Side Effects of Sex

It’s Monday morning, it’s cold and the holidays are still too far away to be a reality for most of us.  Not a lot to be cheerful about?  Right!

Never fear, SRxA’s Word on Health is here to help start your week off right with some health news that may just bring a smile to your face.

While many people associate a healthy lifestyle with grueling workouts, strict dieting and general deprivation and misery  – this is a misconception.

According to Dr Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, web entrepreneur and New York Times best selling author, healthy habits can be among the most rewarding.  Take sex. It counts as moderately intense exercise plus it boosts numerous aspects of both physical and mental health. As long as you’re engaging in safe-sex practices, increasing your sexual activity is a surefire strategy to better health!

Mercola suggests regular sex can reduce stress, bolster self-esteem and foster feelings of intimacy and bonding between partners.  Better still, a healthy sex life can result in a longer, healthier and, most would agree, more enjoyable life.

In case that’s not enough – here’s 10 more healthy side effects of sex:

1. Improved Immunity

People who have sex frequently have significantly higher levels of immunoglobulin A (IgA). IgA is part of the immune system that forms your body’s first line of defense. Its job is to fight off invading organisms at their entry points, reducing or even eliminating the need for activation of your body’s immune system. This may explain why people who have sex frequently also take fewer sick days.

2. Heart Health

According to one study, men who made love regularly (at least twice a week) are 45% less likely to develop heart disease than those who did so once a month or less.

Sexual activity not only provides many of the same benefits to your heart as exercise but also keeps levels of estrogen and testosterone in balance, which is important for heart health.

3. Lower Blood Pressure

Sexual activity, and specifically intercourse, is linked to better stress response and lower blood pressure.

4. It’s a Form of Exercise

Sex helps to boost your heart rate, burn calories and strengthen muscles, just like exercise. In fact, research recently revealed that sex burns about 4 calories a minute for men and 3 for women, making it (at times) a ‘significant’ form of exercise. It can even help you to maintain your flexibility and balance.

5. Pain Relief

Sexual activity releases pain-reducing hormones and has been found to help reduce or block back and leg pain, as well as pain from menstrual cramps, arthritis and headaches. One study even found that sexual activity can lead to partial or complete relief of headache in some migraine and cluster-headache patients.

6. Help to Reduce Risk of Prostate Cancer

Research has shown that men who ejaculate at least 21 times a month (during sex or masturbation) have a lower risk of prostate cancer.

7. Improve Sleep

After sex, the relaxation-inducing hormone prolactin is released, which may help you to nod off more quickly. The “love hormone” oxytocin, released during orgasm, also promotes sleep.

8. Stress Relief

Sex triggers your body to release it’s natural feel-good chemicals, helping to ease stress and boost pleasure, calm and self-esteem. Research also shows that those who have sexual intercourse responded better when subjected to stressful situations like speaking in public.

9. Boost Your Libido

The more often you have sex, the more likely you are to want to keep doing it. There’s a mental connection there but also a physical one, particularly for women. More frequent sex helps to increase vaginal lubrication, blood flow and elasticity, which in turn make sexual activity more enjoyable.

10. Improved Bladder Control in Women

Intercourse helps to strengthen pelvic floor muscles, which contract during orgasm. This can help women improve their bladder control and avoid incontinence.

Happy Monday!

Is Your Student Safe?

The beginning of another school year means the beginning of school sports including football, soccer, cross country and swimming. All too often, school sports result in injuries to athletes and, in some cases, incidents of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Although SCA in athletes makes the headlines, it’s important to know that SCA can happen to anyone including a seemingly healthy child.

Sudden cardiac arrest in a young person usually stems from a structural defect in the heart or a problem with the heart’s electrical circuitry. The most frequent cause, accounting for about 40% of all cases, is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM.

HCM is a genetic heart condition that affects 1: 500 individuals, including men, women and children of all ages. HCM is characterized by a thickening of the heart muscle and can lead to sudden cardiac arrest.

Approximately 50% of individuals with HCM experience no symptoms, and don’t even know they have the condition, until tragically, sudden cardiac arrest occurs.  In 9:10 cases the outcome is fatal, resulting in unimaginable grief for families and fellow students.  Yet better outcomes can be achieved with early electrical stimulation of the heart – delivered by a small, fully automated, easy to use box.

