Yeah, I think that's basically the case. Improved life expectancy has been most dramatic in infant care where improved sanitation, nutrition, and immunization have had major effects over time. Its also interesting that there have always been some survivors to very old age. I think that partly a function of the fact that if you survive the onset of late middle age when diseases like cancer and heart disease start to take out the susceptible individuals, you are likely to live to a ripe old age.

I find these age life tables to be a little harder to read than "life expectancy at birth" time lines so I attached a link below to a website with two graphs: one world life expectancy for last 2000 years and the other life expectancy since 1820 by country.

One other caveat. There is quite a bit of difference in life expectancy by race by region. For instance in the US life expectancy for blacks in the most poor areas of the south (Mississippi Delta) approaches that for 3rd world countries.

Here is a link that might be useful: World Life Expectancy

KingTurtle,
after the graph you provided was some very interesting discussion on it, and yes, I had noticed too, how the races were different...especially at birth.

I found this test and took it. I scored to live a projected 90.3 years, while DH only scored 89.8.

I think the test was rather simple and doesnt account for environmental factors, except for the effects of smoking.
Anyways, it was interesting

Here is a link that might be useful: life expectancy test

I scored high 80's-90 too, but was alittle torn on some of the answers. For instance I do spend some time in a city with bad air pollution (really bad only in summer) but spend most of my time in the country. Also my responses to stress were difficult to pinpoint. Not stress everyday but occasionally lots of stress that can get me down for short periods but generally I bounce back the next day. In my opinion, the effects of stress on the body are difficult to pin down in a multiple choice - some stress is good, keeps the mind working - I think the individual's attitude toward stress and whether they have feelings of lack of control are probably important. I once smoked but no more. Also, in terms of exercise, sometimes I work hard outdoors but can go for weeks where office grind keeps me indoors working overtime (under stress). I tried different answers to get a sort of bracket. I think family history is very important and do have several relatives and ancestors who made it to late 70's-early 80's (those that died of natural causes) including one distant cousin who died recently at age of 100 and my Mom is 87 and going strong.

I scored 92.8. Some of my aunts and an uncle lived old...100, 92, 90, 84. But also my parents were much shorter lived. I supplement with a lot of nutrients as I see a need for that for me.....I'm nearly 70.

People are living longer [well existing and limping around longer in a "drugged" state if you ask me].....and who is asking me though?

my p. great grandmother lived to be 101 and my grandmother 93, other than that everyone else either had bad luck or abused/indulged themselves in unhealthy choices and earned earlier departures.

Nobody on my mothers side of the family ever made it past 52 years of age! I have a cousin who is 52 now, I spoke to him a month ago and he thinks he will live for many more years, break the curse, and for me to not worry about the family's unfortunate timing of expiring. :)

I would ask about the "drugged state", I am curious just how many people are on medication unneccessarily or over drugged up. I understand that some people have many different doctors and that each doctor prescribes differently and hopefully those elderly folks and doctors dont get confused.

Nonetheless, I am however grateful for all the positive advancements in medicine and for the great potential of sharing information for many years to come in these forums!

4gs, If you are asking me or holding the door open anyway, I feel that the more organic approach compared to the chemical/bio-tech way parrellels the health field approaches.
It used to be that "doctor knows best" and he [mostly he then] had some wonder drugs that would soon wipe out cancer and other perils.
Then when things didn't work out that way, we began to realize that doctors didn't know beans hardly about nutrition. Again, you can cut, burn, and drug and stave off some things....about like primitive agriculture's cut, slash, and burn.
A really better way is to equip your own body to heal and defend itself. This is done so much better by working in harmony with nature.
Yes, medical science has some wonders and I am thankful for that....see don't misunderstand that, but people and Medicare and insurance are paying top dollars for what I believe can be done better in 90% of the time by much cheaper food and supplemental nutrients.

Pardon the semi-rant here.

the door is open...

