Rises In Life Expectancy Have Slowed Dramatically, Analysis Finds 97
The rapid increases in life expectancy seen in the 20th century have slowed significantly, according to a new analysis published in the journal Nature. The Guardian reports: According to the study, children born recently in regions with the oldest people are far from likely to become centenarians. At best, the researchers predict 15% of females and 5% of males in the oldest-living areas will reach 100 this century. "If you're planning for retirement, it's probably not a good idea to assume you're going to make it to 100," said Jay Olshansky, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "You'd probably have to work for at least 10 years longer than you'd think. And you want to enjoy the last phase of your life, you don't necessarily want to spend it working to save for time you're not going to experience."
Advances in public health and medicine sparked a longevity revolution in the 20th century. In the previous 2,000 years, life expectancy crept up, on average, one year every century or two. In the 20th century, average life expectancy rocketed, with people gaining an extra three years every decade. For the latest study, Olshansky delved into national statistics from the US and nine regions with the highest life expectancies, focusing on 1990 to 2019, before the Covid pandemic struck. The data from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Australia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain showed that rises in life expectancy had slowed dramatically. In the US, life expectancy fell [T]he researchers describe how on average, life expectancy in the longest-living regions rose only 6.5 years between 1990 and 2019. They predict that girls born recently in the regions have only a 5.3% chance of reaching 100 years old, while boys have a 1.8% chance.
"In the modern era we have, through public health and medicine, manufactured decades of life that otherwise would not exist," Olshansky said. "These gains must slow down. The longevity game we're playing today is different to the longevity game we played a century ago when we were saving infants and children and women of child-bearing age and the gains in life expectancy were large. Now the gains are small because we're saving people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s." Olshansky said it would take radical new treatments that slow ageing, the greatest risk factor for many diseases, to achieve another longevity revolution. Research in the field is afoot with a dozen or so drugs shown to increase the lifespan of mice.
Advances in public health and medicine sparked a longevity revolution in the 20th century. In the previous 2,000 years, life expectancy crept up, on average, one year every century or two. In the 20th century, average life expectancy rocketed, with people gaining an extra three years every decade. For the latest study, Olshansky delved into national statistics from the US and nine regions with the highest life expectancies, focusing on 1990 to 2019, before the Covid pandemic struck. The data from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Australia, France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain showed that rises in life expectancy had slowed dramatically. In the US, life expectancy fell [T]he researchers describe how on average, life expectancy in the longest-living regions rose only 6.5 years between 1990 and 2019. They predict that girls born recently in the regions have only a 5.3% chance of reaching 100 years old, while boys have a 1.8% chance.
"In the modern era we have, through public health and medicine, manufactured decades of life that otherwise would not exist," Olshansky said. "These gains must slow down. The longevity game we're playing today is different to the longevity game we played a century ago when we were saving infants and children and women of child-bearing age and the gains in life expectancy were large. Now the gains are small because we're saving people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s." Olshansky said it would take radical new treatments that slow ageing, the greatest risk factor for many diseases, to achieve another longevity revolution. Research in the field is afoot with a dozen or so drugs shown to increase the lifespan of mice.
Too bad (Score:2, Flamebait)
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politicians are so corrupt but people get the governance we deserve
greedy, selfish and irresponsible people get greedy, selfish and irresponsible presidents
No shit (Score:2, Troll)
We stopped giving a shit about science and all our heroes are sports stars, actors, or fucking musicians.
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True but irrelevant to this story.
Anyway, twas ever thus. You think all those girls screaming and fainting at the beatles back in the 60s behaved the same when a visiting physics professor turned up at their college?
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no, our heros are the the wealthy and we worship an evil and entitled upper class
greed is our undoing
Re: No shit (Score:2)
News flash (Score:1)
Obviously we hit a point of diminishing returns on the decrease in infant mortality, which drove the increase in longevity, many decades ago.
How is this even a story?
Re:News flash (Score:5, Informative)
I understand this way: 1) it contradicts earlier beliefs that everybody would reach 100 and 2) the useful (though kind of obvious) conclusion is that:
radical new medicines that slow the ageing process itself are needed, rather than better treatments for common killers such as cancer, dementia and heart disease.
This allows the public debate related to funding the best direction. People working with cancer/dementia/heart always have to fight for funding with those working with "reverse ageing in mice" (we get these stories on slashdot every now and then); I think the present study allows the latter to claim new arguments for their approach.
