How Long Will You Live?

By kenyanentrepreneur Friday, July 27th, 2007

There’s an interesting article in the Economist Magazine (Just freeze me like an Egyptian Mummy) about where human beings inherit their lifespans. What scientists are now discovering is that children’s lifespans correlate in length to that of their parents, but only one parent — Their father’s.

Additionally, what they also found was that it is not just the father’s lifespan that correlates to that of his offspring. His actual lifespan also correlates to that of his offspring, but here too, there’s a genetic wrinkle. This actual lifespan only correlates to the actual lifespan of his daughters.

So, if your a woman and your curious about how long you’ll live…..look at your dad’s lifespan (assuming he died of “natural causes”)

If your a man, you still can get a rough idea of how long you’ll live by looking at your father’s lifespan as well, but it will not be as clear as it is for the daughters.

So, generally speaking, I can pretty much figure out when I’m going to crock. Let’s see:

My maternal grand-father died in his 60’s from prostate cancer.

My paternal grand-father died in his mid-70’s from kidney failure.

My father is still alive so I won’t count him.

So, let me do the math:

Maternal (65) + Paternal (77) = average lifespan of 71. That means that I need to make all my money before I hit 60 and that’ll give me a good 10 years to “ji-enjoy” before I get put under (assuming I die of natural causes).

Hmmmm…71 is not that old nowadays!!

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