The first is a financial hit.

The second is a blow to their own health.

And a third — more serious — blow sits just over the horizon as Baby Boomers continue to age. Who will care for this vast population when their time of need arrives?

Baby Boomers are not alone as a cohort in their care of elderly parents or other loved ones, who, for health or other reasons, can’t take care of themselves. But they make up a large segment of the caregivers who are struggling to find the time, the finances and the energy to work a job, perhaps care for children of their own, and take care of an aging loved one.

A new report from the AARP Public Policy Institute is entitled “Valuing the Invaluable: 2011 Update — The Growing Contributions and Cost of Family Caregiving”.

In the study, AARP estimates about 42.1 million individuals care for relatives and close friends at any time during the year — but about 61.6 million provide care at some point during the year. The study puts the average at 18.4 hours of care per week, up 9 percent from its prior study.

And AARP estimates the value of that unpaid care is about $450 billion a year.

The study found that the average individual is a 49-year-old woman with an outside job,

who spends nearly 20 hours per week caring for her mother for nearly five years.

The report cites the toll on caregivers in terms of lost wages, impact on their retirement savings and investments, and on their own health.

“An extensive body of research finds that providing care to a chronically ill family member or close friend can have profound negative effects on the caregiver’s own physical and psychological health, increase social isolation, and adversely impact quality of life and well-being,” said the study.

In particular, according to AARP, “Caregivers commonly experience emotional strain and mental health problems, especially depression.”

The AARP report underscores an earlier report from the MetLife Mature Market Institute — “The MetLife Study of Caregiving Costs to Working Caregivers: Double Jeopardy for Baby Boomers Caring for Their Parents.”

The study, produced in conjunction with the National Alliance for Caregiving and the Center for Long Term Care Research and Policy at New York Medical College, reports that individually, average losses equal $324,044 for women and $283,716 for men.

Also,the percentage of adults providing care to a parent has more than tripled between 1994 and 2008, representing 17 percent of men and 28 percent of women.

The AARP study was notable in how caregivers see themselves in that they don’t see themselves as caregivers.

“Today, families remain the most important source of support to older adults,” the study said. “Many individuals who provide assistance and support to a loved one with chronic illness or disability do not identify themselves as ‘caregivers’ but rather describe what they do in terms of their relationship with the other person: as a husband, wife, partner, daughter, daughter-in-law, son, grandson, niece, or close friend, for example.”

So they are doing what they can to keep old age at arm’s length: They are Botoxing, they are exercising, they are getting better about their nutrition.

But in their celebration of life as empty nesters or retirees or as Boomers are who are just trying to enjoy life, their drinking could result in serious health problems.

As one health official put it, Baby Boomers are reading labels in the grocery store, but they’re not reading labels in the liquor store.

“People need to be mindful of the risks associated with risky drinking in the same way this generation is more mindful of nutrition in general,” said  Dr. Robert Huebner, acting director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s Division of Treatment and Recovery Research.

“The baby boomer generation is reading labels in the grocery store and counting their cholesterol.”

He made his comments in a recent MarketWatch.com story that looked at what might happen if Baby Boomers forget about moderation when it comes to that bottle of wine or other alcoholic indulgences.

High blood pressure, liver disease, pancreatitis and certain cancers are the health issues to consider as a result of over-doing it.

The MarketWatch story cited data showing between 2000 to 2008, the number of substance abuse treatment admissions for people age 50 and older increased by 70 percent, according to a recent study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Previous SAMHSA research suggested that the number of older substance abusers may rise to as many as 4.4 million by 2020, up from 1.7 million seniors in 2001.

“There are two key demographic issues. One is that the baby boomers are the largest cohort in history, and right now, all of the people aged 50-59 are baby boomers. And the other is that the baby boomers were part of a very high drug-use [culture] in general,” Peter Delany, director of SAMHSA’s Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, said to MarketWatch.

The government has created a do-it-yourself guide online to measure drinking habits. It’s called “Rethinking Drinking: Alcohol and Your Health.”

By answering some questions (remember, honesty is the best policy) you can check your own drinking patterns and determine if there are signs of a problem. If so, it offers tools to make a change for the better.

You are at “low risk”, for example, if (as a man) you consume no more than four drinks a day, and no more than 14 per week. For women, low risk means no more than three drinks per day and no more than seven per week.

Why the difference?

