Genetics and life expectancy
Despite modern medicine extending our life and modern environmental pollutants decreasing it, Farrady, 50, is convinced that our genetic history provides a very clear blueprint for life expectancy that nothing apart from a fatal accident can change and, that being the case, we all need to look at our genetic history when planning retirement and allocating resources.
“My mother died at 85 and my father at 79,” says Farrady, “and considering that I am a female, having gained an X from my mother and an X from my father, my likely age of death is going to be 82, very different from my brother who is an XY – but that’s just a very simplistic calculation.”
“You see, my father gained his only X from his mother, and because she died at 57 my future is not as rosy as it looks,” confides Farrady. “If I naively assumed that I’d last till 82, then I’d be setting aside a whole lot of money that I will never live to use, and wasting the little time I have left on frivolities.”
“Because my father’s father (my paternal GF), from whom he gained his Y, died at 47, I wondered why my dad lived to the ripe old age of 79 when on a simple calculation of X (value 57) and Y (value 47) he should have died at 52 – and then I had to delve deeper,” explains Farrady. “Apparently, my paternal GF’s X was faulty, leading to his early death at 47, and what saved my dad must have been a very strong Y that he inherited.”
“If we assign the highest death age of 100 to my paternal GF’s Y that my father inherited, then, combined with my paternal GM’s X of 57, my father’s life expectancy was 78-1/2 – which is very close to when he actually did die at 79!”
“So, if the Y my brother inherited from my father is worth 100, and the X he inherited from my mother is worth 85, then my brother’s life expectancy is going to be 92-1/2 and he needs to plan his retirement very differently to how I plan mine.”
“Having calculated that the X my father inherited from his mother is only worth 57, then that combined with 85 – the worth of the X I inherited from my mother – means that my life expectancy is actually going to be 71.”
“But, making things even more complicated for females, is that when the X from your mother and the X from your father join forces to make up your female genetic blueprint, a jumbling takes places which does not occur with males, who inherit a separate and distinct X from their mother and a separate and distinct Y from their father.”
“There is really no way of telling whether my mother’s healthy X won in the fight with the faulty X from my father,” sighs Farrady. “I’d like to think that Nature is smart, and ensured that healthy genes took precedence over faulty ones, but since I inherited my father’s coloring – dark hair, eyes and complexion – and his height, I am not altogether sure that my genetic blueprint contains any of my mother’s longevity X characteristics.”
“Maybe Nature designed me to be very attractive and fertile – which I have been – and I gained that at the expense of longevity,” muses Farrady. “Let’s face it, if the purpose of Nature is to pass on our genes – and women cannot do that after menopause – then there is no good reason for Nature to favor longevity genes in a woman.”
“In natural terms, then, my mother’s healthy X is a negative and my father’s faulty X is a positive.”
“I suppose I could hedge my bets and say that my life expectancy is likely to be somewhere between the maximum of 82 and the minimum of 71, say 76-1/2, and organize my life accordingly,” laughs Farrady. “Of course, this means that I have to take 71 as the baseline, and that’s not good news because I could very well make it to 82, meaning an extra 11 years that I need to keep paying the bills!”
“OK, it’s not an exact science, and some would say it’s magical thinking, if not ghoulish,” says Farrady, “but knowing that, right now, at 50 I may only have 21 years left to live – at best 32 – then I intend to do some big spending now, and leave just a basic allowance for the possibility that I may live to 82.”
“My mother died at 85 and my father at 79,” says Farrady, “and considering that I am a female, having gained an X from my mother and an X from my father, my likely age of death is going to be 82, very different from my brother who is an XY – but that’s just a very simplistic calculation.”
“You see, my father gained his only X from his mother, and because she died at 57 my future is not as rosy as it looks,” confides Farrady. “If I naively assumed that I’d last till 82, then I’d be setting aside a whole lot of money that I will never live to use, and wasting the little time I have left on frivolities.”
“Because my father’s father (my paternal GF), from whom he gained his Y, died at 47, I wondered why my dad lived to the ripe old age of 79 when on a simple calculation of X (value 57) and Y (value 47) he should have died at 52 – and then I had to delve deeper,” explains Farrady. “Apparently, my paternal GF’s X was faulty, leading to his early death at 47, and what saved my dad must have been a very strong Y that he inherited.”
“If we assign the highest death age of 100 to my paternal GF’s Y that my father inherited, then, combined with my paternal GM’s X of 57, my father’s life expectancy was 78-1/2 – which is very close to when he actually did die at 79!”
“So, if the Y my brother inherited from my father is worth 100, and the X he inherited from my mother is worth 85, then my brother’s life expectancy is going to be 92-1/2 and he needs to plan his retirement very differently to how I plan mine.”
“Having calculated that the X my father inherited from his mother is only worth 57, then that combined with 85 – the worth of the X I inherited from my mother – means that my life expectancy is actually going to be 71.”
“But, making things even more complicated for females, is that when the X from your mother and the X from your father join forces to make up your female genetic blueprint, a jumbling takes places which does not occur with males, who inherit a separate and distinct X from their mother and a separate and distinct Y from their father.”
“There is really no way of telling whether my mother’s healthy X won in the fight with the faulty X from my father,” sighs Farrady. “I’d like to think that Nature is smart, and ensured that healthy genes took precedence over faulty ones, but since I inherited my father’s coloring – dark hair, eyes and complexion – and his height, I am not altogether sure that my genetic blueprint contains any of my mother’s longevity X characteristics.”
“Maybe Nature designed me to be very attractive and fertile – which I have been – and I gained that at the expense of longevity,” muses Farrady. “Let’s face it, if the purpose of Nature is to pass on our genes – and women cannot do that after menopause – then there is no good reason for Nature to favor longevity genes in a woman.”
“In natural terms, then, my mother’s healthy X is a negative and my father’s faulty X is a positive.”
“I suppose I could hedge my bets and say that my life expectancy is likely to be somewhere between the maximum of 82 and the minimum of 71, say 76-1/2, and organize my life accordingly,” laughs Farrady. “Of course, this means that I have to take 71 as the baseline, and that’s not good news because I could very well make it to 82, meaning an extra 11 years that I need to keep paying the bills!”
“OK, it’s not an exact science, and some would say it’s magical thinking, if not ghoulish,” says Farrady, “but knowing that, right now, at 50 I may only have 21 years left to live – at best 32 – then I intend to do some big spending now, and leave just a basic allowance for the possibility that I may live to 82.”
Labels: genetics, life expectancy
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