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What's interesting about human all-cause mortality trends is that human beings in the developed countries have been gaining three months of lifespan for every y

What's interesting about human all-cause mortality trends is that human beings in the developed countries have been gaining three months of lifespan for every year that they live (sometimes described as "six hours each day").[1] Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2] originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. A lot incremental improvements in both public health and in medical practice, as well as much better nutrition than in the old days, are steadily increasing life expectancy.[3] This is happening for people of all ages; life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising, and all-cause mortality and morbidity declining, throughout the developed countries of the world.[4] So the monkey research needs to be meshed in with human research that shows that mildly "overweight" (if fit) human beings have better mortality outcomes than human beings of normal weight[5] to tease out what the causation is for health outcomes of different patterns of nutrition. The example of Rimonabant[6] shows that sometimes an animal model doesn't adequately predict treatment effects in human subjects. [1] http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.... [2] http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... [3] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_... [4] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box... [5] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23280227 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23280227 [6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19578688 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19578688

beagle3 13y ago
> Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long I'm sure this is backed up by studies and references, and at the same time I am amused at the hubris of making this statement. It's a cheap prediction to make, given that it will be around 2070 before you can verify it - and how right it is depends on lack-of-catastrohpies (e.g. in 20 years we'll have an idea how the meltdown in Fukushima affects lifespan), same-rate-and-same-kind-and-availability of advances, etc. And before you criticize me for being "anti-sciece" - I am not, and unlike a lot of other assertions, this might technically be science (I haven't reviewed the source material) - however, it is not useful science because it may take 70 years to falsify. Furthermore, a lot of -- perhaps most -- extrapolations of past trends had been wrong. At the time of Wallace & Darwin it was "scientifically" extrapolated that food will only grow linearly. And in 1980 climate studies had shown that if we don't do anything (and we didn't) by 2000 quite a few coastal cities will be underwater. If I wasn't anonymous, I'd place a long bet that the data crunching that led to this prediction will turn out to be complete rubish.
- scarmig 13y ago
  in 1980 climate studies had shown that if we don't do anything (and we didn't) by 2000 quite a few coastal cities will be underwater Cite?
  - beagle3 13y ago
    Well, last time I looked for it, I couldn't find any older studies on the IPCC website that have been shown to be wrong. However, having lived and read newspapers at the time, I remember the scare mongering, and specifically the mention of the "Marker Tree" in the Maldives, which were projected to to have significant areas under water by 2010, then 2020, now 2100 (spolier: it didn't happen https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110718090253AAlHC37 https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201107180902...) A quick googling cannot find the original predictions (days before the web ... go figure), but this interesting discussion http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/the-1990-ipcc-climate-projections/ http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/the-1990-ipcc... will give you an idea about the difference between 25 year old predictions and what actually happened. The guy who runs this blog is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez Other readings: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-models-overestimated-global-warming/ http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-... (yes, it is fox news - so use your debiaser, but do look at the content). Also the responses and links over at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-assessments-25-years-of-the-ipcc/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-assessment...
- Houshalter 13y ago
  It's just a simple projection, it's not meant to be taken so seriously. I expect that it's extremely conservative. We are currently in the dark ages of medicine where we just shoot people up with random chemicals and see what happens. There is a lot of room for improvement. Not to mention the singularity.
  - willholloway 13y ago
    Exactly. We are simply molecular machines, and we can and will become masters of our molecular destiny, and I would be happy to make a Simon–Ehrlich type wager with anyone, executed by smart crypto-contract, that the average lifespan of a Female born in 2000 will be > than 100. I would say that my heir(s) will collect the winnings, but I fully expect medical progress will let me outpace death for quite some time. "And what do we say to death?" "Not today!"
jessriedel 13y ago
> Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2] originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. You or someone else presented this highly speculative claim as fact a long time ago on HN. I've tried to find the comment link, but I can't. In any case, the support for this supposed fact is very dubious. You link to one article by Vaupel in Nature who, in making this claim, cites only this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ by Christensen et al. The paper says, in the abstract, > If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays. Very few medical researchers are likely to find that "if" statement at all plausible, so this claim about most newborn girls living to 100 is bogus. If you have a better source for this claim, please present it. Otherwise, stop posting it.
- tokenadult 13y ago
  (Thank you for your concern.) How would one prove this claim wrong? There is signal in current mortality and morbidity statistics about how long the individuals now alive will last before they die off. Is anyone interpreting this signal from official medical reports any differently from Vaupel and Christensen? Both Vaupel and Christensen are very well respected demographers (as Vaupel's publication in Nature should adequately suggest to readers familiar with the scientific literature). Paul Graham has a great essay online titled "How to Disagree"[1] and I invite you to apply those steps in any thread on Hacker News where you see a factual claim with which you disagree (as I think I have seen you do in countless thoughtful earlier comments that have been posted here from your keyboard). If you have a better source for this claim, please present it. Otherwise, stop posting it. What you seem to be objecting to here is not the factual statement (you have not suggested any reason to doubt the factual statement, and haven't cited anyone who works in demography) but rather the strikingly concrete way in which the statement was made. But that manner of making the statement was chosen by Vaupel (in agreement with Christensen, whose works on the topic I have also read) and I'm just passing on the ideas of recognized experts whose published papers on the topic look plausible to me and look especially plausible to demography researchers on human aging I know locally. I learned about the papers of these two authors from local researchers who sometimes collaborate with Vaupel and Christensen (especially Christensen). It shouldn't be objectionable here on Hacker News to pass on user-readable citations to published scientific literature that looks plausible to other scientists with a basis of knowledge in the subject. You are asking me to change my overt behavior as one Hacker News participant among thousands. Where in the Hacker News guidelines[2] do you find a problem with behavior like mine here? Hacker News seems very tolerant of predictions of the future, and indeed some of the favorite topics here revolve around predictions of the future. [1] http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html [2] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
js2 13y ago
Re: mildly overweight having better mortality outcomes, see this recent study that was designed to remove the confounding factors of smoking and illness-induced weight loss, and then found excess weight does indeed adversely impact mortality (the study was limited by self-reported weight): http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/04/uncovering-true-health-costs-of-excess.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/04/uncovering-tru...

