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Explainers | VitaMins

The Risk of Living Longer: What if new senolytic drugs fulfil their potential?

People have a natural tendency to underestimate life expectancy and actuaries traditionally base future projections on extrapolations of observed historical experience; this can result in institutional blind spots to extreme future longevity events. But what would happen if one of these overlooked scenarios occurred?

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All News and insights

All the latest information, news and research from the Club Vita team.

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General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 24-09: Happiness and life expectancy

In this edition of Top Charts, Jill Jamieson and Erik Pickett look at the correlation between happiness and life expectancy at birth.

18 September 2024

Explainers | VitaMins

The Risk of Living Longer: What if new senolytic drugs fulfil their potential?

22 August 2024

Opinion & experiences | Personal blogs

Cancer advances like London buses

On last Tuesday’s cancer edition of “the Risk of Living Longer”, Xiao Gao cited cancer vaccines as one of three catalysts for her optimistic cancer scenario to become reality. Three days later, the UK’s NHS announced the start of the first large scale trial of a new class of “therapeutic” cancer vaccines.

3 June 2024

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 24-04 – What is the impact of recent updates to the CMI_2023 core parameters?

In this edition of Top Charts, Conor O’Reilly looks at the CMI’s CMI_2023 mortality projection model and asks how well the core settings fit against past data, and how they have changed from those previously proposed.

25 April 2024

Explainers | VitaMins

What makes a good projection model? And how do the latest CMI proposals match up?

"When not spending my time overseeing the latest VitaCurves calibrations, or coaching 8-year-old footballers, I often find myself thinking about the future of longevity. Will it start increasing again, or will it continue to stutter under the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic? I therefore read the latest proposals from the CMI on how they propose to update their projection model with interest." - Conor O'Reilly, Head of Analytics

19 March 2024

Explainers | External publications

New CIA Statement Explores the Vital Link Between Education and Longevity

Many studies have found there is a positive correlation between education and longevity. Robert Brown, FCIA, conducted a literature review for the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) that examined several of these studies and the results were consistent – the more education people have, the longer they live. And the higher their educational attainment, the longer they live in good health. Insights included from our expert, Shantel Aris, Head of Longevity Experience Studies.

18 March 2024

Explainers | Personal blogs

What did you expect?

Conor O’Reilly explores the decision by the UK’s Office for National Statistics to change their calculation method for determining excess deaths

26 February 2024

Explainers | Personal blogs

Misleading headlines: Jill Jamieson helps unpick the meaning of life expectancy statistics reported in the media

At a time when the number of centenarians in the UK rose to its highest ever level, there were striking headlines in the media about falls in life expectancy. Generally speaking, if you hear or read something about life expectancy in the press, 9 times out of 10 it’ll be quoting current life expectancy at birth. The recent article by the Financial Times “UK life expectancy falls to 2010 levels (ft.com)” is one of many examples.

2 February 2024

Explainers | External publications

Guide to The Second 50

Read Mark Sharkey's contributions inside Corporate Adviser's 24 page guide to the second half of a hundred year life, published in association with Aegon.

31 January 2024

General interest | Personal blogs

The Longevity of Robert Burns

"Tonight, Scots around the world will be celebrating the immortal memory of Robert Burns, our national poet. Burns made a remarkable contribution to the richness of humankind in his short time on Earth. Tributes to his legacy will touch on many aspects of his life. It made me wonder about his contribution to longevity." - Douglas Anderson

24 January 2024

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 24-01: Was there any excess mortality in the UK in 2023?

In this edition of Top Charts, Nick Chadwick looks at the 2023 UK population mortality data and asks how different 2023 mortality was to the pre-COVID trend.

11 January 2024

General interest | Personal blogs

Ten reasons to be cheerful: 2024 New Year edition

As has become his annual tradition, Douglas kicks off 2024 with a note of positivity. To help you keep the January blues at bay, he has collected together his top ten positive health stories from 2023.

8 January 2024

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-13: Tontine days of retirement

In this holiday-special edition of Top Charts, Erik Pickett and Carmen Gatta explore which group from song the 12 days of Christmas with whom it would be best to enter a tontine contract.

3 January 2024

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-12: Post-COVID data and pre-COVID trends

In this edition of Top Charts, Nick Chadwick explains the perhaps surprising impact of post COVD mortality data on pre-COVID longevity trends and how this will continue to evolve.

8 December 2023

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: GLP-1 obesity medications - will they be as big as statins for life expectancy?

The World Health Organization has referred to obesity as “one of today’s most blatantly visible – yet most neglected – public health problems”. But excitement is now rising around new appetite-suppressing medications with public health organizations hopeful that these treatments may help tackle this growing epidemic.

