Of the responses I’ve received from this series in Crow’s Feet and my blog, everyone has expressed an interest in living a longer life and I’m with them. My question is — how long and to what effect?
As reported in the first two articles of this series, researchers are exploring many promising ways to extend life, from medications to gene editing and oxygen therapy. These scientists agree that pushing the life span of 80-year-olds to well over 100 is almost a given.
It has been said that to write is to live forever. The man who said that is dead.-Tina Fey
Science, it seems, far exceeds the hopes of most people.
A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project found 56 percent of those surveyed would not want to live to age 120 or beyond. Those respondents said 90 years is the ideal life span. Of course, if you ask an 89-year-old, the response might be different.
Regardless of personal feelings, science and healthier lifestyles by the elderly are pushing the ultimate deadline back.
“The global population aged 60 years or over numbered 962 million in 2017,” according to a United Nations report, “more than twice as large as in 1980 when there were 382 million older persons worldwide. The number of older persons is expected to double again by 2050, when it is projected to reach nearly 2.1 billion.”
The United States Census Bureau projects that there will be more than 400,000 Americans over 100 by 2050.
The U.N. report also found:
In 2030, older persons are expected to outnumber children under age 10 (1.41 billion versus 1.35 billion).
In 2050, projections indicate that there will be more older persons aged 60 or over than adolescents and youth at ages 10–24 (2.1 billion versus 2.0 billion).
Globally, the number of persons aged 80 years or over is projected to increase more than threefold between 2017 and 2050, rising from 137 million to 425 million.
I intend to live forever or die trying. — Grocho Marx
It seems that population growth has slowed, but, through life expansion, overpopulation could still be a problem. Where are they going to put all us old codgers if we just keep living into our hundreds?
Jean Anne Feldeisen, who sometimes writes articles as a “seventyish woman” responded to the first pieces in this series that life extension would be great if it was quality life. I responded asking if I might one day read an article by a 700ish woman. Jean replied wondering on what planet she might be writing her essays.
Space colonization might offer a way to support an extremely aged population, but that science is way behind life span science.
I intend to live forever. So far, so good.-Steven Wright
Jean’s comments pose another question about living into your hundreds. Why live to an extreme age if it just means more years of physical and mental pain and decline?
Most of the work on life extension has to do with eliminating cells that have decreased function or contain disease and replacing them with healthy new or repaired cells. That process, researchers argue, would eliminate the diseases and limitations brought on by age.
This out with the old, in with the new approach would not only increase life span but result in physical and mental rejuvenation.
“I have over 42,000 children — and not one comes to visit me on an afternoon!” — Mel Brook, The 2,000 Year Old Man
Imagine if your body was as vibrant and functional at 120 as it was at 20. That could throw population projections way off. But then again, who wants to be getting up for two o'clock feedings in their 100s?
What would God say
Some question if life expansion is counter to religious principles.
“Would scientific breakthroughs to extend the human life essentially mean we’re playing God?” asks Scott Alessi, former editor of U.S. Catholic. “Or would we simply be using the gifts God has given us in new and different ways, in much the same way that we’ve cured disease and treated illnesses to prolong human life already?”
The purview of the rich
We already live in an unequal world. Some bioethicists have voiced concern that life span treatments might only be available to the rich.
Life expectancy in the United States is almost 79 years. In sub-Saharan Africa, it is 40. Aids and poverty account for the difference.
The argument against lifespan research says that, if treatments are not available to all, they should not be available to anyone.
Cal State Fullerton Professor John K. Davis, author of New Methuselahs: The Ethics of Life Extension, disagrees.
“Indeed, as I argue in my recent book on life extension ethics, most of us reject leveling-down in other situations,” Dr. Davis told The Conversation. “For example, there are not enough human organs for transplant, but no one thinks the answer is to ban organ transplants.”
Davis also thinks that if initial costs are high, they will come down as therapies are further developed.
“Justice requires that society subsidize access to life extension to the extent it can afford to do so,” says Davis. “However, justice does not require banning life extension just because it’s not possible to give it to everyone.”
Cost is not an obstacle in some lifespan research.
As detailed in the initial article of this series, Metformin, an inexpensive and commonly prescribed treatment for diabetes, is being tested as an anti-aging medication.
Some people complain that they will not live forever, but cannot think of things to do on a wet Sunday afternoon. — Keith Ward
I’m not sure I want to live forever. Perhaps that’s because I am, in some ways, a creature of habit and I’ve gotten into the habit of thinking I will someday die.
I am also a procrastinator and the specter of death puts a little giddy-up in my daily routine. However, I will take a few extra years if offered. My youngest grandchild is three and I would love to see him into his mid-20s.
To gain a perspective on living a long life, you might want to listen to Carl Reiner interview the 2,000-year-old man (Mel Brooks).