ST 3 Nov 21 Opinion piece by Anjana Ahuja on “Would you want to live beyond 150” reminds me of my blogpost You cannot be forever young
Cellular reprogramming
In Ms Ahuja’s article, she discusses extending human lifespans to reach the theoretical maximum of 140-150 years or even beyond, through cellular reprogramming, such that old cells become young again.
This is what some super rich aspire towards, as they have the means to fund this research. The super rich already have heaven on earth, or so they think. They want to go on living, youthful and healthy, despite their chronological age which may be a century or more. The Christian concept of heaven doesn’t appeal to them.
Social implications of long life
Ms Ahuja also lists some of the social implications of radical life extension, such as overpopulation, decreased fresh ideas of the young that characterise progress, and the rich significantly outliving the poor as they have have access to these expensive technologies.
Healthy life expectancy
My own more mundane concept of “life extension” does not involve expensive research to increase life expectancy by 40-50 years. I refer to increasing the years of healthy life lived or healthy life expectancy. Healthy life expectancy is the average length of life lived in good health without disability. This is then followed by some years of disability before death releases us. These are average figures of course. There are lucky people who expire without a period of suffering, what most would prefer, so long as it is not premature death (before the average life expectancy).
Global
Year Life expectancy Healthy life expectancy
2000 66.8 years 58.3 years
2019 73.4 years 63.7 years
Singapore
Year Life expectancy Healthy life expectancy
M F M F
2010 79.2yr 84.0yr 71.7yr 73.8yr
2015 80.5yr 85.1yr 73.0yr 74.7yr
2019 81.4yr 85.7yr 73.7yr 75.2yr
The aim is to increase healthy life expectancy to be as close to life expectancy as possible, so that we have a short period of disability before death, which is currently about 10 years.
Healthy lifestyle
I believe this is achievable, through living a healthy lifestyle, starting as early as possible. Nevertheless, starting later is better than not at all.
Living a healthy lifestyle entails:
- Physical activity/exercise
- Healthy food, balanced diet
- Weight control
- No smoking
- Alcohol in moderation, if at all
See Age well every day with DEWSS.
Your choice
Yes, you pick your poison. Healthy lifestyle with a short period of ill health at the end of life,
Or
indulgent lifestyle with years of disability before death releases you.
lingsinglin
Dr Ling Sing Lin is a medical doctor by training. She worked in MOH HQ for many years, in policy making and administrative positions, until her retirement.
