| NIA GRC origins go back to 1940. Farsighted scientists such as Dr. Thomas W. Parran, then Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service; Dr. Lewis R. Thompson, then Director of the National Institute of Health; and Dr. William H. Sebrell, Jr., then Chief of the NIH Division of Physiology, recognized that improving the nation's health required research on chronic disease and aging. At the same time, Dr. John T. King, Chief of Medicine, Baltimore City Hospitals, and other Baltimore officials, recognized the importance of studies on the medical problems of elderly people. The union of these two research groups -- national and local -- was catalyzed by the Josiah Macy Foundation which provided a financial grant to NIH in 1940 permitting establishment of a gerontology unit in the Division of Physiology under the leadership of Dr. Edward J. Stieglitz. |
| Drs. Sebrell and Stieglitz decided that the gerontology unit should begin studying aging in humans. At that time there were no resources available at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, for patient studies, so Dr. Stieglitz and Dr. King negotiated an arrangement locating the laboratory for the gerontology unit in the Baltimore City Hospitals. NIH provided salaries for Dr. Stieglitz and one technician and the Hospitals provided laboratory space and access to chronic patients as well as to residents in the home for the elderly located on its grounds. Healthy aged people and those with medical problems could thus participate in these studies. |
| When the one-year Macy Foundation grant expired in 1941, NIH took over support of the unit and Dr. Nathan W. Shock, Associate Professor of Physiology at the University of California, Berkeley, came east to head the research unit. |
| During World War II, the unit concentrated on studying the effects of vitamins on work output and recovery from fatigue. |
| After the war, in 1946, the Section on Gerontology returned to studies of the aging process. More space was provided by Baltimore City Hospitals, and, in 1948, this was expanded to include an entire 40-bed ward which was remodeled and used for patient studies and for projects involving volunteer subjects. And eventually, in 1968, gerontology had its own building. |
| Under the leadership of Dr. Shock, NIA GRC developed into the largest institution in the western hemisphere devoted entirely to aging studies. Researchers study the aging process using a variety of laboratory animals, human longitudinal volunteers, and other volunteers for specialized studies. Since 1958, all of the 650 male longitudinal subjects have traveled at their own expense, every year or two, to undergo tests designed to discover the actual changes with age that take place in human subjects. |
| These volunteers, ranging in age from their early twenties to mid-nineties, participate in the internationally known Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Three-fourths hold Bachelor's degrees. In addition, nearly half of them have Master's and one-fourth have Doctoral degrees. Their occupational, educational, and economic status, their generally good health and high level of social adjustment, and their motivation and interest in gerontology research and its results make them an especially homogeneous study sample. Indeed, their research value lies in their homogeneity. It is true, however, that they reflect only one sample. Others, with different backgrounds, must be studied to compare results. But NIA GRC scientists think that the essential biomedical findings from the Baltimore study are likely to apply to other subjects having different social, economic, and educational backgrounds. |
| It is not easy to obtain the help of healthy individuals for medical studies. It is less easy when participation requires a long-term commitment from volunteers who must make periodic visits to the Center and spend 2- 1/2 days and 2 nights in an institutional setting. Some of the testing is quite tedious. Some requires substantial mental and physical effort. Some of the questioning intrudes into areas of private concern. And, the test of intellectual function can be threatening to the ego. Nonetheless, there has always been a long waiting list of willing volunteers. Most have been recruited by volunteers already in the program who knew the demands that would be made upon them. Although the volunteers may decline certain tests, if they wish, refusals are rare. |
| Certainly the opportunity for a comprehensive physical examination is an inducement to participate, even though all the volunteers have their own private physicians and most are able to afford medical services. But a free physical checkup is small reward for the demands made of them. It is obvious that an interest in the Study and a desire to be part of it are major motivations. The homeogeneity of the group can be attributed, in the main, to their positive views concerning the methods and objectives of science. Their generally good health is an added benefit for one of the research objectives from the outset has been the investigation of healthy aging. |
| The late Dr. William W. Peter, the first member of the volunteer group, and the man who began the chain-letter-like process 20 years ago of building the original 650-man sample, put it this way: "There is a reason why people like us should volunteer. We are not receiving custodial care and we are not living institutionalized lives. Nor are we medically indigent. Indigent and institutionalized subjects, if preponderant, distort the picture. Many persons being cared for in old people's homes have been buffeted by the storms of life for so many years that they present more than the average number of abnormal findings, both physical and psychological. People are needed from the outside -- people who live normal lives in their communities." |
| Not only are the Baltimore volunteers generous participants in the Longitudinal Study, but they also represent a pool of available research subjects whose basic characteristics are already known. They are useful as subjects for limited-scope, cross-sectional experiments in aging which might not require a long-term study to produce significant results, thus saving the expense of developing a separate sample for each cross-sectional study. |
| Despite additions and losses over nearly two decades, the membership of the volunteer group remains surprisingly constant and stable. With the addition of women to the program in 1978, the contributions of these volunteers to aging research will increase greatly. And with subsequent studies of other subjects with differing social, economic, and educational backgrounds -- either in Baltimore or elsewhere -- comparisons can be made to prove or disprove NIA GRC scientists' expectations that the essential findings from the Baltimore study are likely to stand. |
| In organizing a group of female volunteers, the researchers are making an effort to recruit as many of the wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of present participants as possible, because of the various family relationships which may be significant. |
| Women are recruited on an individual basis also. At present, women applicants must be at least 25-years-old and be able to furnish their own transportation to and from the NIA Center in Baltimore. They, like the men, must have a personal physician who approves their participation. Matching the men's schedule, women volunteers can expect to return to NIA GRC for 2-� day visits at two-year intervals if they are under 60, at eighteen month intervals if they are between 60 and 69, and annually if they are 70 or older. |
