Old and In the Way
Sonia Arrison, in her book "100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, From Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith" says that in the near future, living to 100 -- and even a little beyond -- won't be so unusual.
The number of people living to advanced old age is already on the rise. There are some 5.7 million Americans age 85 and older, amounting to about 1.8% of the population, according to the Census Bureau. That is projected to rise to 19 million, or 4.34% of the population, by 2050, based on current trends. The percentage of Americans 100 and older is projected to rise from 0.03% today to 0.14% of the population in 2050. That's a total of 601,000 centenarians.
As anyone who has ever driven around Los Angeles can tell you, there really isn't a shortage of old people. There are plenty of them, usually in the car directly in front of me, waiting for the traffic light to turn even greener than it is.
Or am I being unkind? The thought of more old people shuffling around, draining cash from the Social Security "Trust Fund" doesn't seem like a happy thought. But maybe, with science and medicine on the job, they won't be shuffling:
The scientists working on these issues respond to such concerns by stressing that their aim is not just to increase the quantity of life but its quality as well. A life span of 1,000 may be optimistic, they suggest, but an average span of 150 years seems well within reach in the near future, with most of those years being vital and productive.
One key area of research is gene therapy. Cynthia Kenyon of the University of California, San Francisco, found that partially disabling a single gene, called daf-2, doubled the life of tiny worms called Caenorhabditis elegans. Altering the daf-16 gene and other cells added to the effect, allowing the worms to survive in a healthy state six times longer than their normal life span. In human terms, they would be the equivalent of healthy, active 500-year-olds.
Healthy, active, five hundred year-olds? Part of me is interested in seeing this come about. Another part of me is worried I might have to see two of them make out in a Viagra ad. And another thing: I had a hard time finding spare parts for my old 1988 Grand Wagoneer. Have they thought about this? Apparently so:
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, led by Anthony Atala, has successfully grown bladders in a lab and implanted them in children and teenagers suffering from a congenital birth defect. The basic structure of the bladders was built using biodegradable materials and was then populated with stem cells from the patients, so that their bodies wouldn't reject the transplant. It worked. Today the institute is working to grow more than 30 different organs and tissues, including livers, bone and hearts.
It'll make May-December relationships a lot different:
Research done at Stanford, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Wisconsin suggests that older men seek younger partners primarily to continue having children. If that is the case, such men won't need to find younger partners once it is easier for older women to have their own biological children using new fertility technologies.
More time to live also raises the possibility of more divorces and remarriages—the seven-year itch turned into the 70-year itch. Today, some people get married two or even three times, but as people live longer, these numbers could increase, perhaps exceeding Liz Taylor proportions for at least a small slice of the population. But greater longevity might also lead to a higher incidence of serial monogamy, regardless of whether it leads to marriage, perhaps interspersed with periods of living alone.
As researchers further refine reproductive technology like egg freezing and ovary transplants, the ranks of older parents, currently on the rise, are bound to increase even more. This raises the prospect of families in which siblings are born many decades apart, perhaps 50 years or more.
Bring out the scolds:
The very idea of radically greater longevity has its critics, on the right and the left. Leon Kass, who served as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics under George W. Bush, sees the scientific effort to extend life as an instance of our hubris, an assault on human nature itself.
The environmental writer Bill McKibben, for his part, strongly opposes what he calls "techno-longevity," arguing that "like everything before us, we will rot our way back into the woof and warp of the planet."
Just because the regular scolds are against it, I'm for it. I have zero interest in leaving here in a stately or dignified way. I want to cling to life as long as possible. People always say, "Oh, if it comes to that, if I'm incapacitated or dependent on machines, just unplug me." But I say: "Keep me plugged in! Use all the machines!"
Personally, I can't wait to be 101. The only drawback is going to be all of those 500 year-olds, in the cars in front of me, waiting for the light to turn even greener.
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May '11
Re: Old and In the Way
I can't embed links from my IPad but if you google "the first person to live to 150" you will see that Dr. Aubrey De Grey believes that the first person to live to 150 has already been born and the first to live to 1000 will be born within two decades.
Jun '10
Re: Old and In the Way
I'll opt for the express lane when my time comes. My father wasn't sick a day in his life until the day he died. He was taken to the hospital at 9 AM, and dead by 7 PM that evening. Way to go, pop! May you rest in peace.
May '10
Re: Old and In the Way
In Porgy and Bess, the character Sportin' Life, a drug dealer, expresses his doubt about Biblical tales in the song It Ain't Necessarily So. He addresses the story of Methuselah accordingly:
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years,
But who calls dat livin'
When no gal will give in
To no man what's nine hundred years?
Re: Old and In the Way
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat ill: αποθανειν θελω.”
Jun '10
Re: Old and In the Way
Sounds like an invitation for younger hungrier societies, that can't afford that kind of healthcare, to come in and take over from our frail tired geezers. You can extend life, but there's no substitute for the energy and imagination of youth.
May '11
Re: Old and In the Way
Robert Heinlein addressed this very concept through his character Lazarus Long (birth name Woodrow Wilson Smith).
