“In the United States, demographers predict that as many as half of today’s 5-year-olds can expect to live to the age of 100,” said The New Map of Life, a recent report from the Stanford Center on Longevity. The cross-disciplinary Stanford Center was founded in 2007 to conduct research on the key issues associated with increased longevity, - from cognitive health to physical well-being and financial security, - with the aim to make long lives healthy and rewarding.
While the 100-year life may be here, we’re not ready. “By the middle of this century, this once unattainable milestone may become the norm for newborns, continuing a remarkable trend that saw human life expectancies double between 1900 and 2000, and still rising in this century, despite the grievous toll of the Covid-19 pandemic,” notes the report. “Longevity is one of the greatest achievements in human history, brought about by reductions in infant mortality, advances in sanitation and medicine, public education, and rising standards of living. Yet the change came about so quickly that the social institutions, economic policies, and social norms that evolved when people lived for half as long are no longer up to the task.”
According to the Stanford Center, there’s a clear distinction between aging and longevity. Aging is the biological process of getting older - the accumulation of changes in a human being over time. Longevity is “the measure of long life,” - the ways to enhance the quality of a long life “so that people experience a sense of belonging, purpose, and worth at all ages and stages.”