Are we humans only meant to live till 70yrs?

af_thefragile

Less than a century ago many people would die fairly young due to infections. Then in the 1940s we learnt how to mass produce Penicillin and infections we no longer lethal diseases. This was the first giant leap in medicine and humans could live longer than ever before.

Then with the longer age came chronic illnesses. Now it wasn't infections killing humans but it was heart disease, lung disease, diabetes etc. Then modern medicine learnt how to tackle these chronic diseases and a heart attack or bronchitis or DKA were no longer lethal events and there came the next big leap in human life expectancy. Everyone could now expect to live beyond 60yrs if they didn't die young of congenital illnesses or accidents.

We were living longer than ever before but then there was a new illness that was killing us. It was cancer. But then modern medicine found out ways to tackle it as well through chemo, radio, hormonal therapy etc. Now we all can expect to live well beyond 70yrs.

But that doesn't mean medicine has delayed death without any consequences because as people are living longer a new group of illnesses are or the rise and are quickly becoming the next big challenge that medicine faces and this is a big one. Its neurodegenerative diseases. Dementia, Parkinson's etc. The brain just doesn't seem to keep up with most people as they grow older and after around 70yrs this does become profound. So people can now live a long life but many spend their last few decades in a state of mental impairment which only gets worse with time. And because neurons don't regenerate, these conditions aren't reversible. Their progress can be slowed down but not stopped and the person will continue to lose cognition till their other major organs finally give in and they die. Sure someday eventually medicine may find a cure for this as well but then after that we will probably face a whole new range of illnesses we've never faced before. Unless medicine finds a cure for ageing and death itself, it seems nothing can stop the constant decline in the physical and mental health of a human.


So it seems like medicine has managed to prolong human life greatly over the past decades but it hasn't seem to have improved the quality of life that much. We seem to reach our physical peak at around 30yrs and reach our mental peak at around 40-60yrs. After than its just a steady decline till death.
The difference is that a few decades ago humans only had to live in this mental decline for a decade or two before their body would give up but now people are living for upto 3 to 4 decades with this decline.

So are we only meant to live till around 70yrs of age because after that most people just live in severely declining physical and mental health which often profoundly affects their quality of living. And I won't go into the burden to the state of dealing with almost quarter of the population beyond the retirement age and needing constant medical care.





For all you with short attention spans: TL;DR version:
People are living longer than ever but beyond 70yrs even if you've survived heart disease and cancer, most people go a bit cuckoo.
So has nature designed us humans to only live till around 70yrs cuz beyond that most of us become quite useless at doing pretty much anything except for the few genetically lucky ones?

ArtSmart

Finally a fun thread on AH.

frag420

Eh??

Strawberry Fields

I'd say 31 like the Celts!
But I'm not moaning about the extra 40 years :cool:

girl2

Didn't even read that post - it is very long.

I know I don't want to live anywhere beyond 70……in this world that's gettin worse - the disease, strife, injustice and pain everywhere……never mind the poor excuse of existence of some people out there who do terrible and unthinkable acts. Na, I could go anytime thank you very much.

Zab

Meant by whom exactly? Life expectancy improved greatly over the past decade?

ChickenZombie

Jaysus - stop... yer killin' me...

frag420

I see a flaw here as by the time I finish reading that op il be 90!!

af_thefragile

Zab wrote: »

Meant by whom exactly? Life expectancy improved greatly over the past decade?

decades... or more precisely since the 1940s with the antibiotic revolution.

ChunkyLover_53

Jaysus, will take me 70yrs to read that

Zab

af_thefragile wrote: »

decades... or more precisely since the 1940s with the antibiotic revolution.

Okay. I disagree that quality of life hasn't improved greatly over the same time frame.

af_thefragile

girl2 wrote: »

Didn't even read that post - it is very long.

I know I don't want to live anywhere beyond 70……in this world that's gettin worse - the disease, strife, injustice and pain everywhere……never mind the poor excuse of existence of some people out there who do terrible and unthinkable acts. Na, I could go anytime thank you very much.

frag420 wrote: »

I see a flaw here as by the time I finish reading that op il be 90!!

ChunkyLover_53 wrote: »

Jaysus, will take me 70yrs to read that

Added TL;DR version for ye guys.

af_thefragile

Zab wrote: »

Okay. I disagree that quality of life hasn't improved greatly over the same time frame.