The series of books begins with Methuselah's Children in which Long claims to be 200+ y.o.
I think it is fitting the character is named Long, Rob.
Here is a thought experiment. Given the medical advances we have seen in the past 30 years and projecting the increasing pace of advances, would it not seem certain that a child born this year may have the choice of whether or not to die? And, a child born 50 years from now will have that choice?
Re: Old and In the Way
Geshundheit!
May '10
Re: Old and In the Way
"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too." Marvin the Android, Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams.
Not as elegant as Petronius, but reminds us that hell could be an eternity of despair without an ending.
Still, it might lift the property values in Florida, or Australia's Goldcoast.
Edited on Aug 31, 2011 at 9:10amRe: Old and In the Way
The Progressive have a solution for this problem. It is called euthanasia.
Aug '10
Re: Old and In the Way
Rob Long
It'll make May-December relationships a lot different:
This is a pretty bad reading of evolutionary psychology that conflates the proximate and the ultimate and underestimates how they can be decoupled by rapid change. In an ultimate sense men seek to have children, but in a proximate sense they seek to have sex with fecund-appearing women. Importantly, perceptions of fecund appearance are hard-wired into our brains on the basis of what fecundity looked like for the last 100,000 years. The fact that some obstetrician can pump grandma full of estrogen and get her to drop eggs again doesn't mean men's lust will change such that we'll start desiring women in their 50s more than women in their 20s.
We eat too much junk food for similar reasons.
Re: Old and In the Way
Get out of your jar, Sybil—I mean, Claire! I tend to think these things radically underestimate the complexity of the science involved. Still, the waning of religion will continue to create a powerful, terrified, anti-annihilation lobby…
Oct '10
Re: Old and In the Way
Average life expectancy at birth is a misleading figure because infant and early childhood mortality is very high among humans absent modern medicine. Life expectancy at birth in the upper paleolithic was 33 years, but if you managed to survive to age 15, you could expect to live another 39 years, or to age 54. This figure was not substantially exceeded until early modern Britain, and only in the 20th century did a substantial part of the world population exceed it. Life expectancy at birth was lower in both classical Greece and Rome (probably due to public health problems in cities). [Source]
This is not to say that tremendous advances haven't been made in gerontology or that further progress won't be made, just to note that when you're looking at statistics of life expectancy at birth over history, almost all of the progress has been made in the early years, not among the elderly.
Nov '10
Re: Old and In the Way
I'm not sure whether the article gets into this, but most of the increased average life expectancy seen throughout history has been due to reduced infant mortality. Babies used to die a lot, but once you got to about 5 years old you had a pretty good chance of a long life. Reaching your 60s was not uncommon, even in ancient times. The mean life expectancy discounting child mortality has gone up, but not nearly as dramatically as this would suggest. Sorry :(
Jul '11
Re: Old and In the Way
Just because the regular scolds are against it, I'm for it. I have zero interest in leaving here in a stately or dignified way. I want to cling to life as long as possible. People always say, "Oh, if it comes to that, if I'm incapacitated or dependent on machines, just unplug me." But I say: "Keep me plugged in! Use all the machines!"
Well be careful what you wish for. Personally, I'm happy as long as I can auto exit rather than depending on some fool and their machines,
Nov '10
Re: Old and In the Way
Dangit, must type faster.
Jul '11
Re: Old and In the Way
One of my patients is a PHD molecular geneticist who lectures extensively on anti-aging with respect to telomeres. Quite a famous chap in his field, recently in popular science. . He is convinced it is possible to live a very very long time. Of course , there will be a dollar price tag associated with this. I am curious if AARP will lobby the government to make it a "right" to such treatment and the pre 65's should be taxed for the purpose of paying for rejuvination tablets and surgeries.
May '10
Re: Old and In the Way
Sometimes, dead is better - Pet Sematary
Sep '10
Re: Old and In the Way
Combining Greek and Latin in the same sentence is like cat nip to me.
Edited on Aug 31, 2011 at 10:01amJun '10
Re: Old and In the Way
I must disagree with Rob. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely opposed to euthanasia.
On the other hand, I do not want to live to be 100. My father died two years ago (age 84) of heart disease. He had excellent quality of life until about three months before his death. The day he died, he was as mentally sharp as ever.
My mother will turn 86 in a week, and has fallen into the grip of advanced dementia. I am the only person she knows by name, she is confused, and is often agitated. She certainly is not happy. But she will receive the best care we can provide until she moves on the what's next.
Given a choice, I would take my father's way out of life.
I don't think trying to turn us all into centenarians is the solution. Based on my observation, medical science has provided a lot more quantity of life than quality. I have serious doubts that medical science can change that equation.
Edited on Aug 31, 2011 at 10:04amSep '10
Re: Old and In the Way
That reminds me of the words of the late Msgr William B Smith of Dunwoodie seminary in New York:
"I congratulate all of you on escaping abortion. But don't rest easy, you will have euthanasia to worry about."