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Beginning the chase for life

By David S. Martin
CNN
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(CNN) -- For most of human history, long life was exceedingly rare.

Life for the vast majority of humanity was nasty, brutish and short, as described by philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Disease, pestilence, starvation, accidents, predation and violence all took their toll. Day-to-day survival, rather than old age, was the goal.

Neanderthals, on average, lived only 20 years, according to evolutionary anthropologists, and historians estimate the average life expectancy in Europe was still around 30 at the beginning of the 19th century.

Even at the turn of the 20th century, life expectancy in the United States was 47, an average dragged down by a large infant and child mortality rate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Thanks to antibiotics and public health measures such as clean drinking water, most American children now reach adulthood, and the U.S. life expectancy is close to 80, according to the National Institute on Aging.

The focus now is on research into age-related ailments such as heart disease and on the aging process itself, in an effort to make the senior years healthier and longer.

Despite advances in science and medicine, only 1 in 170 people born in the United States a century ago has reached 100, mostly women, and no one on record has lived longer than Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, whose life spanned 122 years before her death in 1997, according to the NIA.

Futurists envision a time when doctors are able to repair bodies the way a mechanic repairs an old car and reaching 100 will be no big deal. Perhaps no potential anti-aging therapy has received as much attention as stem cells, yet their promise to repair diseased and damaged cells and organs remains years away, according to the NIA.

While we wait for this "Brave New World" medicine, lifestyle remains the most important factor in how long we'll live and how healthy we'll be in later years.

Do you smoke? Do you exercise? Do you eat fruits and vegetables? Do you go to the doctor? These and other decisions you make every day have profound implications on your current and future health.

On this site, we will offer the latest research on improving what some demographers call our health span -- the number of years we remain healthy.

Please join us on April 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. ET as CNN Special Investigations Unit airs "Chasing Life," an hour-long documentary by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be touring the country for his new book "Chasing Life."

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