It has improved greatly till around 70yrs of age.
After that save a few exceptions, most people live through worsening chronic diseases and/or dementia which doesn't do much good to the quality of life.

Which is my point.

girl2

af_thefragile wrote: »

Added TL;DR version for ye guys.

Cheers for the consideration - it's not that I can't read long posts, it's that my opinion is very cynical and I don't care to live beyond 70. And in relation to your edit - there's an awful lot of people out there useless as it is - doesn't take for them to become cuckoo for uselessness to take effect.

Rayne Wooney

I'm going to live forever :pac:



http://http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/08/human-immortality-in-33-years-claims-dmitry-itskovs-2045-initiative/

Fromthetrees

If you look after yourself and are genetically lucky you can get over 90 with a good quality of life, it'll take a long time before medicine advances to a stage where we can mentally and physically manipulate the human mind and body to live over one hundred with a good quality of life.

It'll be nappies and dementia and blindness for centenarians for the next while yet.

Shryke

1ZRed wrote: »

My retirement plan at 70 is a shot to the head. I want to end my life in a good condition. I'd hate to slowly deteriorate to the point where I'd need help for everything and be very dependant on people.

OT: We will be able to live as long we like with advances in medicine and technology.

Of course we will, just ask people that grew up a few decades ago how they're enjoying their hover cars.
The world is far and away from any utopian ideals yet. People getting basic healthcare covered is still a major issue. The years fly by. In no time at all you'll be old and think everything was better when you were young and see the same old crap repeat itself.

noxqs

People living so long is a major problem.

We need to completely remove speed limits on roads, remove all road signs, remove all health and safety regulations, allow all drugs, hell we should dispense heroin from those machines in the pub toilets and give free cigarettes to kids, and serve buttered bacon as a side dish to everything.

We can reverse this trend. We have the technology!

Wee Willy Harris

So would halfway be ones peak?

mph.. don't think I'm gettin any bigger

Rigol

Do you see now OP what happens to people who make an effort in AfterHours?

Don't let it happen again.

Rhys Essien

It is being said that most kids born in recent years will live to 100.

EZ24GET

I think all depends on the person. My aunt was about 99 when she passed, It is true that in the final year of her life she showed signs of her age, lost her hearing and vision was going, but just the year before she was climbing onto chairs getting down picture boxes and baking the most wonderful pies for the whole family. She had an accident at 99 and was sent to a home and she never came out. She was ready to go though. She had a long life - I can't imagine the things that she saw. Mass car production, space flight, two world wars, computers, many presidents, so maybe I'd like to live a long time, but when being alive becomes a burden hope I just pass away in my sleep.

Zab

af_thefragile wrote: »

It has improved greatly till around 70yrs of age.
After that save a few exceptions, most people live through worsening chronic diseases and/or dementia which doesn't do much good to the quality of life.

Which is my point.

You ignored the first question I asked earlier, which pertains to what you're driving at. Life expectancy has been increasing, but don't confuse this with people not living until old age prior to the 40s, it's just more common these days. We've also had massive improvements in quality of life for these people, so what you say about no improvement there is incorrect. I don't think we were designed for any particular life expectancy at all, I think we've evolved to be how we are and there are theories as to why we live so long (grandmother hypothesis etc). I do think that some people live beyond life being an overall positive for themselves, and I think there's a good conversation to be had on the subject, but your post doesn't address things from that angle at all.

DEFTLEFTHAND

We're all built differently, some people are struck down at an early age and others live long lives. The 5% or ' Infinity gene' springs to mind. People who defy medical science. Smoke and drink heavily over a long period but yet never contract any of the conditions associated with substance abuse.

Rigol

wouldnt it become just a wee bit tedious after one or two centuries anyway

K-9

Hopefully science will have found a cure for brain related diseases in 50 years time, I've no doubt it will.

af_thefragile

Zab wrote: »

You ignored the first question I asked earlier, which pertains to what you're driving at. Life expectancy has been increasing, but don't confuse this with people not living until old age prior to the 40s, it's just more common these days. We've also had massive improvements in quality of life for these people, so what you say about no improvement there is incorrect. I don't think we were designed for any particular life expectancy at all, I think we've evolved to be how we are and there are theories as to why we live so long (grandmother hypothesis etc). I do think that some people live beyond life being an overall positive for themselves, and I think there's a good conversation to be had on the subject, but your post doesn't address things from that angle at all.

