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Date: Sat Jan 3 12:20:09 2009

Copyright 2009 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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¶

¶

By MARTHA IRVINE

AP National Writer

¶ CHICAGO (AP) _ This time, when the lanky young man stepped into the pool, his chest was tight. His muscles ached. He pushed off to take his first strokes, and grimaced at the pain.

¶ That he was back in the pool just six weeks after open heart surgery was quite remarkable, but he was still a bit crestfallen. He could only swim a few hundred yards.

¶ Danny Thrall had always taken his abilities for granted. He was good at swimming. It was a huge part of his identity and, as his mother would say, something that gave structure to a little boy who was full of energy and easily distracted.

¶ In his heart, he was a swimmer. But his heart betrayed him.

¶ And so, for a while, he was a swimmer who could not swim. Instead, he was a young athlete who, despite years of training and a 6-foot, 8-inch frame that towers over most of his competitors, had to come to terms with his own fragility.

¶ ___

¶ The college sophomore called his mother in September. "Mom," he said, "my blood pressure's high, and they're not letting me practice."

¶ He had just transferred to Fordham University in New York to take his shot at swimming on a Division I team. A routine physical turned up slightly, but consistently, high blood pressure. The team doctor hoped it wasn't serious, but it was enough to keep Thrall out of the pool.

¶ He went to a cardiologist for tests, who sent him to more specialists for even more tests.

¶ "At first, this just seemed like a major inconvenience to me. I was just being impatient about it and getting edgy," he says. "I thought this was some routine thing where they were going to go through everything and say, 'Oh, you were fine.'"

¶ But he wasn't.

¶ The tests showed that his aorta was greatly enlarged because it was overcompensating for a leaky valve. Surgery, his doctors said, would have to happen quickly _ and would require them to remove part of his aorta and the valve, and replace them with mechanical versions.

¶ Had he been allowed to practice, they said, he very well could have died. At the very least, he would have done irreparable damage to his heart.

¶ Stunned, he dropped out of school for the semester and flew home to Chicago for surgery.

¶ "To face your mortality at 19 years old ... ," his mother, Laura Thrall, now says, her voice trailing off. She tears up at the thought.

¶ This was not the first time she's worried about her son's survival. Nor is it the first time he's had heart surgery. He was just six months old when doctors repaired a narrowing of his aorta, and he doesn't remember it. But his mother recalls the angst she felt as she watched surgeons wheel her infant son away on a gurney.

¶ Throughout his childhood, he routinely saw cardiologists. But until these recent tests, his doctors had noted nothing more than some minor valve leakage.

¶ They saw no problem with his swimming, and so he swam. His relay team in high school set records, and he was named to one All-America team.

¶ "He was kind of a goofball his first year," says Dave Stephens, his coach at St. Ignatius College Prep, a private Jesuit school in Chicago. "But he realized he had to work hard to improve. He and his classmates were a pretty strong group, and they really pushed each other."

¶ Other swimmers would occasionally notice the scar on his back from the procedure he'd had as an infant. "Oh," he'd say matter-of-factly, "I had heart surgery when I was little." The faint scar stretched and lengthened a bit, as a teen, when he grew so tall.

¶ "Basically I forgot about that and took it for granted," he says. "I just never thought of it as a big deal."

¶ ___

¶ Now, with a new scar running several inches vertically along his sternum, his perspective has changed.

¶ "I see this every day when I wake up and go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. It's just right there staring at me," he says. "It's impossible to miss."

¶ He will take a blood thinner for the rest of his life and may, eventually, have to have the valve replaced. Sometimes, when it's quiet, he can hear the valve clicking inside his chest.

¶ As he listens to it, he sometimes thinks about what he wants to do with his life.

¶ "I'm definitely more appreciative," he says, "of everything."

¶ The cardiologists aren't sure he'll be able to swim competitively again. He is a sprinter and the workouts are taxing. But his surgeon thinks it's possible, especially with a repaired heart that pumps blood much more efficiently than it did before.

¶ "I think he'll be able to get back to it as long as he takes his time building himself up and allows his body to recover completely," says Dr. Jai Raman, Thrall's heart surgeon at the University of Chicago Medical Center. "It's amazing what the human body can do to heal itself."

¶ Thrall is quick to note that other elite athletes have had open heart surgery, too, among them NBA players Etan Thomas and Ronny Turiaf. Both have gone on to play again.

¶ Whether it's worth the risk is another question.

¶ But for Thrall, swimming is more than sport. As a child, his mom says, he struggled with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a learning disability. "Swimming," she says, "has been Dan's saving grace."

¶ It motivated him, for instance, to earn a 3.6 grade-point average at Lynn University in Florida his freshman year, so he could get into Fordham to swim.

¶ That discipline has continued in his recovery.

¶ He now trains in the pool nearly every day and has already seen a marked improvement in what he can do. In January, he will return to Fordham and hopes to practice with his teammates, even if he can't compete this season.

¶ His doctors will monitor him. And if his heart does well, he may be able to compete in his junior and senior years.

¶ "I just want to see how far I can push my body, in a sense _ to see how far I can take it," Thrall says. "I just feel like I have more."

¶ He likes to tell people he's like the Grinch from the Dr. Seuss Christmas tale, whose heart grows when he learns the true meaning of Christmas.

¶ "I think I know why my aorta dilated so much," he says with a wry smile. "I should've never given all the Whos down in Whoville their presents back."

¶ Truth is, the first thing he told his parents when he woke up from the surgery is that he didn't want any presents for his 20th birthday, little more than a month after the October procedure.

¶ "This was an awesome present. Don't get me anything. I'm completely fine," he told them. Instead, he and his dad hand-delivered a Wii game system to the children's hospital at the University of Chicago (though he wouldn't want anyone to know that).

¶ He also refused to give his mom any ideas for Christmas gifts.

¶ "I'm just really happy to be alive," he says. "And that is enough."

¶ ___

¶ On the Net:

¶ ___

¶ Martha Irvine is an AP national writer. She can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org or via http://myspace.com/irvineap

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Date: Mon Dec 15 14:41:06 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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By MARTHA IRVINE

AP National Writer

¶ CHICAGO (AP) _ The girl from Texas didn't bring a warm coat with her. But to hear Kimberly Bratton tell it, winter in Chicago isn't as bad as people say.

