Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: telstarbox on 05 July, 2020, 09:10:56 pm
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How long are you planning / hoping to live for?
I'm in my early 30s and think I'd feel happy with reaching 90, subject to quantity / quality considerations of course...
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Both my parents and their sisters (one each) made it into their 90s. Mum and paternal aunt still going strong in late 90s.
That's my first target.
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Three of my grandparents lived past 90.
Those that weren't centenarians had a sibling who was.
My parents are still going.
My last great-uncle died two years ago today at 104½.
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I don't think planning comes into it. Dad lived to the ripe old age of 63 - heart attack - mum managed 93 after 2 years of dementia. I'm 67 with a bit of heart disease and not much else. I have no idea.
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It would be nice to continue until I get bored with it all.
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After an unplanned and quite surprising incident a third of my life ago, I’m quite happy getting this far, and possibly further.
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I'll take what comes but hope for continued good health and to hang on to some useable sight for as long as possible.
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It ain't what you've got but the way that you use it. There's little doubt that had the human physiognomy included an off switch, I may not have got past my twenties. But, I can't help hankering for one to be installed at the appropriate time. Numbers is a small part of the story, I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
When the time comes I'd like to go quietly in my sleep like my dad, not screaming and shouting like his passengers.*
I'd like to hang around long enough to be remembered by grandchildren, that's about it.
*I once delivered this classic line deadpan at a work training thing, when everyone had to share their life objectives.
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Happy to go now. I can't think of anything still ahead that I'm looking forward to.
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I am looking forward to the Raid Dolomites. Today, is the day I planned to start it but due to unexpected circumstances* it has been put back a year. So yeah, I have to keep going another year.
* 2 weeks ago I broke a rib. There was also a pandemic.
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There are lots of things I want to do, and life to enjoy.
Not afraid of death, but deeply worried how my children will cope when I go.
Non of my relatives made it past early 70s, many died a lot younger. I've already past the age when one grandparent and two uncles passed away.
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I come from a long-lived bunch. I think that the youngest to die amongst my parents and their brothers and sisters (7 in all) was 86. One reached 100, one is still going at 96.
I had a brother who died at 18 of muscular dystrophy. Apart from him, all of my other 4 siblings are still going pretty well. We are all on tablets of one sort or another. I'm the youngest at 66.
None of the above have abused their bodies with calories and alcohol to the extent that I have. I have two separate heart conditions, both of which should respond well provided I can keep down the things that I seem to enjoy. I enjoy a lot of stuff apart from booze and food, and in general I think I'm a very lucky chap.
I have no great desire to be around to witness the collapse of civilisation which I am convinced is not that far off. On the other hand, so many people depend on me for lots of stuff, not least my dear wife, I don't want to shuffle off this mortal coil and leave them to their fates.
Not that there's a lot I can do about it.
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Currently 68. Males in my family tend to pop off in the early/mid 80's. My father did not see 60, but my life style is very different to his. My logical mind says I don't mind leaving this world, but I know that every cell will hang on as long as it can. Like Wowbagger, I am not impressed by the future; perhaps that is a normal age thing.
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80s? No firm family propensity to anything fatal. I never knew my grandfathers but they were both heavy smokers and died in the expected way.
I hope I haven't buggered my heart by cycling. My resting pulse is v e r y slow. I never raced much, though. Being a professional cyclist seems to be a good way to an early grave; besides atrial fibrillation, early calcification of the coronary arteries is a known consequence. We're designed to follow the odd wounded antelope, not to run at FTP for six hours every day.
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We're designed to follow the odd wounded antelope, not to run at FTP for six hours every day.
"designed". pfft.
Never mind the width, feel the quality. My parents are fit in their 70s being the first generation of non-manual workers but I don't fancy dragging into my 90s half blind, half deaf; with dementia, osteoporosis and reduced heart function.
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Mum died at 87 with heart problems, Dad at 73 with diabetes, heart problems and far-out raving dementia. I'm 73 and despite losing track of orders of 10 in simple multiplication from time to time I still have most of my cups in the cupboard. Still, given my own diabetes, cardiovascular problems, depression and the bloody-minded disposition* that kills the motivation to do much about them I'll be lucky to manage another 5 years without something going pop, whereat MrsT will doubtless breathe a deep sigh of relief.