Also the Nature paper is as usual of exceptional quality, full of interesting graphs. As much of the readership of this forum is located in US, and the US has a very distinct trend, it might also be useful for the specific public debate there.
From the figures:
Fig. 2, percentage of surviving centenarians: Hong Kong distinguishes itself with a disruptive increase of surviving centenarians since 1992
Fig. 4, change in life expectancy at birth: While many countries showed a similar increase trend in the decades 1960-1980, the US since ~1983 has seen a very distinct slope in NOT following the other trends, with a slower increase and a saturation of the life expectancy since the 2010
Fig. 5(b) Us shows a very distinct life expectancy inequality, higher than any other country since ~1962 and right now not following the decrease trend still observed in other countries.
In case you missed the link in TFS, here it is: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
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Re:News flash (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously we hit a point of diminishing returns on the decrease in infant mortality, which drove the increase in longevity, many decades ago.
How is this even a story?
This was my initial thought also.
Additionally, we should probably calm down about TRYING to extend peoples lives indefinitely. We are mortal men made of flesh and blood, we are not biologically configured to last much past 60 or 70. Happy people accept that one day they will die and live each day completely, knowing that tomorrow is not promised is actually a good thing, it encourages paying attention to the present. The future will be there to worry about itself.
Miserable people stretch themselves to live as long as humanly possible, and for what? How many active, healthy people do you know in their 80s and 90s where it wasn't hereditary? Whether it is genetic or some other factor I am too lazy to look up this morning, but longevity is definitely heritable and runs in families. Both my parents families are full of people who lasted to their late 80s or early 90s, even when fat, diabetic and other co-morbidities. One of my best friends, he only has a single family member who has made it to 70, including the really health-obsessed ones who spent a fortune on food and gyms.
As is often the case the Greek's already had this all figured out: A life well lived is long enough.
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I don't understand how it's a story either. "Only" 6,5 years gain in 20 years? That's huge. Extrapolate that back across the 20th century. That's a massive gain.
The only real story I see in life expectancy is the "mysterious" drop in life expectancy in 2020, which we only ever partly recovered from. You'd almost think that something like one of our major causes of death - let's say respiratory infection, the #3 killer of the elderly - just had its burden permanently increased... ;)
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* 30 years
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Basically, over the last couple hundred years, we've seen a marked increase in how many people live long enough to die of "old people stuff" (stroke, dementia, cardiovascular issues, etc.) per capita. So the *av
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We haven't just reached diminishing returns in some cases going backwards from the summary
In the US, life expectancy fell
That's the richest country in the world with the most advanced medical research. I can see it where I live as well where the health systems seem to be collapsing.
My uninformed opinion is that the cost of developing all these marginally beneficial treatments outweighs their benefits, medical treatments are becoming so unaffordable that people are dying because they can't even afford the even the old treatments.
Too long? (Score:4, Interesting)
Saving older people, like in the 90's?
Sorry but unless you are capable of jumping around like a spring chicken at 90 then I fail to see the point.
If you dont have the natural "refreshment" of the population then all you have is a population that gets older and older, leaving all the young ones taxed to death to try and keep you living. As you are too old, and presumably unable to actually contribute mentally or physically, youre certainly not having more kids, so the young adults have to increasingly replicate like bunnies to live to be taxed to keep the increasing aged population going.
I am 44 and have no problem even considering I'm at the middle of my life. 80 is as far as I see myself going, at bets. But I'm not going to be pretty surprised at going 6 feet under in my 70's, when it happens it happens.
My priorities are thus to pay off the mortgage way earlier than 65, like 10 years earlier. And to then use that extra time, during my last years in work to pump into the pension every penny as well as feeding as high an interest savings account I can find.
I also have to plan ahead, what if I cant walk up the stairs? Presumably I wont move house, in this day and age thats practically impossible if I wish to finish buying it before I retire or am made redundant with no employment oppertunities. So, I've already researched stair lifts and what options there are for my odd house layout. That was good, as I found out it's not an issue.
But thats further down the line, and I can possibly avoid that if I work on losing weight.
Shorter term things are planned, the front door needs full replacement, the UPVC windows need full replacement, the WOODEN windows at the back need upgrading to UPVC. AT some point gas boilers will be banned, the gas will be turned off after that and I'll need to upgrade the house for electric heating, probably storage heaters as a heat pump is currently not legal in my houseing type.