¶ Never mind that it's only December. She is an optimist, an adventurer _ one who picked up and moved to a city where she knew no one, with no job, in the middle of a recession.

¶ "I always wanted to be that girl who moved away and saw what was out there ... the girl working in the big city," says Bratton, who graduated from the University of Texas this summer.

¶ So far, it's meant taking office temp jobs and lining up babysitting gigs while she networks, sends applications and schedules the occasional interview. She's looking for a job in advertising and public relations, a field that is usually bustling in Chicago.

¶ But many agencies, she's finding, aren't even taking interns right now.

¶ "They always say, 'Check back, check back. We don't have anything right now. Check back,'" says Bratton, who's 22.

¶ It's been like that since September, when she and her parents packed a U-Haul with her belongings _ among them, a bed, a dresser, a desk. They headed north from the family's home in Bedford, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, to the third-floor flat Bratton rented with roommates she found in an online ad.

¶ It was all part of her plan to move to the city she fell in love with her sophomore year of college, shortly after she chose her major and her career. She'd planned to finish school in December, but was so ready to get here, she crammed in her remaining classes over the summer and graduated in August.

¶ For starter cash, her parents let her keep the remainder of the college fund she would have spent this semester.

¶ But after that, they said, she was on her own.

¶ "So be prepared to do whatever it takes," said her father, Stan Bratton, an insurance broker.

¶ He recalls how, when he graduated from college, he "never saw another dime" from his parents. And while he and his wife are willing to be a safety net for their daughter, they also want her to learn to make it on her own.

¶ "I think that's the reality of trying to budget around your own money instead of budgeting around your parents' money," he says.

¶ It's meant that Bratton had to spend her first Thanksgiving away from her family. It's also meant living in a sunny but sparsely furnished apartment, with most of her belongings tucked into a tiny bedroom with no closet (she keeps her clothes in a wardrobe in the dining room, near the foosball table).

¶ But still, there's the positive spin. "Our landlord tells us this is his prettiest apartment," Bratton says, noting that she and her roommates will soon hang artwork on their currently barren walls.

¶ This is home, she says, firmly. This is where she wants to be.

¶ Yes, some people have questioned her decision to move to the city without a job, though others in the field tell her it's the only way to break into Chicago's competitive PR and advertising market.

¶ Some have shared that it took them at least six months to find a job in the field. In this current economy, it's anyone's guess how long it could take.

¶ Though money has gotten tighter _ and the temp jobs have been slow to come in _ Bratton's parents have become constant cheerleaders for the young woman who was a cheerleader herself all through middle and high school.

¶ "Keep with it. Keep with it," they tell her. "You're fine."

¶ Still, the cold reality of the job market creeps in sometimes, recently, for instance, when she had a second interview for a job she really wanted, but didn't get.

¶ "I'm kind of freaking out. Maybe I'm not fine," Bratton recalls telling her parents over the phone.

¶ "Sometimes," she says, "maybe I want them to get a little more worried."

¶ Recently, she asked the parents who taught her to pay off her credit card balance what would happen if she didn't do that. She's also bracing herself to ask them for money, though she knows it'd be just a loan.

¶ "I will definitely have to pay my parents back _ oh yeah, ohhhh yeah," she says, nodding.

¶ She doesn't want to have to ask them. But it's also a huge relief to know they always "have her back," something her father _ her fellow optimist in the family _ says is true.

¶ "We'd always make sure she doesn't end up sleeping on the street, but we're going to help her make some tough decisions," he says. "It's kind of cold turkey, but it's not really cold turkey."

¶ Bratton has found other sources of moral support, too, including a college friend's dad, who works in PR, as well as her two roommates, both students and already trusted friends. And she's tapped into the local chapter of "Texas Exes" and the fellow Texas grads who often gather at the same local watering hole.

¶ It helps ease the stress.

¶ She also half jokes that, when she goes home to Texas for Christmas, it'll be a little vacation from having to spend money. Once there, she'll visit with her parents and her brother, who lives in Thailand _ and regroup.

¶ Then she'll come back and start all over again, with a vow to make it through the cold winter, and the cold economy.

¶ She'll remind herself how lucky she feels to be here; how her $600 share of the rent in Chicago is less than she was paying in Austin; and how glad she is to not be a student anymore.

¶ "OK, yes, I can do this," she'll tell herself, again. "I need to do this."

¶ The eternal optimist also will probably break down and get that warm winter coat.

¶ ___

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Date: Sun Dec 7 14:10:30 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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By MARTHA IRVINE

AP National Writer

¶ It's a tough economy out there, even for a kid. And many parents are wondering how to broach the subject.

¶ Should they shield their children from the hard times and spend like there's no tomorrow? Or is it better to share the reality that more families _ often their own _ simply can't have it all, even at Christmas? It can be a real dilemma.

¶ "I've explained the situation, and I've also avoided it," says Mimi Chacin, a mom and business owner in Miami whose husband lost his job in advertising. The family is doing OK. And in fact, the children's cooking classes Chacin teaches have remained full so far _ a sign, she says, that many parents are still willing to spend on some extras for their kids.

¶ But in their own household, she and her husband are still having to cut back _ on travel during the holidays, for instance.

¶ "I find myself not wanting to put them under that stress, but also sitting down and explaining that things aren't easy for anybody right now," Chacin says of her sons, ages 9 and 4.

¶ Rita Cortese, who owns a Plato's Closet store, part of a chain of teen-oriented secondhand clothing shops, has been hearing more of these conversations among parents and their children in recent months, especially over bigger-ticket purchases. While most items in the store are in the $5 to $7 range, a pair of designer jeans could be $25, for instance.

¶ "The parents will say, 'You can't have the jeans and the sweater. Pick one,'" says Cortese, whose store is in Deptford, N.J., just outside Philadelphia.

¶ Now in her second year of business, Cortese chose the store because she thought it'd be fairly recession-proof _ and, so far, it's doing relatively well. This year, she says customers are more likely to spend a total of $75, rather than the $150 to $200 they were spending last year. But she's also had many more customers who come in search of "gently used" clothing to save money. And more teens are bringing in clothing to trade for a discount.

