Survey Finds Most Americans Don't Want to Live Beyond Age 100

The survey of more than 2,000 people by the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project sought to probe the nation's views on the prospect of living longer lives.

Already, aging adults account for a growing share of the US population. About 41 million Americans are 65 or older, making up 13 percent of the population, up from four percent in 1900.

By 2050, that number will rise to 20 percent, according to Census Bureau projections.

A majority of US adults (56 percent) said they would not "choose to undergo medical treatments to slow the aging process and live to be 120 or more," said the Pew report. A total of 38 percent said they would.

With the average US life expectancy at 78.7 years, more than two thirds said they would like to live longer than that, somewhere between 79 and 100.

The median, or midpoint, for ideal lifespan was 90, or about 11 years longer than the current US average.

Asked whether current medical treatments are worth the costs because they help people live longer and better quality lives, 54 percent agreed and 41 percent disagreed on grounds that modern medical advances "often create as many problems as they solve."

There was also significant concern about how life-extending technologies would be used, and by whom.

Seventy-nine percent said everyone should be able to get medical treatments that would slow, stop or reverse the aging process.

However, two-thirds said that in practice, only the wealthy would have access.

Two-thirds of respondents also said that longer life expectancies would strain natural resources, and believed that "medical scientists would offer the treatment before they fully understood how it affects people's health."

Views were split on the question of whether the economy would be more productive if people could work longer -- with 44 percent agreeing and 53 percent rejecting this idea.

For certain health issues, Americans were optimistic that medical science would perform well in the future. Seven in 10 said that they expect a cure for most cancers by 2050, and 71 percent said artificial arms and legs will perform better than natural ones.

"And, on balance, the public tends to view medical advances that are available today to prolong life as good (63%) rather than as interfering with the natural cycle of life (32%)," the survey said.

By 2050, the government forecasts there will be at least 400,000 Americans aged 100 or older.

Just 10 percent said the trend toward an aging population is a bad thing.

One quarter said a major anti-aging breakthrough that would allow average folk to live to 120 and beyond was likely by 2050.

The telephone poll was conducted from March 21 to April 8 among a nationally representative sample of 2,012 adults and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

Source-AFP

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Research Finds Ways to Reduce the Danger of Cholesterol-lowering Statin Drugs

by Thilaka Ravi on? August 07, 2013 at 5:24 PM Drug News A recent study led by Dr. Richard Kim of the Lawson Health Research Institute, in collaboration with Dr. Robert Hegele of Robarts Research Institute, and researchers from Vanderbilt University, found that commonly occurring genetic variations in a person's genes could put the person at risk for statin-associated muscle injury.
Statins, a class of drugs used to lower cholesterol, are among the best selling drugs in North America and around the world. However, statin myopathy, which results in muscle pain and weakness, is a common side effect affecting up to 10 percent of statin users.

Nearly 3-million Canadians are currently taking a statin. However, according to Dr. Kim, who is a physician at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) and holds the Wolfe Medical Research Chair in Pharmacogenomics at Western University, little is known about the blood levels of these drugs in a real world patient population. "Currently, we do not fully understand the drug exposure necessary for optimal statin therapy, making it difficult to predict an individual's dose requirement while minimizing the risk of side effects," states Dr. Kim. In his recent study, Dr. Kim set out to quantify patient's blood levels of statins and decipher the role genes play in statin uptake and absorption.

"We found that commonly occurring genetic variations in the genes that help to clear the drugs from the body, widely referred to as drug transporters, are key predictors of patients who will likely have high statin blood levels," says Dr. Kim. "We think those patients with high levels of statins in their blood are at a much greater risk for statin-associated muscle injury."

Currently, physicians can not readily identify at risk patients using the available clinical tests. However, Dr. Kim proposes using the pharmacogenetic tests presently available, in addition to the clinical variables he and his research team have outlined in their paper, would help to better identify these patients and prevent serious side effects. "This seems to be very relevant, especially for the many elderly patients who take these medications," says Dr. Kim.

As part of their personalized medicine program, Dr. Kim plans to utilize these pharmacogenetic tests and the algorithm they have created and apply them in a hospital and region wide fashion. As well, a larger clinical trial is being planned to compare their genomics-guided approach versus standard care in terms of better outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and prevention of adverse drug reactions.

The study, "Clinical and Pharmacogenetic Predictors of Circulating Atorvastatin and Rosuvastatin Concentration in Routine Clinical Care," was published in the July issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics.