* probably part of the depression, but who cares?
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I've been dead, so I'm probably immune. I think that's how it works.
Grandparents sailed into their late 90s on the winds of cigarette fumes and coal particulates without going la-la. Anyway, I'd like to be around for as long as I am healthy enough to do something with it.
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Dad lived to the ripe old age of 63 - heart attack - mum managed 93 after 2 years of dementia. I'm 67 with a bit of heart disease and not much else.
Give or take a year or 2, on all points that is exactly me, spooky
I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
Try a Welsh 600k audax in April - you'll get a taste :'(
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Looking around me next week will do
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80s? No firm family propensity to anything fatal. I never knew my grandfathers but they were both heavy smokers and died in the expected way.
I hope I haven't buggered my heart by cycling. My resting pulse is v e r y slow. I never raced much, though. Being a professional cyclist seems to be a good way to an early grave; besides atrial fibrillation, early calcification of the coronary arteries is a known consequence. We're designed to follow the odd wounded antelope, not to run at FTP for six hours every day.
I have always had a resting heart rate c.47 or 48. If any damage has occurred it was probably swimming not cycling. My last blood pressure test was in a&e a couple of weeks ago and it was nearly problem low but the doctor said i had nothing to worry about apart from a broken rib or two. He said I was 'tougher than I think' whatever that means. I didn't take the cocodamol prescribed as it made me feel queasy, ibuprofen was better.
My family on mother's side often live into the late 90s; parents died 76 and 83, I don't think the war did them any good, my mother became very ill due to WRNS living conditions; dad had physical injuries, due to overexertion, which never went away and also malaria.
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A low heart rate isn't (necessarily) a bad thing, it just means you've got a powerful and large heart (mine sinks down to 40-44bpm) and good cardiovascular fitness. That's a result of regular swimming, hiking, and cycling. A healthy cardiovascular system is a good way to increase the probability of living a longer and healthier life.
Professional sport and training, on the other hand, is pretty harsh and takes a significant toll.
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I live in expectancy of a life.
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I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
This is pretty common, but people with failing bodies tend to get over that after a couple of years. It's a mismatch of perspective that leads to all sorts of disablist/eugenicist thinking.
I never expected to get to 20, and I've not really settled on a stretch goal. Ultimately, it's mostly down to luck and government policy, so it's somewhat academic.
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I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
This is pretty common, but people with failing bodies tend to get over that after a couple of years. It's a mismatch of perspective that leads to all sorts of disablist/eugenicist thinking.
I never expected to get to 20, and I've not really settled on a stretch goal. Ultimately, it's mostly down to luck and government policy, so it's somewhat academic.
The bit I've put in bold was, I think, very relevant to Jan's dad. He retired in his early 60s but started to go rapidly downhill after that. He had been diagnosed with asbestosis and by the time he was 70 was in a pretty bad way. His other son in law reckons that he had ambitions for a recovery well in excess of the reality, and as a result spend far too long in hospitals where he contracted C. difficile...
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I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
This is pretty common, but people with failing bodies tend to get over that after a couple of years. It's a mismatch of perspective that leads to all sorts of disablist/eugenicist thinking.
I never expected to get to 20, and I've not really settled on a stretch goal. Ultimately, it's mostly down to luck and government policy, so it's somewhat academic.
Sorry, I still think it should be a personal decision, I can see that the pressure to conform to the ideal of a "plucky fighter" can be as demoralising to someone dealing with life affecting disability as anything else. But, I do understand what you mean.
To put this in personal perspective, I'm a fat git and I come from a long line of fat gits. My father was a fat git and his father before him. They were also both smokers, but they both ended up disabled with strokes living to mid to late 80s. I may change my mind, but I really can't see me wanting to continue living that way.
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How long are you planning / hoping to live for?
I'm in my early 30s and think I'd feel happy with reaching 90, subject to quantity / quality considerations of course...
