Geography of Aging

If aging occurred as a random event, unaffected by external variables, the distribution of older adults would be equal across geography regardless of what individuals do or how they live.  But we do not see that.

Instead, what we find are distinct clusters of older adults. Wealthy countries have proportionally more older adults than poor countries, Blacks and minority groups have lower percentages of adults living to older ages.  Educational levels and income increase longevity, long-lived parents have long-lived children, happy healthy people live longer, obese people die earlier.  Taller people die earlier, women who give birth later in life live longer and have longer-lived children, long-lived people escape diseases, and women outlive men.

Michelle Poulain a demographer who identified the "Blue Zones" while marking communities of centenarians on a map with his blue pen, has come up with a number of clusters. And they are all related to geography. The only clusters of extreme long-lived older adults are found in natural environments in traditional cultures within a confined geography. These "Blue Zones" are places of exceptional longevity.

Recent advances in genetic manipulation in animals which increases life expectancy by 30 to 50 percent is overshadowing studies of geography that show similar improvements in life expectancy of similar magnitude.

Where we live is just as important in promoting longevity as biological manipulations. For example some Black inmates in prison live longer than their peers living in the community. Our environment can protect us from harm, but can it also promote health?  Numerous studies have shown that both monks and nuns living in religious orders live much longer by a margin of 11 to 31 percent. And we all live in segregated communities. 

Rich people live in rich neighborhoods and poor people live in poor neighborhoods. And it seems that being in a place where we belong promotes health. Researchers found that low-income older adults living in high-income neighborhoods had poorer physical functioning, more functional limitations, worse self-rated health, worse cognitive ability, and were lonelier than low-income adults who lived in low-income neighborhoods. Being in a high-income neighborhood did not confer an advantage because they did not belong.

The process whereby the feeling of belonging is translated into a longer life is turning out to be simple. Researchers are exposing the role of how genes have a capacity to switch on and off according to the internal environment in our bodies. Epi-genes, as they are known, can be switched on and off, allowing for the expression or suppression of our genetic information. 

The environment can trigger epigenetic changes. In addition,  how we feel about our community changes our internal chemicals which affect our epigenetic makeup. How we feel about where we live changes how our body expresses our genes.

Which might explain why it is that the only clusters of extreme long-lived older adults are found in natural environments in traditional cultures within a community that they belong to. The feeling of belonging translates into our bodies being contented and not ready to shut down. If we understood the body better we would not need to know the brain.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual and Transgender Older Adults

Losing control--whether physically or over your environment--is the main fear of getting old. It is a moment of humility when you can no longer look after yourself without some help from others. Up to that point we have engaged our energy at maintaining independence. Then slowly for some, and more sudden for others, there is a need to rely on someone else. And at that moment, the world changes, slowly for those with a partner, and more drastically for those living alone.

Living alone is more likely to be the reality for a large part of the LGBT older adult community.  LGBT is an acronym for Lesbian Gay Bi-Sexual and Transgender, a very diverse group.  While LGBT older adults share common barriers with other older adults who become frail and must rely on outside services for support,  they also face added complications.

In 2011 the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging reported that LGBT older adults are twice as likely to age as a single person, to live alone, are less likely to have children to support them and more likely to develop mental health and substance abuse issues. But there are additional barriers. Apart from ageism--which is a significant issue--LGBT older adults are also susceptible to homophobia (discrimination against homosexuals.)

There are documented cases where LGBT older adults in assisted living facilities and nursing homes are left uncared for, separated from their loved ones, restricted from cohabiting or having their partners at their death bed and restricted from spriitual comfort. The combination of ageism and homophobia is a lesson for all older adults.

Although homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization in 1990, there is still inequity among the status of LGBT across the world. This homophobia comes to the surface with older adults, in terms of how we treat LGBT older adults.

