Living with the aging clock
Published: 03:05 PM,May 28,2024 | EDITED : 07:05 PM,May 28,2024
Even as many people dream of living to 100 or beyond, many among the elderly do not want to live longer. They think living too long can will lead to age-related diseases and rob them of their ability and creativity.
Living longer with a disability, they believe, will make them feeble and ineffectual! They do not want to live counting their days with a new ache or pain of uncertain duration, adding to their existing maladies.
So they want a healthy life right up to the day they die! It is not hyperbole, but a state that is worse than death! And the simple truth is that we humans live only a few years of our lives without diseases!
However, despite growing threats from age-related diseases or more years spent in poor health, life expectancy or life span (while both terms relate to the number of living years, they actually have different concepts) has increased dramatically around the globe.
The latest findings of a study forecast that global life expectancy will increase from 73.6 years of age in 2022 to 78.1 years of age in 2050. At the same time, the average number of years a person can expect to live in good health is expected to increase from 64.8 years in 2022 to only 67.4 years in 2050.
“Chronic ailments like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and lung disease are expected to play a more powerful role than infectious diseases in how long people live,' researchers of the study “The Global Burden of Disease Study 2021” published in the Lancet point out.
This increase in global life expectancy is most significant in regions currently experiencing lower life expectancies, indicating a potential convergence in health outcomes worldwide, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.
Prior to this report, the McKinsey Health Institute expressed the same view in a report. According to it, inequality is still a major problem. There is an 18-year gap in average life expectancy between low- and high-income countries and a 30-year gap between the lowest and highest life expectancies.
“We are now spending more years in poor health than at any time in our history,' says the report quoted by the World Economic Forum. But it also says, “Things don’t have to be that way.”
Echoing the same view, a BBC report pointed out that while people might be expected to live more years with disease simply as a function of living longer in general, the average number of healthy years has decreased since 1998.
“We spend fewer years of our lives without disease, even though we live longer,' it said.
Aging, of course, is a reality and fact of life. People find themselves hitting a new age milestone each year, bringing about physical, emotional, and cognitive changes. This means aging occurs throughout our lives, right from the very beginning.
However, as studies suggest, with medical advances and a healthier lifestyle, we can enjoy more years of quality life, though we cannot expect to live the life of Jeanne Calment, the French woman and the oldest documented person to ever have lived.
She died in 1997 at the age of 122. It was reported that she smoked for all but the last five years of her life and ate more than two pounds of chocolate every week!
Sure, you have to die of something someday, but you may not have to die so soon. A good death demands a good life. Remember, what our ancestors taught us: “Don’t be excessive at the dining table; do exercises; avoid stress; and get a good and blissful sleep.”
Think that you still have more to contribute and leave the obsession about dying! After all, we’re part of life on earth!
Living longer with a disability, they believe, will make them feeble and ineffectual! They do not want to live counting their days with a new ache or pain of uncertain duration, adding to their existing maladies.
So they want a healthy life right up to the day they die! It is not hyperbole, but a state that is worse than death! And the simple truth is that we humans live only a few years of our lives without diseases!
However, despite growing threats from age-related diseases or more years spent in poor health, life expectancy or life span (while both terms relate to the number of living years, they actually have different concepts) has increased dramatically around the globe.
The latest findings of a study forecast that global life expectancy will increase from 73.6 years of age in 2022 to 78.1 years of age in 2050. At the same time, the average number of years a person can expect to live in good health is expected to increase from 64.8 years in 2022 to only 67.4 years in 2050.
“Chronic ailments like heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and lung disease are expected to play a more powerful role than infectious diseases in how long people live,' researchers of the study “The Global Burden of Disease Study 2021” published in the Lancet point out.
This increase in global life expectancy is most significant in regions currently experiencing lower life expectancies, indicating a potential convergence in health outcomes worldwide, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.
Prior to this report, the McKinsey Health Institute expressed the same view in a report. According to it, inequality is still a major problem. There is an 18-year gap in average life expectancy between low- and high-income countries and a 30-year gap between the lowest and highest life expectancies.
“We are now spending more years in poor health than at any time in our history,' says the report quoted by the World Economic Forum. But it also says, “Things don’t have to be that way.”
Echoing the same view, a BBC report pointed out that while people might be expected to live more years with disease simply as a function of living longer in general, the average number of healthy years has decreased since 1998.
“We spend fewer years of our lives without disease, even though we live longer,' it said.
Aging, of course, is a reality and fact of life. People find themselves hitting a new age milestone each year, bringing about physical, emotional, and cognitive changes. This means aging occurs throughout our lives, right from the very beginning.
However, as studies suggest, with medical advances and a healthier lifestyle, we can enjoy more years of quality life, though we cannot expect to live the life of Jeanne Calment, the French woman and the oldest documented person to ever have lived.
She died in 1997 at the age of 122. It was reported that she smoked for all but the last five years of her life and ate more than two pounds of chocolate every week!
Sure, you have to die of something someday, but you may not have to die so soon. A good death demands a good life. Remember, what our ancestors taught us: “Don’t be excessive at the dining table; do exercises; avoid stress; and get a good and blissful sleep.”
Think that you still have more to contribute and leave the obsession about dying! After all, we’re part of life on earth!