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Our maximum lifespan may not have changed much, if at all. But that’s not to delegitimise the extraordinary advances of the last few decades which have helped s

• ip26 8y ago
  Some of them, sure. But the benefit of not dying horribly of polio or smallpox is pretty nice, as is the wildly better odds of surviving childbirth. It's kind of anecdata, but have you ever noticed how in classical books from a few hundred years ago, it's sort of normal that Mr So & So might be on his third or fourth wife because the others died in childbirth? Just something that caught my attention.
  • HarryHirsch 8y ago
    Slightly more recent: B. Traven notes that in the 1920s in Chiapas 50 % of children would die before the age of 6. (He continues that those surviving early childhood could look forward to reaching a ripe old age.)
• mikekchar 8y ago
  On the other hand, because I live in rural Japan and am only really friends with the people who live near me, almost all of my friends are over 70 (I'm 50). While this is of course selection bias (as well as being anecdotal), people I associate with don't end up in nursing homes -- at least long term. A quick google search tells me that only between 2 and 5% of people over 65 live in nursing homes and that jives pretty well with my experience. Most people seem to live pretty well until a year or so before they die, and then they essentially fall off a cliff. My wife's aunt passed away last year from some kind of brain issue (I never did figure out exactly what the problem was -- lack of vocabulary). She was in and out of the hospital for about 3 months and while distressing, I think she very much appreciated being alive in those 3 months. After that she essentially ended up in a kind of semi-coma where she was awake for maybe an hour a day -- and she was in a nursing home. After another 5 months or so she passed away. I don't know if she got much value from those 5 months, but I know her husband definitely was able to use the time to come to grips with the reality of the situation. Again, just an anecdote, but I think it's illustrative of the complexity of the situation. Anyway, I think most people can look forward to enjoying their old age. Of course it makes a big difference if you look after your body when you are young and it is much easier to do so.
  • delhanty 8y ago
    OT - sorry >On the other hand, because I live in rural Japan and am only really friends with the people who live near me, almost all of my friends are over 70 (I'm 50). I'm in a pretty similar situation ... guess from your profile that it's OK to hook up with you by email ?
    • mikekchar 8y ago
      Yes, please do!
  • wallace_f 8y ago
    There are also those of us who personally know people whose lives are saved only to have the remainder be defined by experiences of pain, discomfort, and indignity. Not to mention, extroardinary cost.
  • coldtea 8y ago
    >On the other hand, because I live in rural Japan and am only really friends with the people who live near me, almost all of my friends are over 70 (I'm 50). While this is of course selection bias (as well as being anecdotal), people I associate with don't end up in nursing homes -- at least long term. That's not what selection bias is -- that's just an accurate reporting of what you see around you. It would be selection bias if you additionally claimed that this must be the case elsewhere too.
    • mikekchar 8y ago
      I just mean that I don't hang out in nursing homes, so all of the 70+ people I know are those who aren't in nursing homes. This may cause me to believe that older people don't normally live in nursing homes. Probably I could have explained that better :-)
    • kbutler 8y ago
      It is absolutely selection bias, in precisely the context the grandparent stated - he recognized that his data sample may not be representative of the entire population. Perfect disclaimer on the limitations of his analysis because of the selection bias inherent in the data sample.
• AQuantized 8y ago
  The number of old people in care homes is relatively low. People also typically report high life satisfaction in their old age. It's easy to look at examples of people in this demographic in unfortunate conditions and project it onto the whole group, but I don't think it's representative in this case. That said, euthanasia would be a great option to have for those with chronic ailments.
• aaavl2821 8y ago
  The benefits of some advances are questionable, but the benefits of others seem to be more definite The leading cause of death in the US in 1980 was heart disease. It is still the leading cause of death today. However, the absolute number of deaths due to heart disease has declined by 17% from 1980 to 2015. This is despite the population growing by 42%. That is pretty amazing. I don't have data on exactly what contributed to this decline in heart disease deaths, but I'd bet it is better drugs. The first statin was approved in 1987. ACE / ARB inhibitors were approved in the 1980s and 1990s. Again I don't have data on exactly what caused the decrease in cardiovascular disease deaths but would love to hear if others do. Nutrition and lifestyle (less smoking?) could have played a role as well, but diabetes deaths have increased a lot, so I don't think lifestyles have become too much healthier The second leading cause of death is cancer. The number of deaths from cancer has roughly tracked population growth. The third leading cause of death in 1980, stroke, has seen absolute numbers of deaths drop by 18% from 1980 to 2015
  • tomp 8y ago
    > The number of deaths from cancer has roughly tracked population growth. Is this a good metric though? It seems to me that (1) once you get cancer, you always have cancer, and (2) if nothing else kills you, cancer does. So maybe a better metric would be, the lifespan of people with cancer?
