New research data hint at natural limit for human lifespan
Just avoiding disease and be healthy might not be enough after all
Longevity or anti-aging research has seen a huge increase in popularity over the last few decades. While it seems natural to most of us that nothing can live forever, examples of quasi-immortality or ultra longevity do exist in nature. Furthermore, in the last 150 years, humanity has experienced a steady increase in life expectancy as well as reported maximum lifespans, suggesting that ever improving health care technologies will continue prolonging maximum lifespans.
A recent demographic study conducted by Dong et al. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York now shows a surprising trend regarding human lifespans: We seemed to have reached a peak since the mid 1990’s that has not moved in the last two decades. To conduct their study, they used reported age-related data from more than 500 supercentenarians from Japan, France, UK, US and more than 30 other nations.
While lifespans increased steadily from the first reportings up to around 1995, in the last two decades maximum reported age of death (MRAD) stagnated and even regressed. While the low number of supercentenarians are surely susceptible to fluctuations, the authors also controlled for 2nd to 5ths highest reported ages of death (RADs) which showed basically the same trend, strengthening their argument.
These results indicate that although the MRAD increased until the 1990s, no further increases were observed after that time; human yearly MRAD has plateaued at 114.9 (95% CI: 113.1–116.7) years. To approximate the absolute limit of human lifespan, we modelled the MRAD as a Poisson distribution; we found that the probability of an MRAD exceeding 125 in any given year is less than 1 in 10,000. — Dong and colleagues
In summary, their demographic data support the theory that human maximum lifespan is “naturally limited” as well as unlikely to exceed around 120 years, even if no disease is involved in our early demise.
Finally, the authors offer their opinion and some grave news to longevity researchers:
To further extend human lifespan beyond the limits set […] would require interventions beyond improving health span. — Dong et al.
In other words, the current focus of medical research that tries to counteract diseases and improve health might do very little to increase potential maximum lifespan.
But do not yet despair, some of these “interventions beyond improving health” might already be waiting in the wings, at least conceptually. From artificial organs to brain-computer interfaces; we have plenty of reasons to be hopeful that technology and engineering will help us improve where biology cannot anymore.
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