The signal public health achievement of the 20th century was the increase of the human life span. Now, as that achievement helps raise the proportion of the aged around the world, what once seemed an unalloyed blessing is too often regarded as a burden — a financial burden, a health care burden, even a social burden.

“It’s nuts,” said Dr. Linda P. Fried, an epidemiologist and geriatrician who is dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. “To assume defeat from what every one of us as individuals wants suggests we’re not asking the right questions.”

Read the full article at The New York Times.

Your mind may be the closest thing to the Holy Grail of longevity and happiness. Education has been widely documented by researchers as the single variable tied most directly to improved health and longevity. And when people are intensely engaged in doing and learning new things, their well-being and happiness can blossom.

Read the full article at U.S. News and World Report

“Not long ago I wrote a blog called “Sex, Love, and Unicorns,” describing the ambivalence I was encountering when I talked about sex among us older folk. Everyone seemed to be embarrassed by the topic. When I called my friend Laura Carstensen, who runs the Stanford Center on Longevity, she was intrigued. The thing is, she mused, sex performed by aging bodies is as taboo a subject as aging itself — even among those who study our behavior. ”

Read the full article at Huffington Post

The country’s percentage of older people is rising rapidly. But that’s not just a problem, says Laura Carstensen, an expert on aging, it’s also a chance to improve transportation, redesign the suburbs and gain from the talents and experience of our elders.

Read the full article at Stanford News

Assuming you are a typical American, you are about 2 inches taller than your great-grandparents were at the same age even though you are genetically no heartier than your ancestors were 10,000 years ago. You are stronger, healthier, smarter and living an average of 30 years longer than Americans were at the turn of the last century. That’s because scientists, educators and activists in the 20th century changed culture, the crucible that holds science, technology and large-scale changes in behavior. We are living longer because the food supply is steady and debilitating diseases are prevented before they ever occur. Improved sanitation reduces the spread of contagious diseases, and education is available to all school-age children. Information flows ubiquitously from written and electronic sources.

Read the full op-ed at AARP