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Science

No Cap On Life Expectancy? 64

Posted by michael from the head-in-a-jar dept.
Samarkind writes "An article over at Science Daily (no registration req'd) talks about the average life expectancy for people going up all over the world by an average of 3 months per year. They also say that the somewhat pervasive idea that people can only live so long just isn't true. The kicker that I got from the article was that the average life expectancy for men is 65... isn't that about when I'll retire?" Remember the life expectancy includes all the people who die at age 2 or 15 or 21. If you make it past 25 or so, you've got good odds to make it to 80.
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No Cap On Life Expectancy? More

No Cap On Life Expectancy?

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  • we need to get that up... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @03:45PM (#3498788) Homepage
    We need to get that up to over 1 year per year.
    • That's exactly what Ray Kurzweil believes may well happen within our lifetimes. He discusses that some in his (somewhat lengthy) article "The Law of Accelerating Returns [kurzweilai.net]."

      He also thinks that due to technological progress being a double-exponential curve, we'll get something like 200 centuries of technical progress (at the current rate of progress) over the next 100 years. So, take it or leave it I guess. Would be nice.

      • Someplace I recall reading that the average life expectancy would be something like 600 years if all disease (including old age) were wiped out. This is based on the idea that a few people are going to die each year due to accidents, crimes, suicides, and other factors.

        No evidence at hand, but I suppose you could figure it out from the actuarial tables, etc.

        In the US, given the current accident rates [infoplease.com] in the US, the average death life expectancy (based on accidents alone) would probably be about 1500 years. (based on the idea it would take 3000 plus years to kill off a population of 100,000)

        Outside the US your milage may vary.

        • Of course, if people would never die of old age, they'd be a lot more careful about risking their life. We'd see fewer accidents due to people taking stupid risks, a lower crime rate, less suicides (except maybe among the very old who were just tired of it all), etc. Safety measures would increase, because when you're responsible for the safety of immortals, you've got something more valuable to protect. Insurance rates (except life insurance) would skyrocket, whereas interest rates would plummet.

  • Cause not stated (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @03:50PM (#3498816) Homepage Journal
    One shortcoming of the article is that the cause for the increase is not stated. Many causes for increasing life expectancy have no implications regarding a maximum lifespan. If all we're doing is reducing early deaths through improved vaccinations and safety, then we've made no progress in disproving the idea of a maximum lifespan.

    Another way of looking at it would be: The life expectancy for people born today is higher than for people born twenty years ago. That doesn't mean that the life expectancy for people who are 60 today is any better than the life expectancy for people who were 60 twenty years ago.

    • Re:Cause not stated (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mlinksva ( 1755 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:22PM (#3499072) Homepage Journal
      I suspect the life expectancy for people 60 today is significantly better than life expectancy for 60 year olds 20 years ago, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing an explosion of 65+ year olds (and 80+ and 100+). For there to really be "no cap" on life expectancy though, the maximum human lifespan needs to increase. AFAIK there are no documented cases of humans living much beyond 120. However, at only 3 months/year increase in life expectancy, we won't hit that barrier in this century. By that time (well before it) we'll have figured out how to significantly increase biological human lifespan. If you don't want to count on any such progress, calorie restriction [calorierestriction.org] seems to be the only current method we have of possibly extending maximum lifespan [senescence.info]. At the other extreme, you could just wait for the singularity [singinst.org] to obviate the need for biology.

      • Re:Cause not stated (Score:2, Informative)

        by CanadaMan ( 121016 )
        I suspect the life expectancy for people 60 today is significantly better than life expectancy for 60 year olds 20 years ago, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing an explosion of 65+ year olds (and 80+ and 100+).

        This is due to demographics more than life expectancy. That is, there are more 60+ year olds because 60 years ago people were having more children. Indeed, the number of seniors is bound to increase because of demographics. The boomers are aging, and this is going to create a population such that the majority of people will be older folks.

