A wave of baby boomers may be hobbling toward retirement in worse health and with more aches and pains than people born before them, according to federally funded research.

They have more trouble climbing stairs, easing themselves out of a living-room Barcalounger and crouching to hug a grandchild, according to a survey of about 5,000 people born from 1948 to 1953 and released by the National Bureau of Economic Research earlier this year.

They smoke less, may be more aware of what's good and not so good for their bodies and have access to an ever-growing array of treatments and medication. But they said they hurt more, drink more, suffer more depression and experience more chronic health conditions than people born just before and during World War II.

Not everyone accepts the conclusions and the possibly dire implications for the future of Medicare. Even the study's authors say more research is needed. But virtually everyone has an idea of why baby boomers could be worse off.

"We've grown up in an era where the answer was taking a pill for everything," said Dr. Edward Portnoy, who was born in 1949 and has built an internal-medicine practice in Westlake Village, Calif., focusing on people ages 50 to 70. "I think they felt as long as they take a pill, 'I don't have to exercise or watch what I eat.'"

That makes sense to Dale O'Brien, a 58-year-old insurance consultant who takes Lipitor to control his cholesterol. What makes him laugh is the theory that people his age may be the first generation to retire in worse shape than their parents because they're more sedentary.

O'Brien exercises four times a week, either by walking for six miles or running for 3 1/2 miles. He's always on the move and was interviewed hustling across a Camarillo, Calif., parking lot to shop in a Nike store.

The reason his knees creak like old stairs is because he's a product of the age of recreation. He spent decades pounding up and down blacktop basketball courts and sliding into second base during softball games.

"We have more pain because we're more active," he said.

The study used data from a federally funded Health and Retirement Study that tracks people as they age. Researchers compared how people from three different age groups answered a series of questions when they were 51 to 56 years old. They were asked about overall health, pain and whether they experienced problems doing things ranging from sitting for two hours to pushing a large object.

People born from 1936 to 1941 reported fewer problems in nearly every category than people born from 1942 to 1947. That second group, in turn, reported fewer problems than boomers though the gap is smaller.