Will you outlive your money?

Retirement used to last less than 20 years on average for Americans, but new projections are forecasting a much lengthier time period—up to 30 years for some Americans.

With the expanded time frame, the aging population will need to adjust their long-term financial plans accordingly so it can continue to fund housing and health care costs.The increase is attributed to longer life expectancy along with some seniors’ decision to enter retirement in their early 60s.

“Now we have more of a 30-year retirement period we are looking at,” said Shawn Britt of Nationwide. “People are living longer and there was a time that we projected a 20-year retirement period where people would retire at 65, the husband would die by 85. Most Americans are now retiring at 62.”

The 30-year retirement period shows a sizable increase from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2000 average retirement period of 18.7 years.

Because of the rise in number of years spent in retirement could also mean an increase in the amount of costs seniors acquire, it is important for those in the industry to plan for this new, longer retirement.

“As people age into their 80s, it increases the amount of money they need to survive,” said Britt. “This isn’t something people are aware of. The aging of America really has an impact on how we have to plan.”

Today, when couples reach age 65, there is a 50% chance one spouse will live to age 92 and a 25% chance one spouse will live to age 97, Britt says, citing research from Senior Capital Services.

While life expectancy for both men and women has increased, women have a longer life expectancy than men, and should be realize they will most likely face greater costs than their husband, according to Britt.

It’s important that people understand what they’re really facing. They need to understand that women are going to live longer than men, and their health care costs will be more. 

Can you avoid developing osteoarthritis?

Nearly 27 million Americans have osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis. And while some of the risk factors for this condition can't be changed — for example, your age, sex, and genetic makeup — you can control others.

Osteoarthritis Risk Factors:

• Age - is the number one risk factor for getting osteoarthritis. Research shows that, in younger people, cartilage in joints is stimulated to grow thicker and stronger with use, but with age, that ability is lost. The tendons and muscles that support your joints also weaken with age, which increases wear and tear on the joints over time. Osteoarthritis is rarely diagnosed in people under the age of 40, and is commonly diagnosed in people over the age of 60.
• Sex - if you are female, your chances of getting osteoarthritis are higher. Women are at higher risk for osteoarthritis in all joints, and this increased risk begins at around the age of 60. Researchers suspect this is partly due to the hormonal changes associated with menopause, though this risk factor is not yet completely understood.
• Genes - you are born with are believed to play a significant role in hip and hand osteoarthritis, where heredity is involved in about 50 percent of osteoarthritis cases. Osteoarthritis of the knee is less often inherited, probably less than 30 percent of the time. People who are born with certain types of knee abnormalities, have a very high risk of getting osteoarthritis.
• Researchers are studying biomarkers, substances in the blood of people with osteoarthritis that can be found on a blood test and serve as an early warning sign that the person may develop osteoarthritis. This way, you can work with your doctor to start treating your osteoarthritis at an earlier stage.
• Weight - how much you weigh is the biggest controllable risk factor for osteoarthritis. "Being overweight makes joint pain of all sorts much harder to cope with and may aggravate wear in knee joints," warns Edwards. Carrying too much weight is generally worse for people with knee arthritis than with hip arthritis, and worse for women than for men. Being just 10 pounds overweight will increase the stress on your knees with every step you take. Women who are overweight have four times the risk of osteoarthritis as women who are of normal weight.
• Damage - to the ligaments that support your joints causes the joints to be less protected from stress. A broken bone can change the structure of a joint and lead to abnormal stress. Someone who has already had a joint injury should avoid strain through strenuous exercise, which can further aggravate the problem. Certain diseases can cause joint damage that can increase the risk for osteoarthritis. These include joint infections, gout, rheumatoid arthritis, and Paget's disease.

Certain occupations or activities in which the joint is stressed repeatedly over a long time can also be risk factors for osteoarthritis. Farmers, for instance, have a high risk of hip osteoarthritis, while miners have a high risk of knee and spine osteoarthritis. A recent study also found that military personnel are at higher risk of osteoarthritis, especially those serving in the Army — who must meet high physical demands on a regular basis.

The bottom line: As with most diseases, prevention and early treatment offer the best chance of success against osteoarthritis. Get your weight down to a normal range through diet and exercises that are right for you.

Trouble on the horizon for LTC...

Low interest rates and policyholders' unwillingness to drop coverage are two of the key reasons the long-term care insurance market is in trouble, an expert recently asserted. Long-term care insurance carriers used to operate under the assumption that a reliable number of policyholders would drop their coverage before they reaped their claim, Howard Gleckman, a journalist and Urban Institute fellow, writes in Forbes magazine. But as interest rates plunged in the economic downturn, more policyholders have not cashed in. Additionally, not enough consumers are buying the policies, he says.

