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No Cap On Life Expectancy?
Samarkind writes "An article over at Science Daily (no registration req'd) talks about the average life expectancy for people going up all over the world by an average of 3 months per year. They also say that the somewhat pervasive idea that people can only live so long just isn't true. The kicker that I got from the article was that the average life expectancy for men is 65... isn't that about when I'll retire?" Remember the life expectancy includes all the people who die at age 2 or 15 or 21. If you make it past 25 or so, you've got good odds to make it to 80.
We need to get that up to over 1 year per year.
One shortcoming of the article is that the cause for the increase is not stated. Many causes for increasing life expectancy have no implications regarding a maximum lifespan. If all we're doing is reducing early deaths through improved vaccinations and safety, then we've made no progress in disproving the idea of a maximum lifespan.
Another way of looking at it would be: The life expectancy for people born today is higher than for people born twenty years ago. That doesn't mean that the life expectancy for people who are 60 today is any better than the life expectancy for people who were 60 twenty years ago.
...I plan on living forever.
So far, so good.
-Adam
So if the conclusions of this study are true, not only should we see life expectancy continue to rise, but we should be frequently setting new records for the oldest living human.
A few years ago, the oldest person in modern history died in France at an age something like 122. Will that record be 150 in a hundred years?
Unfortunately, accurate age information was not available for the general population until the previous century, so we don't really know what the change in that record has been for a statistically-valid period of time. (Besides, when looking at one in billions, it's hard to say you're being statistically valid.)
The fact that our life expectancy continues to increase may simply indicate our lifespans haven't yet hit their "terminal velocity" (as determined by biological/environmental factors).
In other words, they ain't dropping us from high enough yet. =)
Its good that our lifespans are increasing, however with the current over-population issues, this is a definate double-edge sword. With increased lifespans, we'd have to rework retirement since theres no way that the workforce can support a massive increase in elderly people. The current age for retirement is suited for the current 'normal' lifespan, but would fall apart if we started living 80+ years on average. The economy works because a majority of your population is either working or going to be working. If that balance shifted, where the non-working force was greater than that of the current working force, the problems would be endless. With increased lifespan must come increased retirement. But as we know, most people are definately ready for retirement by 60, and their bodies (and their state of being) is what determines this. If we could both increase lifespan *AND* reduce the aging of the body over that period of time, we would have the best of both worlds. This is by no means impossible, but will really determine if long-living en-mass is a real possibility or not.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Anyway, apparantly some species of turtle do not age. The only apparent change in their physiology is that the lay more eggs as they grow older. They apparently get smarter, as well. The enzyme that prevents cancer cells from dying of old age seem to give the turtle cells a boost when they are young, but they still don't get cancer, or other age-related diseases. We might break the 1-year/year barrier, yet! :)
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
wish that they'd come out with "worse" statistics.
Then maybe I'd quit this filthy habit that I've grown to love called smoking....
I wonder what the average lifespan is doing for those of us in the cancer-stick habit?
Karnal
...but what is more important is maintaining a decent quality of life as we age. There's a Greek myth about the goddess Eos, who falls in love with a mortal and asks Zeus to make him immortal. Alas, she neglected to ask that he also stay youthful. He continued to age but death could not reach him.
I have several friends who are caring for parents with Alzheimers and other diseases that don't kill right away but that destroy life in the most fundamental way. I know other elderly people who have suffered heart attacks and strokes and are all there mentally, but are in constant pain and have to severely restrict their activities. A few decades ago these diseases would have killed their victims. Now they wound them and often leave them in a state like poor Tithonus, lover of Eos.
I certainly wouldn't wish an earlier death on any of these people, rather I hope that the medical establishment can come up with ways to help people stay active, lucid, and happy as their bodies age beyond the point that most people reached in the past. This is as important as, perhaps more important than, extending life.
No sig? Sigh...
In other words the problem with longer lifespans is that other people besides you get to live longer too.
-- SIGFPE
First off, some background information. If you take a normal cell, it won't live forever. However, a cancer cell will, provided it is fed. Cancer cells are mutated so they don't respond to feedback mechanisms from other cells, but their most important feature is in their replication.
Does anyone remember early versions of napster? Due to bugs, it wouldn't transmit the last few bytes of every file. For an mp3 file, that meant the mp3 info tag might be missing, or the last few seconds. But what if the copies kept getting resent? Every time, the file would get progresively shorter, and eventually, you'd notice it.
The same thing happens in cells. Due to the DNA replication method, the last few base pairs at the end of the strand aren't duplicated. That's ok, since the ends are basically unused spare buffers. Eventually, the buffer will be used up, and the DNA will get fucked up, and the cell won't be able to duplicate anymore.
Cancer cells have an enzyme called telomerase that adds back to the buffer, allowing it to divide forever.
Of course, there are also other factors that contribute to a finite life span on the cellular level.
There are non-cellular factors to aging as well. For example, collagen (skin) has the cystene amino acid. Cystene contains sulfer, and as you age, the dulfer forms cross links. The result is obvious if you compare geristric skin to newborn skin.
Additionally, the human body is designed for a limited life span. The thymus (important for the immune system) starts atrophying in the late teens, and is useless as your appendix by age 30 or so.
So, while cellular life can be extended, for a complex organism like us, I'd say there is a cap on life expectancy.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
... just what this planet needs to help out with the overpopulation problems.
Nuts. We already know of the location of enough energy, raw materials, space, etc. to suport the current population growth trends and indefinite longevity for many centuries, while at the same time cleaning up the environment and working on the solutions we will need beyond that.
All we have to do is grow up, go up, leave the nest, and get on with it.
-- MarkusQ
It will take more than an expanding shell of von Neumann probes to achieve the organisational complexity the biosphere has achieved on this planet, so we still need techno sapiens to leave this nest (for cyberspace and/or outerspace as quickly as possible) returning the evolution of terrestrial systems in non technological hands.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
The problem with this is that you're making the same mistaken assumptions about the solar system/galaxy/universe that most humans are making about the earth
First off, "enough for many centuries" does not equal "infinite". So you either didn't get my point, or you are intentionally misrepresenting it to make yours.
Second, what put us where we are is not some phylosophy about resources. What has "put us where we are" has been the development of better and better health care, agriculture, etc., coupled with the belief that the results should be shared with as many people as possible. I would rather go to space to continue this trend than say, "No, sorry, gotta stop. Food and health care are only for the nobel/rich again, and we're going to drop the quality for them until enough people die off that we can sustain everybody on just what we have here."
If you want to kill yourself to make room for someone else, I support your right to do so. But if you intend to bump of someone else, I will fight you. But rather than either, I'd invite you to consider how easy it would be for us to raise the world standard of living to something above the present US average, while at the same time reducing the load on the earth. Not a permanent solution, no, but neither is throwing someone a life vest. That isn't a reason not to do it.
-- MarkusQ
No evidence at hand, but I suppose you could figure it out from the actuarial tables, etc.
In the US, given the current accident rates in the US, the average death life expectancy (based on accidents alone) would probably be about 1500 years. (based on the idea it would take 3000 plus years to kill off a population of 100,000)
Outside the US your milage may vary.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
>
> That there are infinite resources, and that they exist for the sole purpose of being consumed by humans. This is the kind of philosophy that has put us (and overpopulation) where we are...
You mean, like "with Joe Sixpack having a higher standard of living today than any aristocrat on the planet 500 years ago?"
You mean, like "with doubled lifespans over the past 100 years"?
The meek will inherit the earth. After the rest of us are done with it, having left to take the stars.