Healthy Aging for Men in Their 60s

Your 60s often bring a shift in how health gets managed: retirement plans, Medicare, and a few new screenings with specific age windows. It’s also a decade when prevention choices can shape how many of the years ahead are independent ones. That’s the practical heart of living longer and better at this age. Humanic Blue follows those screening windows alongside the less tidy question of staying independent.

Heart disease and cancer remain the two leading causes of death for US men ages 55 to 64 and 65 or older, according to final 2024 death-certificate data. From 65 through 75, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends a one-time ultrasound to look for a bulge in the main artery in the abdomen (an abdominal aortic aneurysm, or AAA) for people it categorizes as men who have ever smoked; that screening category follows sex at birth, not gender identity. At 70, the USPSTF recommends against routine prostate screening with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test, although other professional groups differ. Medicare covers a yearly wellness visit, which is prevention planning rather than a routine physical. Staying active and addressing fall risk, hearing changes and bone health can help preserve the function needed for living longer and better.

What follows focuses on what’s new in the 60s. The previous decades are covered in Healthy Aging for Men in Their 50s and in Their 40s.

How do the leading risks shift in your 60s?

Final 2024 National Center for Health Statistics death-certificate data put heart disease and cancer first and second for men at both 55 to 64 and 65 or older. After 65, stroke and chronic lower respiratory disease move into the next two spots, while unintentional injuries remain in the top five. Alzheimer’s disease ranked seventh among males 65 or older, not fifth. The exact counts are in Extra Insights.

These are population counts, not a prediction of any one man’s risk, and rankings depend on the age group and cause categories used. Screening and prevention can address parts of this picture, but no check maps neatly to every leading cause.

Which screenings become relevant in your 60s?

Abdominal aortic aneurysm. An aneurysm is a bulge in the body’s main artery that can rupture. The USPSTF recommends one ultrasound for men ages 65 to 75 who have ever smoked, generally defined as at least 100 cigarettes over a lifetime. For this recommendation, the USPSTF says its risk estimate follows sex at birth rather than gender identity; a transgender or nonbinary reader who may meet the age and smoking criteria can ask a clinician whether the scan applies. For people in the guideline’s men category in that age range who have never smoked, clinicians may selectively offer screening after considering medical and family history, other risk factors and patient preferences.

Prostate: the USPSTF recommendation changes at 70. For men ages 55 to 69, the USPSTF treats PSA screening as an individual decision after discussing potential benefits and harms. It recommends against PSA-based screening from age 70. That 2018 recommendation remains current while an update is in progress; other professional groups use different age and health-based frameworks.

Continuing checks under USPSTF guidance, when eligible: blood pressure and assessment of heart and metabolic risks; colorectal screening routinely through age 75 and selectively from 76 to 85; and annual lung cancer screening through age 80 for people with at least a 20 pack-year smoking history (for example, one pack a day for 20 years) who currently smoke or quit within the past 15 years. Lung screening stops after 15 smoke-free years or when health makes lung surgery or curative treatment inappropriate. These decisions are covered in the 50s article.

What does age alone leave unanswered about screening eligibility in the 60s?

The Medicare wellness visit

At 65, many men join Medicare. Medicare Part B covers an annual wellness visit once every 12 months. The first cannot occur within 12 months of Part B enrollment or a Welcome to Medicare preventive visit. This is a personalized prevention-planning visit, not a routine physical. The wellness visit itself has no cost when the clinician accepts Medicare’s approved payment amount (called accepting assignment), but additional tests or services performed at the same visit can require you to pay a deductible or a share of the cost.

How does a prevention-planning visit differ from a full physical examination?

What affects independence in your 60s?

Muscle. Muscle strength and mobility can decline with age, and illness or hospitalization can accelerate functional loss. Resistance exercise and adequate nutrition are discussed in Prevent Muscle Loss After 50.

Falls. The USPSTF recommends exercise interventions for adults 65 or older living at home rather than in a care facility who are at increased risk of falling. Programs most often practice walking, balance and everyday movements, frequently with strength work. Programs that address several fall risks at once can be offered selectively because their average benefit is small and depends on the person’s risks. See How Can Older Adults Prevent Falls?.

Hearing. For adults 50 or older without recognized symptoms, the USPSTF finds insufficient evidence to determine whether routine hearing screening improves health outcomes. That finding does not apply to people who notice hearing changes or have symptoms; they should raise them with a clinician. Hearing loss and cognitive outcomes are discussed in Does Hearing Loss Cause Dementia?.

Bone. The USPSTF concluded in 2025 that evidence is insufficient to assess routine osteoporosis screening in men. That is not advice to ignore a fracture from a minor fall or other risk factors. The Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation recommends bone-density testing for adults who break a bone after age 50 and for men ages 50 to 69 with relevant risk factors; it recommends testing all men at 70. See Protect Bone Density as You Age.