This sort of model-free projection is basically useless. It's like the people who predicted that "Moore's law" improvements were over because clock rates were maxing out, but missed out on the parallelism that made GPUs possible.
It isn't like "longevity gains" are some sort of spontaneous process powered by historical inevitability. All the past gains came from people identifying and mitigating problems, and all the future gains will come from similar efforts. These efforts, which have yet to take place, obviously won't show up in the trend data.
I think the "slowly then all at once" theory can be applied here, as well as an "S" curve.
It is unlikely any researcher looking at longevity in the 1920s would have predicted the impact of medical advances of the next 40 years.
Multiple converging technologies suggest we could be at an inflection point again.
Personally, we work in enhancing the restorative function of sleep with early research showing positive impacts in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
There is a theory that if we can slow the natural decline of sleep's restorative function, we slow age related metabolic function, cognitive decline, and immune system.
One of the challenges in improving sleep in these diseases is that just because we're improving sleep and people feel better because they are sleeping better, doesn't mean we're actually treating the underlying disease. It can be difficult to measure the difference.
I just got some lithium for my mom to try for her alzhymers and will see if I can wrangle a "prescription" from her doctor, tommorow, so that I can have some paper to wave around at the nursing home.
Dads 97, and moms 84, and they are staying in the same room, both medical people, my mom got a degree focused on geriatric psycology on top of her RN and dad was a pathologist. They both recently recieved the shingles vacine, which realy does appear to have significantly improved both of thier cognitive performance.
Interesting, I commented above about the research in slow-wave enhancement (the foundational science behind our technology) in Parkinson's, however, the potential in MCI and Alzheimer's including positive amyloid response in healthy older adults, and significant increases in deep sleep in people living with mild to moderate Alzheimer's.
During early night stimulation, stimulation has shown to decrease cortisol levels by 15% in healthy older adults. One theory is this helps people living with AD because they have a cortisol dysregulation which is disruptive to their sleep.
With current demographic trends I wonder if we'll eventualy see longevity decrease, due to a large number of people arriving at old age without owning a home and no children/siblings to provide support or just check on them from time to time.
Just here to point out the US lags on life expectancy by a huge amount, compared to OECD/G8 economies with socialised health care and better controls on pollution, additives and education.
In which case the difference between the US and Europe should narrow as America goes on Ozempic and friends, and lifespan increase should accelerate in the US, making the article look wrong.
This sort of model-free projection is basically useless. It's like the people who predicted that "Moore's law" improvements were over because clock rates were maxing out, but missed out on the parallelism that made GPUs possible.
It isn't like "longevity gains" are some sort of spontaneous process powered by historical inevitability. All the past gains came from people identifying and mitigating problems, and all the future gains will come from similar efforts. These efforts, which have yet to take place, obviously won't show up in the trend data.
I think the "slowly then all at once" theory can be applied here, as well as an "S" curve.
It is unlikely any researcher looking at longevity in the 1920s would have predicted the impact of medical advances of the next 40 years.
Multiple converging technologies suggest we could be at an inflection point again.
Personally, we work in enhancing the restorative function of sleep with early research showing positive impacts in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
There is a theory that if we can slow the natural decline of sleep's restorative function, we slow age related metabolic function, cognitive decline, and immune system.
More details and links to research at https://affectablesleep.com
My impression was that my mom's Parkinson's disease was disrupting her ability to sleep. More sleep was clearly better, and pretty hard to come by.
I'm sorry to hear about your mother.
Yeah, there is a relationship between sleep and Parkinson's and there is some preliminary research in what our technology does in that space.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.30.25320306v...
One of the challenges in improving sleep in these diseases is that just because we're improving sleep and people feel better because they are sleeping better, doesn't mean we're actually treating the underlying disease. It can be difficult to measure the difference.
I just got some lithium for my mom to try for her alzhymers and will see if I can wrangle a "prescription" from her doctor, tommorow, so that I can have some paper to wave around at the nursing home. Dads 97, and moms 84, and they are staying in the same room, both medical people, my mom got a degree focused on geriatric psycology on top of her RN and dad was a pathologist. They both recently recieved the shingles vacine, which realy does appear to have significantly improved both of thier cognitive performance.
Interesting, I commented above about the research in slow-wave enhancement (the foundational science behind our technology) in Parkinson's, however, the potential in MCI and Alzheimer's including positive amyloid response in healthy older adults, and significant increases in deep sleep in people living with mild to moderate Alzheimer's.
During early night stimulation, stimulation has shown to decrease cortisol levels by 15% in healthy older adults. One theory is this helps people living with AD because they have a cortisol dysregulation which is disruptive to their sleep.
The S curve here is not some physical law.
With current demographic trends I wonder if we'll eventualy see longevity decrease, due to a large number of people arriving at old age without owning a home and no children/siblings to provide support or just check on them from time to time.
Or being deported to concentration camps
Just here to point out the US lags on life expectancy by a huge amount, compared to OECD/G8 economies with socialised health care and better controls on pollution, additives and education.
I’m willing to bet that most of the difference comes from obesity rates.
40% of Americans are obese, which massively increases your risk of life-shortening conditions like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
In which case the difference between the US and Europe should narrow as America goes on Ozempic and friends, and lifespan increase should accelerate in the US, making the article look wrong.
I guess we’ll find out over the next decade or two!
That said, I’m not sure we’d hit 100 even if everyone was in perfect shape. Most healthy people still die in their 80s or 90s.
By way of population density, the US ends up doing better on lots of pollution metrics.
Plus no diesel fetish.
Which suggests if the same particulate exposure risk was present the US life expectancy would be even worse?
Covid altered trend lines but the gap predates covid by decades.
(The diesel thing, yes, but also climate affects smog. Don't live in Bologna)
It may be a huge amount, but in the next few years it's only going to get huger.
Especially if autgoritarians both cook the books and put tgeir k ees kn the knecks