The Dowager's hump: an early start?

Background: A recent study has shown that biomarkers relating to the variation of muscle strength with age exhibited gender differences.

Objective: To discover whether gender differences in kyphosis and its progression with age might be explained in a related manner.

Methods: Relevant aspects of muscular ageing, and related changes in the Cobb angle (a measure of kyphosis) were examined and linked to data on the gerontology of musculature.

A cost-benefit analysis of cataract surgery based on the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing.

This paper uses the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing to explore the self-reported effect of cataract operations on eye-sight. A non-parametric analysis shows clearly that most cataract patients report improved eye-sight after surgery and a parametric analysis provides further information: it shows that the beneficial effect is larger the worse was self-reported eye-sight preceding surgery so that those with very good or excellent eye-sight do not derive immediate benefit. Nevertheless, the long-run effect is suggested to be beneficial.

Ageing and health care expenditure in EU-15.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between ageing and the evolution of health care expenditure per capita in the EU-15 countries. A secondary purpose is to produce estimates that can be used in projections of future health care costs. Explanatory variables include economic, social, demographic and institutional variables as well as variables related to capacity and production technology in the health care sector.

Biological age--what is it and can it be measured?

Biological age is a concept used loosely and with little objectivity to describe a shortfall between a population cohort average life expectancy and the perceived life expectancy of an individual of the same age. Many biomarkers decline roughly linearly with age with a slope of <1% per annum. The use of a battery of 16 biomarkers is described as a method of calculating an individual biological age.