17 November 2023

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-08: Incorporating pandemic data into mortality projection models

In the latest release of the CMI mortality projections model, the CMI have introduced population mortality experience data from 2022 into the calibration of the core version of the model. This allows pandemic-era experience to affect projections of mortality rates in the future. In this edition of Top Charts, Jill Jamieson explores how different weightings to pandemic years of data will affect liabilities associated to future benefit payments.

29 September 2023

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-06: Are the top causes of death reflected in our search history?

There can often be a disconnect between perception and reality with regard to things that have the largest impact on our lives. But how much is this the case with causes of death? In this edition of Top Charts Mia Marcellus compares the top causes of death in our different geographies with their relative Internet search frequency.

5 July 2023

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: Antimicrobial resistance – AI to the rescue?

Antimicrobial resistance remains in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) top 10 global public health threats facing humanity – could AI help us in dealing with this existential risk?

15 June 2023

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-05: Post COVID Longevity Landscape – Change in Trajectory or Step Change?

It is generally agreed that mortality data for 2020 and 2021 is not particularly useful for setting mortality assumptions for 2023 and beyond. However, it is also generally accepted that events since 2019 have had a negative effect on public health, due to factors such as long COVID, increased pressures on health systems and economic slowdown. In this edition of Top Charts, Nick Chadwick discusses two contrasting approaches to modelling post-pandemic longevity trends.

2 June 2023

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-03: Universal state retirement ages

There has recently been widespread debate across the globe (e.g. in Canada, the UK, the US and France) about potential increases in state retirement ages. Much of the debate has focused on the increases in life expectancy since the introduction of state retirement provisions – but life expectancy is not the same for everyone in society. In this edition of Top Charts, Alexandra Sonnenwirth explores this issue and asks whether it’s fair to have a one-size fits all retirement age.

30 March 2023

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 23-01: What can 2022 UK mortality rates tell us about longevity projections?

In this edition of Top Charts, Nick Chadwick examines the level of UK excess mortality seen in 2022 and considers what this means for longevity projections.

6 February 2023

Opinion & experiences | Behavioural economics blogs

Mental accounting – is money still fungible at Christmas?

This Christmas, I bought my partner a gift card. At first glance this seems like an irrational thing to do. The cash equivalent could have been spent on anything, including the items covered by the card; this interchangeable use of money is a central principle in classical economics known as the fungibility of money. Did I willingly reduce the value of my gift, or does this economic principle fail in the gift giving environment?

10 January 2023

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 22-11: Total number of human lives and deaths ever

In this edition of Top Charts, Erik Pickett and Carmen Gatta look at the total number of people who have ever lived and died. Are more people alive today than have lived and died in the past?

5 December 2022

Explainers | Pandemic updates

COVID-19: The latest picture as at 30th September 2022

In this article we take a closer look at weekly deaths data in the UK for the first three quarters of the year. 2022 is shaping up to be another unusual year for UK mortality. By the end of September, total ‘excess’ deaths exceeded 20,000. However, deaths mentioning COVID-19 over this period were relatively low.

2 December 2022

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: Wearable technology - all dressed up but where will it go?

Availability of, and interest in, wearable technology is on the rise. However, is it having as positive an impact on our physical activity, our mental health, and our life expectancy as we hope?

17 November 2022

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 22-10: Could summer be the new winter for UK mortality?

In this edition of Top Charts, Jill Gallagher looks at UK mortality observed throughout 2022 so far.

17 November 2022

General interest | Top charts

Top Charts 22-07: Women’s Sports and Life Expectancy

In this edition of Top Charts, to mark the climax of the 2022 UEFA European Women's Football Championship Erik Pickett and Nick Chadwick investigate whether there is any relationship between national average life expectancy and footballing ability

26 July 2022

Opinion & experiences | Behavioural economics blogs

Reactance – I won’t do what you tell me!

“Why don’t you just do as you’re told?” is a phrase I heard many times as a child. Perhaps I often had a strong aversion to the specific instructions I was given, or perhaps I really didn’t like being told what to do.

19 July 2022

General interest | VitaMins

VitaMins Health: Representative Concentration Pathways

As carbon emissions continue to grow, scientists are trying to understand the potential impacts of future climate change scenarios on health.

18 July 2022

Explainers | External publications

If Longevity Risk is an Asset Class, How Do We Make It More Tradeable?

Over the years, we have witnessed the successful commoditisation of several risks, including credit risk, interest rate risk and property catastrophe risk, opening up their trade to capital markets investors.

14 July 2022