Photo Special: 20 things you didn't know about aging
1. Age is often treated as synonymous with illness, frailty and poverty, while most older adults are in fine form. Jack Rosenthal, president of The New York Times Company Foundation, which supports the workshop, suggests terms like "illderly" and "wellderly" to highlight the distinction.
(Photo: Fred Yarmie, 73, of Shoreham, exercises on the Pec Deck machine in Freeport, N.Y., in this 2004 file photo.)
Photo Credit: Al Bello, Getty Images
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- 2. After puberty, our risk of death doubles every seven years, says Jay Olshansky, a professor of public...
- 3. In 1977, researchers found that $2 was spent on cancer research for every three cents spent on aging...
- 4. While most attention is focused on the aging societies of developed Western nations, the biggest shift...
- 5. "Societal senescence" is the notion that humans are simply fated to grow old and die, an attitude...
- 6. Botanists define aging as everything that happens from the beginning of development until death, says...
- 7. Today’s undergraduate students grew up in homes with an average income more than 13 times greater...
- 8. About 90 per cent of aging research is conducted on tiny worms, fruit flies and mice, says Steven...
- 9. Our brain power peaks around age 20, says Howard Fillit, director of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery...
- 10. It's estimated that 90 per cent of people working in the pharmaceutical industry spend their careers...
- 11. Only about one in 10,000 people lives to be over 100 years old, says Niz Barzilai, director of the...
- 12. Just one in 10,000 people is over 100 years old, says Barzilai, making it a more-rare condition for...
- 13. In all the discussions about increased cost and need, the upsides of a society full of older people...
- 14. Older adults are assumed to be frail and in need of the same things, says Fried, but in fact they're...
- 15. About 90 per cent of people's health concerns can be handled over the phone, says Mount Sinai geriatrician...
- 16. An "aging society" is often misunderstood, says John Rowe, a professor of public health at Columbia...
- 17. The notion of an intergenerational war between “greedy geezers” and the middle-aged workforce financing...
- 18. People only have to be 40 years old to be classified as an "older worker" and protected under the...
- 19. The scientists studying aging are aging too, says Robert Butler, CEO of the International Longevity...
- 20. The 21st century will bring rapid and dramatic changes in the "longevity revolution," Butler says,...
NEW YORK — From non-existent intergenerational warfare to the similarities between mice and men, a common theme of the 10th annual Age Boom Academy was surprising insights and debunking myths.
The intensive, week-long boot camp on aging issues is run by the New York office of the non-profit International Longevity Center, and about 175 journalists have learned about the wide-ranging implications of an aging society since the program's founding in 2000.
In Canada, more than 10 million people — nearly one-third of the population - are over age 50, and one in seven is 65 or older.
Click through the photos to see the 20 surprising facts about aging gleaned from this year's academy workshop
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