It is true there were always people throughout history that lived beyond 70yrs, even in ancient times and today there are many people who live long lives perfectly healthy but these people are only a small group and mostly the exceptions (as there are exceptions to pretty much everything in medicine). These are usually people who have been physically fit throughout their life and looked after their health very well or they were genetically lucky to make it beyond 70 without any major chronic illnesses.

I guess in a way quality of life is subjective. Some people are happy on a wheelchair, some people are happy as long as they have someone to help them with their daily activities, some people are just happy to be alive. While there are people who would rather be dead than battle through a major illness or lose their cognitive faculties.

What I was addressing is that looking at the whole picture, majority of people start declining rapidly in cognition and physically after the age of 70yrs. Where medicine is right now, we can do a bit to slow down physical decline but there's very little medicine can do to slow down cognitive decline as its irreversible.

Maybe in the future stem cell research or something else will find the cure to stopping or even reversing cognitive decline but there's still a long way to go.

The big problem is most people do become incapacitated after the age of 70yrs and have great difficulty functioning independently without any help or support. That would be fine if it was only a physical decline but the problem is that this is often also associated with cognitive decline and so the person can't really do much after the age of 70yrs and economically is just a burden on the government. The biggest problem is because of advances in modern medicine this population group is rapidly increasing and will soon comprise of more than a quarter of the population (coupled with reduced birth rates). This will be a huge burden future governments will have to deal with.

It wouldn't be a problem looking after and maintaining elderly in comfort if only families and the government was up for it. But unfortunately right now many elderly end up living alone or in a nursing home with not a great degree of care and this situation is only going to get worse as the number of elderly are going to increase over the coming years.

Medicine is still too focused on tacking cancer so it'll be a while before it gets to tacking dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases properly.

Rhys Essien

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

We're all built differently, some people are struck down at an early age and others live long lives. The 5% or ' Infinity gene' springs to mind. People who defy medical science. Smoke and drink heavily over a long period but yet never contract any of the conditions associated with substance abuse.

Shane McGowan.:D

DEFTLEFTHAND

Rhys Essien wrote: »

Shane McGowan.:D

Perfect example, Keith Richards could be another.

Chuck Stone

af_thefragile wrote: »

beyond 70yrs ... most people go a bit cuckoo.

Your entire premise balances on this point.

Evidence?

af_thefragile

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Your entire premise balances on this point.

Evidence?

Take a walk around the geriatric ward in hospitals.
This is one of the biggest issue right now health care and is going to be the next big challenge that medicine is going to face after cancer.

I can't be bothered digging out articles but I do know this because I'm studying in health care n all.

DEFTLEFTHAND

af_thefragile wrote: »

Take a walk around the geriatric ward in hospitals.
This is one of the biggest issue right now health care and is going to be the next big challenge that medicine is going to face after cancer.

I can't be bothered digging out articles but I do know this because I'm studying in health care n all.

It is for a certain percentage of people I'm sure, but conditions like this usually take hold at a more advanced age than 70 right? You can't say that if you avoid all the major killers by 70 that dementia or other related diseases will be your downfall.

Chuck Stone

af_thefragile wrote: »

I can't be bothered digging out articles but I do know this because I'm studying in health care n all.

If you're studying in healthcare then shouldn't you be especially bothered?

Seriously, evidence is needed here that most people over 70 i.e. greater than 50% are 'a bit cuckoo'.

Whatever the fuck 'a bit cuckoo' is.

Esel

People who are allergic to penicillin are living longer dying later too... I blame the doctors!

There's only enough soylent green for those who can afford it!

af_thefragile

Chuck Stone wrote: »

If you're studying in healthcare then shouldn't you be especially bothered?

Seriously, evidence is needed here that most people over 70 i.e. greater than 50% are 'a bit cuckoo'.

Whatever the fuck 'a bit cuckoo' is.

I would be if I was submitting a college report. This is After Hours. I posted it here just to see what people would say...

Esel

af_thefragile wrote: »

I posted it here just to see what people would say...

Gaga! Gaga, I say.

Madam Marie

Not so thinly veiled: "My parents are getting on now, it'd cost a fortune to put them in a home and I'm thinking that instead, I should just book us all a cruise, throw them overboard mid-pacific and then go on to use my new found wealth to bang as many hookers as humanly possible at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada, Texas!" thread.