Maternal grandparents both died in their 80. Paternal grandmother made 104 (Paternal grandfather died as a result of war wounds). Mum's still going strong at 82.
I reckon I will make my 90s - unless cancer has a 'third time lucky' go...
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Maternal grandparents* both died before Mrs Larrington (decd.) made it past her teens while Grandpa Tommy didn't reach 60 and Granny Annie (mine, not CrinklyLion's) scored ~70 before committing suicide. Mrs Larrington (decd.) scored 77, Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) currently 87 not out. I expect medical SCIENCE will have advanced to the extent that I could live to $VERY_RIPE_OLD_AGE while the Conservative Party will make sure I can't afford to. But it doesn't really matter, because he who dies with the most toys, wins.
* she refused to talk about her childhood to such an extent that I don't know what their names were.
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Perhaps the related question is: And at what age do you expect to retire?
Given the way things are going, and the fact everyone is rapidly realising that pension schemes are a pyramid scheme, it's going to get interesting.
Not to mention will civilisation still exist by the time I would hope to retire?
J
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paternal grandfather dies at 96 having been a despatch rider and sergeant pilot in sopwiths, crash landing, being gassed and smoking a minimum of 60 Capstan full strength per day from the age of 14. The death was unexpected enough that it was reported to the coroner as GP had not seen him recently enough!
Father died at 86 but had developed autoimmune disease in later life and took meg doses of steroids. He survived tuberculosis as a child but the well know technique of being sent to the seaside and forced to spend 16 hours per day outside in the fresh air for 12 months!
I am 61 and presently fit and healthy. Just lost 1.5 stone with another stone to go which will bring my BMI down to 21.5. Should help.
Happy to go now as I have seen 2 granddaughters, I am proud of my professional legacy and have been married happily for 39 years and have an expectation of what lies on the other side. Very happy to live on though as plenty more things I would like to do.
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I play a very minor role in my younger two children's lives. We are on very good terms, but one lives in Melbourne and the other just isn't that communicative.
Dez has lived with us all his life, apart from a brief spell after leaving Uni when he had a flat not that far away, but we saw him almost every day. He's about to move out - all of 100 yards away - so I expect we will still see him most days.
As I mentioned upthread, I have no desire to hang around as civilisation collapses around us as a result of climate change and government incompetence, but I still play a major role in the life of my older daughter. Despite her professional competence she quite often phones me up to bounce ideas around. There's also a one-way stream of cash which goes in her direction so that's important.
I'd like to be around to see my grandchildren (10 and 7) get a bit older. As the youngest in a big family and a relatively old mother (43 whenI was born) both my grandfathers died before I was born and both my grandmothers were too frail to have played a great part in my childhood. I just wish I felt confident enough to be able to go and see them (my grandchildren, not my grandmothers) without risking terminating myself prematurely with Covid-19.
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Scientists speculate that for the first seven or eight decades, lifestyle is a stronger determinant of health and life span than genetics. Eating well, not drinking too much alcohol, avoiding tobacco, and staying physically active enable some individuals to attain a healthy old age; genetics then appears to play a progressively important role in keeping individuals healthy as they age into their eighties and beyond. Many nonagenarians and centenarians are able to live independently and avoid age-related diseases until the very last years of their lives.
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And at what age do you expect to retire?
Unfortunately that's far too easy to answer. Never.
As for how long I'm planning to live? Not something that can be planned unless one is intent on suicide. Last actuarial tables I glanced over a few years back suggest I've *probably* got between 15 & 20 years left, which as Dr. Johnson observed, concentrates the mind wonderfully. That estimate also tallies with those (few) of my male blood relatives who made it past middle age. Not an especially long lived breed yer lurker.
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Some years ago I had a complete health check (this was in Russia, which may colour the results somewhat).
I was given a life expectancy of 95 if I gave up beer. My life expectancy would only be 90 if I didn't. Strangely enough drinking vodka produced no such reduction.
I still drink beer.
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I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
This is pretty common, but people with failing bodies tend to get over that after a couple of years. It's a mismatch of perspective that leads to all sorts of disablist/eugenicist thinking.
I never expected to get to 20, and I've not really settled on a stretch goal. Ultimately, it's mostly down to luck and government policy, so it's somewhat academic.
