Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 62 posts

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#31

Post by Aromasin »

midgetjones wrote: post #11

Never mind the decline in improvement, I think we're going to see a sudden sharp drop very soon. It may be hidden by the long-lived generation before, but the baby boomers have eaten, drunk, and medicated themselves into oblivion compared to their parents. And who knows what's to come for the next generation, with an increasing wealth divide and heck knows what else.

My parents, baby boomers themselves, are starting to see the effects of this. Funeral after funeral of friends and family dying in their early to late 60's - almost always due to heart disease, liver failure or some sort of cancer.

Every time I join them it's the same "he seemed so healthy/ it was so unexpected/ she was gone so quickly".

In my head I can't help but think "he ate nothing but meat/ she drank a bottle of wine a night/ they haven't broken a sweat in years".

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#32

Post by AQuantized »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #8
chriselles wrote: post #4

I remember seeing the horrible decline in life expectancy when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the same time, the Soviet client state of Cuba saw a dramatic reduction in economic activity and caloric restriction. Cuban dietary belt tightening led to a massive reduction in cardio vascular disease with a correlated massive reduction in obesity. I’m not a doctor, nor a data scientist or economist. But I suspect we will s…

>How much will people pay for an extra 5-10 years? Everything. I doubt it, most people aren't even willing to pay the small price of feeling lactic acid when exercising. Or not consuming excess calories. Quality of life matters too. If you have children, I would be surprised if most people would want to spend their personal wealth for an extra 5 to 10 geriatric bed ridden years. It only happens now because the taxpay…

Paying for life extension treatment is a lot easier than actively exercising/dieting, at least if you're relatively wealthy. It's different when the cause and effect is immediately apparent as well, as opposed to changing ingrained habits to effect outcomes that might be 40 - 60 years away.

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#34

Post by village-idiot »

lm28469 wrote: post #30
chriselles wrote: post #4

I remember seeing the horrible decline in life expectancy when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the same time, the Soviet client state of Cuba saw a dramatic reduction in economic activity and caloric restriction. Cuban dietary belt tightening led to a massive reduction in cardio vascular disease with a correlated massive reduction in obesity. I’m not a doctor, nor a data scientist or economist. But I suspect we will s…

> How much will people pay for an extra 5-10 years? > Everything. Yeah as long as it doesn't require any effort. Exercise every day, stop alcohol, stop smoking, start eating well. You might not live longer but you'll live in good health longer, which is all that matter in the end. I'd take living until 60 in full physical and mental shape over slowly rotting in a retirement home until 90. If we truly cared about heal…

The statement wasn’t “what will people be willing to do for longevity”, the statement was “what will people be willing to pay”.

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#35

Post by village-idiot »

xorfish wrote: post #29
chriselles wrote: post #4

I remember seeing the horrible decline in life expectancy when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the same time, the Soviet client state of Cuba saw a dramatic reduction in economic activity and caloric restriction. Cuban dietary belt tightening led to a massive reduction in cardio vascular disease with a correlated massive reduction in obesity. I’m not a doctor, nor a data scientist or economist. But I suspect we will s…

Why would true anti aging medication be expensive? The market is huge, even with cheap medication you'd make a lot of money.

Why is insulin expensive? That market is huge.

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#36

Post by all2 »

xorfish wrote: post #29
chriselles wrote: post #4

I remember seeing the horrible decline in life expectancy when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the same time, the Soviet client state of Cuba saw a dramatic reduction in economic activity and caloric restriction. Cuban dietary belt tightening led to a massive reduction in cardio vascular disease with a correlated massive reduction in obesity. I’m not a doctor, nor a data scientist or economist. But I suspect we will s…

Why would true anti aging medication be expensive? The market is huge, even with cheap medication you'd make a lot of money.

I assume dealers would use a similar model to insulin or AIDs remediations; charge as much as (in)humanly possible, rake in the dough, and give no thought to those who will die because of it.

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#37

Post by rfeather »

xorfish wrote: post #29
chriselles wrote: post #4

I remember seeing the horrible decline in life expectancy when the Soviet Union collapsed. At the same time, the Soviet client state of Cuba saw a dramatic reduction in economic activity and caloric restriction. Cuban dietary belt tightening led to a massive reduction in cardio vascular disease with a correlated massive reduction in obesity. I’m not a doctor, nor a data scientist or economist. But I suspect we will s…

Why would true anti aging medication be expensive? The market is huge, even with cheap medication you'd make a lot of money.

Because it can be.

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#38

Post by wsc981 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #5
chmod775 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Aging" is not singular thing. After development, the age of a human body is just an accumulation of many many different kinds of failures over time.

And we will be able pretty soon to replace failed organs - anything but the brain itself should be replaceable in 30 years at the latest, I bet. With the progress that is being made right now, I'd say prototypes should exist in a decade, and another 20 years to let the economies of scale work. What has not caught up with reality yet is society: how are people living 100+ years supposed to be financed? Do we expect pe…

I feel food production shouldn't really be an issue, of course depending on the food type. But the tiny country of The Netherlands is a huge food exporter [0]. Certainly other countries could learn a thing or two [1] on food production from The Netherlands.

---

[0]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-...

[1]: https://www.wur.nl/en/Education-Programmes/master/MSc-progra...

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#39

Post by owenwil »

village-idiot wrote: post #35
xorfish wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would true anti aging medication be expensive? The market is huge, even with cheap medication you'd make a lot of money.

Why is insulin expensive? That market is huge.

It's only expensive in the US...

Re: Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

#40

Post by raverbashing »

Retric wrote: post #28
matt4077 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a common “fun fact” but it’s been so overdone people are probably now erring more to the other side. Here’s a graph: http://www.roperld.com/science/graphics/LifeExpectancyForDif... As an example, in the 20th Century, life expectancy at birth rose from about 40 to 77 years. But for 20 year olds, it also went from 34 to 59 additional years.

That does not seem to be accurate for the US from 1900 looking at a life table. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf Page 52 Men in 1900 life expectancy at 20: 42.48 Page 54 Women in 1900 life expectancy at 20: 43.6 The Social Security life table for 2016 lists 56.91 years at 20 a gain of ~13.9 years in the last 116. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

56 looks like a small number compared with other developed countries
Post reply on HN