        • If the elderly population is increasing primarily because people 60+ years ago had more babies, then you'd expect the elderly population increase to level as the birth rate decreases, with a lag of many decades. AFAIK no elderly population projections are predicting such a levelling off, which says to me that demographers expect life expectancy at age 65 to continue to increase.

          This page [efmoody.com] shows life expectancy at ages 65 and 85 increasing from 11.9 to 17.7 and 4.0 to 6.3 years in 1900 and 1997 respectively.

          One reason to look forward to an aging population: World Peace, Thanks To Old Men? [gmu.edu]

  • Like I've always said... (Score:3, Funny)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis&ubasics,com> on Friday May 10, 2002 @03:52PM (#3498833) Homepage Journal
    ...I plan on living forever.

    So far, so good.

    -Adam

  • Oldest living human? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @03:55PM (#3498858) Homepage Journal
    So if the conclusions of this study are true, not only should we see life expectancy continue to rise, but we should be frequently setting new records for the oldest living human.

    A few years ago, the oldest person in modern history died in France at an age something like 122. Will that record be 150 in a hundred years?

    Unfortunately, accurate age information was not available for the general population until the previous century, so we don't really know what the change in that record has been for a statistically-valid period of time. (Besides, when looking at one in billions, it's hard to say you're being statistically valid.)

    • Actually, the average life expectancy number is increasing mostly because of the drop in infant mortality rates. So the oldest people aren't necessarily going to get older. Instead, you will see more people making it to adulthood and therefore getting old.

      What would cause increase in the age of the oldest people would be things like gene therapy, cleaner living conditions, less diseases and less stress. All these factors increase the likelyhood of dying younger.

    • I've been a fan of research in the field of gerontology for some time. The estimated upper limit is 120-130 years. Good information can be found at walford.com [walford.com]. The site is run by Roy and Lisa Walford, who are scientists and nutritionists in the field. They are pushing the envelope through a technique called CRaN(Caloric restriction and Nutrient supplmentation). The lab research at various universities has been very promising so far.

      What I have really found interesting about the research has been that in lab animals who live to almost double thier lifespans on a CR diet (versus the adlib control groups who die half way through the experiments) is that they are functionally 'younger' at their advanced ages than their control counterparts at the same ages. This would be like 'feeling' like your in your 50's or 60's and actually being a centenarian. That is encouraging information because what good is it to be 120 if you have the quality of life of someone who lived 120 very hard and tiring years?

      There are a few out there who belive that the envelope could be pushed to 400 years. I don't want to get your hopes up on those people because the bulk of their ideas have been rejected in the gerontology field.

      The actual practice of CR is very difficult(trust me on this, my wife and I have been trying to get it down for two years and still find it to be a tremendous amount of work..). Not for the average person. Check out their stuff.

  • Something seems off here... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @03:57PM (#3498867)
    From reading the article, it looks like this claim is based only on statistical analysis of life expectancy data. More specifically (from the article):

    In their study, Vaupel and Oeppen reviewed longevity data from developed countries, including Australia, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.S. They found that life expectancy in such countries is steadily increasing by three months a year, per year.

    "The key issue for policymakers to understand from our study is that there appears to be no finite limit to life expectancy," says Vaupel

    Somehow, reaching that conclusion from that data seems incorrect. Just because a value is increasing at a steady rate doesn't mean it will continue to do so. Simple example: a dropped object will accelerate for a time then hit terminal velocity (in a real-world situation).

    The fact that our life expectancy continues to increase may simply indicate our lifespans haven't yet hit their "terminal velocity" (as determined by biological/environmental factors).

    In other words, they ain't dropping us from high enough yet. =)

    • Exactly - from the article: The researchers emphasize they are not saying there is no limit to the rise in life expectancy. "There may or may not be some limit at some advanced age -- it is impossible to tell given current empirical data and theoretical knowledge," added Vaupel. "What is clear is that there is no limit that we are about to bump up against."

      In other words we're a long way from reaching the limit to life span - which is important for policy makers and actuaries. But, this does not mean that there is no limit to life span, in the absence of other interventions. In fact, life span has a significant genetic component which has been studied in a lot of different organsms, like fruit files and worms where lifespan is controlled by the daf gene family [missouri.edu].

