Jack Norris gardens at his home at Rainbow Vision in Santa Fe, N.M., on June 7. Rainbow Vision is one of about a dozen specialized senior developments that welcome gay and lesbian seniors reaching retirement age.

“I thought, ‘We are not going to be in that situation,”’ the 67-year-old Norris says crisply. “This is not going to happen to us in our final days.”

That’s how the two New Yorkers, partners for 14 years, landed at Rainbow Vision, a just-completed senior community in Santa Fe, N.M. From the private dining room named after Truman Capote to the cabaret where '60s teen icon Lesley “It’s My Party” Gore was scheduled to appear this weekend, everything about the 146-unit retirement village was designed with the comfort of graying gays and lesbians in mind.

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Aging is too often about isolation; families and friends die, often taking a person's social networks with them.

Ty Martin (left), Emily Vargas (center) and John Genke are set to celebrate the 30th anniversary of SAGE on May 22.

John Genke, Ty Martin and Emily Vargas, social worker, Harlem program manager and social worker, respectively, for SAGE, Services & Advocacy for Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian and Transgender Elders, said isolation is something gay New Yorkers have been dealing with for years, stoked by twin scourges of homophobia and the AIDS epidemic.

"We started mourning the loss of peers 30 years ago," said Martin, 60. "Now other people outside of the community are starting to bury their parents and deal with that aspect of life."

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JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Jacksonville is normally known as the "river city." But now, the city has a new title.

The national magazine, The Advocate, named the city one of the "top five emerging cities for gay and lesbians."

"I think that it's great that they're becoming open-minded enough to do that and to have no shame," said Roy Buice, who works at Rainbows and Stars in Riverside.

The publication based the ranking on U.S. Census numbers. For every 1,000 Jacksonville households, there are 7.75 same-sex couples.

Plano, Texas ranked number one, before Jacksonville, which was number two on the list.

The magazine points to Jacksonville's strenths -- the river, ocean, parks, museums and growing population. It also mentions Riverside, San Marco, Avondale and the beaches as areas where the majority of same-sex couples live.

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Marigold Creek, a retirement community aimed toward gays, lesbians and their friends and family, has already reported keen interest from buyers, said Deborah Purvis of the Missouri-based real estate group, Out Properties.

Purvis said the community will include 210 units, ranging from single-family homes, patio homes and condominiums.

“The community will be set up with village-style streets so people can easily say hello to each other when they are walking around,” Purvis said.

Within the community will be a dog park, walking trails, concert area and a clubhouse that will have a media room, bar, cabaret and swimming pool, Purvis said.

“I came to the Valley and fell in love with Surprise,” she said. “It’s a new and emerging community with a commitment to diversity that I believed would be a great home for Marigold Creek.”

Terri Crane, a resident of Surprise for three years, agrees with Purvis’ assessment of the area. Crane said she is all for the gay community to be able to have a place to call home.

“My sister is gay and to be honest, I think that the gay community is friendlier and easier to talk to than most other people,” Crane said.

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High Intensity Focused Ultrasound

The American Cancer Society (ACS) 2007 Cancer Facts and Figures says that while incidence rates of prostate cancer are significantly higher in Blacks than in white men and although prostate cancer death rates have been declining nationwide since the early 1990s, mortality among African-Americans still remains more than twice as high as those of white men.

The ACS 2007 Surveillance Research estimates 26,730 new prostate cancer cases in African-Americans in the New York tri-state region and 8.5 percent or 2,270 deaths. The ACS says that though common among men in North America and southern Europe, statistics show that Afro-Caribbean men have the highest prostate cancer incidence rates in the world and advises men with a strong family history to begin screening for it as early as age 45.

As a treatment method, HIFU goes back to the early 1940s through to the 60s when it was used extensively for the treatment of various cancers in women. It is an alternative to already established treatment methods, including: cryotherapy, freezing cancerous cells; radical prostatectomy, prostate removal; external beam radiation, radiation through healthy tissue for six to eight weeks; and internal radiation seeds, permanent implantation of 80 to 100 radioactive seeds in the prostate — all of which have periods of hospitalization, extended recovery, varying percentages of impotence and incontinence (insufficient bladder control), pain and other lower abdominal abnormalities. While avoiding nerves and blood vessels, HIFU focuses a large pulse of high-energy ultrasonic waves on a single location, raising the temperature of cancerous cells to 100 degrees Celsius, and causing the lipids of cell membranes to melt and the proteins in them to denature.