¶ Emily Collings, an 18-year-old college freshman from Washington Township, N.J., who works at the store, says she's noticed friends spending less money on themselves and others, and even making gifts for the holidays.

¶ She lives at home and also has had more frank conversations about money with her parents.

¶ "We always talk about it," Collings says. "And they've told me that it's not going to be so easy for me to say, 'Mom, I'm going out tonight. Can I have $20?'"

¶ Retailers that focus on teens and children, among them Abercrombie & Fitch Co., American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and The Children's Place, all reported a drop in sales in November compared with the same month last year. Department stores also reported lower sales for the month, though retailer Bon-Ton Stores Inc. said children's wear was among its strongest performers.

¶ For that reason, some retailers are stocking up this season on items for teens and children _ the idea being that, if parents are going to spend money, it'll be on their kids.

¶ J.C. Penney Co., for instance, is putting a special focus on their juniors department, says John Tighe, a company vice president who oversees that portion of the business.

¶ "We consider the teen an influencer within the family," Tighe says, referring to market research that has shown that teens _ at least in better times _ have been able to persuade their parents to make purchases of all kind, from clothing to computers and TVs.

¶ Indeed, some businesses that provide goods and services for children report that they're doing relatively well _ and some have even seen an increase in profits.

¶ Lisa Jacobson, the chief executive of Inspirica, a tutoring company that caters to wealthier families, says she was surprised when she found that September was her best month financially in 25 years of business.

¶ "It seemed very odd to me," she says. But when she spoke to parents, she found that, in this economy, many of them were more focused than ever on their children doing well in school.

¶ "I really do think that, overall, it's the last thing people drop," she says of the money parents spend on their children.

¶ At BabyEarth, a Texas-based baby products retailer that focuses on higher-end, eco-friendly products, officials say they've seen a slowdown in sales growth in recent months, but that sales are still increasing.

¶ "Even in this economy, parents are still shelling out $900 on Orbit Strollers, $12 for spiffy BPA-free glass bottles, $395 on organic crib bedding and even $300 for organic crib mattresses," says Cathy Hale, a spokeswoman for the company.

¶ She's a parent with two young children, too, and says that _ while her family is eating in more, traveling less and "enjoying the things we've got" _ she's also much more likely to do without things for herself than her children. She thinks many parents feel the same way.

¶ "Eventually, they will grow up and face the same stress and challenges we all face," Hale says. "What's wrong with spoiling them now? These sweet-spirited innocent years are so fleeting."

¶ It does depend on the age of the child, certainly, says Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a professor of marketing and consumer behavior at Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

¶ But especially as children get older, she thinks it's important for parents to talk openly about what their families can and can't afford _ and to make it a life lesson, of sorts.

¶ "Money is not the best way to show love to children," Strahilevitz says. "So if you need to cut back on spending, think about other non-monetary ways to make the holidays special for you and your family."

¶ Darren Wallis, a dad in Webster Groves, Mo., suburban St. Louis, says he and his wife have tried to do that with their sons, ages 10, 8 and 4, even though the family is financially stable right now.

¶ In recent weeks, his older boys have been going through advertising circulars and making their holiday wish lists. "They do go with that everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach," says Wallis, who works in agribusiness.

¶ But when Wallis asked his boys to include prices and total them up, even his older son was a bit shocked that his wish list came to $904.

¶ Wallis and his wife decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about what that money could buy _ "Here's how many tanks of gas that would be. Here's how many trips to the grocery store."

¶ "We wanted them to have some real-world practicality," Wallis says. (And no, he won't be buying everything on the list.)

¶ They've also tried to get their boys to focus on people who have less than they do. And it appears to be working, he says, evidenced during a recent food drive for their Boy Scout troop.

¶ Without prompting, they told their parents: "Let's give more this year."

¶ ___

¶ On the Net:

¶ Chacin's site: http://www.thebuddingcook.com

¶ Plato's Closet: http://www.platoscloset.com/

¶ ___

¶ Martha Irvine is an AP national writer. She can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org or via http://myspace.com/irvineap

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Date: Sat Dec 6 12:20:08 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Interactive graphic: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/staying_young/

By MARTHA IRVINE and LINDSEY TANNER

Associated Press Writers

¶ LAS VEGAS (AP) _ It's one of those photos that make you do a double-take.

¶ Dr. Jeffry Life stands in jeans, his shirt off. His face is that of a distinguished-looking grandpa; his head is balding, and what hair there is is white.

¶ But his 69-year-old body looks like it belongs to a muscle-bound 30-year-old.

¶ The photo regularly runs in ads for the Cenegenics Medical Institute, a Las Vegas-based clinic that specializes in "age management," a growing field in a society obsessed with staying young. Life, who swears that's his real last name, also keeps a framed copy of the photo on his office wall at Cenegenics.

¶ "He's the man!" patient Ed Detwiler says teasingly, pointing to the photo of the doctor who, in many ways, has become his role model.

¶ Detwiler, 47, has been Life's patient for more than three years. In that time, he has adopted the regimen that his doctor also follows _ drastically changing his exercise and eating habits and injecting himself each day with human growth hormone. He also receives weekly testosterone injections.

¶ He does it because it makes him feel better, more energetic, clear-minded.

¶ He does it because he wants to live a long, healthy life.

¶ "If I were stooped over and bedridden, what kind of quality of life is that?" asks Detwiler, a real estate developer in suburban Las Vegas who says he's doing this, in part, for his wife, who is nine years younger. "If I can get out and be active and travel and see the world and be able to make a difference in other people's lives, then yes, I would want to have as long an existence as possible."

¶ It is a common sentiment in a society where many of us strive to look and feel decades younger _ to prove to ourselves and the world that we are healthier and more vital than our parents were at our age. We've all heard it: 60 is the new 50, the new 40 and so on.

¶ But often, we need a little help. Sometimes, a lot of help.

¶ As the baby boomers march toward retirement, Botox, wrinkle fillers and hormones of various kinds have become big business. Medco's latest drug trend report shows, for instance, that human growth hormone use grew almost 6 percent in 2007.