      In the worm case, it's not the accumulated insults of living that cause death, instead it's like throwing a switch. Alter the switch and you alter life span without changing quality of life. What causes the daf genes to get activated is still not well understood, but it might relate to the timing of having progeny ... after the worms reproduce they tend to die off, while mutant long lived worms tend to put off reproduction. Here are some labs working in aging research [ucl.ac.uk])

  • The old problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @03:58PM (#3498886) Homepage
    Its good that our lifespans are increasing, however with the current over-population issues, this is a definate double-edge sword. With increased lifespans, we'd have to rework retirement since theres no way that the workforce can support a massive increase in elderly people. The current age for retirement is suited for the current 'normal' lifespan, but would fall apart if we started living 80+ years on average. The economy works because a majority of your population is either working or going to be working. If that balance shifted, where the non-working force was greater than that of the current working force, the problems would be endless. With increased lifespan must come increased retirement. But as we know, most people are definately ready for retirement by 60, and their bodies (and their state of being) is what determines this. If we could both increase lifespan *AND* reduce the aging of the body over that period of time, we would have the best of both worlds. This is by no means impossible, but will really determine if long-living en-mass is a real possibility or not.

  • ... just what this planet needs to help out with the overpopulation problems.

    • Overpopulation is a problem that solves itself. The problem isn't that we'll end up running out of food/water/air and all dying, it's that we'll "die off" in huge numbers to get back to equilibrium.

      The four horsemen will take care of overpopulation as it happens...


      • While what you say is true, the problem is the number of resources we'll consume and thereby deny to a number of (currently) ecologically diverse systems.

        Yeah, I agree humans will take themselves out in a big way at some point, I'm just worried about how much they'll take out with them.


    • ... just what this planet needs to help out with the overpopulation problems.

      Nuts. We already know of the location of enough energy, raw materials, space, etc. to suport the current population growth trends and indefinite longevity for many centuries, while at the same time cleaning up the environment and working on the solutions we will need beyond that.

      All we have to do is grow up, go up, leave the nest, and get on with it.

      -- MarkusQ

      • All we have to do is grow up, go up, leave the nest, and get on with it.
        Interstellar emigration isn't likely to be an option for a bloat in carbon-based lifeforms any time soon, so until we know that there are at least dinosaur-equivalents on a significant percentage of damp rocky planets (research that might take much of the new millennium) we have a considerable obligation to protect our nest from double whammy catastrophes.

        It will take more than an expanding shell of von Neumann probes [angelfire.com] to achieve the organisational complexity the biosphere has achieved on this planet, so we still need techno sapiens to leave this nest (for cyberspace and/or outerspace as quickly as possible) returning the evolution of terrestrial systems in non technological hands.

      • The problem with this is that you're making the same mistaken assumptions about the solar system/galaxy/universe that most humans are making about the earth ...

        That there are infinite resources, and that they exist for the sole purpose of being consumed by humans. This is the kind of philosophy that has put us (and overpopulation) where we are...

        • The problem with this is that you're making the same mistaken assumptions about the solar system/galaxy/universe that most humans are making about the earth ... That there are infinite resources, and that they exist for the sole purpose of being consumed by humans. This is the kind of philosophy that has put us (and overpopulation) where we are...

          First off, "enough for many centuries" does not equal "infinite". So you either didn't get my point, or you are intentionally misrepresenting it to make yours.

          Second, what put us where we are is not some phylosophy about resources. What has "put us where we are" has been the development of better and better health care, agriculture, etc., coupled with the belief that the results should be shared with as many people as possible. I would rather go to space to continue this trend than say, "No, sorry, gotta stop. Food and health care are only for the nobel/rich again, and we're going to drop the quality for them until enough people die off that we can sustain everybody on just what we have here."