Lots of things to do. But my worst nightmare will be to get to something like 90 and be barely able to remember what time or day it is. To put on some beans for lunch only to forget I did that and leave them on the hob for hours to burn. To wonder what that nasty beeping sound is, literally not knowing what a fire alarm is and that I have one. If I'm not going to have a mind at 90 or god forbid 100, I'd rather go before then. Perhaps I'll find I can sell the house and move into a home, but that will such me dry quickly.
Re:Too long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spare a though for the generations coming after you. A lot of them haven't even started a mortgage by age 44, and the pensions available to them are complete crap.
The real pain will come when they reach the point where they can no longer work, but are still renting and don't have much of private pension to speak of. You stand a decent chance of inheriting significant wealth too as the boomers die off, but that Ponzi scheme is going to have collapsed by the time Gen Z and older Millennials get there.
Re:Too long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spare a though for the generations coming after you. A lot of them haven't even started a mortgage by age 44, and the pensions available to them are complete crap.
Somehow or another, we have raised a few generations whose core competency is victimhood.
The real pain will come when they reach the point where they can no longer work, but are still renting and don't have much of private pension to speak of. You stand a decent chance of inheriting significant wealth too as the boomers die off, but that Ponzi scheme is going to have collapsed by the time Gen Z and older Millennials get there.
This probably sounds strange, but as the designated enemy, being born in 1957, back when I entered the job force, we weren't just handed everything. Indeed, many of the things we are blamed for were performed by the "Greatest Generation" who were our parents.
And there were quite a few whose outlook was just as gloomy as today's victims. The unbeatable wall at the time was inflation, we were told or claimed that there was no point saving for retirement, as we would never be able to retire. That we'd probably be drafted to fight in another war like Vietnam, which was winding down to its ignoble end. There was no hope.
My father told me to ignore the doomsayers, to start saving as soon as possible. It worked. All it took was some financial discipline. I lived within my means, keeping cars longer, furnishings longer, and using a budget. Planning was key. I even had an extra hurdle, coming from poverty, which many believe is impossible to rise above. Amazing when he passed that he had a startling amount of money put away.
One thing ironic, is that I bought my first house at 40, presumably too late. I had saved money for a house down payment and lived in a mobile home until I did that, then paid it off in 14 years.
I gave the same advice to my son that my father gave me, and he is rising in his field, and preparing to buy a house soon.
Retirement. A simple 401k is not a terribly great plan. So you need more. But you take advantage of employer matching. But you need at least one TDA as well. I had three myself, as well as general savings.
I retired at 55, another thing presumably impossible. Retirement income within a couple dollars of my final paycheck.
The point is I'm not even bragging. I'm just showing that the common narrative is simply wrong, and that boomers didn't have some gilded highway to success. We had all of the concerns that those who came later have. Boomers have people who planned as poorly as many younger people are planning now. It isn't a recipe for success, and the only thing it provides is a convenient excuse, and a target to blame.
Of course, this comment will be a -1 troll or something. I only post it in the hope that someone will break free of the failure. We are all responsible for our success or failure, barring something catastrophic.
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There are a few things that really make life difficult for the younger generations, especially gen Z.
House prices as very high as a ratio of average income, and so are rents. The net result is that it's hard to save for a house, resulting in them also having fewer children.
Pensions aren't what they used to be. In the UK we used to have "defined benefit" pensions, where you are guaranteed to get a certain amount out, say a percentage of your salary at retirement. Those are considered gold plated, nowadays th
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There are a few things that really make life difficult for the younger generations, especially gen Z.
House prices as very high as a ratio of average income, and so are rents. The net result is that it's hard to save for a house, resulting in them also having fewer children.
Pensions aren't what they used to be. In the UK we used to have "defined benefit" pensions, where you are guaranteed to get a certain amount out, say a percentage of your salary at retirement. Those are considered gold plated, nowadays the only thing available is "defined contributions" - you pay in X per month and some amount depending on how the investments go comes out at retirement. They amount they pay out is much lower than the old ones.
You can see where this is heading. A lot of people will get to retirement still renting, and the government will have to step in to cover the shortfall, or there will be millions of homeless pensioners. Pensioners tend to vote so chances are they will be protected, burdening the next generation even more.
At some point it's got to collapse.
