Forget H1N1--Here comes Boomeritis

“People like myself are trying to hold back the clock,” said Nicholas DiNubile, 57. The Havertown orthopedic surgeon is credited with first using boomeritis (now trademarked by him) to describe the growing number of middle-age patients with exercise-related ailments. “Baby boomers are the first generation in droves trying to stay active in an aging frame.”

According to the paper, DiNubile is an adjunct professor of orthopedics at the University of Pennsylvania and avid tennis player who has issues with his own knee. DiNubile cowrote FrameWork: Your 7-Step Program for Healthy Muscles, Bones, and Joints in 2005, which argues that the body’s musculoskeletal frame was designed for only 40 years of pounding activity. Yet over the last century, life expectancy has risen more than 50 percent. The U.S. rate is at a record high of nearly 78 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If you do the math, problems were sure to eventually arise.