Says the person who apparently did not read the first sentence and asked why I mentioned diets. 
Are there “cures”? Or just treatments?
Cuz I’d love love love to hear about cures for any of that stuff listed.
Infection might be a place to start. Or cancer, or depression. And why is the standard “cure” if we can effectively manage symptoms to extend life? I’m still scratching my head about what point you’re making, but I’m starting to understand that you have just read nothing of the thread.
The same directionality is expected. Both going down by similar proportions? Yes. Unexpected to me. No reason right off to think that would happen. The factors that cause them should not necessarily correlate.
Over that time period non-safety health advances occurred as the result of health related infrastructure and advances in science.
Infrastructure and technological advances though are not what as directly determines safety related deaths. Weapons become more fatal, cars can be more dangerous than horses, so on … it is a choice based on tolerance for preventable harms that leads to spending on modifying and adapting to technologies to make them less dangerous.
I would not have expected (nor am I yet fully convinced) that the risk tolerance cost benefit curve would settle in at just under 5% of the deaths as deaths overall dropped. And yes the fact that it is true for at least two countries for prolonged periods of time surprised me.
YMMV.
FWIW most of the choices correlated with a longer life are more strongly correlated with living a life with less time physically and/or mentally disabled.
That includes moderate exercise and a healthy diet pattern (such as the Mediterranean Diet but not only, and yes the best evidence is for more plant forward diet patterns with foods less hyperprocessed than the typical American eats), adequate sleep, avoidance of tobacco or more than very modest amounts of alcohol.
In the future it may include medications based on molecular pathways that regulate aging now becoming understood. Some of these are now drugs in human trial phases.
What does it do to society when a medication is available to routinely extend life to 120 or beyond? It’s a question our children may grapple with.
I’d like to focus in on this last question of the OP.
As noted above there is very active work on coming up with products that slow down, or maybe some down halt, the process of senescence. Many of those diseases are diseases of aging. Slowing down or halting aging would be expected to slow down or prevent those diseases and their associated disabilities. And could see both human lifespan and healthspan dramatically increased. Even without significant effort towards optimizing nutrition and activity. As long as you had food basic shelter and didn’t die from an accident or violence other or self imposed. The pluses of that are fairly obvious. And there are major impacts to our societies if such occurred. Malthus might eventually be vindicated!
A poll.
If you could “poof” it would you make that product available today or would you prevent that product from existing?
- Methuselah med for all.
- Just for me and mine please.
- I’d rather the world not have the medication available.
- Other.
0
voters
I personally am more fearful of those products than hopeful for them.
Okay I realize it is bad form to be the only one posting several times in a row, but I do feel like sharing the results of digging more, with a follow up question.
Again surprising to me but that rough percent of deaths being accidents/poisoning/violence stays true looking at China, and putting together several sources, counting in infant mortality rates as non-accidental deaths, in many Hunter Gather cultures and during the Middle Ages. More deaths due to violence and accidents but still similar fraction of the whole, as other early deaths in infancy to young adulthood were also high. Of course these HG and Middle Ages conclusions are based on less reliable numbers …
This speculation though seems reasonable:
Including of course that the percentage rising could be the result of other causes dropping.
So the related question relative to a potential near future Methuselah med - if suddenly you understood that you, your children, and your grandchildren could expect healthy functional lives into 120, 130, or beyond, barring death from accident or violence, would your risk tolerance for accident safety and behavior choices related to risk of those premature deaths change? Even unconsciously?
And barring others interested in this discussion I’ll stop now before a mod instruction to do such!
Unfortunately death is inevitable. A better quality of life could be achieved, which would surely be at a biological level but which would be at the expense of modernization. Today it is known that although technological development (in the field of physics, chemistry or biology) provides great benefits to human beings, there are also adverse consequences for human health due to aspects that were unknown when using technology. technology.
Since it is impossible to avoid death in any case, it only remains, at least a humble opinion, and for those of us who have a spirituality to hope to have a “good death.” It may seem strange to talk about a “good death,” but I think some will be able to understand the meaning.
Alberto
That you’re going to die is inevitable. When you die is negotiable.
And modernization has, on average, pushed that when way back.