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How is one elderly man able to live an active lifestyle, while another his age is overwhelmed by the effects of time? Researchers in LSU's new Life Course & Aging Studies Center are seeking the answer to this and many other questions.
According to some government projections, the number of U.S. residents over the age of 65 and older will rise to 70.3 million by the year 2030, more than twice their number in 2000. Similar growth is predicted for Louisiana, with the state's 65-and-older population almost doubling by 2025. With these growing numbers comes a need to better understand the aging process in all its aspects--physical, mental, and emotional--to ensure the "successful aging" of the population. That's why the diverse LSU faculty that make up the Life Course & Aging Studies Center are conducting major research projects on the aging process, from birth through the later years of life.
Katie Cherry, chair of LSU's Department of Psychology and a leader in the drive to form the center, is a specialist in cognitive aging, particularly memory and related processes in older adults. She is also one of the primary investigators in a major five-year study called the "Multidisciplinary Study of Longevity and Healthy Aging in the Louisiana Population" or, simply, the "Louisiana Healthy Aging Study." The study is supported by a $4.1 million Health Excellence Fund grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents and is under the direction of Dr. S. Michal Jazwinski of the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. The study began with Jazwinski, who has been involved in aging research for almost two decades. Jazwinski was concentrating on the role of genes in longevity and working with subjects in New Orleans when he realized that the issue needed to be examined from a variety of angles--molecular, physiological, psychological, and so on. That's when Cherry, LSU Kinesiology Associate Professor Robert Wood, LSU Biological Sciences Professor Mark Batzer and others involved in the center entered the picture. The study involves testing some 780 subjects over a five-year period, with 260 over the age of 90. Several tests will be conducted on participants at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, including blood, physical function tests, and cognitive measurements. "We're trying to find what characteristics have allowed these people to live so long," said Cherry. "We hope to find some aspects of their metabolism or lives that have predisposed them to live so long."
For instance, she said, Jill Suitor, a professor in LSU's Department of Sociology, has a grant in excess of $1 million from the National Institute on Aging to study parent-adult child relationships. This project, which is housed at LSU, is in collaboration with Dr. Karl Pillemer at Cornell University. In addition, Pam Monroe, Carville Professor of Human Ecology and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at LSU, is studying young and middle-age women living in poverty and their children. She is concentrating on women and children in rural areas and, with the aid of several grants, examining how social policies--particularly welfare reform - are affecting them across the life span. Monroe has been collecting data on women around the state since 1996 and worked with the state Department of Social Services on a welfare evaluation project. Contact Rob Anderson | LSU
University Relations Related Links Life Course & Aging Studies Center |
The Life Course & Aging Studies Center is a multi-disciplinary effort of faculty from a number of LSU departments and campuses. Though only recently officially established, the effort to create the center and the research being conducted by its members have been going on for some time. 
Despite the massive scope and importance of the Louisiana Healthy Aging Study, Cherry and the others are quick to point out that the center is involved in a great deal of additional research. 
