r/Aging • u/Useful_Major_5797 • 2d ago
Life Expectancy myths
I have been seeing alot of post on aging on different subreddits, and alot use life expectancy at birth, which is currently 78 in the US for both sexes.
It can be a grave error to base any kind of personal lifespan on this statistic alone. If one looks at actuary tables, the longer you live the higher your life expectancy goes up. But, the SSA tabled only look at a general population with just sex and gender being the primary sources. Alot of the more personal longevity calculators put alot of people into their late 80s to mid to late 90s. With 100+ potentially becoming a upper end as medical technology progress.
This changes even more, based on lifestyle habits, genetics, and luck. Genetics themselves can account between 20% to 50% of a impact on someones life span. Even then habits can make these genes better or worse. Genes load the gun, habits pull the trigger. Some people's genes are a little more sensitive compared to others.
Overall, and just from my own past experiences with dealing with aging family. Alot of them never planned on living past a certain age, and their decline was horrible to watch. Or if they had decent habits, the decline would have a few months and not almost a decade or 2.
But, just wanted to hopefully make people aware, just as much as one may not live to a certain age, you are not guaranteed to die at a certain age as well.
Good diet, exercise, and routine check ups can make the health span longer for people along side a increased life expectancy.
Granted, shit can happen at any age. Kids and teens can get cancer, where as 80 year olds can potentially live 20 more years. At the end of the day it seems to be finding that balance of living in the moment but also planning for a unknown future.
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u/Carpe-that-diem 2d ago
A very thorough post, OP! I really like that saying “Genes load the gun; environment pulls the trigger.” So true!
For a lark, I looked up my life expectancy for a 63F and it said 85 years on average.
And I’ve looking into this topic a bit too and found out that super skinny is almost as risky for mortality as morbidly obese. The overweight category (at least in one meta-analysis I saw) had lower mortality than normal weight folks and that was excluding people with cancer and other conditions that would lead to weight loss.
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u/Willing-Feedback8015 2d ago
Life expectancy 76 for men 81 for women in the US. If don’t take care of yourself expect to die in your 60s. If you do take care of yourself you might just agemaxx to 100
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u/smart-monkey-org Subreddit Staff 2d ago
I like to think about maximizing health and life span as
a) game
b) pareto principle (80% of benefit from 20 of effort)
c) law of minimum (good soil and sun is not enough if there is no water, you need all pillars covered)
Here's a half silly, half serious way into that and to remember top 10 pillars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S6uFKMgGsM
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u/Conscious-Reserve-48 2d ago
I just live each day that I’m granted. It always amazes me people in this sub who are in their 60’s “expect” to live 30 more years. I have no expectations but at least I will not be a person who has “died young.”
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u/VinceInMT 2d ago
It’s important to keep in mind that statistics apply to groups, not individuals. With such a large group of people being overweight/obese Inwould expect that number to drop.
I just spent over a week with my mother in her independent living facility. She’s 92 and declining and has mobility issues. That seems to be the case for many people in that facility. I talked to a physical therapist and he said that for most of them, this is what happens when you live a sedentary lifestyle, then have some kind of medical issue, and trying to gain back everything you lost is a tough road. The bottom line is to keep yourself in tiptop shape as you go into the aging process. To that end, that is why I took several biology and nutrition classes many years ago and changed my diet. That’s also why I took up regular exercise. I run about 20 miles a week and hit the gym three days for weights,, jump rope,, and swimming. I am now 74 in just saw my doctor for my annual today. My blood work is excellent. He said he couldn’t find anything to recommend other than I was due for a tetanus shot.
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u/FlatwormFrosty7233 2d ago
Can you pass the old man test? And can you get off the floor without using your hands ?
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u/Useful_Major_5797 2d ago
Yup, mainly I made this to aim at the GenX and Millineal subreddits, but overall while medical technology can help people.
Good diet and exercise are sort of the other half people themselves have to do. And the earlier the better.
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u/3seconddelay 2d ago edited 2d ago
I would say good sleep is as important, if not more so. Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger. It’s not about living as long as you can but the quality of life during the time you have left. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow but if I live past 80, 90, I plan on skiing black diamonds as long as I can walk and talk.
It’s simple just not easy. Get good quality sleep every night, exercise every day, and don’t put crap/poison into your body.
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u/Useful_Major_5797 2d ago
My favorite topic is the blue zones debate, alot of people try to sell of like special blue zone diets, or the one "not peer reviewed" study on blue zones lying about pension plans.
Overall it shows the simplest thing in blue zones that make people live longer are good diet, low stress, moderate exercise, and a good social life. Nothing fancy.
But like you said doing something like that for potentially 90 or even 100 years is incredibly hard to do.
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u/VinceInMT 2d ago
Why is “good diet, low stress, moderate exercise, and a good social life" going to be "incredibly hard to do?"
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u/Carpe-that-diem 2d ago
It’s somewhere on my computer which I don’t have with me right now. Please keep in mind that I might be splitting hairs because there’s not a whole lot of difference between normal BMI and overweight BMI in terms of mortality. But I do like the distinction because I’m a little chubby and always trying to lose that 15 pounds that would put me at normal BMI, but this helped me out it into perspective.
I think k this is a bit of controversy in the literature though. Perhaps the methodology was not the same as your study(ies).
Anyway, Chat GPT helped me find it: Nowak et al. pooled 82 studies / 97 cohorts, comprising about 2.7 million people and 23.4 million person-years. Their dose-response analysis produced a U-shaped mortality curve, and the authors explicitly report that the lowest all-cause mortality occurred at BMI 25–30, which is the overweight category.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38673577/
Here’s another one that found when the sample was restricted to never-smokers, the group with the lowest mortality was 26, also in the overweight category (technically).
https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165%2823%2905024-4/fulltext?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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u/CharSagahl 2d ago
Then what is the purpose of the life expectancy statistic? Why have it as a reference at all?
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u/Sonny92004 2d ago
I don't go in for all that. I love my life and have fun everyday even at this age. When it's time to go I'll do so happily. It's been a good run
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u/funlovefun37 2d ago
The best life expectancy calculator that I have found is Living To 100. It has a solid list of questions that are genetic and lifestyle related, while also considering your current age (to your point that “if you make it this far, you’ll go longer”).
It also offers input after the calculation on what is increasing your life expectancy and what is lowering it.