A recent report in 2011 by SAGE--Services and Advocacy for LGBT Elders—reported widespread victimization and discrimination. Over the course of their lifetime, eight out of ten LGBT older adults have been victimized at least once  and nearly four out of ten LGBT older adults have contemplated suicide at some point during their lives. Most reported some disability (47%), depression (31%), and loneliness (53%). SAGE reported that nearly one in ten of all LGBT older adults are living with HIV disease.

The level of discrimination among LGBT older adults is perceived so real that more than one in five of LGBT older adults have not revealed their sexual orientation or gender identity to their primary physician. The ongoing legal fight to have same-sex marriage recognized highlights the services that LGBT older adults are denied, these include; federal family leave benefits, equivalent Medicaid spenddowns, Social Security benefits, bereavement leave, or automatic inheritance of jointly owned real estate and personal property.

Younger people have difficulty discussing sexual activity among older adults and it seems that older adults do as well when it comes to their LGBT peers. While this uncertainty promotes discrimination against LGBT older adults it is the lack of oversight and regulations among assisted living facilities and nursing homes that makes such discrimination common.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Guns and Older Adults

Apple Pie and Guns. Both are so American. Although apple pie is not illegal in any country, there are severe restrictions in guns ownership throughout the world other than the USA. The American gun culture is purely American because it does not export well.

The Small Arms Survey in 2007 by the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva estimated that we have some 270 million firearms in the USA. This is a low ball. Other estimates push the number higher, much higher. But 270 million is a good number because even this low estimate signifies that there are more guns in the USA then the rest of the world--military or civilian.  Guns are more American than apple pie. And older adults have a role in the popularity of gun culture.

A Pew Study in 2013 reported that under half of all households (40%) have a gun. These households are predominantly older adults (50 years and older), republican, rural,  White 46% (twice as many as Black--21%--the next highest ethnic households) and most have some college education rather then just High School, or Postgraduate (the lowest household gun ownership but still at 33%.) Although for many, gun ownership is a matter of culture and upbringing, for others it is fear.

The argument that is often raised is that gun ownership is about protection and feeling safe. And safety is a valid argument. Public health records indicate that guns ownership causes more devastation than protection.

In 2011 David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, examined all studies that looked at health risks and benefits of gun ownership between 2003 and 2007. What he found is contrary to expectation. Each year 680 people were killed accidentally with guns. The victims were more likely children and younger adults. In addition, an average of 46 people committed suicide with guns each day, men more than women. Because guns are so accessible in households they are the preferred suicide method when compared to all other methods combined. Two-thirds of all murders involved guns. The average number of Americans shot and killed daily was 33. Of those, on average, one was a child (0 to 14 years), five were teenagers (15 to 19 years) and seven were young adults (20 to 24 years).

Although older adults might be the owners of guns, and have guns in their household, the victims are their children--theirs and others'. Children in the U.S. get murdered with guns at a rate that is 13 times higher than that of other developed nations. For our young people aged 15 to 24, the rate is 43 times higher.

We do not know of any real benefits of gun ownership other than the psychology of feeling safe. In the USA the reality is that the health risk of having a gun in the home is greater than any potential benefit.  Apple pie might also be more attractive to younger family members, but it is much safer.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Dying for Real

It is estimated that 100 billion people have died since humans emerged on earth. So by now, we should know something about dying.

In 19th-century Europe there was so much fear that people were mistakenly being buried while still alive, that cadavers were laid out in “hospitals for the dead” while attendants awaited signs of putrefaction. The Jewish (Shemira) and Muslim (Salaat-ul Janaazah) practice is still with us today. The practice of viewing the body of the deceased—with such euphemisms as Funeral Visitation, Calling Hours, Reviewal, or a Wake—comes from the practice of making sure that the person we are about to bury is dead.

Lyall Watson in his classic book "The Romeo Error: A Matter of Life and Death" talks about such errors where people are buried alive. Stories of people buried and later, when the tomb was exhumed, found unsuccessfully attempting to escape. But after more than 350,000 years of burying Homo Sapiens—more accurately the species Homo heidelbergensis—we should have learned how to identify death.