Given that educational institutions house more than 20% of the American population every day, you’d think they would be fully prepared for this eventually. But sadly, they are not.

At the time of writing, only 19: 50 states in the U.S. require that at least some of their schools have automated external defibrillators [AED’s].  In some states, AEDs are required in public, but not private schools. In other states, AEDs are required in high schools, but not elementary schools. Some states require AEDs only in schools offering athletics. Only two states – Hawaii and Oregon – require AEDs in colleges.

To find out whether your state requires AEDs in schools, click here to view an interactive map.

Although schools and colleges are ideal and obvious locations for AED deployment, concerns regarding legal liability and litigation have been perceived as a barrier to purchasing and deploying AEDs.  Fortunately this is slowly changing.  Recognition of the need to protect youth from sudden cardiac arrest is gaining momentum in many states:

In Pennsylvania, Sen. Andrew Dinniman has sponsored Senate Bill 606, Aidan’s Law, named for Aidan Silva, a seven-year-old Chester County resident who succumbed to SCA in September 2010.  Aidan had no symptoms of a heart condition prior to his death. Aidan’s Law will help ensure that every public school in Pennsylvania has an AED that is up to date and ready to use.

Rep. Connie Pillich, of Cincinnati, has introduced a bill focused on SCA in student athletes. House Bill 180 requires the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Education to jointly develop guidelines and materials to educate students, parents and coaches about SCA. The measure bans a student from participating in a school-sponsored athletic activity until the student submits a signed form acknowledging receipt of the guidelines and materials created by the health and education departments. Individuals would not be allowed to coach a school-sponsored athletic activity unless the individual has completed, within the previous year, a sudden cardiac arrest training course approved by the health department.

John Ellsessar, whose son Michael died during an Oxford High School football game in 2010 from cardiac arrest, believes automated external defibrillators should be as readily available at school settings as fire extinguishers.

Ellsessar, is pushing for legislation to require all schools to have defibrillators, said he and his wife were horrified when they learned that at most schools that have the medical devices, but they are locked away in nurses’ offices, instead of being ready for emergencies.

And in Rhode Island, high school seniors will be required to be trained in CPR and the use of a defibrillator before they can graduate. Under the legislation signed into law by Gov. Lincoln Chafee, students will receive training that includes a hands-on course in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and an overview of the use of an AED.

The National Parent Teacher Association has also adopted a resolution calling for public schools to develop emergency response plans that include summoning help, performing CPR and using automated external defibrillators to save lives. The PTA also called for ongoing CPR-AED training in schools and legislation that would fund placement of AEDs in every school, while providing immunity for people who use the lifesaving devices in good faith.

To learn more about sudden cardiac arrest and how you can help please visit http://www.sca-aware.org

NSAID’s in the News (again)

Let me start by saying, that despite spending the last 20-something years in or around the pharmaceutical industry, I don’t like taking pills. That said, I’m not particularly partial to pain either. So when my knees or back hurts or I’m doubled over with dysmenorrhea, like many other people, I’ll reach for the ibuprofen.

But that may be about to change. Results from a new, large international study of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), showed that high doses of them increase the risk of a major vascular event such as heart attack, stroke or death from cardiovascular disease by around a third.

In other words, for every 1,000 people with an average risk of heart disease who take high-dose ibuprofen for a year, about three extra would have an avoidable heart attack, of which one would be fatal, the researchers said.

This puts the heart risks of generic NSAIDs on a par with Vioxx – the painkiller that U.S. drugmaker Merck famously pulled from sale in 2004 because of links to heart risks.

The study team from Oxford University in the UK, gathered data, including on admissions to hospital, for cardiovascular or gastrointestinal disease, from all randomized trials that have previously tested NSAIDs.

This allowed them to pool results from 639 trials involving more than 300,000 people and re-analyze the data to establish the risks of NSAIDs in certain types of patients.

In contrast to the findings on ibuprofen and diclofenac, the study found that high doses of naproxen, another NSAID, did not appear to increase the risk of heart attacks. The researchers said this may be because naproxen also has protective effects that balance out any extra heart risks.