  • 883771773929 8y ago
    > ... exactly what caused the decrease in cardiovascular disease deaths but would love to hear if others do. Unfortunately I don't have data either, but I do have a hypothesis that may or may not end up surviving scrutiny when the relevant data becomes available. If someone can refute these ideas, please contribute. The ultimate cause: demographics changed. The recent decades have seen native populations reduce their fertility in the US. This is analogous to ecological succession of pioneering species colonizing barren land building up new soils by quickly flourishing and in turn crowded out in competition as other species take hold in niches opened by the pioneers laying a rich framework however being unsuccessful at sustaining dominance due to the energetic and fitness costs of extreme adaptation in resource poor environments that are unable to be useful traits relative to other species that can quickly capitalize on existing infrastructure when there's no need to divert capacity to build anew when resources become abundant. Today when applied to populations of humans in the US, the same principal goes under names like "white flight" as fleeing urbanization to recreate past conditions that were more favorable in competition strategies, "gentrification" when enclaves of urban areas decay and are then susceptible to recolonization efforts, and "immigration" to relieve bottlenecks in reproduction and the resulting scar of exposed barren land and poor nutrient circulation in the ecosystem that are caused by pioneer individuals stockpiling reserves without reinvesting in reseeding efforts. Heart disease is typically a progressive terminal stage of diabetes and other metabolic disorders that intertwine risk factors such as poor nutrition, excessive calorie consumption and resulting unhealthy body fat percentages, alcohol abuse, cigarette use, and high stress. Looking closure at the medical literature, I'd actually reconsider the idea that statins produce beneficial health outcomes, but I won't get into that in this comment. The point here is that in heart disease being the cumulative effects over a lifetime and diabetes as a _leading_ (not trailing) indicator of population risk for heart disease, what you're really seeing is the transition of health since WW2 when war rationing forced the agricultural and food processing industries to change course in providing massive amount of calories at low cost and effective propaganda and marketing to ensure sustained demand when the war was over to not shock the economy back into depression. Heavily processed foods like spam, American cheese, and canned/dried foods are technological means to make food supplies go further with less waste and higher caloric density. Add in things like pushing cigarette consumption heavily after the war and you get the perfect storm that kills off a large percentage of the lower class baby boomer generation early in life by around the 1980s. What's left since then are the middle and upper class baby boomers whose children reproduce in far lower numbers, being replaced with immigrants. Those immigrants come here with very different cultures regarding food consumption, nutrition, and healthcare that for a period of time did decrease the incidence of influence of the cultural epidemic of war-era food technology. Usually after one generation though, immigrant families transition to the already establish cultural expectations and shift dietary and consumption patterns. Therefore you get the next surge of diabetes as the form of the next incarnation of the cycle. In a few decades you'll see another recurrance in more prevelent heart disease.
• BurningFrog 8y ago
  > The benefits of some of those advances are questionable at best. Which ones?
  • abainbridge 8y ago
    Off the top of my head: 1. Increased risk of getting dementia (due to living longer). 2. In some cancer cases, being kept alive in a state of suffering for a year or two more than you would have lasted without treatment. 3. Health treatment costing a significant fraction of GDP. Some people might still think these are good things. I think "questionable at best" is a good summary.
• sytelus 8y ago
  The keyword is maximum. Yes, that can't be improved unless our genes have changed substantially in last few centuries. However average has improved substantially. The massive number of diseases that used to kick in before genetically imposed maximum age limit including diabetes, cancer, heart attack, pneumonia etc have gone down significantly bringing average closer and closer to maximum.
  • your-nanny 8y ago
    but most deaths occurred in first year or two. doesn't takemany of those to drive down the average. and then there is the stupidity of adolescence and war.
• eksemplar 8y ago
  I think the issue with nursing homes come from a misunderstanding of what they are. Maybe it’s different outside of Scandinavia, but here, the only people who go to nursing homes are people who are so sick they can no longer stay in their own homes. So naturally the state of those placed in a nursing home is dire, and when you view the nursing home as a place for the old rather than for what it is it’ll give you the idea that old age isn’t something to strive for. In reality, however, a nursing home is really a long term hospice and everyone who live there is slowly dying from a range of diseases. Often because they didn’t live healthy lives. That’s not what old age has to look like though. More and more people are living rich lives even after they turn 90, and while we can talk about the quality of life of those who don’t, the technological advances are also helping people who don’t go to nursing homes. It’s sepecially helping with mobility, so that people who get sick in a non-lethal way, like getting pains from walking, can stay out of the nursing home longer than they used to.