I've heard it all before, and when I have even used a bit of sarcasm, saying things like "No generation has had it worse than Millenials and GenZ!" I get unironic agreement. Our grandparents died in WW2, many in concentration camps where they were starved and worked todeath but they had it better. The only reason I wasn't drafted to go die in Vietnam was having a high draft number, then going to die became voluntary. My parents got to enjoy the possibility of living and expiring in an iron lung, or from m
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Derived from discussions about Universal Basic Income (UBI) on Slashdot, wherein the funding question tends towards welfare and retirement reform as Social Security Retirement can be viewed as a "precursor" to a UBI, or a functioning UBI system.
If SSI needs to be reformed to establish a UBI, and somebody screams "The Trust Fund is going bankrupt, and won't be there for millennials to retire", then what exactly is going on?
The "Trust Fund"
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I've been seeking feedback on a particular concept. 401k Fiat.
Derived from discussions about Universal Basic Income (UBI) on Slashdot, wherein the funding question tends towards welfare and retirement reform as Social Security Retirement can be viewed as a "precursor" to a UBI, or a functioning UBI system.
If SSI needs to be reformed to establish a UBI, and somebody screams "The Trust Fund is going bankrupt, and won't be there for millennials to retire", then what exactly is going on?
The SSI system functions as an emergency net, an income that is livable, but just livable. No one living on just SSI is going to be vacationing in Dubai or Aruba. I hadn't considered it, but yes, it does make a sort of model for a UBI. If I were to make a guess, a UBI system would be operating around the same level of living standard.
The "Trust Fund" was a surplus of a working system, too many boomers not enough elders at the time led to a boomer surplus. The system wouldn't be as cushy for boomers, but there was money on the table which was unlikely to survive inflation and could be invested. Turns out there is no investment strategy for SSI surpluses, but there are still groups bitter about not getting a "perpetual motion machine" that prints money in order to get that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow of the average Joe "living off the dividends".
When viewed as a safety net rather than a retirement system, it makes better sense. Unfortunately - and as shown by many in here - preparations for retirement are not made by
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Social Security being a living wage might be adequate for my needs, but the two common talking points I get are:
1. Social Security is less than a living wage. The implied argument is that Social Security is F.U.D. that SSI is entirely funded through the Trust Fund, and not through taxes, with a 2034 expiration date on the entire program when the Trust Fund runs out.
2. Those on So
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The "Basic" in "Universal Basic Income" does not necessarily imply livable, or even equitable to Social Security Retirement. Social Security being a living wage might be adequate for my needs, but the two common talking points I get are:
1. Social Security is less than a living wage. The implied argument is that Social Security is F.U.D. that SSI is entirely funded through the Trust Fund, and not through taxes, with a 2034 expiration date on the entire program when the Trust Fund runs out.
It is of course, impossible to define a living wage when we investigate deeply.
The FUD of SS has been going on just about since it was implemented, with insolvency around 2000, 2010, and other dates.
I suppose it is similar to people who preach SHTF times.
An example is a co worker who spent money prolifically. During the dotcom era, his retirement program had him as a multi millionaire. He also had a hefty mortgage. Used to com down to gloat a little, since by that time, I was in a more conservative m
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The average is not set at SSI alone, and in fact the average more likely incorporates a 401k stock based investment (employer contribution matching is "free money", and many employers are starting automatic
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Hear, hear!
Most folks have no concept of what bad really is and how good they have it now. Let's go to 13th century England and see how grand life was!
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Hear, hear!
Most folks have no concept of what bad really is and how good they have it now. Let's go to 13th century England and see how grand life was!
There is a saying:
Hard times breed strong people.
Strong people create good times.
Good times create weak people.
Weak people create hard times.
Rinse and repeat.
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Somehow or another, we have raised a few generations whose core competency is victimhood.
This probably sounds strange, but as the designated enemy, being born in 1957, back when I entered the job force, we weren't just handed everything. Indeed, many of the things we are blamed for were performed by the "Greatest Generation" who were our parents.
And there were quite a few whose outlook was just as gloomy as today's victims. The unbeatable wall at the time was inflation, we were told or claimed that there was no point saving for retirement, as we would never be able to retire. That we'd probably be drafted to fight in another war like Vietnam, which was winding down to its ignoble end. There was no hope.
My father told me to ignore the doomsayers, to start saving as soon as possible. It worked.
Gen X here. We were raised in the shadow of the threat of world-ending nuclear war. Told to give up on planning for the future because it was not going to happen for us. In grade school we learned to "duck and cover when we see the flash"... and to make our way to the fallout shelters where we would assist our elders while they fought off the waves of Russian soldiers who would follow the nuclear attack.
