What would you do if you knew how many years you had left? Photo: Shutterstock.
If you could log onto a computer to see how many days you have left to live, would you?
Some people, myself included, might not want to know. A concrete number seems so finite, and it reminds us how temporary our time here on Earth is. Ignorance seems blissful, and when your time is up, your time is up. That’s it. Anticipation is at least slightly taken out of the equation.
However, on the other hand, there are a lot of practical benefits to knowing how much time you’re working with. Something as finite as a number could be a wake up call for many people. It could provide the motivation they need to make real changes to live a healthier life. Knowing the length of their lifespan could help people spend their money in different ways and plan better for retirement. It could also help doctors better serve their patients.
Although it might seem like a deep philosophical question, this debate may soon become a reality for people around the world. Researchers from the University of East Anglia have begun developing a software that can predict the lifespan of individuals. The research is expected to take 4 years, and the project will receive between 800,000 pounds to 1.5 million pounds from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The end result is not expected to be able to predict the exact figure, but by analyzing different factors like age, sex, and lifestyle, researchers hope to be able to provide an educated guess about how many years an individual has left to live.
It’s a Big Data project, and researchers will make use of massive amounts of data from over 3.4 million British citizens. Researchers will be able to access medical records from patients who have been with a single general practitioner for many years. The data used will remain absolutely anonymous. Researchers hope that by analyzing this huge amount of data, they will be able to identify broad patterns in life expectancy correlating with certain characteristics of individuals.
One beneficial use of the software would be to compare the lifespans of people on different, long-term medications. This information could help doctors offer better healthcare by providing them with a more complete picture of a drug’s effects. They could better assess what types of medications work better for certain demographics, and this could allow ultimately for a better quality of healthcare.
Another important use of the software, is that it could help people plan more effectively for retirement. Knowing you have 30 years left to live might dramatically change your spending habits from if you thought you had only 15, and vice versa. It could even be helpful planning pensions.
Finally, the software could be the giant kick in the butt some people need to make dramatic lifestyle changes. If the number that comes back is significantly smaller than the patient hoped for, he or she can make lifestyle alterations. It’s never to late to extend a lifespan. Even though researchers might offer a specific number, they are not offering a set clock. Fate doesn’t determine you die at 60: you do. Researchers hope that by providing people with this information, unhealthy individuals will do what it takes to increase their lifespan.
