Opportunità e rischi della longevità. Aspettative presenti e future dal punto di vista epidemiologico, ecologico, medico e sociale, soprattutto sulla base dell’esperienza dei medici

Longevity is considered one of the greatest achievements of modern society. "Staying young forever" seems to be the new trend: Downgrading (i.e. being younger today than at the same age in the past) shows that there are actually large groups of healthy people who show a relative improvement in their life expectancy of at least ten years from severe disability. Preventive medicine increases life expectancy by three months every year: In Italy, according to the latest estimates (Istat, 2019), life expectancy at birth for both sexes is substantially stable: 80.8 years for men and 85.2 for women. The gradual increase in the number of elderly people has led to a differentiation of the different age groups by decades of life expectancy: octogenarians, 90-year-olds, and minus centenarians). For the survey of doctors I conducted, a distinction was made between the elderly (65 to 89 years) and centenarians (90 to 100 years and over). Nonagenarians and centenarians represent an ideal model for studying the particular characteristics of longevity because they have reached an age close to what is considered the possible limit of human life. The studies on centenarians in particular have confirmed that longevity is the result of the interaction between genetic factors, lifestyle characteristics, diet, natural environment, social activities, etc., and that longevity is the result of the interaction between these factors. .. [edited by Author]