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How Long Do People Live

Kit said:
It's estimated that there are 97,000 Centrarians in the US. That is a lot. There are more than half a million people in the world who are over 100 years old.
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It is a fast-growing age group. President Jimmy Carter is 100. My mother-in-law lived to 100. For most people, quality of life diminishes long before then.
 
I have wondered for a long time about progeria. If aging can be sped up like that, then it can be slowed down or stopped. Common progeria symptoms like hardening of the arteries. Proof that it's not just bad lifestyle choices that causes those things. Therefore aging must be a pre-programmed process. Some people have very good genetics, and for the rest, we have the technology to modify that now.

But sooner or later everyone ends up needing medical care to stay alive. I think a lot of it depends on how much effort is put into keeping someone alive. The older you get, the less effort is put in. I would bet the farm that economics and politics comes into play, working against keeping people alive too long, receiving payouts, population overcrowding, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if a cure for progeria is known, but we don't want to let that cat out of the bag.

It would be interesting to see how long people could live, if the same effort was put into healthcare regardless of age. Also given that those people wanted to keep going and going.
 
tlc said:
It would be interesting to see how long people could live, if the same effort was put into healthcare regardless of age. Also given that those people wanted to keep going and going.
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Longevity is mostly influenced by quality of life. Health Care plays a huge role in that but it's not the only factor, stress from a difficult life or prolonged hardship will shorten people's life expectancy too.

Here's a list of countries ordered by average life expectancy, the United States ranks 55th on that list for both men and women. Note that the countries with the highest life expectancy all have a universal free health care system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
 
Statistically speaking I never intended to reach my present age. Go figure...
 
When I used to work at a care home there was a resident there who reached 108 years old before she died. She had two children who both died before her, in their 80s from old age, which must be really weird to see your own children die from old age. I know tragically some people lose their children due to other things, but I'm talking about old age here. She watched her own children grow old and live past 80 and just die from natural causes and she still lived on. I don't know, it's just difficult to get my head around.
 
I'm currently on an inflection point, it's musical chairs and probability with each inflection point the number of chairs basically halves. With the probability of having had one stroke and then second looks like I'm good for another 8 years
 
tlc said:
If aging can be sped up like that, then it can be slowed down or stopped.
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It might turn out to be true that aging can be slowed down or stopped, but this logic doesn't hold up.

This is interesting and probably relevant.
Telomere - Wikipedia

I've seen a claim that telomere condition measured in young people (10-12) is a good predictor for the timing of aging (as caused by the limits to cellular division) & age at death, but the articles say it's controversial:
Relationship between telomeres and longevity - Wikipedia

It seems unlikely that there's a practical way to extend human lifespans this way (e.g. something that could "add" or "strengthen" human chromosome telomeres at scale in live humans).

e.g. this is also interesting, but it's clearly not something that can currently be used at scale.
Telomerase - Wikipedia
 
Outdated said:
Longevity is mostly influenced by quality of life. Health Care plays a huge role in that but it's not the only factor, stress from a difficult life or prolonged hardship will shorten people's life expectancy too.

Here's a list of countries ordered by average life expectancy, the United States ranks 55th on that list for both men and women. Note that the countries with the highest life expectancy all have a universal free health care system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
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Most countries with long life expectancies, have anomalies records destroyed do to war, I take this stuff with a grain of salt also fraud, hard to detect, do not believe scientist's as any magician can tell they are easily fooled.
 
Ronald Zeeman said:
Most countries with long life expectancies, have anomalies records destroyed do to war, I take this stuff with a grain of salt also fraud, hard to detect, do not believe scientist's as any magician can tell they are easily fooled.
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There are certainly outliers in terms of e.g. the number of people (claiming to be) over 100, but there aren't all that many of them, so they don't distort the statistics much.

In general the best "mainstream country" numbers occur where the "Quality of Life" (including healthcare, reasonable working conditions, absence of severe hardship, etc) is good. As with any demographic statistic, very small countries and places where the statistics are routinely faked should be ignored unless there's evidence that they should be kept (so maybe keep Singapore and Malta in the top ten, but not Hong Kong or Macau).

As usual the USA is the best very large country, but the worst fully developed country, because on aggregate it prioritizes GDP over quality of life.
 
Looks like 7 sigma is absolute limit 120 years. I keep waiting for some one to pass 118 over the last 20 years they keep passing just prior, 4 parts per trillion chance. The documented ones that did make it are a bit suspect, look where they lived, after all only about 200 billion humans have ever lived. Men is 112 years, 4 parts per billion chance sounds more accurate. I think only 1 man has lived to 114. and he was 0 parts per billion. 113 years old is 1 per billion chance, which makes sense 8 billion people currently living only constant I've seen over the years is 114 than pass. I really suspect any body older than this is really older than this. One of my special interests over the years.
 
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My wife close friend who she has know before she meet me, had a fall at work he is seventy hurt his right shoulder.
visited him in hospital, guy only has one leg, found out he currently can not walk on remaining leg, lives in basement apartment in house, This could be a life changing event for him, possibly long term care. bothered me it happened on inflection point in my statistics. Told my wife about this inflection point as I hit it and how many of our friends will hit it, here we are, musical chairs each inflection point less chairs. until one day no chair.
 
Suspected this supported by my statistics. Greater than 7 sigma chance or more than 1 per trillion. only 200 billion humans have ever lived.

 
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Ronald Zeeman said:
that's what I suspect poor record keeping. daughter uses mothers birth certificate. three people should have lived to 119.
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We do not know that dozens have lived to that age...most of them likely rural, and outside standard media, etc....just because we are unaware of them, does not mean that they have not existed...we know virtually nothing to nothing of 99% of people that have lived prior to 2000.
 
I have great doubt people lived well over 100 in the past, I trust my statistics more than some random guess. When I put my stats together 114 was pretty much the limit now it settling back here again. The probability of living to 114 years is 1 person in a billion. So there should be about 10 people currently alive at 114 year or older older could be fraud or bad record keeping.

Trust me I'm correct, I'm an Aspie and this is just one special interest, easy to verify.
 
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