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How long can and should a person actually live?
It is now generally accepted and considered normal that when a person lives a life of 70-80 years, 90 is already considered longevity. But how long should and can a person actually live, how long does his genetics allow? Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, great Russian physician, laureate Nobel Prize in the field of physiology and medicine (1908) was absolutely sure that the natural duration human life is 140-150 years old, and death at 70-80 years old is undoubtedly violent. Alexander Bogomolets also agreed with him. In his “Etudes of Optimism” Metchnikoff pointed out that “in 1902 in Paris, out of 1000 deaths between 70 and 74 years, only 85 people died of old age. Most of the old people died from contagious diseases: pneumonia and consumption, from heart disease, kidney disease or cerebral hemorrhage.” Even the famous long-livers, the Englishman Thomas Parr (152 years old) and the Turk Zara Aga (156 years old), died not from age, but from disease (the first from pneumonia, the second from uremic coma caused by prostate disease). The famous medieval physician Paracelsus believed that a person could live 600 years. Albrecht von Haller and Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland (scientists of the 18th century) considered the age of 200 years to be the limit of human life.
But in order to draw clear conclusions, it is necessary to turn to the facts, how long do real centenarians live, and how many of them are there on the planet! Li Qingyun was born in 1677 in Qijiangxiang, Sichuan Province. He spent most of his life in the mountains of Sichuan, collecting medicinal herbs and learning the secrets of longevity. In 1748, when Li Qingyun was 71 years old, he moved to Kaixian to join the Chinese army as a martial arts teacher and military adviser.
In 1927, Li Qingyun was invited to Wanxian to visit the governor of Sichuan, General Yang Sen. The general was delighted with Lee's youthfulness, strength and skill despite the latter's incredible age. During this visit, the famous photograph of the supercentenarian was taken. After this meeting, Li Qingyun returned to his native land and died 6 years later. There is a legend that before his death he told his friends, “I have done everything I had to do in this world. I’m going home” and then gave up the ghost.
After Li's death, General Yang Sen decided to find out the truth about his life and age. He made recordings that were later published. In 1933, people interviewed Lee's relatives and children. Some said that he had always been old, as long as they could remember, others said that he was friends with their grandfathers. Other most famous centenarians:
Zoltan Petridzh (Hungary) – 186 years old.
Peter Zortai (Hungary) – 185 years old (1539–1724).
Cantigern is the founder of Glasgow Abbey. Known as Saint Mungo. Lived 185 years.
Tense Abziva (Ossetia) – 180 years old.
Huddiye (Albania) – 170 years old. His offspring numbered 200.
Hancer Nine (Türkiye). Lived 169 years. Died in 1964.
Sayyad Abdul Mabud (Pakistan) – 159 years old.
Mahmud Bagir ogly Eyvazov (151 years old, 1808-1959) lived the longest in the USSR. A trademark was issued in his honor. Colombian Javier Pereira lived 169 years, and in his honor, as well as in honor of the above-mentioned citizen of the Soviet Union, his country released postage stamp. A certain Jean Terel joined French army in the 17th century, and retired in the 19th century. It seems incredible: he served in the army for three centuries. So how long did he live? Not as little, although not about three hundred, as it might seem. Jean Terel was born in Dijon in 1684, and joined the army at the age of sixteen, in 1699, at the end of the century. Participated in more than a hundred battles. In 1777, when he was 93 years old, King Louis XIV granted the old servant the rank of captain. In 1802 (Terel was already 118 years old), Napoleon found out about him. Contrary to the reluctance of the long-lived veteran, he gave him an honorable discharge, assigning him an annual pension of 1,500 francs. Jean Terel died in 1807, at the one hundred and twenty-third year of his life. An interesting case is described by English historians. In 1635 The peasant Thomas Parr came from the provinces to London to appear before King Charles as a miracle of longevity. Parr claimed that he had outlived nine kings and was 152 years old. In honor of the long-liver, the king threw a magnificent feast, after which Thomas Parr suddenly died. It was opened by the famous English doctor William Harvey, who discovered blood circulation. According to V. Harvey, Parr died of pneumonia, but, as legends say, the cause of his death was the rich treat at the king's table. Parr was buried with honors in Westminster Abbey. In 1654, Cardinal D'Armagnac, walking down the street, noticed an 80-year-old man crying. When the cardinal asked who had offended him, the old man replied that his father had beaten him. The cardinal decided to look at this man. He was presented with an old man, 113 years old, very vigorous for his age. “I beat my son,” said the old man, “for disrespecting my grandfather. He walked past him without bowing.” The cardinal also saw his 143-year-old grandfather. Another extremely interesting fact is that in Abkhazia, almost 3% of the population are centenarians, whose age exceeds 100 years. In 2000, there were an estimated 70,000 to 80,000 people in the United States aged 100 years or older. In Cuba, for the country's 11 million population, there are about 3 thousand people who have crossed the century mark. In Taiwan, as of October 2009, there were 1,223 people over 100 years of age living in the country. Europe - according to the French weekly Pouin, France currently leads Europe in the number of centenarians. There are 2,546 centenarians who are over 100 years old. Following France with a slight lag is Great Britain - 2,450 people, then Germany - 2,197 people. If we take percentage indicators, the number of centenarians per 100,000 people, then the championship here belongs to Greece (18%). Second and third places belong to Portugal (6.3%) and Denmark (6%). What about Russia? 