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Asked by limey5298 to Helen, Jenni, Mark, Martin, Stu on 21 Jun 2011.
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Jenni Tilley answered on 20 Jun 2011:
Rahter than how much *can* it be extended I think you should be worrying about how much it *should* be extended. I think we should only extend lives if we can extend quality of life. There are real problems in society right now because people are living longer, but there are all sorts of associated ilnesses and diseases which are difficult to treat and devistating for both the people with them and their families.
Would you really want to live until you’re 150 years old if you spent the last 50 years unable to walk/talk/feed yourself/ unaware of who you and the people around you are?
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Martin Lindley answered on 21 Jun 2011:
well we have seen a continual increas in the life expectancy in humans over the last few centuries.
we now have a huge world population with an increasingly large ‘older’ proportion of society.
but we are still searching for ways to lengthen life span.
staying free from disease is a challange that mdical science is continually working on while diet and nutrition is another avenue of much study.
Persoanlly I would expect the human life span to ‘very slowly’ keep increasing for a while and then when people are regulalry having 100th birthday parties start to level off. It will take a long time but there is a balance between staying healthy and free from disease and the physical limitations to our bodily functions and the detarioration of our mental state.
Evolutionarily speaking (is that a even a word) then we are ‘designed’ to life until about 30 – 35 years old…so if we make it past that we shoudl congratulate ourselves…..well done martin I made it 🙂
Comments
limey5298 commented on :
You Have A Very Good Point There 🙂