shouldn’t we have extended the life expectancy to at least 90-100 years with all the advancements we have in medicine now?
In: Biology
The human body is quite resilient and have a capacity to become quite old, even without modern medicine. But! It has some weaknesses.
One weakness is being born. Being born and being a newborn is very dangerous. In the olden days, people didn’t know how to treat and handle many things that happened to infants, and many infants died. Many motherd died too, because pregnancy and especially giving birth is dangerous.
Another weakness is infections. Humans have an amazing immune system, but the “enemy” (the infections) is also amazing. So many people die to infections.
MOST of the extension in average lifespan comes down to modern medicine being better att treating and supporting infants, and having antibiotics and vaccines. ALL the other stuff medicine does is doing surprisingly little for overall life expectancy.
Antibiotics came in the 1920s. Unless there is a medical breakthrough of similar magnitude, such as a universal cure for cancer (as was thought possible in the 1990s), life expectancy will probably stay around here for the time being.
And this is of course enormously complicated, but this is ELI5.
Latest Answers