This
I suspect a fairly high proportion of us are aware of the need to not be biased in our professional and personal lives. Gender, race, religion, sexuality; we should all be aware of not letting our personal bias affect our behaviour.
Holding a "I couldn't live with a body falling apart/permanently injured" is another form of bias. It leads directly to looking at injured or disabled people as 'lesser'. The "oh they are so strong" is also patronizing.
Let me tell you, as someone who had a childhood with legs in fibreglass casings, then years of being unable to run or jump, I really, really appreciate having a strong fit body. It won't last. Barring accidents, bodies deteriorate. Appreciate what you have, while you have it and accept that not everyone has (or wants) a body like that.
I know that one of my personal biases is against people who don't make an effort to look after their bodies. The ones who are incredibly unfit and feeble. That's my bias and I have to own it, not let it affect how I treat people.
Losing mental faculties and the phase of knowing what is happening but being unable to do anything about it, that would be difficult to deal with. Dementia is one of the cruelest diseases.
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I can imagine little worse than being locked inside a failing body.
This is pretty common, but people with failing bodies tend to get over that after a couple of years. It's a mismatch of perspective that leads to all sorts of disablist/eugenicist thinking.
I never expected to get to 20, and I've not really settled on a stretch goal. Ultimately, it's mostly down to luck and government policy, so it's somewhat academic.
I was interested to learn that Keir Starmer's mother became ill with Still's disease (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-opens-up-about-death-of-his-mother-a4462601.html), aged 11. It was an illness that made her dependent on the NHS although she became a nurse herself.
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My parents, who lived, on the whole, healthy lives, eating and drinking in moderation, passed away last year, both in their mid-80s. They were both outlived by the elder siblings, who exercised less.
Prior to a recent re-organisation, I was the oldest person in the department of 300+ employees in a well-known professional services firm at the tender age of 55. It's quite possible that, now I am in a team of 600+ employees I am still the oldest at the advanced age of 56. That makes me positively ancient.
(I do tell them that my first client was Noah, and the reason the animals went in two by two was due to the limitations of IT systems in those days).
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(I do tell them that my first client was Noah, and the reason the animals went in two by two was due to the limitations of IT systems in those days).
Obvious Joke, they went in 10 by 10 then?
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Scientists speculate that for the first seven or eight decades, lifestyle is a stronger determinant of health and life span than genetics. Eating well, not drinking too much alcohol, avoiding tobacco, and staying physically active enable some individuals to attain a healthy old age; genetics then appears to play a progressively important role in keeping individuals healthy as they age into their eighties and beyond. Many nonagenarians and centenarians are able to live independently and avoid age-related diseases until the very last years of their lives.
Sort of, and kind of not really. Because we, unusually, continue to live long beyond our reproductive years (ageing paedo-scandal dodging rockers aside), there's no real selection pressure for genes that prolong our life. So there's an element of a good deck of genes (which is essentially luck), but the importance is playing that deck well, so avoiding environments that kill you and living healthily. People who are healthy in their twenties and thirties tend to stay that way into their later years and have more of those later years. If you're a chain-smoking podger at age 25, the prognosis is pretty poor.
Most bad gene combos will kill young, often before birth. So they're obviously heavily selected against, even ageing rockers tend to wait till they're a bit older before getting their moves on.
Aging is mostly accumulative damage, and a game of probabilities, so a perpetuation of those healthy traits is normally a recipe for a longer life (but not a guarantee). The one genetic effect that is causing selection for a longer lifespan is having children later. Populations who breed later live longer. Of course, they also tend to be more affluent first world populations, but there is a genetic component, we're creating a selection pressure.
Of course, you can't apply population genetics to individuals, and the best genes in the world won't protect you from the appetite of a hungry tiger.
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Because we, unusually, continue to live long beyond our reproductive years (ageing paedo-scandal dodging rockers aside), there's no real selection pressure for genes that prolong our life.
There is the argument that groups with a large accumulation of experience do better than shorter-lived species, so having a tendency for longer individual lives favours the group as a whole. Looking at US presidential candidates you have to hope so, senator and senile coming from the same root.