The USA Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA), states that patients may be pronounced legally dead either when they meet the traditional criteria for death—the cessation of breathing and the absence of a heartbeat—or when they are diagnosed as brain dead. Brain dead is the "irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem."

Due to the development of artificial life support, many patients are now pronounced brain dead before their hearts and lungs stop functioning. This distinction arose when lawyers were arguing that if the plaintiff was not dead—ie they were still breathing albeit on mechanical support—then the person who "killed" them was not their client—who caused the victim to go into life support—but the physician who switched the machine off.  A logical, but not altogether an accurate medical argument.

Being first introduced in 1968, UDDA is a more fail-safe method of determining death, but there are exceptions. Alan Shewmon, Professor of Pediatric Neurology at UCLA Medical School cites 140 cases of prolonged survival—from a few months to one case of fourteen years—by brain-dead patients. Very few patients recover consciousness from being brain dead, but there are few singular reports of such exceptional cases.  Indeed, people who deal with methodology argue that brain-dead confuses prognosis with diagnosis. The prognosis that the patient will not regain consciousness is different from the diagnosis that the person is dead.

No discussion of brain death can take place without a companion discussion of organ transplantation.  If we are to use the Pope's language, that death needs to involve "decomposition," disintegration," and "separation," then it will truly stop most organ transplantation.

Without brain death there will be a dramatic deterioration in the quality of organs that can be harvested and transplanted to save other people’s lives. And it does not help that a mirror argument relates to abortion and the discussion of when life starts.  Creating life and dying are related. And the reason these are still incendiary topics is because we have learned very little after 100 billion people have been doing both fairly successfully.


Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Cemeteries as Toxic Landfills

Traditionally, burying and cremation were sustainable. But with our urban lifestyles and density of populations, such practices are becoming unsustainable. In 2003 Mary Woodsen reported that we are turning cemeteries into toxic landfills by burying 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid—including formaldehyde; 180,544,000 pounds of steel; 5,400,000 pounds of copper and bronze; and 30 million board feet of hardwoods every year. We are polluting the living through our death and leaving behind a toxic legacy.

Which is why there is now talk of green burials. Green burials are organic burials, with a sustainable mission. A philosophy that aims to have the burial site remain as natural as possible without added chemicals, metals or gases. Green burials also allow for the natural decomposition of the body.  Bodies are buried without preservatives, in bio-degradable caskets, shroud, or blanket.   No embalming fluid, concrete vaults, or non-degradable metals are used.

Except for dignitaries who are still preserved and mummified for prosperity, most traditional religions prescribed that the body is buried in a natural environment to promote contact with the elements and the environment. Although in most countries there are laws prohibiting this, there is a new movement across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States and the United Kingdom promoting green burials. This is more in line with the UN Conference on Environment and Development Environmental Program Agenda 21 (for the “21”st Century.)

Green burials are more than just choosing from a variety of biodegradable coffins made from recycled materials. It is about the preparation of the body and the footprint that is left behind. In a 2007 survey by the AARP, 21 percent of Americans older than 50 said they would prefer an ecofriendly end-of-life ritual. And the end-of-life business is responding.

Although cremation has been a greener alternative, using far fewer resources than almost any other option of dealing with the remains, cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulphur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air. Mercury is also emitted when a person with dental amalgam fillings is cremated as well as heavy metals from tatoos. A new alternative to cremation is resomation—bio-cremation—which emits no carbon in the air. Resomation involves placing the body with water and an alkaline (potassium hydroxide) into a stainless steel tank and heating it for several hours until the remains melt. While some of the residue can be placed in an urn, the rest is flushed through the local sewage system. This technique has attracted the unpleasant name of  "toilet burial".

