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Famliir Life
Gutman new lAG head
Gerontology conference in Vancouver is a success.
PAT JOHNSON REPORTER
As the baby boomer population ages, gerontology becomes an ever more important discipline. At this critical time, a Vancouver professor has taken the reins of the world's leading academic group on aging.
Dr. Gloria Gutman, who just presided over the International Association of Gerontology's GAG) 17th World Congress, has been named president of the global body for the next four years.
Gutman has been in the field of gerontology for 30 years, first in Alberta, then at the University of British Columbia. Twenty years ago, Gutman saw the growing need for advanced study in the field and convinced Simon Fraser University to set up a gerontology research centre, which opened in 1982. A year later, a teaching program began, allowing SFU to grant degrees in the study of aging. Since 1996, there has been a master's program in gerontology at the university and, she noted, graduates get snapped up by seemingly unlikely sources. Some grads are certainly selected by retirement homes, but real estate developers are using gerontologists to plan retirement communities and marketers want them to target advertising at a growing demographic.
The growing recognition of gerontology as an important field of study comes in part from what Gutman humorously refers to as "enlightened self-interest"; people are beginning to realize that their own lives wall some day be affected by developments in the field. Gutman said the next generation of older people will be different than those in the past. Baby boomers have no intention of sitting in rocking chairs, she said. "The boomers are going to go screaming into the night, because they want to grow old, but they don't want to be old," she said.
Of the just-completed World Congress, which ran July 1 to 6 in Vancouver, Gutman said she was happy the conference went off as she had hoped. She had several specific goals that guided her over nearly eight years of planning. She hoped, of course, for high-quality science, but she also sought a heightened degree of "cross-national dialogue." In all of the invited symposia, at least two countries were represented on each panel. .
As a Canadian academic, Gutman also wanted to draw the world's top thinkers in the field to Vancouver in order to showcase Ctmadian talent, which had.
so far been underappreciated. It worked, she said.
They won't take the Canadians for granted anymore," she said.
In all, 3,000 abstracts were submitted and a total of550 sessions were held at the conference. More than 4,000 delegates attended, with about one-quarter of those being from Canada.
Among the hot news coming out of the congress, Gutman said, were some studies indicating that too much emphasis can sometimes be put on genetic causes of longevity. For example, one presentation dealing with worms as a model indicated that even subjects which are genetically identical will die at different ages, indicating that an element of chance remains. Studies of human twins have shown similar phenomena. Other species show virtually no symptoms of aging, or very slowly emerging effects, said Gutman, citing turtles.
"They keep reproducing and they mature late and continue having babies," she said.
Gerontology takes on additional significance when one considers the rising life e:£pectancy rates. In the past, 75 was once considered old, but Gutman said that most seniors today feel little or no restrictions to their lifestyles until they are over 75. Even then, most people still have a decade of relatively carefree retirement.
"The major changes in terms of physical and mental health really take place after age 85," said Gutman. TRie bad news is, if you live to 85, your odds are fairly high of having a neurodegenerative disease."
However, she pointed out that it is a glass-half-full argument because, after 85, most people will not develop a neurodegenerative disease.
One of the notable facts about the congress was the high representation of Israeli scientists.
"It's a hot issue in Israel because they have a significant proportion of their population that is aging," she said. Many older people have come from other places, notably the former Soviet Union. This body of older immigrants puts added presstux; on the resources for the elderly, but it also provides a remarkable palette for gerontolo|jists. In a cross-national population like Israel's - and Canada's - there is an opportimity to analyze the old nature-versus-nurturc debate.
Gutman will preside over the LAG until the next conRress, in 2005 in Rio de Janeiro- □