How Long Will I Live?

I just took the Life Expectancy quiz, and it spit out a number higher than I would have guessed. My immediate reaction was, "If I do live that long, I hope I'm still kicking!" In the quest for longevity, I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that even if we live to our late 90's or 100's, our friends and those that we have shared our life with until this point are probably not going to be around. Is it worth living a long time when you have no one to share it with? I'm not so sure.

Anyways, back to the question at hand. I've taken tests like this one before, and so I was expecting a lot of the questions that it asked. I think it is hard, though, to determine someone's life expectancy with a couple dozen questions. I think there's more to it than that. Of course a lot of our answers are going to change in the next couple of years, too, and so our expected age will be altered.

Overall I found the quiz interesting and a fun little exercise.

Genetics or Environment?

Centenarians- The role of genetics

http://www.healthandage.com/professional/Centenarians-The-Role-of-Genetics

This article opens by saying that it seems likely there is a genetic factor to long lifespan, because there have been plenty of people who make the same lifestyle choices of centenarians and face the same environmental factors, who pass away at an average age. 

The article goes on to also question the genetic factor of centenarians. It states that "genes don't "care" about longevity because they're only concerned with procreation." They don't care whether a person lives to be 100 or 110. All genes care about is if a person has been able to reproduce. 

The article uses the analogy of airplane engineers being similar to our genes. Engineers don't care if planes can fly all over the world in one flight, they just care that they can get rom point A to point B. This is similar to our genes not caring whether we get to be 100 or 110. All they care is that we get to the point of reproduction. 

My question at this point, is if this theory is correct, why do we ever live beyond 40 years of age?

The article quickly answers my questions, stating that a longer lifespan allows for more child-bearing years and parents who can raise their children into adulthood.

The next section of the article discusses the Hayflick phenomenon. It says that cells follow a type of clock and are only able to make x number of cell divisions in their lifetime before they slow down and completely stop dividing. This is thought to be the genetic process of aging. 

The article says that they started researching siblings who were both centenarians. At this point, it was hard for them to deny some type of genetic factor.