200-300 years ago there were many centenarians in Russia. Now there are few of them in our country and in terms of life expectancy we occupy one of the last places in Europe. If you look into history, you can find quite a lot interesting facts about the centenarians of our country. Captain Margeret, who hired himself to serve Tsar Boris, wrote with surprise in his book “The State of the Russian State” (1606): “Many Russians live to be 90-100 and 120 years old and only in old age are they familiar with diseases. With the exception of the king and the most important nobles, no one recognizes medicine. Feeling sick, a commoner usually drinks a good glass of vodka, pouring a charge of gunpowder into it, or mixing the drink with crushed garlic, and immediately goes to the bathhouse, where he sweats in extreme heat for two or three hours.”
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his memoirs talks about a meeting with a 160-year-old Cossack, which took place in the steppes of the Orenburg region. The Cossack perfectly remembered the uprising of Stepan Razin (1667-1671), in which he himself took an active part.
Even now in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra you can find the graves of people distinguished by unusual longevity: the silent monk Patermufius, who died at the age of 126, the grave of the monk Abraham, who lived for 115 years, and the famous Elizabethan and Catherine hero, 107-year-old V. R. Shcheglovsky , exiled to Siberia by Potemkin out of jealousy.
At the beginning of our century, when the 100th anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon near Moscow was celebrated, the Russian press wrote about eyewitnesses and participants in the events of 1812 who continued to live and thrive in 1912 - 108-year-old sergeant-major Ivan Zorin, 111-year-old Nadezhda Surina, 139-year-old Rodion Medvedev.
Much available evidence suggests that in those distant times the population of Russia, due to its genotype, natural conditions And healthy eating had the opportunity to live a healthy and long life, living to an unusually old age, and at the same time maintaining clarity of mind and peace of mind. And today's sad state of affairs is obviously the result of an absolutely unnatural, destructive way of life in an extremely aggressive artificially created habitat. In the photo - Li Qingyun, he has been here for more than 200 years.
Magazine: The Greatest No. 6(80), 2017
One hundred years is not the limit!
The science that studies the aging of living organisms, including humans, is called gerontology. It is gerontologists who are looking for the answer to the question of how long a person can live, and all of them are almost sure that the overwhelming number of people do not live out their allotted time. For example, the famous English gerontologist Justin Glass believes that “there is nothing unusual in the fact that you can live to be 180 years old.” How do you like this life expectancy? Does it seem fantastic and unreal? Meanwhile, it is scientifically based. According to the calculations of biologists, the lifespan of any organism can range from 7 to 14 periods of time during which it reaches maturity. A person reaches maturity at 20 years old: therefore, his life could last up to 140-280 years. But gerontologist Christopherson from London, without hesitation, raises the bar many times over: in his opinion, “a person can live 300, 400 and even 1000 years if his body is provided with all the substances necessary for it.”
As you can see, science does not forbid us to live to at least 140 years, and most of us dream of living to at least 90 years.
And at 80, and at 90 years old, and later, you can lead a completely full life. Among those who crossed the 80- and even 90-year mark and at this age remained a world leader in their profession, one can recall the names of Hippocrates, Plato, Titian, Edison, Verdi, Picasso, Voltaire, Goethe, Shaw, Chaplin and many others. These are clear examples for those who are planning not only to live longer, but also to complete their life. life path with a clear mind and on your feet.
It is extremely rare to die from old age
Let's take a break from the ideas of modern gerontologists for a while and delve into the past of our civilization. According to Old Testament, Methuselah died at the age of 969, this is so impressive that it even arose popular expression"Methuselah's age." The age of other biblical centenarians is also amazing: Adam (the ancestor of humanity) lived 930 years, Jared - 962, Cainan - 910, Seth - 912, Noah - 950, Enos - 905, Noah's grandson Arphaxad - 465 years. After the Flood, human life expectancy decreased significantly.
