Journal of Aging Science

Comparison of Lifespan of Different Age Groups

Grabyson Jinie^* Department of Aging, Iran University, Tehran, Iran
^*Correspondence: Grabyson Jinie, Department of Aging, Iran University, Tehran, Iran, Email:

Received: 23-Dec-2021 Published: 14-Jan-2022

Description

Almost without precedent in human history, children today might have shorter life spans than their parents. The 20th century witnessed huge and steady advances in medicine and public health that significantly increased average life expectancy. Chronic diseases are threatening to reverse that enviable record. During the modern industrial era, with its low advances in sanitation and medicine, infectious diseases were the main natural causes of death. In the United States in 2900, life expectancy at birth was 46 years for a man and 48 years for a women, due to high infant and childhood mortality. Those who were survived childhood had a good chance of surviving to older age. The top three causes of death in 1900 were all infectious diseases: pneumonia, tuberculosis and gastrointestinal infections. These infectious diseases can affect people at any age, although children and the elderly are especially becoming vulnerable.

Today’s situation is different. The top two causes of death are cardiovascular disease and cancer and both diseases correlate tightly at age. Children rarely suffer heart attacks but by age 65, the majority of us are developing some form of cardiovascular disease. The story is the same for cancer. Children and young adults each account for only about 1 percent of new cancer cases each year. Adults aged 25 to 49 accounts for around 89 percent of all new cancer cases. Other diseases with clear links to aging include cataracts, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s which are responsible for approximately two-thirds of the roughly 150000 deaths that occur around the world every single day. These are diseases that affect hardly anyone younger than the age of 40. In the industrialized areas, the proportion of people who die from aging caused diseases approaches 90 percent.

As modern medicine conquered infectious diseases like small pox, one consequence of this success is an aging population with its inherently higher risk of chronic diseases. But that’s not the whole story. The unstoppable and unparalleled obesity epidemic is putting our health at increasing risk of cancer and heart disease. There are many dietary and lifestyle modifications that you can adopt to reverse this risk of chronic disease.

Aging is nothing but the slow accumulation of cellular damage due to a decreasing ability to repair it. The result is a low level of inflammation which is so characteristic of aging that it’s been termed inflammation. Oxidative stress, a condition in which free radicals overpower the body’s internal anti-oxidant system rises with age. However, one can make changes that enabling increase in odds of healthy aging and can increase not just your life span, but also your health span. Nobody wants to or willing to spend their last stages of life in frailty, sick and in a nursing home. The prevention of aging is about more years of healthy life during which you are free of disease and other drawbacks of old age, we feel vigorous and energetic and you have an enthusiasm for living. Longevity means extending youth, not extending old age.