In this environment, LTC insurance carriers have had to either exit the market or increase premiums substantially. Genworth increased premiums this year and decreased product offerings, while Prudential has decided to offer only group long-term care policies.

“Overall, though, the decline of the private LTC market is a huge problem, especially since it is coming just as Washington is seeking ways to reduce Medicaid, the most important payer of long-term care costs,” Gleckman wrote.

An aspirin a day may keep cancer at bay...

People who take a low-dose aspirin daily may not only be helping their hearts, but also reducing their odds of dying from cancer, according to American Cancer Society researchers.

The lower risk of dying from cancer associated with aspirin, however, may not be as great as previously thought, say the authors of the large new study.

And aspirin's possible side effects -- notably the higher risk of bleeding episodes -- need to be taken into account when considering its use, they added.

"Expert committees that develop clinical guidelines will consider the totality of evidence about aspirin's risks and benefits when guidelines for aspirin use are next updated," said lead researcher Eric Jacobs, the society's strategic director of pharmaco-epidemiology.

Jacobs said, until there are new guidelines, he doesn't recommend taking aspirin for cancer prevention.

"Although recent evidence about aspirin use and cancer is encouraging, it is still premature to recommend people start taking aspirin specifically to prevent cancer," he said.

Even low-dose aspirin can substantially increase the risk of serious gastrointestinal bleeding, Jacobs pointed out.

"Decisions about aspirin use should be made by balancing the risks against the benefits in the context of each individual's medical history. Any decision about daily aspirin use should be made only in consultation with a health care professional," he added.

The study was published in the online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

To look at the potential effect of daily aspirin use on cancer deaths, Jacobs' team used data from the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort, part of a larger long-term study on the effects of lifestyle factors on mortality.

This study included more than 100,000 men and women without a history of cancer, some of whom were taking aspirin daily. Of the study participants, 5,138 eventually died from cancer.

Aspirin use was associated with an up to 16 percent lower risk of dying from cancer, which, however, was less than seen in another recent study, the researchers noted. In that analysis of randomized trials (where people were randomly assigned to either take aspirin or not take aspirin), aspirin use reduced cancer deaths by 37 percent during five years of follow-up and 15 percent during 10 years of follow-up, the authors noted in the report.

Nevertheless, "even a relatively modest benefit with respect to overall cancer mortality could still meaningfully influence the balances of risk and benefits of prophylactic [preventative] aspirin use," Jacobs' team concluded.

A limitation of the study is that it was an observational study, not a randomized trial. This could mean that the reduction in cancer deaths tied to aspirin use may be over- or under-estimated, the researchers noted.

Dr. John Baron, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, who authored an accompanying journal editorial, said, "It's a remarkable idea that something that's in medicine cabinets around the world, and has been around for more than a century, can prevent cancer."

However, Baron is not recommending that people start taking aspirin to cut their odds for malignancy.

Why it works against cancer isn't known, Baron said, and he noted that the effect of aspirin is seen over time. For example, aspirin might start preventing colon cancer after a person had taken it for about 10 years.

During that time, however, that person might have gastrointestinal or brain bleeding caused by aspirin. So those risks and benefits need to be balanced, he noted.

The question is no longer whether aspirin prevents cancer, according to Baron, but rather whether the risks associated with aspirin are overshadowed by its benefits, he suggested. "But even the most pessimistic study shows a meaningful reduction," he added.

But while the new study found an association between aspirin use and reduced cancer risk, because it is not a randomized, controlled trial -- the "gold standard" for research -- it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

Multiple chronic conditions increasing among the elderly

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds a dramatic increase in the number of older adults with two or more chronic conditions. The increase was seen across genders, race, and socioeconomic status.

The CDC studied the prevalence of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, current asthma, and kidney disease among adults age 65 and older over ten years. Researchers found that the number of seniors with two or more of the selected chronic conditions increased from 37.2 percent in 2000 to 45.3 percent in 2010. This change was particularly dramatic for men. In 2000, 39.2 percent of senior men had two or more chronic conditions. In 2010, this number jumped to 49 percent.

The most common combinations of chronic conditions were hypertension and diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, and hypertension and cancer. Seniors with these combinations of conditions were also likely to suffer from other chronic conditions. For example, of the 21.2 percent of seniors who suffered from hypertension and heart disease in 2010, 63.7 percent had at least one of the other seven chronic conditions as well.

Researchers believe these results are likely understating the prevalence of chronic conditions, since the study relied on respondent-reported information, not physician data, and many chronic conditions are undiagnosed. The report also emphasized the effects of this increase on our healthcare system. “Persons with multiple chronic conditions are more likely to be hospitalized, fill more prescriptions and have higher annual prescription drug costs, and have more physician visits. Out-of-pocket spending is higher for persons with multiple chronic conditions and has increased in recent years.