For more exotic burial practices we have to go to the Far East and look at the practice sky burial practiced by Buddhists in Tibet. After carefully preparing the body and making strategic incisions, the body is left on a ledge on a mountaintop, exposed to the weather and to foraging animals—especially predatory birds. The body remains part of the cycle of life.

Although sky burials are not feasible in most urban settings, the business of dying is looking at alternative ways to leave less toxicity in the ground. Re-examining our practice of burial and cremation so that we leave less of a toxic legacy is perhaps our final responsibility in life.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Happiness and Dementia

Happiness and dementia. Rarely do you see these two words used in the same sentence, let alone in a title. Dementia is a devastating disease that can produce terror at diagnosis, anguish in managing the disease, despair in the final stages and death might provide little respite for the caregiver. So where is the happiness in this vortex of human tragedy?

The work of Heather Urry of Tufts University and James Gross of Stanford University have examined why older adults report feeling happier than younger cohorts. It seems like a paradox,  although older adults are more likely to be physically weaker and socially less mobile than their younger cohorts, yet they report feeling happier.

What we are beginning to understand is that older adults are more adapt at regulating their emotions. Older adults are more sensitized to interpreting happy moments in a situation, while they are less concerned with negative events--they see these as fleeting events. The older we get the more that we seem to regulate our emotions. This ability to manage emotions is further supported by research that shows that older people are better at predicting how a certain situation will make them feel. They manage their environment and how they respond to it.

In psychology this management strategy is known as SOC--Selective Optimization with Compensation theory. Older adults learn to deal with a changing environment. The way we do this is by selecting our environment more carefully. We then optimize what we are good at and for those few failures we compensate by using other skills and attributes.

The older we become the more that we use SOC in our emotions. We become more careful in selecting situations that make us feel good--Selection. We also see the good in situations more and if there are negative events we tend to diminish their permanence--Optimization. If we have very little control over these two factors--as is the case with people suffering from dementia who have lost their independence--then we compensate by comparing ourselves to others in the same situation--Compensation. This final process is reflected in the seemingly morbid interest some older adults have with newspaper obituaries. You are always better off than someone who is dead.

Older adults with dementia seem to follow these strategies as well, especially compensation. Despite what we would expect, older adults with dementia do not focus on the disease when talking about their happiness. What we have learned with other groups as well is that how healthy we feel is very different from how healthy our doctors tell us we are.

In all studies where people with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia participated in some form of prescribed mental exercises, half of the participants report some improvement in behavior and thinking.  But whether you improve or not, nearly all participants reported feeling better after the exercises. Becoming engaged in activity improves how you feel about yourself.

In contrast, such improvements in wellbeing have not been shown in studies looking at medication alone. Medication does not bring about happiness. It is the social interaction that improves how we feel, whether we have dementia or not. Some people with dementia suffer from mood and personality changes, but their experience of happiness remains firmly grounded in their social relationships.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Aging Tattoos

For older adults, tattoos were exclusively for sailors, convicts, bikers and indigenous groups. However, now, more than a third of 18-25 year olds in the USA have a tattoo adorning their body. Despite the recent tattoo boom there has been a dramatic decline in reports of infections that were associated with tattoos. But there are other concerns with tattoos, least of which is the aging of tattoos.

Aging skin changes shape, composition and elasticity and tattoos, because they are embedded in the skin, reflect these changes. Ian Eames at the University College London studied this change by developing a mathematical model of how tattoos ‘move’ with age.  There is physics, chemistry and biology.

Tattoos are ink suspended in a solution made up of ethyl alcohol, purified water, witch hazel, listerine, propylene glycol or glycerin (typically obtained from animal fats.) Tattoo inks can be made up of various particles. Although there are non-metallic colors (black which is made by burning animal bones down to charcoal), most colors can only be achieved using metals—heavy metals—including mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel, zinc, antimony, beryllium, chromium, cobalt, nickel, arsenic and iron.

