Most Americans Do NOT Want To Live Beyond Age 100

MOST Americans do not want to live beyond age 100, according to a survey of more than 2000 people.

A poll by the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project found 56 per cent of respondents would not "choose to undergo medical treatments to slow the aging process and live to be 120 or more", while 38 per cent said they would.

With the average US life expectancy at 78.7 years, more than two thirds said they would like to live longer than that, and the median for ideal lifespan from those surveyed was 90.

About 41 million Americans are 65 or older, making up 13 per cent of the population, up from four per cent in 1900.

By 2050, that number will rise to 20 per cent, according to Census Bureau projections.

Asked whether medical treatments were worth the costs because they help people live longer and better quality lives, 54 per cent agreed and 41 per cent disagreed on grounds that modern medical advances "often create as many problems as they solve".

There was also significant concern about how life-extending technologies would be used, and by whom.

Seventy-nine per cent said everyone should be able to get medical treatments that would slow, stop or reverse the aging process, but two thirds said, in practice, only the wealthy would have access.

Two-thirds of respondents also said that longer life expectancies would strain natural resources, and believed "medical scientists would offer the treatment before they fully understood how it affects people's health".

Views were split on the question of whether the economy would be more productive if people could work longer -- with 44 per cent agreeing and 53 per cent rejecting this idea.

Seven in 10 respondents said they expected a cure for most cancers by 2050, and 71 per cent said artificial arms and legs would perform better than natural ones.