My parents declined to attend my high school graduation because "What's the point? It isn't going to
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Gen X here. We were raised in the shadow of the threat of world-ending nuclear war. Told to give up on planning for the future because it was not going to happen for us. In grade school we learned to "duck and cover when we see the flash"... and to make our way to the fallout shelters where we would assist our elders while they fought off the waves of Russian soldiers who would follow the nuclear attack.
My parents declined to attend my high school graduation because "What's the point? It isn't going to happen anyway."
We had to overcome a slow start (and a strong tendency to nihilism) to get where we are. Every generation faces difficulties. We can either get over it and get on with life, or choose to claim our victimhood and prove to everyone that we can't do it.
I think you meant Boomer here - GenX generally refers to those born between 1965 to 1980. Certainly a lot of what you refer to was a 1950's thing.
But yes, your last statement is true and bears repeating:
"Every generation faces difficulties. We can either get over it and get on with life, or choose to claim our victimhood and prove to everyone that we can't do it."
Exactly. There are always doomers out there, no matter the generation. We can listen to them, or we can understand they are spouting the
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I think you meant Boomer here - GenX generally refers to those born between 1965 to 1980.
1971 -Gen X. We know who we are.
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I think you meant Boomer here - GenX generally refers to those born between 1965 to 1980.
1971 -Gen X. We know who we are.
And the boomers were experiencing your sad state of affairs as well, plus a few others.
Why was yours worse?
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Who said worse? Are we comparing dick sizes now? Shall we call you a whaaamulance?
I said "every generation faces difficulties". Take your meds grandpa.
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Yeah, even older Gen X are screwed by it, especially if their parents had too many children to assist them all.
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An ever growing population is not a sustainable system.
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> Spare a though for the generations coming after you.
No need, I’m in that generation, just was lucky. Living with my parents till I was 33 I was literally effing lucky to slip onto the housing ladder due to the second housing crash. A house I saw before came back onto the market and the owners wanted a quick sale so I was able, thanks to not having an upward chain, to get them to knock off a couple of thousand so I got the house for £120,000.
I literally just managed to slip in, all because
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> You stand a decent chance of inheriting significant wealth too as the boomers die off
What wealth?
The only thing I'm getting when my parents die is the fact to save the kids money they told us to avoid having any service at all and just have them cremated.
You should stick a sock in your mount, my fist wont reach.
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Ive got about 10yrs on you in age. As a kid growing up in the 80s cancer was something only 1 in 26. Now its less than 1 in 4. Its getting close to 1 in 3. Some of that can be attributed to living longer, or not being taken out by something else. If cancer doesnt get you this whole dementia is even harder on your defendants watching you slowly disappear. If they dont solve the dementia issue then living longer is completely pointless.
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You do know about false positives and adverse surgery outcomes yes? When the chance of problems is less than the chance of intervention, you should probably ponder that. Say you have a slow growing prostate cancer that might cause issues in 10-20 years. If you undergo surgery, its possible you become incontinent for the rest of your life. Its not an easy choice and even worse on a population scale for all sorts of things. Its rather unfortunate that what is good for the population as a whole is likely
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If they dont solve the dementia issue then living longer is completely pointless.
So much this. And I'm wondering if that is possible to solve.
Humans evolved with a certain biology. And we haven't escaped it. History shows that elderly humans are prone to dementia, and have been as long as we have been around.
And since we have been allowing more people to get to an age where dementia is a real and present thing, we need to ask does the brain have a hard limit?
No one is living to 250 years old or even 125 years, and of course we are reaching a time of life expectancy increase slow
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> If cancer doesnt get you this whole dementia is even harder on your defendants watching you slowly disappear. If they dont solve the dementia issue then living longer is completely pointless.
Yeah, I noticed the stats for cancer myself.
As for descendants, I have none and wont have any.
I'll be "discovered" after not communicating for a long while. Unless I can get myself into a home.
Re: Too long? (Score:2)
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> These uses district heating so each unit didn't need its own heat pump or gas boiler
We have such projects somewhere in the UK.
We also have a load of mineshafts. I have heard of plans to do such district heating by pumping water through the naturally warm shafts and into homes.
The only issue is that unless you plan the district heating infrastructure alongside the construction of new homes, you are going to have a massive infrastructure project with costs in the billions to plumb up existing UK housing
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Saving older people, like in the 90's?
