CENTER UPDATES
JULY 2018
LONGEVITY BRIEFING SUMMER EDITION
We hope you enjoy this latest edition of our Longevity Briefing newsletter. Look for the next briefing in your inbox in September.
How we are doing as a society after being gifted with an additional 30 plus years of life over the past century? Are we taking full advantage of this gift? Or are we missing the mark, reaching old age ill-prepared and in worse shape than preceding generations? In 2016, we published our first look at just this question by zooming out to paint a bird’s eye portrait of how well Americans are living in this newfound era of longevity. To do so, we focused on three domains of well-being known to be the building blocks of not just living longer, but living better: financial security, social engagement, and healthy living. In the current Sightlines Special Report on financial security, which will be made publicly available in September 2018, we examine both major challenges to ensuring financial security as people live longer, as well as special considerations that offer a more promising outlook with a special focus on buying a home, managing debt and saving money.
The consequences of poor financial capability at older ages are serious and include making mistakes with credit, spending retirement assets too quickly, and being defrauded by financial predators. Because older persons are at or past the peak of their wealth accumulation, they are often the targets of fraud. This project, a collaboration between the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Center on Longevity, analyzes a module we developed and fielded in the 2016 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using this dataset, we evaluate the incidence and risk factors for investment fraud, prize/lottery scams, and account misuse, using regression analysis.
LONGEVITY IN THE NEWS
July 18, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal

Are baby boomers anti-social? Members of the baby boom generation, especially those 55 to 64 years old, are less socially engaged than people the same age 20 years ago, according to researchers at the Stanford Center on Longevity. The big question is why, says Tamara Sims, a Stanford research scientist, who is collecting more data with her colleagues to figure out the answer. 

July 15, 2018 | Quartz

Older people in the US are getting divorced more than they ever have before, with the rate of divorce among those 50 or older roughly doubling in the past 30 years.
The unprecedented rise in so-called “gray divorces” presents a fascinating question about the state of marriage in the US. Is this just a blip caused by the Baby Boomer generation, a group of people that has married and divorced more than any other?

July 3, 2018 | Next Avenue

Both genders are just as likely to suffer from this perception of social isolation, but it often can be harder to find the way out of the chasm if you were discouraged from expressing any vulnerability growing up. And if alleviating loneliness relies on asking for help, men are likely at a disadvantage.

June 27, 2018 | The New York Times

It’s still diaper-changing and storybooks, so why does it feel so different from raising our own kids? Recognizing that our time is growing limited, we learn to savor our most important relationships, to turn toward positive experiences. 

RECOMMENDED
Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Typically we recommend articles or books we’ve read that we find particularly relevant or interesting to our work. In this case, it is a new, unflinching documentary about dying and death.  End Game is an honest exploration of the wide range of emotions and decisions that patients and their families face near the end of life.

Elisabetta Barbi, Francesco Lagona, Marco Marsili, James W. Vaupel, Kenneth W. Wachter
In recent years, the question of whether there is a physical limit to the length of human lives has stirred debate in the scientific community. Adding fuel to the discussion is a new study published in the June issue of Science. Using a large well-documented dataset, demographers at the University of California, Berkeley dispute the notion that there is an upper limit to human longevity.  Quoting lead researcher, Ken Wachter, “We’re seeing death rates, among extreme ages, go down a little bit, that means we’re not coming up against a limit to lifespan.” But other scientists aren’t so sure. Does this latest study show a mortality plateau – with a chance to live a little bit longer – or is the potential length of human lives limitless? 

Hayao Ozaki, Jeremy P. Loenneke, Robert S. Thiebaud, Takashi Abe
This study from the European Review of Physical Activity makes a strong case that resistance training (weightlifting) becomes even more important for people as they grow older. The centerpiece of the discussion is VO 2Max – the ability of the body to absorb oxygen and in the view of many physical activity researchers, one of the best measures of overall biological health.