Demographic statistics (and everyday experience) show that after age 65, the probability of dying increases with each passing year. But if one reaches 80, the possibility of dying in the next 365 days gradually decreases. The Grim Reaper is coming, yes, and more and more, but their chances of catching you in the next twelve months diminish. Paradoxes of life.
This is the conclusion of a study published in Science by an international team of demographers and statisticians, who compared 3,836 well-documented cases of Italian citizens who lived 105 or more years with the mortality rates of people in the age group of the 65 to 105. The data in this study indicate that the increase in the chances of dying in the following year, always increasing from 65 years of age, ceases to increase if they reach 105. And the mortality rate declines slightly with each year that it survives from that very advanced age, an effect that is greater in those born at less distant dates.
One of the authors, James W. Vaupel, is a demographer at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. According to him, “our work suggests that longevity is increasing and has not reached a limit.” Vaupel thinks that “most children born after 2000 in developed countries will reach their 100th birthday. It’s hard to believe, but there are no limits to life expectancy ”.
A vital roof
There are scientists who argue against the conclusions of Vaupel and his colleagues. One of them is Jan Vijg, a geneticist at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times newspaper, Vijg affirms that “there is a ceiling for the duration of life.” In 2016 he published a study in Nature together with a team of colleagues in which it was argued that if we could bring together 10,000 people who had reached 110 years (something in itself unlikely), only one could exceed 125.
More critical is S. Jay Olshansky, Professor of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has also spoken with the Californian newspaper: “The conclusion that there is no limit to the duration of human life is irrational.” As he explains, among centenarians, more than half die with each passing year. “If only 100 people out of millions are over 100, what difference does it make if 50 or 60 of them survive to see their next birthday? Our body is not made to last that long ”.
Centennials on the rise
Whether or not there is a cap on how many years we can live, the number of people over 100 is growing, as the data shows. Without leaving Spain: according to the National Institute of Statistics, in our country the number of inhabitants that exceeds a century has quadrupled since 2002: in 2017 there were 17,423, and fifteen years ago there were 4,269. Spanish centenarians are mainly women: in the aforementioned period they have gone from 3,324 to 13,390, and men from 3,090 to 4,034.
Who has the reason? Perhaps we should have asked Francisco Núñez, who died last January at the age of 113, at his home in Bienvenida (Badajoz). The “grandfather of Spain” led a quiet life with fixed customs, he ate a lot of vegetables and only stopped taking his daily walk at the age of 104.