Researcher, Colin Baigent stressed that the risks are mainly relevant to people who suffer chronic pain, such as patients with arthritis who need to take high doses of for long periods. “A short course of lower dose tablets purchased without a prescription, for example, for a muscle sprain, is not likely to be hazardous,” he said.

He also warns patients not to make hasty decisions or change their treatment without consulting a doctor.

“For many arthritis patients, NSAIDs reduce joint pain and swelling effectively and help them to enjoy a reasonable quality of life,” he said. “We really must be careful about the way we present the risks of these drugs. They do have risks, but they also have benefits, and patients should be presented with all those bits of information and allowed to make choices for themselves.”

Donald Singer, a professor of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics at Warwick University, who was not involved in the study, said its findings “underscore a key point for patients and prescribers: powerful drugs may have serious harmful effects.”

In the meantime, I for one, will be revising my pain versus pill-popping habit, or switching to naproxen.

Tee-Total but Drinking Yourself to Death?

According to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism meeting last week, sugar-sweetened sodas, sports drinks and fruit drinks may be associated with a staggering 180,000 deaths around the world each year,

Researchers calculated the quantities of sugar-sweetened beverage intake around the world by age and sex.  They also looked at the effects of this on obesity and diabetes. Using data from the 2010 Global Burden of Diseases Study, they linked intake of sweetened beverages to 133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000 cardiovascular disease deaths and 6,000 cancer deaths.

78% of these deaths were in low and middle-income countries.  But that doesn’t mean America is off the hook.

“In the U.S., our research shows that about 25,000 deaths in 2010 were linked to drinking sugar-sweetened beverages,” said Gitanjali M. Singh, PhD, co-author of the study.

Of nine world regions in 2010:

• Latin America/Caribbean had the most diabetes deaths (38,000) related to sugar-sweetened beverages
• East/Central Eurasia had the largest numbers of cardiovascular deaths (11,000) related to sugary beverage consumption

Among the world’s 15 most populous countries, Mexico had the highest death rate due to these beverages, with 318 deaths per million adults.

Japan, one of the countries with lowest per-capita consumption of sugary beverages in the world, had the lowest death rate associated with the consumption of sugary beverages, at about 10 deaths per million adults.

“Because we were focused on deaths due to chronic diseases, our study focused on adults. Future research should assess the amount of sugary beverage consumption in children across the world and how this affects their current and future health,” Singh said.

In the meantime, the American Heart Association recommends adults consume no more than 450 calories per week, from sugar-sweetened beverages.

And don’t assume you’re OK just because you drink diet, rather than regular soda. According to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference in  2011, drinking diet soda daily is linked to a higher risk of stroke, heart attack and vascular-related deaths, compared to those who don’t drink soda.  Even though you are avoiding the sugar calories, the high salt content may double the risk of ischemic stroke, independent of sodium’s role in hypertension.

Here at SRxA’s Word on Health we’re canning the cans and from now on it will be water all the way!

When’s Your Time to Die?

What are your chances of dying in the next 10 years?

Obviously there are some activities that may increase your risk  such as driving drunk and active military duty in a war zone, but how about getting winded after walking several blocks or having trouble pushing a chair across the room

Turns out the latter might be just as dangerous as the former.

Researchers at the University of San Francisco VA Medical Center have recently come up with a “mortality index” to predict when a person may die.  Marisa Cruz and her colleagues have developed a list of 12 questions that can help predict chances of dying within 10 years for patients aged 50 and older.  The researchers created the index by analyzing data on almost 20,000 Americans over 50 who took part in a national health survey in 1998. They tracked the participants for 10 years. Nearly 6,000 participants died during that time.

While the test scores may satisfy people’s morbid curiosity, the researchers say their index wasn’t meant as guidance about how to alter your lifestyle.  Instead, it is mostly for use by doctors, to help them discuss the pros and cons of costly health screenings or medical procedures in patients who are unlikely to live 10 more years.

That said, we know that many of our readers are “simply dying” to take the test themselves – right now.

So without further ado…here’s how it works.

The 12 items on the mortality index are assigned points.  The fewer your total points the better odds of living.

• Men automatically get 2 points. In addition, men and women ages 60 to 64 get 1 point; ages 70 to 74 get 3 points; and 85 or over get 7 points.