¶ The list for age-defying tactics is endless. Want six-pack abs? There's a surgical procedure to create fake ones. How about drastically cutting your calorie intake to slow the aging process? There's a group of die-hards that swears by it.

¶ This search for eternal youthfulness certainly isn't new. "In 1,500 B.C. people were ingesting tiger gonads to rejuvenate them," says Dr. Gene Cohen, a George Washington University expert on aging.

¶ But for a generation of adults who've been weaned on the modern marketing message _ that for a price, you can have it all _ the quest is taking on a new urgency.

¶ There is, of course, much to be said for taking good care of yourself. Eating healthy and exercising your body and your brain regularly are considered tried-and-true tactics for staying young. Protecting yourself from harmful sun rays is another. Even flossing teeth is a habit that, according to research on people who live to 100, might extend life.

¶ But that's generally where the consensus ends.

¶ Many in mainstream medicine and elsewhere worry that we're becoming too focused on treatments with short-term benefits that have potentially dangerous side effects and scant, if any, evidence that they'll help in the long run. In doing so, they wonder if some people are actually jeopardizing their chance at a long, healthy life, both physically and emotionally.

¶ "The quest to live forever and the desire to avoid diseases and not suffer" is understandable, says S. Jay Olshansky, a public health professor and longevity researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

¶ But it can make people vulnerable to far-fetched and potentially dangerous scams, he said, with some of the more bizarre including fetal cell injections, inhaling radon gas, even cutting off testicles, an ancient practice meant to reduce overexposure to reproductive hormones.

¶ "There's a large industry of people trying to sell to people what doesn't yet exist and they're making gobs of money doing it _ much to the dismay of those of us who are vigilant about protecting public health," he says.

¶ There also are concerns that this obsession is sending the wrong message to younger generations.

¶ Surveys from cosmetic surgery trade groups suggest that sizable numbers of people, even in their 20s, are getting cosmetic procedures.

¶ And a fall 2007 survey from TRU, a research firm that specializes in the teenage demographic, found that a quarter of young people, 12 to 19 _ and a third of girls in that age group _ are interested in having cosmetic surgery to improve their appearance.

¶ Michael Wood, vice president and director of syndicated research at TRU, was a bit startled by the results.

¶ "There's no doubt that the celebration of youth and looking younger has certainly accelerated in the last 10 years, five years even," Wood says. "And this is a generation that's growing up with that at a very young age."

¶ The effect has been palpable, says Neil Howe, a respected generational expert who has written extensively about "millennials," young people who are coming of age in this century.

¶ "I guess even young isn't enough anymore," Howe says. "It's got to be 'perfect' young."

¶ Alex Sabbag, a 23-year-old Chicagoan, has felt the pressure, both self-imposed and societal.

¶ "I'll age until I'm 25. Then I'm over it," she said to co-workers during a lunchroom conversation that turned to the topic of Botox.

¶ She was only partly serious. But she says she's also accepted that we live in a society where being well put-together and youthful gives you status.

¶ "We all buy into it," Sabbag says. And plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures are part of it.

¶ She's never had anything done, though wouldn't rule it out in the future. She also vividly recalls how her mother left home for several days, when Sabbag was in elementary school, and returned after having a facelift.

¶ "I think it gives women and men alike worlds of confidence that ultimately makes them better people," Sabbag says. "Yes, it is a vain practice ... but I think there comes a point for people when hard work isn't enough to kick the last bit of belly fat or gravity has become entirely too unbeatable, and so a little nip-tuck of the forehead needs to happen."

¶ Detwiler, Life's patient at Cenegenics, is not looking for the appearance of youth. He's looking to extend his youthfulness, and his life.

¶ He knows about human growth hormone and its controversies in sports. But this, he and his doctor insist, is different. While it is illegal for these kinds of hormones to be dispensed for anti-aging purposes, he takes relatively low doses prescribed for "hormone deficiency." The idea is to bring his levels back up to those of a young man in his 20s.

¶ "My friends say, 'Oh, Ed's on steroids,'" says Detwiler, who has watched as muscle has replaced fat on his belly and elsewhere. "No, I'm not. Look at me. Do I look like I'm on steroids?"

¶ He holds out his arms to indicate that his body is fit-looking, but not monstrous. "I'm not. I'm on hormone therapy," he says of a regimen that costs him more than $1,000 a month.

¶ Besides human growth hormone, testosterone, and an adrenal hormone known as DHEA, his diet now largely consists of things like hard-boiled eggs, fruits, nuts, Greek yogurt, salads and palm-sized pieces of fish, chicken or low-fat beef. He also exercises regularly, alternating between intense cardio workouts and weight-resistance training.

¶ "I can't tell you in words how great I feel," says the man who used to crack open a Pepsi to get him through the day.

¶ For a group known as the Calorie Restriction Society, youthfulness isn't found in hormones. It's reducing food intake to, in some cases, near-starvation levels.

¶ But the claims are much the same _ "lots of energy" and feeling "sharp," says Brian Delaney, a 45-year-old California-born writer now living in Sweden. He's the president of the group that claims about 2,000 members worldwide and many more followers who use the method in hopes of markedly increasing their longevity.

¶ By cutting daily calories to about 1,900, roughly half the recommended amount for someone his height and age, and exercising every day, Delaney has shrunk himself to about 140 pounds. He says his blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels have improved dramatically.

¶ At 5 foot 11, he admits he's "scrawny," which he calls the main drawback.

¶ Hunger and wearing extra clothes to stay warm _ because of little body fat or, he claims, an effect of slowed aging _ are barely annoyances for Delaney.

¶ He says he eats sensibly, replacing junk food with lots of fruits and vegetables, no meat, and two meals daily _ no lunch. Breakfast is often "a hearty bowl" of granola, with fruit, nuts and soy milk; while dinner could be fish, rice, beans, a large salad and red wine.

¶ Other than "tons of fine wrinkles" he blames on too much sun as a kid, Delaney says in most respects, "I look much younger" than 45.

¶ It is a bragging right many strive for.