Source-Eurekalert

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Study Finds No Link Between Sleep, Fatigue Level

by Sheela Philomena on? August 02, 2013 at 10:38 AM Research News There is little or no relation between how much sleep people get at night and how tired they feel, say researchers. "The length of sleep is not a good measurement to analyse whether we get enough sleep or not," Torbjoern Aakerstedt told AFP of the studies conducted at the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University.
"It's genetically conditioned and dependent on age and health," he said.

Aakerstedt's team has conducted three different studies, one of which investigated the sleep patterns of nearly 6,000 individuals.

The research suggests that the number of hours slept is of much less importance in determining how a person functions throughout the day.

"If you feel fine and dynamic during the day, you've probably slept enough," said Aakerstedt.

The research, to be published later this year, found the average number of hours slept during a working week is six hours 55 minutes, with an extra hour's sleep during holidays.

The researcher said that 20-year-olds should sleep eight hours on average, whilst 60-year-olds require only six.

"But there is no general average," Aakerstedt added. "Twenty-year-olds can sleep even more, but still be tired during the day" as their brain is still developing.

Yet, although more sleep does not mean more energy, no one should sleep too little, as it affects one's health, he said.

Too little sleep can result in a weak immune system, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, weight gain, workplace incidents and traffic accidents.

Source-AFP

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Research Finds Too Many 'Healing' Cells Delays Wound Healing

"Improvement of lymphedema is important for treatment of skin ulcers," said Makoto Sugaya, M.D., Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Dermatology at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan. "It is not just fluid retention, but inflammatory cells and cytokines that cause delayed wound healing."

To make this discovery, scientists used two groups of mice. The first group showed severe lymphatic dysfunction. The second group was normal. Researchers administered skin wounds and found that the mice with lymphatic dysfunction showed delayed would healing as compared to the normal mice. Analysis showed that the delayed would healing in the lymphedematous skin is the result of too many mast cells and elevated IL-10 expression, both of which can now be therapeutic targets for future drug development.

"Wound healing is something most people take for granted until there's a problem," said John Wherry, Ph.D., Deputy Editor of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology. "However, wound healing is a complex process involving immune as well as non-immune cells and problems that arise can be very serious, even if it started as a minor wound. This report provides an immunological explanation for why some wound healing is delayed, and it ultimately may help set a course for therapies that accelerate wound healing."

Source-Eurekalert

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Synagogue is Good for Health, Finds Researcher

They also report greater satisfaction with life. "These findings nicely reinforce the inherited Jewish folk wisdom that going to shul (synagogue) is 'good for you'," said Baylor University researcher Jeff Levin, Ph.D. Levin holds a distinguished chair at Baylor University, where he is University Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health and Director of the Program on Religion and Population Health at the Institute for Studies of Religion. Commitment to Jewish religious belief and practice is strongly associated with greater physical and psychological well-being, Levin said.

One study, published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, an official journal of the American Psychological Association, used 2010 data on 1,849 Jewish adults from the Israeli sample of the European Social Survey. The other study, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, used 2009-10 data on 991 Jewish adults from the Israeli sample of the International Social Survey Programme's Religion III survey.

These new results confirm findings from other studies of Jews in Israel and the U.S. conducted over the past few years. Seven such studies have been published by Levin using data from a variety of national and global surveys. They have consistently identified facets of Jewish religious expression as among the most reliable predictors of measures of physical and mental health and overall well-being.

Source-Eurekalert

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Study Finds Global Luxury Market Set for Slower Growth

"We are seeing a more even distribution of global growth," said Claudia D'Arpizio, a Bain partner in Milan and lead author of the study.

"In turn, brands are refocusing from short term, reactive hot spot thinking to long-term sustained growth strategies," she said.

Turnover reached 212 billion euros ($273 billion) in 2012.

The study found that wealthy tourists were seeking out new destinations like Dubai, South East Asia and Australia, with a particularly marked drop in the numbers of Japanese visitors to Europe.

It also said the growth in luxury watch purchases were down in the booming Chinese market and sales in cosmetics had fallen off in mature markets.

While growth in the Chinese luxury market would stabilise at seven percent this year, the study found, it would explode by 20 percent in South East Asia -- driven by new store openings.

"Europe remains a challenge for the industry," the two research consultancies said in a statement.

"As tourism slows, as tourists spend less per visit and as Europeans, especially in southern Europe, curtail spending, Bain expects flat-to-two percent growth" in 2013, it said.

It also forecast a five-percent rise for the Middle East and a seven-percent increase for the United States, while Latin America would grow by 12 percent.

Andrea Illy, head of the Fondazione Altagamma, said the luxury market had a crucial importance for the Italian economy, accounting for 24 percent of exports and 2.0 percent of gross domestic product GDP.

Source-AFP

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