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Happy Tuesday!
This past week a close family member spent several days in the hospital after undergoing a risky brain surgery. She had just been transferred out of the ICU and we were talking about the future when she said offhandedly, "By the time you're my age, medicine will be so advanced, you'll be sure to have a long, long life!"
I felt like I had heard this thought expressed before by other people many times but without any real basis other than general, maybe naive, optimism.
Where does it come from?
This belief that medical technology is like an insurance policy which we get to cash in on when we're old.
It's undeniable that over the past hundred years medicine has improved dramatically and continues to improve dramatically. In just four days of hanging around the hospital I saw plenty of unbelievable technology being used to improve patient outcomes and prolong life.
But despite all the impressive machines and brilliant doctors it was still humbling to witness the fragility of the human body in such vivid detail. It also takes on a different weight when it's yourself or a family member going through the system.
As I sat in different hospital rooms and waiting areas I started to wonder, where do we stand today? What is the future promise of a longer life?
After a little digging I found this amazing visual representation of life expectancy by age using data from the Human Mortality Database. [1]
The first thing you'll notice is that by 2013 the life expectancy for all ages had converged between 80 and 85 years old.
So what does this mean?
It means that the long trend of increasing lifespans can largely be explained by reducing rates of mortality for younger people and children. For older people however, the gains in lifespan are more modest.
If the trend continues then more and more people are likely to make it to age 85 ... but not much older.
And continued progress isn't guaranteed.
More recent studies have shown that even though total lifespan has increased, across some common causes of mortality like heart disease, stroke, and diabetes that progress has slowed. For other causes like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), rates have actually increased. [2]
Up till now, most of the advancements in medical technology have been in pharmaceuticals (better drugs) and acute care (better hospitals). We've become very good at saving sick or injured people who would otherwise die.
When it comes to increasing lifespan for our oldest populations however the change hasn't been as dramatic.
Most importantly, none of these statistics say anything about the quality of life past a certain age. While it may be the case we're living longer, it's not necessarily the case that we're living better longer.
I realize this is literally a morbid topic but I've been thinking about how assumptions we make about the future impact our behavior today.
Maybe the increase in lifespans won't continue to slow and recent setbacks are temporary. But even if wonder drugs and world class hospitals will help most of us make it into our 80s and beyond, it's worth thinking about what we want those years to look like.
If we assume that we all have more time rather than less, what does that mean for the way we treat ourselves now?
Be well,
Nick