More than half Americans say no to age 120: survey

Biomedical advances may allow people to live to age 120 and beyond in the future but that's not what more than half Americans really want, at least for the moment, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday.

"Many Americans do not look happily on the prospect of living much longer lives," said the report. "They see peril as well as promise in biomedical advances, and more think it would be a bad thing than a good thing for society if people lived decades longer than is possible today."

Fifty-six percent of a nationally representative sample of 2, 012 adults at the age of 18 and older said they would not choose to undergo medical treatments to slow the aging process and live to be 120 or more, the report found.

Asked about the consequences for society if new medical treatments could "slow the aging process and allow the average person to live decades longer, to at least 120 years old," 51 percent of the polled said the treatments would be a bad thing for society, while 41 percent said they would be a good thing.

When asked how long they would like to live, more than two- thirds cite an age between 79 and 100. The median ideal life span is 90 years, about 11 years longer than the current average U.S. life expectancy, which is 78.7 years. Just nine percent of respondents would choose to live more than 100 years.

When asked about the future likelihood of "the average person" in the United States living to at least 120 years, nearly three- quarters said it either probably or definitely will not happen by the year 2050. Just a quarter of adults considered it likely to happen by 2050.

Most Americans also foresee other negative implications. About two-thirds agreed that "longer life expectancies would strain our natural resources" and that "medical scientists would offer the treatment before they fully understood how it affects people's health." And about six-in-ten said "these treatments would be fundamentally unnatural."

Opinion is more divided over whether "our economy would be more productive because people could work longer" with 44 percent agreeing and 53 percent rejecting.

With falling birth rates and rising life expectancies, the U.S. population is rapidly aging. Currently, about 41 million Americans are 65 and older, making up 13 percent of the total U.S. population, up from four percent in 1900.

By 2050, one-in-five Americans will be 65 or older, and at least 400,000 will be 100 or older, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections.