By the time we get there, are we going to need so many hip replacements?

[hedgehog]

I look at photos of infant me with my grandfathers. They are old. Then I realize, I'm the same age now that they were then. They never had enough to eat as kids and did hard physical labor from about 10 years old on. By the time they were 55, they were worn out. I look at where my parents were at 55, and they weren't in as good a shape as I am now. My Mom was already feeling the effects of a lifetime of smoking.

Now, I'm not going to live forever, but will I ever get as sick or crippled as my parents and grandparents? Will it happen as early for me?

[MineralMan]

1. It all depends. Getting old beats the alternative, though.

Taking care of yourself helps, but is no guarantee that you won't fall prey to the ills of aging. Healthy living is a good thing, but it only postpones becoming old. Age comes to us all, if we're lucky enough to survive the stupidities of youth.

[hedgehog]

3. I guess the question is what will get us first? The runners will all end up with bad knees,

but maybe the rest of us won't have so many problems with osteoarthritis. Osteoporosis shouldn't be the problem it is today, either. I'll take a pill made by Big Pharma over a dowager's hump any day!

[MineralMan]

7. Yeah, that will help. But...

My parents, who are in their mid-80s, have both had joint replacements. My dad just had a hip replacement this year, and my mom had a knee replacement about three years ago. If you live long enough, your joints will wear out. It just happens.

I'm 64, now, and can detect the beginnings of osteoarthritis in myself. No problems, really, yet, but I have a sore thumb joint and a sore bit toe joint, plus some miscellaneous creakings in my knees and hips. Eventually, I suppose they'll get bad enough to do something about.

As for osteoporosis, I hope you won't have to take those meds. Calcium Citrate and Vitamin D may help keep you from needing them. It just all depends. Heredity has a role, as well.

[hedgehog]

9. Oh, I'm with you on the supplements. I've been nagging various family membersrs

about Vitamin D and Vitamin B-12. They got tested, and they were deficient!

I guess I'm speculating if we'll end up with a situation similar to men who get prostate cancer in their 80's; before it can catch up with them, they're dead from something else.

I mentioned hip replacements specifically because that's the big scare tactic - *****They**** are going to cut Medicare so ****you**** can't get a hip replacement! My one grandfather was really crippled up by the time he was in his 50's although he didn't retire until 65. So far, I'm tracking a lot better than he did.


If you talk to your parents, they may recall having a lot more problems with osteoarthritis at age 64 than you do now. Maybe, maybe not. As you say, heredity can have its way with us.

[Bicoastal]

2. bad taste

sorry

[madrchsod]

4. do`t smoke,eat right,exorcise,do`t stress out,and regular check-ups

will put years on your life

[Warpy]

5. We all have built in genetic susceptibilities to various illness

and a pristine lifestyle will only delay them. A lousy lifestyle will hurry the onset.

You will get as sick or crippled as your grandparents. If you've maintained a decent lifestyle, you'll get more good time than they did before it happens.

I got the family hypertension a full twenty years later than my parents did just by maintaining a low salt diet and avoiding tobacco.

Still, my parents lived to 86 and 94. They just didn't live that particularly well, especially my mother, whose bad habits caught up to her with a vengeance. While my lack of access to good preventive care combined with a chronic illness I developed in my teens will undoubtedly shorten my life, I should still have as many good years as my parents did.

Illness, especially the illness with age, is not a choice and not under our control. We are all going to get sick at some point, that is the human condition.

[FarCenter]

6. I don't think that hard physical labor wears people out

So long as they stay phyically fit, keep the weight off, don't smoke or drink to excess, avoid accidents, and stay active after retiring, people who do hard physical labor can do very well in the longevity department. There are a lot of old farmers and ranchers in the Upper Midwest.

Urban workers tend that I've known with the "worn out" look were those doing highly repetitive manual labor, smoked too much, and worked in polluted workplaces. I think it is the latter that matter more than the physical labor.

[hedgehog]

8. Hard physical labor on growing joints can cause problems later.

Getting enough rest, good food and a warm place to sleep are other factors. Just look at photos of some of the young women in Afghanistan.

