A new poll from USA Today/ABC News reveals that most respondents believe age 87 is about the right life span. More than two-thirds in the survey worry about losing their health, losing the ability care for themselves and losing their mental capabilities as they get older. But more of us are leading longer, healthier lives than ever before in history.

In 1900, average life expectancy was 47. Today it is about 75 and the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 71,000 Americans are 100 years or older. In just five years, the Bureau projects, 114,000 Americans will reach their centenary and by 2020, 241,000 of us will be 100 or older.

As fearful as most people are of decline in health as they get older, aging does not always translate into disease and debility. Many centenarians are living active, healthful lives. Some are capable of driving safely, caring for themselves at home and working full- or part-time.

Much of our increased longevity and health in old age is due to antibiotics and advances in treating the diseases and conditions of aging, but why some people age well and others don’t is still a mystery, and is the topic of a great deal of scientific study. Some researchers are working on genetics. Others are looking into human growth hormone and there is a fringe element that believes drastic reduction in calorie intake – down to near-starvation level – can increase life span by a third or more.

More stable scientists disagree. Leonard Haylick, a researcher on aging at the University of California, San Francisco says

“…there is a limit to the rise in life expectancy. Humans, he says, simply aren’t built to live for 150 or 200 years. ‘Our body parts, like the parts in an automobile engine, can’t work forever.’”

- Yahoo News, 24 October 2005

“Anti-aging” is a huge topic on the internet. Google that phrase and you’ll get two-and-a-half million returns most of which are touting expensive creams, potions and pills promising to extend your life by decades or, at minimum, keep you looking age 20 until you’re 100. Better to save your money and heed these men:

“Nothing discovered yet has been shown to stop or slow down aging,” says Robert Butler, president of the International Longevity Center-USA.

“’There’s nothing you can take now that will make you live longer,’ says David Finkelstein at the National Institute on Aging’s Biology of Aging program.”

- Yahoo News, 24 October 2005

As the USA Today/ABC News poll shows, most people are more concerned with health than living forever.

“Younger people fear old age because of a misconception that getting older means a rapid decline in health,” says researcher JaeMi Pennington of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University.

“'That’s not necessarily so', he says. ‘More people today are living longer and healthier lives, and we can attribute that to advances in medical science and better nutrition.’”

- USA Today, 23 October 2005

Dr. Andrew Weil knows a lot about nutrition. I’d have more respect for him if he didn’t spend so much time touting his own brand of expensive supplements, but his general advice is good and you can find detailed information on health in aging at his and other medical websites. And if you believe you need extra vitamins and other supplements, you can find them more cheaply at your local drug and nutrition stores.

Whether we live to the current average life expectancy of 75 or the survey respondents’ ideal of 87 or reach 100 or more, we can control, to a degree, our health for whatever number of years we have left, and we’ve known how to do that since we were children - because our mothers knew what they were talking about:

• Get plenty of exercise
• Eat your vegetables
• Get enough rest
• Don’t smoke
• Avoid excess alcohol

[Hat tip to Chancy for this story.]