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The environment will always trump genes. Even if you have a cancer gene variant, it's mostly triggered by something, and that's a probabilistic relationship (plus these things are polygenic). The main things that have improved human life expectancy are clean water, vaccines, and improvements during childbirth. These have swamped any genetic effects by orders of magnitude.
For genes to benefit an old age, they have to have a benefit when you're younger, selection for these only applies to a reproducing population.
A degree of wisdom does help us get to an old age, as stupidity kills. The smart people delegate the tiger feeding tasks to those less smart. So I just get in cage with her and hold out the chicken, boss?
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The environment will always trump genes. Even if you have a cancer gene variant, it's mostly triggered by something, and that's a probabilistic relationship (plus these things are polygenic). The main things that have improved human life expectancy are clean water, vaccines, and improvements during childbirth. These have swamped any genetic effects by orders of magnitude.
For genes to benefit an old age, they have to have a benefit when you're younger, selection for these only applies to a reproducing population.
A degree of wisdom does help us get to an old age, as stupidity kills. The smart people delegate the tiger feeding tasks to those less smart. So I just get in cage with her and hold out the chicken, boss?
Thank you Mr Spock.
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For genes to benefit an old age, they have to have a benefit when you're younger, selection for these only applies to a reproducing population.
The benefit being (a) someone to dump the kids on while you're busy knocking Ug over the head and (b) someone who'll be able to tell you what kind of club to use.
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Someone to dump the kids on: that's why grandmas live longer than grandpas.
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Someone to dump the kids on: that's why grandmas live longer than grandpas.
I understand that men who marry tend to live longer than men who don't, whilst women who marry tend to live less time than women who don't. I know my aunt Phyllis, who died just under a year ago aged 100, always replied, when asked about the secret of a long life, "Don't get married!"
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Living beyond reproductive age can still genetically selected. It is a balance between the resources you consume (depriving your offspring) and the services you provide (to protect them and later generations).
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That's the sort of. You can create indirect pressures, but I suspect that generally they'd be lost in environmental effects. But it gets complicated. If you do something as an older person that benefits a younger phenotype, then you'll create a selection pressure.
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I'd guess that pressure is capable of cutting both ways. I've been able to improve my daughter's and her family's quality of life because I've bunged a fair bit of cash towards them, in precisely the same way as my dad bunged cash towards me when I was a penniless employed teacher. I suppose that replicated over a lot of families, that would lead to an increased life expectancy in a small number of them.
But then teaching seems to be a hereditary condition. My grandmother was a teacher, my father was a teacher, I was a teacher, my daughter is a teacher. That's over a century of teaching in 4 generations.
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I was talking about over the ages rather than currently. Human offspring are clearly not able to survive immediately after birth. If there were a gene that selected for early death soon after reproduction it would have been selected out. Living to 2 or 3 times reproductive age is a measure of how dependent our children are.
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I'm sure I read somewhere that the proportion of time that a species spend as dependent infants is related to their potential longevity. Which shouldn't be interpreted as putting off potty training till you are 35 will let you live into your 90s. Though if you live that long, you might be back in nappies.
It's best to think of genes are bracketing possibilities; a little short-legged chap like me isn't going to chase down Usain Bolt* and steal his chips, but equally, I – through effort and training – can learn to run faster. And environment counts more than anything. If I challenge Usain to side by side 100 m race, and he gleefully accepts, but then flood his lane so it's knee-deep with treacle, little short-legged me, unencumbered by the sticky stuff, will claim that sultry bag of steaming chips and have eaten them before he gets anywhere close.
So, basically, some genes (probably thousands) will affect your lifespan, but you also have to survive long enough to encounter those effects. Obviously, there are a few things based on single gene effects, like Huntington's, that can put more firm punctuation on a lifespan. Of course, genes that are positive when you're young (so are heavily selected for) may be negative when you're older, and potentially vice versa.
So basically, we're left with boring old eat your greens and do your exercise, avoid tigers and serial killers, and wish upon your genetic good luck.
*I have no idea if he likes chips, but I think everyone does.
