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Old 03-16-2006, 09:41 AM   #7
AaronSJ
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Join Date: Oct 2001
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On the surface, this shouldn't be a huge surprise considering that we've seen remarkable progress in life expectency during the last 200 years - it has more than doubled during that timeframe, after remaining relatively constant (only modest growth) for the last couple thousand years.

But surprisingly, the rate of change of life expectency has slowed down substantially in the last 25 years, especially in North America. In the first half the 20th century, every decade resulted in ~4 more years of expectency (from 49 years in 1900 to 68 years in 1950). But this has slowed down substantially since 1980 (74 years) to our current level of 77 years (U.S. figures - it's almost 80 in Canada).

In fact, recent research has suggested that today's generation of children will be the first in history to NOT live as long as their parents, in large part due to the obesity epidemic. That's a scary thought, and it certainly goes against theory in the article above.

But I do agree that medical technology will continue to allow humans to live longer and longer. The key question will become -- can we afford it?
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