“What we may be seeing in the future is the 
emergence of two distinct groups of oldest-old. 
One will be marked by those who lived a healthy 
lifestyle – they will possess a history of eating 
a healthy diet, avoiding smoking and excessive 
alcohol consumption, exercising regularly and 
taking good care of their bodies and minds and 
engage in regular preventive health care. These 
individuals will live unusually long and vibrant 
lives, and we see evidence of their emergence 
already in active retirement communities around 
the world. The other group will be frail or 
disabled for much longer periods, and without 
medical advances would otherwise have died much 
earlier; they will instead be pushed into 
uncharted regions of survival through medical technology.”

Wilcox et al in Sokolovsky, Cultural Context of Aging, 2009, p 527

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