For an interesting side piece:

    Curiously, however, for a system apparently stultified by the dead hand of government, Australia’s health system far outperforms the free market-based US healthcare system, which spends nearly twice as much per capita as Australia to deliver far worse outcomes — including Americans dying five years younger than us.

Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/10/16/pubic-private-healthcar...

Bypass: https://clearthis.page/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crikey.com.au%2F...

    Overall, we now have the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world.

   This is contrary to the narrative that pervades the media about our health system — one in which our “frontline” health workers heroically battle to overcome government neglect and inadequate spending, while the population is beset by various “epidemics” — obesity, alcohol, illicit drugs.

    In fact, Australian longevity is so remarkable that in August The Economist published a piece simply titled “Why do Australians live so long?”

The Economist: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/08/23/why-do-a...

AU Gov Report: Advances in measuring healthcare productivity https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/measuring-healthcar...

Our organization (the American Federation for Aging Research) is hosting a webinar with Jay Olshansky (author of the paper) and Andrew Scott, a leading economist in longevity to discuss Jay's results on 10/22.

The gist is that this isn't quite as cut and dry as it may seem.

We also paid to make the Nature Aging paper open access.

Event: https://www.afar.org/events/webinar-lifeexpectancy-1

> Can we overcome ageing?

75% American are overweight..

Just let it sink a second, they speak about how many baby born after 2000 will reach 100 years old, how we are reaching the absolute limit of human survival.

75% overweight... Everyone know fat people don't live long. I bet all the studies done in the 90's that predicted we would easily be able to reach 100 years old didn't take that into account.

> The decline in the United States is driven by increasing numbers of deaths because of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease in people aged roughly 40 to 60.

People are asking if we should be surprised by the headline but are missing this. As suggested in the article by the researchers, there is something dragging down the average since the 2010s. Not even hitting the general expectation of ~75 years. We don’t have solid answers yet, only theories.

So yes, generally while going up against the process of aging is going to create barriers (eg can we get to 130 years old), we are also failing to raise the baseline which is the bigger issue that people might not grasp when it comes to “life expectancy rates”.

Anyone know of a good source like Our World in Data for tracking life expectancy across countries?

Our world in data hasn't updated life expectancy past 2021.

I've half wondered if it's because the article is optimistic but life expectancy has stalled since 2020. Coild also be the underlying data hit a snag. Would love to see an update

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

Actual study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00702-3#Sec2

> overall, the study found that children born since 2010 have a relatively small chance of living to 100 (5.1% chance for women and 1.8% chance for men). The most likely cohort to see a full century are women in Hong Kong, with a 12.8% chance.

I do not understand how some of the conclusions about reaching the limitations of reducing aging or reached given this simple data. not to mention a direct quote that is very inspirational in the article itself

"if we cannot imagine it today, does not mean it is not possible"

I wonder how much impact there will be on average life expectancy uncovering that a lot of the super-long-lived population examples have been pension fraud.

I'm actually a little surprised at the framing here. I didn't realize anyone thought we could overcome aging. I thought the goal was to live longer, but not to completely overcome aging. That sounds somewhat foreign to me. Is that a commonly reasonable goal for folks?

That is to say, I'm not clear that "beating aging" is what is required for "long life." Is that definitionally required and I'm just being dense?

I'm assuming this is a tiered discussion? In that nobody thinks we should freeze aging at baby stages for someone. Such that we would still want some aging, but would then try and fix a point where all aging can be stopped?

   Overall, the study found that children born since 2010 have a relatively small chance of living to 100 (5.1% chance for women and 1.8% chance for men). The most likely cohort to see a full century are women in Hong Kong, with a 12.8% chance.

There is a limit to how far you can postpone death without actually reprogramming the DNA. We have likely plateaued it. We are not going to have people living to 200 by just doing more of what we are doing, with greater fervor.

They're going to need new excuses for phasing out state pensions oops sorry I mean "raising the pension age".

We're not living longer. We're dying more slowly.

This will not age well.

Isn´t this also an issue with World War's 1 and 2? They both dented life expectancy fairly significantly, and that cohort is now aging out of the figures. If the rate of increase is being measured, then that would presumably play a small part?

Cutting out sugar and useless carbs, and trying to replace those things with nuts and quality proteins - more nourishing and filling substitutes, can help a bit, I think. Mostly, try to stay away from refined sugar and products containing sugar or corn syrup. And for the love of God, lots more vegetables. Less dairy perhaps?

Get an apartment on at least the third floor, in a building without a lift.

Get a pet dog which needs to be walked several times a day.

Eat lots of chili peppers[0]:

"The analysis included data from more than a half a million people in multiple countries. When compared with people who never or rarely ate chili pepper, those who ate it regularly had lower rates of death due to cardiovascular disease (by 26%), cancer (by 23%), or any cause (by 25%)."

[0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/will-eating-more-chilis-....

A little bit of high-intensity workout each week?

I know people who are incapable of eating lunch or any meal without a large can/bottle of full-strengh coca cola or such, ever single day. Most of whom complain about not being able to lose weight.

The science is pretty clear. Breaking out of old habits is much more challenging.

EDIT: Typos: whole -> whom, mean -> meal

Frustrating that an article with a title like this doesn't include a single graph.

Did we expect it to grow forever?

I always wondered why I personally know almost nobody who has managed to exceed average age. With the only exception of my previous landlady, she became 95. In my family, the average age is roughly 60, with three siblings on my fathers side dying before 50. Both my grandpas died around 50. My best friend died with 18. Many of the fellow blind people I know died below 50. And I am from a relatively rich country, with classical western standards. It is almost as if I was thrown into a local minimum while the simulation was set up. I would understand if the phenomenon was largely limited to my family, call it genes then. But it doesn't end there. I guess the personal statistics becomes only meaningful after your own death and beyond. But really, looking at how many people had to pass away early, I am beginning to get spooked.

Talking about the number of people who live over 100 along with the average life expectancy seems to be mixing two unrelated things.

To show that we are hitting a limit on our ability to extend lifetime, we really should look at having reached 95, how many people reach 105 or something like that.

To say that the average life expectancy is dropping and therefore we have reached our limit on their ability to extend the lifetimes ignores the fact that much of the reason for a stage life expectancy drop in my country is lifelong maltreatment, often self-inflicted--death-oriented decisions on drugs, nutrition, and activity.

I wonder how Ozempic will change this? I really do expect we will all be on this soon and maybe we can resume the increase in lifespan that has been stalled by obesity, lack of exercise, and processed food.

>”It tells you that something pretty negative is happening among some subgroups of the population to drag the average down, because the wealthier, more highly educated subgroups are actually doing better,” Olshansky says.”

It is expensive to live a healthy lifestyle in the US.

In our relentless quest for longevity and a richer life experience, one profound consideration emerges: the role of sleep in our daily lives. Sleep, which consumes approximately one-third of our existence, represents a significant barrier to maximizing our time and productivity. If we could find a safe way to eliminate the need for sleep, we would theoretically unlock vast reservoirs of hours previously devoted to rest, transforming them into opportunities for personal and societal advancement.