Sorry but unless you are capable of jumping around like a spring chicken at 90 then I fail to see the point.
Yah, having spent a fair bit of time visiting at nursing homes, not many of those 90 year olds are very spry. And while we go nuts over people who hit 100, almost all of them are immobile.
As you are too old, and presumably unable to actually contribute mentally or physically, youre certainly not having more kids, so the young adults have to increasingly replicate like bunnies to live to be taxed to keep the increasing aged population going.
And there is where a big problem lies. Somehow, some way young ladies have been convinced that "age is just a number", and believe they can start reproduction in their mid-40's, even 50's through IVF, frozen eggs, and other accouterments of geriatric pregnancy. We have managed to create some generations of people who are
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> And there is where a big problem lies. Somehow, some way young ladies have been convinced that "age is just a number", and believe they can start reproduction in their mid-40's, even 50's
Which is actually a long-term desirable selection pressure. Women who age more slowly will remain fertile longer and have children. Those who age normally will be removed from the general pool.
Humans have long generations compared to lab mice, but we're still breeding longer-lived humans... And with 8 billion people
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> And there is where a big problem lies. Somehow, some way young ladies have been convinced that "age is just a number", and believe they can start reproduction in their mid-40's, even 50's
Which is actually a long-term desirable selection pressure. Women who age more slowly will remain fertile longer and have children. Those who age normally will be removed from the general pool.
And the egg issue? We have already extended the age of fertility onset, from puberty to 18 (not terribly successfully, I'll add) but we will not only have to delay that even further, but suppress the expression of eggs. They are not in infinite supply, and what about the need for extensive medical assistance for geriatric pregnancy? IVF is very expensive, and often not successful. As in no baby resulting from it.
There are also problems with geriatric pregnancy. Imagine having a child at 50. You'll be 71
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Eugenics was weilded with ignorance and malice, but it still works.
If we give the young free birth control and deny fertility treatments to older women, eventually we'll get longer living people who have babies later. It will take a long time and there will be a bit population drop first.
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That's right, if I can't climb a mountain in one step, it's not worth climbing!
Well then, tell me your plan, homie. How are we going to change human bodies so that they naturally live to say - 500 years old without massive intervention. Which is to say, everyone can expect to live that long.
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First we accept that it can be done.
Kinda like religion, amirite? Just say This can be done because I say it can.
Then we start pouring money into basic biology research. It's not going to happen in our lifetimes but my own expected healthy lifespan is ten years longer than when I was born; that's the near-term benefit.
You know, we've been working on this for a long time - it's kind of like the unlimited cheap free clean and safe fusion power that is always 20 years away. But I digress.
So what do we know? Controlled starvation does not work. People have been trying that for a long time now.
Intense maintenance medication has not moved the endpoint.
So now, the genetic modifications become interesting. Let's assume a target of 250 years. We ha
Re:Too long? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you dont have the natural "refreshment" of the population then all you have is a population that gets older and older, leaving all the young ones taxed to death to try and keep you living.
In our current system in the USA, that is very true. This is not, however, how it has to be.
To fix it here:
Note that what all of these changes have in common specifically is that they stop the rich from taking money from the poor, or make the rich pay something closer to their fair share which is essentially the same thing.
I for one would also like to see corporate taxes changed from profit taxes to income taxes. There is no valid argument for taxing corporations on profit while taxing citizens on income, especially if corporations want the rights of citizens. Rights which come without responsibilities are as destructive and thus repugnant as responsibilities which come without rights, though from the other direction. There is no living expense which people should not be able to write off, especially since corporations can write off basically any expense.
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I got health issues and am not even 50 yet. I don't want to live that old!
Aging (Score:2)
Aging is multi-systemic. We evolved such that all our organs and systems optimized to survive around the same amount. Why would the brain need to be robust beyond 90 years if the heart can't make it that long? Why should muscles? Aging and dying might also have a role in evolution. Without aging, the fittest of a particular species would dominate and possibly eliminate rivals (at least for reproduction). This may lead to a monoculture, a lack of biodiversity, which in turn affects the species ability to ada
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Soon we won't be bound by evolutionary rules, we can set our own rules. We will be able to edit out any bad traits -- behavioral, mental, and physical, and edit in longevity even some biodiversity.
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The problem is that all systems in humans are interlinked. Any change in one system causes cascading unwanted effects in all others.