• Two points each for: a current or previous cancer diagnosis, excluding minor skin cancers; lung disease limiting activity or requiring oxygen; congestive cardiac failure; smoking within the past 2 weeks; difficulty bathing; difficulty managing money because of health or memory problem; difficulty walking several blocks.

• One point each for: diabetes or high blood sugar; difficulty pushing large objects, such as a heavy chair; being thin or normal weight.

The highest, or worst, score is  26, which equates to  a 95% chance of dying within 10 years. To get that, you’d have to be a man at least 85 years old with all the above conditions.
For a score of zero, which correlates to a 3% chance of dying within 10 years, you’d have to be a woman of “normal weight” younger than 60 without any of those infirmities.

While it’s hardly surprising that a sick, older person would have a much higher chance of dying than someone younger why would being overweight be less risky than being of normal weight or slim?  One possible reason is that thinness in older age could be a sign of illness.

Dr. Stephan Fihn, a health quality measurement specialist with Veterans Affairs health services in Seattle, said the index seems valid and “methodologically sound.”
However, he adds that it is probably most accurate for the oldest patients, who don’t need a scientific crystal ball to figure out their days are numbered.

For fans of SRxA’s Word on Health, I’m pleased to report that my 10-year mortality index is zero. Let the blogging continue!

Teaching your child the ABC’s of Heart Health

Heart disease is not a major cause of death among children and teenagers, but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention it is the largest cause of death among adults in the United States. In fact, someone in America dies every 37 seconds from some form of cardiovascular disease.

Certain factors that play an important role in a person’s chances of developing heart disease. Some of these life-style risk factors can be changed, treated, or modified, and some, such as congenital heart disease cannot.

Zachary Stone M.D, a primary care physician at the University of Alabama, agrees that it’s possible to build a future free from cardiovascular disease by starting heart-healthy habits at a young age. Most of the risk factors that affect children can be controlled early in life.

“The process of atherosclerosis, which is the hardening of the arteries and is known to cause heart attacks, strokes and sudden death, has been shown to begin in early childhood,” says Stone. “It’s important to concentrate on healthy lifestyles in children to prevent adult cardiovascular disease.”

The three main areas to watch are diet, activity levels and smoke exposure.

Diet: Good nutrition can help to decrease cardiovascular disease. It can help prevent hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity. Obesity is a major risk factor for heart disease. 1 out of every 3 American adults is obese and obesity is linked to more than 110,000 deaths in the United States each year. Childhood obesity in the United States is also on the rise. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, between 16% and 33% of children and teenagers are obese. Because obese children are more likely to be obese adults, preventing or treating obesity in childhood may reduce the risk of adult obesity.  A young person’s diet should be low in saturated fats and primarily consist of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Activity: One easy way to increase physical activity in children is to limit their sedentary activities.  Parents should limit television and multimedia to 1-2 hours per day and ensure that their kids participate in at least one hour of moderate activity daily.

Smoke exposure:  Exposure to smoke is dangerous to the health of a child for many reasons, including that it can increase the risk of developing heart disease as an adult. According to the CDC, more than 3.6 million middle and high school students smoke cigarettes, and nearly 4,000 kids under age 18 try their first cigarette every day.  More than 90,000 people die each year from heart diseases caused by smoking. Among young people who would otherwise have a very low risk of heart disease, cigarette smoking may cause as many as 75% of the cases of heart disease. And, the longer a person smokes, the higher the risk of heart disease. Parents should talk openly to their kids about both the dangers and bad effects of smoking, such as yellow teeth, bad breath, smelly clothes, shortness of breath and lung damage.  Parents also need to act as a role model for their children, by not smoking or allowing others around them to smoke, thereby reducing their exposure to second-hand smoke.

Keeping kids heart healthy is an investment in their future and yours, and may be the best gift you can ever give.

Don’t Ignore the Snore

Think for a moment about the factors that influence health.  Chances are you thought about: smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and insufficient exercise. Maybe you added in family history of disease, and stress. How about snoring?

What!?!  Well, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, snoring may put your health at a greater risk than any of the above.

Their study revealed that isolated snoring may not be as benign as first suspected.  The trauma and subsequent inflammation caused by the vibrations of snoring can lead to changes in the carotid arteries – the pair of blood vessels that deliver blood to your brain and head. Snoring can cause a build-up of plaque which can eventually block the blood supply to the brain and increases the risk of stroke.

