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It's not a statistical error. Overall, the maximum age that anyone gets to is not much higher than before, but: 1. Many more people reach old age than previous

It's not a statistical error. Overall, the maximum age that anyone gets to is not much higher than before, but: 1. Many more people reach old age than previously (due to reduced infant mortality), so old age diseases are a larger problem for society since a larger portion of society is getting old. (not citing a source for this because it's extremely well established) 2. Life expectancy for various ages (not just starting at birth) has increased steadily over the last 100 years. Check out page 3 here: http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/Eng/Docs/DEIP_Gallop.pdf http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/Eng/Docs/DEIP_Gallop.pdf Life expectancy improvements at various ages over the past 100 years: At birth: +27 years At age 15: +14 years At age 45: +10 years At age 65: +5 years At age 80: +2 years Functional medicine is not responsible for the increases in life expectancy.

kolev 12y ago
As you can tell by your own sample, above 50, the improvements are more like a rounding error than anything. Considering that most of these "improved" lives are actually suffering from various chronic diseases, I don't think there's any improvement. It doesn't really matter if one lived 80 or 82 years, the quality of life of those 80 years is what matters and given how much time is invested now in healthcare compared to zero to nothing in the past, that is really non-productive, no fun, i.e. wasted time, so, subtract that from the overall lifespan and there's no improvement at all and on the contrary!
- ggreer 12y ago
  Please stop.
  - kolev 12y ago
    Why? You can't help your downvoting urges? I think a lot of you should learn to respect and tolerate other people's opinions! Definitely your overreactive aggressive mentality is not gonna help you with your lifespan!
gwern 12y ago
> Overall, the maximum age that anyone gets to is not much higher than before Not-so-fun fact: ever since Jeanne Calment died in 1997, the maximum age (as recorded by the GRG) has kept falling: while Calment hit 122, we're now down to 116 or so, which is much more impressive than it looks because the annual mortality rate for supercentenarians is like 50%+. I've wondered more than once if she was some kind of unique freak of nature - she was even a smoker!

kolev 12y ago

As you can tell by your own sample, above 50, the improvements are more like a rounding error than anything. Considering that most of these "improved" lives are actually suffering from various chronic diseases, I don't think there's any improvement. It doesn't really matter if one lived 80 or 82 years, the quality of life of those 80 years is what matters and given how much time is invested now in healthcare compared to zero to nothing in the past, that is really non-productive, no fun, i.e. wasted time, so, subtract that from the overall lifespan and there's no improvement at all and on the contrary!

ggreer 12y ago
Please stop.
- kolev 12y ago
  Why? You can't help your downvoting urges? I think a lot of you should learn to respect and tolerate other people's opinions! Definitely your overreactive aggressive mentality is not gonna help you with your lifespan!

gwern 12y ago

> Overall, the maximum age that anyone gets to is not much higher than before Not-so-fun fact: ever since Jeanne Calment died in 1997, the maximum age (as recorded by the GRG) has kept falling: while Calment hit 122, we're now down to 116 or so, which is much more impressive than it looks because the annual mortality rate for supercentenarians is like 50%+. I've wondered more than once if she was some kind of unique freak of nature - she was even a smoker!