[Fumesucker]

12. A lot of the people I know who played football in HS have joint problems now..

My brother could have been an elite athlete, he had the power to weight ratio for it, he says now that he's glad he never played competitive sports (particularly football) because so many of his friends who did are now paying a heavy price for it.

[hedgehog]

15. Throwing a baseball too hard, too often, too early can cause problems, too.

[FarCenter]

16. Injuries to bones, cartiledge, tendons, etc, are not completely repaired

Your body can only partially recover from these types of injuries. So playing sports that cause injuries is worse that hard physical labor within the capabilities of your body.

Less obvious are the damages caused to internal organs by diet, alcohol, drugs (all drugs, not just illegal ones), and smoking. But the same principle holds - once damaged, the organs never fully recover.

[charlie]

13. The type of labor makes a difference, too

I lived in Japan during the 60s. And again for all of the 90s and half the aughts (or whatever you call the 2000s).

In the 60s, not only were most people smaller, but a huge proportion over a certain age were grotesquely shrunken and bent. Their heads were thrust forward turtle-like and their backs were almost parallel to the ground. The tops of the canes they used to get about were next to their heads. It came from decades of planting, tending, and harvesting rice.

By the 90s, not only were Japanese nearly as tall as Westerners, but everyone was erect. Diet and reduction in farm labor had changed everyone dramatically.

[shraby]

10. Some time ago archaeologists did a study of

bones of early man in the western states to try to determine if tribal groups were sedentary or moved to hunt their food and did little crop growing. The hunter/gatherers had more incidence of arthritis in their joints than the sedentary crop growers.
Sounds like a lot of exercise is not good for the old joints.

Seems the generation that hit highs in the longevity department is the one that had their intense labor reduced with the invention of machines to do it. Not only in industry, but on the farm (tractors, planters, etc.) and in the household (vacuums, washing machines, etc.) Not to mention the advent of modern medicines, vaccines, antibiotics, etc.
Isn't it possible that hard work shortens the life-span?

[bertman]

14. Good question, shraby. Maybe hard work does shorten the life span, but that may be

the result of a combination of factors: back-breaking work, poor nutrition, protection from disease, stress.

A few years ago I was reading a book about Alexander the Great's life and was amazed to find that many of the soldiers who fought in his armies were in their 60's and one of his cavalry generals, Parmenius, was in his 70's. Given that these men walked or rode horseback over deserts, mountains, forded rivers, AND fought pitched battles with swords, spears, and bows and arrows, that is nothing short of amazing to me.

Just look at the distances they travelled and the varying weather and climatic conditions they faced. They went from the rolling hills of Greece, to the steaming jungles of India, the mountains of Afghanistan, the deserts of Persia (Iran) and north Africa, the mountains of the Caucusus--all on foot.

It's likely that their diet was largely based on grains, fruits, and whatever meat they could get. They probably drank a fair amount of wine, too. Pretty plain fare and totally organic LOL. There were doctors and they were certainly competent for their day and time, but no one got the type of medical care that we have available to us now.

The idea that the warriors were still fighting in their 60's and 70's is astonishing. But it also makes me wonder how long their life spans were once they "retired" to farming or civilian life.

[Fumesucker]

11. I'm fifty nine and I'm actually surprised at how good I feel physically..

And I've done some pretty hard physical labor at times, I spent more than ten years walking on sheetrocker's stilts for one thing, and that was around age forty or so.

Now I'm riding my bike and dropping weight, my knees are the only joints that have given me problems and they are feeling better than they have in at least a decade. But then I don't mash the pedals, I keep the cadence high and the load low, much easier on the knees and ankles.

Edited to add: I've spent considerable time reading about sports physiology lately and it seems pretty clear that maximum effort exertion over long periods is not good for you. What is most effective in building strength and endurance is moderate exertion over fairly long periods interspersed with fairly short bursts of maximum or near maximum effort.

[MiniMe]

17. I think the hip and knee replacements will mostly be needed by the fundies

All that getting on their knees to bow to Rush and Hannity and just the act of getting down on a knee and getting up again are going to wear on the joints.