According to the “Rethinking Drinking” web site:

“One reason is that, on average, women weigh less than men. In addition, alcohol  disperses in body water, and pound for pound, women have less water in their bodies than men do. So after a man and woman of the same weight drink the same amount of alcohol, the woman’s blood alcohol concentration will tend to be higher, putting her at greater risk for harm.”

Reasons not to drink at all (you’ve heard them but they’re worth repeating) include:
– Taking medications that interact badly with alcohol;
– Managing a medical condition that can be made worse by drinking;
– Being underage;
– Being pregnant or trying to get pregnant;
– Planning to drive or operate machinery.

That morning cup of coffee is doing more than just getting your day going.

It’s also helping Baby Boomer aged men ward off a lethal form of prostate cancer, especially if that first cup is followed by another … and another.

The new research about the relationship between coffee and the prostate is contained in a new Harvard School of Public Health study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study of 48,000 men found that those who drank more than six cups of coffee per day reduced their risk of developing lethal prostate cancer by 60 percent when compared with nondrinkers.

And here’s the kicker: Caffeine wasn’t the deciding factor.

The reduction in the risk was similar between decaf and regular coffee drinkers, said researchers.

Cancer of the prostate is the most common cancer among American men, particularly men of Baby Boomer age.

The rate of diagnosis increases with age: From 1 in 38 for men ages 40 to 59 to 1 in 15 for ages 60 to 69.

Dennis Hopper, actor in the iconic Baby Boomer movie “Easy Rider”, died of prostate cancer at the age of 74.

What is the prostate?

It’s the small gland that’s part of the male reproductive system. In particular for men over the age of 50, a yearly exam of the prostate is recommended.

Most often, the doctor will do an exam with his finger by way of the rectum.

In other cases, a doctor might recommend a blood test to measure the PSA — the Prostate Specific Antigen. There is ongoing debate, however, about the overall effectiveness of the PSA test and whether false-positives might force a man into treatment that he might not otherwise need.

For more information about the prostate and prostate cancer, see the government’s National Institute of Health site here.

As for the coffee study, researchers said:

“An association between coffee and lower risk of advanced prostate cancer is biologically plausible. Coffee improves glucose metabolism, has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, and affects sex hormone levels, all of which play roles in prostate cancer progression.”

And the greater the consumption, the lower the risk.

The study said three cups of coffee per day reduces the risk by 30 percent; that doubles to 60 percent with six cups of coffee per day.

Said the study abstract: “Coffee contains many biologically active compounds, including caffeine and phenolic acids, that have potent antioxidant activity and can affect glucose metabolism and sex hormone levels. Because of these biological activities, coffee may be associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer.”

The precise causes of prostate cancer are being studied.

In addition to age, other risk factors are considered such as weight, amount of exercise and other lifestyle factors such as smoking. African-American men also seem to be more at risk for prostate cancer.

As the study’s lead author Kathryn Wilson said in a Medical News Today article:

“At present we lack an understanding of risk factors that can be changed or controlled to lower the risk of lethal prostate cancer. If our findings are validated, coffee could represent one modifiable factor that may lower the risk of developing the most harmful form of prostate cancer.”

According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery, as cited by a recent Wall Street Journal article, the fastest growing group of joint replacement/corrective surgery patients are 46 to 64.

That’s right in the Baby Boomer wheelhouse.

Why?

Two reasons were cited: An active lifestyle among Boomers that wears joints out more quickly, and a desire to be pain free and remain active late into life.

WebMD.com offered statistics that show:

• The number of total knee replacements performed in the U.S. will leap by 673 percent — reaching 3.48 million — by the year 2030;
• Hip replacements will increase by 174 percent to 572,000 by 2030, according to the new findings, which are based on historical procedure rates from 1990 to 2003 and population projections from the U.S. Census Bureau.

“There is a huge swell of elderly patients from the baby boom who will come through the system and be candidates for artificial joints,” researcher Steven M. Kurtz, PhD, office director and principal engineer at Exponent Failure Analysis Associates in Philadelphia, said in a WebMD post.

But the drive for replacement knees and hips needs to be counterbalanced by a couple of realities: Rehabilitation and a question of just how long the replacements will last.

On the subject of rehab, Baby Boomers and others who get new joints need to be prepared for a tough road back from surgery.

“There is, to be honest, some irrational exuberance out there,” Daniel Berry, chief of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and president of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, told the Journal. “People may be overly optimistic about what joint replacement can do for them.”

