Article from: Pension Section News

May 2014 – Issue 83

LIVING TO 100 SYMPOSIUM: IS IT TIME FOR A NEW NAME? By Evan Inglis

n January 2014, the SOA sponsored the While this simple projection technique re- fifth triennial Living to 100 Sympo- sults in some startling life expectancies for I sium in Orlando. For me, the conference the future, Dr. Vaupel points out that experts seemed dominated by the general sense that in the past have continually forecast that we all might be living longer than expected mortality improvement would slow or end and that our descendants could be living A and have always been proven wrong to date. LOT longer. Consider this: Jay Olshansky, Ph.D. – Olshansky is one of Evan Inglis, FSA, FCA, • the aging process itself has been slowed the most prominent researchers in the area MAAA, is principal at The significantly in the laboratory for cer- of longevity and he seems to have become Terry Group in Vienna, Va. tain animals more optimistic about the potential for in- He can be reached at evan. creasing human longevity. He speaks pas- [email protected]. • 3D printers are printing out live, use- sionately about the “longevity dividend” able human tissue which would be the enormous social and economic benefits that potentially would re- • the causes of aging at the molecular lev- sult from slowing down the aging process. el are beginning to be understood Olshansky has, in the past, been outspoken Well-reasoned speculation about very long about the idea that increasing was life expectancies (with good health!) was reducing the rate of mortality improvement. commonplace at the symposium. “Living to This was primarily a U.S. phenomenon and 150” might end up being a better name for mortality improvement in the future symposiums. has been accelerating again. THOUGHTS FROM KEY EXPERTS Olshansky may still believe that obesity will A useful way to capture some of the signif- have an effect, but at the conference, and in icant thinking at the symposium is to sum- recent writings, he seems more focused on marize the ideas of some of the key experts the idea that we can combat aging directly. who were present at the conference. Three He is adamant that we should be looking for key names that are useful to know about are: ways to slow the aging process rather than , Ph.D. – Vaupel shows that spending lots of money and resources on the trajectory of improvement in life expec- attacking the diseases of aging. He believes tancy at birth has been remarkably linear, on that there is evidence that aging can be the exact same slope, for over 170 years. He slowed and he seems optimistic that at some presents the implications of assuming that point in the future that we will make discov- that same level of improvement will contin- eries in that area. However, he is not nearly ue into the future. For example, the majority as optimistic as Aubrey de Grey in how fast of children born today would live to be 100 those discoveries will happen or how much if continues to improve at impact they will have. the same rate. Aubrey de Grey – Similar to Olshansky, de Vaupel uses a projection based on identify- Grey is focused on the potential to attack ag- ing the country with the longest life expec- ing directly, rather than attack the diseases tancy at any point in time ( currently). of aging (such as heart disease, cancer and Countries veer off the trend line and then Alzheimer’s disease). He argues vehemently veer back. The United States has veered off for funding research to attack aging, rather of the trend line in recent decades as im- than the diseases and is head of a research provement in life expectancy has decelerat- foundation with that objective. He has an ed, but it appears to be accelerating again. enthusiastic cult-like following based on

48 | PENSION SECTION NEWS | MAY 2014 AS NEW MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES ARE DISCOVERED, LIFE EXPECTANCIES MIGHT GRADUALLY BE EXTENDED SO THAT “LIVING TO 150” COULD END UP BEING A BETTER NAME FOR FUTURE SYMPOSIUMS.

THE big question is whether longevity can be increased only because our lifetimes can be extended closer and closer to some maximum human lifetime, e.g., 120; or whether that maximum human lifetime can somehow be extended. The prevailing per- spective is that there is a maximum human lifetime that has not yet been extended, but may be in the future. his TED talk (I got my picture taken with de Grey to impress my college-age son Tom “” is an important concept. It is who is fascinated by his ideas). a term used for biological aging—the grad- ual damage to the body’s molecular struc- de Grey is the source of the highly specu- ture and cells that ultimately result in , lative notion that the first person to live to regardless of illness. The process of senes- 1000 may already have been born. de Grey cence is not well understood at this time. bases this notion on what he calls longevity “escape velocity.” Consider someone who is The idea that life expectancy has been im- age 30 today, with a life expectancy to 75. proving extremely consistently along a lin- As new medical technologies are discov- ear trend line for a very long time was ex- ered, life expectancies might gradually be pressed by others, in addition to Dr. Vaupel. extended such that by the time this person A continuation of life expectancy extension reached age 60, their life expectancy might along this trend line implies rates of mortal- have extended to age 100. Then, by the time ity improvement at older ages of about 2.5 the person reaches age 90 additional new percent. Scale BB improvement STARTS techniques might have further extended life- at about this level and trends down all the times such that this person might expect to way to 1.0 percent, so there are experts that live to 125. As lifetimes are extended and would consider Scale BB to be an aggres- more and more medical technologies are sively low rate of anticipated improvement developed, the expected time of death can in mortality rates. be continually pushed out. If the rate of dis- There is some evidence that mortality rates covery were fast enough (escape velocity), decelerate at higher ages, but also disagree- aging would no longer be a factor causing ment about this. Deceleration would mean, death and people could live until accidents for example that the difference between the or other unnatural factors resulted in death. rate of mortality at age 106 and the rate of OTHER INTERESTING IDEAS mortality at age 105 is less than the differ- Other interesting ideas and concepts sur- ence in the age 105 rate and the age 104 faced in various sessions: rate. That would be contrary to Gompertz’ law that mortality rates increase exponen-

MAY 2014 | PENSION SECTION NEWS | 49 tially with age, after the reproductive phase. are startling. All of those types of tissue are being created and are being used to replace Improvements in life expectancy in the early injured or defective body parts. Organs like to mid-1900’s was mainly at younger ages, hearts, kidneys and livers are being grown whereas improvements in life expectancy in outside of the body, but are not yet useable recent decades has been (and will be going as transplants. forward) at older ages. CONCLUDING REMARKS Advances in genetic research mean that There are plenty of sessions at Living to more effective disease interventions can be 100 about the impact of changes in lon- designed by personalizing therapies to in- gevity on our actuarial work. The poten- dividuals based on their genetic makeup or tial consequences on the ultimate cost of the particular genetic cause of the disease the programs we work with are very sig- (which may be different from individual to nificant. It behooves every one of us that individual). works with pension, annuity and other programs to know something about The advances in regenerative medicine what is going on with medical and aging where skin, muscles, blood vessels and oth- research. In addition to adding a valuable er tissue are “grown” from samples of the aspect to your professional knowledge it same type cells or from stem cells (which is a fascinating area rife with interesting can recreate any type of organ or tissue) tidbits to amaze your friends and family.

Later this year a monograph of all of the pre- sented papers will be available at the 2014 International Living to 100 Symposium website.

50 | PENSION SECTION NEWS | MAY 2014