Have We Gotten Longevity All Wrong?

The real longevity miracle might have already happened, and we just can't see it.

There has been a monumental success in the field of longevity.

This quantum leap forward has given us the keys to decades of additional life years.

At least over 50 years.

Most of which will be of high-quality life years.

It’s something very few people talk about, but it is arguably one of history's most outstanding human achievements.

But here’s the thing.

We already have it, and most of us, myself included, fail to appreciate it.

Let me explain.

The average life expectancy in Europe and the United States is 79 years of age¹.

The current global population is just over 8 billion people².

But let's ask an interesting question.

How many people have ever lived?

The answer is estimated at 117 billion people³.

This means about 6.8% of all the humans that have ever lived are alive today.

This is a huge percentage of the total amount of people that have ever lived, given that modern humans are thought to have emerged about 300,000 years ago.

For most of that time, the world’s population is estimated to have been relatively small.

This also means that by around the year 100 CE, about half of the humans that have ever lived were born by then.

But at that time, the world’s population was estimated to be only about 300 million⁴.

By 1900, approximately 90% of all humans that have ever lived had already been born.

At the same time, the world’s population was about 1.65 billion.

Why was the world's population so relatively low, given that 90% of all people ever born were born before 1900?

The answer is quite simple.

Most people did not survive beyond childhood.

Even by the mid-1700s in Europe, between 40 to 50% of children died before the age of 15⁵.

In Roman times, that figure was closer to 60%.

Most people just did not live that long, and the average life expectancy for the majority of human history was extremely short.

Some humans lived into their 70s and 80s, as we do today.

But most did not.

Most humans perished long before that⁶.

Extrapolating from the graph below, in Europe, 15,000 years ago, 50% of humans died before their teenage years.

While these statistics may not surprise you, they should illustrate one crucial point.

Most of the dicussion around longevity centres on extending lifespan another 10 to maybe 20 years.

Extending lifespan from 70 to 90.

We are nowhere near reliably extending lifespan beyond 100.

The focus is, rightly so, on maintaining a higher quality of life during these years with the goal of maintaining physical and cognitive function in the absence of a major chronic disease.

This is a worthwhile goal, but it overlooks the fact that we have already been given over 50 additional life years, most of which will be of higher quality.

We have been given the greatest longevity boon in human history over the last few hundred years.

The question is, are we making use of that time?

We often focus on how we will spend our marginal decade at the end of life but often lose sight of how we will spend the 50 years before that.

So, with the 50+ year life extension we have been given, how should we spend that time?

A study examining what makes us happy shines a light on this question.

Participants were asked at random intervals throughout the day what they were doing and what activities made them the most happy.

While life satisfaction may be related to the challenges we overcome, happiness is more related to the immediate sense of satisfaction with each moment of the day.

And as Annie Dillard famously wrote, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives”.

The activities that made people most unhappy included:

• Being sick in bed.

• Working or studying.

• Queuing.

• Doing admin, finances or organising.

No surprises there, but with the exception of being sick in bed, the others do represent a large percentage of our daily lives.

Remember, this is how we spend a large percentage of our magical additional 50 years.

But what made people the Happiest?

• Making love.

• Attending theatre, dance or concerts.

• Attending an exhibition, museum or library.

• Exercise.

• Gardening.

• Singing or performing.

• Socialising.

• Walking or hiking.

• Drinking alcohol.

• Hobbies or crafts.

None of the activities on the list should surprise you, but the question is, how much of our time are we allocating to them?

Of course, the activities listed here may not bring you the greatest happiness, but they should make you reflect on how you spend your time.

We Have Already Won The Longevity Lottery.

As humans, it is normal for us to always want more.

A longer life at a higher quality.

To be fit and cognitively able in our 90s.

But let’s be honest, reliably getting to your 50s is a very recent phenomenon.

For most of human history, being around to celebrate your 21st birthday was a major milestone.

We should continue our endeavour to apply the principles best suited to living longer and enjoying a higher quality of life.

However, we should remember that most of us reading this article have been given the gift of exceptional lifespans not afforded to most humans who have ever lived.

If you are reading this, you have likely won the longevity lottery.

The question is how you are going to spend that time.

Or will you spend more of it than you should on activities that make you unhappy during the time period most humans never had an opportunity to be alive for?

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1. UN WPP (2024); HMD (2024); Zijdeman et al. (2015); Riley (2005)

2. UN, World Population Prospects (2024).

3. https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earth/.

4. https://www.prb.org/articles/how-many-people-have-ever-lived-on-earth/

5. Max Roser (2023) - “Mortality in the past: every second child died” Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past' [Online Resource]

6. Rai, Priyamvada & Troen, Bruce. (2011). Cell and Molecular Aging. 10.1007/978-1-4419-6999-6_2.