The Journal profiled several replacement surgery patients. Here’s what some of the Baby Boomer patients offered in terms of advice about the rehab:

“The surgery is not that difficult,” said a 62-year-old recipient of a new hip. “Just set aside eight to 10 weeks and really let it heal. Do the physical therapy as prescribed. It really helps.”  So don’t stress out.

Said a 63 year old with new hips and new knees: “You need to prepare yourself mentally and physically. Talk to the physical therapist in advance and learn what you’re going to go through.”

A bigger question has to do with how long these expensive procedures will last.

A knee replacement and a new hip are good for 15 to 20 years, maybe longer, depending on the patient.

In fact, the orthopedists said to the Journal, patients are the biggest factor.

“If your goal is a 30-year knee, you need to avoid high-impact sports,” John Wright, an orthopedic surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said in the Journal story.

WebMD.com offers separate sections of advice for hip replacements, knee replacements and shoulder replacements.

Baby Boomers know a fair amount about the ailments that affect their vision. But a recent study shows they don’t know much about age-related macular degeneration, which just happens to rank as the No. 1 illness that affects the vision of older Americans.

AMD occurs when the macula – the central portion of the retina that is important for reading and color vision – becomes damaged. There are two forms of AMD – wet and dry. All cases begin as the dry form, but 10 to 15 percent progress to the more serious wet form, which can result in sudden and severe central vision loss. Without treatment, central vision can be lost over time, leaving only peripheral, or side vision.

Opinion Research Corporation recently surveyed more than 2,000 Baby Boomers 45 and older to get a sense of their knowledge about potential risks and treatments for various eye ailments.

They identified glaucoma, cataracts and diabetes as the three leading causes of vision loss. AMD came in fourth.

In fact, AMD is the leading cause of vision loss in people over 60.

In the survey, 46 percent of the 1,169 respondents could correctly identify the risk factors for AMD and half could identify any one symptom. In addition, of the 24 percent of people who are familiar with AMD, only 31 percent know that treatment options exist.

According to a statement from EyeOnAMD.com, approximately 15 million people in the United States have AMD, and more than 1.7 million Americans have the advanced form of the disease, known as wet AMD, which is more than cases of glaucoma and cataracts combined.

About 200,000 new cases of wet AMD are diagnosed each year in North America. As a result of the aging baby boomer population, said EyeOnAMD.com, the National Eye Institute estimates that the prevalence of advanced AMD will grow to nearly 3 million by the end of the next decade.

WebMD.com reports that eating fatty fish might be a way to reduce the risk of developing AMD.

The findings of a new study appear in the “Archives of Opthalmology.”

Women in particular, the study found, benefited the most from eating fatty fish such as tuna, salmon, trout and dark-meat fish at least once a week.

Said WebMD: “Women in the new study who got the highest amounts of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid found in fish, were 38% less likely to develop AMD than women who got the least DHA. Similar findings were seen regarding the highest consumption levels of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), another omega-3 found in fatty fish.

“What’s more, women who ate one or more servings of fatty fish per week — mainly canned tuna and dark-meat fish —  were 42% less likely to be diagnosed with AMD compared with women who ate fish less than once a month.”

“Omega-3 fish oils are believed to have anti-inflammatory properties, so it’s plausible that these anti-inflammatory properties could be of benefit,” study researcher William G. Christen, ScD, an associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, said to WebMD.

By Paul Briand, Journalist and Baby Boomer Expert

Two-thirds of Hepatitis C patients are Baby Boomers. And they – and other sufferers of the liver-destroying virus – may get the benefit of a drug cocktail akin to the one that has made a huge difference for people with the AIDS virus.

Media reports say a current two-drug treatment for hepatitis C cures only about 40 percent of people with the virus; plus it has some grueling side effects. The addition of a new drug —either Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ telaprevir or Merck & Co.’s boceprevir — can reportedly boost those cure rates to as high as 75 percent.

Also, they allow some people to cut treatment time in half, to six months, thus lessening how long they must deal with the nasty side effects.

In the 1990s, the introduction of a combination of drugs vastly changed the landscape of AIDS, turning what had been a death sentence into a manageable illness through medication therapy.

The same hope is growing for those with hepatitis C, which turns out to be a high proportion of Baby Boomers.

The fact that most of the current hepatitis sufferers are Baby Boomers shows how the virus can wait for decades to present itself, most commonly as a diseased liver. It points to possible drug experimentation of Boomer youth or the fact that they had received tainted blood back before the days of testing the blood supply.