          If you want to kill yourself to make room for someone else, I support your right to do so. But if you intend to bump of someone else, I will fight you. But rather than either, I'd invite you to consider how easy it would be for us to raise the world standard of living to something above the present US average, while at the same time reducing the load on the earth. Not a permanent solution, no, but neither is throwing someone a life vest. That isn't a reason not to do it.

          -- MarkusQ

        • > The problem with this is that you're making the same mistaken assumptions about the solar system/galaxy/universe that most humans are making about the earth ...
          >
          > That there are infinite resources, and that they exist for the sole purpose of being consumed by humans. This is the kind of philosophy that has put us (and overpopulation) where we are...

          ...where we are? You mean, like, "at the top of the food chain?"

          You mean, like "with Joe Sixpack having a higher standard of living today than any aristocrat on the planet 500 years ago?"

          You mean, like "with doubled lifespans over the past 100 years"?

          The meek will inherit the earth. After the rest of us are done with it, having left to take the stars.

  • For Discover subscribers... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pythorlh ( 236755 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <rohtyp>> on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:05PM (#3498942) Journal
    There is an interesting article in the current issue of Discover magazine. It's not on the website yet, since that's still last month's issue.

    Anyway, apparantly some species of turtle do not age. The only apparent change in their physiology is that the lay more eggs as they grow older. They apparently get smarter, as well. The enzyme that prevents cancer cells from dying of old age seem to give the turtle cells a boost when they are young, but they still don't get cancer, or other age-related diseases. We might break the 1-year/year barrier, yet! :)

  • wish that they'd come out with "worse" statistics.

    Then maybe I'd quit this filthy habit that I've grown to love called smoking....

    I wonder what the average lifespan is doing for those of us in the cancer-stick habit?

  • Longevity is all well and good... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Codger ( 96717 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:13PM (#3499005)
    ...but what is more important is maintaining a decent quality of life as we age. There's a Greek myth about the goddess Eos, who falls in love with a mortal and asks Zeus to make him immortal. Alas, she neglected to ask that he also stay youthful. He continued to age but death could not reach him.

    I have several friends who are caring for parents with Alzheimers and other diseases that don't kill right away but that destroy life in the most fundamental way. I know other elderly people who have suffered heart attacks and strokes and are all there mentally, but are in constant pain and have to severely restrict their activities. A few decades ago these diseases would have killed their victims. Now they wound them and often leave them in a state like poor Tithonus, lover of Eos.

    I certainly wouldn't wish an earlier death on any of these people, rather I hope that the medical establishment can come up with ways to help people stay active, lucid, and happy as their bodies age beyond the point that most people reached in the past. This is as important as, perhaps more important than, extending life.
    • While age-related diseases can strike anyone, people can do lots to "stay active, lucid and happy" and reduce their chances of and/or delay the onset of debilitating disease with no help from the medical establishment. Get regular physical and mental exercise, eat a healthful diet, maintain close relationships, etc. All highly pragmatic, well-known, cheap, and requiring no technology. IOW, healthspan extension can be done by anyone. Maximum lifespan extension requires scientific breakthroughs (calorie restriction [calorierestriction.org] may extend maximum lifespan a bit, but is probably beyond the ability of all but the most willful to practice effectively ... I try to be one of the most willful :).
      • Absolutely true. I am sore most of the time from the amount of exercise I get every day (exercise soreness is the only soreness that feels good). I am determined to keep old age at bay as long as I can.

        There's also evidence that engaging in mentally challenging activities helps stave off dementia. Another reason to remain a programmer rather than going back into management!

        • I am sore most of the time from the amount of exercise I get every day (exercise soreness is the only soreness that feels good). I am determined to keep old age at bay as long as I can.

          You realize that 'old age' isn't really a disease - old people die of something. Usually that something is an indirect result of your cells just wearing out (either evolved or just a side-effect). Your cells burn oxygen. The more they burn the quicker they die. Hence, if you over excercise too much you'll shorten your life!

          Of course the effect is probably outweighed by the many benefits of excercise. The point is, there is no magic bullet for health - not even excercise.

