According to a recent study in The Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, living to 100 is expected to become only more and more common. Especially for today’s young. The study reports that half of today’s youth, born since 2000 and living in industrialized nations, will live to hit triple digits. Furthermore, those born since 2007 are expected, on average, to live until the ripe old age of 104. This doesn’t mean extended life in hospital beds either, quality of life is expected to progress as well.
However, some experts are finding the results a bit too optimistic. Dr. Harrison Bloom, a Senior Associate at the International Longevity Center of New York, for example, had this to say: “There’s no reason to think more than half the population living today can’t live until 100. But that would assume better eating habits, a healthier lifestyle and continuing improvements in the environment. That lifestyle would definitely mean less obesity. The diabetes and obesity epidemic today is very real. A lot of people are going to die earlier than their projected life span would have been.”
That said, even the naysayers can’t deny that more and more people will live past their 100th birthday and that their quality of life will increase as well. Which means that changes in life-planning are around the corner. For example, while it makes sense to retire in your 50s if you’re expecting to die in your 80s, that all changes if you’re likely to live past age 100.
(photo courtesy of the NY Daily News)
