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More Men Living Longer Than Ever Before,
Census Shows (5/23)
M.a.J. Mckenna
May. 24, 2001
ATLANTA - Across the country, the face of old age looks
different.
It shaves.
New numbers from Census 2000, released today by the U.S.
Census Bureau, show that more men are living longer than ever before. Compared to 10 years
ago, when the last census was taken, there are 14.7 percent more men in the 65-and-older
category, and 10.2 percent more women.
There are still more older women, in raw numbers, than
older men. But with larger proportions of men surviving into older age, the gap between
the genders is closing.
That discovery is part of a larger finding revealed by
today's set of numbers: Overall, more elderly people are living longer, and among senior
citizens, the category of ``oldest old'' is increasing fastest of all.
Nationwide, there are 37 percent more people who are at
least 85 years old than there were in 1990. In Georgia, the increase is more dramatic:
53.5 percent more people are at least 85 years old than there were 10 years ago.
The confirmation that people are surviving well into
their 80s holds little surprise for gerontologists, who have been sensing longer life
spans for a while now.
``It's due to a combination of factors: advances in
medical technology and declines in the rates of certain chronic diseases,'' said Catherine
Hennessy, an epidemiologist in the health care and aging studies branch of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
But the finding that men's survival past 65 is increasing
faster than women's is striking, experts on aging said. It poses interesting questions
that medicine has not previously had to ask - because until now, old age has been a
territory inhabited mostly by women.
``The question will be: Is increased longevity associated
with increased quality of life and reductions in chronic disease? Or is it associated with
increased institutionalization and greater need for long-term care?'' said Dr. Michael
O'Grady, chief of geriatric rehabilitation at Emory University's Wesley Woods Center.
Currently, he said, older women are believed to suffer
more disability and to become more frail than men - but that may simply be because men die
before they would be vulnerable to those disorders.
``As men age, we're starting to see age-related issues
similar to those in post-menopausal women: declining testosterone levels, glucose
intolerance, age-related muscle loss, urinary incontinence,'' said O'Grady, whose research
focuses on increasing strength and muscle mass in men over 65. ``Many of these issues have
really not been on the radar of physicians, because men weren't living long enough to
demonstrate some of these.''
Some basic concepts in medicine may need to be
re-examined, the experts said. For instance, prostate cancer currently is treated
conservatively in men over 70, on the assumption that some other health problem - probably
heart disease - will cause their deaths before the cancer progresses.
But if men begin to live longer, they may demand more
aggressive treatment, O'Grady pointed out. And that may force them to face the sort of
calculations that women with breast cancer must contemplate, such as whether to slow aging
by taking hormone supplements, at the risk of stimulating a cancer's growth.
The shifting gender balance of old age is so new that
analysts can't yet predict its effect on the central question underlying American health
care: How much will this cost?
In most studies, Hennessy said, older men do much less
than older women to monitor their health and take care of themselves - they do not eat as
well, or go to the doctor as much. That suggests that, as they age, men will need more
medical attention.
On the other hand, she added, men who survive to old age
have more social support than women do. They tend to remarry when their spouses die,
gaining a ready-made caretaker for when they become frail. Women of the same age are less
likely to remarry, and more likely to go into nursing homes when they need additional
care.
So the first-blush supposition - that more older men
means higher nursing-home bills - may not be correct, Hennessy cautioned.
``It's hard to say they are going to be a big cost
burden,'' she said. ``But since men tend to be more reluctant to seek a physician's
advice, their awareness of the benefits of prevention certainly needs to be increased.''
That message is echoed by a ``Blueprint for Old Age''
released May 1 by a consortium that includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the CDC
and the National Institute on Aging. Its overall message is a simple one: The health
problems that we associate with old age can be significantly delayed by exercise.
``Stop being sedentary,'' O'Grady said. ``Start doing
something. No matter how old you are, the body will respond.''
(The Cox web site is at http://www.coxnews.com)
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