Category Archives: Human Longevity

Proposals to raise the eligibility ages for both Medicare and Social Security keep surfacing in news accounts of the ongoing fiscal-cliff negotiations. The idea has "first blush" appeal--Americans are, on average, living longer and societal longevity gains have added 30 more years of life in just the past century. Among mankind's many achievements, this one deserves far more accolades than it receives.

Averages, however, are just that. And there are few places where not being average exacts a higher toll than in looking at human longevity. Social scientists have assembled an increasingly powerful record that shows longevity gains have not been doled out equally. Well-educated and higher-income people of all races are, indeed, living longer. But despite major gains in treating and even preventing life-shortening diseases, lifespans among Americans with low levels of education and income have been moving in the opposite direction.

"In 2008, U.S. adult men and women with fewer than twelve years of education had life expectancies not much better than those of all adults in the 1950s and 1960s," researchers concluded in a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs. "When race and education are combined, the disparity is even more striking."

[Read: Retirement Plan Tips for 2013.]

"White U.S. men and women with 16 years or more of schooling had life expectancies far greater than black Americans with fewer than 12 years of education--14.2 years more for white men than black men, and 10.3 years more for white women than black women," researchers said. "These gaps have widened over time and have led to at least two 'Americas,' if not multiple others, in terms of life expectancy, demarcated by level of education and racial-group membership."

These are enormous and disturbing gaps, and the age-related eligibility rules of Medicare and Social Security are simply not geared to effectively deal with them. Devising equitable policies would require extensive legislative collaboration and nuanced regulatory policies that are nowhere to be found in the fiscal-cliff negotiations.

[Read: Education: A Predictor of Longer Life.]

Medicare, in particular, is simply not designed to meet the needs of an aging society, argues Michael S. Sparer, chair of the department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. It is not equipped to help people retain their health but to provide acute care when they become seriously ill. Even then, it does not provide long-term care assistance, which will be needed by a projected 70 percent of our increasingly long-lived population.

The Affordable Care Act sets in motion numerous changes that would make Medicare more helpful to seniors, but most experts agree it falls far short of its potential, particularly in long-term care.

Social Security, for its part, has long recognized income differences in its benefits formulas. It provides lower-income beneficiaries with payments that replace much more of their preretirement incomes than is the case with higher-income retirees.

View post:
How Proposals to Raise Medicare, Social Security Ages Can Harm Americans

Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #3-4 - Abolishing Medical and Software Patent Monopolies
Patents - legal grants of monopoly privilege - artificially raise the cost and the scarcity of new drugs and new software. In this third part of his series on pro-liberty reforms that would lengthen human lifespans and accelerate the advent of indefinite human longevity, Mr. Stolyarov recommends allowing free, open competition to apply to these products as well. See Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #1 - Repeal FDA Approval Requirements - http://www.youtube.com See Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #2 - Abolishing Medical Licensing Protectionism - http://www.youtube.com Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue. Support these video-creation efforts by donating at The Rational Argumentator: rationalargumentator.com and rationalargumentator.comFrom:GStolyarovIIViews:37 16ratingsTime:05:37More inNews Politics

See the original post here:
Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #3-4 - Abolishing Medical and Software Patent Monopolies - Video

Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #1 - Repeal FDA Approval Requirements
In the first part of his series on pro-liberty reforms that would lengthen human lifespans and accelerate the advent of indefinite human longevity, Mr. Stolyarov discusses the greatest threat to research on indefinite human life extension: the current requirement in the United States (and analogous requirements elsewhere in the Western world) that drugs or treatments may not be used, even on willing patients, unless approval for such drugs or treatments is received from the Food and Drug Administration (or an analogous national regulatory organization in other countries). Such prohibitions on the quick development and marketing of potentially life-saving drugs are not only costly and time-consuming to overcome; they are morally unconscionable in terms of the cost in human lives. Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue. Support these video-creation efforts by donating at The Rational Argumentator: rationalargumentator.com and rationalargumentator.comFrom:GStolyarovIIViews:37 14ratingsTime:04:43More inNews Politics

More here:
Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #1 - Repeal FDA Approval Requirements - Video

Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #2 - Abolishing Medical Licensing Protectionism
There are too few doctors in the West today - not enough to deliver affordable, life-saving treatments, and certainly not enough to ensure that, when life-extending discoveries are made, they will rapidly become available to all. In this second part of his series on pro-liberty reforms that would lengthen human lifespans and accelerate the advent of indefinite human longevity, Mr. Stolyarov advocates for the elimination of compulsory licensing requirements for medical professionals, and the replacement of such a system by a competing market of private certifications for various "tiers" of medical care. See Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #1 - Repeal FDA Approval Requirements - http://www.youtube.com Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue. Support these video-creation efforts by donating at The Rational Argumentator: rationalargumentator.com and rationalargumentator.comFrom:GStolyarovIIViews:8 2ratingsTime:02:45More inNews Politics