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ian, I think that is a really interesting summary. Have you read "The sports gene" by David Epstein?
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Youse lot do realise don't you, that you're all just figments of my imagination, and when I go** that's it, you're all gone too. Pfft.
** the chances are rising daily.
That said, here's the story of one figment I was very attached to, my neighbour and very close friend. He would weed my garden and I would mow his lawn. He was a very outgoing and social animal and local political activist, the centre of numerous circles of friends, Paddy Ashdown would drop in for dinner (cooking was his hobby and he was he was exceptionally good at it - though he never ate or drank all that much himself).
He retired at 50 (teachers, huh) and embraced an active lifestyle of walking the moors by day and being social in the evenings.
In his early 60s the first mini-stroke set him back a bit, but he could still walk and talk and do simple computer things. The second one totally altered his personality - wiping out all the nice bits and just leaving a thoroughly nasty man (who had always been there, hidden from view). The third one reduced him to such a pile of shit that his wife (married 45 years) walked out and left him to die alone. Which only took a couple of months.
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ian, I think that is a really interesting summary. Have you read "The sports gene" by David Epstein?
I haven't but I might. I suspect he didn't have Usain Bolt wading through treacle though, but if he's open to the experiment, I'm willing to put up a bag of hot chips...
I should also say, it's not genes per se, it's more often a case of how they're regulated. It's rare that a mutation in a single protein has a significant effect, those early days of thinking one gene = one thing, are mostly gone (though everyone likes the simple elegance of Mendelian inheritance). Traits (and dieseases) are complex polygenic things, but more importantly, our phenotype is the result of a massively sophisticated system that starts with DNA, which is filled with regulatory sequences (there's far more regulatory DNA than coding DNA), the DNA generate the RNAs that make proteins, but also lots of small RNAs that regulate that process, and then that is all turned into protein. Those proteins may be structural, enzymic, and in turn, may regulate, modify, and package DNA (and RNA and other proteins). Then there's biochemical, endocrine and physiological regulation at all levels from organelle to entire body.
That's why, despite being near identical to a chimpanzee at the genetic level, humans generally aren't mistaken for chimpanzees.
Anyway, it's complicated, so that's why you should furrow your brows when someone says they have the gene or genes for so-and-so. Once you get beyond Mendel's wrinkled peas it rapidly complicates. Even most 'cancer genes' only deal in probabilities. Probably the most famous, BRCA1, comes with a significant chance of breast cancer in women, the risk for carriers of the mutant cancer-related variants is something like 80% over 90 years (and around 50% for ovarian cancer). But some people with the variant won't get cancer. BRCA1, on the other hand, only causes modest cancer risk in men. There are lots of other things happening (the BRCA1 gene encodes a protein involving in fixing particular types of DNA damage, the mutations result in low levels (a total absence of BRCA1 is generally fatal at the embryonic stage), but that damage has to occur first, and then the failure to fix it has to become significant (and we have all kinds of DNA repair pathways, your DNA is being broken, damaged, and inaccurately copied all the time). Which is why it comes down to probability, damage accumulates over time.
Incidentally, Mary-Claire King, in whose lab BRCA1 (and the role of its variants in causing cancer) was uncovered in, spent her early career scratching her head and wondering why she couldn't, at the protein level, find significant differences between humans and chimps (initially she assumed she was doing the experiments wrong). Of course, that lack of difference goes all the way down to DNA (but the technology to easily sequence entire genomes had yet to come along). But we're pretty similar to onions for that matter.
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I’m sure that others will disagree, but there are indicators in the animal world of “ design life”
Elephants live to about 60/70 ish . But, they have more sets of teeth ( 4 I think), and females breed up to the last few years.
Whales breed longer.
In biological terms, the only purpose of a generation is to provide and secure the next generation.
We typically now live much longer than our biological usefulness.
Improved medical care, nutrition etc has given humans a much longer life typically. However, I personally question expectations into 90s. You may be very lucky, but you may be nearer the left of the curve.
As genetic profiling etc make new discoveries I can see some “ fortunate” people having to provide significantly more investment into their pension arrangements.