¶ "When we were younger, we'd talk about someone who was 60 and that was old. And now my gym is full of women over 60 and they look phenomenal," says Renee Young, a 48-year-old businesswoman in New Rochelle, N.Y. "They don't want to be categorized as old."

¶ But there's more to it than that. Youthfulness, she says frankly, is also a means of survival in the business world, including in her line of work, public relations.

¶ "It feels like you're put out to pasture. No one wants to feel that how they look means that their ability to do anything is decreased," Young says. "If you have a younger look, you feel healthier. You feel that you're still in the game."

¶ In the back of her mind is the fact that her own mother died when she was only 56.

¶ So five or six mornings a week, even when she'd rather pull the covers over her head, Young gets up and puts in two hours at the gym.

¶ That's more than double the hour or so a day generally recommended for optimal health. And still, for her, that wasn't enough. She recently spent nearly $20,000 on a tummy tuck because, as she puts it, no number of abdominal crunches was going to make her as trim as she wanted to be.

¶ The result has been a makeover for her entire sense of self, she says.

¶ "I made a commitment this summer. If I was going to go through all this surgery, then it was going to have to be part of a complete program," says Young, who's also getting more rest and eating healthier.

¶ "I can definitely see the result." She, too, says she has not felt this good in years.

¶ Using a cosmetic procedure as a motivator is worthwhile, and lucrative, to say the least, says Dr. Jonathan Lippitz. He's an emergency room physician in suburban Chicago who does cosmetic procedures, such as Botox and skin fillers, in a separate practice.

¶ But it's also a "very slippery slope," with patients sometimes willing to take more risk than they should and some doctors who'll accommodate.

¶ "They'll always find somebody willing to do it," he says.

¶ In his own practice, he says he finds himself continually walking a fine line in deciding which procedures he'll do _ and which ones he won't.

¶ "We all say, 'I want my hair different. I want my eyes different,'" Lippitz says. "This idea of being perfect is a problem, though, because it's not reality.

¶ "I have people coming in and saying 'I want these lips.' I say, 'You can't have these lips.'

¶ "I say, 'We'll work with what you have.'"

¶ But what if what they have is just fine? These are the sorts of questions that trouble Dr. Michael Morgan, a dentist who does cosmetic work in another Chicago suburb.

¶ He's been seeing more young, female clients walking through his doors. And even his own 13-year-old daughter asked if he would whiten her teeth, something he didn't think she needed. Nor did he consider it safe for her young teeth or "age appropriate."

¶ "There's a consciousness about it. They are much more concerned with the appearance of their face. But there's also a social pressure," he says of the younger generation for whom he'll do the most conservative procedures, but no more.

¶ He sounds a little sad when he talks about it.

¶ "There's nothing wrong with wanting to look better. We want to look young. We want to look great," he says. "But part of that feeling has to come from within."

¶ For those going to even greater lengths to try to keep aging _ and ultimately death _ at bay, there also are no guarantees.

¶ Calorie restriction guru Dr. Roy Walford succumbed to complications from Lou Gehrig's disease at age 79, closer to the average than the "extraordinarily long life" his followers talk about on their Web site.

¶ Meanwhile, Dr. Alan Mintz, founder of Cenegenics, died at the relatively young age of 69 due to complications during a brain biopsy.

¶ Some research has suggested that human growth hormone injections can cause cancer. They've also been linked with nerve pain, elevated cholesterol and increased risks for diabetes.

¶ Even so, Life, now the chief medical officer at Cenegenics, remains steadfast. Among other things, he points to studies that suggest that human growth hormone in low doses poses no cancer risk if there is no preexisting cancer.

¶ "Within the next 10 years, maybe less, this is going to be thought of as mainstream medicine _ preventing disease, slowing the aging process down, preventing people from losing their ability to take care of themselves when they get older and ending up in nursing homes," Life says. "This is really the cutting edge of medicine."

¶ Detwiler is betting on that.

¶ "There are those who might think I'm cheating God's way. I don't know," he says. "But I don't want to regress. Why should I?"

¶ He says his overall body fat has dropped from nearly 17 percent to less than 10 percent. He can't remember the last time he had a cold or the flu. And he says he's had the stamina to work long hours, putting him on pace to earn more than a million dollars this year.

¶ That's what he knows now. The future, he says, will be anyone's guess.

¶ "People might ask, 'Hey, what's happened to these people? Was it cutting edge? Or did it cut it short?'" he says, as he walks into a gym for another workout.

¶ "I think only time will tell."

¶ ___

¶ On the Net:

¶ Cenegenics: http://www.cenegenics.com

¶ Calorie Restriction Society: http://www.calorierestriction.org

¶ Life Expectency Calculator: http://www.livingto100.com/

¶ National Institute on Aging: http://www.nia.nih.gov/

¶ ____

¶ Martha Irvine is an AP national writer. Lindsey Tanner is an AP medical writer. They can be reached via mirvine(at)ap.org or http://myspace.com/irvineap

Date: Sun Nov 9 14:32:53 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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By MARTHA IRVINE

AP National Writer

¶ CHICAGO (AP) _ They missed classes, skipped sleep and parties. Thousands spent countless hours instead knocking on doors to make a case for Barack Obama, the man who would be elected the next president of the United States. And many more young Obama supporters stood in line for hours to vote, some for the first time.

¶ Tobin Van Ostern, a senior at George Washington University, knew it was all worth it as he and hundreds of other students raced down to the White House, cheering and chanting after their candidate's win Tuesday night.

¶ "It was one of the most incredible feelings I have ever felt," said Van Ostern, the national co-director of Students for Barack Obama. "People were all so hopeful for the future."

¶ The night was a huge moment for Obama, of course. But some say it also was a defining moment for a generation of youth who played a key role in electing him. Exit polls show that 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Obama by a more than 2-1 margin, boosted by particularly strong support from young African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans.

¶ In his speech at Chicago's Grant Park on Election Night, the president-elect called it a rejection of "the myth of their generation's apathy."

¶ Eric Greenberg, who studies this group, known as Echo Boomers, Generation Y or Millennials, goes as far as calling it a "changing of the guard, a new political epoch, a youth movement."

