Academic Reading Test 1
In the opposite camp, there are those who believe that postponing death is pusillanimous, a symptom of the degeneracy of our culture. We are all mortal. Shouldn't we learn to accept the fact, to stop worrying and start enjoying ourselves?
This view is worth heeding. In the US, fear of death has reached absurd proportions. Cyrogenics (freezing dead bodies in the hope that they will eventually be resuscitated) is a thriving industry. Self-appointed lifestyle gurus urge vigilance against every possible aspect of modern life. Others preach that death can be avoided altogether.
Such sillinesses can be found in Britain, too, where the strictures of some health and safety campaigners seem increasingly petty and oppressive, their warnings increasingly neurotic. Not surprisingly, many people react by rejecting the whole idea of 'healthy' living. They also reject the idea of living to avoid death: 'Who wants to be old anyway?' is a common response. Indeed, one recent survey found that one adult in four is afraid of old age, while three out of four are concerned about growing old.
Yet living longer - and living in a way that increases your chances of living longer - is still a sensible and worthwhile objective, for several reasons. Men and women today have a better chance than ever before of living into their eighties and nineties and beyond, however they live. That doesn't mean that you will live that long, but it would be foolish to assume that you won't. Fortunately, the lifestyle strategies which appear to increase your chances of living to be very old are also those which maximise your chances of remaining in good health until the very end of your life. If you hate the idea of ending up as a senile wreck, the best thing you can do is to try to live as long as possible. Quality of life does matter more than quantity: living for longevity helps you achieve both.
There is no evidence to show that if you live to be very old (that is, beyond 85) you will spend any more years being dependent than if you die younger. Some evidence supports the opposite. The Royal College of Physicians' recent report, 'Preventive Medicine', was quite explicit on this: "The longer that one can preserve health and prevent disability into old age the fewer years of ultimate dependency one can expect".
Despite everything one hears to the contrary, for most people the environment is immeasurably cleaner than it was, food is more nutritious and plentiful and life is less dangerous, while greater public awareness of health has led to a substantial recent decline in lethal habits like smoking. As a result, those who are now in their twenties, thirties or forties - or even in their fifties or sixties - can expect to live longer, and to reach old age in a better state, than those who are currently in their seventies, eighties and nineties.
Many people fear old age because of the threat of dementia, which currently afflicts one person in five over the age of 80. But fearing old age doesn't mean that you won't reach it; and such fear is almost certainly exaggerated.
There are millions for whom old age is a happy, independent, lucid and fulfilling experience. Eighty per cent of people who survive into their eighties don't suffer from dementia. In future, the proportion may well be higher. Moreover, up to 20 per cent of age-associated dementia is now thought to be attributable not to Alzheimer's but to potentially avoidable causes such as cerebrovascular damage or alcohol damage. Your best chance of avoiding these is to live for longevity: that is, to adopt the lifestyle strategies which maximise your chances of living to be 100.
Most people have a vague idea of what constitutes healthy living (though endless claims and counter-claims are confusing). Not many people realise to quite what an extent they can influence their own expectation of life.
The extent to which we can influence our futures is well illustrated by international comparisons in life tables. Birth-life expectancy in England and Wales - 72.7 years for men and 78.2 for women (for Scotland and Northern Ireland the figures are about 2.5 per cent worse) - compares well with the leading developed country, Japan: 75.54 for men, 81.30 for women. But much of the credit for this should go to our low child mortality rates. When you look at life expectancy for people aged, say, 50 and over, the picture changes dramatically. Britain slips back from the first division to the second. Were it not for our very good record on safety, our position would be even lower. Even now, a 65-year-old man in Mali has a greater expectation of further life than the average 65-year-old man in Britain. Other Third World countries that score better than Britain on this count include Belize, Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. In the EC, Britain is worst.
It is true that 65-year-olds in the Third World today would tend to represent an exceptionally heathy elite, whereas just about anyone can reach 65 in modern Britain. None the less, the figures suggest that there is enormous scope for improvement.
As a society, we are very good at doing the things that keep us alive in childhood, youth and early adulthood, but not at doing the things that keep us alive in middle age and old age. Medical opinion is divided over the extent to which it is reasonable to hope to remain active, healthy and alive into old age.
What is generally agreed, though, it that it is eminently reasonable to hope to avoid fatal disease in middle age, if you make the right lifestyle decisions. There will always be accidental deaths, of course, about which we just have to be philosophical. And there will always be premature deaths, even if the age at which death is considered premature keeps rising. But most of what are currently considered premature deaths, especially those resulting from disease, are avoidable.
The single most important thing you can do to increase your chances of living to be 100 is to avoid death in middle age: without that, you aren't even in the running: with it, anything is possible.
If you aren't yet convinced that you want to live longer, try turning the question at the beginning of this article the other way round. Why die younger?
(The Observer Magazine, April 1992)