“Snoring is more than a bedtime annoyance and it shouldn’t be ignored. Patients need to seek treatment in the same way they would if they had sleep apnea, high blood pressure or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease,” says lead author Robert Deeb, M.D., with the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at Henry Ford.

Obstructive sleep apnea– a sleep disorder that occurs due to the collapse of the airway in the throat during sleep and causes loud snoring and periodic pauses in breathing – has long been linked to cardiovascular disease, along with a host of other serious health issues.

But the risk for cardiovascular disease may actually begin with snoring, long before it develops into obstructive sleep apnea.

Investigators reviewed data for 913 patients aged 18-50, who had participated in a diagnostic sleep study, none of whom had sleep apnea.  54 patients completed a survey regarding their snoring habits, and underwent a carotid artery ultrasound to measure the thickness of the innermost two layers of the carotid arteries. This test is able to pick up the first signs of carotid artery disease.

What they found was that snorers were had significantly greater thickening of the carotid arteries, compared to non-snorers.  Interestingly, no statistically significant differences in carotid artery thickening could be found for patients with or without some of the traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease – smoking, diabetes, hypertension or hypercholesterolemia.

“Snoring is generally regarded as a cosmetic issue by health insurance, requiring significant out-of-pocket expenses by patients. We’re hoping to change that thinking so patients can get the early treatment they need, before more serious health issues arise.”

The Henry Ford research team plans to conduct another long-term study on this topic, particularly to determine if there’s an increased incidence of cardiovascular events in patients who snore.

In the meantime, instead of kicking your snoring bed partner out of bed, seek out medical treatment for him…or her.

Fend off a 2nd Heart Attack with Fruit and Fiber

Each year, at least 20 million people worldwide survive a heart attack or stroke. Most of them, will then be prescribed a veritable cocktail of drugs including lipid-lowering agents, beta blockers, aspirin, anti-platelet medications, and angiotensin modulators.

In the misguided belief that this polypharmacy will guard against future catastrophic cardiovascular events, many patients think they don’t need to follow a healthy diet.

However a new, 5-year study of almost 32,000 patients in 40 countries showed those who ate a heart-healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables and fish had an average:

• 35% reduction in risk for cardiovascular death
• 14% reduction in risk for new heart attacks
• 28% reduction in risk for congestive heart failure
• 19% reduction in risk for stroke

Researchers from McMaster University were able to demonstrate, for the first time, that while drug treatments, substantially lower the risk of another heart attack, a high quality diet also significantly lowers the risk.

Mahshid Dehghan, the study’s lead author and nutritionist at McMaster University’s Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) and his team assessed the association between diet quality and the risk of cardiovascular disease using information collected from men and women who participated in two major McMaster-led global studies: ONTARGET, and TRANSCEND.

Participants with cardiovascular disease were asked how often they consumed milk, vegetables, fruits, grains, fish, nuts, meat and poultry over the past 12 months. They were also asked about lifestyle choices such as alcohol consumption, smoking and exercise. A healthy diet was indicated by a high intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts as well as a high intake of fish compared to meat, poultry and eggs.

The results showed that a heart-healthy diet offered a “consistent benefit” over and above the benefits of taking medications to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Globally, healthy eating was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease by more than 20% in all regions of the world and across all income groups.

“Physicians should advise their high-risk patients to improve their diet and eat more vegetables, fruits, grains and fish,” Dehghan said. “This could substantially reduce cardiovascular recurrence beyond drug therapy alone and save lives globally.”

Think Before You Eat!

Tempted to have a burger and fries this lunchtime?  It wouldn’t hurt once in a while, right?  Not so fast.  Maybe it is time to think outside the bun after all.

According to new research from the Montreal Heart Institute,  it’s not just a lifetime of bad eating habits that leads to heart disease –  every single junk food meal has a damaging effect on your arteries.

That’s right! Each and every meal, composed mainly of saturated fat, is detrimental to the health of the arteries.  On the other hand, no damage occurs after consuming a Mediterranean-style meal rich in “good fats” such as mono-and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Better still, the Mediterranean meal may even have a positive effect on your arteries.