However, even then, the ancient Greeks (Pelasgians) believed that going to another world at 70 years old was tantamount to death in the cradle. According to the testimony of ancient Greek historians, the Pelasgians without special problems lived up to 200 years, while maintaining vital energy and gray hair. By the way, the famous medieval physician Paracelsus had no doubt that a person can live up to 600 years. The famous English naturalist Roger Bacon, touching on the problem of longevity, considered the normal life expectancy to be a thousand years. The 18th century scientists Albrecht von Haller and Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland allotted a person 200 years of life.
Nobel Prize winner in the field of physiology and medicine, the famous Russian physician Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov spoke with confidence about the natural duration of human life at 140-150 years. He had quite good reasons for this, which he cited in his “Studies of Optimism.” In them he wrote: “In 1902 in Paris, out of 1000 deaths between 70 and 74 years, only 85 people died of old age. Most of the old people died from contagious diseases: pneumonia and consumption, from heart disease, kidney disease or cerebral hemorrhage.” That is why Mechnikov considered death at the age of 70-80 not natural, but violent. It turns out that people die from real old age quite rarely; death occurs mainly from diseases.
This statement is supported by a very interesting case from English history. It is known that in 1635 London was visited by a simple peasant from the province, Thomas Parr, who was granted an audience with King Charles himself. What did he do to deserve such an honor? The fact is that Parr outlived nine kings and reached the age of 152 years. The king very cordially greeted the miracle long-liver and threw a luxurious feast in his honor, after which Parr suddenly died. The famous English doctor William Harvey, after an autopsy, explained his death as pneumonia.
However, there were persistent rumors that the real cause of the centenarian’s death was too much food at the king’s table. In my opinion, this was most likely the case. Parr ate rather modestly throughout his life, and suddenly there were so many temptations, servants pouring wine and adding snacks, and they fed the old man to death. In any case, Parr did not die of old age.
Are we tired of life?
If we do not remember the biblical centenarians, then the life expectancy of a person throughout the history of our civilization, although it remained insignificant, was constantly growing. Suffice it to remember that in the Stone Age a person lived on average only about 19 years, in 1900 average duration his life reached 45 years, and in 1970 - 70. People began to live longer thanks to medical advances in the fight against epidemics and diseases, the emergence of new drugs, hygiene, cleaning drinking water, the absence of global conflicts and the reduction of criminal manifestations.
However, according to a number of researchers, a further increase in life expectancy will be slower and will require considerable material costs. However, among gerontologists there are many optimists who believe that among us there are already people who will be able to celebrate their 150th anniversary, and in the next few decades it will become possible to live a thousand years. As the American physicist R. Feynman said: “If a person decided to build a perpetual motion machine, he would be faced with a ban in the form of a physical law. In contrast to this situation, in biology there is no law that would affirm the obligatory finitude of the life of each individual.”
In 2016, life expectancy in Russia exceeded 72 years; Of course, this is an undoubted achievement of our medicine, but we have room for improvement, because in Germany this figure is 81 years, and in Japan - 83.1. How long did our distant ancestors live? In the book “The State of the Russian State” (1606) by Captain Margeret, who entered the service of Tsar Boris, one can read the following: “Many Russians live to be 90-100 and 120 years old and only in old age are they familiar with diseases. With the exception of the king and the most important nobles, no one recognizes medicine. Feeling sick, a commoner usually drinks a good glass of vodka, pouring a charge of gunpowder into it or mixing the drink with crushed garlic, and immediately goes to the bathhouse, where he sweats in the extreme heat for two or three hours.”
Alas, now we can say with complete confidence the opposite: very few Russians live to be 90-100 years old, let alone 120 years old. What happened? Have you swapped the bathhouse for a bathtub and shower? Or is vodka different now? It is quite difficult to name the reason. Many gerontologists say that, despite the general trend towards increasing life expectancy, there are fewer record-breaking centenarians. Most likely, the deteriorating environment plays a role. Or maybe we ourselves don’t want to live too long? Once, popular journalist David Ewin conducted a survey among older people, finding out how many years they wanted to live - 80, 120, 150, or even become immortal. Surprisingly, most of them answered that 80 years was enough for them, they had come to terms with the inevitable end and often thought about death.
Why are people not determined to live 100, 120 or 150 years? What can we say, even if our pension system has the term “survival period”, and it is clearly not designed for us to live a hundred years or more. Much simply accustoms us to the idea that our life is finite and will end, most likely, somewhere in the period of 70-80 years. After retiring, people often lose their usual jobs, their daily routine changes, their income decreases, they feel increasingly unnecessary and often become depressed.
