Personal Finance Essentials
Longevity Planning
90% of Everyone Who Has Ever Lived to 90 Is Alive Right Now
Will Your Money Last as Long as You Do?
Scientists who study aging project that if you’re alive in 2030, you’re likely to live to age 100 or beyond. This isn’t science fiction – it’s the result of breakthrough medical technologies already transforming healthcare. In fact, 90% of everyone who ever lived to age 90 is alive right now. Such longevity is unprecedented in human history.
It’s not just because we have access to clean water, antibiotics, anesthesia and vaccines. Those innovations help explain how we eliminated what were the leading causes of death a century ago (dysentery, cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis and scarlet fever), which enabled us to lift life expectancies from age 47 in 1900 to age 85 today.
Unprecedented longevity is thanks to an array of continuing advances in medical innovation. They are expected to eradicate today’s leading causes of death (cancer, heart disease, respiratory illness, diabetes, obesity, addictions and Alzheimer’s) by 2040 – enabling tens of millions of people to live to age 100 and beyond. The innovations supporting these predictions include:
- Sequencing the Human Genome. This enables earlier disease detection, as well as personalized prevention and treatment strategies – with can not only increase lifespan but health span. When scientists first sequenced our genome in 1990, the effort took 13 years at a cost of nearly $3 billion. Today, the process takes two weeks and costs a mere $200, and by the decade’s end it will be a free smartphone app that produces near-instant results.
- CRISPR Technology. Named the medical Breakthrough of the Year in 2015, it allows scientists to add missing genes to DNA or remove bad ones as easily as you cut and paste in a Word document. The technology was recently used to cure a baby of a fatal disease – in utero.
- Focused Ultrasound. Considered “the best-kept secret” in medicine, this technology disrupts tumor cells without surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. It’s FDA-approved for dozens of treatments with hundreds more in clinical trials.
- The Human Cell Atlas. This is identifying and mapping our body’s 37 trillion cells, which will lead to targeted treatments for each cell type. Scientists have already identified 3,000 different cell types in the brain alone.
This is why you must plan on living to age 100 and beyond. This notion raises an important question: will your money last as long as you do?
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