In California after 1986--when Proposition 65 was passed--most tattoo parlors had to warn their patrons that tattoo inks contain heavy metals and are known to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm. However some colors can only be achieved by using metallic ink. The metals are suspended in the skin by puncturing the top layer—some at 3000 punctures a minute—and leaving ink embedded within these punctures.

To protect itself the body's immune system reacts to this trauma by sending white blood cells to the area—causing visible redness. White blood cells attack the area and attach themselves to some of the heavy metals and clear them out of the body. The rest of the heavy metals are encased in protective cells and sealed within the skin.

With time, as these protective cells divide, or die, they exit the body taking with them the heavy metal that they have encased.  Laser treatment to remove tattoos speed up this process by killing these cells—and increasing the exposure to toxicity from newly released heavy metals. Like a fading colored cloth, the tattoo simply looses its detail both in terms of colors—some colors being more prone to fading than others—and definition. Intricate details in a tattoo are lost first. Also with older tattoos  the ink particles move deeper into the skin over time making the tattoo less distinct and harder to remove using laser treatment. Metallic tattoos also distort magnetic resonance imaging.

A study conducted in 2008 reported that up to 20% of the tattooed individuals regret their decision and many of them sought advice for tattoo removal. But the aging of tattoos is not related to physics, chemistry or biology, but is related to mindset. What you think is cool at 18-25 might not be so cool once you have grandkids. The aging of tattoos is related to leaving a permanent testament of a bygone era.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com

Aging Movie Stars

Tonsillitis and aging

Crying among Older Adults

There is a hint of disgrace associated with crying, especially among older men.   The stigma is not surprising since most scientific studies attempt to associate crying with depression. In fact, among older adults, depression is often not related to feeling sad. What emerges is that  we know very little about crying. Not only is there no clear-cut association that crying is a sign of depression, there are also very few studies reporting the opposite—that crying has healing benefits, when crying is not a response to pain or anger. 

A popular view is that crying can have a positive psychological as well as a physical benefit, a  view shared in popular literature. In a review of 140 years of popular fiction, crying is promoted not only as beneficial, but most warned readers that keeping back tears would harm them. Even Hollywood knows this and makes money selling us tearjerkers.

Lauren Bylsma now with the University of Pittsburgh, and her colleagues reported that when 4000 men and women in more than 30 countries were asked about crying, most people—in retrospect—reported improved mood, reduced tension and feelings of relief after crying. But this report of benefits from crying is not repeated in a laboratory setting,. When adults are made to cry in response to a sad film, report feeling worse—increased sadness and distress—than those who did not cry. Of course it could be a matter of timing. Using another example, people are more likely to report being relaxed an hour after jogging than immediately after. And the same might be the case with crying. There might be a time lag in reporting positive effects from crying.

And what about gender differences? Women cry more often and more intensely than men, although both report equal benefits. Interestingly what researchers have found is that people who suffer from alexithymia—the lack of understanding of emotions—reported fewer episodes of crying and reported less positive mood benefits as a result of crying.

What is missing from these analyses is the fact that crying can be a social behavior. Many of us cry, some privately and infrequently, others more consistently and publicly.  In some cultures there are criers who are paid to cry at funerals. There is a social context as well as a psychological one. Crying is also a learned behavior. Men are taught not to cry from an early age, while women elicit support and compassion when they cry. Social crying might be a form of social behavior in order to elicit empathy from others. And the cues of crying are so strong that even dogs express empathy when strangers are crying.

Crying among older adults is complex. There is evidence of benefits but it depends on who you are. If you are a happy person you gain more from crying than if you are a sad person, if you empathize you are more likely to benefit. There is also a positive social component to crying that women might have been exposed to more than men.  The benefits of crying might reflect more who you are than what you are emotional about.

Mario Garrett, Ph.D., is a professor of gerontology at San Diego State University and can be reached at mariusgarrett@yahoo.com