Life expectancy for people who ignore Doctors advice

Is it a fallacy that Doctors advice can prolong your life? Isn't it true that many people who abuse their bodies also live to a long age, do they really know what makes someone live longer?
My Dad smoked all his life , had salt by the bucketful and drinked like a fish. He expired at 87 yrs old. I'm not advocating anyone to have this lifestyle , just wondering why he lasted so long?

Good Post!

My Dad did drugs (Cocaine, Crack, Marijuana), for a period of maybe 15 years, then stopped. Smoked his entire life and drank occasionaly. However, he died at the ripe old age of 48. But I also know people who have done similar things that my Dad did and lived much longer and are still alive. I think dying depends on alot of things, too many for medicine to ever fully comprehend.

My grandfather was a heavy drinker, but not body ever called him alcoholic, he was over a hundred years old when he died.

Suffered prostate cancer since his eighties he refused sirgury, but that didn't killed him he died of old age.

At least that is what the death certificate said.

I hardly an expert, but IMHO, I think that at birth, somehow, maybe through our DNA or something like that, we are sort of "assigned" a lifetime. Whether that lifetime is 6 months, 60 years, or 100 years, is unbeknownst to us.

I'm not so sure that anything is truly an "accident", but rather that a person's time is up, so something needs to happen to end his/her life here on earth.

Just my 2 cents

im with you on that cyberkat but your dna when your born doesnt account for your body being abused. unless your parents and there parents and so on abused there bodys and it is somehow hereditory?

[edit on 30-5-2005 by madmartinez]

I think some people have the ability to more or less say "screw the rules" I'm smoking and chewing tobacco. There could be different factors at work. Could be mental and spiritual? Could be that their bodies are more resistant to abuse? Maybe it's just that they don't see a problem with what they are doing.

That's not to say that some of these activities should be thought of as healthy though.

Troy

I am no expert either, but I have smoked cigerettes since 8th grade. My cousin looks a heck-of-a-lot like me and is 4 months younger and has never smoked. We both have two children. I had mine starting @ age 25. She started her family @ age 34. Now i'm divorced and have been for quite a while now. She is happily married, and just had her second child last year. The point being made here is that she lives this healthy , happy life and i'm the elder by four months and she looks a good five to six years older than me. At thirty eight we both have seriously diverse lifestyles, and I should by all calculations look much older.
So therefore I have to believe it is a genetic make-up of each individual. So for now..i'll keep puffin away eating all the junk food I can afford to buy and lay out in the sun till nightfalll everyday of the summer. I'll also keep exercising like the nutcase I am...lol

I think if you smoke weed it'll make you love everyone and you'll live life a lot longer and much happier! Oh yea!Hehe

Originally posted by DarkPhoenix69
I think if you smoke weed it'll make you love everyone and you'll live life a lot longer and much happier! Oh yea!Hehe

I have a friend of mine who refuses to see the doctor under any circumstances....Only if he were to have his limb sliced off could I see him going to the ER...And that would be after he tried to sew it back on himself

It's true that your body will generally solve it's own dilemmas in due course.....As to whether or not it will increase your life span, I think that simply depends on each person's fate in life - We all have a path laid out for us, and it ends at a different place for us all....Some of us jog down it while others choose to take a leisurely stroll...

Enron im jus't like your friend, i havent seen a doctor in a long time. And im perfectly healthy, reasonably fit, and am not sick very often, i also refuse to take anything like panadol or vitamins etc, i believe in letting my body heal itself. If im sick, i don't stay in bed i keep moving. I think i may have had a stomach ulcer a few times or an inflamed apendix but ive just let it run its course and my body has always healed itself. Maybe its also that i have absolutely no feer of dying. Go figure.

I posed this question because I'm like my Dad , having bad habits that Doctors disprove of, i got to wondering how long i will live. I don't go to the Doctors , its years since i saw one . I agree with Cybercat that i think we have a certain time on Earth programed into us , so cheer up all you fat cig smoking boozers, you might make it into incontinence pants yet. Have a look here , quite interesting about aging www.dana.org...

Originally posted by Bulldog 52
we have a certain time on Earth programed into us

You are right, our Biological clock are these little Chromosonal Caps called Telomeres that not only regulates how long we live, but also theoretically regulates how long a Species will live before it goes extinct as they shorten with each generation AND they shorten with each cell division. Science however has been working feverishly to crack this puzzle, and new techniques of Telomere regrowth are now being tested in Mice, as well as Caloric Restriction etc.

It's a proven fact that without Medicine we would not have the average life expectancy of over 70 years, as at one time you were considered over the hill if you were over the age of 30. Come to think of it that wasn't such a long time ago.

Especially in terms of western medicine, I believe that doctors don't always prolong your life.... In fact, I think sometimes listening to them will shorten it. Doctors don't know everything, but often they want to act like they do.
In the west doctors are highly respected, and people will usually believe their advice... even when it's wrong.

I take my own advice, and I guess I kinda believe in "mind over matter...

plus i once was a medic in the military so I'm REALLy sceptical of alot of western medical practices...

I was introduced to Chinese medicine in Hawaii, and I find it much more natural and less invasive....

i learned at a young age that cooties don't really exist.

if you get some kind of cooties as an adult, a doctor will let you know how you can no longer be touched. like hep b or tubiculosis, no one may touch you without proper body substance isolation.

who wants to know at the age of .... doesn't matter what age, no one wants to be told they can no longer be touched EVER by another human being.

doctors verses quality of life.

it is my responsibility to live my life, not pay another to tell me how to live my life. besides, all medications do is give me side effects and teach my cells how not to do what i'd rather they learned how to do so i can save money on prescription drugs and use it to buy a pack of smokes.

www40.statcan.ca...

-----------M---F
1920-22 59 61
1930-32 60 62
1940-42 63 66
1950-52 66 71
1960-62 68 74
1970-72 69 76
1980-82 72 79
1990-92 75 81

You see a trend?

globalis.gvu.unu.edu...

1955 - 40.8
1960 - 44.6
1970 - 59.6
1980 - 65.3
1990 - 67.1
2000 - 69.7

See a pattern?

[edit on 31-5-2005 by sardion2000]

Firecrackers, The Silent Killer

Based on what I've seen, the most significant factor for longevity, even more important than genetics --which is very important -- is stress.

The more stress you undergo, the shorter your life will be.

Want to live longer? Then Chill Out!

Originally posted by Majic
Based on what I've seen, the most significant factor for longevity, even more important than genetics --which is very important -- is stress.

That is a huge factor, I believe stress produces a substance that interupts the normal cell division process and speeds it up(thusly Speeding up Telomere decay), smoking does that as well.

To everyone under the age of thirty-five. Fear is the mind killer. Stress is the byproduct of fear. Want to live forever? Have no fear.

My experience has been that, everytime I allow fear to rule me, I suffer. Even when I allow fear to have a small toe-hold, I suffer. (By the way everyone else in my life suffers, too.) Lose the fear. Live like a "human being" (See the Sioux for definition of "human being") Let God (or whatever deity/non-diety, etc.) sort it out. In the end, it doesn't matter how long you lived but how you lived.

Don't think Smoking is relevant , most of the worlds longest living people were smokers.See here www.forces.org...

Originally posted by Bulldog 52
Don't think Smoking is relevant , most of the worlds longest living people were smokers.See here www.forces.org...

Really? I guess you never hacked up a piece of your lung before due to smoke because I have... It isn't pleasant and was the trigger that made me quit.

[edit on 31-5-2005 by sardion2000]