S. Jay Olshansky Quotes - 9quotes.com

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We have grown accustomed to the wonders of clean water, indoor plumbing, laser surgery, genetic engineering, artificial joints, replacement body parts, and the much longer lives that accompany them. Yet we should remember that the vast majority of humans ever born died before the age of 10 from an infectious disease.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Older people may have always existed throughout history, but they were rare.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
We know in the field of aging that some people tend to senesce, or grow older, more rapidly than others, and some more slowly.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The fact is that nothing in gerontology even comes close to fulfilling the promise of dramatically extended lifespan, in spite of bold claims to the contrary that by now should sound familiar.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Physical immortality is seductive. The ancient Hindus sought it; the Greek physician Galen from the 2nd Century A.D. and the Arabic philosopher/physician Avicenna from the 11th Century A.D. believed in it.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
People pushing the idea that everyone can live to be 100 are perpetuating a myth that goes all the way back to the Bible.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
In Genesis 6:3, it says man can live to be 120, but there is no scientific basis for it.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The bodies we have are not made for extended use. We must cope with accumulated DNA damage, cell damage, muscle atrophy, bone loss, decreased muscle mass, and joints worn out from overuse during a lifetime of bipedal locomotion. It might have worked great for prehistoric humans, but it wreaks havoc on our knees and hips.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Find a way to get a full-body massage every day.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
In the developed world, we live 30 years longer, on average, than our ancestors born a century ago, but the price we pay for those added years is the rise of chronic diseases.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Growing new limbs, copying internal organs like a Xerox machine, exponential increases in computing power, better eyes and ears - I could read stories like this endlessly.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Lifespan extension has never really been a goal of aging science, nor should it.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The last thing you ever want to do is extend the period of frailty and disability and make people unhealthy for a longer time period. So lifespan extension in and of itself should not be the goal of medicine, nor should it be the goal of public health, nor should it be the goal of aging science.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The Faustian trade of the 20th century was, we got 30 years of additional life, but in return we got heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's and sensory impairments. The question is: What Faustian trade are we making now, as we go after heart disease, cancer, stroke and Alzheimer's?
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Our concepts of aging really should be blurring because there are plenty of people who make it to older ages who aren't really any different in many ways than people who are decades younger.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
If you can slow the biological process of aging, even a minor slowdown in the rate at which we age yields improvements in virtually every condition of frailty and disability and mortality that we see at later ages.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
We're not trying to make us live forever; we're not trying to even make us live significantly longer. What we're trying to do is extend the period of healthy life.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
In centenarians and supercentenarians - people over 110 - you see a higher level of fecundity much later in life.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Researchers have been looking for biomarkers of age for a long time and have failed. People sell tests out there to measure your biological age, and none of them work. There's no evidence that you can measure biological age with any reliability.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Just because someone looks old doesn't mean he or she is. The skin of some people who spend a lot of time outdoors seems to age very rapidly. Someone can look 80 or 90 and only be 40 to 50.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
You can open up a centenarian's brain, and you'll see some areas that look like that of a 50-year-old or of a 110-year-old. You can have variation in the basic process of aging, called senescence, in different parts of the same body.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The only control we have over the duration of our life is to shorten it, and we do that all the time.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Exercise is roughly equivalent to an oil lube and a filter for a car. You don't have to do it, but when you do, it makes the car run a lot better.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Once you avoid the things that accelerate aging like smoking, obesity, excessive alcohol consumption, and excessive sun exposure, you've done about as much as you can to influence your aging process.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The reason we have cancer and heart disease is the same reason you can't get rid of the wear and tear on your tires on your car: as soon as you use them, you are wearing them away. You can't make eternal tires, and it's the same with the human body.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
When you hit your 40s, you begin to take notice of the effects of aging because people that you know begin to die of heart attacks and tumors, so we take notice of the effects of aging.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
Reducing caloric intake is the only proven method of extending life. If caloric intake is reduced to 20 percent below maintenance, you can extend your lifespan considerably.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky
The field of ageing research is full of characters. We have hucksters claiming that cures for ageing can be bought and sold; prophetic seers, their hands extended for money, warning that immortality is nigh; and would-be Nobelists working methodically in laboratories in search of a pill to slow ageing.
Written by S. Jay Olshansky

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