Posted on 07/19/2009 5:59:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON — It's starting to get crowded in the 100-year-olds' club.
Once virtually nonexistent, the world's population of centenarians is projected to reach nearly 6 million by midcentury. That's pushing the median age toward 50 in many developed nations and challenging views of what it means to be old and middle-age.
The number of centenarians already has jumped from an estimated few thousand in 1950 to more than 340,000 worldwide today, with the highest concentrations in the U.S. and Japan, according to the latest Census Bureau figures. Their numbers are projected to grow at more than 20 times the rates of the total population by 2050, making them the fastest growing age segment.
Demographers attribute booming long-livers to decades of medical advances and improved diets, which have reduced heart disease and stroke. Genetics and lifestyle also play a factor. So, too, do doctors who are more willing to aggressively treat the health problems of people once considered too old for such care.
"My parents are 86 and 87 and they're going strong, with my dad driving all over the place, so I've already told my financial planners that I'm going to live to at least 96," said Susan Ryckman, 61, as she walked around New York City, an iPod and iPhone in hand.
"As long as I'm not mentally and physically infirm, I'd like to live as long as I can," she said.
Japan, known for its low-fat staple of fish and rice, will have the most centenarians in 2050 — 627,000, or nearly 1 percent of its total population, according to census estimates.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
How about the good old US of A? We're not doing badly. In the U.S., centenarians are expected to increase from 75,000 to more than 600,000 by mid-century.
Will Obamacare be good to them ?
I’m sure 0bamacare will make it a priority to kill them off to save money.
Obamacare could put a dent in this population.
They will be euthanized and their estates looted to buy more votes from illegal aliens.
Only if they got time to stand in queue...
The Socialist morons we now have running Washington believe that “End-of-life” care is what is bankrupting thier hopes for a Free Healthcare system.
The old must be sacrificed for the greater good.
Ask your older fiends: “WILL YOU DIE FOR THE ONE?”
Yup.
And just think with they baby boomers they’ll all be drawing
social security, at least as long as it lasts.
I retired early and am damn glad I did.
If I should be fortunate enough to achieve that age, I will be sniping every day.
For several decades now, we’ve been told that everything under the sun is killing us off in droves and the only solution is more health and environmental laws, but folks are living longer than ever. These same folks managed to live thru all those years with no environmental regulations.
He supports it already, the murder of innocent babies by sucking their brains, out so the next step for a Godless phony is such an easy step.
Obama will be there by then, won’t he?
I sorta figured something like this was going on when I happened to notice a standard, commercial 100th birthday card in the Hallmark rack at the drugstore. If there was enough of a market that a card like that could be stocked and sold as just another greeting card in an ordinary Walgreens instead of a rare specialty item at a boutique card shop... well, there must be quite a few old-timers out there.
I remember reading a while back a rather optimistic article about the prospects of curing cancer (maybe not soon, but there were several avenues that looked promising in decades to come). A few paragraphs in, the writer made the point that if it paid off, the real need about mid-century would be for a cure/treatment/preventative for Alzheimers, because the assisted care system would be catastrophically overloaded by extremely elderly people who had lived long enough to be affected when otherwise they would have died before it became an issue.
Soon the centenarians will be rioting in the streets. Beware!
Ditto!
Interestingly enough, there are presently only 77 people who are 110 years old or greater.
6 million to 77 in 10 years.
“Interestingly enough, there are presently only 77 people who are 110 years old or greater. 6 million to 77 in 10 years.”
It does stand to reason that the life expectancy of someone 100 or more can’t be any too high...
I used to get a weekly German newspaper (published in the US) that often ran human interest stories about whoever was the current oldest living German woman or man. Like the woman who was 110 and living in an assisted care home but still had all her marbles... There was a funny story about the new receptionist at the home who was astonished when a woman in her 80s came in one day and announced she was there to visit her mother. The grand old lady said that she was ready to go any time the Lord called her, but if the Lord was busy with other things at the moment and couldn’t get to her just yet, she wouldn’t mind waiting either.
The depressing thing about all this was that these articles kept appearing with some frequency, as if there were some kind of jinx. If an article about one man who was the oldest living German appeared, it would only be a matter of months before another article appeared about someone else who now had the honor.
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