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Old age comes 15 years before death
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Experts from the Institute of Applied International Studies have paid attention to modern pensioners. As it turned out, the appearance and physical fitness of today's elderly people are significantly better than fifty years ago.
The development of medicine, nutrition and lifestyle have had a positive effect on people.
Experts believe that a person should be considered elderly 15 years before his death. In some countries, the average life expectancy of the population reaches 90 years, and therefore old age should begin at about 75 years.
The head of the study, Sergei Shcherbov, noted that ideas about age are changing and will continue to change in the future as the quality and duration of life increases.
Two centuries ago, people in their sixties were considered ancient old men, but now such people can be considered mature rather than old. According to demographers, in the future, a person at 50 will look 30, and people will live for more than 90 years, while remaining active for as long as possible.
However, it is worth considering that life expectancy is different for each country, and also differs by gender.
For example, in Japan, women live on average 86 years, men 79 years, in France, women live 84 years and men 78 years, in Russia and Ukraine, men live on average 64-65 years, women 76 years. In Japan, old age for men begins at 61 years, and for women at 71 years, for Europeans, old age begins at 63 years for men, at 69 for women, in Russia and Ukraine - at 49 years for men, at 61 years for women.
In another study, researchers from the University of London said that people who feel younger than their actual age have a lower risk of death.
About 6 thousand people took part in the experiment, and scientists observed them for 8 years. During the study, 14% of those who felt younger than their age died, and among those who felt their age or older, 25%.
As a result, scientists concluded that optimism and a sense of youth create a kind of protection, thanks to which people live longer.
Other researchers have found a specific area in the human brain that helps prolong life. It has been proven that a specific program is embedded in the chromosomes, according to which the body begins to gradually wither and die, but the "control center" of this "program" is embedded in the brain.
Specialists from a medical college in the United States tried to determine how different tissues of the body begin to age, whether there is a certain push to this or everything happens spontaneously. And, as it turned out, there is a control center that regulates tissue growth processes, metabolic processes, and reproductive work of organs.
During experiments with rodents, scientists noticed the main sign of tissue aging – strong sensitivity to inflammation. The protein complex that signaled inflammation reached its maximum concentration in the hypothalamus and blocked the synthesis of the GnRH protein. Specialists assumed that aging is caused by a decrease in the GnRH level. Having conducted a series of experiments, they confirmed their assumption (rodents lived 20% longer as a result of the introduction of GnRH or a decrease in the level of the protein complex that signals inflammation).
Scientists are confident that in the same way it is possible to influence the human hypothalamus and prolong youth.
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