This is what kept us from solving a lot of health problems that looked to be easily solvable at first. Suddenly you discover that your medicine that worked really well for the problem it's aimed at also generated some horrible side effect that is intolerably bad.
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The subject in the headline is rises. Plural , therefore it is have
How many old people really are the age they claim? (Score:5, Informative)
From this paper: Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud [biorxiv.org]
As record keeping improves, we should expect to see a reduction in the number of supercentenarians.
The observation of individuals attaining remarkable ages, and their concentration into geographic sub-regions or ‘blue zones’, has generated considerable scientific interest. Proposed drivers of remarkable longevity include high vegetable intake, strong social connections, and genetic markers. Here, we reveal new predictors of remarkable longevity and ‘supercentenarian’ status. In the United States supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. In the UK, Italy, Japan, and France remarkable longevity is instead predicted by regional poverty, old-age poverty, material deprivation, low incomes, high crime rates, a remote region of birth, worse health, and fewer 90+ year old people. In addition, supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on the first of the month and days divisible by five: patterns indicative of widespread fraud and error. As such, relative poverty and missing vital documents constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status, and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.
Re: How many old people really are the age they cl (Score:2)
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From this paper: Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud [biorxiv.org]
As record keeping improves, we should expect to see a reduction in the number of supercentenarians.
Exactly. There was a thing going around how in the Soviet Union, a lot of people claimed to be ancient to get out of service in their wars. Whether true or not, I'm not certain, but there's no doubt that there were some pretty specious claims of extreme old age, and people who so much wanted to believe in them.
Life Expectancy is dropping in the U.K. (Score:4, Interesting)
Spending on the UK National Health Service (NHS) has increased every year over the last 70 years [kingsfund.org.uk] although that has masked several shifts over the decades. During Margaret Thatcher's time a greater emphasis was placed on financial accounting - doctors and hospitals had to spend a lot more time on book-keeping.
Fast forward to 2010 and the coalition government led by David Cameron, the rate of increase dropped from 5.5% to 1.1% although it did bounce back to 2.8% after the following election. Government expenditure on other programs suffered massive cuts starting 2010, this specifically included programs run by local government (the cities and the counties) because they pretty much lost the ability to generate their own income at the end of the 1980s.
Poverty has been rising since 2010, life expectancy has been dropping. I know several people who now volunteer to run food banks [bbc.com] and I had never heard of their existence 15 years ago.
Life expectancy in the UK slowed down drastically starting 2011 [kingsfund.org.uk], and obviously it dropped for a while when Covid came along. A lot of this is poverty-related, and Brexit has cost another 4.5% in GDP so things are not looking to get better any time soon. Poverty varies wildly from area to area and some regions are pretty much untouched by the political changes.
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Re: Life Expectancy is dropping in the U.K. (Score:2)
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For those that dislike 40+ minute videos, TL;DR: UK Conservatives are just like US conservatives, COVID was a thing, and Brexit was pure stupidity if you were concerned about economic growth. The results are pretty similar. If it wasn't for the US's status as the world's reserve currency, the US would probably be in a much more similar state.
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It's also a tale of demographic change in UK. Different peoples have different medical profiles. Pakistanis for example have extremely high incest rates, with cousin marriage being a norm. In addition to horrific amount of people with extreme genetic defects that their community produces as a result (which is known to be a significant point of spending for NHS as these people require complex, expensive and life long care), this also leads to lowering of life expectation for entire demographic group even for
Re: Life Expectancy is dropping in the U.K. (Score:2)
Figure 4 (Score:3)
Can anyone make sense of Figure 4? They claim it's a plot of the natural log of life expectancy vs calendar year. But that y axis has three ticks, nearly evenly spaced: 0, 70, 80. The title says "change in log of life expectancy" while the axis just refers to "natural log of life expectancy". A natural log value of 70 would refer to 10^30 years. I would say that they must be referring to a non-log life expectancy (in the 70-80 range), except that for Japan it apparently goes below 0 before 1960.
What am I missing here?
So you're saying (Score:1)
Summary (Score:2)
An average person who eats well, engages in some light exercise, avoids excessive stress, doesn't have a bad accident and isn't unlucky enough to experience a bad illness, will probably live into their mid 80s. And this hasn't changed in a LONG time.
