In the race to reach 100, the wealthy have a head start

Living at 100. This is an important step which, until recently, was so rare that hitting it would assure you thumbs of newspapers and perhaps a segment on local radio. Today, it is a good ambition at hand for many of us. Last week, Japan celebrated a record number of centenarians – now nearly 100,000. A global scale, almost half a million centenarians were alive in 2015, more than four times more than in 1990. This should reach 3.7 million by 2050.

Much of this is due to the progress of medicine, as well as a better understanding of what the human body needs to work at its full potential. We now know much more about what we can do personally to improve our chances of hitting triple figures. In our special issue, you will learn to eat, move and even think about increasing the chances that you are 100 candles on your birthday cake.

Despite this, personal decisions can only take us so far, and reality is that there is a wide gap in life and health between the rich and the poor. In the United Kingdom, people living in the richest regions now know almost 18 additional healthy years than those in the poorest regions, which represents an increase in disparities of 22% for men and 17% for women for a decade. A recent Lancet The report has shown that the gap of American life expectancy between the longest demography – Asian Americans – and the shortest – Aboriginal Amerindians and Alaskians – went from 12.6 years in 2000 to 20.4 years in 2021. In India, as in the rest of the world, the cocovid -19 pandemic fueled a chasm between the most and the least. In 2020, the Hindus to hunt experienced a drop in life expectancy of 1.3 years, while Indian Muslims lost 5.4 years. These numbers are unacceptable. Access to nutritious foods, safe accommodation and inoculation of poverty grinding stress is necessary to stem growing disparities.

In our optimization mission, let’s not forget to put pressure on politicians to fight against this growing inequality. Living at 100 must be an ambition to which we can all vacuum – not just the reserve of the richest in the world.