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• Health care insurance: 22%
• Medicare: 20%
• Personal savings: 19%
• Social Security: 16%

65% of respondents expect for provide care to a partner sometime in the future, 44% for a parent, and 34% for a friend. However, respondents were less certain of who would care for them – 59% said a partner would be there to help care for them, 29% a friend, and 20% no one.

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“The message from this study for today is that if you’re more active, you may be able to prevent this cancer from happening,” said Beate Ritz, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher, an associate professor of epidemiology in the UCLA School of Public Health and the study’s senior author.* “If you have a desk job, do something physically active to counterbalance it.”

The case-control study nested within a larger cohort of more than 10,000 subjects focused on men who worked at the nuclear and rocket engine testing facility from the 1950s to the early 1990s. The cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed between January 1988 and December 1999. Researchers obtained cancer incidence data for the workers from the California Cancer Registry and seven other cancer registries in neighboring states where workers may have moved after retirement.

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Oak Brook, Ill. -  Each year more than 150,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with colon cancer and over 50,000 will die from the disease. Death rates from colon cancer are higher among African Americans than any other population group in the U.S. The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), representing the specialists in colon cancer screening, advises African Americans to speak to their physician about getting screened for colon cancer.

"Colon cancer is preventable with regular screening and is curable when detected early," said ASGE President Grace H. Elta, MD, FASGE. "All men and women are at risk for colon cancer and should begin screening for the disease at age 50. It concerns me that African Americans are being diagnosed with colon cancer at a higher rate than other populations. This disease does not discriminate against race or gender; your age is the single most important risk factor. I encourage African Americans to talk to their doctor about colon cancer screening."

Colorectal cancer, also referred to as colon cancer, is cancer of the colon or rectum and is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. for men and women combined. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among African American men and women, with more than 16,000 cases estimated to be diagnosed each year and approximately 7,000 deaths annually. Some people are at a higher risk for the disease because of age, lifestyle or personal and family medical history. People who are diagnosed at early stages have a 90 percent chance of a cure and surviving. That is why screening for prevention and early detection is so important. Some studies have shown that African Americans are more frequently diagnosed with colon cancer at a younger age, leading some experts to suggest that African Americans begin screening prior to age 50. African Americans should ask their physician about an appropriate screening schedule.

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One study estimates that women apply 175 chemicals a day from cosmetics, creams, and toiletries alone.

One study estimates that women apply 175 chemicals a day from cosmetics, creams, and toiletries alone.

Take Arielle Newman, for instance, a New York City-area high school track star who died last year from a sports-cream overdose. She'd used large amounts of popular OTC pain-relieving ointments like Icy Hot and Ben-Gay on her sore muscles. The key ingredient in such products is methyl salicylate, which built up in Newman's body, may have interacted with other aspirin-based meds she was using, and caused her to go into cardiac arrest.

Another case: In 2005, Shiri Berg, 22, of North Carolina died of a lidocaine overdose. Following the instructions she'd been given by the staff at a local hair-removal clinic, she generously applied a numbing gel to her legs, then covered them in plastic wrap. On her way to the clinic to get hair lasered from her legs, Berg passed out. She went into convulsions, then a coma. Eight days later, she was dead.

Women dying in the name of hair removal? Athletes putting themselves at risk by using mentholated muscle soothers? Extreme situations, to be sure. But with all the stuff each of us slathers on our skin (one study estimates that women apply 175 chemicals a day from cosmetics, creams, and toiletries alone), it's no surprise that potential hazards are lurking.

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Speaking today at the 66th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, dermatologist Amy J. McMichael, MD, FAAD, associate professor of dermatology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., discussed the most common forms of hair loss, current treatment options and possible futuristic therapies.

"For both men and women, hair loss can be devastating and adversely affect one's overall quality of life," said Dr. McMichael. "As with most medical conditions, the key to controlling the hair loss cycle is to seek treatment early. The problem is that most people tend to ignore the first signs of hair loss or delay treatment, hoping that their hair will regrow on its own. Since there are many types and causes of hair loss, it is vital that patients seek a proper evaluation by a dermatologist at the first sign of a problem."

Androgenetic Alopecia (Pattern Hair Loss)

The most common form of hair loss, androgenetic alopecia (commonly referred to as male- or female-pattern hair loss) is a hereditary condition that affects men and women. In male-pattern hair loss, a receding hairline is common, as well as hair loss on top of the scalp. Women, on the other hand, typically maintain their frontal hairline but tend to have visible thinning over the front and top of the scalp. However, occasionally a man will experience female-pattern hair loss and a woman will show signs of male-pattern hair loss for reasons unknown to researchers.

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