Comment by exasperaited | Hacker News Reader

Comment by exasperaited | Hacker News Reader

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For a woman of 80 in 2025 you can already say it is making no real difference in terms of statistical outcome so it's at least not obviously taking from her.

She is a little older than her cohort life expectancy at birth (which was 78 in the USA in 1945):

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2011/lr5a4.html

Assessed in 2010 at the age of 65 she might be expected to live to 85. That seems quite likely.

If anything you would have to say it leans towards extending her life because she will not be eating less like elderly people do, she is likely to have excellent venous health, her reaction times must be good, and prosaically she's so physically fit that just that much more likely not to be derailed by a fall. Living at her age starts to be a question of intent but there are loads of really small things that can trigger decline; she is robust against many of them.

What a remarkable woman.

Life expectancy at birth is different from life expectancy at given age. Each year you manage to survive after birth increases your current life expectancy, because you already managed to avoid all causes of death up to that point.

Yes, I amended my comment but it's still pretty solid. Her average life expectancy assessed at age 65 would have been 85.

(And assessing the average woman of her age now is not likely to change it that much; AFAIK life expectancy in the USA is actually falling slightly across all age groups)

> And assessing the average woman of her age now is not likely to change it that much

The issue is, she's not an average woman, at least in terms of physical fitness.

She's a hell of an anecdatum but she's still an anecdatum.

Assuming no lying or cheating, the plural of anecdote is existence proofs.

Yes but she is singular.

Obviously there is some training here and kudos to the lady, but no doubt her genetical baggage is giving her some advantage here. She's got older not because she's training, she's able to train and perform at this level in spite of being older.

It's entirely possible training has extended her life already.

Boring example but an obese woman with type II diabetes her age might already have had one life-threatening fall, may already have other severe health challenges.

Whereas a woman her age with such good vascular health could be delaying the onset of significant vascular dementia by up to a decade, let alone all the other things.

Still, the point I was making is that it is not shortening her life; it's either having no statistical difference or extending it.

no difference for the young

yet all the difference for people her age

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