World life expectancy rates continue to rise. Does this mean that it will continue to increase forever or will this trend stop? New research published in the journal Nature concludes that there is no sign of a fixed age limit for the human body, so that human beings will be able to continue living longer and longer.
This conclusion is based on a study of the lives of the oldest individuals in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Japan each year since 1968 – including Susannah Mushatt Jones, who died in New York in 2016 at age 116.
The new document, written by a team of scientists from McGill University (Canada), is partly a response to an analysis published in 2016 (also in Nature) that suggested that h abía a natural limit to human life, even if we could Find ways to break it
“We just don’t know what the age limit might be. In fact, by extending the trend lines, we can show that the maximum and mean life expectancy could continue to increase for the foreseeable future,” says Siegfried Hekimi, co-author of the work.
The 2016 age limit of 115 years could be temporary, according to the authors. Similar plateaus and declines have been recorded in the past, but the trend continues to rise. Despite the fact that this type of statistical analysis suggests a leveling off, the top figure continues to rise.
Hekimi believes that it is possible for human beings to live to be 150 years old or even much longer one day, perhaps with new advances in science or medical treatments to help us.
Not everyone agrees with this conclusion. Some experts suggest that not enough data has been used to arrive at a theory, while others say that the biological evidence that we all live longer outweighs the statistics.
The researchers, far from entering the debate, claim that most of their findings are still under discussion. What seems clear is that average life expectancy continues to increase as wealth grows and medical treatments improve . Whether or not there is a biological barrier to encounter remains to be seen.
So far no one has beaten Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment in the age stakes, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old. The longest living person today is Violet Brown from Jamaica, she is 117 years old.
“Three hundred years ago, many people lived only short lives,” says Hekimi. “If we had told them that one day most humans could live to 100, they would have said we were crazy,” Hekimi clarifies.
Reference: Human age limit claim sparks debate. Nature. June 2017. doi: 10.1038 / nature.2016.20750