Link:
Libertarian Life-Extension Reforms - #2 - Abolishing Medical Licensing Protectionism - Video

Christoph Nabholz on Whole genome analysis and insurance consequences
Christoph Nabholz, Head Business Development, Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue Christoph Nabholz spoke at the Swiss Re conference The future of human longevity: breaking the code, Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue, 2011 cgd.swissre.comFrom:swissretvViews:1 0ratingsTime:38:38More inEducation

Here is the original post:
Christoph Nabholz on Whole genome analysis and insurance consequences - Video

Daniel Ryan on Medical demands of an ageing population
Daniel Ryan, Head Life Health R D, Swiss Re Daniel Ryan spoke at the Swiss Re conference The future of human longevity: breaking the code, Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue, 2011 cgd.swissre.comFrom:swissretvViews:0 0ratingsTime:29:01More inEducation

View original post here:
Daniel Ryan on Medical demands of an ageing population - Video

Tom Kirkwood on Understanding the links between disease and ageing
Tom Kirkwood, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health, University of Newcastle Tom Kirkwood spoke at the Swiss Re conference The future of human longevity: breaking the code, Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue, 2011 cgd.swissre.comFrom:swissretvViews:0 0ratingsTime:39:19More inEducation

View original post here:
Tom Kirkwood on Understanding the links between disease and ageing - Video

SAN DIEGO--The human longevity bonanza that gives newborns today three decades more of life expectancy than they would have had a century ago appears to have no real stopping point. Now researchers are trying to determine how U.S. society should change to accommodate so many longer, healthier lifespans, and why one group of white Americans does not seem to be benefiting from the trend.

Published in the August issue of Health Affairs and reported widely in the media, the researchers study found that while everybody else is living longer, non-Hispanic white women without high school diplomas have actually lost five years of life expectancy and their male counterparts lost three years.

The More Educated Doing Better, Less Educated Doing Worse

The MacArthur Foundation Network on Aging in Society, which produced the report, is now pursuing questions arising from this finding including the stunning impact education has on longevity, for everybody except African American males.

The idea that subgroups of the population dont all experience the same longevity has been known for a long time, said the studys lead author, S. Jay Olshansky, at the Gerontological Society of Americas recent annual meeting in San Diego.

But until the 15 members of the network attempted to map the U.S. society of the future, no one had looked beyond the three basic divisions of education levels: 12 years of school or less, bachelors degree or less, and post-graduate study.

One of the things we did was break down this 12-and-under subgroup into those that had a high school education and those that didnt make it that far, Olshansky said, and thats when we saw something we didnt expect to see.

Overall, life expectancy has increased from about 47 years at birth in 1900 to more than 78, according to federal health statistics.

Aside from the bad news for the least educated whites and African American males, the study identified a remarkable 10-year gap in life expectancy between the least-educated and most-educated Americans, said Olshansky, a public health professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 1990, he added, that gap was two years wide.

The more educated are doing better and the least educated are doing worse, he said. This disparity comes just when biologists are on the verge of learning how to slow the human aging process, he added.

Go here to see the original:
Study: Education Extends Longevity—Except for Black Males

Daniel Ryan on the role of the insurance industry funding longer lives
Daniel Ryan, Head Life Health R D, Swiss Re In an interview with Daniel Ryan he provides answers to the following questions: What are your key takeaways from this conference? How will the points you #39;ve just mentioned impact future life expectancy? What is the role of the insurance industry in managing longevity risk? Daniel Ryan spoke at the Swiss Re conference The future of human longevity: focusing on you cgd.swissre.com A recording of his panel discussion is available at cgd.swissre.comFrom:swissretvViews:8 1ratingsTime:02:55More inScience Technology

More:
Daniel Ryan on the role of the insurance industry funding longer lives - Video

Helen Chung on health policy and longer lives
Helen Chung, Head of Health Policy Research, Life Health R D, Swiss Re In an interview with Helen Chung she provides answers to the following questions: What were the thoughts behind the themes addressed at the conference? In what ways can health policy help us life longer lives? What are your key takeaways from the conference? Helen Chung spoke at the Swiss Re conference The future of human longevity: focusing on you cgd.swissre.com A recording of her panel discussion is available at cgd.swissre.comFrom:swissretvViews:5 1ratingsTime:04:28More inScience Technology

Read the original post:
Helen Chung on health policy and longer lives - Video