Read full report:

More evidence that poor dental hygiene leads to dementia

Researchers who followed close to 5,500 elderly people over an 18-year period, found those who reported brushing their teeth less than once a day were up to 65 percent more likely to develop dementia than those who brushed daily.

"Not only does the state of your mind predict what kind of oral health habits you practice, it may be that your oral health habits influence whether or not you get dementia," said Annlia Paganini-Hill, who led the study at the University of California.

Inflammation stoked by gum disease-related bacteria is implicated in a host of conditions including heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

And some studies have found that people with Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, have more gum disease-related bacteria in their brains than a person without Alzheimer's, said Paganini-Hill.

It's thought that gum disease bacteria might get into the brain causing inflammation and brain damage, she told Reuters Health.

So she and her team wanted to look at whether good dental health practices over the long term would predict better cognitive function in later life.

The researchers followed 5,468 residents of a Californian retirement community from 1992 to 2010. Most people in the study were white, well-educated, and relatively affluent. When the study began, participants ranged in age from 52 to 105, with an average age of 81.

All were free of dementia at the outset, when they answered questions about their dental health habits, the condition of their teeth and whether they wore dentures.

When the researchers followed-up 18 years later, they used interviews, medical records and in some cases death certificates to determine that 1,145 of the original group had been diagnosed with dementia.

Of 78 women who said they brushed their teeth less than once a day in 1992, 21 had dementia by 2010, or about one case per 3.7 women. In comparison, among those who brushed their teeth at least once a day, closer to one in every 4.5 women developed dementia. That translates to a 65-percent greater likelihood of dementia among those who brushed less than daily.

Among the men, the effect was less pronounced, with about one in six irregular brushers developing the disease - making them 22 percent more likely to have dementia than those who did brush daily. Statistically, however, the effect was so small it could have been due to chance, the researchers said.

There was a significant difference seen between men who had all, or at least most, of their teeth, or who wore dentures, and those who didn't - the latter group were almost twice as likely to develop dementia.

That effect was not seen in women, though.

Paginini-Hill could only speculate on the reasons for the different outcomes among men and women. Perhaps women wear their dentures more often than men, and they visit the dentist more frequently, she suggested.

The new findings, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, cannot prove that poor dental health can cause dementia.

Neglecting one's teeth might be an early sign of vulnerability to dementia, for instance, or some other factor could be influencing both conditions.

Still, this report "is really the first to look at the effect of actions like brushing and flossing your teeth," said Dr. Amber Watts, who studies the causes of dementia at the University of Kansas and was not involved in the research.

The new study does have some limitations. Paganini-Hill and her team looked at behavior and tooth count as a kind of proxy for oral health and gum disease. They didn't carry out any dental exams so they couldn't determine if people had gum disease or not.

And tooth loss isn't always related to gum disease, Watts noted. Head injury and malnutrition are also important causes of tooth loss in adults, and any of those might increase risk for dementia, she said.

"I would be reluctant to draw the conclusion that brushing your teeth would definitely prevent you from getting Alzheimer's disease," Watts said.

Yet despite the limitations, Watts said the study is an important step toward understanding how behavior might be linked to dementia.

"It's nice if this relationship holds true as there's something people can do (to reduce their chances of developing dementia)," said Paganini-Hill. "First, practice good oral health habits to prevent tooth loss and oral diseases. And second, if you do lose your teeth, wear dentures."

Caregivers responsible for the bulk of elder abuse

A new study confirms that financial elder abuse has reached the point of epidemic,with 65% of more than 750 interviews with experts who work with older Americans revealing victims of investment fraud or financial exploitation.

Of those who commit elder financial fraud, family members and caregivers are among the most common offenders, followed by strangers.

“Our new survey shows that financial swindles targeting older Americans are a bigger problem today than ever before and that seniors need more help.” said Don Blandin, president and CEO, Investor Protection Trust. “…Of course, there is no ‘silver bullet’ that will end the financial abuse of America’s seniors. Putting a major dent in the problem will require new and innovative collaborative efforts by many different experts and organizations, both public and private.”

Education is seen as the No. 1 way to combat the problem, through counseling or personal finance management programs tailored to the needs of older Americans. These programs are most effectively delivered through local professionals, protective service workers, law enforcement agencies and health care professionals, as well as senior centers, the study finds.

The magnitude of the problem and lack of effective ways to identify elder financial abuse has led it to become a health issue in addition to a national concern, says Dr. Mark Lachs, Director of Geriatrics, New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System.

“Elder financial abuse is not only about financial exploitation: It is a major public health problem. When older Americans are financially exploited and there are no resources left for their care, these individuals effectively become wards of the state. In these cases, all Americans end up paying.

Read full study...