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In Some Senses 80 is Already the New 40


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#1 reason

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Posted 16 June 2015 - 12:55 PM


If you look back far enough for a point of comparison, technological progress has produced astounding results. Life expectancy at birth has in fact more or less doubled since ancient times. This is largely a result of reduced infant mortality and control of infectious disease, however, not any direct strategy of effectively tackling age-related disease. Life expectancy at 60 has climbed much more slowly than overall life expectancy, but it is nonetheless increasing at about a year every decade at the moment. This is an incidental increase, a side effect of general improvements in medicine; the clinical community is still not in any meaningful way trying to treat the actual causes of aging. That will change shortly, is changing now in the laboratory, and past trends will shift radically to the upside in the decades ahead.

For thousands of years, the average lifespan of a human being was around 40 years. Evolution holds the explanation: it takes about two decades to grow up and be fully ready to reproduce. Then the offspring come along, and it takes another 20 years to get them ready to leave the nest and repeat the cycle.

"Biologically, we are programmed to live for 40 years, and if we had not been able to do so, the human species would have perished." The improvement in life expectancy over the past two centuries comes from the combined effect of a number of factors. "Sewage systems got better and limited the spread of diseases. Drinking water became cleaner. The industrial revolution provided more people with paid jobs and more money to spend on food and shelter. Housing got better. We got vaccination programmes and managed to limit the number of children dying. Deaths from violence also dropped dramatically as societies became better at organizing social order and protection."

"The importance of medical intervention has been generally overrated when it comes to past increases in longevity. To say that the invention of antibiotics is the reason we've expand­ed our life spans dramatically is false. Of course I am not blind to the enormous impact medical care and treatment can have had. There's no doubt that the decrease in cardiac deaths has significantly contributed to our increased longevity, but there's no consensus on the contribution of specific factors. Nonetheless, the development of human lifespan is an unprecedented story of success on a societal level, and we need to stop being pessimistic about people becoming older. We will live longer and better than ever, and we should each make it our mission to make the most of it."

Link: http://www.technolog...u/80-became-40/


View the full article at FightAging

#2 niner

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Posted 17 June 2015 - 01:33 AM

 

"For thousands of years, the average lifespan of a human being was around 40 years. Evolution holds the explanation: it takes about two decades to grow up and be fully ready to reproduce. Then the offspring come along, and it takes another 20 years to get them ready to leave the nest and repeat the cycle."Biologically, we are programmed to live for 40 years, and if we had not been able to do so, the human species would have perished."

 

What is the point of quoting stuff like this that is so obviously wrong?  We aren't "programmed to live for 40 years".  A major contributor to that average is childhood death, so all those people never reproduced at all.  In order to hit an average of 40, the ones that lived long enough to reproduce must have lived longer than 40.  I suspect that it didn't take 20 years for primitive children to be able to live on their own.  Until relatively recently, it was not uncommon for an 18 year old in the modern world to be considered capable of living on their own.  20,000 years ago, it was likely closer to early teens.  Since humans are social creatures that live in groups, young people on their own would still have had the group for at least limited support.

 

The article at technologist.eu goes on to say:

 

"There is no biological barrier that must be brought down before we can live to 120, as we have already done, or to 140 or 160.”

 

Seriously?  OK then, I guess we don't need SENS.  Are those transthyretin amyloids going to fall apart on their own?


Edited by niner, 17 June 2015 - 01:57 AM.

  • Agree x 3

#3 Antonio2014

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Posted 24 June 2015 - 01:10 PM

I suspect that it didn't take 20 years for primitive children to be able to live on their own.  Until relatively recently, it was not uncommon for an 18 year old in the modern world to be considered capable of living on their own.  20,000 years ago, it was likely closer to early teens.  Since humans are social creatures that live in groups, young people on their own would still have had the group for at least limited support.

 

Maybe you will find this article interesting:

 

http://www.atapuerca...a.php?idioma=EN

 

The pattern of dental development has a very strong genetic component and is only slightly influenced by external factors in the environment. Further, the pattern of dental development preserves a strict correlation with different aspects of what is known as the “life history pattern” of a species. Among these aspects, the different stages which define the general somatic development of a species deserve special attention. In chimpanzees and gorillas, somatic development occurs during the first 11-12 years of life. During this time, these species experience a long period of infancy, which corresponds with breastfeeding, followed by a long juvenile period, which ends when the animal reaches sexual maturity. So far, all the available evidence indicates that species of 'Australopithecus', 'Paranthropus' and the earliest members of the genus 'Homo' had a pattern of dental development that was similar in many aspects to chimpanzees and gorillas. Thus, these hominids could have had a developmental model similar to these primates, with long infant and juvenile periods, and no more than 11 years of somatic development before reaching sexual maturity. 'Homo antecessor' represents the oldest hominid species in which a completely modern human dental development pattern has been described. This suggests that the two new stages in somatic development which characterize our species were also present in 'Homo antecessor': childhood and adolescence. Further, the duration of somatic development in this species would also have been prolonged, as in 'Homo sapiens', perhaps approximating the 18 years which it currently takes humans to reach the adult stage.


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#4 corb

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Posted 24 June 2015 - 04:13 PM

"There is no biological barrier that must be brought down before we can live to 120, as we have already done, or to 140 or 160.”

 

Is that an actual quote? I won't even bother reading the article then.
Thanks for saving me some precious time, niner. ;)



#5 niner

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Posted 24 June 2015 - 07:53 PM

Yeah, sadly.  It's verbatim.  Pretty dumb article-- I wonder if Reason actually read it, or just liked the title?






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