¶ "They believe the solution starts with themselves, and we just saw it play out in Technicolor on Election Night," says Greenberg, author of "Generation We: How Millennial Youth Are Taking Over America and Changing Our World Forever."

¶ That attitude, he and others say, was an ideal match for a candidate whose catch phrase is "Yes We Can."

¶ AP exit polls show people under 30 comprised 18 percent of those who voted in Tuesday's election, essentially the same as their 17 percent share in 2000 and 2004. But Obama's 66-31 advantage over John McCain among voters age 18-29 was easily the biggest margin for a Democrat in presidential exit polls going back to 1972.

¶ As a racially and ethnically diverse generation, young people had an appreciation for a candidate of mixed race that their elders sometimes did not. And they came of age amid the horrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the aftermath.

¶ So _ with the economy tanking this year, an ongoing war in Iraq, and global warming looming _ they were more than ready for Obama's "call to action," says Smita Reddy, a 28-year-old New Yorker whose parents grew up in India and now live in Pennsylvania.

¶ Reddy voted for Kerry for president in 2004, when 18- to 29-year-old voters were the only age group with a majority supporting the Massachusetts senator.

¶ This time, exit polls shows that voters older than 60 _ generally thought of as a voting bloc that sets the tone in an election _ were the only age bracket with a majority of votes for McCain.

¶ Suddenly, it was young voters who were leading their elders, not following, as they have tended to do.

¶ "This election felt much more different. It was taking matters into our own hands to have a say," says Reddy, who also helped persuade her father to change his vote to from McCain to Obama days before the election.

¶ Their strong showing for Obama doesn't mean young people were always united on a candidate.

¶ In Arkansas, Oklahoma and West Virginia, for instance, exit polls show that young voters favored McCain by a fairly wide margin.

¶ But Molly Andolina, a political science professor at DePaul University, says there are early signs that Obama may bring young people together, something her students talked about in classes after the election.

¶ "Even students who did not vote for Obama said they felt a responsibility to 'try to help him out' and how we live in a democracy that isn't about 'government governing the people, but people taking responsibility,'" says Andolina, who researches the habits of young voters. "It is amazing to hear them talk in these terms."

¶ In many ways, they are echoing a sentiment of another young American president, John F. Kennedy _ asking what they can do for their country.

¶ Alexandra Thomas, a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Texas, says it's true that her generation wants to do more.

¶ She was inspired to travel to Louisiana to volunteer after Hurricane Katrina after she read Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father."

¶ "That's probably the biggest thing I've ever done, and (Obama) wasn't even a future president at that point," says Thomas, who is studying documentary film making.

¶ The question now that Obama has won, says Greenberg, is: "How do they take this momentum and make something of it and make sure it's not lost?"

¶ Reddy, the 28-year-old in New York, says it's something she and her friends are already talking about. With the high of Election Night past, they've been already been joking that they're suffering from P.E.D. _ "post-election depression."

¶ "It's a long road ahead, which is interesting because we've gotten a lot of things faster and easier than a lot of generations," Reddy says. "So there's excitement, but there's also worry."

¶ Part of the worry comes from the tough issues Obama will face as he takes office. But for all this generation's confidence, some also stems from a collective self-doubt.

¶ "There are some people my age doing some really great things. But sometimes we're so busy being students that we end up talking a lot, but not doing a lot," says Thomas, the graduate student in Texas.

¶ Others are still trying to fathom that young voters, known for their fickleness, actually came through for Obama.

¶ "Maybe this will cause me to take my generation a little more seriously," says Shari Davis, a 21-year-old student at Harold Washington College in Chicago who wants to get a job helping juvenile offenders.

¶ Keeping young people engaged will depend on Obama's performance as president, says Peter Levine, director of Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

¶ But he also believes Obama could use his network of tens of thousands of young election volunteers to advocate for legislation on issues important to them, from the environment and the economy to health care and the cost of a college education.

¶ Van Ostern, who is one of those volunteers, is confident young people will stay engaged _ and that some will run for office themselves.

¶ "Obama," he says, "has forged a path that countless young Americans will follow."

¶ ___

¶ On the Net:

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Date: Fri Nov 7 13:06:19 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Audio Slideshow (photos Darron Cummings, audio Martha Irvine): http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/saying_goodbye/

By MARTHA IRVINE

AP National Writer

¶ NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (AP) _ Jean Snyder lived, as they say, a good, long life.

¶ A native of Indianapolis, the young woman with a quick wit and artistic flair graduated from high school in 1941 and worked as a retail clerk. In 1945, she married her sweetheart Bill after an 11-day, whirlwind romance that began beneath the star-covered ceiling at the Indiana Roof Ballroom. Eventually, they cashed in the equity on their home to open a successful service station. A few years later, Snyder gave birth to their only child, a girl.

¶ They were the epitome of decent, hardworking Midwestern people. So with her father already gone for several years, daughter Pat Pickett knew she wanted to give her mother a dignified send-off.

¶ They agreed it would be a simple affair. Snyder received $1,500 a month from Social Security, but didn't have much in the way of savings after she paid for medication and insurance to supplement her Medicare. She also insisted on giving her daughter money for utilities and other expenses in the home they shared in Noblesville, Ind., a leafy suburban village a few miles north of Indianapolis.

¶ Snyder, who was 84 when she died last month, also had no life insurance.

¶ "Now, it's not like we're indigent ... but I have little to spare, as well," says Pickett, a former journalist who now works in marketing and is 49. Divorced and living without a steady paycheck for a while, she has watched as houses on either side of her own have gone into foreclosure.

¶ She also spent much of her time and resources in the last three years caring for her mother, who learned a year ago that her lung cancer had returned. So like a lot of family members faced with funeral expenses, especially in these tough financial times, Pickett was taken aback at the cost of laying her mother to rest.

¶ "A very, very simple cremation, no urn, just a plastic box, guest book, memorial cards," she says, listing the expenses, which she tried to keep low.

¶ For the memorial service, she rented the local inn at a municipal park for $430, but supplied her own boom box for music so she didn't have to pay an extra $100 to use the sound system. Co-workers and her employer provided the food for the 50 or so guests who attended.

