Older Women

Fashion is growing up. "Women in their 30s are more like what women in their 20s used to be like," says Lois Joy Johnson, beauty and fashion director for More magazine. And so, designers and retailers, having to keep pace, are moving away from the trendy, style-setting 18- to-24 year-olds market group into a more mature, and more loyal, 25 and older - in some cases, much older - set. "This consumer is young and hip, and she still wants to be sexy," Johnson says. "She works on her body.

PHILADELPHIA - More than 1 of 10 people over the age of 65 are at risk of financial problems because of gambling, according to a University of Pennsylvania survey being released today. Nearly 70 percent of 843 older patients surveyed who received care at Penn's primary-care practices and the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center said they had gambled within the past year. Almost 11 percent were labeled "at-risk" gamblers - people who recently had wagered $100 on a single bet or had gambled more than they could afford to lose.

The birth of triplets to a 55- year-old woman this week is drawing attention to a small but growing phenomenon: older women becoming pregnant. Tina Cade, a university administrator in Richmond, Va., acted as a surrogate for her daughter, a Johns Hopkins doctor who couldn't conceive. Other women in their 50s - and even 60s - are becoming pregnant to have children of their own. But as more older women turn to science to beat their biological clocks and fulfill their desire to become mothers, it is raising a number of medical and ethical questions.

Erin Brady thought it was no big deal to carry her then-13-month-old son Kyle across a parking lot so she could show him off to a friend. But the next morning, her back hurt so much that the 37-year-old stay-at-home mother made an emergency visit to a chiropractor. Her husband, a computer programmer, ended up taking two days off from work to care for Kyle while his wife lay immobilized. "I know now not to push myself," said Brady, of Owings Mills, who is pregnant with the couple's second child.

After years of controversy over the best way to treat small breast tumors, researchers have found that thousands of older women can forgo radiation treatments without hurting their survival chances. Two studies published today in the New England Journal of Medicine found that radiation provides no added benefit for women over 70 who receive lumpectomies and take the cancer-fighting drug tamoxifen. "It suggests that upfront radiation is not necessary and may in fact be overtreatment for many of the older women," said Dr. Jerome Yates, vice president for research at the American Cancer Society.

It used to be easier. Their mothers and grandmothers didn't think much about whether they would have children or not. That was what married women did. But today's women aren't just considering motherhood in terms of when, but if. Many are searching their souls about a role that used to seem natural. In the past 20 years, the number of American women not having children has almost doubled, and society has grown more accepting of that choice. But advances in medicine have also made it possible for older women to conceive, leaving motherhood a question to contemplate much later in life.

In another unexpected strike against once-popular hormone replacement therapy, researchers have found that the treatment doubles the risk of dementia in post-menopausal women and might even result in mental decline. Two articles in today's Journal of the American Medical Association add to the growing evidence that so-called combination hormone therapy poses substantial risks and should be used only for temporary relief of menopause symptoms. "I think it's safe to say that this is another reason why taking estrogen plus progestin long term is not a good idea, [and]

CBS COMMENTATOR and newspaper columnist Andy Rooney makes what I am sure is a pretty good living as an irascible old curmudgeon, but his trademark crankiness gets him into trouble, too. In 1990, he was suspended by CBS News for 32 days for inflammatory comments he made about gays to a gay newspaper that, in turn, ended up on a CBS news special. In 1992, he found himself in hot water for saying that American Indians should lighten up on the topic of sports nicknames such as "Redskins." In 1997, he angered that group once more by declaring that "so-called Indian casinos are a joke," and denouncing their owners as "sleazeballs."

Nancy Cox is an unlikely gym rat. Standing 5 feet 1/2 inch tall and weighing a not-quite-supermodel-esque 153 pounds, the 65-year-old widow with a shock of dyed-blond hair and frosted pink nails is the sort of kindly grandmother you can picture making casseroles. But Cox, who admits she "can't even walk and chew gum at the same time," has recently become a workout fiend. "It's absolutely the best thing I've ever done for myself," says the Glen Burnie resident, who has shed 7 pounds since September and developed muscles she never knew she had. "I can't say enough good about it."

Somewhere amid the muffled rustling of popcorn and surreptitious slurps of soda, a revolution is under way. In the new movie Tadpole, a 15-year-old boy falls for his 40-something stepmother. In the forthcoming The Good Girl, Jennifer Aniston is 30 and hooks up with a 22-year-old. The recent flush of films that explore the same theme have included Lovely and Amazing (36-year-old woman and 17-year-old boy) and Crush (40-something woman and 25-year-old former student). Offscreen, Sandra Bullock (37)