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Living to 100 Is Still the Exception, Not the Norm By Gary M. Stern
An October 2024 article in the New York Times about longevity for most people in the U.S. in the coming years predicts that humans may have reached their peak of life expectancy. And the few outliers who lived to be 100 and more are by far the exception and not the norm. So, living to be 100 years is still a pipe dream for most people, but what would it take to live for a century? That article was precipitated by a study in the journal Nature Aging written by S. Jay Olshansky, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which said that maximum expectancy in the coming years will reach an average age of 87 in the U.S., 84 for men and 90 for women. In essence, life expectancy has peaked.
Asked in a follow-up interview with Next Avenue why people can't live on average until 100, Olshansky emphasized that "We're making ourselves live longer but can't avoid the immutable biological process of aging." He compares the aging process to driving an automobile up a steep hill. "The hill gets steeper, and the engine stays the same," he said. Olshansky noted that human body parts wear down and that includes knees and hips, eyes and ears and the cardiovascular system. All of those body parts work efficiently for years (until they don't), and medicine has done an effective job of repairing them. Hence, we get stents for the cardiovascular system, statins for cholesterol levels and drugs for diabetes. He advised it's best to concentrate on the "parts that make us frailer and more disabled. The aging brain is one of our most important Achilles' heels, but body parts involved in blood flow and respiration are foundational."
"Most bodies can't last until 100. It's like asking why can't you drive a car for a million miles?" he said.
"Most bodies can't last until 100. It's like asking why can't you drive a car for a million miles?"
Asked why so many people cling to the low probability of making it to that triple-digit age, Olshansky said, "They don't want to die, and they've been promised a century by people selling them something they wanted to hear."
Read more of this story on NextAvenue.org
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