Rises In Life Expectancy Have Slowed Dramatically, Analysis Finds
- Reference: 0175223803
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/24/10/10/0214250/rises-in-life-expectancy-have-slowed-dramatically-analysis-finds
- Source link:
> 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."
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> 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.
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> "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.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/07/rises-in-life-expectancy-have-slowed-dramatically-analysis-finds
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3
No shit (Score:2)
We stopped giving a shit about science and all our heroes are sports stars, actors, or fucking musicians.
Re: (Score:2)
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?
Re: (Score:1)
No true. Stephen Hawking was a scientist and he was a a star. He had this super cool wheel chair and when he was talking there was this cool computer voice.
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: (Score:2)
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
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: (Score:2)
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.
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
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
The subject in the headline is rises . Plural , therefore it is have
How many old people really are the age they claim? (Score:2)
From this paper: [1]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, an
[1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v2
Too bad (Score:2)
presidents don't die younger.