Life expectancy doesn't work like that. If we had fixed life-spans that would be a reasonable deduction. But instead it's a percentage thing. The longer you live, the greater your total life expectancy. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have similar life expectancies, well over a decade of life expectancy remaining. Indeed it's almost too close to call.
It's natural to look at the life expectancy for men in the US of 76.4 years and conclude he has only two years left, expected Life expectancy in the USA hits a record high
But that's the life expectancy of a US man at birth, not the life expectancy of a 74 year old.
Because he has already survived to 74, with no terminal disease or anything like that, in good health, you now expect him to live to his late eighties. So he has well over a decade of life expectancy.
Putting in his birthday here as september 8, 1941,
it makes his life expectancy 12.3, so likely to live to 86.8, Plenty of time for two terms as president, if he so wished, and then to retire for another four years.
Note, this is for illustrative purposes only. That's one of the simplest calculators I could find, only requests birthday and sex.
A more accurate calculator would ask questions about his habits - is he active, healthy lifestyle, does he smoke, or drink to excess, his country and zip code, his profession, there are lots of things they can take account of to get a more accurate estimate.
Both men I think are likely to be healthier, be more active, and take more care of themselves, than your average citizen so can probably be expected to live longer than these figures suggest.
But the principle is the same, though the actual figures are likely to be different.
Now if you put his birthday 13 years earlier, so that he was 87 already - you might expect to get a life expectancy of zero. But no,you don't.
Putting in his birthday as september 8 1928, you get a life expectancy of 5.2 and find he will now live to 92.7 on average.
Now put in a birthday of september 8 1922, making him 93 already, and now you get a life expectancy of 3.3, and find he will live to 96.8 on average.
Even if you make him a 101 today, you get a life expectancy of 2.1 years and find that he will live to 103.1 on average.
So, no matter how old you get, even into your nineties, even in your 100s, your remaining life expectancy is still a number of years.
Of course, that doesn't mean you live for ever. Any of us could die today. But what it means is that if you do live to a particular age - then the chances that led you to reaching that age successfully mean you now start with a fresh slate, as it were, in life expectancy statistics, unless of course you have a terminal illness or are in very poor health. And your life expectancy is reduced if you are older, but not by as much as you'd exect.
If we put in Donald Trump's birthday June 14, 1946
then we get a life expectancy of 15.7 years and a prediction that on average he can expect to live to 85.4
So, although Bernie Sanders is five years older than Donald Trump, his life expectancy is only three years less than Donald Trump's. 12.3 instead of 15.7. Domald Trump's life expectancy, in this very approximate calculation, is about 128% more than Bernie Sanders' life expectancy.
This difference is so small, that it could easily turn out that the figures go the other way around, once you feed in detailed figures to find out which of the two has the healthiest lifestyle.
It may seem a bit unintuitive but that's how the maths works.
As for going bald with a white hair and a lined face - that doesn't mean you are about to die :). Some people go grey early on. Some people go bald even in their thirties. It says nothing about your health and life expectancy. He could go on to live to be over 100, like anyone else could do.
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