You're now far more likely to make it to those numbers because it's easier to eat well, avoid accidents and illness, and when you fail on those last two counts we have some pretty impressive medical interventions to counteract them in most cases. Stress... th
Re: Summary (Score:2)
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An average person who eats well, engages in some light exercise, avoids excessive stress, doesn't have a bad accident and isn't unlucky enough to experience a bad illness, will probably live into their mid 80s. And this hasn't changed in a LONG time.
On my father's side of the family, the men live within a year or two of 85, unless accidents or death in war.
There's no juice left to squeeze from that fruit, we're going to need some fresh produce. Until we understand how ageing works at a cellular level and figure out how to slow (or maybe reverse) the damage, 'mid 80s' is probably a reasonable target for anyone with access to modern healthcare.
Much of our physical nature is not even designed for living past that mid-80's number. Like our bones. If our bones were replacing themselves, then I wouldn't be dealing with all those Ice Hockey injuries haunting me now.
Significant longevity gains will need to be genetically engineered into you before you're bigger than a single cell.
The problem in my estimation is continual repair of our biological processes always tends to look like cancer, removing the hayflick limit. So assuming we change our genetics, we mig
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Hayflick appears to be an evolutionary kludge - a last resort attempt to stop cancer by ensuring a replication limit on cells that shouldn't need to replicate more than the limit to ensure genes have been passed on.
Resetting the limit is achievable, but we're going to have to solve cancer first, and curing it by culling affected cells after the fact isn't anywhere near as desirable as re-engineering cellular error correction to prevent it in the first place. Otherwise you're going to be experiencing a lot
So it's still rising, yes? (Score:3)
Sounds like a "local maximum" to me. Until we get improved genetic engineering, bioware or life-extension medication.
In the mean time we can work on our eating habits, daily exercise and avoid obesity. I'm pretty sure that would have overall life expectancy to kick back into overdrive.
It's worth remembering (Score:2)
It's worth remembering that a significant amount of people over 100 years old aren't as old as they claim to be.
Issues range from poor documentation to people not remembering their age correctly (most nations didn't even measure age/document birthdays the way we do today in early 20th century), to just plain pension fraud.
Re: It's worth remembering (Score:2)
It's the shitty food (Score:2)
and too much of it.
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Live long and prosper (Score:2)
How do elves and Vulcans do it? Elves are basically immortal compared to humans, and Vulcans are in their golden years at 200 years (Earth years?)
Re:Live long and prosper (Score:4, Funny)
How do elves and Vulcans do it? Elves are basically immortal compared to humans, and Vulcans are in their golden years at 200 years (Earth years?)
Elves and Vulcans use the same life-expectancy extension trick. It's really quite clever! The key is: they're fictional.
Personally, if I were going to change my life by being fictional, I'd go a different direction. I think I'd go with magic. Though these things aren't mutually exclusive -- in lots of fiction, wizards are very long-lived, too.
Misuse of Stats (Score:3)
Most life expectancy stats are quoted as from birth. This is not a great statistic to use when talking about longevity in the aged because life expectancy is birth is heavily impacted by infant mortality. In a society where half of children die in infancy and the other half live to 80, the "life expectancy" will be quoted as being 40 even if nobody is actually dying at 40. Better to quote life expectancy at retirement age like 65 (something insurance and pension actuaries use all the time) if you want to track longevity.
Medical advances and things like better nutrition have meant that more people live their full lifespan, but there's little evidence that any of these things has fundamentally upped the ceiling on human lifespan. Before modern medical science, someone like my grandfather (currently 90 years old) would have died in his 50s (when he had a massive heart attack requiring a bypass operation). But someone without heart disease wouldn't have even needed medical science to get them to 90. Instead of upping the ceiling, we just increase the odds of hitting our genetic ceiling rather than dying before we hit it. Even Plato writing thousands of years ago assumed a human lifespan of around 80 when writing the Republic.
MCCOY [OC]: We're all dying. (Score:2)
pareto principle (Score:2)
Pareto principle?
Life expectancy of today's babies? I call BS (Score:2)
How on earth can anyone forecast the life expectancy of newborns today, especially in well-off areas of the world? As you can't forecast it, you can't forecast a trend in it.
There'll clearly be a good fraction of today's newborns who will live to 80 to 100 years old. Which means, at high risk of death (80-100) no sooner than between 2104 and 2124, even with today's life expectancy.
Who the hell knows what medical advances will have emerged by 2100?
Are these forecasts made under the assumption that the medica