¶ Told it would cost $2,000 to run the full-length obituary she'd written for the Indianapolis paper, Pickett also opted for a short "freebie" provided by the funeral home and posted the longer piece on her Facebook page and in the smaller Noblesville paper.

¶ It was even simpler than Pickett had first envisioned. And still the grand total was about $3,300.

¶ "It pretty much emptied out her account," she says of the savings her mother had left when she died quietly in her own bed, with her daughter holding her hand.

¶ The memorial service took place the week after on a cool, rainy morning at Noblesville's Forest Park Inn, adjacent to the Little Beauty carousel and Tom Thumb miniature golf course.

¶ Last year, Pickett had taken her mother to the inn for a memorial service for her friend Sylvia, and Snyder liked the look of it. "This is nice," she'd said at the time. "This is just what I would want."

¶ As she planned her mother's service, Pickett found herself feeling grateful to "little Sylvia" for helping her mother clarify her wishes _ to help her know that what she was doing for her mother was enough, even though she'd worked so hard to keep the cost low.

¶ Dealing with the high cost of dying is especially difficult when many people are just scraping by.

¶ But, in the end, what would have been important to her mother, Pickett says, were the people who were there: her grandchildren, first great-grandchild Charlie and other family; old friends and new ones she'd made while attending cardiac rehabilitation; the family doctor who still made house calls in her final months and gave Pickett his cell phone number, telling her to call any time.

¶ "I think we get caught up in the luxury of this and that. But this is how most of America does this," Pickett says of the service for her mother. "This is how real America lives."

¶ And this, too, is how many of us die.

¶ To prepare for the service, Pickett and her two grown daughters assembled old photographs of Snyder, a dark-haired beauty in her early years who, later in life, was known as "Granny Bunhead" to her granddaughters because of the large, sculpted bun of silver hair she wore atop her head.

¶ But what, Pickett wondered, could she do with the ashes?

¶ With no fancy urn, she decided to wrap them and the plastic box like a gift. She carefully placed it on a table at the front of the room, near a glowing fireplace and a large bouquet of pink roses, carnations and gladiolas.

¶ A nod to Snyder's sense of humor and flair for the dramatic, she also kept a shiny disco ball that hung above the room spinning throughout the service.

¶ Pickett decided to speak, with a promise from her daughters to back her up if she fell to pieces _ which she didn't.

¶ She described a mother who was a storyteller, an artist and poet, a fashion plate, and a caretaker who, later in life, became a fan of Jimmy Buffett and margaritas.

¶ "If you spoke with her very long, you knew that what she thought was right," chaplain Derek Hansen said, evoking strong laughter. "And she usually was."

¶ It was never about wanting an elaborate funeral. It was more about hating to say goodbye _ one of her biggest regrets that she wouldn't get to know her great-grandson, who was born last summer.

¶ So on Thanksgiving morning, the family will gather, keeping the gift-wrapped ashes nearby.

¶ They'll put on the Christmas music for the first time this season, as they always have, and cook together, baking the rolls and pies that Granny Bunhead would've made, and setting the table just so, as she would've insisted.

¶ The next day, they will put up the tree.

¶ "Though it will certainly be sad this year, taking out all those ornaments she and we collected over the years," Pickett says.

¶ No matter, she says. This is how her mother would want them to remember her.

¶ This, she says, is what really matters.

¶ ___

¶ On the Net:

¶ Indiana Roof Ballroom: http://www.indianaroof.com/

¶ ___

¶ Martha Irvine is an AP national writer. She can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org or via http://myspace.com/irvineap

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Date: Wed Nov 5 01:09:04 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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By MARTHA IRVINE

AP National Writer

¶ CHICAGO (AP) _ Rafi Zelikowsky skipped class on Tuesday to camp out in downtown Chicago and wait for Barack Obama, the man who captured the hearts of so many young voters.

¶ "We're feeding off the energy," said Zelikowsky, a 19-year-old Northwestern University student from Los Angeles who arrived at 7:30 a.m. EST to stand in a long line outside the park where supporters awaited Obama's victory address more than 15 hours later. Zelikowsky, who voted for Obama by absentee ballot in California, also spent her previous weekend canvassing for the Illinois senator in rural Iowa.

¶ That kind of loyalty _ and the Obama campaign's early efforts to harness young voters _ paid off at the ballot box.

¶ Exit polls showed that young voters were supporting him by a more than 2-1 margin, with his greatest support coming from black and Hispanic young people. The preliminary results are similar to those from polls conducted before the election.

¶ Overall, about two-thirds of voters younger than 30 supported Obama. And the overwhelming majority of black voters and about three-quarters of Hispanic voters in that age bracket said they voted for Obama. Many young voters said Obama being black was a non-issue.

¶ Meanwhile, more than half of white youth cast a vote for the senator from Illinois, while more than two out of five supported John McCain, the senator from Arizona.

¶ Many young voters, black youth included, saw this election as their chance to help make history. And they did.

¶ "I've been wanting to vote. I'm finally part of it," said Chamar Morrison, a 19-year-old sophomore at North Carolina Central University who is black and who voted for Obama. She listed the cost of a college education and the war in Iraq as two of her top issues.

¶ The exit polls showed support for Obama steadily decreasing as the age of the voters who were questioned increased. For instance, a little over half of voters older than 65 supported McCain. But this time, it was the younger generations who had the final say.

¶ The survey results are based on a random sample of nearly 18,000 voters in Election Day exit polls and telephone interviews over the past week for early voters. The exit poll was conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

¶ Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director at the Pew Hispanic Center, said the exit poll results fit his expectations. He also noted that in 2004 young, white voters went for President Bush over Democrat John Kerry, like the older age groups did.

¶ This time, there was a shift in favor of the Democrats.

¶ Lopez said strong support from young voters clearly helped Obama win.

¶ "I think they had a large impact," said Lopez, who was formerly the research director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which tracks young voters.

¶ There had been some speculation that Obama's race may have been a factor in the election. Many young voters, however, said Obama's race wasn't relevant. And Lopez noted that his own organization's surveys of young Hispanic voters had found that about half of them thought Obama's race would help him win the support of their age group.

