The average individual who thinks about these things would be happy with an average life expectancy and maybe more if it is in the cards or better still – their genes. Should we expect to live beyond average longevity? What about maximum longevity? Some interesting things are being researched these days concerning life extension – maybe some magic pill will be available before it’s too late for me or anyone else. Good questions – all of these – and their answers could prove to be what is needed to live beyond average life expectancy.
First, let’s have a look at the two terms most mentioned when this topic is discussed: Life span and life expectancy. Life span is referring to the physiological time limit a particular life has been blessed with. Life expectancy means the average in years a group of people born at the same time could be projected to survive. Over the many year of human existence mans average longevity or life expectancy has never quite kept pace with his life span.
Average Longevity Throughout History
In about 600 B.C., Solon, the Greek politician and man of state, once said that in a man’s length of days he might see and suffer many occurrences that he does not much like. For I have set the limit of a man’s life at seventy years. Based on what he had to say at the time, one could believe that the average life span was seventy years of age. Still, based on information retrieved off of burial captions dated about four hundred B.C., life expectancy at the time in Greece was around twenty nine years of age.
In the earliest of days, the average longevity in many of the nations in Europe was not much different from that of early Greece. Since so many perished at such a young age, average longevity was much less than the life span. Compared to present day life spans, those of the ancients were significantly lower due to many variables, not the least of these was lack of medical treatments.
The increase in life expectancy was discussed in a 1981 book named Vitality and Aging. The authors stated that the average length of a human life in America had increased roughly from forty seven years of age at the start of the twentieth century to seventy three years old at the time their book was published in 1981. This was an increase by over twenty five years in just over eighty years. However, upon closer scrutiny the elevated life expectancy is a direct result of diminishing the cause of early mortality instead of actually extending the innate life span of the population.
When average longevity is considered from a specific age, as that age gets older there is not as much of an increase. By the age of forty years old the average longevity has not increased much at all. If calculated from the age of seventy five years, there is a barely noticeable increase in life expectancy. Past eighty five years of age, it is impossible to determine a positive certain increase figure at all. To the best of our current capability, the average maximum innate human life span has been calculated to be eighty five years old.
It is natural to wonder if man could increase his life expectancy by taking dietary supplements, vitamins, minerals, drugs of various kinds and even try switching around his diet, could any of this help keep him alive any longer?
Those same authors stated in their book that over many centuries’ alchemists tried concocting numerous revitalizing potions and experienced zero success in doing so. One can only assume that they were the best that history had to offer at that time and they did not come close. Throughout the ages there have been many hundreds – perhaps thousands of elixirs and materials such as herbal mixes or a herb itself, drugs, vitamins and minerals, elements from animal cells, fermented dairy as well as numerous serums and doses of one thing or another thought to be History’s answer to longevity.
There has not been a modicum of verifiable proof, ever. Even in the modern western society there have been the proverbial snake oil salesmen peddling their cure all potions all eventually falling into oblivious disgrace – though we maintain our use of vitamins. One remedy that has been tried known as Gerovital has been used by various world public figures like Khrushchev, Sukarno, Ho Chi Minh and other international notables. None of these luminaries lived to any great age because of it but it had as its main basic element, Novocain, a local anesthetic. There was never any real evidence that it would make any difference regardless of the reputations of those taking it.
Renowned scientific researchers Packer and Smith had their data concerning vitamin E printed in science journals back as far as 1974 reporting on studies conducted that revealed vitamin E actually extended the life span of average human fibroblast cells that were cultivated and refined invitro at their lab. Though once having done so, they withdrew their assertion when they or anyone else could duplicate the results of the experiment.
To this date there have been no diets, lifestyle choices, vitamins or minerals, pharmaceutical or serum that has shown any inclination that it can prolong a human life span. There have been approximately four billion human beings that have lived on earth and died here and during that time it is quite conceivable to believe that any and all potential amalgamations of diet, chemical revelations and psychological life must have subsisted. The fact there have been no extreme centenarians makes for a very good argument that finding a means to an extended life will not come easily at any time – if it did, we likely would have discovered it by this time.
It is by now obvious that humans just simply cannot extend human life spans, other than by ensuring the reduction of infant mortality due to illnesses and disease, which has in itself succeeded in extending life spans to some degree. From a purely human perspective, any hope of prolonging the life span of the average human is certainly faint. That said, the human hope remains of extending its life span but how will it ever be achieved?
The primary focus for controlling human life spans has been leveled at lifestyle and status/circumstance with continued attempts at increasing it a continuous burden for medical and scientific researchers. Genetic sequencing holds some very real possibilities but certainly not in the near term. The likelihood that genetics will aid an individual into maximum longevity is about ten to twenty percent so even genetics plays a rather insignificant role for those few lucky enough to have that DNA.
One’s status or circumstances in general have a decided impact on life span, status meaning money can buy the best medicine has to offer and those variables that cost money like proper diet and health therapies are easier to manage for someone of higher socio-economic status. Circumstances like accidental death, famine, drought, war, natural disasters all of these can shorten a person’s life span – regardless of lifestyle and status.
What can the average person do to increase their current capacity to live a longer life? The best and most effective thing would be to maximize their health by avoiding hazardous lifestyles and altering their current damaging habits that will gradually cause early death. Lifestyle choices are a major cause of shortened life spans in western society today. Diseases and illnesses such as lung cancer and cardiovascular disease are almost always a result of environmental or lifestyle choices with some being genetically predisposed. All the more reason why we should all avoid destructive choices – just to be on the safe side!
The average human needs to watch what they eat at all times. They need to avoid harmful habits like smoking and alcohol consumption regardless of what the experts say is good or bad for us. Average longevity is complicated by diet and the more balanced your nutrition is the more balanced will be your odds. There are numerous things that can affect the average longevity of the average human and all we can do is control these to have a shot at increasing our personal life span.
Average humans were meant to get physical and so increasing our strength and muscle leanness is essential to our average longevity. We need to be strong enough to propel us for an extended period of time – our mobility is vital to our average longevity. Physical activity impacts our longevity by strengthening our bones and heart muscle, improving our respiratory system and our digestion function will also improve. All these things are going to increase our average longevity and all of these things can be controlled by the average human.
We also have control over our mental state and keeping our minds as fit as our bodies will help our way toward extending our personal life span. Maintaining control of who we are as people and what we are here for, our purpose of being, this is crucial to our average longevity so we need to keep a strong mind as well as a lean and mean body as we age and this too is in our control.
It is certain that none of us knows how long we each have on this earth. Life spans have not changed as much as one might have hoped and people are still dying for all kinds of reasons from famine and war to cancer and strokes. There is no doubt that luck has quite a bit to do with the entire equation of average life span and above average longevity. We can only increase our odds by maximizing what we can control and it is such a wonderful life we have so why not?
Wed, Jul 14, 2010
Anti Aging, Health And Aging, Immortality, Longevity