150 yr old lifespan now realistic

[goodsamaritan]

The First Humans to Live to the Age of 150 Are Already Alive
by Jordan E. Rosenfeld



http://magazine.good.is/infographics/humans-may-live-to-150

Comment.  My teacher Barefoot Herbalist says in his research that many decades ago when the British took over India, there were reports of 150 plus year old people then.

So this is not new... past evidence were just refused to be believed by 20th century scientists.

[laterade]

I think it's totally possible, but maybe not for those of us who were fully vaccinated, ate junk food, and breathed in toxicity through the beginning of our lives. It's more important to become more stable in dealing with the present in a productive and creative way. That way we shouldn't worry too much of how long we live. Very interesting to contemplate though, many cultures have tales of people living hundreds of years.

[eveheart]

It bears mentioning that the article emphasizes continued working (for pay or otherwise) as a factor in  longevity. That's an important part of my plan to maintain health while aging. Assuming that, by the mid-60s, a people have figured out what work makes them feel purposeful and content, getting up each morning with something to do is a primary factor in mental and physical good health. All my retired friends have a weariness about them, even on their golf courses and sailboats. Good work makes life all good.

[goodsamaritan]

Andrew Reed, a postdoctoral scholar who splits his time between Stanford’s Center on Longevity and the Lifespan Development lab adds, “Maybe giving younger adults a time where they don’t have a 9-5 job, to raise kids, or chase some of their passions, could be an interesting way to give them some quasi-experience with retirement before they get there.”

This might include the recent trend of taking a “gap year” for graduates fresh out of college before they jump into the work force.

Seems, the new strategy for my descendants is to start making children in the optimum reproductive age: 18-23, let grand parents help finance and take care of and help raise the new babies.

[dariorpl]

AV claimed to have visited a remote island in New Zealand or something, where the only way to reach it was by travelling one day by car, one day by boat and one day by swimming (I know it sounds like a fantasy story for children), and he claimed that in there, the people lived to an average of 150 years of age, and their diets consisted almost entirely of only two different foods: raw fish and coconuts. Although he said sometimes they'd have an unripe banana or a mango. No idea of how those things could reach such a remote island, but yeah.

In any case, I'm not convinced by the mainstream medical establishment's view on life expectancy and how medicine is making it easier for people to live much longer. I don't know if I believe everything AV said, but it seems to me that the way to live to an older age would be to live a healthy lifestyle, and not through artificial meddling with the body's processes through medicine and technology.

[TylerDurden]

It bears mentioning that the article emphasizes continued working (for pay or otherwise) as a factor in  longevity. That's an important part of my plan to maintain health while aging. Assuming that, by the mid-60s, a people have figured out what work makes them feel purposeful and content, getting up each morning with something to do is a primary factor in mental and physical good health. All my retired friends have a weariness about them, even on their golf courses and sailboats. Good work makes life all good.

You have a point. There is a massive increase in death-rates among men  for 3 years after retirement. Best to keep on working.

[dariorpl]

You have a point. There is a massive increase in death-rates among men  for 3 years after retirement. Best to keep on working.

This could easily be attributed to selection bias. That is, those who are feeling too ill and weak to continue working, because their lives are closer to the end and their health is failing, are more likely to retire. Whereas those who still feel they are healthy enough to continue working, may postpone retirement for a few more years.

I'm sure there's a similar statistic about how people are many times more likely to die at home than relaxing at the park, even after adjusting for the overall amount of hours in a person's life spent relaxing at the park versus at home. When people feel ill, they go home (or worse, they go into a hospital), instead of enjoying the sun and the fresh air at the park. It would be easy to come to the conclusion that the sun and the fresh air keep people alive when they would've otherwise died, but that's not necessarily true.

[eveheart]

This could easily be attributed to selection bias. That is, those who are feeling too ill and weak to continue working, because their lives are closer to the end and their health is failing, are more likely to retire. Whereas those who still feel they are healthy enough to continue working, may postpone retirement for a few more years.

I look at it from a different perspective: Those who hate their jobs can't wait to retire, but all those years of miserable employment have already taken their toll. The lesson here would be, "Don't let money or family expectations mis-guide you to the wrong purpose in life."

If a people choose occupations that are both fun to themselves and useful to others, it removes the stress from earning a living.

[dariorpl]

I'm sure there is also truth to that eve.

[TylerDurden]

I think both of you are wrong. The reason why men are more likely to die in the first 3 years after retiring is that those have dedicated their lives to their work and so feel thoroughly out of place and completely  lost when they retire, so that they are far more likely to die as a result of no longer having a purpose in life. Women  are better protected  from this as work is not so tied to their "raison d'etre"/"reason for existing".

I have seen this effect with my own father, who, pathetically, tried to invent all sorts of, largely meaningless, ways to keep himself occupied in the 2.5 years of retirement before he died. And I once recall a French teacher in my teenage years talking about this very effect as an aside-note. He himself was a typical example of what he was talking about, which is why I felt so sorry for him at the time with true foreboding,  and  he  inevitably duly died within a year of retirement soon after.