X-Message-Number: 2794
From: Max More <>
Subject: CRYONICS Info on life extension
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 1994 16:51:38 -0700 (PDT)

 > From:   (Marvin Minsky) 
> Message-Subject: Help: Need data on longevity 
 
> I'm writing an article about immortality, and one argument is that we 
> can't get it by simply curing all "diseases".  This is because there 
> are other processes that limit lifespan, e.g., accumulation of errors 
> that eventually make cells not work well, or become cancerous.   
 
> Anyway, what I need is a rough sketch of the longevity distribution in 
> older times and now.  Just enough to illustrate that the maximum 
> life-span has not increased significantly, but still drops off vary 
> fast in the 100-120 year age group.  The illo would show that the mean 
> age has pushed up toward that range, but that there's little sign of 
> any increase near the end of that range. 

You can find relevant information in two books by Roy Walford of UCLA:

Maximum Lifespan (Avon Books, New York, 1983)
See illustration on p.3, giving survival curves for USA 1960, USA 1900, 
Ancient Rome, and theoretical limits of biological longevity.  On p.4 
is a revealing set of tables of leading causes of death in 1860, 1900, 
and 1970.

The 120 Year Diet (Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, 1986):  
p.22 has a chart similar to the one in his earlier book, in a section on 
average and maximum lifespans. A brief quote:

"Curves A, B, and C are the survival curves for the United States in
1900, 1950, and 1982.  The *average life span* has been increasing since the
turn of the century.  This largely reflects the virtual conquest of infectious
diseases and to some extent other diseases in First World societies.  But it
can be shown mathematically that if *all* known diseases were cured -- no heart
disease, no stroke, no cancer, no diabetes -- the average life span would
move up to 85 years of age, *but no further*, unless the aging process itself
were brought under control."

I highly recommend Walford's books to all longevists and immortalists,
especially The 120 Year Diet.  More technical information can be found
in Walford & Weindruch's technical work, The Retardation of Aging and
Disease by Dietary Restriction.


Upward and Outward!

Max More		
President	Extropy Institute (ExI)

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