One of the most useful books I read in preparation for a recent talk I gave on longevity was The Longevity Revolution, published in 2008 by Robert N. Butler, M.D. Apart from being a Pulitzer Prize winner, Dr. Butler is also the founder of the International Longevity Centre.
The book is subtitled The Benefits and Challenges of Living a Long Life. Butler observes that in less than 100 years, human beings have made greater gains in life expectancy than it did in the preceding 50 centuries. From the Bronze Age to the end of the 19th century, life expectancy grew by only 29 years or so, from 20 to just under 50 years. But in the 20th century, Life Expectancy surged another 30 years to reach over 77.
The paradox of a downside to what should be good news
Are the Baby Boomers part of the Ageless Generation?
Many of us seem to act as if that were the case but there’s little doubt most of us feel younger than we appear. To me, the poster child for this ageless generation is Jane Fonda, whose famous workout videos appear to have held her in good stead in her personal twilight career.
(Technically, since she was born in 1937, Jane Fonda is not a post-war baby boomer but her spirit certainly seems to epitomize the zeitgeist of the generation that came soon after her).
If you get Netflix check out the recently released series Grace & Frankie, where Fonda plays a 70-year old recent divorcee: even though she herself is actually 77! Equally vibrant are her aging costars: Lilly Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston (best known as the prosecutor on Law & Order). Tomlin is 75 and the two male co-stars are 74.
Medical advances will transform the global economy
Amazon.com
The Ageless Generationalso happens to be the title of a recent (2013) book by Dr. Alex Zhavornonkov, director of the Biogerontology Research Foundation and founder of the International Aging Research Portfolio. It’s one of about a dozen books I read in recent months in preparation for a talk on Longevity that I gave on Monday to the National Elder Planning Issues Conference in Niagara Falls.
The book’s subtitle summarizes the gist of it: How advances in biomedicine will transform the global economy. Since the focus is on the United States, it will come as no surprise that Zhavornonkov believes breakthroughs in extending Longevity can only make a shaky Social Security and Medicare system that much more fragile in the United States, and by extension their equivalent programs in other advanced nations.
Here’s my latest blog for MoneySense, titled Longevity & Your Money. Naturally, we’ll house this here in the Hub’s Longevity & Aging section.
I’ve been researching this topic since last summer, when I met Mark Venning and his blog on longevity at ChangeRangers.com. He has since contributed some blogs to the Hub.
All this has culminated in a keynote address I’ll be giving next Monday in Niagara Falls, for the National Elder Planning Issues Conference in Niagara Falls, entitled Longevity Changes Everything.
Researching the topic was a bit daunting: I counted more than 5,500 titles at Amazon.com containing the word Longevity. We’ve reviewed some of them in the past in the Reviews section of the Hub and will run more in the coming weeks, usually on Fridays.
The bottom-line conclusion I make in the blog, and which MoneySense focused on in the dek (the line below the headline) is that you might want to add ten years in your mind as to how long you live. So if you’ve been mentally figuring on 85, make it 95, and if you’re 90, make it 100, then see how that affects your financial planning projections and the date you think you’d like to retire or achieve “Findependence.” Continue Reading…
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One of the most useful books I read in preparation for a recent talk I gave on longevity was The Longevity Revolution, published in 2008 by Robert N. Butler, M.D. Apart from being a Pulitzer Prize winner, Dr. Butler is also the founder of the International Longevity Centre.
