How Long Will I Live?

From time to time I think everyone wonders about their mortality – how much longer they have to live. I have currently lived for 2/3 of a century, and I’ve been married for 2/3 of my life. So how much longer should I expect to be around?

This question can be answered in many ways. You can look at average life expectancy in this country. You can look at the average number of years remaining for people who have reached your age (this eliminates the impact of those who die young for any reason). You can look at your genetics by noting how long your ancestors have lived. Or you can try to take into account all your life-style and health choices and issues. Here are the answers for all those variants:

1)      The average life span for a male in the US is 75.6 years.

2)      According to Social Security, the average life span for men who are my age is 84.7 years.

3)      My father died at age 85 and my mother at age 88, giving an average of 86.5 years. However, my father lived longer than his sister and my mother lived longer than any of her siblings (one is still living at age 85, so I will discount her). So the average age of my parents and their siblings is 83.3 years.

4)      My grandparents lived to an average age of 73.8. However, unlike my parents’ generation, they were all the youngest in their families when they passed on. So the average age of my grandparents and their siblings is 82.5 years.

5)      I used a fairly comprehensive calculator that took into account diet, life-style choices such as exercise, height and weight, and any family history of a variety of diseases (primarily cancers). It estimated my life expectancy as 85.6 years.

Taking all these into account, it seems that (2) through (5) are all pretty consistent. Our generation should live a bit longer than our ancestors, so it appears that both my genetics and my life-style choices put me as pretty average and I should live to something a bit more than my mid-80s. That means that I have 20 more years to live.

I also did the same calculations for my wife:

1)      The average life span for a female in the US is 80.8 years.

2)      According to Social Security, the average life span for women her age is 87.1 years.

3)      Her parents lived to an average of 82.5 years. And like my parents who were the longest surviving of their siblings, hers were ever more long-living with the average of her parents and their siblings being only 74.2 years.

4)      Her grandparents lived to an average age of only 66.8 years, but they all lived fewer years than their siblings, so the average age of that generation was 73.4 years.

5)      My wife is more active, and she has not put on any weight since we were married (she still fits into her wedding dress!). So calculations on her expected age put it at 92.2 years.

This answer is a little harder to calculate as the factors are so different. (2) indicates a few years more than I. (3) and (4) show that genetically her ancestors lived about nine fewer years than mine. But her life-style factors (5) indicate six+ years longer than I. Since she is a year older than I am, but may live a little bit longer, I guess I’ll estimate that we’ll grow old together, and that’s good enough for me.

Twenty more years together, honey! Love ya bunches!