The big event for this week was Danita turned 60.

She didn’t do anything specific to achieve that, it just happened while she was getting on with her life.

When we were children (more than half a century ago – scary thought) someone in their 60s was OLD.

However, since Danita and I are are now both in that group it doesn’t seem so old at all.

In fact, we think we’re about 40.

And so, we hear the comment “60 is the new 40”.

So, has something happened that means we are now living longer?

I recently visited a rheumatologist (as you go through life you gain many things. This is one of my more recent acquisitions).

He pointed out that until the 1960’s life expectancy stayed pretty much the same for centuries at around 70 for men and a bit older for women (in 1950 it was 66.5 in Australia).

While his comment about the stability of life expectancy may have been a tad skewed (according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for a boy born in Australia in 1881-1890 it was 47.2 years), one lesson from that session was the definition of “life expectancy”.

He told me it was the age at which 50% of the population (of that age) would be dead.

In my days working in a biochemistry research lab, we used to call that LD50 ie the dose of a substance required to kill 50% of the test population – usually mice.

Without going into the ethics of animal testing (it was a significant contributor to me being vegetarian for 25 years) I can now see how life can get measured in terms of an LD50 – how much life is required to kill 50% of the population?

Anyway, I digress.

Today’s life expectancy for an Australian male is 80.4 years.

Interestingly, women, who have been second class citizens and have had the burden of child rearing and running the household for centuries, have always had a longer life expectancy.

That does raise some interesting questions which I won’t go into here.

Moving right along ….

We’re all familiar with the idea of dog years.

According to the concept for every year a person lives a dog lives seven.

And so, Sancho, who was born in November 2001 is now 15 years and 8 months.

Using that calculation, he’s now 110 years and 3 months (and a very sprightly 110 year old he is too).

Does this work in reverse?

For example, if we were living on Jupiter Danita would have just turned 5.

So, what’s the deal with 60?

Does it mean that ‘people years’ are getting longer?

In 1880, when you turned 40 you were pretty much at the end of your life.

By the 1960s that was when you reached 60.

Now, it’s when you get to 80.

We still feel that we have a lot of life left in us – there’s still so much to do, places to go etc.

I know quite a few people who are in their late 70s and are still working.

My mother is over 90 and has a close friend who is 104.

Sadly the banks haven’t yet caught up with this idea.

We’ve recently started looking into getting a home loan.

According to the people we’ve spoken to so far, banks won’t lend on a loan period beyond age 75.

Don’t they get it that ‘people years’ have grown?

Anyway, it’s wonderful to have a lot of life experience and still be young (well sort of) and active.

I hope you are too.