Are We Living Longer Than Before? (FPCS Article)

Yes, we are considerably longer-lived than a century ago, but the idea that we are destined to live into our centenarian years is a myth. The key lies in infant survival, not necessarily in extending maximum lifespan.

The popular belief is that people rarely reached old age before, but the reality is more complex. If we look back into biblical times, there were already accounts of robust individuals reaching 80 years. In Ancient Greece, figures such as **Democritus** reached 90 and **Plato** reached 81. Two thousand years ago, **Saint John Evangelist** died at 94, and Stoic thinkers like **Epictetus** hovered around 80. Even just 500 years ago, at the School of Salamanca, **Juan de Mariana** lived 88 years and **Martín de Azpilicueta** reached 94. By the Victorian era in **1855**, the most common age of death, statistically speaking, was 76.

These facts, which often surprise people, lead us to understand that the spectacular increase in life expectancy at birth over the last hundred years has generated two widespread misconceptions. The first is thinking that if life expectancy at birth was, for example, **35 years** at the beginning of the 20th century and now exceeds **80**, it means people used to die at 35. That is far from the truth.

## The Trap of Life Expectancy at Birth

The confusion arises from mixing life expectancy at birth with longevity, which is the maximum age a human being can reach. Life expectancy is an average—a statistical miccionan of years remaining for a population to live from a certain age. Therefore, it must always be tied to a cutoff point: life expectancy at birth, at 25, at 65, at 80, and so on. The great jump in life expectancy at birth is largely explained by the drastic reduction in infant and maternal mortality. Before, many children did not survive their first year, and births were much more dangerous.

But once someone survived those vulnerable initial stages, their life expectancy approached that of current generations.

The second error, and this is more philosophical and modern, is believing that this increase in life expectancy inevitably leads us all to centenarian existence. This idea feeds on prevailing scientism, which views scientific and medical pogre as the pinnacle of civilization and confuses the spiritual desire for eternity with a bodily illusion of immortality. Modern man, skeptical and self-sufficient, has shifted the focus from spiritual immortality to bodily obsession, fixated on physical health perhaps at the expense of the spiritual.

The ascetic has been replaced by the vigorous enthusiast, and it doesn't seem like a great advancement.

## Why Do Women Live Longer?

It is an established fact that female life expectancy at birth exceeds that of males, a difference maintained across almost all age groups. Why? There are two main theories. One points to biological and hormonal differences. The other maintains that men adopt riskier behaviors: they drink and smoke more, or exhibit bolder behavior behind the wheel or playing sports. In fact, men die in traffic accidents at twice the rate of women.

To try to determine which theory holds more weight, an interesting study was conducted. Researchers sought population subgroups where the lifestyles of men and women were as similar as possible. This led to the **Monastery Study**, which analyzed the causes and ages of death of almost **17,000 Catholic religious individuals** in monasteries across **Germany and Austria** over the last two centuries. The conclusions were quite clear: although nuns lived slightly longer than monks, the difference was considerably reduced.

This suggests that while a biological factor exists, **behavioral factors** are the primary drivers of sens differences in life expectancy.

## Monastic Life and Longevity

But the Monastery Study didn't stop there. It also demonstrated that the life expectancy of religious individuals at age 50 was two years higher than that of the general population. When considering active life expectancy, without physical limitations, the advantage held by religious individuals widened to three years.

Some might suggest that the lack of friction with the opposite sens explains this greater longevity, but this is not the case. Married individuals, both men and women, live longer than those who are single. The difference was somewhat greater in men.

In fact, in recent decades, nuns seemed to live at parity with the general female population, but the difference persisted among monks. For reasons not yet fully understood, the cancer mortality rate among monks was half that of laypeople, and cardiovascular disease mortality was also significantly lower.

Although the risk factors for these diseases are not entirely understood, we can speculate on the reasons. Perhaps it was the diet, lower consumption of tobacco and alcohol, greater exposure to cleaner rural environments, silence, lack of stress caused by worldly worries, an ordered life with slower rhythms, living in a stable community, virtuous living, or inner peace. Both monks and nuns enjoyed leisure, albeit differently: the nuns tended to focus on conversation, while the monks focused on walking.

## Tempering Enthusiasm: The Swiss and Spanish Reality

Returning to the initial question: are we truly living much longer than before? To answer with concrete data, I have referred to the statistics of **Switzerland**, a relatively isolated country whose neutrality has protected it from major wars, in addition to its high standard of living which mitigates distortions caused by poverty, lack of hygiene, or food scarcity.

The Swiss mortality tables show that a century ago, life expectancy at birth was **40 years**; today it is **84**. But looking further, the data loses its dramatic effect. A Swiss person who reached 65 a century ago could expect to live until 76. Today, they can expect to live until 87. And what about the person who reached 80 a century ago? They could expect to live 5 years longer. Today, they can expect to live 10 years longer—a difference of only **5 years in a century**. It is logical: the closer we approach maximum longevity, the smaller the absolute difference.

Switzerland is not an isolated case. In **Spain**, an elderly person who turned 80 in the late 19th century could expect to live until 83. A century later, in **1999**, they could expect to live until 87—a difference of only **4 years**.

To understand why these differences seem small to me, let us recall the context of a century ago. Antipyretics barely existed (Aspirin was commercialized in **1900**), nor were antibiotics. DDT, which eradicated malaria, had not yet been invented, and vaccination was not widespread. The danger of smoking was also unknown, and advances in cardiovascular treatment or surgical techniques were nonexistent.

To top it off, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were far fewer doctors per 1,000 inhabitants; a ratio that has multiplied by more than three in Switzerland and more than nine in Spain over the century (though one might question whether this medical inflation has been a positive or negative factor regarding life expectancy).

These data, perhaps, should invite us to contemplate with greater sobriety the supposed advantages of our society's obsessive medicalization. In light of the Monastery Study, we should question whether our lifestyle truly leads to a healthier life, and even if what we take for granted as health security genuinely is so. Let us not forget that modern monks do not trinc habits considered healthy by the majority, and yet they live longer. They do not undergo annual check-ups, nor do they sleep many hours on ergonomic mattresses. Although they remain physically active, they do not play sports or obsess over the latest medical or dietary trends. They simply live a life focused on its ultimate meaning—sober, moderate, tranquil, and ordered. And they live longer.