The Strange Mix of Attitudes Towards Longevity
The popularity in the press of articles explaining a bonus of an extra year here and a year there to your life span (through some mundane circumstance or lifestyle choice) stands in stark contrast to the comparative unpopularity of articles discussing the serious prospects of engineering additional decades - and then centuries. People are fascinated and eager to read about additional longevity, but at the same time shy away from the very same thing. The frivolous is called from the rooftops, the serious dismissed. It is all very strange; a puzzle waiting to be cracked by those engaged in healthy life extension advocacy. "The average life span for this group was just over 76 years. Winners of the Nobel Prize were found to live 1.4 years longer on average (77.2 years) than those who had 'merely' been nominated for a prize (who lived on average for 75.8 years). When the survey was restricted to only comparing winners and nominees from the same country, the longevity gap widened even more by around another two thirds of a year on average. ... Status seems to work a kind of health-giving magic. Once we do the statistical corrections, walking across that platform in Stockholm apparently adds about 2 years to a scientist's life-span. How status does this, we just don't know."
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070116131540.htm