Why don't twins live for as long as other people. The oldest twin only lived to 94.?

Question

I'm a twin and I want to live longer than that.

Answer 1

Don't worrry.

The average longevity for twins is probably no different than the average longevity for all people. However, since twins are relatively rare, and the number of people living to 100+ is relatively rare, there just hasn't been somebody lucky enough to be in both categories.

To take another example, very rare people have violet eyes (think Elizabeth Taylor). But with such a small sample of such people, very few of them have probably ever lived to 100 or even 90. But that does not mean that people with violet eyes don't live as long as other people.

Or to put it another way, the majority of people have brown hair. Therefore, of all the people who have ever lived to 110, probably most of them had brown hair, some had blond hair, and perhaps none had red hair. But that does not mean that redheads don't live as long as brownhaired people. On average they probably live just as long.

In other words, don't judge your odds based on the rare extremes. I'm no twin, and I doubt I'll see 94 ... and I'm not sure I want to.

Answer 2

Where did you get the longevity information? And, 94 is a couple decades beyond the current average life expectancies.

Twins have been used in studies to identify the genetic vs. environmental components of ageing and health.

While not an expert in this area, I do have a reasonable understanding of science and experimental design. If what you suggest is true, is would make the twins studies mentioned above pretty much worthless. The reason being that you can’t study genetics questions that apply to the entire population if everyone in experimental group dies early because of what must be a bio-genetic factor.

I’ll assume that the researches conducting twin studies know what they are doing and, therefore, I am skeptical of the young mortality claim.

It may well be that twins tend to die closer in age (relative to each other) than you might expect relative to the whole population. However, this would a general statement of the genetics of longevity for all people, and would not necessarily imply anything specific about twins.

Answer 3

I'm not sure that twins don't live as long as other people. If your statement is true, it could be because twins are more likely to be born prematurely and to have lower birth weight, both of which are correlated with a lower life span.

Answer 4

Wow you are a twin? does he play tricks on here
is he the omg guy?? lol
94 is pretty old but you may as well live to 100 if the world is still here which it will be if you younger generation looks after it better than we did

Answer 5

94 is a good age

I assume this is a dyslectic typo and that you mean 49

how do you know that twins have a shorter expected lifetime than non-twins ?

Answer 6

Only 94?? I should be so lucky.

Answer 7

really! are you sure, im a twin nd i wanna live older than that

Answer 8

I never heard this before but thanks now I know I'm going to die early.