Children and grandchildren often add bitterness to their lives: unfortunately, not all elderly people are surrounded by the warm care of their loved ones, sometimes they get the impression that they are only disturbing everyone. It’s even worse if illnesses begin to overcome. Endless queues to see doctors, expensive medicines, free medicine, which for some reason miraculously turns out to be paid, all sorts of scams with “miracle cures” for all diseases - all this unsettles even strong-willed people.
Ultimately, people develop something like fatigue from life and they are mentally ready to raise their “paws” up and surrender to the old woman with the scythe. They find themselves in a better position creative people(writers, artists, performers, scientists, etc.), they can continue their activities, they still have a goal in life, so many of them often live to an old age.
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Each of us has at least once wondered how many years he can live. The greatest minds of our planet tried to find the answer to the question: is it possible to defeat death?
Some biologists believe that human life expectancy is ideal conditions is approximately 350 years. This is from 7 to 14 periods required to achieve maturity (this takes approximately 20-25 years). However maximum length The life that a person once achieved was only 122 years. This record belongs to the French woman Jeanne Calment, she died in 1997.
So what stops us from living so long? The first problem that greatly limits a person’s life is the lack of all the required substances. Until now, about a billion people on Earth do not even have access to clean water.
In addition, the cells of our body can divide a limited number of times, and therefore sooner or later new cells will stop appearing in the body, and old ones will still continue to die.
The third reason could be various fatal diseases. No matter how hard humanity tries to fight them, they will still be present in our lives. However, not everything is as bad as it seems, and there is no need to be discouraged when faced with the still unresolved problems of humanity. The main thing is not to risk the number of years that are allotted to us now. After all, if you follow some everyday rules of life - for example, don’t forget to look at the road before crossing and eat only healthy food - you can significantly increase your life expectancy compared to the average.
How long should a person really live? The average life expectancy of each of us is, as scientists say, “the average number of years lived by all individuals born at a given time in a given area.” Simply put, this is the probable life expectancy at the time of birth.
The population of the Earth is “aging”; people in general are becoming older and older. In 1950, there were only 200 million people over 60 years of age on the planet (7.7% of the world's inhabitants). After 25 years, their number had already reached 350 million (8.5%).
Now every day in the world 200 thousand people turn 60 years of age. In 40 years, the number of elderly people will be twice the number of children on the planet and could approach a billion!
So, a person has added years to his life, and millions of people are asking themselves legitimate questions: the days of our lives have increased, but how to live them, how to do so in order to add life to the years, so as not just to confirm the increase in life expectancy, but to be active and productive a person at 60, 70, 80 years old?
The Science of Aging
It would seem that old age is a condition that is known to everyone and does not require special explanation: the body ages and old age comes. And when does old age come? Gerontologists consider the average age of a person to be 45-59 years old, for the elderly - 60-74 years old, and only then does senile age begin - 75 and beyond. Those over 90 are long-livers.
Let's compare these data with the increase in life expectancy in the USSR after the establishment of Soviet power. Already by 1926-1927, as a result of the beginning of a radical restructuring of the socio-economic conditions of life and work, the implementation of important measures aimed at protecting health, and increasing the material and cultural level of the population, the average life expectancy in the Soviet Union reached 44 years, and by 1940 - 55 years.
How long can a person live
Currently, the average life expectancy is 70 years. And this, of course, is not the limit. It will continue to increase in the future. Evidence of this is the continuous increase in the number of elderly people in our country. Interestingly, most centenarians live in rural areas- approximately 2.5 times more than in cities.
How to live without aging?
Studying the biographies of centenarians directly shows that their entire lives from a young age to old age are connected with work, constant and systematic.
Man is closely connected with the conditions external environment in which he exists. A lot of different factors influence it.
This includes, for example, natural climatic factors, such as barometric pressure, air temperature and humidity, its composition, solar radiation, etc.
Thanks to adaptive mechanisms, a young and middle-aged person quickly reacts to changes, for example, pressure, temperature changes, etc., which practically does not cause subjective sensations in him.
Old age
At an older age, and especially in old age, the body’s ability to quickly and completely adapt is reduced and it becomes more difficult for it to adapt not only to short-term weather changes, but also to seasonal periods.
That's why some people feel, as they say, sometimes even a few days before the onset of bad weather. They experience discomfort in the joints, weakness, dizziness and headache. These sensations are especially pronounced when there is a disease of the cardiovascular system or respiratory system.
Such people should pay great attention to the upcoming change in weather, because the possibility of a sharp increase cannot be ruled out. blood pressure, disorders of the heart vessels and other manifestations of incomplete adaptation of the body.
In most cases, it is enough to take simple precautions: reduce physical exercise, give the body the opportunity to rest, take prophylactic medications previously prescribed by the doctor.
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