A complete body overhaul?
Curmudgeon’s
Corner
IVAN RACONTEUR • EDITOR
I was creaking around the old bachelor pad re-
cently, thinking life on the dark side of 50 isn’t
all peaches and cream, and I wondered why that
should be.
When I was young, I assumed that when I reached
this age, I would be in the prime of my life.
If that’s the case, prime is not at all what I ex-
pected.
My vision is fading, once nimble body is about
as fl exible as a steel I-beam, and some days I get
winded just tying my shoes.
I realize that sitting in front of a computer screen
12 hours per day may be a contributing factor, but
what I fi nd alarming is the rate at which things
have been deteriorating since I blew past age 40
more than a decade ago.
Being a curious person, I did some research on
the subject (more time in front of a computer).
According to www.ourworldindata.org, life ex-
pectancy in the pre-modern world was about 30
years.
In the early 19th century, life expectancy in the
industrialized countries began to increase, and
since 1900, the global average life expectancy has
more than doubled, and is now approaching 70
years.
According to www.acjnnutrition.org, the life ex-
pectancy in the US circa 1900 was 48.3 for men
and 51.1 for women.
By 1950, it had increased to 66 for men and 71.7
for women.
By 1990, it was up to 72.1 for men and 79 for
women.
I could speculate as to why women consistently
live longer than men, but I think I will save that for
another column.
A study at www.demog.berkely.edu reported
similar fi ndings, noting that from 1900 to 1998,
life expectancy for men in the US increased from
46.3 to 73.8; and for women increased from 48.3
to 79.5.
It should be noted that discussions of life ex-
pectancy can be controversial, and not everyone
endorses the theory that life expectancy is chang-
ing.
A 2009 story at www.livescience.com contends
that human lifespans have been nearly constant for
2000 years.
The author noted factors such as high infant
mortality rates skew the average life expectancy.
10
If a couple has two children and one of them
dies at birth, while the other lives to be 90, “Stat-
ing that on average, the couple’s children lived to
be 45 is statistically accurate but meaningless,” he
noted.
Nonetheless, I remain in the camp that believes
people are living longer today.
This would help to explain why my overall health
(and that of other people I know) seems to have de-
teriorated so rapidly since age 40. The answer is
simple. We are walking around in bodies that are
past their expiration date.
It makes sense if you think about it.
If our bodies were engineered to serve their oc-
cupants for, say, 40 years, and within a relatively
short period (historically speaking), we started liv-
ing into our 70s, our bodies have not had time to
catch up.
Think of our bodies as machines.
If an automobile is engineered for a useful life of
100,000 miles, and we are now pushing 250,000
miles, it is to be expected that some parts won’t
work the way they used to, and things will start to
break down.
A recent Reuters story put this into perspective,
noting that global life expectancy rises, but people
are living sicker longer.
In other words, things that might once have been
fatal can now be controlled with medicine or other
treatments. So now, instead of dropping off at a
young age, we live longer, but the quality of our
health in later years is not what it once was.
That’s not a very sunny thought.
The article makes the distinction between life
expectancy and healthy life expectancy.
I’m all for sticking around as long as possible,
but I’d like to be able to enjoy those later years to
the fullest.
When I was 17, I wore a button on my fatigue
jacket bearing the message “Live fast, die young.”
The point was we should get all we can out of
life, and then call it a day.
I’ve done my share of fast living, and although
I have missed the opportunity to die young, I still
believe in the concept.
I’m in no hurry to check out, but if the choice
is between cashing in my chips early and sitting
around for the next couple decades comparing
ailments with other wrinklies, the former option
clearly has some appeal.
I remain optimistic, however. The way science
and medicine are advancing, we may soon see
the day when we can get a complete rebuild on
our past-their-expiration-date bodies, and we’ll be
good to go for another 100,000 miles.
Now that is an exciting prospect. If I had the
body I had in my 20s, coupled with the experi-
ence and knowledge I have accumulated during
the intervening decades, I could really have some
fun.
Senior Connections HJ.COM