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Youse lot do realise don't you, that you're all just figments of my imagination, and when I go** that's it, you're all gone too. Pfft.
** the chances are rising daily.
That said, here's the story of one figment I was very attached to, my neighbour and very close friend. He would weed my garden and I would mow his lawn. He was a very outgoing and social animal and local political activist, the centre of numerous circles of friends, Paddy Ashdown would drop in for dinner (cooking was his hobby and he was he was exceptionally good at it - though he never ate or drank all that much himself).
He retired at 50 (teachers, huh) and embraced an active lifestyle of walking the moors by day and being social in the evenings.
In his early 60s the first mini-stroke set him back a bit, but he could still walk and talk and do simple computer things. The second one totally altered his personality - wiping out all the nice bits and just leaving a thoroughly nasty man (who had always been there, hidden from view). The third one reduced him to such a pile of shit that his wife (married 45 years) walked out and left him to die alone. Which only took a couple of months.
Ooof!
On Monday we have the funeral of an old friend who survived to 77 against all the odds. My first socially-distanced funeral. I suppose that at least I only have to read to 20, rather than 100s.
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I’m sure that others will disagree, but there are indicators in the animal world of “ design life”
Elephants live to about 60/70 ish . But, they have more sets of teeth ( 4 I think), and females breed up to the last few years.
Whales breed longer.
In biological terms, the only purpose of a generation is to provide and secure the next generation.
We typically now live much longer than our biological usefulness.
Improved medical care, nutrition etc has given humans a much longer life typically. However, I personally question expectations into 90s. You may be very lucky, but you may be nearer the left of the curve.
As genetic profiling etc make new discoveries I can see some “ fortunate” people having to provide significantly more investment into their pension arrangements.
In very simple terms, ageing is the balance between damage and repair. You start off in life with these two processes evenly matched but over time your start to accumulate damage faster than you can repair it (and the mechanisms that perform the repair are also subject to damage so the rates aren't linear). This is generally why animals with fast metabolic rates (shrews, bats etc.) have short lifespans and larger ones with slower rates (elephants, whales etc.) live longer. If you drive everywhere with your foot to the floor, that car probably won't last too long.
There's also the singular event. A mutation somewhere critical. A burst artery. That kind of thing. These may be immediately fatal, or have a significant impact on life expectancy. These are also probabilistic, so the longer you are around, the more likely they are to happen. The probability is also affected by those underlying ageing processes.
Evolution doesn't care about time. Your genes don't care about how long you live, just that they get propagated. There's no 'design life' as such, that's backwards, nothing is designed to live a specific time, life expectancy is an output. And as mentioned, though we're technically useless when we cease to reproduce, we effectively aren't, since the benefits continue (from building a society, looking after grandchildren etc.) to have an influence, so longevity can be selected for in that fashion. But there's no necessary evolutionary push for a longer life.
Humans meddle, of course, since we have medicine, can produce fresh water, and have a society that is (often) willing to invest in supporting itself as a whole. The biggest bumps to life expectancy are avoiding immediately fatal events (the biggest single effect on average life expectancy is that reducing the number of deaths of very young infants – you don't have to read back far to discovered that the expectation of any family was to lose a few children – and often the mother – in childbirth or at a very young age) – fatal disease and accidents.
Anyway, if we want to live longer, there's no simple genetic recipe for that, that's a part of the whole. I would suspect that any further increases in life expectancy would come from molecular interventions, beefing up those repair mechanism and supplementing our current abilities, removing known bad gene variants. I think it's inevitable at this point that we'll start to edit our own genomes (or at least those in the developed world) and it's not just about the quantity, it's adding more quality years.
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Forget to write that the 'breast cancer gene' BRCA1 (and 2) is named after Paul Broca, the famous French anatomist (after whom Broca's area in your brain is named, but he was also the home of a lot of dodgy anthropological ideas, popular at the time). He formulated an idea that there was some hereditary disposition to breast cancer by working through the family tree of his wife, Adele, whose family had a high prevalence. Of course, they were a good century away from the idea of genes.
Ironically, she died in her late seventies and not from breast cancer, whereas he dropped dead in his fifties from a heart attack.