patients wait for appointments and test results.
The guideline called for nurses at 24 Group Health clinics to ask questions over the phone of patients who called with symptoms typical of a urinary tract infection, and to prescribe three days of a common antibiotic if the case sounded uncomplicated. Patients with what sounded like more complex or serious cases were asked to come to the clinic. Forty percent of those patients who called after guideline implementation were handled entirely over the phone.
This study was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Department of Veterans Affair, and Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound.
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
New UI Treatment Helps 11Million Women
Insurer Targets Needs Of Mature Women
Women's Health Initiative
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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