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Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#81

Post by anonporridge »

mfer wrote: post #34

This is not likely. Life expectancy is going down while chronic disease is going up. Most of it has to do with lifestyle in ways the average person isn't aware of. The health care system is more capable than ever before. But, lifestyles that are poor to long term health are taking the trend in the opposite direction.

The data tells me you are completely wrong in your assertion. Life expectancy (in the US) has been on a very steady and continuous increase. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life...

However, lifespan is a crude metric. Healthspan is really what we should be targeting. I don't want to live to 150 if 60 of those years are spend miserable in a nursing home hooked up to machines keeping me alive.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#82

Post by shrimp_emoji »

goodpoint wrote: post #76
sublimefire wrote: post #19

Pension age will need to increase. This will not go without major societal issues.

Even worse, retired people will be pushed into doing "gigs".

Will be?

Nothing fills you with guilt like having a person 30 years older than you deliver your Starbucks and groceries.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#83

Post by yoyohello13 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #70
terran57 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, people aren't taking care of themselves so that they don't get the chronic diseases that reduce their lifespans. The majority don't realize that what they do in their middle-age years has a profound impact on their life expectancy.

I'm 29 and healthy to my knowledge. I see a doctor every year. Is there anything in particular I should be doing?

Exercise regularly, ideally a mix of weights and cardio. Eat fruits and vegetables. Don't get too fat. That's pretty much it.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#84

Post by mfer »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #70
terran57 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, people aren't taking care of themselves so that they don't get the chronic diseases that reduce their lifespans. The majority don't realize that what they do in their middle-age years has a profound impact on their life expectancy.

I'm 29 and healthy to my knowledge. I see a doctor every year. Is there anything in particular I should be doing?

Most doctors (in the US anyway) don't cover things until there is a problem. For example, someone can eat a diet that will lead to heart disease. But, doctors won't tell them to make changes until problems are already showing up.

This has to do with the way billing works for healthcare in the US. It's billed as sick care.

And, most doctors have almost no training on things like nutrition. So the impact of that isn't something they can help with.

If I were to suggest self study I would look at a couple things:

1. The Blue Zones. These are areas that researchers have identified where people live longer and thrive for longer. Something like 10x the number of people live past 100. Much lower rates of disease. Looking at how they live. There's a good book on it at https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Zones-Second-Lessons-Longest/dp/....

2. A good book by a dietitian. I like "The Proof Is In The Plants". Despite the author being vegan and the book talking about plants, the book covers meat and dairy along with amounts that are healthy. All of the recommendations include explainations of how this is known. https://www.amazon.com/Proof-Plants-science-plant-based-plan...

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#85

Post by yamtaddle »

goodpoint wrote: post #72
mfer wrote: post #34

This is not likely. Life expectancy is going down while chronic disease is going up. Most of it has to do with lifestyle in ways the average person isn't aware of. The health care system is more capable than ever before. But, lifestyles that are poor to long term health are taking the trend in the opposite direction.

The word "lifestyle" might imply an amount of blame on individuals but we should not forget: - Healthy food is becoming increasingly expensive and seen as a luxury. The amount of sugar and carbs in the "average" product has been increasing for decades. - Working hours are becoming less equally distributed. A lot of people work way too much, even in highly skilled jobs like lawyers, medicine interns, game developers,…

I think it's proof enough that individuals are the wrong place to focus, that people from much-skinnier countries who visit the US often report gaining quite a bit of weight, even if they try to keep it under control. How are the natives supposed to do any better than foreigners who are starting fairly trim and bringing healthy habits with them from home? The problem is clearly environmental/cultural and must run damned deep if it's that hard to avoid it.

Which is terrible news because that's damn hard to fix without top-down initiatives, the likes of which the US has been allergic to since the '80s (though we didn't used to be).

[EDIT] By "visit" I mean for years, not tourists.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#86

Post by gorjusborg »

valine wrote: post #65
gorjusborg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, life expectancy in U.S. is dropping, not rising: https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA The fact that some individuals survive longer than the average isn't an indication of the average outcome. I sincerely hope that the trend does change direction, but I am currently skeptical.

“Life expectancy is dropping in the US” is a great clickbait headline. Life expectancy has been rising steadily for decades, with a tiny blip downwards the last two years. You think maybe that big pandemic that killed a million people in the US had anything to do it? The handwringing about lifestyle changes is exhausting.

> You think maybe that big pandemic that killed a million people in the US had anything to do it?

I'm not making judgements, just stating the fact. You obviously seem to have it all figured out though.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#87

Post by standardUser »

anonporridge wrote: post #81
mfer wrote: post #34

This is not likely. Life expectancy is going down while chronic disease is going up. Most of it has to do with lifestyle in ways the average person isn't aware of. The health care system is more capable than ever before. But, lifestyles that are poor to long term health are taking the trend in the opposite direction.

The data tells me you are completely wrong in your assertion. Life expectancy (in the US) has been on a very steady and continuous increase. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life... However, lifespan is a crude metric. Healthspan is really what we should be targeting. I don't want to live to 150 if 60 of those years are spend miserable in a nursing home hooked up to machines keeping me alive.

Life expectancy has actually dropped over the last two years, but it would be some severe cherry-picking to not acknowledge the role COVID played in that, let alone the multi-decade trend of increasing life expectancy overall.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#88

Post by lotsofpulp »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #83
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 29 and healthy to my knowledge. I see a doctor every year. Is there anything in particular I should be doing?

Exercise regularly, ideally a mix of weights and cardio. Eat fruits and vegetables. Don't get too fat. That's pretty much it.

Sleeping well. Getting enough sunlight (even if it is cloudy) for sufficient vitamin D, but also not too much UV radiation that it causes skin cancer.

At least that is what you might be able to control.

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#89

Post by Retric »

anonporridge wrote: post #81
mfer wrote: post #34

This is not likely. Life expectancy is going down while chronic disease is going up. Most of it has to do with lifestyle in ways the average person isn't aware of. The health care system is more capable than ever before. But, lifestyles that are poor to long term health are taking the trend in the opposite direction.

The data tells me you are completely wrong in your assertion. Life expectancy (in the US) has been on a very steady and continuous increase. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life... However, lifespan is a crude metric. Healthspan is really what we should be targeting. I don't want to live to 150 if 60 of those years are spend miserable in a nursing home hooked up to machines keeping me alive.

Your chart show’s declining life expectancy from 2014-2018, but it’s recent data also disagrees with other sources.

“In 2021, an American was expected to live 76.1 years—down 2.8 years from the 2014 peak of 78.9 years. This backslide has erased all life expectancy gains since 1996, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/life-expectancy-is-declini...

For more data check here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr023.pdf

Re: Today's 5-year-olds will likely live to 100

#90

Post by neom »

melling wrote: post #23
cammikebrown wrote: post #9

I think we have fifteen years left, at most, before climate change starts making much of the planet uninhabitable

There’s no science that says that. Talk like this only gives fuel to climate change deniers.

Not strictly true, there is science that states there are many unknowns. The latest U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly and starkly lays out the risk around positive feedback loops[1]. There is also some recent research out of University of Oregon stating similar[2].

1: https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/

2: https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-dangerous-feedback-...

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