beagle3 13y ago

> Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long I'm sure this is backed up by studies and references, and at the same time I am amused at the hubris of making this statement. It's a cheap prediction to make, given that it will be around 2070 before you can verify it - and how right it is depends on lack-of-catastrohpies (e.g. in 20 years we'll have an idea how the meltdown in Fukushima affects lifespan), same-rate-and-same-kind-and-availability of advances, etc. And before you criticize me for being "anti-sciece" - I am not, and unlike a lot of other assertions, this might technically be science (I haven't reviewed the source material) - however, it is not useful science because it may take 70 years to falsify. Furthermore, a lot of -- perhaps most -- extrapolations of past trends had been wrong. At the time of Wallace & Darwin it was "scientifically" extrapolated that food will only grow linearly. And in 1980 climate studies had shown that if we don't do anything (and we didn't) by 2000 quite a few coastal cities will be underwater. If I wasn't anonymous, I'd place a long bet that the data crunching that led to this prediction will turn out to be complete rubish.

scarmig 13y ago
in 1980 climate studies had shown that if we don't do anything (and we didn't) by 2000 quite a few coastal cities will be underwater Cite?
- beagle3 13y ago
  Well, last time I looked for it, I couldn't find any older studies on the IPCC website that have been shown to be wrong. However, having lived and read newspapers at the time, I remember the scare mongering, and specifically the mention of the "Marker Tree" in the Maldives, which were projected to to have significant areas under water by 2010, then 2020, now 2100 (spolier: it didn't happen https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110718090253AAlHC37 https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=201107180902...) A quick googling cannot find the original predictions (days before the web ... go figure), but this interesting discussion http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/the-1990-ipcc-climate-projections/ http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2012/03/27/the-1990-ipcc... will give you an idea about the difference between 25 year old predictions and what actually happened. The guy who runs this blog is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez Other readings: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-models-overestimated-global-warming/ http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/28/un-climate-report-... (yes, it is fox news - so use your debiaser, but do look at the content). Also the responses and links over at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-assessments-25-years-of-the-ipcc/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-assessment...
Houshalter 13y ago
It's just a simple projection, it's not meant to be taken so seriously. I expect that it's extremely conservative. We are currently in the dark ages of medicine where we just shoot people up with random chemicals and see what happens. There is a lot of room for improvement. Not to mention the singularity.
- willholloway 13y ago
  Exactly. We are simply molecular machines, and we can and will become masters of our molecular destiny, and I would be happy to make a Simon–Ehrlich type wager with anyone, executed by smart crypto-contract, that the average lifespan of a Female born in 2000 will be > than 100. I would say that my heir(s) will collect the winnings, but I fully expect medical progress will let me outpace death for quite some time. "And what do we say to death?" "Not today!"

jessriedel 13y ago

> Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2] originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. You or someone else presented this highly speculative claim as fact a long time ago on HN. I've tried to find the comment link, but I can't. In any case, the support for this supposed fact is very dubious. You link to one article by Vaupel in Nature who, in making this claim, cites only this paper http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ by Christensen et al. The paper says, in the abstract, > If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays. Very few medical researchers are likely to find that "if" statement at all plausible, so this claim about most newborn girls living to 100 is bogus. If you have a better source for this claim, please present it. Otherwise, stop posting it.

tokenadult 13y ago
(Thank you for your concern.) How would one prove this claim wrong? There is signal in current mortality and morbidity statistics about how long the individuals now alive will last before they die off. Is anyone interpreting this signal from official medical reports any differently from Vaupel and Christensen? Both Vaupel and Christensen are very well respected demographers (as Vaupel's publication in Nature should adequately suggest to readers familiar with the scientific literature). Paul Graham has a great essay online titled "How to Disagree"[1] and I invite you to apply those steps in any thread on Hacker News where you see a factual claim with which you disagree (as I think I have seen you do in countless thoughtful earlier comments that have been posted here from your keyboard). If you have a better source for this claim, please present it. Otherwise, stop posting it. What you seem to be objecting to here is not the factual statement (you have not suggested any reason to doubt the factual statement, and haven't cited anyone who works in demography) but rather the strikingly concrete way in which the statement was made. But that manner of making the statement was chosen by Vaupel (in agreement with Christensen, whose works on the topic I have also read) and I'm just passing on the ideas of recognized experts whose published papers on the topic look plausible to me and look especially plausible to demography researchers on human aging I know locally. I learned about the papers of these two authors from local researchers who sometimes collaborate with Vaupel and Christensen (especially Christensen). It shouldn't be objectionable here on Hacker News to pass on user-readable citations to published scientific literature that looks plausible to other scientists with a basis of knowledge in the subject. You are asking me to change my overt behavior as one Hacker News participant among thousands. Where in the Hacker News guidelines[2] do you find a problem with behavior like mine here? Hacker News seems very tolerant of predictions of the future, and indeed some of the favorite topics here revolve around predictions of the future. [1] http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html [2] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

js2 13y ago

Re: mildly overweight having better mortality outcomes, see this recent study that was designed to remove the confounding factors of smoking and illness-induced weight loss, and then found excess weight does indeed adversely impact mortality (the study was limited by self-reported weight): http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/04/uncovering-true-health-costs-of-excess.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2014/04/uncovering-tru...