  • 883771773929 8y ago
    Don't know where you live, but here in the US and especially in our metro areas, we use nursing homes as a way to seek vengeance against the older generations if they were assholes to younger generations. On the surface, we like to say how we're providing care and have their best interests in mind as they "age well" and as we repay the debt of elders who took care of us so dutifully for years. But in reality, the main usage is to get rid of very burdensome, cantankerous, and irresponsible leeches who because they left their children with a sense of hatred will not give in to the idea of putting up with their crap ever again, so let them rot all drugged up in a coma where they cannot escape as they watch TV in a urine-soaked room and play bingo every Wednesday night until they die off. It's more a short-term fix for us though, a pretty typical American form of cutting off the nose to spite the face since national spending is sprialing out of control from dealing with the old and will become a larger economic problem. Ironically, it does force the hand of the young in later years once filial laws come back in full swing enforcement who will end up saying enough is enough and euthanasia legalization legislation will come swooping in to deal with this.
    • tomcam 8y ago
• bpizzi 8y ago
  > The benefits of some of those advances are questionable at best. Spending the last decade of your life commuting to doctor's offices (or bedridden) ain't no picnic, nor is rotting away in a forgotten corner of a human warehouse. To me, it's absolutely not "questionable at best": it's a tremendous step for humanity on a path to a fully enjoyable long life. On a population-wide point of view, the next step is that the first 60/70 years should be dedicated to building a strong body. Sport and nutrition, done intelligently (no mindless cardio, for example), can do wonders for the last 20 years of one's life. A strong body can be achieved by virtually anybody with time and dedication, minus specific conditions (laziness is not a specific condition). I'm not talking about being lean and jacked, I'm speaking about strong body, with working joints that have been taken care of during the whole life. Of course there's medical conditions specific to old age that can't be escaped even with a strong body, mainly brain decay. Science needs to continue its quest here. I've read that there's hints that Alzheimer may be linked somehow (in a complex way) to lack of sleep: I can assure you that you sleep well when you lift every two days, years after years. In the end there's no simply no logical reason to neglect our body. The bulk of old people in nursing have just completely neglected their body for their entire life, and that's the main reason why they can't enjoy the last years. As a civilization, we should now focus on engaging current generations to prepare their body for the end.
  • tomcam 8y ago
    > I can assure you that you sleep well when you lift every two days, years after years You can assure me, but it won’t be true. Source: lifted at least five days a week for years and was deeply insomniac the whole time
    • bpizzi 8y ago
      Yes, sorry for the harsh generalization.
    • a008t 8y ago
      Five days a week sounds like too much - if you are not able to recover between sessions, you will get symptoms of overtraining which include poor sleep and poor appetite.
• zokier 8y ago
  I'm reading Pinkers Enlightenment Now, where he does tackle the issue. Namely he claims that not only has our average lifespan extended, but also the number of healthy years has grown. For example he states that for the average 4.7 years of added life expectancy between 1990-2010, 3.8 years added were healthy.
• modernyogihippy 8y ago
  > nor is rotting away in a forgotten corner of a human warehouse To play devil's advocate, a lot of older people in Asian, Latin, and Middle Eastern societies don't end up in retirement homes. Yes, they exist, but it's culturally expected for children to take care of their parents in old age (just like the parents took care of the kids when they were young). Sure it doesn't make the quality of your last decades in life much better but I think at least it'd involve less crippling loneliness.
  • hrktb 8y ago
    That’s going away very fast though. In developped countries the cost (mental, economical, physical) of caring for parents drive away children, and where there was two to three siblings decades ago, in these day and age single childs are plenty.
• reacweb 8y ago
  Charles Aznavour just died 94 yo. He was still fully active.
• village-idiot 8y ago
  We need to focus more on morbidity rather than mortality. The former is for when you stop functioning well, the latter is when you die. Living to 95 when hooked up to machines, immobile, and in pain is clearly inferior to being relatively mobile and dropping suddenly at 85.
• chewz 8y ago
  C'mon 80-ty y.o. is the new 60-ty y.o. My Mum is 86 and my father turns 90 Saturday. I live at my Mum's summerhouse currently and most of the people around are around 80 y.o. There is a bias of course (some died and others ain't comming to their summerhouses) but they are active and taking care of themselves. I have some re-modelling of the summerhouse done by a neighbor who is 80-ty, he has cancer, had a stroke but is very active, optimistic, friendly and God, he is good with his tools and when starts working he can't be stoped. The healthcare ain't perfect but it is quite good, the pensions are OK and if you managed to stay active and relatively healthy then you can enjoy your time. That's my impression.