This has health policy makers thinking that Boomers need to be screened for hepatitis C in the same way they are regularly screened for some cancers and other age-related illnesses and diseases.

According to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hepatitis C is a contagious liver disease spread primarily through contact with the blood of an infected person. Hepatitis C can be either “acute” or “chronic.”

In its chronic form, according to the CDC, the virus infection can last a lifetime and lead to serious liver problems, including cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) or liver cancer. Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people die every year from Hepatitis C-related liver disease, said the CDC.

It said an estimated 4.4 million Americans are living with chronic hepatitis, and most do not know they are infected. About 80,000 new infections occur each year.

As for symptoms, the CDC said: “Most people with chronic Hepatitis C do not have any symptoms. However, if a person has been infected for many years, his or her liver may be damaged. In many cases, there are no symptoms of the disease until liver problems have developed. In persons without symptoms, Hepatitis C is often detected during routine blood tests to measure liver function and liver enzyme (protein produced by the liver) level.”

According to information in an Associated Press report, the new drugs block an enzyme named protease that’s key for the virus to reproduce. But they must be taken together as a cocktail with standard medications — ribavirin pills plus injections of interferon-alpha — that are thought to boost the immune system.

Between 67 percent and 75 percent of patients given treatment including either boceprevir or telaprevir, respectively, had what doctors call a cure. That’s defined as no sign of the hepatitis C virus six months after their last dose. 

Dr. John Ward, hepatitis chief at the CDC, told the Associated Press: “We really want to begin that clarion call for action for this population who’s at risk.”

He advises Baby Boomers to start having a conversation with their doctors about hepatitis C risks and symptoms.

Pending approval of the new drugs, likely this summer, the CDC has begun a study at four hospitals — in New York, Detroit, Houston and Birmingham, Ala. — to see if a one-time hepatitis C test for Baby Boomers makes sense. Among Boomers, black men in their 50s are at particular risk. The CDC plans to present new guidelines next year.

About the Author

Paul Briand spent 33 years in newspaper journalism. Based in New Hampshire, he now writes about issues of interest to Baby Boomers.

Read more of Paul Briand’s work for AccessRx.com here.

Read even more of Paul Briand’s published articles here.

By Paul Briand, journalist and Baby Boomer expert

Baby Boomers are facing a difficult task that gives them some double-edged angst.

On the one hand, they’re confronting the issue of whether their parents are too old and at-risk to be driving a car. On the other hand, they face the same dilemma themselves in the not-too-distant future… How old is too old to drive?

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), one in every five licensed drivers in this country will be 65 or older by 2025. This phenomenon is caused by the size of the aging Baby Boomer demographic. The total number of senior citizen drivers will rise from 30 million in 2010 to nearly 60 million by the year 2030, the GAO estimates.

Even if only one in 10 of those drivers presents a hazard, that’s still 6 million drivers nationwide who are a threat to themselves and others.

That means Baby Boomers will eventually confront the reality they’re facing now with their parents: Who should and should not be allowed to continue to drive?

AARP offers the following reasons for taking, or turning in, the keys:

• Almost crashing, with frequent “close calls”
• Finding dents and scrapes on the car, on fences, mailboxes, garage doors, curbs, or the like
• Getting lost
• Having trouble seeing or following traffic signals, road signs, and pavement markings
• Responding more slowly to unexpected situations, or having trouble moving a foot from the gas to the brake pedal; confusing the two pedals
• Misjudging gaps in traffic at intersections and on highway entrance and exit ramps
• Experiencing road rage or having other drivers frequently honk at you
• Easily becoming distracted or having difficulty concentrating while driving
• Having a hard time turning around to check over your shoulder while backing up or changing lanes
• Receiving traffic tickets or “warnings” from traffic or law enforcement officers in the last year or two.

And if it comes down to making a decision, Caring.com, which specializes in care giving issues, advises the following:

• If a senior with diminishing driving skills is unwilling to stop driving when it is apparent to others that it is necessary, then someone needs to step in and make the decision for them. You may feel guilty for having to take the steps necessary to assure that your loved one stops driving, but it may be a matter of life and death, and the decision should not be avoided.
• It is generally more emotionally difficult for men to stop driving than for women. You can’t talk the person out of their reactions, which are totally understandable from their perspective, even though they may be painful for you to tolerate. You need to listen with empathy and an open heart to the effect of this loss on this person.
• It may be easier for a respected professional, such as the doctor, or family friend, to inform the person of the end of his driving career. This may feel more comfortable to the family who will be the receivers of the feelings of anger, loss, and even betrayal.
• If necessary you may have to hide the keys, disable or even sell the car to prevent the person from driving.