These findings were presented at the recent Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, by Dr. Anil Nigam, Director of Research at the Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Centre (ÉPIC) and associate professor at the university’s Faculty of Medicine.  He undertook a study to compare the effects of junk food and typical Mediterranean meal on the vascular endothelium – the inner lining of the blood vessels.  Endothelial function is known to be closely linked to the long-term risk of developing coronary artery disease.

28 non-smoking men participated in the study. Their endothelial function was assessed at baseline.  They were then given the Mediterranean-type meal, which was composed of salmon, almonds, and vegetables cooked in olive oil.  51% of total calories came from fat – mostly monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fats.

A week later they were given the junk food-type meal, consisting of a sandwich made of a sausage, an egg, a slice of cheese, and three hash browns. This time, 58% of the total calories came from saturated fatty acids containing no Omega-3’s.

Two hours and four hours after each meal, participants underwent further ultrasounds to assess how the food had impacted their endothelial function.  They found that after eating the junk food meal, the arteries of the study participants dilated 24% less than they did when in the fasting state. In contrast, the arteries were found to dilate normally and maintain good blood flow after the Mediterranean-type meal.

Additionally, subjects with higher blood triglyceride levels seemed to benefit more from the healthy meals than those with low triglyceride levels.

“A Mediterranean-type diet may be particularly beneficial for individuals with high triglyceride levels, such as patients with metabolic syndrome, precisely because it could help keep arteries healthy,” predicts Dr. Nigam.  “These results will positively alter how we eat on a daily basis. Poor endothelial function is one of the most significant precursors of atherosclerosis. It is now something to think about at every meal.”

Oh la la!  Are you ready to ditch the junk food in favor of a little “je ne sais quoi.”

The Growing Cost of Aging

With the election looming, we’ve heard a lot of rhetoric about healthcare. Rising costs, limited access, reforming Medicare…the list goes on and on.  Whatever happens on November 6, it seems the American public has already spoken. According to new research just unveiled at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting, the cost of lifestyle drugs now exceeds the cost for medications used to treat chronic disease.

The research suggests that medicines used to treat conditions considered a normal part of aging, including those related to hormone replacement therapy, sexual dysfunction, menopause, aging skin, hair loss and mental alertness, are becoming so popular that they now rank third.  Only diabetes and high cholesterol have a greater cost impact among commercially insured patients.

Researchers at Express Scripts in St. Louis looked at trends in prescriptions filled for aging medications.  In 2011 alone, the cost per person for aging medications ($73.30) was 16% greater than the amount spent on both high blood pressure and heart disease medications ($62.80).  The cost for diabetes medications was $81.12 and high cholesterol medications was $78.38.

The research found that among these insured individuals use of drugs to treat the physical impact associated with normal aging was up 18.5% and costs increased nearly 46% from 2006 to 2011. Increased use of these drugs was even more pronounced for the Medicare population (age 65+), up 32% from 2007 to 2011. The largest utilization jump among Medicare beneficiaries was from 2010 to 2011, up more than 13% and outpacing increases in the use of drugs for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure combined.

“At a time when people are forgoing care due to rising health costs, this study reveals a growing trend on where the public is placing its healthcare dollars,” said Reethi Iyengar, PhD, researcher at Express Scripts.  “Continued monitoring and potential management may be warranted for this category of medications.”

While there is no doubt that pharmaceutical advances and greater awareness have improved the quality of life for many aging Americans what was not known, until now, is the significant cost associated with treating these conditions. Couple that with the proliferation of people living longer and it’s clear that managing the trend and spend from treating conditions associated with aging will become increasingly important.

The United States is in the midst of a profound demographic change, with the number of elderly people projected to reach nearly 20% of the entire population by 2030, up from less than 13% in 2009. This increase will continue to drive both use and costs of medications to treat the natural conditions of aging.

But the problem may be even bigger. The greatest growth in cost per insured was seen among the 45 to 54 age group – up almost 21% over the last five-years. And because the study only analyzed prescription medications it may have underestimated the total costs of aging treatments, which include a variety of over-the-counter medications, cosmetic treatments and surgery.

Seems getting old hurts not only our bodies, but our wallets and the economy too.