I have always thought that we should be able to write off our food as preventative health care...or that a doctor should be able to prescribe a healthy diet for us and it should be deductible like medication is or against our taxes. Of course only for fresh produce, dairy, meats, and grains/nuts labeled as real organic food and not processed, or artifical foods supporting the idea with what Wayne is implying in regards to an "organic approach rather than the chemical/bio-tech ways".
Eating healthy is preventative in regards to health care.

Most people, especially americans, dig their graves with their teeth, I reckon. Genetics are a big factor, no doubt, if diet gave it a chance.

When they considered labeling obesity as a disease I threw up my hands in disbelief. When stupidity becomes a disease there will be a mass epidemic requiring a barrage of new pharmaceuticals.

BTW-my test proclaimed I would live to the ripe old age of 94.6 and that was after saying my parents lived to a min. of 75 yrs. Well Mom was taken out with a 9mm slug while at work at 53, and Dad is still alive at 66. So I'm not sure how that would factor in. I was also curious as to what flossing had to do with longevity.

I have read where flossing teeth is supposed to cut down on putrid mouth bacteria which is currently believed by some to generate inflamation, toxics, and such that perhaps leads to arterial deposits.....something like that...whew!

Mudbug, Wayne is correct. Medical folks are stressing now issues like inflammation as a factor in susceptability to heart attack and stroke.

Sorry about your Mom.

mudbug...I remember in the 1980's when pregnacy was labled a disease ( for insurance language I was told).

HOwever, yes I agree, obesity being a disease seems frightful. The compulsion to eat and fill the body with food is like a nervous condition or a habitual problem, but its the way that its treated that becomes frightful...if I am resonating with you...obesity becomes another excuse to prescribe medication and put a bandaid on a problem without correcting it.The qick fix era.

...sorry to hear about your Mom, too. Life is precious.

When stupidity becomes a disease there will be a mass epidemic requiring a barrage of new pharmaceuticals.

It isn't already? We have entire public assistance programs directed at helping many people that, from my perspective, are where they are primarily due to stupidity, i. e., bad choices. Human services and social services have programs that often involve medical intervention in the form of anti-depressants, mood elevators, methadone injections and free needles, ADD and ADHD stimulants, morning after pills, etc., to treat or mask the symptoms of stupid choices.

We have adult education programs and GED classes for those people that for legitimate reasons beyond their control, like illness, injury, etc., could not finish high school, but it is also provided, often for free, for those who were not paying attention in class, skipping school, blowing off homework, and outright quitting school, or in other words, acting stupid. It is often justified by the program supporters as a uplifting service that helps prevent the onset of depression, low self-esteem, etc., conditions often cited as medical, that come from the unemployment, low pay, unsafe jobs, etc., that are more likely the direct result of the stupid decisions they made, not from any medical causes.

A survey conducted by Rand Corp. and Oregon St. found that nearly half of our black population feels that AIDs/HIV was a man developed plot against blacks....the medications are not to be trusted either by many. With stats like that.....

Hey, how about personal responsibility?

Monte, if the stupids didn't make stupid decisions, then who would do the low-paying unsafe jobs that our economy obviously requires? Are you suggesting that these are make-work expressly for stupids at a net loss to the non-stupids?

Let me ask you this: is it quite stupid to be born into a very impoverished family, in say - Mexico - and migrate to the US for the priveledge of doing some of that low-paying dangerous work considerately provided by us?

If everyone would only stop burdening us with their stupid decisions then we could weave our own cloth, our wives could stitch our clothes together in their spare time, we'd make our own shoes, tires, electronics, dishware, shovels - migrate and pick our own oranges, peppers, artichokes and apples; certainly we aren't going to do without and since we're so smart and smug doing our own drudgery shouldn't be a problem.

Very well put, Pat. Class warfare continues under other banners and other rhetorics. Odd that otherwise sensibe people don't recognize this.

I agree too Pat. Programs like GED and job training are wise investments in human capital that have positive paybacks to our society. The under-educated pay taxes too and are at least as deserving of investment as a business is entitled to the massive Gov't sponsored subsidies and other corporate welfare.

