Even a practicing M.D.'s can be wrong, it's called being human.

Pfeh, ofcourse they do, too! If they assume something to be correct, then I'll doubt even an M.D.  would do any research in the middle of a conversation

M.D's can be wrong this is true, however about such a simple thing i doubt he's wrong. If that was the case that M.D's were that stupid i think alot more people on this earth would be dead ... do you have any idea what it takes to become an M.D for that matter? Personally i look up to them, they are my heros.

Also i just finished all my Anatomy & Physiology classes, so if you want it straight from the book i could give it to you that way aswell, although my instructor already told me things in that book aren't completely accurate ...

~ Cloud

lol actually i googled it, and that's what i got

what's your source einstien?? i'll check it out or did you make up numbers once AGAIN

yeah life expectancy atleast online isn't for both genders, but alan i read while i was searching that it's a few points lower as there's not as much for males as there is for females.

"The average life span is now 87 for females and 84 for males in the US."

From the CIA factbook: 77.5-80 years
The CDC: 77.8 years

Thanks for that! I only hope I will be able to play video games at the age of 70 till 90, otherwise retirement is going to suck.

I don't know any people on meds, other than the ones who take meds they prescribed themselves.. and even those are far and inbetween.

Bief you must be blind ... there was just a big thing on the news about how many americans (this is an american thread right?) are on medications, for you not to know anyone on meds you must still be a child hanging out with nerds that currently have no health problems..

~ Cloud

BC, although that's true there have been new diseases that have been found aswell, and a lot of them do not have a cure, and many are still spreading, and they're spreading rapidly, like cancer and aids. in 2007 alone, more than 7.6 million people died of cancer..and this number is rising every year

Even though technology has advanced, we're still left with lethal diseases that are spreading rapidly.

But getting back to McCain's health, why are you guys not concerned? He has been known to have surgery for Melanoma at least 3 times, and it's known to come back. The older you are the more your chances of getting other types of cancer or other diseases, and off course his age of 72, is still nearing the life expectancy of america, what ever that number may be. I think he's turning 73 in a couple of months or weeks aswell ....

don't get me wrong though, i wish that nothing happens to him, but we can not still ignore these issues.

I hang out with an older crowd of 25 plussers, the only pills they pop are asperines. I'm using them as an example because I don't think they differ much from the average Joe, although most of us do earn a little bit more money. But money doesn't prevent diseases, it aids the healing process.

And stop messing around with my skin, it's the only organ that sometimes isn't as healthy as I want it to be.

While we're going off-topic:

"the fact is because of medical technology we are living longer than in the recent past, it was amazing for some one to even live to be 40 in the years of our independence."

A healthy man normally should live past his 40th birthday in those days. I think 45 to 50 is more correct. Although it should be noted that women often died earlier, as the chance to die while giving birth was 1 out of 6. And obviously, wealthy men usually grew older than their poorer counterparts. For example: Philip II of Spain died on the age of 72 (16th century and 200 years before the American Revolution).
Another thing is not the fact that medical technology made people live longer, but merely different opinions on how people got sick. One of the most accepted theories in the late 18th and early 19th century was that a bad smell caused diseases, wich led to serious changes in hygiene. People started to fill up or to vault smelly waters, rather than to drink from it (instead they used groundwater) and things like that. This caused the largest change in life expectancy, medicinan advances did their part too, but not in that amount..

All this comes from a standard work (Vrijen en trouwen van de Middeleeuwen tot heden) about demography in dutch historical literature by Chris Vandenbroucke. Perhaps it's been translated, that I don't know