AAt the age of 111, a British accountant named John Tinosoud was just announced that the oldest man is alive. In response to a question about the secrets of his wonderful life, he mentioned his passion with a plate of fish and potatoes every Friday. Mostly, I think it was “pure luck”.
When Tinniswood was born in Liverpool in 1912, the idea of living to 111 had struck his parents as fictional, if not ridiculous. The average age of British intelligence was then 52 years old.
By 1950, there was an estimated 14,000 people between the ages of 100 or more around the world. Today, there are more than 500,000, and the number is rising quickly. It has transformed medical progress, the increase in the standard of living and improvements in public health is the human condition. The American Academy of Ecuans estimate that one of every six Americans are born today will live to be 100. A major demographic change reveals, and many can expect more of us to share “luck” John Teniswood.
Is the possibility of living that has been raising you for a long time, or is it a source of awe? Are you looking for decades of extra time, or does live to 100 seem like threat? Clearly, there are reasons that make us concern about living for a long time. What is the benefit of living until after 80 if your savings have run out, the sponsorship role is full, and you end up to feel lonely and bored and not related?
For most human history, these concerns were not related. Only a minority can expect to become old. Now, with the average global expected age of 70 years, it is a majority. The result is that we can no longer bear the costs of luck well. Just as we discuss adapting and adapting to artificial intelligence and climate crisis, we need similar talks regarding our newly extended life. After making the majority to live in the age, we now have to focus on changing our age to make life longer but healthier, productive and sharing for a longer period.
The longevity is more than physical health, but this issue fears people more than others. Today, there is a very large gap between average age and healthspan. The number of years that we are likely to live in more than the number of years that we are likely to remain in good health. Reducing this gap is very important to infer the advantages of long lives.
The good news is that there is a lot that you can do. About 80 % of how we advanced our behavior and our environment. It may seem commonly familiar, but there is no alternative to eating and sleeping well, practicing more, and following your doctor’s advice. While this advice is granted a scientific upgrade, what has already changed is your incentive to follow it now you can expect to become old.
Fortunately, although we do not have to rely only on self -discipline. aging Well, it has become an industry, and we can expect support from technological and scientific progress and transformations in government policy. While lifestyles inspired by the longevity of billionaire owners receive the headlines, they are more likely to be affected by broad transformations in our health system.
These systems are currently focusing on intervention when the disease becomes so remarkable that it negatively affects your health. But when it comes to age -related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes or dementia, this is a recipe to keep us alive for an unhealthy longer period for a longer period.
Instead, the focus on exploiting the potential of modern protection techniques, such as artificial intelligence and huge data. Whether it follows genetics to determine the diseases that are exposed to more than one danger; Monitor changes in your body’s vital indicators of the early signs of the disease; Or accelerate the innovation and reuse of drugs, waiting for future innovations.
Another step will arise forward if we make more progress in understanding the aging biology – the processes that slowly reduce the physical components of our bodies. The prize is huge because its slowdown would significantly reduce the gap between healthspan and lifespan.
The mere idea of treatments that can delay age -related diseases reveal how humanity enters a radical new era. We tend to think of aging as “natural” and not changeable, but this reflects our relatively recent progress in reducing the threat of diseases such as smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis and plague. For most history, these diseases were considered “normal” and were the main reason that a few lived to live in old age. This explains why, in the seventeenth century, Montin was considered death from aging “rare death” and “less normal than others.” Now that the main cause of death and disease is age -related diseases, scientific attention turns into a treatment of these next boundaries. How to be flexible age and exploiting this is the key in one of the longest life.
The result is the increase in the resources invested in what has become known as Geroscience. Throughout history, there have always been those who claim to discover the secret of young people, but the topic is slowly attracted to the prevailing scientific community. Procedure is also made in the laboratory so that the treatment of cell era and the expansion of the life of an increasing group of routine animals is now.
Nothing means that you will appear magic pill any time soon, and this certainly does not mean that you can start a dream of eternity. What this means, however, is that the younger you are, the more likely to take advantage of the treatments that help you better age. Exactly to what extent does it take, it will depend on the relative strength of human creativity and human biology, but it opens a future that changes in basic ways that seem human life.
But if we can be healthier for a longer period, there is another problem that we have to address – how do we pay for these additional years? If most of us live up to 100, the pensions in their current form will collapse. In the absence of an increase in productivity, it requires living longer than work for a longer period if we want to maintain our standard of living. This is why retirement age increases governments around the world. Again, we went back to the unpalatable consequences of living for a longer period.
But seizing the advantages of a longer life needs to be deeper than just raising the retirement age. We need changes that help us work longer, not just forcing us to work for a longer period.
We need to create a new and more flexible structure than work and entertainment that extends beyond the increase in retirement age. Functional transformations and transformations will need to become more frequent as we change jobs and professions to prolong our career, and take a long time to re -photograph or improve our health, care, and to switch between full -time, part -time, or non -full -time, work.
The life cycle restructuring it reveals that the true benefit of longer life is more time. We tend to think of a longer life like bringing time at the end of life, but the more healthy we make these additional years, the more time we have throughout our lives. The twentieth century witnessed expected for years more entertainment after retirement. The longest professions of the twenty -first century will be about taking more of this aspect of this aspect of retirement.
This leads us perhaps the most difficult change at all – seeing a longer life as an opportunity and overcoming deep life assumptions. Currently, we reduce the ability of the elderly and the promise of our subsequent years.
David Boy, a man who knows something or two about the transformations, described aging as “an extraordinary process as you become the person you should have always been.” If we can make life not only longer, but more healthy, productive and shared for a longer period, what do you not like?
For most history of humanity, only a minority of young people and the middle of life has become ancient. The result is that we are specifically in our subsequent years and we fail to provide support that requires a healthy and fruitful life and a long participation. Looking at the number of us alive, he can expect to become 80 years old, and has a shot at 90, and may reach 100, a problem that requires change.
There is a lot to do. Aging shows greatly in increased health inequality, a problem that requires urgent attention. Changing how we have a lifetime requires significant transformations in social standards and institutions. But this is the thing about a long life: they are witnessing a lot of change. When John Tinswood was born, the teenager’s concept was not present, and the United States did not provide a pension for the state. The coming years will witness fundamental transformations equally in how we live while we are back. John Teniswood did not expect to live a long time and benefit from “pure luck”. Centenary from tomorrow cannot have an excuse and cannot rely on luck. We need to create a society of longevity.
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Andrew JC Scott Professor of Economics at London College of Business and author of “longevity”: building a better and longer society, basic books, 2024.
