senior-spectrum.com

How Do the Oldest Old Fit Into New Theory of Aging?

Around 400 years ago, around Willie Shakespeare’s time, life was short — around 50 years, with luck. A full life, by Shakespeare’s reckoning, was adjudged to consist of seven stages, the seventh and last of which was seen as inexorably beset with “childishness and mere oblivion — sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

With the rolling on of the years, by the 1800s, with much greater life expectancies, French author Victor Hugo was able to observe, “Forty is the old age of youth, fifty the youth of old age.”
Now, another 200 years later, with average life expectancies still lengthening — the average length of life is now 80 years — science is engaged in intensive research to further extend the average life span.

The ancient search for the mythical Fountain of Youth is still an ongoing project, only now the search is led by the scientific field of aging genetics rather than by the Spanish conquistadors of yore. And the scientists have their aim on genes — believing there lies the answer to longevity.

From a scientific evolutionary view, it has been held that the only criterion for evolutionary success is the reproduction of the species. Animals generally die soon after reproduction, because extra life would not seem to lead to more surviving offspring. Yet some species, like humankind, escape such early death for a while because the adults, through post-reproductive care, help the offspring to survive. Such survival activity is identified as the grandmother effect.

At the present, a new formulation is stirring the ranks of science. The New York Times reports: “Biologists and demographers are greeting with considerable enthusiasm a new theory of aging. The new theory was proposed by Dr. Ronald Lee, a demographer at the University of California at Berkeley.”

Lee’s theory gives much greater weight to the nurturing grandmother effect, claiming that this effect is operative throughout the entire life cycle. One starts life as a receiver of help, but with age gradually becomes a giver of help — a so-called transfer effect that goes with parenting.

Human kind is seen as a social species, one that strives for an optimum balance between how may children to have and how much to invest in their upbringing. This means that the rate of aging is controlled entirely by this parenting transfer effect. That theory, it is then obvious, allows for a much greater possible extension of the life span.

However, there is an observation that should be made at this point. According to Shakespeare, life can be measured through seven stages. According to Dr. Lee, life can be measure through two, maybe three stages: childhood (receiver of aid through parents), parenthood (giver of aid to offspring) and grandparenthood (continuing giver of aid to children and grandchildren). I would add a fourth stage: old old — the receiver of aid from one’s offspring and social aid from society.

It is the fourth stage that enters the picture with the extension of the life span. A reversal of roles should take place here. The old old usually need help from their children and from society.

This role reversal already is roiling society, and unfortunately it promises only to intensify with time.

Ted Ruhig is well-known in Sacramento for his tireless advocacy for proposals designed to help seniors live long, happy, full lives. He has held leadership roles in several advocacy groups and on government advisory boards. Ruhig once sued the California Department of Aging for age discrimination, and won!

Senior Thoughts Stan's Sacramento

Affairs of State Humor 55-Plus

HOME

This page and its contents ©2003 Metropolitan News Company, Inc.