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New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

lafollette.wisc.edu

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Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#41

Post by alextheparrot »

conception wrote: post #19
SoftTalker wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd then that every living thing ages and eventually dies?

This is not true and easily countered by any sort of investigation. Lobsters, flatworms, immortal jellyfish and hydras are all believed to be immortal. In fact we know how to live forever, control our telomeres. We know it works because cancer exists. We just can’t control it but controlled cancer is effectively immortality.

Cancer is a parasitism that kills the host (or the host dies from other causes and it is not self-sufficient). Just because something is defined by uncontrolled self-replication doesn’t mean it is stable to live forever (Which is as much a comment on homeostasis as self-renewal)

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#44

Post by pests »

jebarker wrote: post #27
conception wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true and easily countered by any sort of investigation. Lobsters, flatworms, immortal jellyfish and hydras are all believed to be immortal. In fact we know how to live forever, control our telomeres. We know it works because cancer exists. We just can’t control it but controlled cancer is effectively immortality.

Is it true that those creatures are believed to be immortal or we’ve just never seen one die of natural causes?

I believe one listed converts back to a polyp form under bad conditions and just has another go.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#45

Post by ivape »

irrational wrote: post #39

Is it just genetic? On my father’s side, people typically live to 100 at a minimum and are perfectly healthy mentally and physically right up till a week or so before they die. My grandmother is 103 and can still lives alone in her house and can walk unassisted, has a memory sharp as anything, and so on. Maybe look at long lived families and figure out what is different about them?

I think it's just plus or minus 10 years for whatever fate (genetics) had in store for you. That plus or minus being the little we can control (diet/activity).

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#46

Post by markus_zhang »

irrational wrote: post #39

Is it just genetic? On my father’s side, people typically live to 100 at a minimum and are perfectly healthy mentally and physically right up till a week or so before they die. My grandmother is 103 and can still lives alone in her house and can walk unassisted, has a memory sharp as anything, and so on. Maybe look at long lived families and figure out what is different about them?

Wow that’s such a blessing. You are going to have maybe 50% more quality time than many people.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#48

Post by hollerith »

elicash wrote: post #38

My understanding was that life expectancy has been declining for like a while, not merely slowing in gains -- first because of opioids and then because of COVID. Edit: In the U.S. that is.

>life expectancy has been declining

Only in the US whereas the OP "analyzed life expectancy for 23 high-income and low-mortality countries".

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#49

Post by chillingeffect »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #11

I wonder if as a species we can ever get more comfortable with death. We’re built not to be I realize, and we should never be for those that are young but I feel like we should be ok with living 80ish or more years and then clocking out. That being said, I’m not cool with the idea of dying when good, but when I’m in a major depressive episode, the idea of immortality is terrifying.

It's not our species, it's our culture. Anxiety over death leads to consumption, so it's a consumer society's virtue.

Re: New research reveals longevity gains slowing, life expectancy of 100 unlikely

#50

Post by sodality2 »

chpatrick wrote: post #31
andrewflnr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the argument would go "there's no fundamental reason we can't fix telomeres".

Isn't the reason cancer? Eventually the DNA copying errors add up.

Cancer is not fundamentally unsolvable (AFAIK?). This is a tough question to answer though. Can we prove cancer to be solvable without solving it?
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