Age isn't what it used to be

[cycle tramp]

Deleted

[Cugel]

..its not the number of days in your life which count but more the life in your days.... and to quote Mae West 'You only live once, but of you do it right once is enough".

Is that a homily in your post or are you just pleased to gee me (up)?

[deeferdonk]

i do recall listening to a history programme explaining that historical average life expectancies can be a bit deceiving, because they are skewed by infant mortality which used to be high and dragged down the average. If you survived into adulthood you did have more of a chance of living into old age, so you would still get some very old folks in the population, and not everyone dying at the average age of 30 or whatever.

[briansnail]

What is your opinion, is "age" by "years" now a thing of the past

Certainly.Just people have high pressure jobs both at high level and low level.Genetics mean some people age gracefully.Some people have a bad diet and no exercise.
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I ride Brompton and Hetchins 531

[al_yrpal]

Although written from an American perspective this article I find pretty accurate...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/old-age- ... ise-taylor

Al

[plancashire]

Healthy life expectancy seems to be what this is all about. There are various measures of this. Here are a couple of references I found.

Trend Deck 2021: Health - GOV.UK

Health and life expectancies - Office of National Statistics has a linked document Health state life expectancies, UK: 2018 to 2020 which contains:

1. Main Points

• Healthy life expectancy (HLE) at birth in the UK showed no significant change between 2015 to 2017 and 2018 to 2020.

• In Scotland, there was a statistically significant decrease of more than a year in male HLE at birth between 2015 to 2017 and 2018 to 2020; other constituent countries of the UK saw no significant change.

• For females at age 65 years, HLE in the UK and England increased significantly by 4.8 months between 2015 to 2017 and 2018 to 2020.

• Disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) at birth in the UK decreased significantly for both males and females between 2015 to 2017 and 2018 to 2020; this change was driven by decreases in England and Scotland.

• DFLE at age 65 years showed no significant change in the UK and its constituent countries between 2015 to 2017 and 2018 to 2020.

There is plenty of research of varying reliability that shows that cycling increases lifespan. It's good fun too.

[Jdsk]

Healthy life expectancy seems to be what this is all about. There are various measures of this.
...
...

Yes, it is calculable, but you need better data than for traditional life expectancy.

And of course it connects to Quality Adjusted Life Years, as used by the NHS in England.

You've cited the ONS use, it's widely used in the EU, and thanks to your post I discovered that's used in the USA:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Life_Years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_People_program

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

"Effects of education on adult mortality: a global systematic review and meta-analysis":
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanp ... 7/fulltext

Guardian explainer:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... study-says

Jonathan

[ANTONISH]

I was passing a local graveyard and was looking at the ages at which the occupants had deceased.
Most seemed to have survived into their late sixties, seventies and some into late eighties - but it occurred to me that these were probably from the middle classes.
I wonder what difference there would have been from those of the working poor whose life conditions were very different and whose relatives could not afford a decent plot and headstone?
Obviously infant mortality skews the life expectancy figures but working and living conditions must have an effect.

[Jdsk]

I was passing a local graveyard and was looking at the ages at which the occupants had deceased.
Most seemed to have survived into their late sixties, seventies and some into late eighties - but it occurred to me that these were probably from the middle classes.
I wonder what difference there would have been from those of the working poor whose life conditions were very different and whose relatives could not afford a decent plot and headstone?
Obviously infant mortality skews the life expectancy figures but working and living conditions must have an effect.

Yes, as upthread:

...
At best evolution had designed our body to have a service life of some thirty years, whilst society has almost tripled the expectancy - there's only so much you can do with a body, whose cells (unlike plants and some animals) actually have a count down/auto destruct sequence embedded in them....

I don't know of any scientific evidence that we have "a service life of some thirty years". Where we have records we know that people lived to well over that. The change in average life expectancy is due to decrease of avoidable causes of death.

And that simple experiment of looking at gravestones is available to everyone.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

I was passing a local graveyard and was looking at the ages at which the occupants had deceased.
Most seemed to have survived into their late sixties, seventies and some into late eighties - but it occurred to me that these were probably from the middle classes.
I wonder what difference there would have been from those of the working poor whose life conditions were very different and whose relatives could not afford a decent plot and headstone?
Obviously infant mortality skews the life expectancy figures but working and living conditions must have an effect.

The effects of class were and are massive. We have that directly where there are good records, such as those for neonatal and maternal mortality.

I'll try and think of an accessible source for the statistics for someone who reached adulthood. I remember it being shown around 1972 that the mortality figures for Africa and Europe were much more similar than expected... if you got to 25.

Jonathan