Back to US Home. Frequently Asked Question
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Life Expectancy
1. What is Life Expectancy?
Life Expectancy is the statistically calculated way of determining the "probable" period of time that a person in a particular group of persons can expect to live. Statistically, the organization performing these calculations will evaluate a large group of people, such as residents of the United States of America, and evaluated the mortality or death rates by age and other factors like gender and tobacco use. From these mortality rates the future "probable" life expectancy can be calculated. <top>
2. Who does these calculations?
Actuaries for life, health and annuity companies use life expectancy to help determine the insurance premiums that you would pay. Some life expectancy studies are performed by individual companies large enough to have an extensive number of policyholders to statistically evaluate. Many other insurance studies are based on mortality studies from many different companies and the Insurance Industry as a whole.
The U. S. Federal Government has numerous agencies that do research in health care and other population demographics. Agencies such as: the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institute of Health (NIH), the agencies reporting the census each decade, the Armed Forces, the Internal Revenue Services, are some of the numerous government organizations that create and use the life expectancy statistics.
Many life expectancy studies are reported by the various medical professional organizations and the pharmaceutical industry as part of their continuing research and development of new products and services.
Universities also often contribute important life expectancy statistics as part of various research studies. <top>
3. Once the Life Expectancy is calculated is it always the same?
Life Expectancy is a unique and dynamic changing number. Each year that you live, you have survived a group of people who have died that year. Your life expectancy will only be reduced by a portion of the year you have used. An example is that of a healthy American male at age 55 who has a current life expectancy to age 76. That same healthy individual at age 65 will have about 15 more years and expect to live - to age 80.
There are actions that you can take that can improve the quality of your life, make it healthier, and increase your life expectancy - see #6 below "Can your life expectancy be improved?". <top>
4. What is a Personalized Life Expectancy Evaluation?
Most life expectancy calculations are intended to show the broad categories of life expectancy for a group of people and not to predict the life expectancy of an individual person. They are often established for a single purpose, such as: establishing insurance premiums, to sell the advantage of a new medicine or treatment, or even how long you are allowed to take an income tax deduction.
Many different factors affect an individual life expectancy, including: genetics, physical characteristics, acquired illnesses or diseases, psychological and emotional states, the "Will to Live", living environment, occupation, automobile driving skills, sex, race, national cultures, and other activities that may expose a person to a greater or lesser risk of dying prematurely (i.e. before the end of the "normal" life expectancy period). Our experienced professional Life Expectancy Analysts use the statistics from numerous sources, along with their experience in evaluating life expectancy and apply them to the information provided by interested persons to provide them with a Personalized Life Expectancy Evaluation and prediction of that person's future life expectancy. This unique and personalized Life Expectancy Evaluation can be created just for YOU. A Life Expectancy Evaluation Calculator by LifeX2000 is available with paid business submitted to Underwriting Solutions. <top>
5. So you find out what you personal life expectancy is, now what?
The knowledge of the expected time that you still have to live is only valuable if you use it in a positive way.
Often we wait until we have a major illness or a life threatening experience, or someone very close to us dies; before we look our own life and at the time we have left. Don't wait until you have a life crisis before you reach this point! Use the Life Expectancy Evaluation information to help you put your life back on the track you really want to live. The life you will be proud to say was yours at the end of your life. If you are reading this, then it is not too late to change. Today is the first day of the rest of your life!
What will you do with the rest of your life? What kind of quality of life do you want? Are you satisfied with what you have done with your life so far or are there things you still want to do? Do you still have time to do those things? Wasting time? That is OK, if that is what you really want to do, but if you are allowing time to slip away and you still have things to do - use the knowledge of your life expectancy as a wake up call to move into action.
Life is not guaranteed. Even if you have a life expectancy of an additional 45 years, you could die tomorrow in a car accident or 6 months from now from an undiagnosed cancer or 10 years in future by a terrorist attack of an organization that does not even exist at this time. The Life Expectancy Evaluation, however, gives you a reasonable expectation of your future and a basis to make plans for the future. Naturally, contingency planning for premature death can and should be part of your planning process.
Use your life expectancy in planning your future. Want to changing careers? How long will it take to make this transition? How much time do you have? It may not be too late to make those career changes.
Planning on retiring in the future? How long will you live after you retire? Will you have enough money to cover your whole life? Do you have a spouse or another important person in your life? Will they have the resources to live comfortably their whole life? Knowing the life expectancy of your spouse and yourself will help in planning how much money and resources you will need in the future.
Do you have a special person dependent on you and maybe unable to function totally independently without you? What planning have you done for them for that time when you are no longer here to take care of them? How long will they live? Will they have enough money and resources for their whole life? Will the people who take care of your special person outlive the special person or will there be other care takers in the future? Plan for the future of the special dependent person? Determine your life expectancy, the life expectancy of the special person, and the life expectancy of any anticipated future care takers. <top>
6. Can your life expectancy be improved?
Yes! No! Yes! No!
Yes - there are many things that have been well documented to improve life expectancy. It is well documented through studies that regular exercise; regular medical and dental checkups, which can catch illness and disease at an early stage; proper nutrition and maintaining a good height to weight ratio; not using tobacco products or illegal drugs; using proper restrain and/ or protection during sex; and even to using seat belts: will have longer life expectancies than those people who do not follow these favorable life styles. Public information regarding the specifics of some of these favorable lifestyle factors seems to change almost daily, such as what type of exercise and how often it should be done, or what foods are the best to eat. We will try to help sort some of this confusion out at LifeX2000. The favorable life style factors will be some of the considerations used in the Life Expectancy Evaluation. Life expectancy can be enhanced with a favorable life style.
No - we are our parent. When we are created, we become genetic replications of our parents and their parents and generations before them. There are both favorable characteristics, and propensities to developed certain illnesses and diseases, that we inherit. Some of these we can manage to avoid by practicing a favorable life style, while we may be doomed to the fate of some illnesses which we may develop regardless of our actions.
Yes - continuous and ongoing medical and alternative care research, nutritional studies, pharmaceutical developments, and other scientific research has significantly increased our life expectancies over the last century. In 1900 the life expectancy at birth was about 47. In 1935 when Social Security was developed the life expectancy at birth had improved to 62. Now it is approximately age 76 and appears to be continuing to improve.
No - there may be unknown or unforeseen developments medically, socially, politically and economically that could result in a major change in life expectancy. Recently discovered diseases, such as: AIDS, Hepatitis C and Ebola virus, are examples of diseases not recognized as recently as 1980 but which have caused the deaths of significant populations. In the past, syphilis, influenza, polio and the Black Plague, are examples of wide spread diseases killing large populations. The Bible even discusses numerous disasters that destroyed large populations, like Noah's flood or the destruction of Babylon. What will we find next? Will we bring back more disease in our exploration outside of our world? Will there ever be a global war or major conflict in the future? Or another nuclear facilities accident? Or a large scale economic depression? Any of these can cause the death of millions of people who would not have expected to die prematurely. The only certainty is that there will always be more challenges to the human race that will have an affect on our life expectancy. <top>
7. Life span versus life expectancy?
Life span reflects the maximum life that our bodies are set up to live. Generally, this is approximately 100 years. True, there are a number of people who live beyond 100, however, this is not a statistically significant number at this time. The numbers of people in this category are increasing. However, as a percentage of the increasing population, it has not been significantly different from the past. Also, often the accuracy of some of those reported as living significantly longer than 100, especially those in foreign rural areas, is questionable because of the lack of accurate birth records.
Life expectancy is, on the other hand, the "probable" time the an individual can expect to live. Over the last century the life expectancy of much of the world has improved, however, the life span has not. It would appear that we could continue to increase the life expectancy toward the life span but can never exceed the life span.
The work for the next century and the next millennium will include ways to increase the life span - maybe with the development of replacement parts for the body through genetic cloning; continue to increase our life expectancy through scientific research and development; increase the life expectancy in other areas of the world that still have life expectancy approximately the same as America had in 1900;and to make certain that as we live longer we can still maintain a good quality of life. If we are to continue to increase life span and life expectancy, we must be aware of the limited resources that are available on our planet to feed, clothe, warm, house and maintain quality lives for our increasing population. Do we control population growth? Manage our limited resources better? Or just leave the problem for future generations to deal with? How we answer these questions will eventually affect our generation and all future generations life expectancy and quality of life. Tough questions that will have to be answered some time!
Your comments on any of these subjects are appreciated. <top>