    • Being as lazy/procrastinate-y as I have discovered myself to be, I think it is in my best interests to die before I'm 80. And not just that, I want to _know_ that I'm dying before I'm 80. Not that I want to know when I'll die, but I want to know it's sooner rather than later.

      If I am reasonably sure I'll still be around in 20-30 years after I retire, I'll surely put off doing a lot of things I'd like to do until later, and just waste a lot of time in between.
    • > There's a Greek myth about the goddess Eos, who falls in love with a mortal and asks Zeus to make him immortal. [...] He continued to age but death could not reach him.

      And ended up being turned into a grasshopper.
      http://www.loggia.com/myth/tithonus. html
    • Yup!! I wouldn't want to live 600 years if I were sick for 500 of them!
  • What's the difference between average age of death and life expectancy? Average age of death seems pretty much irrelevant for someone that hasn't just been born. I'd be much more interested in a chart of what age you are mapped acrossed the projected average age of death. What is the average age of death after you start constricting the sample to people with the same attributes as you, especially people that didn't die as infants? Seperating male from female doesn't tell us all that much that we can make assumptions based on.
  • Heard somewhere that braincells are only supposed to live about 120 years.

  • Fame (Score:1)

    by Chacham ( 981 )
    Well, after I live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly.

  • my experience (Score:2, Informative)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 )
    I sudied molecular biology and biochemistry in college, and even wrote a research proposol on telomerase. Between the two, and seeing too many old people, I've developed theories and observations on aging, at least at the cellular level.

    First off, some background information. If you take a normal cell, it won't live forever. However, a cancer cell will, provided it is fed. Cancer cells are mutated so they don't respond to feedback mechanisms from other cells, but their most important feature is in their replication.

    Does anyone remember early versions of napster? Due to bugs, it wouldn't transmit the last few bytes of every file. For an mp3 file, that meant the mp3 info tag might be missing, or the last few seconds. But what if the copies kept getting resent? Every time, the file would get progresively shorter, and eventually, you'd notice it.

    The same thing happens in cells. Due to the DNA replication method, the last few base pairs at the end of the strand aren't duplicated. That's ok, since the ends are basically unused spare buffers. Eventually, the buffer will be used up, and the DNA will get fucked up, and the cell won't be able to duplicate anymore.

    Cancer cells have an enzyme called telomerase that adds back to the buffer, allowing it to divide forever.

    Of course, there are also other factors that contribute to a finite life span on the cellular level.

    There are non-cellular factors to aging as well. For example, collagen (skin) has the cystene amino acid. Cystene contains sulfer, and as you age, the dulfer forms cross links. The result is obvious if you compare geristric skin to newborn skin.

    Additionally, the human body is designed for a limited life span. The thymus (important for the immune system) starts atrophying in the late teens, and is useless as your appendix by age 30 or so.

    So, while cellular life can be extended, for a complex organism like us, I'd say there is a cap on life expectancy.

    • I find it somewhat odd that whoever did this study didn't take into account the buffer on the end of a strand of DNA. As I understand from a paper I read some time ago, this is the main factor which caps life expectancy, and has been a known fact for years.

      How did a study like the one this article describes overlook such information, which I found in a few minutes on Google (pretending I had no prior knowledge)? Seems like there was a lack of research into the biology of this issue, and that they concentrated primarily on statistics. Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily work; like someone else said in another post, this is similar to ignoring terminal velocity when collecting data about falling objects.

    • Cancer cells have an enzyme called telomerase that adds back to the buffer, allowing it to divide forever.

      Perhaps a simple way to de-age is to get telomerase to only work on good, healthy cells.

      Dave, http://www.deep-trance.com

  • According to actuarial math, if people were immortal, and could only die from accidents (like, for example, decapitation would kill you), the average lifespan would be 650 years.
  • Biologists generally assume that there is a pretty hard limit on life expectancy somewhere around 120 years, based on observed limits on the number of divisions cells can undergo. Maybe that will turn out to be false and stem cells can somehow escape those limits. But the population studies so far aren't able to invalidate that hypothesis.

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