Would Life Be Meaningless Without Death?

The other day, I read several articles raging against the commonly repeated notion that ultimately it is death that gives our life meaning. Some of the articles were fairly good while others were mostly pseudo-philosphical nosense. None were anywhere near as succinct as the New U-Station from Borderlands 2.

If any idiot ever tells you that life would be meaningless without death, Hyperion recommends killing them.

Study of Children of Centenarians Suggest Genetic Link to Long Lifespans

Reuters reports on a four-year study of 600 U.S. adults whose average age was 72 when the study began. After four years, adults who had at least one parent who lived to be 100 had statistically signfiicant lower mortality rates as well as lower risk of diabetes, heart attack and stroke.

“These findings reinforce the notion that there may be physiological reasons that longevity runs in families and that centenarian offspring are more likely to age in better cardiovascular health and with a lower mortality than their peers,” the researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

. . .

Over the next four years, Adams and her colleagues found, children of centenarians were 81 percent less likely to die and significantly less likely to develop cardiovascular problems or diabetes.

Only 0.7 percent suffered a heart attack during the study period, compared with 3.5 percent of the comparison group. Similarly, 1 percent of the centenarian group had a stroke, versus 6 percent of their peers.

Meanwhile, diabetes was newly diagnosed in just over 5 percent of the comparison group, but only 0.8 percent of the centenarian group.

People in my family tend to live very long (my great grandmother lived to 100) except for the folks who do themselves in with poor diet, lack of exercise, tobacco use, etc., so I’m hopeful I’ve inherited whatever genes helped them there.