Doctor says...yer getting old, dude. I am disgusted.

[Nomad]

Yep. Keep in mind that in many many ways, when it comes to the condition of your body, joints, and so on, it's less the age that matters than the mileage (figurative and literal).

One of the "downsides" of having drastically increased the average human lifespan is that not all of the parts stay covered under warranty for the duration... when the average lifespan was 40, we didn't have to worry too much about osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's or other ailments that frequently come hand in hand with aging.

 

[David43515]

It also sounds like you might need to find a doctor with small hands.

I almost went pre-med. I wanted to become a proctologist, but my advisor said my knuckles weren`t big enough.
*rimshot* :uhyeah:

 

[Tez3]

Take chronditon and glucasamine for the joints, along with cod liver oil, really helps.

 

[Dirty Dog]

I almost went pre-med. I wanted to become a proctologist, but my advisor said my knuckles weren`t big enough.
*rimshot* :uhyeah:

I'm pretty sure it's illegal (or at the very least, redundant) to use "*rimshot*" in a proctology joke...

 

[Steve]

Yep. Keep in mind that in many many ways, when it comes to the condition of your body, joints, and so on, it's less the age that matters than the mileage (figurative and literal).

One of the "downsides" of having drastically increased the average human lifespan is that not all of the parts stay covered under warranty for the duration... when the average lifespan was 40, we didn't have to worry too much about osteoarthritis, Alzheimer's or other ailments that frequently come hand in hand with aging.

I'm not sure I understand the point here. There have always been old people. It's not like 2000 years ago people just expired at 30 like in Logan's Run.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I'm not sure I understand the point here. There have always been old people. It's not like 2000 years ago people just expired at 30 like in Logan's Run.

Yeah, they pretty much did, as I understand it. Maybe 40 or 50, but few made it longer than that.

 

[Steve]

??? In ancient Sparta, the minimum age to serve on the senate was 60. If it was so rare to live that long, why would they have done this? There is plenty of evidence of people living to ripe, old ages.

It's advances in infant and child mortality, as well as reduced violence overall, that accounts for the dramatic increase in life expectancy. It's not because we have biologically evolved into a longer living creature. It's because we're not as a group either invading the "known world" or being invaded by a mongol horde or Persian man/god. Or, for that matter, being raided routinely by the next town over.

Maybe I'm not understanding fully what you guys are saying, but I have this image of people just dying at 40 of natural causes and it's pretty funny.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

??? In ancient Sparta, the minimum age to serve on the senate was 60. If it was so rare to live that long, why would they have done this? There is plenty of evidence of people living to ripe, old ages.

It's advances in infant and child mortality, as well as reduced violence overall, that accounts for the dramatic increase in life expectancy. It's not because we have biologically evolved into a longer living creature. It's because we're not as a group either invading the "known world" or being invaded by a mongol horde or Persian man/god. Or, for that matter, being raided routinely by the next town over.

Maybe I'm not understanding fully what you guys are saying, but I have this image of people just dying at 40 of natural causes and it's pretty funny.

Life expectancy is different depend on how you look at it. By averages, it was quite low in previous times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time

However, that took into account all deaths, including the rather high infant mortality rate. If you have two people and one dies at birth and the other at age 100, the average life expectancy is 50, which is accurate but not meaningful.

But you can also look at the average age of people at death who have survived to age 21, and the numbers are still rather low...

In some cases life expectancy may increase with age as the individual survives the higher mortality rates associated with childhood. For instance, the table above listed life expectancy at birth in Medieval Britain at 30. A male member of the English aristocracy at the same period could expect to live, having survived until the age of 21[17]:

1200-1300 A.D.: 43 years (to age 64)
1300-1400 A.D.: 24 years (to age 45) (due to the impact of the Black Death)
1400-1500 A.D.: 48 years (to age 69)
1500-1550 A.D.: 50 years (to age 71).

It is true that you could not be a member of the Spartan Senate until you were 60 years of age. However, that does not say that men routinely achieved that age.

Nor is anyone saying that men died of 'natural causes' at age 40; unless war, famine, and disease were natural. If so, then yes, they sure did; lots of them.

The current world average is 67 years old.

 

[Nomad]

I'm not sure I understand the point here. There have always been old people. It's not like 2000 years ago people just expired at 30 like in Logan's Run.

There have always been old people. But it wasn't very long ago at all that they were much rarer than they are now.

 

[Steve]

I'm relieved that were not too far off here. I'm glad you elaborated your point. When I said "expired like in Logan's Run" and you just simply went with, "Yeah, they pretty much did," I don't think that it's too much of a leap to envision people keeling over at 40 from old age.

Point is, and your links support this, that biologically, we are much as we were a few thousand years ago. While the specific ailments are a product of our lifestyles, we are built to live 70 or 80 years old. Our bodies age now the same way they did then. We're not biologically evolved in any significant way.

 

[Steve]

There have always been old people. But it wasn't very long ago at all that they were much rarer than they are now.

You guys are killing me.

In a discussion about aging, don't you guys agree that crime, infant mortality, war, pestilence, plague and natural disaster kind of unnecessarily muddy the waters? Even in Ancient Sparta, where it must not have been THAT rare, or there would be no Senate, age brought with it predictable ailments and it looked pretty much the same. While we may have extended our lives by a few years, the genes are much the same.

From the article Bill linked above: " The genetics of humans and rate of aging were no different in preindustrial societies than today, but people frequently died young because of untreatable diseases, accidents, and malnutrition. Many women did not survive childbirth, and when a person did reach old age they were likely to succumb quickly to health problems."

That's all I'm saying.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Point is, and your links support this, that biologically, we are much as we were a few thousand years ago. While the specific ailments are a product of our lifestyles, we are built to live 70 or 80 years old. Our bodies age now the same way they did then. We're not biologically evolved in any significant way.

Yes, I agree. Previously we died before we were worn down. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

 

[Nomad]

You guys are killing me.

From the article Bill linked above: " The genetics of humans and rate of aging were no different in preindustrial societies than today, but people frequently died young because of untreatable diseases, accidents, and malnutrition. Many women did not survive childbirth, and when a person did reach old age they were likely to succumb quickly to health problems."

That's all I'm saying.

Then we're not arguing

Yes, the average life expectancy has gone up significantly over the last few hundred years, specifically because of lower infant mortality rates, introduction of Penicillins and other useful drugs that have made otherwise fatal diseases treatable (and even trivial in some cases), less malnutrition in developed countries, big advances in the medical field relating to childbirth (which even 100 years ago was much more likely to result in the death of the baby, the mother, or both than it is now). You could add no World Wars in the last 55+ years to the list, as the last couple definitely did their share to skew the population distribution of many countries throughout the world.

What this does mean is that we have more old(er) people now than at any time in the world's history, both in real numbers and on a percentage basis, and the corollary of that is that debilitating physical and mental conditions that frequently come with old age are much more prevalent in society in general, and in the public consciousness as well.