¶ Young voter participation, which has ebbed and flowed over the years, has been on an upswing since the 2000 presidential election, though the impact of young voters was not as strongly felt because, while they leaned Democratic, they were more evenly split between the major candidates.

¶ In 2004, about 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, up from 36 percent in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. No other age group increased its turnout by more than 5 percentage points in 2004.

¶ Overall, voters younger than 30 make up about 17 percent of the electorate. Exit polls numbers cannot, however, be used to compare participation among the age groups.

¶ As the crowd at Chicago's Grant Park became increasingly giddy as it became clear that Obama was on his way to victory, 21-year-old Erica Ravi and 18-year-old Eric Reynolds, both students at nearby Columbia College, performed an impromptu rap with friends.

¶ "O to the B to the A-M-A _ I know Obama's gonna win today," they said in unison. "O to the B to the A-M-A _I know there's gonna be a change today."

¶ There were, of course, some young voters who were disappointed with Tuesday's results. They included Joey Yost, a 22-year old Republican in Washington, D.C., who voted for McCain via absentee ballot in his home state of Ohio, which went to Obama.

¶ "I'm disappointed, but I knew it was coming," said Yost, a recent college graduate who works on Capitol Hill.

¶ "It's good that we've become a powerful part of the electorate," he added, referring to young voters. "I just wish we voted more Republican than Democratic."

¶ ___

¶ Associated Press Polling Analyst Coralie Carlson and AP writers Karen Hawkins and Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Gary D. Robertson in Durham, N.C., contributed to this report.

¶ ___

¶ On the Net:

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Date: Mon Oct 27 00:05:36 2008

Copyright 2008 By The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Young voters poised to play a key role in choosing the next president

^By MARTHA IRVINE=

^AP National Writer=

¶ CHICAGO (AP) _ There's always talk about the impact young voters could have in choosing the next president. But this truly could be a breakout year for them.

¶ Among the factors: nearly 2-to-1 support for Barack Obama among 18- to 29-year-olds and a seasoned get-out-the-vote effort that has seen young voter participation steadily rising since 2000.

¶ An AP-Yahoo News Poll conducted earlier this month found that, among 18- to 29-year-old likely voters, 60 percent supported Obama, 33 percent John McCain and 5 percent Ralph Nader. The poll had a margin of error of 9 percentage points.

¶ When asked, "Do any of the following words describe how you feel about the upcoming presidential election?" 61 percent of the young respondents chose "interested," while 48 percent chose "hopeful."

¶ But, able to choose more than one answer, only about a third of these likely young voters said they were "excited" about the election and 47 percent were "frustrated."

¶ These are the sort of answers one might expect from a group of voters who've historically been pegged as Election Day wild cards, but who've also shown they can be counted ..ing get both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton elected, for instance.

¶ Show up big this time _ and they could put Obama over the top. A lesser youth showing, however, would likely benefit McCain.

¶ "So turnout suddenly becomes a pretty big ingredient," says Peter Levine, director of Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, otherwise known as CIRCLE.

¶ That's especially true in key swing states, such as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. In North Carolina, for instance, the most recent tally available shows 579,858 new registrants who are eligible to vote this year. Many of them 20somethings, they represent about 9 percent of the state's registered voters and could be a difference-maker in a close race, particularly if they support one candidate more heavily than another.

¶ The huge influx of new voters is part of a larger national trend.

¶ Rock the Vote, which focuses on young voters, has registered more than 2.3 million voters this year, compared with more than 1.4 million voters in 2004, already a standout year for youth turnout.

¶ In that election, about 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted, up from 36 percent in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. While their impact was not felt as greatly because their vote was more evenly split between George W. Bush and John Kerry, no other age group increased turnout by more than 5 percentage points.

¶ And some political scientists expect those numbers to be topped yet again, especially since young voters have been a long-standing centerpiece of Obama's campaign.

¶ Besides college students, his supporters include people like Elvis Garcia, a 19-year-old Chicagoan who recently completed a training and education program called Jobs For Youth and is looking for employment _ and a change in the country's leadership.

¶ "I want this time to be different," says Garcia, who has many peers who also plan to vote.

¶ They may be considered unlikely voters by some. But political scientist Molly Andolina expects many of them will make it to the polls in November.

¶ "This cohort has shown a lot of resilience," says Andolina, a professor at DePaul University who studies young-voter habits. "Prior to Obama's win in Iowa _ when it was known that he was popular among youth _ pundits declared that they'd never make it out, in the cold of January, when college and universities were still on break, to spend an hour or more caucusing ...

¶ "But they did. And he won."

¶ Still others wonder if young voters' support for Obama might be even stronger than the polls have been showing, since many under-30s don't have land lines.

¶ Because of this, Sam Wang, a professor at Princeton University who helps oversee Princeton Election Consortium, estimates that, on average, national polls could be understating Obama's margin over McCain by about 1 percentage point.

¶ But that's a minor issue compared with barriers to voting some young people are facing, says Matthew Segal, the young executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment.

¶ "Young voters don't suffer from a lack of interest. They suffer from a lack of access," Segal says.

¶ In this election, he's heard complaints about everything from difficult registration requirements to fliers that falsely tell college students they'll lose their student loans if they don't vote in their home state.

¶ Segal's group, also called SAVE, was founded in reaction to voting problems college students faced in Ohio and other states in 2004. Those issues included polling facilities that had trouble handling the influx of young voters.

¶ Students at Washington University in St. Louis were so frustrated after similar problems there that the university persuaded the county to put a polling place on campus for this election. It'll serve about a third of students.

¶ The university also will provide shuttles to students who vote off campus, says Jordan Aibel, a sophomore who helped lead an effort that registered an 2,000 additional students.

¶ "There's a tangible sense of excitement and a desire to get involved," Aibel, an independent who's still deciding on a candidate, says of the mood on campus.

¶ Casby Stainback, a young Republican at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., who's supporting McCain, has noted the enthusiasm, too.

¶ She finds it encouraging, even if much of it isn't for her candidate _ and even if Obama wins.

¶ "The more people who participate," she says, "the better off we'll be."

¶ ___

¶ ___

¶ On the Net: