25
votes
If human life is so long largely due to modern medicine, does every illness shorten lifespan?
Both. Human cells largely exhibit a phenomenon called senescence - they just give up and die after they reach a certain age via a biochemical mechanism called apoptosis. The outer limit of ...
- 732
12
votes
If human life is so long largely due to modern medicine, does every illness shorten lifespan?
The claim of modern medicine being responsible for longer lifespans is of course a statistical claim, i.e. the average/net effect. Thus your second assertion does not follow logically. Though it is an ...
- 492
9
votes
Has the (in)famous J-shaped curve with regard to alcohol consumption and life expectancy been finally disproven?
To date, there has been no randomized clinical trial of low‐volume alcohol consumption that has assessed any mortality outcome. Therefore, the literature about the mortality effects of alcohol ...
- 6,574
9
votes
Accepted
How does removal of the gallbladder affect life expectancy?
This is very good and pragmatic question. I will answer no.
First of all, there are no studies to date which would have investigated the life expectancy after cholecystectomy. Of course this ...
- 2,322
5
votes
When was congenital-analgesia (aka congenital insensitivity to pain), the inability to feel pain, clinically documented? How rare?
When was congenital-analgesia (aka congenital insensitivity to pain), the inability to feel pain, clinically documented?
It was first reported in 1932 in this paper:
Dearborn, G. V. N. (1932). A ...
- 690
5
votes
Has the (in)famous J-shaped curve with regard to alcohol consumption and life expectancy been finally disproven?
No. "The J-curve" was not recently disproven, but the evidence for it slightly
modified. The correlational observation is still that no and low amounts of drinking do not have seriously negative ...
- 6,747
3
votes
Are people expected to live over 100 now?
Predicting life expectancy of people currently alive, can, of course, only be speculation, but one based on statistics. If there is a nuclear war next year, the predicted life expectancy will not be ...
- 6,998
3
votes
Accepted
How does removal of the testicles affect life expectancy?
To answer this question properly is going to need a prospect double blinded controlled trial. That is not going to happen in a normal world.
You can try looking at historical data, like the one ...
- 13.2k
3
votes
Accepted
Does exercising lower your lifespan?
Persons who do regular physical exercise have a lower heart rate while they are resting (or not exercising):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22081187
Hence, their hearts will be beating same ...
- 1,760
2
votes
Accepted
What is the genetic vs non-genetic contribution to lifespan?
A few countries have large long-term databases and studies based on this data:
The heritability of human longevity: A population-based study of 2872 Danish twin pairs born 1870–1900
The Effect of ...
- 6,998
2
votes
By how much does former smoking reduce one's lifespan?
This has to be a speculative answer. Putting a Number on Smoking’s Toll?
Important is this:
People who quit between 25 and 34 years of age gained about 10 years of life compared to those who ...
- 6,747
1
vote
Calculate U.S. life expectancy for 2025?
You've asked how we might calculate (or rather, estimate) the life expectancy of people living in the US in 2025, and provided us with some data that could be relevant. It's understandable that you'd ...
- 11
1
vote
Accepted
What would life expectancy be today without medicine and surgery?
Your question is too big to be answered with a formal analysis. So here is a back of the envelope assessment:
[A] We are worse off today (vs. 1900) because of:
tobacco use
obesity
iPods (every ...
- 458
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