Rapid advancements in medicine and falling fertility rates have contributed to the rise in the population of India’s older adults in recent decades. This demographic and epidemiological shift has a gendered impact: A higher proportion of women over the age of 60, compared to their male counterparts, suffer from Non-Communicable …
THIS one's for the believers in the grow- young pills. The drug that was once hailed as an anti-aging agent is now being discredited. Human growth hor- mone, the drug under question, created euphoria among health freaks when it was reported to reverse the aging process. A recent study, how- …
THE phenomenon of senescence or aging is one of those problems that - as Mark Twain said about the weather - everyone talks about but no one does anything to solve. A number of experiments carried out on animals suggest that we may age because we burn ourselves up. As …
A link has been established between aging and cell division by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, California. Earlier tests had shown that cells growing in culture medium stopped dividing after a certain number of divisions. Research has shown the presence of an unusual form of enzyme -betagalactosidase -in senescent …
• The Shiv Sena-BJP bigwigs in Bombay have reintroduced the bill banning the slaughter of cows and calves. The new, "improved" bill calls for an imprisonment increased from 2 years to 5 years and a fine upped from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000. • The Cauvery river is to be …
AS PEOPLE, particularly women, grow old, they shrink. The humped back is the result of osteoporosis - a potentially lethal disease in which the bone mass withers. But now, a new generation of drugs, bone "paste" and hormones may soon bring relief. Osteoporosis affects 200 million people worldwide. In its …
HE HAD jet black hair when he quit the Oval Office 12 years ago, at unnerving variance with the network of age-lines on his face, wattles, dewlaps and all. But even then, his brain had already kicked off into the bottomless abyss of Alzheimer's disease. "I now begin the journey …
Parkinson's disease affects millions of old people. The symptoms include progressive tremor, rigidity of limbs and difficulty in body coordination. The cause of Parkinson's is unknown, the pathology poorly understood. The main physiological change is the depletion of the neurotransmitter -- a chemical that helps transmit nerve impulses -- dopamine. …
Coronary Heart Diseases (CHD) such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, angina pectoris and strokes, are the leading cause of death among elderly persons. Eighty per cent of all deaths due to CHD occur in persons over 65. Most common forms of CHD, such as atherosclerosis, are caused by structural and functional …
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a mental disorder resulting from brain degeneration. It affects almost 1 in 10 individuals over the age of 65. The disease is characterised by confusion, personality and behavioural changes, impaired judgement and difficulty in following words and directions. Eventually, it robs its victims of volition. Identified …
Temperature changes affect the susceptibility of the aged to death from coronary artery disease, brain infarctioh (blood clot) and cerebra4 haemorrhage, suggests a I I -year study by Thai @cientists (Lancet Vol 345, No 8946). Researchers led by WenHarn Pan ofthe Institute of Biomedical Sciences of Academia Sinica, Taipei, found …
FOR INDIA'S aged citizenry, some good news lies ahead. The country is expected to have 76 million 60-plus people by the turn of this century, but the government's response remains blinkered to pension schemes. Now, many voluntary groups have taken on the work of providing care and warmth to the …
NEARLY 37 million people in the United States have no health insurance at all. Meanwhile, the money spent on health care has been rising steadily till last year, it touched $800 billion -- more than 14 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But all that will be a …
IF ONE thing is certain in life, it is death. In thinking of death, two things come to mind. First, there is a certain moment at which life ceases. Second, even with the most health-conscious lifestyle, luck in avoiding accidents and freedom from illness, the likelihood of dying increases as …
A FAT-RICH diet, widely believed to be unhealthy, acts as an elixir for the Japanese, the world's longest-living people, claim old-age researchers. Before World War II, the lifespan of the Japanese was the lowest in the developed world. "Our cholesterol (counts) used to be very low," says Takao Suzuki, director …
A US study refutes the notion that airline pilots nearing 60 are more likely to cause accidents than their younger colleagues. The two-year study, which analysed accident data between 1976 and 1988, was undertaken to test the validity of a US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule, which bars sexagenarian pilots …
EVERY living thing was born at some time and must die, sooner or later. True, but the traditional assumption is that animals in the wild never live long enough to grow old. And, while old age is a "natural" cause of death for human beings, animals die earlier of "unnatural" …
BIOLOGY Yellow pigment clue to evolution Bilirubin, responsible for the yellowish tinge in the skin, eyes and nails of jaundice patients, has for the first time been identified in plants. The pigment was discovered in Strelitzia reginae Aiton, commonly know as the Bird of Paradise plant. It is indigenous to …
HelpAge India is secular, not-for-profit organization registered under the Societies' Registration Act of 1860. Set up in 1978, and since then have been raising resources to protect the rights of India's elderly and provide relief to them through various interventions.