There is a belief that so-called brain training can help the cognitive skills related to driving a car.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) contends that the right kind of brain training can produce cognitive improvements that transfer to real-world skills.

The study found that older drivers who completed 10 sessions of speed-of-processing training or reasoning training had an approximately 50 percent reduction in at-fault motor-vehicle collisions (MVC) compared to the control group.

“Considering the importance of driving mobility and the cost of crashes, cognitive training has great potential to sustain independence and quality of life in older adults,” said Dr. Jerri Edwards, Associate Professor of Aging Studies at the University of South Florida, and co-author of the paper. “But importantly, this study provides further evidence that the right kind of brain training program can generalize to improve real-world activities among older adults.”

About the Author

Paul Briand spent 33 years in newspaper journalism. Based in New Hampshire, he now writes about issues of interest to Baby Boomers.

Read more of Paul Briand’s work for AccessRx.com here.

Read even more of Paul Briand’s published articles here.

By Paul Briand

The so-called “core patient base” that is seen by U.S. doctors is made up of Baby Boomers.

And a large percentage of those Baby Boomer patients, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, are being treated for obesity.

A data brief issued by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that the 45-and-older crowd made up 33 percent of the U.S. population in 1998, but 38 percent in 2008. About 49 percent of doctor’s-office visits were focused on providing care for this group in 1998, compared with 57 percent in 2008. The group was prescribed 60 percent of medications given to patients during visits in 1998, compared with 70 percent in 2008.

An American Medical News report says a lot of that care was devoted to obesity issues.

“Researchers suspect that the obesity epidemic means that some conditions are becoming more common for these patients,” said the report.

“The Baby Boomers are aging and bringing with them more chronic conditions and a greater need for physician services,” Donald Cherry, the brief’s lead author and an NCHS statistician, told amednews.com.

As defined by WebMD:

“Obesity is an excess proportion of total body fat. A person is considered obese when his or her weight is 20% or more above normal weight. The most common measure of obesity is the body mass index or BMI. A person is considered overweight if his or her BMI is between 25 and 29.9; a person is considered obese if his or her BMI is over 30.”

For example, if you are 5-foot-8, you are considered obese if you weigh 197 pounds or more. Obesity has been linked to any number of ailments: diabetes, heart disease, gall bladder disease, and cancer.

According to previous studies, obesity among Baby Boomers has increased dramatically over the years — to almost 40 percent of the cohort. Half of Baby Boomers have high blood pressure, and most of that is linked to the overweight issues of obesity.

“Controlling high blood pressure and obesity is crucial for health, and particularly for Baby Boomers as they grow older,” Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, said in a HubPages article. “It’s time to act against both conditions so more Americans can live longer, healthier lives.”

InsuranceNews.net said the effects of obesity can also be felt in the economy.

“The impact of obesity on the health care economy is already being felt, according to the CDC, in the form of direct and indirect cost. Direct medical costs of obesity and health problems associated with it include preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services,” it said.

“The indirect costs come from income lost from decreased productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism, and bed days (morbidity costs) as well as the value of future income lost by premature death (mortality cost).”

As for what to do about obesity, WebMD suggests a long-term plan in conjunction with a doctor.

“A reasonable goal might be to begin making lifestyle changes by increasing physical activity and limiting calories,” it said.

About the Author

Paul Briand spent 33 years in newspaper journalism. Based in New Hampshire, he now writes about issues of interest to Baby Boomers.

Read more of Paul Briand’s work for AccessRx.com here.

Read even more of Paul Briand’s published articles here.

Read more health news articles on AccessRx.

By Paul Briand, Baby Boomer Expert and Journalist

The aging Baby Boomer brain is fertile ground for researchers … and debate.

A big question is whether training the brain will help Baby Boomers reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s and other similar types of disease that deal with dementia. The thinking is that if exercise for the body can extend a healthy life, perhaps exercise for the brain can extend a healthy mind.

But some of that currently conventional thinking has been undermined by studies that suggest specific training for the brain neither helps nor hurts aging brain matter. An April study published in the journal Nature dispels the notion that brain training does any good. The research basically says it can’t find evidence to support that it helps stave off dementia.

