Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out?

Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by DebtDeflation on Thursday April 25, 2019 @07:06AM (#19746856)

My understanding is that the doubling in life expectancy over the last 150-200 years was primarily due to the drastic reduction in infant mortality and elimination of most infectious diseases. If you only look at life expectancy from the point of reaching adulthood, the change hasn't been nearly as dramatic.

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by nottorp on Thursday April 25, 2019 @07:25AM (#19746936)

And they are falling a bit into that trap: "In 1850, the combined life expectancies of men and women stood at around 40 years in the United States, Canada, Japan and much of Europe."

But if you eliminate life expectancy at birth, you'll notice that there hasn't been a drastic improvement. It's been discussed on HN previously, and I think adult life expectancy has only improved by less than 20 years over the last several hundred.

(Someone with sources feel free to correct me).

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by bregma on Thursday April 25, 2019 @08:46AM (#19747460)

Yes. When most people say "life expectancy" they mean "life expectancy at birth." Even in the depths of the middle ages when life expectancy at birth was around 30 years, most people who lived to adulthood lived into their 60s and 70s.

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by toasterlovin on Thursday April 25, 2019 @05:21PM (#19752634)

I think the OP is specifically trying to say that most lay people do not actually mean "life expectancy at birth" when they use the term "life expectancy", but instead mean "how long I, a person who has reached adulthood, can expect to live". I agree with OP, FWIW.

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[dead]

Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by sctb on Friday April 26, 2019 @11:51AM (#19758785)

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by yeuxverte on Thursday April 25, 2019 @09:02AM (#19747616)

And if you add in sperm lost in condoms to life expectancy then the view also changes.

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by Conjoiner on Friday April 26, 2019 @12:15AM (#19754825)

There is nothing magical about passing through a vagina to with life should start counting from then.

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by matt4077 on Thursday April 25, 2019 @07:14AM (#19746895)

That’s a common “fun fact” but it’s been so overdone people are probably now erring more to the other side. Here’s a graph: http://www.roperld.com/science/graphics/LifeExpectancyForDif...

As an example, in the 20th Century, life expectancy at birth rose from about 40 to 77 years. But for 20 year olds, it also went from 34 to 59 additional years.

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by Retric on Thursday April 25, 2019 @07:57AM (#19747106)

That does not seem to be accurate for the US from 1900 looking at a life table. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf

Page 52 Men in 1900 life expectancy at 20: 42.48

Page 54 Women in 1900 life expectancy at 20: 43.6

The Social Security life table for 2016 lists 56.91 years at 20 a gain of ~13.9 years in the last 116. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by raverbashing on Thursday April 25, 2019 @08:33AM (#19747362)

56 looks like a small number compared with other developed countries

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Re:Is Life Expectancy Finally Topping Out? by tgb on Thursday April 25, 2019 @09:09AM (#19747658)

It's additional years of life - so 76 total.

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