Chuck Stone

af_thefragile wrote: »

I would be if I was submitting a college report. This is After Hours. I posted it here just to see what people would say...

Okay, fair enough. My Parents are in their 70's and they're still very lucid and much loved by their children and grandchildren so I thought it was a bit unfair to call them nuts.

I'm out.

Maximus Alexander

af_thefragile wrote: »

Take a walk around the geriatric ward in hospitals.
This is one of the biggest issue right now health care and is going to be the next big challenge that medicine is going to face after cancer.

This is gas.

"Everyone in Dublin is on heroin".

"Evidence?"

"Sure take a walk around a heroin clinic".

Good luck with your exams.

Calibos

girl2 wrote: »

Cheers for the consideration - it's not that I can't read long posts, it's that my opinion is very cynical and I don't care to live beyond 70. And in relation to your edit - there's an awful lot of people out there useless as it is - doesn't take for them to become cuckoo for uselessness to take effect.

I'd put money on the fact that you won't be saying that at age 69.

Jhcx

Look at people who live to 100 what's their excuse

juan.kerr

Unpopular opinion so I'll apologise in advance. I think many of the medical 'advances' should never have occured. Old people are using up finite resources by living longer and contributing to massive unsustainable population growth.

All 4 of my grandparents are dead, I don't think living past mid seventies is a right.

Wereghost

af_thefragile wrote: »

For all you with short attention spans: TL;DR version:
People are living longer than ever but beyond 70yrs even if you've survived heart disease and cancer, most people go a bit cuckoo.
So has nature designed us humans to only live till around 70yrs cuz beyond that most of us become quite useless at doing pretty much anything except for the few genetically lucky ones?

I don't think so. Heart disease and cancer, being age-related, tend not to prevent reproduction of the sufferer's genes (or, supposedly, the genes of their offspring). Also, prior to the modern age people were more likely to die of other causes like violence, malnutrition or preventable diseases than they are now.

Hence, the gene pool has simply not needed to evolve much of a resistance to chronic age-related diseases.

Conversely, it's easy to see how elders could have been of some benefit even before language, eg taking care of kids while parents are out foraging / hunting.

Tom_Cruise

Aging and death will be cured,it will probaly be thousands of years but it will happen.

I want to get every single last breath out of my life - when your gone your gone so i think its important to get as much time here as possible.

Who knows,maybe them old people dribbling all over themselves arent as unhappy as they look,babys are pretty stupid but im sure they are pretty happy with life!

Maybe i dont make much sense,but hey who cares!

bbam

This is our evolution.
We don't need extra digits or bigger eyes so they're not developing. However our evolutionary path continues through extended life.

juan.kerr

"Soylent Green is people!"

indioblack

Calibos wrote: »

I'd put money on the fact that you won't be saying that at age 69.

Well said. It should have been a requirement on this thread that all posters answering should give their age.
I'll be 70 in 9 years time.

deirdremf

Zab wrote: »

Meant by whom exactly? Life expectancy improved greatly over the past decade?

By god of course.

You know, the funny guy in the sky who is actually pie in the sky!

al28283

girl2 wrote: »

Didn't even read that post - it is very long.

I know I don't want to live anywhere beyond 70……in this world that's gettin worse - the disease, strife, injustice and pain everywhere……never mind the poor excuse of existence of some people out there who do terrible and unthinkable acts. Na, I could go anytime thank you very much.

When exactly do you think life on earth was better? Please give the years you think that disease, strife, injustice and pain were ever any less.

chops018

This is not true, my Grandmother is 88 years of age, and although her body is giving up - joints etc, her brain certainly is not. I've never met a woman who is as much aware of what is going on around them than her. I put it down to the amount of cross-words and puzzles she is doing. Ever since I can remember if I went into her she would be doing some sort of cross word or puzzle. It just goes to show how exercising the brain can help it stay fit.

Maximus Alexander

chops018 wrote: »

It just goes to show how exercising the brain can help it stay fit.

This isn't even a myth, it's well supported by studies. Puzzles, reading, writing, learning, playing cards or board games, music and generally challenging yourself mentally can do wonders to keep the mind in good order and hold off the onset of things like dementia.

Funnily enough, that's about the only positive of being a smoker too. You'll probably die of cancer, but the nicotine means you're less likely to lose your mind.