Wayne, unfortunately, blacks all too well remember the Gov't sponsored Tuskegee experiments when patients were allowed to suffer from syphyllis without treatments that were readily available to whites.

My mother got her GED, I came across the actual papers of complettion and sucess of passing and achieving ones GED and some congradulations of having completed the course and passed back in the 1950's or when my mother was stationed in Misissippi possibly . Papers and tests were shown, but in my opinon my father may have taken the test,too...err just to be nice I suspect he helped her to write and answer in dialog form as he was enlisted in the Military at age 17?( Grandmother had to sign papers so he could join?)and had just married a new chick at the high school who was experiencing public high school (the mid 1950's) a first year out of an all girls religious school. Actaully, having known my mother, who has been deceased since the early 1990's, I'd say it was important for her to do it all by herself...an actual righteous type.

I would like to direct and write a movie on my mother some day. I think I am going to call it Grandma CInderella...that might help explain the real CInderella I met and lived with this past summer (my niece). I want to film it in three different paradigms at once, hopefully would be an interactive understanding of mind frames interactively. ( a puppet may come out of its place once while the actual comes out of place consisitantly often and the animation rarely interfers.
Filmed in animation, filmed using puppets, filmed in live drama. The twist is that the hand puppets are like really talking to each other and the drama is talking to an audience trying to deliver an altered state of thinking. This state is then animated or dramatized so that the infomation has an appearance of multi bias. One clear voice- a voice of truth or the ability to agree.

I learned a new way of control, it is a saying that goes like this, and if you ever hear it, listen to the chants of songs at play time and see how people playing together and how adults can change and disturb a childs way of thinking or for that mattter an adult. I forgot the saying now...darn, my thoughts go everywhere. I think the least one knows the better as far as keeping ones mind from creative traps. Or addictions that keep one from facing their greatest achievement potential.

ANyways...the short version of the story is My mother took a correspondance course, I believe through the Dept of Education and received her GED certificate of graduation. I have a copy of the diploma. The tests cost her about 395.00? Perhaps I am getting a civil service course confuse me, which she also graduated from as a correspondance course. She had 7 kids and couldnt get away to go to school.

She dropped out of high school to marry my father the first year she attended a public school. Her parents were from Poland, I beleieve her to be 1st generation as a US Citizen, and to make matters worse for me, My husband is related to almost everyone on the east coast it seems, by actually the townships on this island and other surrounding islands are uniquely family tied over the time of 1809, when they first settled and laid claim to a native american summer home. I guess a human recognizes the same thought processes and hopefully has become less fearful of each.

Fear is the opposit of to be at peace. Fear promotes anger, and unpleasant stimuli to ones aging process.
Having ponder the thought it seems that while being of fear is a toxic feeling and the body responds to the stimulithus it is not productive in ones life. Fear creates a tax on the body or a toll. and if the tax/toll is warranted then it should be paid. Otherwise choose not to be in fear. What I try to do is find a way to calm and find out what would be required of me to achieve my goals...then I just do exactly what it takes to get there. This process is like riding a bike or skiing for the first time. At first it feels really natural and then you generally self-actualize at some point if freed from distractions and procrastinations. Becoming present is actually foreign for some people.

My 6 year old is showing me a picture of a robot that will go around the yard. It is called the Insect. It was a book that is nothing but propaganda for other plastic assembled toy that actually moves but has no function, it just steps forward like a wind-up toy. Basicly, a toy, wind- up, build it yourself, thing.

Do you think it could be built as a wooden windup car or recycled something (?) that I could use for work? How would I safely wind it up and not get snapped for twisting too tight so I could go uphill with power??

Why did you change your handle, Sue?

It was my birthaday ` I was reading the soil forums and came across names as a post. I reexaimed my name and thought and thought about it and I decided to take the name my mother gave me, besides the name gardengardengardengarden( the name came from a previous marriage that my former step daughters dubbed on me (I love my former step daughters), being remarried I thought the change would be appropriate and refreshing and more repectful to my current family! :) There are more people in my life that know me as lilyroseviolet and it seems to fit better.