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Our world is ageing rapidly. By 2050 more than 1 in 5 of us will be over 60.

For the first time in human history there will be more over 60s than children under 15.

Most of the world's older people live in developing countries. Yet definitions, expectations, and the problems of old age are changing rapidly.

So what is it like to be old in today's world?

Pensions are inadequate or non-existent in many parts of the world, leaving many older people in poverty.

Campaign groups like Help Age International argue that non-contributory social pensions should be feasible even in poor countries. But is such idealism practical?

In this programme, Jane Little hears from elderly slum dwellers in Nairobi, Kenya - who often face the stark choice between eating and paying the rent.

She finds out how much longer they will have to wait until they can hope to draw a pension.

Jane discovers what a country like Brazil, one of the most rapidly ageing in the world, has achieved with a modest social pension - and what's still left to do.

In Britain, she hears from those who think that it's time to scrap the legal retirement age.

And in the US, Jane finds out why some people who have spent a lifetime working - face debt and huge medical bills. BBC





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That's one way focusing on the bright side, lol.

Everything is cyclic; young to old, then death. Then more will take our place.

Such is the way of things. One man's sunset is another man's dawn.

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Death is necessary.

It is even evident in the cellular processes, Bem.

In our bodies, especially in the circulatory system, we have Erythrocytes (RBCs; red blood cells) and the life expectancy of RBCs are about 120 days. When RBCs as well as any other specialized cell in the body becomes senescent (old, past its prime), it will eventually mutate, its proteins that compose its phosphotidic backbone and its phosphlipid bilayer weaken and this signals the Marcrophage cells and the Phagocytic cells of the body to lyse the senescent (old) cells. The old cells are engulfed in proteosomes and are sent to the spleen and liver where it is destroyed and its hemoglobin, and bilirubin is converted for use in growing reticulocytes (pre-mature RBCs).

As you can see, even in our own body, the old is digested and replaced by the new.

There is a scientific necessity in ridding of the old cells; as it will cause mutation and are primary sites for infection due to senescent cells' inability to fight bacterium and pathogens.

Therefore, the body, as a singular unity, acts on behalf of the 'good' of the entire body. Every single cell in the body, when it reaches a certain age undergoes 'apoptosis': cellular euthanasia.

Old cells are actually ordered by the body's receptors to kill themselves. After death, the cells are cleaned up by macrophages, phagocytes, and recycled.




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But in this century, growing old is not an advantage.. Government has other priorities. Good for some who were able to save some.

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