The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

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horizon
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The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by horizon »

I've long believed that the miraculous rise in life expectancy experienced in the twentieth century had little to do with much trumpeted improvements in medical science and much more to do with a decade of an almost perfect but enforced diet endured by the British public from about 1940 to 1950. I was simply waiting for the TV generation to reach retirement age and realise that medical science was not going to save them from a life of travelling by car, eating to excess and vast amounts of antibiotics.

And so it has happened:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/ ... ension-age
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whoof
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by whoof »

We were discussing the increasing retirement age; 65, 66, 67,70(?) at work. Someone mentioned that the increase in life expectancy may well start to fall due to issues such as obesity, smoking and sedentary lifestyle.
Unfortunately out of about 50 people at work I can only think of one person who smokes, hardly anyone is obese and I'm sure the proportion of people who cycle or walk to work is greater than average.
I should have joined the truckers pension scheme.
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horizon
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by horizon »

To be fair to everyone who has (a) benefitted from life saving surgery or (b) lived a healthy life (and the two are not mutually exclusive), this is a population-scale finding. I would certainly challenge the "myth" of modern medicine being the prime cause of longevity but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its role.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
thirdcrank
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by thirdcrank »

whoof wrote:We were discussing the increasing retirement age; 65, 66, 67,70(?) at work. Someone mentioned that the increase in life expectancy may well start to fall due to issues such as obesity, smoking and sedentary lifestyle.
Unfortunately out of about 50 people at work I can only think of one person who smokes, hardly anyone is obese and I'm sure the proportion of people who cycle or walk to work is greater than average.
I should have joined the truckers pension scheme. (My emphasis.)


Can you explain what's unfortunate here?
Cyril Haearn
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Many people do little sport, hardly walk anywhere, sit most of the time at work and at home
People may live longer but they are incapable for a long time at the end, many years often
They are invisible too, most do not or can not go out

I read that females live longer but spend more time bedridden at the end, males die sooner but have less time bedridden, dunno which I would rather be :?

The Glamourus Grandmother who reaches 100 and goes for a walk every day is not so common. Yet?
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horizon
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by horizon »

thirdcrank wrote:
whoof wrote:We were discussing the increasing retirement age; 65, 66, 67,70(?) at work. Someone mentioned that the increase in life expectancy may well start to fall due to issues such as obesity, smoking and sedentary lifestyle.
Unfortunately out of about 50 people at work I can only think of one person who smokes, hardly anyone is obese and I'm sure the proportion of people who cycle or walk to work is greater than average.
I should have joined the truckers pension scheme. (My emphasis.)


Can you explain what's unfortunate here?


I presume he meant that the retirement age will continue to march onwards and upwards. But that is why I replied to say that this is a population-level study and the facts speak for themselves.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
whoof
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by whoof »

thirdcrank wrote:
whoof wrote:We were discussing the increasing retirement age; 65, 66, 67,70(?) at work. Someone mentioned that the increase in life expectancy may well start to fall due to issues such as obesity, smoking and sedentary lifestyle.
Unfortunately out of about 50 people at work I can only think of one person who smokes, hardly anyone is obese and I'm sure the proportion of people who cycle or walk to work is greater than average.
I should have joined the truckers pension scheme. (My emphasis.)


Can you explain what's unfortunate here?


The premise was that people in the same pension scheme as me will probably live a long time and the scheme will have to pay out to them. If lots of them keeled over within a year of retiring due to the life style choices listed above the pension scheme would be in a better financial position and I could reture earlier with a larger pension. However, this is merely a theoretical musing and not being an actual psycopath I don't really wish the early death of colleagues.
Horizon:
I understand that the lifestyle of small number of people I work with is not reflected throughout the whole of society but does go to illustrate that how these factors are learnt from those around you and are part of the micro-society that you inhabit on a day to day basis rather than homogenous national change.
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by Vorpal »

Longevity is made up of many factors. Nutrition, environment, inlcuding stress (or lack of), and the medical system are extremely important, as well as pollution, mental health, and other things.

IMO, the lack of recent growth is due mainly to 2 things. Lack of improvement in air quality in the cities, increasing economic inequality, which has resulted in an increasing longevity gap between rich and poor http://www.longevitypanel.co.uk/_files/ ... e_2018.pdf

Other countries have up to two years more longevity than the UK, so it's not a limit on human capability.

I would suggest that further improvements could be obtained by reducing pollution, and improving preventive medicine, mental health care, and social support for those at the bottom end of the economic scale.
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by RickH »

The ONS study linked by the article says in the introduction

ONS wrote:Over the last century there has been a long-term trend in falling mortality and rising life expectancy in the UK. This is mainly attributable to a reduction in child mortality through health improvements such as childhood immunisations during the earlier part of the 20th century, followed by medical advances in diagnosis and treatment, and improved lifestyles in the older population during the later part of the 20th century...


In other words a lot of the increases in longevity was due, initially at least, not to adults living longer per se but due to more people surviving infancy to live on into adulthood & therefore survive to old age.

I read somewhere a while back that the "mode" age of death (that is the age at which death was most common) was 0 (zero) years right up to quite recent time (the 1960s I believe it said, but I'm not certain).
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horizon
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

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RickH wrote:In other words a lot of the increases in longevity was due, initially at least, not to adults living longer per se but due to more people surviving infancy to live on into adulthood & therefore survive to old age.



I don't see (genuinely not) how infant survival is linked to longevity. There could be more people but the question then is, do they live longer? ATM they do, but not because they survived childhood - that doesn't make sense to me. That isn't longevity.
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by al_yrpal »

This is only in Britain. Is it happening in Japan which has a higher life expectancy? Is it the result of the Smartphone obsession, will that have the negative effect of powering life expectancy backwards? Avoidance of smoking, better nutrition and modern medicine have clearly powered increased life expectancy. There are many present trends working in the opposite direction.

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RickH
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

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horizon wrote:
RickH wrote:In other words a lot of the increases in longevity was due, initially at least, not to adults living longer per se but due to more people surviving infancy to live on into adulthood & therefore survive to old age.



I don't see (genuinely not) how infant survival is linked to longevity. There could be more people but the question then is, do they live longer? ATM they do, but not because they survived childhood - that doesn't make sense to me. That isn't longevity.

Because it is average (mean) length of life including infant & child deaths. So lots of early deaths will bring down the longevity figure markedly. It also means that if you live to adulthood you are quite likely to live past the longevity age.

To make an extremely exagerated example: if you had a sample of 170 people. 100 died before they were 1 & then 1 died at each age above that to 70. By my calculation the average longevity would be 14.6 even though 56 people exceeded that age & 42 reached double the life expectancy.

Longevity for pensions, etc. are probably calculated differently - I expect them to be calculated based on average longevity from reaching pensionable age (or something similar).
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whoof
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by whoof »

horizon wrote:
RickH wrote:In other words a lot of the increases in longevity was due, initially at least, not to adults living longer per se but due to more people surviving infancy to live on into adulthood & therefore survive to old age.



I don't see (genuinely not) how infant survival is linked to longevity. There could be more people but the question then is, do they live longer? ATM they do, but not because they survived childhood - that doesn't make sense to me. That isn't longevity.



The article that you linked to first mentions life expectancy, then life span and then longivity with no differentiation between them.
This link below explains Life Expectancy and mention the most common measure is Life Expectancy at Birth (LEB) which is the average time a person is alive from when they are born including infants. It goes on to explain the difference in low LEB in Swaziland (49) and Japan (83) is partially due to high infant morality in the former.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Average: mean, median mode or..?

Forecasting how long people born now will live involves a lot of guesswork, no-one will know until we are all dead

Good material to keep the brain active, mind :wink:
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Re: The increase in longevity: it's finally halted

Post by thirdcrank »

I seem to remember a report about Japan where the authorities had got round to doing a check on some extraordinarily aged people and it was found that some had been dead for years but others had continued to claim their pensions.

I'd suggest also that quality of life is important.
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