A majority of Americans, nearly 56 percent, said in a survey that they did not want to live up to 120 years of age or beyond by undergoing medical procedures to slow the aging process.
The recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that a staggering 68 percent Americans believed that others might undergo treatments to extend their lifespan. Two thirds of the population aged 18 and above revealed that they would like to live till they are between 79 and 100; the median ideal age is 90. Currently, the average lifespan in the U.S. is about 78.7 years.
The survey was conducted on 2012 people between March 21 and April 8, 2013.
When asked if they would undergo medical procedures to live longer, 56 percent of Americans said they wouldn't while another 38 percent said they would.
"There's really so little information about this kind of topic," said the study's lead author, Cary Funk, a Pew researcher in a press release. "We're talking about something that would slow or repair the aging process and let people live decades longer, beyond the limits of what's thought of as human life expectancy."
The survey also found that majority of the popular are optimistic about medical advancements and 69 percent of them believe scientists would have found a cure for cancer by 2050. Sixty three percent of the population also believes that medical advancements in the future would definitely extend a person's lifespan, which in a way would be good for society.
"We have all these choices that previous generations haven't had -- like whether or not to pursue treatment, whether or not to pursue life-extending measures," Sociologist Karla Erickson of Grinnell College in Grinnell, said in a USA Today report. "They've witnessed others and they have a lot of ambivalence about whether it's worth it. The people I talked to were really comfortable saying 'I wish my friend had not done it.' Now they believe one should be judicious about what medical procedures to embrace, but they worry when they get to the end, (if) they will go down fighting and pursue every possible life extension."
