When I was kid I thought I was gonna live till I was like a hundred!
Man I was up for a rude awakening.
But maybe kids these days might get close.
Hey guys, Julia here for DNews
So recently, the oldest man in the world died at the ripe old age of 112.
Sakari Momoi died from kidney failure at a nursing home in Tokyo.
What’s strange about the story is not his old age, but his gender.
Typically the oldest people in the world are women, like the oldest person who ever lived
was Jeanne Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 when she was 122.
For some reason women typically live longer than men do.
For most of history, men and women had the same life expectancy.
But something started to change around 1870.
As medication practices and dietary habits improved over the decades, women started living
longer than men.
Some people suggested the difference was because men simply take more risks than women.
Like climbing into tiger cages or testing out a new supposedly stab proof jacket.
And this risky behavior can sometimes have deadly consequences.
Darwin.
But a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found
that in individuals born after 1880, female death rates decreased 70 percent faster than
those of males.
The researchers pinpointed heart disease as a reason for the deadly discrepancy.
But they also said they’d like to do more research to see how lifestyle factors like
diet and exercise relates to their data.
Speaking of lifestyle factors... if you’d like to live longer, exercise, eat right and
stop smoking!
Seriously, I know you’ve probably heard it a million times, but a recent study published
in The Journal of the American Medical Association found that poor lifestyle choices could cut
23 years off your life.
Which is just a lot of years to be missing.
The large, 50 year study found that nearly 80% of cases of early death by things like
diabetes and heart disease could be prevented.
The researchers found that having both diabetes and heart disease is a deadly combination
and that the earlier you get them, the worse your chances are.
So like, a guy in his 60s with both conditions would be out about 12 years on his life, but
if his younger brother who’s 40 would have 23 years knocked off his life.
And the same goes for a women too, at 60 years a women would be about 13 years short, at
40 she would be about 20 years out.
So if you ate right and exercised, just how long would you be expected to live?
Well for the longest time, infant mortality heavily skewed life expectancy.
So a lot of people died before they saw their first birthday.
But once someone reached the age of 21, a mostly well off person could expect to live
a decently long life.
Like in the 13th century, a person might live to 64.
Two hundred years later he or she could live until 71.
One study published in the journal Lancet estimates that someone born since 2000, could
expect to see triple digits.
The researchers also suggest that half of the people born since 2007 will live to see
their 104th birthday.
While research into longevity is a hot topic these days, one theory suggests that maximum
lifespan for us might be only 125 years.
Okay well I shouldn’t say only.
That’s still a really long time.
So if you wanna see some triple digits some day, eat right, exercise, and please don’t
smoke.
And it also helps to be a lady.
Or maybe you should live in a different country.
To learn more about which countries have the highest life expectancy, check out this great
video from our sister show TestTube news.
So how long would you want to live?
Let us know..