“There were absolutely no transfer effects” from the training tasks to more general tests of cognition, said Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Cognition and Brian Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK, who led the study.

“I think the expectation that practicing a broad range of cognitive tasks to get yourself smarter is completely unsupported,” he added in a Nature News website story about the study.

Basically, the researchers had the subjects work at various programs for 10 minutes at a time. They said they found the people that did the brain training programs had no better cognitive results than people who surfed the web doing research.

The brain training industry market was worth $265 million last year. About $95 million of that came from consumers who bought commercially available programs, and they’ve been vocal about their defense of their products.

Dr. Ken Gibson, founder and president of nationally franchised brain-trainer LearningRx, pointed out that the study participants were using the brain training programs for 10 minutes a day.

“From what I can determine about this study, people played games or did research for ten minutes a day, three times a week for six weeks. That alone is certainly and obviously not nearly enough time to get any type of improvement,” said Gibson in a statement.

“To simply jump to the conclusion that these results prove brain training doesn’t work is ridiculous and irresponsible. I doubt that doing jumping jacks ten minutes, three times a week for 10 weeks would result in any measurable increase in your physical fitness.”

Added Gibson: “Our results confirm what so many other studies and even functional MRIs prove – brain training can improve the brain and boost IQ.”

Likewise, Dr. Henry Mahncke, vice president of research at Posit Science, another brain fitness provider, questioned the methods used in the survey.

“It would be like concluding that there are no compounds to fight bacteria because the compound you tested was sugar and not penicillin,” he said in a statement.

Mahncke cited studies – Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Southern California – and said they “have shown real-world improvements including improved memory and attention, greater functional independence and better quality of life.”

About the Author

Paul Briand spent 33 years in newspaper journalism. Based in New Hampshire, he now writes about issues of interest to Baby Boomers.

Read more of Paul Briand’s work for AccessRx.com here.

Read even more of Paul Briand’s published articles here.

By Paul Briand, Journalist and Baby Boomer Expert

It can be the bane of Baby Boomer men: Prostate cancer.

But there’s some hope now to battle this cancer, which is the most common cancer among American men. According to the American Cancer Society, there were 192,280 new cases of prostate cancer in 2009, and 27,360 deaths.

And the older you are, the more likely you are to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. Only 1 in 10,000 men under age 40 will be diagnosed, but the rate shoots up to 1 in 38 for ages 40 to 59, and 1 in 15 for ages 60 to 69.

The hope lies in a first-of-a-kind treatment – the Provenge vaccine – that uses the body’s immune system to fight the disease. It’s an alternative to treatments like chemotherapy and surgery, and is the first therapy of its kind to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Dendreon Corp.’s vaccine trains the immune system to fight tumors on the prostate, a gland the size of a walnut that sits under the bladder and in front of the rectum.

The prostate is not essential for life, according to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, but it’s important for reproduction because it supplies substances that facilitate fertilization, as well as sperm transit and survival.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation is excited about the prospects of Provenge.

“This is a ‘breakout’ not a ‘breakthrough’ for treatment of patients,” Dr. Jonathan Simons, CEO of PCF said in a statement.

“A breakthrough would be curing men; the breakout in our thinking is that some patients can live months longer with inducing their immune systems to fight their metastatic disease. Now the field gets to build upon and improve the micromanagement of the prostate cancer patient’s immune system to fight their disease.

“Also, the concept that some day we could develop a preventative vaccine against developing prostate cancer in the first place gets a big scientific boost.”

Baby Boomer men, if they haven’t already, need to understand their risks for the cancer and make sure they’re examined by their physician.

If you are age 50 or over (or if you are age 40 or over and African-American or have a family history of prostate cancer) you should consider a yearly rectal examination and PSA test.

The rectal examination lets the doctor determine whether the prostate is swollen at all. Levels of PSA in a blood test often go up in men with prostate cancer as well as other conditions.

Check out the prevention guidelines from the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Among the suggestions:

•    Maintain a healthy weight… eat less, exercise more

•    Keep fat from meat and dairy to a minimum

•    Watch your calcium intake

•    Don’t smoke

•    Drink in moderation

•    Get treated for high blood pressure

•    Relax… find a way to be less stressed

About the Author

Paul Briand spent 33 years in newspaper journalism. Based in New Hampshire, he now writes about issues of interest to Baby Boomers.

Read more of Paul Briand’s work for AccessRx.com here.

Read even more of Paul Briand’s published articles here.